Researchers have deciphered ancient Babylonian tablets that predict future disasters.
The 4,000-year-old artifacts were found more than 100 years ago in modern day Iraq but have only now been completely translated and linked to astronomical events.
Ancient Babylonians had a special interest in the cosmos, especially the moon, and associated lunar eclipses with natural disasters and historic events.
The newly-deciphered tablets consist of 61 predictions spread across four clay tablets, including an ominous warning that a ‘king will die’ and a ‘nation will fall.’
A 4,000-year-old tablet written by ancient Babylonians consisted of 61 omens that could have linked past experiences with the alignment of the planets, moon and stars
Although the tablets were added to the British Museum’s collection between 1892 and 1914, this revelation marks the first time the cuneiform has been completely translated and linked to astronomical predictions and omens.
The omens predicted harsh environmental disasters including one that said: ‘In spring a locust swarm will arise and strike the crops/my land’s crops. There will be a dearth of food.’
It also talked about revolts upon the land, both from foreign adversaries and weather, the study revealed.
One deciphered omen said: ‘There will be rain and floodwater and Adad will devastate the threshing floors.
There will occur an attack by an Elamite army, a Gutian army, on the land. It will destroy a land that revolts. The land will perish.’
A separate omen added: ‘As for a land that revolts, the enemy will demolish cities, city walls, my city walls, the walls of our city.’
The tablets are believed to come from Sippar – a city that flourished during the Babylonian Empire in what is now Iraq and date back to the middle and late Old Babylonian periods from about 1894 to 1595 BC.
The researchers suggested its possible that ancient people may have relied on past experiences to determine any omens the lunar eclipses predicted and this discovery makes these slabs the ‘oldest examples of compendia of lunar-eclipse omens yet discovered.’
Ancient Babylonians learned when to expect a lunar eclipse and often claimed it foretold the death of their kind and would conduct rituals to save the current monarch from his alleged fate, according to the researchers.
Researchers worked to decipher the cuneiform language, which is one of the oldest known forms of writing that means ‘wedge shaped’ because people used a reed stylus to create the wedge-shaped marks on clay tablets.
These symbols could be used to write several languages in the ancient Near East including Sumerian, Akkadian and Old Persian.
In Mesopotamia, ancient people associated the eclipses with the death of their kings, leading them to study them and make predictions to protect their rulers.
People believed that ‘events in the sky were coded signs placed there by the gods as warnings about the future prospects of those on earth,’ Andrew George, a professor at the University of London, and his co-author Junko Taniguchi wrote in the study.
‘Those who advised the king kept watch on the night sky and would match their observations with the academic corpus of celestial-omen texts.’
The tablets analyzed in the new study date back to the middle and late Old Babylonian periods from about 1894 to 1595 BC and are the ‘oldest examples of compendia of lunar-eclipse omens yet discovered’
The study revealed that ancient Babylonians predicted omens using the time of night, date, shadow movement and the duration of eclipses – much like how a ‘psychic’ uses tarot cards to predict someone’s future.
The researchers said one transcribed omen said: ‘If an eclipse becomes obscured from its center all at once [and] clear all at once: a king will die, destruction of Elam,’ – a region of Mesopotamia in the center of what’s now Iran.
Another omen predicted the downfall of two other regions in Mesopotamia, Subartu and Akkad, that would occur if ‘an eclipse begins in the south and then clears.’
The researchers said the omens could cause the people to take drastic action to protect their leader, noting that one said: ‘A king who is famous will perish; his son who has not been nominated/appointed to kingship, will seize the kingship/throne and there will be war.
‘The land will become depopulated; his cities will turn into a desolation, and his land will diminish.’
However, the researchers noted that kings didn’t solely rely on the eclipse omens if one predicted their death they took additional steps to confirm whether tragedy would strike.
‘If the prediction associated with a given omen was threatening, for example, ‘a king will die,’ then an oracular enquiry by extispicy [inspecting the entrails of animals] was conducted to determine whether the king was in real danger,’ the study said.
If the entrails confirmed a calamity was approaching, ancient Babylonians believed that by performing certain rituals, they could annul the bad omen, and overcome the evil that surrounded it.
The lunar omens typically predicted the death of a king and according to NASA, the Babylonians would sometimes appoint ‘substitute kings … who would bear the brunt of the gods’ wrath’ to protect the real ruler from harm.
Although the death of some kings haven’t been definitively linked to the tablet’s omens, one historical leader appeared to live up to some omens.
‘A king who is famous will perish; his son who has not been appointed to kingship, will seize the throne and there will be war’ an omen said, adding: ‘The land will become depopulated, his cities will turn into a desolation and his land will diminish.’
In 1750 BC, King Hammurabi died at about 60 years old, and while his ancestors ruled for another 155 years, his death marked the slow decline of the Babylon Empire.
‘The origins of some of the omens may have lain in actual experience—observation of portent followed by catastrophe,’ George told Live Science.
But, he clarified that most omens were likely connected to eclipse events from a theoretical or speculative point of view.
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