Bronze Age solar eclipse in Assyria. The determination of other solar eclipses is not as clear as the previous one that occurred during the Neo-Assyrian period.
However, there are some clues available.
The solar eclipse occurred a year after the birth of Shamsi-Adad I. It probably happened 50 years before Hammurab became king of Babylonia. The Assyrian limmu list* from that time helps to clarify this and the fact that after Shamsi-Adad I, Zimri-Lim was estimated to be the king of Mari for 15 years before Hammurabi conquered Mari.** Again, this happened 12 years before the end of Hammurabi's reign.***
Here, three options come into consideration: According to the medium chronology, the year 1842 BCE., according to the short chronology, the year 1778 BCE. and according to ultra low chronology the year 1746 BCE. Here, however, we run into a very special problem: When using NASA's calculator, no suitable solar eclipse can be found for those years.
Scholars have applied the year 1838 BCE to this. That would cause another problem: Shamsi-Adad I or Zimri-Lim would have ruled four years less than what can be concluded from the archaeological data. Secondly, it is difficult to prove where there could be four lines too many in the Assyrian limmu or eponym list.
In 1746 BCE. an annular solar eclipse occurred.**** It would have been visible in Assyria if the Earth's position had changed a little more than 9 hours sometime after that. This is one of the reasons why the book and this blog have the word "Mystery" in their name.Another feature is the solar eclipse that occurred in the 10th year of the Hittite king Mursili II's reign. Comparing it with the solar eclipse of Shimbar-Shipak's 7th regnal year, the difference is 295 years according to the old chronology. In this treatise, the difference is 297 years. Indeed, the biggest difference in this new chronology seems to be the way in which Egyptian chronology is placed around it.
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