Could a Lunar Eclipse Really Signal Doom? Insights from Ancient Mesopotamian Tablets
Tablets added to the British Museum’s collection many decades ago have finally been deciphered, revealing 4,000-year-old cuneiform inscriptions that describe lunar eclipses as omens of death, destruction, and pestilence. These tablets, found more than 100 years ago in what is now Iraq, are the oldest known examples of lunar-eclipse omen compendia.
Andrew George, an emeritus professor of Babylonian at the University of London, and Junko Taniguchi, an independent researcher, published their findings recently in the Journal of Cuneiform Studies. The tablets use the time of night, movement of shadows, and the date and duration of eclipses to predict omens.
One omen states that if “an eclipse becomes obscured from its center all at once [and] clear all at once: a king will die, destruction of Elam.” Elam was an area in Mesopotamia centered in what is now Iran. Another omen indicates that if “an eclipse begins in the south and then clears: downfall of Subartu and Akkad,” regions of Mesopotamia at the time. Another reads: “An eclipse in the evening watch: it signifies pestilence.”
Ancient astrologers may have used past experiences to determine these omens. “The origins of some of the omens may have lain in actual experience — observation of portent followed by catastrophe.” However, most omens were likely determined through a theoretical system linking eclipse characteristics to various predictions.
The cuneiform tablets likely originated from Sippar, a city that flourished in what is now Iraq. At the time the tablets were written, the Babylonian Empire was thriving in parts of the region. The tablets became part of the British Museum’s collection between 1892 and 1914 but had not been fully translated and published until now. In Babylonia and other parts of Mesopotamia, there was a strong belief that celestial events could predict the future. “Events in the sky were coded signs placed there by the gods as warnings about the future prospects of those on earth,” George and Taniguchi wrote. Advisors to the king closely watched the night sky, matching their observations with the academic corpus of celestial-omen texts.
If a threatening omen, such as “a king will die,” was predicted, an oracular enquiry by extispicy (inspecting the entrails of animals) was conducted to determine if the king was in real danger. If the entrails suggested danger, certain rituals were believed to annul the bad omen, countering the forces of evil behind it. Thus, even bad omens were thought to be avoidable through these rituals.
Source: Could a Lunar Eclipse Really Signal Doom? Insights from Ancient Mesopotamian Tablets
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Could a Lunar Eclipse Really Signal Doom? Insights from Ancient Mesopotamian Tablets