Ancient Babylonians kept copious records of astronomical phenomena on clay tablets that we call Astronomical Diaries. In 164 BCE, they saw Halley’s Comet hover softly in the night sky, and recorded it in cuneiform on clay www.ebl.lmu.de/fragmentariu... - ThreadSky

moudhy.bsky.social • 94 days ago

Ancient Babylonians kept copious records of astronomical phenomena on clay tablets that we call Astronomical Diaries.

In 164 BCE, they saw Halley’s Comet hover softly in the night sky, and recorded it in cuneiform on clay https://www.ebl.lmu.de/fragmentarium/BM.41462?tab=cdli

Comments

moudhy.bsky.social•94 days ago

“The comet which previously had been seen in the east in the path of Anu in the area of Pleiades and Taurus, to the west […..].”

That comet was Halley’s Comet in 164 BCE, recorded on a broken cuneiform tablet from Babylon that has nevertheless survived https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu//adsd/adart3/X301632/html

astrotter.bsky.social•94 days ago

This is great! There are several months of observations -- does the clay stay soft enough to write on for that long, or did they copy the records onto this tablet all at once?

moudhy.bsky.social•94 days ago

The latter, I believe. They compiled observations of ~6 months onto a tablet from “preliminary diaries” (our term). But I think experimental archaeologists have found that they could keep clay wet for ages by wrapping it in something wet/damp!

moudhy.bsky.social•94 days ago

Babylonians recorded several other comets in their cuneiform Astronomical Diaries, including one in March 233 BCE.

“…last part of the night, a comet in the east.”

I love comets so these records really move me https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/adsd/adart2/X202340

vinr-mims.bsky.social•94 days ago

Is there a compilation or translation of these Astronomical Diaries available for us mono-lingual US citizens? I'm currently quite fascinated with ancient astronomical observations and collected books.

moudhy.bsky.social•94 days ago

Yes! There’s a multivolume series of pretty compendious books that translate them called “Astronomical Diaries and Related Texts from Babylonia” (even the title is long). You can also browse many of them here https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/adsd/

vinr-mims.bsky.social•94 days ago

Fantastic! Thank you!

moudhy.bsky.social•94 days ago

No problem! ☺️

krebsverena.bsky.social•94 days ago

Just wanted to say that I really, really enjoy your threads. As a student, I could never muster up much enthusiasm for ancient Rome or Greece, but anything "Altvorderasien", whether Uruk or Babylon, Sumer or the Assyrians was 100% my thing, and these sources & insights brighten my day!

moudhy.bsky.social•93 days ago

I’m so glad to hear that!! And happy I get to brighten your timeline with some snippets of Uruk and Babylon (and elsewhere) here and there 🥰

krebsverena.bsky.social•93 days ago

Very excited!

siliconopolitan.bsky.social•94 days ago

How long did they continue?

moudhy.bsky.social•94 days ago

From memory, the records span the late 7th/early 6th centuries to the mid-first century BCE. They’re amazing.

hjd.bsky.social•92 days ago

I wonder how the person to write the last record, the end of seven/eight centuries of work, felt? Did they know they were the last in a line stretching back into history...? And now two thousand years later, we've rediscovered their work!

siliconopolitan.bsky.social•92 days ago

Probably not. The last record we've recovered is most likely not the last one.

siliconopolitan.bsky.social•94 days ago

Thank you. I've just finished rereading "I, Claudius" yesterday, and there was the mention of a comet presaging his death, so it would have been fun if those records had continued into the CEs.

renhoeck.bsky.social•91 days ago

Me, zooming in on the clay image to see the comets in more detail.
🙈🙊

kristianharstad.bsky.social•92 days ago

Fascinating! Question: why were they so keen on tablets as opposed to, say, scrolls? I always think it must have been so cumbersome by comparison, and surely scrolls etc would have been more practical? What's the deal with all the tablets? 😁

moudhy.bsky.social•92 days ago

That’s a great question because we’re so used to ink and paper! Cuneiform really lends itself to clay — impressing it with a reed stylus is way easier than drawing each sign. But they did use 2D media for Aramaic once that took hold in the first millennium BCE!

ottermd37.bsky.social•86 days ago

This is all fascinating. I love your threads. So glad you're on Bluesky.

moudhy.bsky.social•86 days ago

Thank you for saying that 🥹🙏🏽 I’m glad to be here

kristianharstad.bsky.social•92 days ago

I suppose maybe they weren't a scroll-based society, & stone tablets are harder to destroy than scrolls, so I can see why a war/disaster-prone region might prefer them. That being said, Aramaic's simplicity must have been a big draw? I'd love to hear more about the battle between the two languages!

lord-n3to.bsky.social•91 days ago

Maybe, also because clay is easier to make them scrolls and we're in general less costly, paper is kinda hard to do

jordan.truesdell.org•94 days ago

There should be a stronger reaction than a generic ❤️ for posts like this.

Comments

Posting Rules

Reply