In ancient Babylonia, being king was a privileged position, but celestial events like eclipses posed significant threats. Babylonians believed that eclipses signaled divine displeasure and foretold disasters such as rebellion, war, or even the king’s death. If an eclipse predicted the king’s demise, he would temporarily go into hiding, and a substitute, often a prisoner or a simpleton, would be installed in his place. Once the danger passed, the substitute would be executed to appease the gods. The Babylonians, in the second millennium B.C., viewed celestial phenomena as prophetic. Eclipses, in particular, were interpreted as angry messages from the gods. Assyriologist Andrew George, an emeritus professor at the University of London, led a study decoding four cuneiform tablets dating from 1894 B.C. to 1595 B.C., revealing ominous predictions about kings’ deaths and civilization’s downfall. These tablets, from Sippar (modern-day Iraq), contain 61 predictions, including warnings of natural disasters and societal chaos. Babylonians believed that the heavens mirrored earthly events, so a solar or lunar eclipse suggested that a significant figure, like a king, would be “eclipsed.” This belief may have originated from the coincidental timing of an eclipse and a king’s death or developed purely by analogy. Babylonian divination practices included interpreting various omens, such as the behavior of birds or the appearance of animal entrails after sacrifice. These rituals were tools to predict and possibly alter the future, often manipulating the king’s actions and decisions. The substitute-king ritual, associated with the Neo-Assyrian period, may have been performed for figures like Alexander the Great. Despite significant progress in deciphering these ancient texts, many remain untranslated in the British Museum’s collection, awaiting further study. The post Ancient Babylonian Tablets Foretold Doom Awaiting Kings appeared first on Anomalien.com.