Babylon · the thirty-six at the centre
The 36 powers, the Greek planetary rulers & the Moon
Follow each named power through its working 10° sector, Hebrew chamber, comparative planetary ruler and a calculated lunar passage. Then follow the imagery into surviving objects and practices.
Flat star map and material witnesses · Ancient horizon views
12 Hebrew chambers × 3 decans = 36 sectors ↔ 7 repeating planetary rulers ↔ Moon passages
The strongest historical bridge: Firmicus Maternus, Mathesis II.4, gives all 36 planetary rulers. He also reports traditions of subordinate decan powers associated with pain, illness, chills and fevers. This is a relevant comparison for Solomon’s affliction catalogue; it does not establish that their named powers are identical. Greek names, Solomon’s names and Babylon’s letters remain labelled source layers.
001–011 · our recovered working map
These assignments were developed in the earlier demon-by-demon discussion. They are restored here with their original order and with the source’s celestial clue and restraining authority beside them. “Recovered” means recovered from our discussion; it does not change a hypothesis into an independently established identification.
| Original entry | Your working interpretation | Clue in the source | Who restrains it | Material record |
|---|
| 001 · Ornias | צ Tzadi · clouded Collective Dream; ע Ayin as the authority/exploitation lens. | Water-Pourer / Aquarius, §10. | Uriel | Open record → |
| 002 · Beelzeboul | ו Vav ↔ נ Nun · the Connector. | Commands and summons other spirits; a later celestial remark varies by version. | Emmanuel / Eleêth | Open record → |
| 003 · Onoskelis | ת Tav · Full-Moon observation window; no specific chamber was settled. | Full Moon, §19 in Conybeare. | Joel in Conybeare; wording differs in Duling | Open record → |
| 004 · Asmodeus | Wain / Great Bear / Big Dipper; lunar-node geometry was a further research question. | Wain / Great Bear and “Dragon’s Child,” §21. | Raphael | Open record → |
| 005 · Tephras / Lix Tetrax | ת Tav → ח Chet, with פ Peh near the lunar crescent in your working interpretation. | Southern lunar horn, §33; the passage does not name Venus. | Azael | Open record → |
| 006 · Seven female spirits | Pleiades working identification; נ Nun season → following ו Vav season. | Seven clustered stars; Pleiades is Conybeare’s proposed identification, §§34–42. | Individual restraints; version-dependent | Open record → |
| 007 · Envy · Headless One | The seven distortions culminating; seven rulers “running backward”; פ Peh / Venus is the Day-Star hypothesis. | Day-Star, with “Orient” as a translation alternative; Elburion and the preceding seven, §§43–46. | Lightning; held until Iax arrives | Open record → |
| 008 · Rabdos · Great Hound | Sirius / Dog Star as your working identification, kept alongside the Enoch comparison. | A great hound with an unnamed star; claims former humanity and knowledge of letters and stars, §§47–50. | Brieus | Open record → |
| 009 · Lion-Bearer · Rath / Leophoros | Iaoth as your chosen cross-text comparison; not a substitution of Yaldabaoth. | Lion form and legions, §§51–53; the shorter Apocryphon of John names lion-faced Iaoth. | Emmanuel | Open record → |
| 010 · Three-Headed Dragon | Sun–Moon nodal gate; ק Kof is the Hidden beyond the gate. The child is Christ consciousness in your reading. | Three heads, §§54–56; solar/lunar dragons in Pistis Sophia 136 are a separate comparison. | Angel of Great Counsel / cross | Open record → |
| 011 · Obyzouth / Obizuth | Algol / Medusa’s Head, with Lilith/Abyzou comparisons, as the working stellar investigation. | Childbirth-threatening figure, §§57–59; Algol is not named in this passage. | Raphael / Afarôt | Open record → |
Numbering note: 006 is one encounter containing seven spirits. The later 016 encounter contains the 36 decan powers. These are distinct catalogues, not 36 slots into which the first eleven must be forced. Download recovered register · Solomon source · Iaoth in the shorter John recension.
Travel with the Moon through all 36
The outer numbers identify the 36 sectors. The highlighted sector is entered by the Moon. The Sun marker supplies the phase context. This is a full-sky longitude diagram, not a view above a local horizon.
Choose a Greek planetary ruler
| No. | Solomon’s named power | Hebrew chamber / degrees | Planetary face ruler | Greek name | Claimed effect | Moon enters · TT Julian | Illumination |
|---|
Select a row to inspect its lunar passage. Solomon’s names follow the Duling translation used earlier; spellings and readings differ in other versions. The face-ruler sequence is Firmicus’s separate scheme. Putting them side by side is a comparative overlay, not an ancient assertion that Ruax is Ares or that an affliction is caused by a planet.
The Moon ties in two different ways
Motion: the Moon traverses every longitude sector, regardless of its assigned face ruler. Across the three calculated cycles here, a 10° passage takes about 16–20 hours, and a complete tropical-longitude circuit about 27.3 days. That is different from the roughly 29.5-day phase cycle.
