New Horoscope Board Discovered

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A paper was recently published in the Journal for the History of Astronomy in which Alexander Jones and Sta?o Forenbaher announced that a new astrologer's board from the early Hellenistic tradition has been discovered, and they say that it may be the oldest example of one that we've found so far.

The website LiveScience ran a story on it recently, and they include some photos:

http://www.livescience.com/17943-oldest ... odiac.html

This is exciting because it helps to confirm that the practice of using these boards was widespread, which had kind of been assumed at this point given some boards that survived from later in the Hellenistic tradition, as well as some literary references to "boards" or "tables" (???????).

Basically the astrologers would do the calculations for a client's horoscope prior to the consultation, but then during the consultation itself they would pull out one of these elaborate boards with the zodiac on it, and then they would recreate the chart on that using stones or some other markers to represent the planets.
My website:
http://www.chrisbrennanastrologer.com

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If anyone has more information on discoveries of other boards or references to them, I hope you will post it!

On the use of stones on astrology boards, the following is from Hans Dieter Betz, ed. 1992, The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, vol. 1, 2nd ed.p. 312:

"Lay out the stars on the board in their natural oder, with the exception of the sun and the moon. Make the sun gold, the moon silver, Kronos of obsidian, Ares of yellow-green onyx, Aphrodite of lapis-lazuli streaked with gold, Hermes of turquoise; make Zeus of a [dark blue] stone, but underneath of crystal."

Symbols were given for the sun and moon, but not for the planets.

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The standard reference for this topic is:

James Evans, "The Astrologer's Apparatus: A Picture of Professional Practice in Greco-Roman Egypt," in the Journal for the History of Astronomy, Vol. 35, Part 1, No. 118, pgs. 1-44 (2004).

This article is conveniently available online for free at: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/2004JHA....35....1E.

I think it is on JSTOR as well, which is where I think I originally found it.

There is also an entire book in French that deals specifically with the board from Grand, which is the most elaborate example that survives:

Les tablettes astrologiques de Grand (Vosges) et l'astrologie en Gaule romaine, ed. J.-H. Abry, Diffusion de Boccard, Paris, 1993.