Astrology is a belief in a relation between celestial observations and terrestrial events. People made conscious attempts to measure, record, and predict seasonal changes by reference to astronomical cycles.Campion (2008) pp.1-3. Early evidence of such practices appears as markings on bones and cave walls, which show that the lunar cycle was being noted as early as 25,000 years ago; the first step towards recording the Moon's influence upon tides and rivers, and towards organizing a communal calendar.Marshack (1972) p.81ff. With the Neolithic Revolution new needs were also being met by the increasing knowledge of constellations, whose appearances in the night-time sky change with the seasons, thus allowing the rising of particular star-groups to herald annual floods or seasonal activities.Hesiod ( 8th century BC). Hesiod’s poem Works and Days demonstrates how the heliacal rising and setting of constellations were used as a calendrical guide to agricultural events, from which were drawn mundane astrological predictions, e.g.: "Fifty days after the solstice, when the season of wearisome heat is come to an end, is the right time to go sailing. Then you will not wreck your ship, nor will the sea destroy the sailors, unless Poseidon the Earth-Shaker be set upon it, or Zeus, the king of the deathless gods" (II. 663-677). By the 3rd millennium BC, widespread civilisations had developed sophisticated understanding of celestial cycles, and are believed to have consciously oriented their temples to create alignment with the heliacal risings of the stars.Kelley and Milone (2005) p.268.
There is scattered evidence to suggest that the oldest known astrological references are copies of texts made during this period, particularly in Mesopotamia. Two, from the Venus tablet of Ammisaduqa (compiled in Babylon round 1700 BC) are reported to have been made during the reign of king Sargon of Akkad (2334–2279 BC).Two texts which refer to the 'omens of Sargon' are reported in E. F. Weidner, ‘Historiches Material in der Babyonischen Omina-Literatur’ Altorientalische Studien, ed. Bruno Meissner, (Leipzig, 1928-9), v. 231 and 236. Another, showing an early use of electional astrology, is ascribed to the reign of the Sumerian ruler Gudea of Lagash (c. 2144–2124 BC). However, there is controversy over whether they were genuinely recorded at the time or merely ascribed to ancient rulers by posterity. The oldest undisputed evidence of the use of astrology as an integrated system of knowledge is attributed to records that emerge from the first dynasty of Mesopotamia (1950–1651 BC).
Among West Eurasian peoples, the earliest evidence for astrology dates from the 3rd millennium BC, with roots in calendrical systems used to predict seasonal shifts and to interpret celestial cycles as signs of divine communications.Koch-Westenholz (1995) Foreword and p.11. Until the 17th century, astrology was considered a scholarly tradition, and it helped drive the development of astronomy. It was commonly accepted in political and cultural circles, and some of its concepts were used in other traditional studies, such as alchemy, meteorology and medicine.Kassell and Ralley (2010) ‘Stars, spirits, signs: towards a history of astrology 1100–1800'; pp.67–69. By the end of the 17th century, emerging scientific concepts in astronomy, such as heliocentrism, undermined the theoretical basis of astrology, which subsequently lost its academic standing and became regarded as a pseudoscience. Empirical scientific investigation has shown that predictions based on these systems are not accurate.
In the 20th century, astrology gained broader consumer popularity through the influence of regular mass media products, such as newspaper horoscopes.Campion (2009) pp.259–263, for the popularizing influence of newspaper astrology; pp. 239–249: for association with New Age philosophies.
Origins and trans-cultural transmission Important foundations of astral divination and mathematical astronomy were developed in ancient Mesopotamia, particularly in Babylonia, where systematic celestial omens, planetary observations, and eventually horoscopic practices emerged from a long-established cuneiform scholarly tradition.Francesca Rochberg, The Heavenly Writing: Divination, Horoscopy, and Astronomy in Mesopotamian Culture, Cambridge University Press, 2004.John M. Steele, “Babylonian and Assyrian Astral Science”, in Alexander Jones and Liba Taub (eds.), The Cambridge History of Science, Volume 1: Ancient Science, Cambridge University Press, 2018, pp. 73–98. During the Hellenistic period, Babylonian and Egyptian astral traditions interacted with Greek astronomy, mathematics, and philosophy, contributing to the development of the more systematized forms of Hellenistic astrology, including natal astrology.Kathryn Stevens, Between Greece and Babylonia: Hellenistic Intellectual History in Cross-Cultural Perspective, Cambridge University Press, 2019, especially ch. 2.
These traditions continued to circulate and develop across the Middle East and South Asia rather than following a single west-to-east trajectory. In Sasanian Iran, Greek astronomical and astrological works were translated into Middle Persian alongside material of Indian origin, while earlier Mesopotamian traditions also remained influential. The resulting scholarly culture combined Greek, Mesopotamian, Iranian, and Indian elements. (See Persian astrology) Under the Abbasid Caliphate, this heterogeneous body of knowledge was translated, reorganized, and further developed in Arabic by scholars of diverse backgrounds, mostly Persian, and including Arab, Syriac Christian, and Jewish authors.