Traditional rulership: five of Firmicus’s 36 faces belong to the Moon. In our sequential comparison these align with 5 · Kairoxanondalon, 12 · Sapththorael, 19 · Mardero, 26 · Rhyx Enautha and 33 · Rhyx Achoneoth. This does not mean Solomon explicitly calls these five Selene’s demons.
Selene is a Greek lunar figure; Artemis and Hecate have their own traditions and later lunar associations. Enepsigos’s changing forms invite comparison but do not make all three figures one historical identity. The crescent on Nabonidus’s stela belongs to the male lunar deity Sîn, illustrating why one lunar symbol can have different cultural identities.
The seven classical carriers in Greek and Babylon’s language
| Hebrew letter | Astronomical body | Greek divine name | Roman name | Ptolemy’s basic classification | Babylon reading |
|---|
| ד Dalet | Mars | Ares | Mars | Masculine | Action / boundaries |
| כ Kaf | Sun | Helios | Sol | Masculine | Illumination / recognition |
| פ Peh | Venus | Aphrodite | Venus | Feminine | Desire / attraction |
| ר Resh | Mercury | Hermes | Mercury | Common / variable | Language / exchange |
| ת Tav | Moon | Selene | Luna | Feminine | Reflection / rhythm |
| ב Bet | Saturn | Kronos | Saturn | Masculine | Structure / responsibility |
| ג Gimel | Jupiter | Zeus | Jupiter | Masculine | Abundance / expansion |
These are the seven classical carriers used by the face-ruler sequence, not the entire Greek pantheon. Ptolemy’s masculine/feminine categories describe an ancient astrological theory, including qualifications by position; they are not measurements of a force or a classification of people. Helios and Selene are named directly in Homeric Hymns 31–32. Apollo and Artemis should not simply replace them in every period.
From star groups to 36 powers: what is connected
| Layer | What is documented | What must stay distinct |
|---|
| Egyptian decanal stars | Star groups helped reckon the night and appear in celestial imagery. | Older star-based decans are not simply 36 equal pieces of the modern 88-constellation map. |
| Greco-Roman astrology | Firmicus assigns planetary rulers to thirty-six 10° sectors; he reports additional subordinate powers. | Other decan schemes existed; this atlas identifies the one it uses. |
| Solomon’s catalogue | The thirty-six figures identify with the zodiac and claim bodily and social afflictions. In Conybeare’s version, the first group explicitly starts with the Ram. | The text does not say that every named figure is identical to its Firmicus face ruler. |
| Babylon’s contemporary map | Hebrew chambers, letter pairs, qualities and the four Worlds supply a way to compare the layers. | This authored interpretation is distinct from a translation or an independently established causal mechanism. |
Firmicus also reports some authorities assigning three attendants per decan, nine per sign. Across all 36 this gives 108 attendant positions by arithmetic, but he does not list 108 names in that passage. We should not fill those positions with invented gods or merge them automatically with 72-name traditions.
Keep the material world attached
001–011 have been restored above. Their existing assignments remain visible beside the later figures and the separate 36-power comparison.
The material witnesses are carved ceilings, inscribed texts, amulets, coins, calendars and ritual objects. Their existence shows what people pictured and practiced. The named-spirit-to-object link is a separate research question for each row. Enoch’s Watchers, giant spirits and Flood narrative remain connected in the material-world atlas, without treating its Flood as a dated astronomical event or its figures as a ready-made list of Solomon’s 36.
Sources, calculation and limits
- Firmicus, Mathesis II.4.1–6: all 36 ruler assignments at II.4.3; attendants and affliction claims at II.4.4–6. This is a Roman Latin witness to the astrological tradition.
- Testament of Solomon, Conybeare §§72 onward, compared with Duling’s chapter 18: named powers and claimed effects. Names here retain the earlier Duling list.
- Ptolemy I.6 and I.12: traditional planetary and sign classifications.
- Homeric Hymns: Greek divine figures, especially 31–32.
- Metropolitan Museum, Egyptian timekeeping; Senenmut astronomical-ceiling facsimile. The latter is a modern facsimile of an ancient ceiling, not the original stone.
- Babylon vocabulary and inspected local Cosmic Clock: Hebrew overlay and measured Gate rules.
- Swiss Ephemeris: version 2.10.03, explicit Moshier mode; roots of lunar 10° crossings bracketed at 0.2-day steps and refined numerically. All dates are proleptic Julian, searched in TT. The three reference instants are 20 September at 12:00 TT in 95, 275 and 2026 CE. Each displayed cycle starts at the first complete-sector ingress after that instant and ends 36 passages later. No ancient eyewitness date is asserted.
Moon phase uses Swiss Ephemeris illuminated fraction; waxing/waning uses the directed Sun–Moon longitude arc. A phase is not a decan number. The Moon and its face ruler form an active Gate only if their measured longitude aspect is within 3°; a Moon-ruled face does not form a distinct Moon–Moon letter pair. Geocentric longitudes do not establish local visibility. Modeled UT1 and Delta T are supplied in the downloads; nominal minute labels are not historical timing precision.