Inscriptions on a set of four clay tablets from the ancient Near Eastern civilization of Babylonia have finally been completely deciphered, thousands of years after they were produced, a study reports.
The clay tablets feature text written in cuneiform, an ancient script generally considered to be the oldest known writing system, and represent the oldest known lunar eclipse omens from any part of the world, study author Andrew George told Newsweek.
Developed by the ancient Sumerians of Mesopotamia, an ancient region centered in modern-day Iraq and the surrounding regions, more than 5,000 years ago, cuneiform is not a language in itself. Instead, it is a script that was used to write several languages of the ancient Near East, primarily Sumerian and Akkadian.
Created to write the Sumerian language, the script was later adapted for Akkadian—which was spoken by the Babylonians—and subsequently other tongues, such as Hittite.
In the latest study, published in the Journal of Cuneiform Studies, George and a colleague—independent researcher Junko Taniguchi—present and publish the four clay tablets in detail for the first time. While another researcher had previously written a short description of the tablets and a summary of their contents in the 1980s, the tablets had yet to completely deciphered, translated and comprehensively analyzed until the latest study.
“They can now take their place in the history of divination, astrology and Babylonian science,” said George, an emeritus professor at SOAS University of London.
The tablets, which are thought to date to the early second millennium B.C., feature a collection of more than 60 “omens” based on how and when lunar eclipses take place, according to George. An omen is believed to foretell the future, and in the case of the tablets, most of them are predictions of “doom and gloom,” he said.
“The predictions are interesting for the light they shed on the psychology of rulership. The omens chiefly predict disasters such as assassination, usurpation, revolt, rebellion, defeat in war, loss of territory, plague, famine, drought, crop failure, locust attack, etcetera. It was evidently exactly these things that Babylonian kings were most anxious about,” George said.
“[The tablets] are important from the point of view of the evolution of humankind’s intellectual inquiry and religious beliefs,” he said.
A stock image shows cuneiform script on a stone tablet. Cuneiform inscriptions on four clay tablets from ancient Babylonia have been completely deciphered in a new study.
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The tablets have long been kept at London’s British Museum, which acquired the artifacts more than a century ago. The only guide to their origins is the registration numbers allocated to them when they entered the museum’s collections. These indicate that “almost certainly” two of the tablets, and very likely the other two, originate from Sippar, an ancient city of Babylonia, located southwest of present-day Baghdad. But other contextual details are lacking.
“It would be good to know exactly where each tablet came from in order to give them archival contexts and learn about who wrote them, but there seems little prospect of finding that out,” George said.
Ancient Mesopotamia, which includes present-day Iraq and parts of Iran, Turkey and Syria, played a major role in world history. It hosted several significant civilizations, including the Assyrians, Babylonians and Sumerians, and is often referred to as the “cradle of civilization.”
“What cuneiform scholars do is decipher ancient Mesopotamian clay tablets in order to recover knowledge about the most ancient civilizations of the Near East. Every decipherment adds to our understanding of these civilizations and helps us to learn about human history,” George said.
“There are perhaps 500,000 tablets in the world’s museums, with perhaps only 20 percent fully read,” he continued. “Most are uncataloged. So Assyriologists are pioneers, still engaged in the primary business of translating the sources and reconstructing the cultural and intellectual legacy of the Babylonians, Assyrians and Sumerians.”
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Reference
George, A., & Taniguchi, J. (2024). Old Babylonian Lunar-Eclipse Omen Tablets in the British Museum. Journal of Cuneiform Studies, 76, 127–161.
