DUB2
napāṣu

Akkadian verb

Last edited: 2024-02-25
Primary meaning to break
Literal translation to kick
Variants
DUB2 napāṣu
Edited by
to break verb of position

The astronomical meaning has not been established. As pointed out by Jeanette Fincke, the interpretation “to tighten, to tauten” adopted, for instance, in H. Hunger and D. Pingree, Astral Sciences in Mesopotamia (Leiden: Brill, 1999), pp. 100–111, is problematic and not supported by evidence.

mul2.RIN2 | mi-ḫir ša2 mul2.LU GU SI.SA2 DUB2-šu2 GUB-ma

‘(Jupiter and Saturn) stand in Libra, the opposite of Aries, a broken (?) straight string.’

— AO 6455 (TCL VI 11 = TU 11) obv. 17-18

Genre: collection of astrological and astronomical rules
Provenance: Uruk
Date: ca. 200 BCE

Brack-Bernsen, Lis, and Hunger, Hermann. 2002. TU 11. A Collection of Rules for the Prediction of Lunar Phases and of Month Lengths. SCIAMVS 3: 3–90. 8

Cite this entry
APA (7th)
Ossendrijver, M., & Schreiber, M. (2024). DUB2 (Lemma #1266). The ZODIAC Glossary: A Cross-Cultural Glossary of Ancient Astral Science. https://zodiacglossary.github.io/lemma/1266/
Chicago (Author-Date)
Ossendrijver, M., & Schreiber, M. (2024). DUB2 (Lemma #1266). The ZODIAC Glossary: A Cross-Cultural Glossary of Ancient Astral Science. https://zodiacglossary.github.io/lemma/1266/
MLA (9th)
Ossendrijver, M., & Schreiber, M. (2024). DUB2 (Lemma #1266). The ZODIAC Glossary: A Cross-Cultural Glossary of Ancient Astral Science. https://zodiacglossary.github.io/lemma/1266/
Harvard
Ossendrijver, M. and Schreiber, M. (2024) DUB2 (Lemma #1266), The ZODIAC Glossary: A Cross-Cultural Glossary of Ancient Astral Science. Available at: https://zodiacglossary.github.io/lemma/1266/ (Accessed: December 1, 2025).
BibTeX 
@misc{zodiac1266,
	note = {[Online; accessed 2025-12-01]},
	author = {Ossendrijver, Mathieu and Schreiber, Marvin},
	year = {2024},
	title = {DUB2 ({Lemma} #1266)},
	url = {https://zodiacglossary.github.io/lemma/1266/},
	howpublished = {https://zodiacglossary.github.io/lemma/1266/},
}