When Astronomy and Astrology Were on the Same Side: The Oldest Greek Horoscope

Discover the world’s oldest Greek horoscope on papyrus, dated to 5th June 29 BCE. This rare fragment reveals how astronomy and astrology once worked hand in hand, long before modern science dismissed horoscopes.

In Berlin’s collections lies a small scrap of papyrus with a short Greek text. It is the earliest preserved Greek horoscope, written in early Roman Egypt. The papyrus records the Sun, Moon, Ascendant, and planets in their zodiacal signs. No individual is named, and the purpose of the text is not stated.

The word horoscope comes from the Greek hōroskopos - “hour-watcher.” At first it referred to the Ascendant, the rising sign on the eastern horizon. In time it came to mean the entire chart - a diagram of the sky fixed to the moment of birth or another event.

The text consists of a few lines in Greek abbreviations. It lists the positions of the Sun, Moon, Ascendant, and planets on 5 June 29 BC (29 BCE). There is no mention of a person, a birth, or any prediction. Scholars classify it as a horoscope because the format matches later natal charts, but it could just as well have served as a teaching example or demonstration.

Astronomical calculations for that date show the Sun in Gemini, the Moon in Libra, Venus in Taurus, and Jupiter and Saturn in Cancer. Mars and Mercury were close to the Sun and not easily visible, but the papyrus itself makes no comment on this. What survives is a record of placements, without interpretation.

Horoscopes reach back more than two millennia, long before most modern sciences took shape. At that time, and as far as we know, there was no firm boundary between astronomy and astrology. Both were part of a single enterprise: careful observation of the heavens and the search for meaning in their cycles.

The same scribes who measured the rising of constellations also noted eclipses, planetary stations, and seasonal changes. Their records were used to predict floods of the Nile, to regulate calendars, and to guide political decisions. What we now separate into “scientific data” and “astrological interpretation” were, for them, two aspects of one body of knowledge.

This unity helps explain why astrology is sometimes described as the “mother” of sciences. Mathematics was sharpened to calculate planetary motion. Geometry was refined to chart the heavens. Even medicine and agriculture borrowed from celestial timing. In the centuries around 29 BC, a horoscope was not a diversion at the back of a newspaper but part of the intellectual framework that sustained entire civilizations.

The Berlin papyrus shows astrology in its most stripped-down form: placements of planets and luminaries recorded with precision. This was not storytelling but record-keeping. Ancient scribes treated the sky as a dataset, logging positions in relation to the zodiac and tracking how they changed over time.

This effort demanded tools we now call scientific: mathematics to calculate cycles, geometry to map the ecliptic, and systematic observation across generations. These skills were not cultivated for curiosity alone. They were used to forecast eclipses, regulate calendars, and advise rulers. The same methods that allowed an astrologer to draw up a horoscope also allowed an astronomer to predict the return of a planet or the timing of the solstices.

In this sense, astrology functioned as one of humanity’s earliest data sciences. It organized information, looked for patterns, and tested those patterns against lived experience. While its interpretations could vary, its methods drove the development of disciplines we now call scientific. The papyrus fragment, modest as it is, represents that larger process of turning the night sky into numbers, cycles, and knowledge.

By the time the Greek papyrus horoscope was written in 29 BC (29 BCE), astrology already had centuries of practice behind it. Mesopotamian scholars had logged planetary motions with precision since at least the 5th century BC. The papyrus continues that tradition: a structured record of celestial data, which makes it a form of descriptive science.

Descriptive science is the careful observation, systematization, and notation of natural phenomena. Most modern science, even today, is descriptive rather than deeply conceptual. Biology, geology, and medicine rely on the accumulation of observed facts. Even physics - often treated as the most fundamental science - only became a conceptual, mathematical discipline with Galileo and Newton in the 1600s. Chemistry did not solidify until the 17th century, and psychology entered the scientific sphere in the 19th.

Astrology went further. Alongside its descriptive work, it also suggested there was an overarching principle - a bigger cosmic order - even if that concept remains elusive to us today. The papyrus itself does not explain that principle, but it shows how astrology carried intellectual authority in its time: it offered a way to collect, order, and interpret natural information centuries before most of the sciences we now take for granted even existed.

The preserved papyrus is small and fragmentary, yet it carries weight beyond its size. In a few lines of Greek, it captures a moment when charting the heavens was both a descriptive science and a search for meaning. At that time, separating astronomy from astrology - or science from the spiritual - would have seemed artificial.

This fragment reminds us that the roots of scientific observation are older and more intertwined than we often imagine. On fragile fibers, the record of the sky from 5 June 29 BC (29 BCE) still survives, a thread of continuity linking ancient observers to our own attempts to measure, explain, and wonder at the cosmos.