The Earliest Lunar and Solar Eclipses

A Historian’s Holy Grail or an Astronomical Chimera?

Since the earliest days of Assyriology, the ancient observations of lunar and solar eclipses, planetary configurations and other celestial phenomena reported on cuneiform tablets have been studied and employed for chronological purposes. In many cases these observations can be dated to the exact day and hour and are thus of the utmost importance for calibrating the various king and ruler lists of Mesopotamia.

Ancient Near Eastern Chronologies (all years are BCE)

Historical events High (Long) Middle Low (Short) Ultra-Low
First Dynasty of Akkad ????-???? 2334-2154 ????-???? 2200-2018
Third Dynasty of Ur 2161-2053 2112-2004 2048-1940 2018-1911
First Dynasty of Isin ????-???? 2017-1793 ????-???? 1922-1698
First Dynasty of Babylon 1950-1651 1894-1595 1830-1531 1798-1499
Reign of Hammurabi 1848-1806 1792-1750 1728-1686 1696-1654
Reign of Ammisaduqa 1702-1682 1646-1626 1582-1562 1550-1530
Fall of Babylon 1651 1595 1531 1499

However, the interpretation of these early reports is not always straightforward. Not every obscuration or darkening of the Sun necessarily implies a solar eclipse. In some cases, a darkening of the Sun that was first interpreted as a solar eclipse is now believed to have been caused by a meteorological phenomenon.

The ancient Mesopotamian observations also provide useful information on the secular variations in the Moon’s orbital motion and the slowing of the Earth’s rate of rotation.

Of these eclipse reports, the chronologically most important are the following:

The “Eclipse Identification Game”

Spurious Eclipses

The Loughcrew Cairn Solar Eclipse

Solar eclipse supposedly observed at Loughcrew Cairn, near Oldcastle (Co. Meath, Ireland), on 30 November 3340 BC.

Solar and Lunar Eclipses in Ancient Chinese Sources

Lunar Eclipse in the Zhoushu

Found in the Zhoushu (“The Book of Zhou”):

In the 35th year of Wen Wang, on the day ping tzu, there was an eclipse of the Moon.

Dated by S.M. Russell, professor of astronomy and mathematics at the Imperial College of Peking, to 29 January 1137 BC (EclipseWise / IMCCE).

Mentioned in the Shūjīng  (“Book of Documents”), traditionally ascribed to the Chinese sage Confucius, and the Tongjian Gangmu. Variously dated to the annular eclipse of 7 May 2165 BC (EclipseWise / IMCCE), the annular eclipse of 21 October 2137 BC (EclipseWise / IMCCE) or the partial eclipse of 13 October 2128 BC (EclipseWise / IMCCE) [not visible in China].

“Now here are Hi and Ho. They have allowed their virtue to be subverted and are besotted by drink. They have violated the duties of their office and left their posts. They have been the first to let the regulating of the heavenly (bodies) get into disorder, putting far from them their proper business. On the first day of the last day of autumn, the sun and the moon did not meet harmoniously in Fang. The blind musicians beat their drums, the inferior officers galloped, and the common people (employed about the public offices) ran about. Hi and Ho, however, as if they were (mere) personators of the dead in their offices, heard nothing and knew nothing, so stupidly went they astray (from their duties) in the matter of the heavenly appearances, and rendered themselves liable to the death appointed by the former kings. The stautes of the government say, when they anticipate the time, let them be put to death without mercy, when (their reckoning) is behind the time, let them be put to death without mercy.” [Legge (1865) ???-???]

Solar and Lunar Eclipses in the Ancient Near East

The so-called Nineveh or Assyrian eclipse is mentioned in an Assyrian limmu (eponym) list, a list of annually-appointed high officials, as:

“[year of] Bur-Saggile, of Guzana, revolt in the citadel; in [the month] Siwanu the Sun had an eclipse.” (Millard (1994) 41 & 58)

The report is assumed to refer to a solar eclipse seen from Assyria during the 9th or 10th year of Ašurdan III. The identification of this eclipse with that of 15 June 763 BC (EclipseWise / IMCCE) makes it possible to anchor the eponym list in time, thus providing a very precise chronological baseline of Assyrian history reaching back as far as 910 BC. The eclipse has also been dated to 13 June 809 BCE (Oppert, 1868) and 24 June 791 BCE (???).

Bosanquet (1873), Cowell (1906) and others have claimed that this eclipse was seen by the Hebrew prophet Amos (Amos 8:9). Other Biblical scholars have speculated that the eclipse took place around the time when Jonah arrived in Nineveh, urging its inhabitants to repent for their sins (Jonah 31-10).

