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  "PageContent": "The awe of celestial phenomena—the transformative power of an eclipse hijacking the sky—has presaged events of great significance for humans since the beginning of human life. Solar eclipses result from the Moon on its rotating axis intersecting between the Earth and the Sun and blocking, either totally (umbra) or partially (penumbra), the Earth’s view of the Sun. Lunar eclipses occur during full moon when the Earth intersects the Sun and the Moon, casting a shadow on the Moon. A total solar eclipse occurs somewhere on the planet every one-and-a-half years, though the duration of the darkness is generally between two to four minutes [‘Eclipses’, In Our Time, BBC, broadcast 31 December 2020]. The 2017 solar eclipse with “diamond ring” effect, from Madras, Oregon (image: Cameron DaSilva/ABC News). Despite the wealth of scientific knowledge on modern eclipses, some sectors of society like evangelist groups still view the phenomena as a sign of the imminent apocalypse In the ancient world, the passage of an eclipse, of both the solar and the lunar kind, “were phenomena of fear and wonder” for people [GLOVER, ERIC. “THE ECLIPSE OF XERXES IN HERODOTUS 7.37: LUX A NON OBSCURANDO.” The Classical Quarterly, vol. 64, no. 2, 2014, pp. 471–92. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43905590. Accessed 20 Jan. 2026]. After a solar eclipse descended on the Greek island of Paros during the 7th-century BC, the poet Archilochus articulated it’s enormous and indelible psychological impact on mortals in the ancient world: “Zeus, the father of the Olympian, has turned mid-day into black night by shielding light from the blossoming sun, and now dark terror hangs over mankind. Anything may happen”. Celestial mayhem, chaos, upending of the natural order (image: PRINT COLLECTOR/GETTY IMAGES) “In antiquity, people regularised their lives by the order of the world around them, half of which was the sky. And events like an eclipse were an intrusion of chaos into that order” – Dr Edwin Krupp (archaeoastronomer and director of the Griffith Observatory)🌒 🌒 🌒 Chinese sky watchers: The occurrence of an eclipse was first recorded in ancient China over four thousand years ago. These events were interpreted as a message from the gods, typically a sign of divine dissatisfaction with the emperor. Chinese mythology in archaic times had a metaphor to describe it, they saw it as a celestial dragon (sometimes a dog), eating the Sun which required them to start banging pots and pans to scare it away, only then would the Sun return (an early Chinese word for an eclipse was shih, “to eat”). A Chinese legend talks of two imperial astronomers, Hsi and Ho, who failed to predict the eclipse of 2137 BC and were as punished with execution. Babylonian astronomy: divination and agriculture (source: mikroman6/Moment via Getty Images) Babylonian astronomers’ celestial data: By the 1st millennium BC astronomy in Mesopotamia was well-established. Babylonian astronomer-priests were astute observers of eclipses and were knowledgeable about the repetitive nature and regularity of eclipses. For around 600 years from circa 652 BC on, astronomical diaries were maintained by the Babylonians. These comprised cuneiform texts systematically recording astronomical observations and political events, and based on these, making predictions, including weather reports and commodity price fluctuations. Babylonian priest-scribes such as Naburianus and Cidenas were able to predict eclipses with a fair degree of accuracy, this was viewed as vitally important to the Assyrians and Babylonians who saw lunar eclipses as evil omens aimed at the rulers. The predictability element allowed kings to appoint substitute ruler as “fall guys” who would bear the brunt of divine wrath, leaving the real kings unscathed and able to continue their rule [‘Kidinnu, the Chaldeans, and Babylonian Astronomy’, Livius.org, upd 02-Oct-2020, www.livius.org]. Although the Babylonians advanced the very rudimentary understanding of astronomy, their purpose “was not to predict celestial events in pursuit of objective science but to extract ominous meaning and not be caught unawares by those events which did occur” (Glover). Anaxagoras Ancient Greek astronomy: The Greek scholars were beneficiaries of the