4,000-Year-Old Tablets Decoded With Lunar ‘Days’

Tablets found several decades ago have recently been deciphered, shedding light on the ways in which Babylonian kings predicted the future.

Impressive evidence from the decipherment of cuneiform inscriptions tells us that the study of celestial bodies was a popular, but not the only, means of predicting the future, and that the Mesopotamians believed they had the power to reverse their bad omens.

Archaeologists have deciphered 4,000-year-old cuneiform tablets found in what is now Iraq more than 100 years ago and now in the possession of the British Museum. The signs say that some lunar eclipses herald death, others doom and pestilence.

“First results of the signs of the lunar eclipse”

The Four Clay Tablets “They are the oldest specimens of lunar eclipse marker clusters yet discovered,” Andrew George, Emeritus Professor of Babylonian Studies at the University of London, and Junko Taniguchi, an independent researcher, explain in a recent article in Journal of Cuneiform Studies.

A lunar eclipse is the phenomenon in which the Moon passes directly behind the Earth, falling into its shadow.

Astrologers relied on the time of night, the movement of shadows, and the time and duration of the eclipse to arrive at good tidings.

For example, one omen foretells that if “The eclipse immediately causes the moon to be darkened from its center, then it immediately shines again, then a king dies, and the destruction of Elam comes. (The area of ​​Mesopotamia that today corresponds to parts of Iran).

Another omen predicts that if The eclipse will begin in the north and then disappear: the kingdom will fall. I branched out (In the upper Mesopotamia and the upper Tigris) And the knot(Center of the Akkadian Empire 2334 BC – 2083 BC).

Another omen predicts the following: “Eclipse in the afternoon heralds epidemic.” Ancient astrologers likely relied on past experiences to understand what an eclipse portends.

How were the good tidings created?

“Perhaps some of the omens came from actual experience, that is, a premonitory observation preceding the occurrence of disaster.“The disaster was then attributed to the previous observation,” Professor George explained to Live Science.

However, he points out that most of the omens were formed based on a theoretical system that linked eclipse characteristics to different omens. The cuneiform tablets probably came from the city of Sippar, which flourished in what is now Iran, George notes at Live Science.

At that time, the tablets were written and the Babylonian Empire flourished in parts of the region. The tablets were added to the British Museum collection between 1892 and 1914, but have not yet been fully translated and published.

Predicting the future

In Babylon and other parts of Mesopotamia, it was believed that celestial phenomena could predict the future. People believed that “The phenomena of the sky are coded signals sent by the gods to warn them of future events on Earth,” George and Taniguchi report in their article.

“The king’s advisors observed the night sky and found matches between the observations and written collections of texts about celestial omens,” They say.

Of course, the kings of ancient Mesopotamia did not rely solely on eclipse omens to predict the future. “If a particular omen is a threat, for example “the king will die,” they also proceed to the process of divination, where by “reading” the entrails of the sacrificed animals, they learn whether the king’s life is actually in danger,” George and Taniguchi noted.

If animal entrails indicated danger, people believed they could neutralize the bad omen through specific rituals, balancing the forces of good and evil behind the omen, write George and Taniguchi.

This means that even if the omen is bad, people still believe that there is a way to prevent it from becoming true.