Lunar Eclipse mentioned during a Military Campaign of Sargon II [K 2884]

Solar Eclipse in the “Religious Chronicle”

A total solar eclipse supposedly seen from Babylon and mentioned in the so-called “Religious Chronicle” [= BM 35968 = Sp III, 504]. First identified by L.W. King, who proposed the following translation

“On the 26th day of the month Sivan, in the 7th year, the day was turned into night, and fire [was seen] in the midst of heaven”.

Calculations by Cowell (1905) showed that the solar eclipse of 20 June 1070 BC (EclipseWise / IMCCE) was only partial for Babylon while the solar eclipse of 31 July 1063 BC (EclipseWise / IMCCE) could have been total for Babylon. Later calculations by Simon Newcomb suggested that other possible candidates are the solar eclipses of 18 May 1124 BC (EclipseWise / IMCCE) or 28 June 1117 BC (EclipseWise / IMCCE).

The text is assumed to refer to the Babylonian king Simbar-Shihu, who is believed to have reigned from 1024 to 1007 BC. Brinkman (1968) & Grayson (1975) doubt whether the text refers to a solar eclipse and suggest that the darkening was caused by a meteorological phenomenon.

Eclipse of Esar-Haddon and the Eclipse of Susa

The Eclipse of Muršili II

Problematic interpretation of a solar omen, reported in the 10th year of the Hittite king Muršili II during his military campaign against the Azzi in North Anatolia (KUB 14.4 [= VAT 6165 = KBo 111.4 = BoTU 48]). Initially dated by Carl Schoch and Emil Forrer to 13 March 1335 BC (EclipseWise / IMCCE); later scholars have suggested 8 January 1340 BC (EclipseWise / IMCCE), 24 June 1312 (EclipseWise / IMCCE) or 13 April 1308 BC (EclipseWise / IMCCE). Others have suggested that the omen may refer to a halo or another meteorological phenomenon.

The Ugarit Eclipse

A problematic report of a solar eclipse(?) mentioned on a hepatomantic cuneiform tablet (KTU 1.78 = PRU 2.162 = RS 12.061) found in 1948 among the ruins of Ugarit (Ras Shamra, Syria). A suggested translation of this enigmatic report is

“The day of the Moon of Hiyaru was put to shame: the Sun went in, (with) her gate(keeper), Rashap [Mars?]”.

First linked by Sawyer & Stephenson (1970) to the solar eclipse of 3 May 1375 BCE (EclipseWise / IMCCE) on the assumption that it had been total as viewed from Ugarit. A later analysis by de Jong & van Soldt (1987/89) re-dated the report to 5 March 1223 BCE (EclipseWise / IMCCE). More recently, the text has been linked to the solar eclipses of 21 January 1192 BC (EclipseWise / IMCCE), 20 May 1078 BCE and 9 May 1012 BCE (EclipseWise / IMCCE). Other scholars question whether the solar eclipse was total or whether the text actually refers to an eclipse at all.

The Venus Tablets of Ammizaduga

First published in 1870 by Henry Creswicke Rawlinson and George Smith as tablet 63 [“Tablet of Movements of the Planet Venus and their Influences”] in the third volume of The Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia. Its significance for chronology was first recognised by Franz Xaver Kugler in 1912, when he could identify the “Year of the Golden Throne” with the 8th regal year of Ammizaduga, the grandson of the Babylonian king Hammurabi.

The Mari Eponym Chronicle Eclipse

A recently identified darkening of the Sun in the Mari Eponym Chronicle has been linked to the total solar eclipse of 24 June 1833 BC (EclipseWise / IMCCE).

The Ur III and Babylon I Eclipses

A set of lunar eclipses mentioned in the astrological omen series Enûma Anu Enlil (tablets 20 & 21) which appear to be linked to historical events during the Third Dynasty of Ur. The possible chronological importance of these eclipses was first noted by Morris Jastrow Jr. in Die Religion Babyloniens und Assyriens (Giessen, 1921).

Some scholars, however, doubt that they refer to actual historical events.

Supposed to date the Fall of Babylon at 1499 B.C. from the “Low Chronology” scheme implied by the dating of the lunar eclipse preceding the death of King Shulgi of Ur, mentioned in the Enuma Anu Enlil (Tablets 20 & 21), to 27 June 1954 BC. Cf. Schaumberger (1949), Gasche et al. (1998), Gurzadyan & Cole (1999), Gurzadyan (2000). 

Jupiter Omen at the Begin of Esarhaddon’s Kingship

On Jupiter’s conjunction with the Sun in the summer of 679 BCE, coinciding with the begin of Esarhaddon’s reign.

Solar and Lunar Eclipses in Ancient Egyptian Sources

Eclipses in the Earliest Egyptian Dynasties

The historian Manetho of ??? (c. ??? BCE), reports a unusual lunar event during the reign of the first ruler of the Third Dynasty which some scholars have claimed to refer to a lunar eclipse.

