Greco-Roman zodiac sundials and their links to a Qumran calendar (4Q208-4Q209)

This paper proposes that the Greco-Roman zodiac sundials that flourished in Greece and Italy from about the second century BCE to the second century CE were related to a probable zodiac calendar found in astronomical Aramaic manuscript fragments in the Dead Sea Scrolls from Qumran, dated about c. 2,000 years BP and c. 2,170 years BP. I demonstrate that in the Ethiopic Book of Luminaries the zodiac signs have been substi-tuted by numbered gates of heaven and that this codified model can be traced back to the Qumran texts. Furthermore, that this same pattern is evident in Greco-Roman sundi-als in an unencrypted form. I conclude that the paradigms in the proposed Qumran zo-diac calendar and the Greco-Roman zodiac sundials are the same, making it likely that the Aramaic fragments contain a zodiac calendar.