ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My gratitude must first go to my wife, Jane, who constantly encouraged me to pursue this project.

Next I should like to thank my colleagues, Dianne Binnington, Nicholas Campion, Charles Harvey, and Richard Leigh, for their ideas, for their criticism, and for their support. I owe, too, a particular debt to Erin Sullivan for finding a place for this book.

I must thank Dr. Christopher Walker of the Western Asiatic Department in the British Museum and Dr. Francesca Rochberg-Halton of Notre Dame University, Indiana, who gave freely of their advice and information in order to illuminate certain dark areas in my understanding.

I should also like to thank Sabine Bauch for her translations from German and Caroline Wingent for easing my recalcitrant prose and punctuation back into acceptable bounds. Finally, of course, I owe much to the efficient staff of the British Library Reading Room, Bloomsbury.

But, above all else, I am in debt to those ancient astrologers who, seduced by the night, gazed in wonder at the endless dark sky, which stretched far beyond the temple towers of Mesopotamia.