Cultural and historical astronomy in a brontologion from georgia

A Georgian almanac of weather and astronomical predictions is translated and analysed. A popular genre of prognostication texts known as brontologia ('thunder books') predicted politics, agriculture, weather, and health based on the inquirer's observations of thunder, eclipses, halos, earthquakes, and similar natural phenomena during the year. Ancient and medieval brontologia from all over Europe and the Near East are preserved in many languages, but few have been translated and analysed in detail. The present study examines a 17th-century Georgian brontologion entitled Signs of the Times and preserved on ff. 106r-110v in MS A-620 of the Korneli Kekelidze Georgian National Centre of Manuscripts in Tbilisi, Georgia. Although the analysis below focuses on predictions following lightning, eclipses, and earthquakes, it is suggested that the Georgian text reflects biblical and Georgian worldviews by drawing on Old Testament prophecies as well as events recounted in the medieval The Life of Nino.