x double hours of night.
May Nabu and Marduk
Be gracious to the king, my lord.

On another occasion the equinox took place on the 15th of Nisan,[553]
and accordingly this is reported. Again, the appearance of the new moon
was anxiously looked for each month, and the king is informed whether or
not it was seen on the 29th or 30th day of the month.[554]

A watch we kept
On the twenty-ninth day,
The moon we saw.
May Nabu and Marduk
Be gracious to the king, my lord.
From Nabua of the city of Ashur.

An extraordinary event, such as an eclipse, is made the subject of a
more elaborate report. The Babylonian astronomers had developed their
scientific attainments to the point of calculating the time when an
eclipse of the sun or the moon would take place. As this period
approached, they watched for the eclipse. We have an interesting
specimen of a report in which the astronomer announces that an expected
eclipse for which a watch was kept for three days did not appear.[555]
Another addressed to an official reads:[556]

To the Agriculturist,[557] my lord,
Thy servant Nabushumiddin,
An officer of Nineveh,
May Nabu and Marduk be gracious
To the Agriculturist, my lord.
The fourteenth day we kept a watch for the moon.
The moon suffered an eclipse.

The reports pass over into indications of omens with an ease which shows
that the observations of the astronomers were made with this ulterior
motive in view. A report which forms a supplement to one above
translated furnishes the interpretation given to the vernal
equinox:[558]

The moon and sun are balanced,
The subjects will be faithful,[559]
The king of the land will reign for a long time.

The complement, then, to the purely scientific observations is furnished
by these official communications to the kings and others, setting forth
in response, no doubt, to commands or inquiries, the meaning of any
particular phenomenon, or of the position of the planets, or of any of
the stars at any time, or of their movements. Of such communications we
have a large number. They illustrate the great attention that was paid
to details in the observation of the heavenly bodies. The moon as the
basis of the calendrical system occupies the first place in these
reports. Its movements were more varied than those of the sun. Through
its phases, its appearance and disappearance at stated intervals, a safe
point of departure was obtained for time calculatio