Clay tablet (list with astronomical omina)

This fragment of an almost square clay tablet comes from the library of King Assurbanipal in Nineveh. He reigned in the 7th century BC and was proud of his ability to read and write. Partly for this reason, he collected texts about a wide range of subjects. Between 1845 and 1851, the British archaeologist Austin Henry Layard discovered over 20,000 clay tablets in his library. The astronomical text displayed here deals with the manifestations of celestial bodies such as the moon, and the predictions to be inferred from them. The astronomers in Mesopotamia hoped to be able to read the fate of the human beings on earth from the movements and positions of celestial bodies. After all, it was the gods who had ascended to the heavens who determined what happened on earth. By studying the sky, astronomers also discovered certain cosmic regularities, on the basis of which they eventually produced a 12-month calendar.