Ancient History of Astrology

Bharat (India)

In Bharat exists today records that clearly point to a highly developed knowledge of astrology of almost 6,500 years old B.C. and manuscripts show documents that were written near the 3,700 B.C. Some of the originals have been destroyed or are lost but copies of these were made by astrologers and can be found in the libraries of the Maharajas and in some states in Bharat.
 One of the most ancient authors of Vedic Astrology, copies of whose works have not been found is Pita Maha who wrote a treaty called Pita Maha Siddhanta.
He lived and wrote this book about 3000 BC 500 years after another writer called Vashishttha wrote several books in astrology, astronomy and philosophy. In the book called "You and Your Hand" by Count Louis Hamon, better known as Cheiro, found this statement: "people in ignorance of which disdains the wisdom of ancient races forget that the great past of India contains secrets of life and philosophy that the following civilizations could not contravene, but were forced to accept it.
For example, it has been demonstrated that the ancient Hindu understood the precession of the equinox and calculated that this (a complete cycle) is carried out every 25,870 years.
 The observation and mathematical accuracy needed to establish this theory has been the wonder and admiration of modern astronomers.
They, with their modern knowledge and current instruments continue to argue among themselves if the precession - the most important feature in the astronomy is done every 25,870 years or every 24,500 years.
The majority believed that the Hindus are not mistaken, but as they reached this calculation is a great mystery as the same origin".

Babylonians Beginning

To the Babylonians are credited the birth of astrology. Their charts allowed them to predict the recurrence of the stations and certain celestial events. Thus, in the beginning and for more than 2,000 years, astrology and astronomy were the same science. Astrology was introduced in Babylon by the Greeks in the first part of the IV Century A.D. and through studies of Plato and Aristotle and others, astrology was referred to us as a science. It was soon taken by the Romans (we still use the Romans names for the zodiacal signs) and the Arabs extended over the entire world. Astrology as we know it today began in the European world in the beginning of the Greek civilization (the word astrology comes from the Greek Astron, star and logos, study). The study of the stars had purposes both scientific and religious. The step of the stars provided the basis for calculating the calendars; they also represented a natural clock at a moment without clocks and gave important points of reference for navigation. A Chaldean priest of Belus, Berosus, which settled in Cos to teach, probably at the beginning of the fourth century B.C., was awarded traditionally to have entered the astrology to Greece. However, the Greeks were already interested in the study of stars from the antiquity. The philosopher presocratic such (625-547 B.C.) who founded the ionic school, philosophy that have any theories the origin of the universe from a simple principle, and Pythagoras of Samos (580-500 B.C.) founder of Pythagonearism (a philosophical system that combines the medicine, astronomy, the musical scales and mathematics to describe the reality in terms of numbers), had already put his attention to the stars and speculated about the nature and constitution of the heavenly bodies.

Other antecedents

In the beginning the astrology of Mesopotamia was as other cultures, a simple observation of the sky to search for influence that could affect the kingdom. These observations included climatic phenomena, mixed with astronomical. What made the difference was that the natives of Mesopotamia began to make systematic observations of the phenomena to find regular patterns in heaven and correlate them with events.
According to the researchers, the leadings astronomical writings known of Mesopotamia come from the oldest period Babylonian near the time of Hammurabi. It is not known if the Sumerians were involved in astronomical studies but it seems that yes.
There are even some writings that relate to the period of the Akadios, near the 2300 Before Christ. This is an example of such written: "If Venus appears in the east in the month Airu and the Twins, large and small, are surrounded by the four and she is dark then the king of Elam falls sick and not be alive."
The natives of Mesopotamia believed that the stars and planets were associated with or were themselves the gods. Ishtar-Venus was one of the largest divinities of people.
The Egyptians had the same notion and identified the constellation Orion with Osiris. But Osiris was a god of the dead that governed the underworld. Transport to the heavens was very similar to other transport facts in classical mythology. 
The researchers give three phases in the evolution of astrology.
The first consists of the mentioned above, which is essentially questions of astronomical observation. The second phase is very much related to this but has a Zodiac in the modern sense of the term with twelve signs of 30 degrees each.
There are no personal horoscopes in this middle level but gives much attention to the transits of Jupiter through the signs to an approximate range of a sign per year.
 Here you see clearly an offspring of the Chinese practice of assigning a year to each zodiacal sign and probably also the annual progressions of astrology hourly. Here too there are no houses of any kind. The academics date this second phase between the years 630 and 450 before the Christian era. The zodiac at this point is clearly one sidereal.
The third phase is the astrology horoscopes. Several ancient sources mention the "Chaldeans" who made several natal charts of different people. It is mentioned that according to Aristotle is made him a prognosis Chaldean the death of Socrates on the basis of your natal chart. Reference is made to the Chaldeans and of course that refers to the art in this period was fully associated with recent Babylonians, i.e. with the Chaldeans.
It has been found many natal charts written with cuneiform characters. Most data of the Hellenistic age near the 410 b.c. other researchers say that was in Egypt the astrology home. However, some researchers claim that the most ancient texts were lost when a catastrophe occurred which changed the geography of the planet.
And they sustain this with the theory of Russian Emanuel Velikovski that explains such a catastrophe in his book "Worlds in Collision". However, the Book of Enoch, of the apocryphal Jews and Christians say another thing about who taught astrology and other sciences to the old human beings, although the doctors of the Church say otherwise (see Summa Theological of St Thomas Aquinas).
The most ancient astrological document still in existence is the work called "Namar-Beli" composed by King Sargon I and which is contained in the cuneiform library of King Assurbanipal (668-626 b.C.). Includes observations and astronomical calculations of moon and solar eclipses with astrological predictions.
The oldest mention of the art of astrological prediction in the old classic literature is in "Prometeus Vinctus" of Aeschylus (line 486 and subsequent). Astrology was probably cultivated by the Pythagorean school which kept the exclusivity of a caste. The teaching of Pythagoras on the "harmony of the Spheres" aims to certain astrological hypothesis of the Egyptian priests. The astrology, in the era of Posidonius was called apotelesmatika that indicates the influence of the stars on the final destination of man; i.e. apo, "from"; telos, "end" and matika, "accurate".
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