Death, Doom and Disaster: Deciphered 4,000-Year-Old Babylonian Tablets Reveal Grim Predictions

Researchers have succeeded in deciphering a set of 4,000-year-old Babylonian tablets, revealing that these ancient predictions are far from hopeful. Instead, they mostly foretell death, doom and disaster.

The four clay tablets, covered in cuneiform script, foretell the deaths of kings and the collapse of civilizations. A recent study published in the Journal of Cuneiform Studies sheds light on these grim messages.

Unearthed over a century ago in present-day Iraq and now part of the British Museum’s collection, these artifacts have only recently been translated into modern language.

The Babylonians based their predictions on lunar eclipses, events where the moon is obscured by Earth’s shadow.

According to the study by Andrew George and Junko Taniguchi, these tablets are the earliest known examples of collections of lunar-eclipse omens.

The Babylonians scrutinized the eclipses based on their timing, shadow movement, duration and dates to forecast future events.

They interpreted celestial events as divine warnings about the fate of earthly rulers and societies. For instance, one omen predicts the death of a king and the destruction of Elam (a region in modern-day Iran) if an eclipse is suddenly obscured and then clears.

Another suggests the downfall of Subartu and Akkad (regions from that era) if an eclipse begins in the south and then fades away.

Other ominous signs include predictions of locust swarms, livestock losses and the fall of large armies.

According to George, some of these omens might have emerged from observed correlations between eclipses and significant events, though many were likely speculative rather than evidence-based.

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The tablets are believed to have originated from Sippar, an ancient Babylonian city southwest of modern Baghdad. They were used by royal advisors to forecast the future, aligning their observations with a body of celestial-omen texts.

To further assess the omens' likelihood, advisers would examine the entrails of sacrificed animals and perform rituals to avert potential disasters.

Alternatively, a substitute king might be appointed to take on the gods' wrath, sparing the real king from harm, as noted by NASA. The Babylonians, despite their grim predictions, managed to predict lunar eclipses with considerable accuracy.