Posted on 10/21/2019 7:03:29 AM PDT by BenLurkin
More than 2,600 years ago, strange red clouds over Mesopotamia drew the attention of soothsayers across the land. Their royal reports have now helped confine the date of a severe solar storm that washed over the planet.
Based on readings of carbon isotopes trapped in tree rings deposited around that time, astronomers already suspected there was a period of intense solar activity around the middle of the 7th century BC...
And it seemed like it had pretty far-ranging effects. Earlier in the year, geologists reported similar signs of a storm from around this period in traces of radioactive particles buried in Greenland's ice.
Assyria and Babylon were home to a slightly different kind of astronomer – one who looked for omens among the heavens.
When things got a bit weird overhead, these sky-watchers would note down the details on palm-sized clay tablets in cuneiform, recording the type of ominous event, maybe a prediction or two, and signing it off with their name and sometimes the date.
These could then be sent to government authorities, who would use the information to make important decisions. After digging through translations of a number of Assyrian astrological tablets dated to the 7th and 8th centuries, the researchers eventually found three mentioning either a red glow, red clouds, or red covering the sky.
After digging through translations of a number of Assyrian astrological tablets dated to the 7th and 8th centuries, the researchers eventually found three mentioning either a red glow, red clouds, or red covering the sky.
None of them came with a timestamp, but they were all signed off by a different author, either Issār-šumu-ēreš, Nabû-aḫḫē-erıba, or Zākiru, who each reported to kings of either Babylon or Nineveh.
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencealert.com ...
Lol, that’s what happens to me also. Then I want to go back and recap from the source to see if there were any updates or new discoveries at the topic source but it has been so long the link is dead and now gone. When this happens it blows my whole argument because I can’t link to the source and prove it anymore. “I swear! it was there!”.
“these sky-watchers would note down the details on palm-sized clay tablets in cuneiform”
The first Palm Pilots.
Yeah, the rise of the paywalls and the permanent problems of lost links and/or vanishing link syndrome has led to my habit of saving pages or their text and links.
Good habit. :)
Coup neiform is what the Demagogic Party uses to communicate.
Thanks to the sheer quantity, plus my advancing years, there are now 100s of 1000s of files of this kind, carried forward through multiple computers, leading to loads of pleasant surprises. Beats having to remember everything. :^)
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