From the twelfth century onward, a substantial part of this Arabic-language astronomical and astrological literature was translated into Latin and became influential in medieval Western Europe. It is therefore more accurate to describe the history of astrology as a series of exchanges among Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Greek, Persian, Indian, and later Islamic scholarly traditions, rather than as a body of knowledge that originated exclusively in Greece, passed temporarily to the Islamic world, and was subsequently “returned” to Europe.
Babylonian astrology
Babylonian astrology is the earliest recorded organized system of astrology, arising in the 2nd millennium BC.Holden (1996) p.1. There is speculation that astrology of some form appeared in the Sumerian period in the 3rd millennium BC, but the isolated references to ancient celestial omens dated to this period are not considered sufficient evidence to demonstrate an integrated theory of astrology.Rochberg (1998) p.ix. See also, Neugebauer (1969) pp.29-30 . The history of scholarly celestial divination is therefore generally reported to begin with late Old Babylonian texts (), continuing through the Middle Babylonian and Middle Assyrian periods ().Rochberg (1998) p.x.
By the 16th century BC, the extensive employment of omen-based astrology can be evidenced in the compilation of a comprehensive reference work known as Enuma Anu Enlil. Its contents consisted of 70 cuneiform tablets comprising 7,000 celestial omens. Texts from this time also refer to an oral tradition – the origin and content of which can only be speculated upon.Baigent (1994) p.71. At this time Babylonian astrology was solely mundane, concerned with the prediction of weather and political matters. Prior to the 7th century BC the practitioners' understanding of astronomy was fairly rudimentary. Astrological symbols likely represented seasonal tasks, and were used as a yearly almanac of listed activities to remind a community to do things appropriate to the season or weather (such as symbols representing times for harvesting, gathering shell-fish, fishing by net or line, sowing crops, collecting or managing water reserves, hunting, and seasonal tasks critical in ensuring the survival of children and young animals for the larger group). By the 4th century, their mathematical methods had progressed enough to calculate future planetary positions with reasonable accuracy, at which point extensive ephemerides began to appear.Holden (1996) p.9.
Babylonian astrology developed within the context of divination. A collection of 32 tablets with inscribed liver models, dating from about 1875 BC, are the oldest known detailed texts of Babylonian divination, and these demonstrate the same interpretational format as that employed in celestial omen analysis.Koch-Westenholz (1995) p.16. Blemishes and marks found on the liver of the sacrificial animal were interpreted as symbolic signs which presented messages from the gods to the king.
The gods were also believed to present themselves in the celestial images of the planets or stars with whom they were associated. Evil celestial omens attached to any particular planet were therefore seen as indications of dissatisfaction or disturbance of the god that planet represented.Koch-Westenholz (1995) p.11. Such indications were met with attempts to appease the god and find manageable ways by which the god's expression could be realised without significant harm to the king and his nation. An astronomical report to the king Esarhaddon concerning a lunar eclipse of January 673 BC shows how the ritualistic use of substitute kings, or substitute events, combined an unquestioning belief in magic and omens with a purely mechanical view that the astrological event must have some kind of correlate within the natural world:
Ulla Koch-Westenholz, in her 1995 book Mesopotamian Astrology, argues that this ambivalence between a theistic and mechanic worldview defines the Babylonian concept of celestial divination as one which, despite its heavy reliance on magic, remains free of implications of targeted punishment with the purpose of revenge, and so "shares some of the defining traits of modern science: it is objective and value-free, it operates according to known rules, and its data are considered universally valid and can be looked up in written tabulations".Koch-Westenholz (1995) p.13. Koch-Westenholz also establishes the most important distinction between ancient Babylonian astrology and other divinatory disciplines as being that the former was originally exclusively concerned with mundane astrology, being geographically oriented and specifically applied to countries, cities and nations, and almost wholly concerned with the welfare of the state and the king as the governing head of the nation.Koch-Westenholz (1995) p.19. Mundane astrology is therefore known to be one of the oldest branches of astrology. It was only with the gradual emergence of horoscopic astrology, from the 6th century BC, that astrology developed the techniques and practice of natal astrology.
Hellenistic Egypt
In 525 BC Egypt was conquered by the Persians so there is likely to have been some Mesopotamian influence on Egyptian astrology. Arguing in favour of this, historian Tamsyn Barton gives an example of what appears to be Mesopotamian influence on the Egyptian zodiac, which shared two signs – the Balance and the Scorpion, as evidenced in the Dendera Zodiac (in the Greek version the Balance was known as the Scorpion's Claws).Barton (1994) p. 24.