When Did Astrology Begin?
Ancient rulers looked to the heavens for signs about their own lifespan, war, and the fate of their kingdoms. While building a fortune-reading service, I began to wonder about a much older question: When did humans first start looking to the sky for clues about the future? Today, we can enter a birth date, birth time, and birthplace into a computer or smartphone and receive an astrology or fortune reading within seconds. I have spent a great deal of time thinking about how different fortune systems calculate and interpret the same person's information. But the further I looked back into the history of astrology, the more I realized that its beginnings looked very different from the personal horoscopes we know today. Ancient rulers were not simply asking whether they would have a lucky day. Their questions could concern war, danger, enemies, disasters, the stability of a kingdom, and even the ruler's own lifespan. Why would a king ask astrologers who observed ...