(mul.)ELLAG2
kalītu

Akkadian noun

Last edited: 2025-02-13
Primary meaning Kidney-star/half moon
Literal translation Kidney(-star)
Variants
mul.ELLAG2 kalītu ELLAG2 is in the older literature often transliterated as BIR.
mul2.ELLAG2 kalītu
ka-li-tu2 kalītu
Edited by
Kidney-star constellation

[i]ti.KIN 3 mul2.ELLAG2 1.40 mul2.MAŠ.TAB.BA.GAL.GAL 50 mul2.MAR.GID2.DA

‘[M]onth VI: 3 'The Kidney', 1,40 'The Great Twins', 50 'The Wagon'.’

— BM 34713 (LBAT 1499) obv.6

Genre: schematic astronomy: 'three stars each' + rising times
Provenance: Babylon
Date: 4th-2nd cent BCE

Horowitz, W., 2014. The Three Stars Each: The Astrolabes and Related Texts (Archiv für Orientforschung, Beiheft 33). Horn/Wien: Berger & Söhne/Institut für Orientalistik der Universität Wien. 126

a name for Mars planet

Attested in the Great Star List in a section with names for the planet Mars.

mul.ELLAG2 d.MIN (=d.Ṣalbatānu)

‘Kidney-star: Mars.’

— K 4195 (CT 26 42-43) obv. ii 15

Genre: star list
Provenance: Nineveh
Date: ca. 911-612 BCE

Koch-Westenholz, U., 1995. Mesopotamian Astrology. An Introduction to Babylonian and Assyrian Celestial Divination. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press. 190: 106 B

half moon lunar phase

Written without the determinative mul ("star")..

Cite this entry
APA (7th)
Schreiber, M. (2025). (mul.)ELLAG2 (Lemma #331). The ZODIAC Glossary: A Cross-Cultural Glossary of Ancient Astral Science. https://zodiacglossary.github.io/lemma/331/
Chicago (Author-Date)
Schreiber, M. (2025). (mul.)ELLAG2 (Lemma #331). The ZODIAC Glossary: A Cross-Cultural Glossary of Ancient Astral Science. https://zodiacglossary.github.io/lemma/331/
MLA (9th)
Schreiber, M. (2025). (mul.)ELLAG2 (Lemma #331). The ZODIAC Glossary: A Cross-Cultural Glossary of Ancient Astral Science. https://zodiacglossary.github.io/lemma/331/
Harvard
Schreiber, M. (2025) (mul.)ELLAG2 (Lemma #331), The ZODIAC Glossary: A Cross-Cultural Glossary of Ancient Astral Science. Available at: https://zodiacglossary.github.io/lemma/331/ (Accessed: December 1, 2025).
BibTeX 
@misc{zodiac331,
	note = {[Online; accessed 2025-12-01]},
	author = {Schreiber, Marvin},
	year = {2025},
	title = {(mul.){ELLAG2} ({Lemma} #331)},
	url = {https://zodiacglossary.github.io/lemma/331/},
	howpublished = {https://zodiacglossary.github.io/lemma/331/},
}