The Senenmut Solar Eclipse

According to Von Spaeth (2000), the astronomical ceiling of the tomb of Queen Hatshepsut’s vizier Senenmut includes, together with an unusual gathering of the five then known planets, a record of the solar eclipse of 7 May 1534 BC which was (barely) visible from Thebes (Egypt). According to EmapWin and 5MCSE there was no solar eclipse on that date and Leitz (2001) has demonstrated that there is no textual evidence that a solar eclipse is depicted on the ceiling.

Lunar Eclipse during the Reign of Takeloth II

Solar Eclipse Following the Death of Psamtik I

Solar Eclipse of 30 September 610 BCE.

Solar Eclipse Mentioned on a Coptic Ostraca

Solar and Lunar Eclipses in Biblical Sources

The Solar Eclipse of Abraham

According to Old Testamentical, Post-Biblical and Islamic sources, the patriarch Abraham, after settling with his family in Canaan, received three visions from Yahweh prior to his covenant with Yahweh. Of these, the last was:

“Now, as the Sun was on the point of setting, a trance fell on Abram, and a deep dark dread descended on him.”
(Genesis 15:12; The New Jerusalem Bible)
“And it came to pass, when the Sun had set, that an ecstasy fell upon Abra[ha]m, and lo! an horror of great darkness fell upon him.”
(Book of Jubilees 14:13; The Apocrypha and Pseudepigraphia of the Old Testament)

Dated to 1 April 2471 BC by Yousef (1999). According to EmapWin, the eclipse would have been total for Jerusalem during the morning hours.

Steel (1999) suggests 9 May 1533 BC. According to EmapWin, the Sun would have been obscured by 94% at sunset for Jerusalem.

Other passages in the Book of Jubilees (14:1 & 10) place the date of the covenant in the middle of the third month (Sivan). In Jewish tradition, the covenant between Yahweh and Abraham is commemorated on 15 Sivan, the same day as the covenant between Yahweh and Noah.

Also in the Quran? 

According to E.W. Maunder (“Astronomy”, in: The International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia, vol. 1, p. 304), the solar eclipses of 15 August 831 BC and 2 April 824 were total (or very nearly total) in Judea.

Solar Eclipses Associated with Moses

Eduard Mahler (1885). 24 June 1312 BC.

The Solar Eclipse of Joshua

30 September 1131 BC (Steel, 1999).

According to EmapWin, this eclipse was total in northern Egypt and in Saudi Arabia.

It has been suggested that the darkening of the Sun on the Day of Judgement, as mentioned in several verses in the Old Testament, refers to past observations of (nearly) total eclipses seen in Palestine. Specifically, some researchers have suggested that the solar eclipse of 15 June 763 BC, observed in Nineveh, is referred to in Amos 8:9 and that the solar eclipse of Thales, 28 May 585 BC, is referred in Isaiah 13:10, but there is little evidence to support this.

Lunar and Solar Eclipses in the Books of the Minor Prophets

Solar and Lunar Eclipses in Ancient Indian Sources

Lunar and Solar Eclipses in the Mahabharata

August 3129 BC: supposed date of the great battle described in the Indian epic Mahabharata.

Alternative date 24 June 1312 BC proposed in:

According to EmapWin this eclipse would have been visible in most of India just before sunset. Also dated 31 March 1410 BC by von Gumpach (1853), cf. also von Oppolzer (1880).

Solar and Lunar Eclipses in the Rig Veda

Suggested eclipses on 29 April 1030 BC (EclipseWise / IMCCE) and 20 April 1002 BC (EclipseWise / IMCCE).

25 July 3929 BC: earliest eclipse mentioned in the Rig Veda (according to Indian researcher Dr. Shri P.C. Sengupta).

Solar and Lunar Eclipses in Classical Sources

The Homeric Solar Eclipses

Iliad 16.567-568 & 17.366-376. 6 June 1218 BC (Struyck); 28 August 1185 BC (Stockwell).

Odyssey 20.351-357. 16 April 1178 BC at Ithaca (Schoch). Another date: 20 June 1070 BC.

Solar and Lunar Eclipses in Islamic Sources

Solar and Lunar Eclipses in Syriac Sources

Other Reports and General Discussions

Secular Acceleration of the Lunar Motion and the Lengthening of the Day deduced from Ancient Reports of Lunar and Solar Eclipses

“And if any curious Traveller, or Merchant residing there, would please to observe, with due care, the Phases of the Moons Eclipses at Bagdat, Aleppo and Alexandria, thereby to determine their Longitudes, they could not do the Science of Astronomy a greater Service: For in and near these Places were made all the Observations whereby the Middle Motions of the Sun and Moon are limited: And I could then pronounce in what Proportion the Moon’s Motion does Accelerate; which that it does, I think I can demonstrate, and shall (God willing) one day, make it appear to the Publick.” (Halley, 1695)