Eclipses of Esarhaddon

 Initially, in 2017, in a NCUSES, the reign of Esarhaddon dates back to 705-693 BCE.

In 1924, Professor Sidney Smith made a translation of the Esarhaddon Chronicle, and from this it could be inferred that there had been an solar eclipse during the month of Tishritu, the first year of Esarhaddon's reign.10-1

This was applied on October 19th, 704 BCE. solar eclipse.

The second edition of the NCUSES saw the need to move the chronology back one more year at this point.

The eclipse during campaign against Egypt

Let’s take a closer look at the related Assyrian cuneiform text. Professor Leroy Waterman wrote about it in his Royal Correspondence of the Assyrian Empire as early as the 1930s:

‘After the king, my lord, went into the land of Egypt, there was an eclipse in the month of Tammuz’10-2

However, this record by an ancient Assyrian official would clearly seem to also indicate that the eclipse occurred during that month of Tammuz. In the old days, text was written without punctuation. Here, as often elsewhere, the meaning of the text is determined by where the comma is in the sentence. It is therefore possible to judge which thing about the author of the text was worth mentioning: the month in which the eclipse occurred or the month in which the king went on a campaign. Historians took care of recording the king's military expeditions, a task apparently performed by priests in the past.

On July 12th, 699 BCE. there was a lunar eclipse.

A NCUSES examined whether this lunar eclipse could be applied to the 10th year of Esarhaddon’s reign. (Now Stellarium can be used to specify that it did not seen in Niniveh.)

The eclipse of Esarhaddon’s 10th year of rule

Previously, the 1st edition of this book applied August 6th, 700 BCE. event from the solar eclipse to the 6th year of Esarhaddon's reign. The time in question corresponded to the end of the Babylonian month of Tammuz. This is the same month that the servant of Esarhaddon mentioned in connection with the eclipse. A very significant change was revealed in the previous chapter. The period of Sennacherib's reign was in the years 734-710 BCE. What effect does it have on Esarhaddon's reign?

It can be noted that Esarhaddon ruled from 710 to 698 BCE. This means that the previously applied summer 700 BCE. a solar eclipse occurred in the 10th year of Esarhaddon's reign. That observation further confirms the dates of the reigns of Sargon II and Sennacherib, which were brought up in the previous chapter.

Let's take a closer look at the time of the solar eclipse mentioned here. It can also be noted that planets such as Jupiter, Saturn and Venus were quite close to the Sun at the time of the eclipse. The eclipse was at its maximum near sunset at approximately 19:00 local time.

Some might think negatively about the possibility apply this eclipse of the sun because it was not total visible in Assyria. A related map could too causes negative reactions.10-3 However, it is good to note some positive features: First, this happened in the evening shortly before sunset. Second, that happened in the summer when the sun set later than normal. At that time, the sun was approximately midway of the west and northwest. The moon's shadow passed over southern Scandinavia.

Again, this was approximately in the northwest as seen from Assyria. Thus, it can be observed when using the Stellarium program, that this eclipse was visible in Assyria approx with the brightness of an annular solar eclipse.

Esarhaddon's first attack on Egypt

And is there any archaeological evidence that Esarhaddon invaded Egypt before the 10th year of his reign, mentioned in the Esarhaddon Chronicles? Such evidence seems rather limited. One of these attacks is recorded at the end of Esarhaddon’s 7th year of rule. According to investigators, this was one of the worst losses for the Assyrians,10-4 so it is understandable that there is very llittle information about it in the Assyrian records. According to Babylonian records, King Taharqa of Egypt and his army had defeated the Assyrians directly a year earlier. This was apparently the 7th year of Esarhaddon's reign.

Due to the losses of the Assyrians, it may not be known about all their wars against Egypt. The first such war, which lasted at least until the creek of Egypt, took place as early as the 4th year of Esarhaddon’s reign as he fought against the Arab tribes.

