It was more than a century ago that some extraordinarily rare cuneiform tablets from Mesopotamia dating to the second millennium BC were discovered during an archaeological expedition in Iraq. Now, after decades of determined effort, scholars have finally been able to fully decipher the written text that appears on the faces of these amazing artifacts. It seems the tablets are inscribed with prophecies of doom related to lunar eclipses, which were seen by some ancient cultures as omens indicating that catastrophic events bringing mass death and destruction might be just around the corner. There were four clay tablets recovered in Iraq in total, on which all of the writing was well-preserved and legible. They were written in an ancient Babylonian language, however, which made them extremely difficult to translate in their entirety. But a pair of academics with expertise in ancient languages and cultures were recently able to completely crack the code, revealing the true meaning of the cuneiform messages for the first time ever. Read moreSection: ArtifactsAncient WritingsNewsHistory & ArchaeologyRead Later