The Babylonians Documented in Ugarit: The First Total Solar Eclipse in History

The solar eclipse that occurred in the United States yesterday, Wednesday, has brought back to light much information about this astronomical phenomenon. It has been revealed that ancient predictions of eclipses were a powerful indicator of omens for anxious kings. The inscriptions on Babylonian clay tablets indicate the first total solar eclipse observed in Ugarit on May 3, 1375 BCE. Babylonian astronomers kept precise records of celestial events, including the movements of Mercury, Venus, the sun, and the moon, on tablets dating from 1700 to 1681 BCE, according to NASA reports. Later records pinpointed a total solar eclipse in 1063 BCE, which "turned day into night," and the famous eclipse that occurred in 763 BCE, documented by Assyrian observers in Nineveh. By carefully observing local lunar and solar eclipses, Babylonian astronomers were eventually able to predict lunar eclipses and subsequent solar eclipses with reasonable accuracy. Their tool for this was what is called the "Saros Cycle," a period of 223 lunar months (or 18 years and 11.3 days) after which lunar and solar eclipses recur. According to J.M. Steele from Durham University in the UK, a comparison of 61 solar eclipse predictions made by Babylonian astronomers after 800 BCE with modern predictions revealed that all Babylonian predictions related to events that were visible somewhere on Earth's surface, but often quite distant. This represents a notable achievement. Nearly half of the eclipses could have been seen from Babylon if the sun were above the horizon at the time of the eclipse. Lunar eclipses were particularly regarded as bad omens concerning their kings. It is noted that solar eclipses instilled terror in the hearts of our ancestors in ancient times, leading to myths about dragons and the wrath of the gods, but in our scientifically enlightened age, such supernatural explanations have been abandoned.