The article Esarhaddon, Egypt, and Shubria: Politics and Propaganda written by Israel Ephʿal referred to earlier also mentions the lunar eclipse mentioned by Mugallu, which took place in the month of Tebet and which had frightened a certain king.10-5 A little later on this. Of Esar-Haddon's other campaigns into Egypt, no information. In the fifth year of his reign, Esar-Haddon made a fierce campaign against Sidon in the early days of the month of Tishria gainst,10-6 which is close to the route to Egypt.

Lunar eclipses on 682 BCE., 681 BCE. and 680 BCE.

Given the example above of Esarhaddon campaigning against Egypt even in his 7th year of rule, some might point out that the eclipse in question did not necessarily occur in the years mentioned in Esarhaddon's Chronicle.

Let us therefore take a few alternatives for consideration here to see if such a possibility exists.

Consideration of this option may be important for those who find the idea of having to extend the chronology by a very large amount very alien. It is therefore useful to provide further arguments in this respect.

Taking into account only the previously discussed extension of the chronology based on Babylonian business records in this example, the beginning of Esarhaddon's reign would be moved back 7 years to 688 BCE.

It may be noted that in three consecutive years there was a lunar eclipse during the month of Tammuz, on August 3rd 682 BCE., July 22nd 681 BCE. and July 11th 680 BCE.

If the year 682 BCE. is applied, it would be the 6th year of Esarhaddon's reign in this experiment. However, there is a slight uncertainty as to how accurately the Babylonians timed the calendar in that year, as the month of Addaru II would have started about two days before the vernal equinox according to the Gregorian calendar. If the month of Addaru II was not added, this beginning of August was already the month of Ab.

The Ashurbanipal lunar eclipse could be found in June 660 BCE. and November 660 BCE.

However, there are a number of other findings related to the appropriateness of the right option, which are discussed below.

Lunar eclipse of Mugallu

In the three previous examples, the search for suitable lunar eclipses was based on the assumption that Esarhaddon's reign would have started in 688 BCE. This theory is complicated by the much earlier lunar eclipse, about which a letter was sent by Mugallu, also known as the neo-Hittite king.
This lunar eclipse occurred during the month of Tebetu, which corresponds to the Christmas-January month. Mugallu probably sent this letter after Esarhaddon had fought against Mugallu in the 6th year of his reign. (That confrontation may have ended with Mugallu concluding some kind of peace treaty with Esarhaddon.)

In this new edition, where Esarhaddon's reign began as early as 710 BCE., lunar eclipses from a slightly earlier period can be examined. However, no such eclipses are found. But perhaps the best option is found on January 27th 700 BCE. at about 01.30 local time. This was at the end of the 9th year of Esarhaddon's reign, with 90% coverage. Although this may seem late, this probably corresponded to the month of Tebetu. There were probably 13 months in the previous calendar year and the month of Nisannu did not start until around April 23th.

The second option was previously applied on January 6th 698 BCE., although it had less than 29% coverage. The lunar eclipse could have occurred in the morning, as it is predicted to cause difficulties for the "Westland". This lunar eclipse of 698 BCE. would fit that assumption. This lunar eclipse occurred during the 11th year of Esarhaddon's reign.

A weakness of this lunar eclipse is that one could assume that only the initial phase of the eclipse was very faint when the moon set (at 05:13 UTC time). However, this is assuming that the ground is completely flat and the horizon is interpreted accordingly. However, the shape of the earth's surface has a great influence, especially given that in ancient times there were apparently some kind of structures for astrological observations. Moreover, the Neo-Hittite area from which Mugallu was observing was apparently some distance west of Nineveh.

If one were to use the estimate that Esarhaddon's reign had begun in 688 BCE., then the Mughal lunar eclipse would be found on January 28th 681 BCE., it was around 00:30 local time and when it occurred the moon was almost directly south. This may be so late that it could be assumed to be the next month, Sabatu. This may be something of a shortcoming, judging by the significance of the archaeological finds brought to light earlier, in which the Babylonians recorded the Assyrian Sin-shar-ishkun as their king. This finding would seem to undermine the theory that it was only necessary to extend the chronology as far as the archaeological evidence would suggest.

