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Literary and astronomical evidence for a total eclipse of the sun observed in ancient Ugarit on 3 May 1375 b.c.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

J. F. A. Sawyer  and
F. R. Stephenson
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Extract

A total eclipse of the sun is rare enough in any one place and spectacular enough to leave a profound impression on those who observe it. From very early times it was regarded as a portent of disaster and carefully recorded. Advances in the field of geophysics, together with the advent of the high-speed computer, have made it possible to compute early solar eclipses with a new degree of precision, and we may now expect to find a significant correlation between literary and astronomical evidence for solar eclipses in areas where a sufficiently representative bloc of literature has survived. The region around Has Shamra (ancient Ugarit) is one such area, and it was decided to compute the principal solar eclipses visible there during the period covered by the Ugaritic texts (c. 1450–1200 b.c.), and scan the texts for possible references.

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Articles
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Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 33 , Issue 3 , October 1970 , pp. 467 - 489
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1970

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References

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