Planetary Horologion

These are the services and movements of the seven hours1 in the seven days of the week: Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars. And the mnemonic is SuVeMe MoSaJuMa.

Thus they move. These are the hours that serve in every day:

Day one of the week,2 Sun, and completing [for] the whole day the rest of the hours, until twelve hours are…

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A horologion is a list of the planets governing the hours of the day, for each day of the week. It could be used to decide when one should embark on an activity to guarantee its success. While the vast majority of the 350 or so astrological texts in the Cairo Geniza are in Arabic or Judeo-Arabic, this example is written in Palestinian Aramaic. It therefore probably records older astrological traditions, perhaps dating to late antiquity. This text also appears to be based on a non-Jewish source, as its suggestion to begin certain activities on the Sabbath would have been problematic from the perspective of normative Jewish observance.

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