In the current old chronology, it would be a lunar eclipse on December 28th 671 BCE. However, this would appear to be yet the month of Kislimu.

The company applied the 680- century BCE. The beginning of Esarhaddon's reign is accompanied by another major omission, the lunar eclipse of Bel-Shuma-Ishkun, about which more later.

Lunar eclipse of Assurbanipal

In the past, significant changes to the chronology have emerged, pushing the reign of Esarhaddon back to 710-698 BCE. The NCUSES and the 1st edition of this book applied to this Ashurbanipal observation10-8 the lunar eclipse of May 678 BCE. It may be noted that a matching lunar eclipse is also found four years earlier, on August 3rd 682 BCE.

Lunar eclipse of Bel-shuma-ishkun

This major change in the timing of Esarhaddon's reign is also supported by the writing of a priest who served him, Bel-shuma-ishkun.10-7 In the clay tablet RMA 235A he writes on line r6:

‘The lunar eclipse in Marchesvan (VIII) began . .’10-8

This was the Babylonian month of Artahsamma, which corresponded to October-November. Given the years of Esarhaddon's reign in the NCUSES and the old chronology from 710-669 BCE., there is only one lunar eclipse that corresponds well to this.

It is a total lunar eclipse at dawn on November 4th 696 BCE. It is accompanied by a partial (51%) lunar eclipse on November 3rd 677 BCE. The moon began to eclipse as soon as it rose over the horizon, and the eclipse was at its peak about an hour after the moon rose. It should also be noted that this line continues:

‘[After that] Jupiter came to the moon three times.’

This meaning of the sentence may be somewhat interpretive. This at least shows that the planet Jupiter was not very far from the moon. However, after that eclipse, the moon passed Jupiter three times quite close: November 23rd, in 696 BCE., December 21st, 696 BCE. and January 18th, 695 BCE. When the time of the fourth pass came on February 15th, it was New Moon and Jupiter was very close to the sun. Looking back at November in 677 BCE., Jupiter and the sun were then far apart and the moon could pass Jupiter several times prominently.

Let's make an additional note here. Archaeological records tell us that in the first half of Nebuchadnezzar II's reign, Babylon had a temple scribe named Bel-shuma-ishkun (Ronald H. Sack: Chaldean and Persian Periods, pp. 91, 92) On November 5th, 612 BCE., there was a lunar eclipse. After this, the moon passed Jupiter three times. Although the fourth pass occurred about two days after the new moon, it could still be quite faintly visible in February 611 BCE. If this were applied to the above observation, it would help to support the idea that Nebuchadnezzar II reigned several years earlier than has been estimated. On the other hand, it could leave room for the theory that Bel-shuma-ishkun was already in office during the reign of Nabopolassar, applying the timing of the old chronology.

However, this latter option is pure fiction, for which there is no archaeological confirmation. Nor is it known that this contemporary of Nebuchadnezzar II served as royal astrologer.

References

10-1 Babylonian Historical Texts (London 1924) p. 14
10-2 Leroy Waterman: Royal Correspondence of the Assyrian Empire, vol. I (1930-1936), s. 187 
10-3 moonblink.info/Eclipse/eclipse/-0699_08_06
10-4 journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/JCS40025994? journalCode=jcs
105 SAAO, SAA 10/Ch. 19, 351
10-6 livius.org/sources/content/mesopotamian-chronicles-content/abc-14-esarhaddon-chronicle/
10-7 John Malcolm Russell: The Writing on the Wall: Studies in the Architectural Context of Late Assyrian Palace  Inscriptions, Eisenbrauns. s. 164 , (1999)
10-8 webspace.science.uu.nl/~gent0113/babylon/babybibl_tupsaru.htm
10-10 SAAO, SAA 08/Ch. 21, 469

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Shalmaneser V                  750-742 BCE.

Sargon II                            745-729 BCE.

Sennacherib                      734-710 BCE.

Esarhaddon                       710-698 BCE.

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