Mystery of 4,000-year-old ‘tablets of doom’ solved as prophecies decoded
Ancient doom prophecies have been decoded, revealing Babylonians were a catastropshising bunch.
Archeologists deciphered the 4,000-year-old existentially gloomy predictions, finally cracking the mystery surrounding them since they were discovered a 100 years ago.
These tablets of doom date back to around 1,200BC and come from the Babylonian city of Sippar, which is now Iraq.
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While archeologists have been pouring over their meaning for years, it wasn’t until researchers employed artificial intelligence could they crack the tablets’ text and make a proper translation.
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Etched into the tablets are prophecies of doom, based on astronomical observations, reports Unexplained Mysteries. They are also the oldest known records of lunar eclipse omens relating to the fate of ancient Mesopotamia.
One prediction reads: “If an eclipse becomes obscured from its centre all at once and clear all at once: a king will die, destruction of Elam.”
Another prophecy reasons: “An eclipse in the evening watch signifies pestilence. If an eclipse is the wrong way around, nothing will be spared, the deluge will occur everywhere.”
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The reoccurring theme throughout the predictions is that ancient Babylonians as celestial events like lunar eclipses as bad things and harbingers of natural disasters —a trait not lost on the researchers.
The study authors wrote: “Babylonian astrology was an academic branch of divination founded on the belief that events in the sky were coded signs placed there by the gods as warnings about the future prospects of those on Earth.
“Astrological observation was part of an elaborate method of protecting the king and regulating his behaviour in conformity with the wishes of the gods.”
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The breakthrough comes as archaeologists discover the world’s oldest calendar.
The team from the University of Edinburgh have studied 365 ‘V’ symbols etched on a stone pillar at a 12,000-year-old temple site in Turkey.
Researchers claim it may have acted as a solar calendar with the symbols representing a single day. It also included 12 lunar months plus 11 extra days.
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They reckon the discovery suggests ancient humans had accurate ways to keep time 10,000 years before recoding of dates was fist documented in Ancient Greece in 150 BC.
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