Old Babylonian Lunar-Eclipse Omen Tablets in the British Museum

This article presents a first edition of four clay tablets inscribed with omens arising from eclipses of the moon. As products of the middle and late Old Babylonian periods they represent the oldest examples of compendia of lunar-eclipse omens yet discovered and thus provide important new information about celestial divination among the peoples of southern Mesopotamia in the early second millennium BCE. The tablets are edited with appended philological apparatus. They are all found to bear witness to a single text, which organizes the omens of lunar eclipse by time of night, movement of shadow, duration, and date. A composite translation also takes account of two other early versions of the text published eleven years ago. The article is concluded by discussions of variants and scribal annotations in the text. The cuneiform texts are illustrated by scale drawings of the tablets.1

Ancient history · Archaeology · Art · Astronomy · Eclipse · Omen · Physics · Ancient Egypt and Archaeology · Ancient Near East History · Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies · History