Scientists deciphered ancient Babylonian tablets 4000 years old and found dire predictions for the future

Researchers have deciphered ancient Babylonian tablets that are approximately 4000 years old. The engraved inscriptions contain predictions of future disasters.

The artifacts were found more than 100 years ago on the territory of modern Iraq. But only now they have been fully translated, writes DailyMail.

The found tablets originate from Sippar, a city that flourished during the Babylonian Empire in what is now Iraq, and date from the middle and late Old Babylonian period from about 1894 to 1595 BC.

Researchers have been working to decipher the cuneiform, which is one of the oldest known forms of writing.

According to scientists, the ancient Babylonians were very interested in space, especially the moon, and associated lunar eclipses with natural disasters and historical events. They claimed that an eclipse of the moon often foreshadowed the death of their king and performed rituals to save the monarch from his fate.

And the found tablets contain just such predictions.

"People believed that the events in the sky were coded signs placed there by the gods as a warning of the future prospects of those on earth. Therefore, the king's advisors watched the night sky and compared their observations with texts about celestial signs," write University of London professor Andrew George and his co-author Junko Taniguchi in the study.

The researchers say that lunar omens on the tablets often foretold the death of the king: "If the eclipse is suddenly obscured from the center and instantly becomes clear, the king will die and there will be destruction of Elam" (the region of Mesopotamia in the center of modern Iran).

Another inscription also spoke of a threat to the ruler: "The famous king will die. His son, who was not appointed to the kingdom, will seize the throne and there will be war. The land will become desolate, its cities will be desolate, and its land will become smaller."

According to scholars, the Babylonians sometimes appointed "substitute kings who would bear the burden of the gods' wrath" to protect the real ruler from trouble.

There were also signs on the tablets that foretold severe environmental disasters: "In the spring, a swarm of locusts will descend and destroy the crops on my land. There will be a shortage of food".

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