Talk:Assyrian eclipse

drivel
I'm sorry, but the entire second section on "Inconsistency with the Babylonian calendar" is complete drivel. There is no evidence whatsoever that the Babylonians paid any attention at all to the vernal equinox in starting the year, much less that they "had never started their new year before the vernal equinox." Furthermore, what evidentiary connection is there between the Assyrian calendar in the 8th century BC and the Babylonian calendar of the 6th century let alone the calendar used by the Jews at Elephantine in the 5th century?

The second section should be moved from the discussion of the eclipse of 763 BC to the discussion of ignoratio elenchi as an example.

128.214.182.203 11:13, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

An eclipse magnitude of some 0.75 for the eclipse of 791 BC may sound impressive but actually the figure showing the obscuration is somewhat misleading - during an eclipse the sky will only get visibly darker if the magnitude is significantly higher than 0.9, otherwise the remaining sunlight will outshine the moon to such an extend that the eclipse will hardly get noticed at all. The annular eclipse of 3 October 2005 for example had a magnitude of 0.7 - 0.8 in Southern England. If you are not a professional astronomer, you may probably have missed it. And in ancient times the Assyrians who most probably were not able to predict the eclipse of 791 BC may have missed it, too. By the way, it is not quite clear whether that eclipse was visible in Assyria at all. That would depend on the value of delta t which cannot be determined with absolute certainty. The eclipse occurred very close to sunset, the diagram gives an altitude of the sun of 0° 24' which would require an even horizon otherwise the sun would already vanish behind a mountain or a hill, but the sun's altitude might just as well have been so low that it would have been below horizon in Assur anyway (if I look at Espenak's maps: http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/SEatlas/SEatlas-1/SEatlas-0799.GIF and http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/5MCSEmap/-0799--0700/-790-06-24.gif then I am really in doubt of whether the sun had not already set in Assur at the time of the eclipse). So the assumption that the eclipse of 791 BC was the famous Assyrian eclipse is really subject to serious doubt and maybe we should better leave that section out as it clearly is not a mainstream scientific theory. --Proofreader (talk) 17:07, 28 February 2008 (UTC)


 * There are claims that the date June 15, 763 BC is inconsistent with the Babylonian calendar, arguing that the Babylonians never started their new year before the vernal equinox.

For the non-expert on Assyrian and Babylonian calendars, would someone explain the unwritten connection between the Vernal Equinox (about March 22 in today's calendar) and the eclipse date in June? The variation of plus or minus two weeks in the start of the ancient calendar is far too small to affect the three-month difference between the Equinox and the eclipse -- the eclipse is clearly long after the Equinox regardless of the various two-week shifts which were introduced during the eighth, seventh, and sixth centuries. 76.100.17.21 (talk) 16:54, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Assyrian eclipse
The eclipse was visible at Assur; this can be taken for granted because this city was the origin and the center (at least the religious center) of the Assyrian empire. While solar eclipses are rare at a given location, the description in the eponym list is rather vague. In order to use the eclipse for chronology, one has to make additional assumptions about the possible date of the list or any item mentioned in it. One needs the number of years between a secure date and some event in the eponym list.

A tablet collecting lunar eclipses (H. Hunger, Astronomical Diaries and Related Texts from Babylonia (Vienna 2001), vol. V No. 2) mentions an eclipse in year 1 of Mukin-zeri, a Babylonian king who fought against Tiglat-pilesar III. Since it is known from the so-called Babylonian Chronicle that this year corresponded to Tiglat-pilesar's 15th, his reign is thereby astronomically dated. A similar eclipse in the same month would at best occur 18 years earlier or later. Another astronomical text (same book, No. 52) reports observations of Mars and Mercury, from the reigns of Esarhaddon (year 2) and Šamaš-šum-ukin (year 14, 17, and 19). Their reigns are thus securely dated. The same positions of both the planets would not occur again for hundreds of years.

These documents allow to check whether a solar eclipse did in fact occur in the year for which it is mentioned in the Eponym chronicle. We know from the astronomical texts mentioned above that Esarhaddon’s year 2 corresponds to 679/8 BC in the Julian calendar, and we go back so many years of the eponym list as to reach the year where the solar eclipse is mentioned. If we then go back the same number of years in the Julian calendar, we find by computation that a solar eclipse took place in that year and month in Assur. We are therefore entitled to trust the eponym list, and the modern identification of the eclipse reported in it, i.e. to 763 BC.

The supposed incompatibilities with the Babylonian calendar have been dealt with in a previous discussion contribution, to which I completely agree. --Hermann Hunger 11:13, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

What is this article about?
Is this article about the 763 BCE eclipse or is it about Assyrian eclipses in general? If it's about the 763 eclipse then the image of a simulation of the 791 BCE eclipse is irrelevant. If it's about Assyrian eclipses in general then the section on the Assyrian calendar is irrelevant since it has nothing to do with the eclipses. Who cares what the date was in the Babylonian calendar we're talking about the Gregorian calendar. Dr. Morbius (talk) 21:30, 15 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I see what the problem is. The section on the Babylonian calendar is there to support the claim that the 791 BCE eclipse is a better match to the Babylonian calendar than the 763 eclipse. Unfortunately, it appears that during some controversy over the contents of the article, the section making that claim was removed. Because of that the entire section on the Babylonian calendar and the image of the 791 eclipse are irrelevant unless the section making that claim is restored. Dr. Morbius (talk) 22:00, 15 June 2011 (UTC)