Greco-Roman Zodiac Sundials and Their Links to a Qumran Calendar (4Q208-4Q209)

Full title
Greco-Roman Zodiac Sundials and Their Links to a Qumran Calendar (4Q208-4Q209)
Updated By
Research notes

NR\Reader checked\12/01/2015

Reference type
Author(s)
Jacobus, Helen R.
Year
2014
Journal / Book Title || Series Title
Mediterranean Archaeology and Archaeometry
Volume
14
Issue / Series Volume
3
Abbreviated Series Name
MAA
Pages
67-81
Work type
Label
26/01/2015
Abstract

This paper proposes that the Greco-Roman zodiac sundials that flourished in Greece and Italy from about the second century BCE to the second century CE were related to a probable zodiac calendar found in astronomical Aramaic manuscript fragments in the Dead Sea Scrolls from Qumran, dated about c. 2,000 years BP and c. 2,170 years BP. I demonstrate that in the Ethiopic Book of Luminaries the zodiac signs have been substituted by numbered gates of heaven and that this codified model can be traced back to the Qumran texts. Furthermore, that this same pattern is evident in Greco-Roman sundials in an unencrypted form. I conclude that the paradigms in the proposed Qumran zodiac calendar and the Greco-Roman zodiac sundials are the same, making it likely that the Aramaic fragments contain a zodiac calendar.

Primary Texts: Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha
Composition / Author
Passage
72:2-3
Primary Texts: Judean Desert Documents
Scroll / Document
Passage
7
Section type
Fragment