Babylonians’ meticulously-compiled heavenly observations—known as the Chaldean tradition of astronomy—providing the spadework which enabled astronomy and astrology to spread across the Graeco-Roman world. Anaxagoras, a 5th century BC philosopher, pointed the direction away from the explanation of celestial events as the will or whim of the gods, towards a cosmological explanation: Anaxagoras seems to have comprehended that both solar and lunar eclipses involve shadows [‘How Ancient Civilizations Reacted to Eclipses’, Dan Falk, Smithsonian Magazine, 13-Mar-2024, www.smithsonianmag.com][Ⴆ]. Ancient Greek astronomy culminates with Ptolemy’s Almagest which established an earth-centred model of the universe and provided the mathematical tools to predict planetary motion, becoming the standard text for both European and Islamic astronomers through to the 17th century. The “Battle of the Eclipse”: Herodotus in his Histories gives an account of a celestial intervention which directly influenced the course of human affairs in antiquity. A solar eclipse interrupted a battle between the Lydians and the Medes in Asia Minor on May 28, 585 BC (this date is the most favoured but some theories put the historical event as taking place as early as 626 BC). The sudden, unexpected pitch darkness halted the fighting immediately and the terrified combatants proceeded to negotiate a peace agreement. According to the author of Histories the eclipse had been predicted by the philosopher Thales of Miletus but Herodotus doesn’t specify any details and the claim on behalf of Thales is questionable. Halley’s eclipse prediction map Halley’s Eclipse, 1715: Moving on to instances of more recent celestial phenomena, the total solar eclipse that passed over a broad band of England and Wales on 3rd May 1715, proved an astronomical ground-breaker. Astronomer and mathematician Edmond Halley, employing the Newtonian theory of universal gravitation, predicted the eclipse to within four minutes accuracy and calculated it’s path of totality across the country, even producing an easily-read predictive map for people to follow [Halley’s Eclipse: a coup for Newtonian prediction and the selling of science’, Rebekah Higgitt, The Guardian, 03-May-2015, www.theguardian.com]. Eclipses and the American Revolution (artist: H CharlesMc Barron Jr) Revolutionary eclipse: Twice during the American Revolutionary War the American Continental Army benefitted from information of an impending eclipse. Predictions made by the Astrological Almanack of eclipses gave General George Washington time to forewarn his troops to allay any “superstitious fears” that may “affect the minds of the Soldiery” and “attend with bad consequences” [‘George Washington’s Eclipse’, George Washington’s Mount Vernon, www.mountvernon.org]. This was important to the rebel soldiers’ morale because the two eclipses happened at critical moments in the war, on 9th January 1777 when the army was exhausted from intense campaigning and struggling for provisions, and on 24th June 1778 when it had just emerged from winter encampment at Valley Forge, a desperate existential struggle for it’s very survival, and was trying to prepare for a key battle at Monmouth which took place a few days later. 🌠 𓀫𓀪𓀫🌠 𓀪𓀫𓀫🌠 Footnote: The convergence of eclipses in fiction and life In Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889), the time-travelling protagonist is transported back to 6th-century England and finds himself sentenced to death, but remembers that an eclipse is predicted to occur on the day of the execution. So, armed with this knowledge he cons King Arthur into thinking that he can control the Sun and the Moon, thus avoiding his intended, dire fate. This fictional account has parallels in history…in 1504 Christopher Columbus was shipwrecked off the island of Jamaica with his crew starving and mutinous, like Twain’s fictional hero[ƈ] Columbus opportunistically manipulates the occurrence of a lunar eclipse to convince the local Arawak natives he is master of the sky. The Arawaks are bluffed into providing food for the sailors, allowing Columbus to restore order and control of the voyage. Viewing a partial eclipse through photographic negatives: Paris, 1959 (photo: AFP via Getty Images) [α] the longest time for a solar eclipse is 7.5 minutes, the shortest-ever recorded (on 3rd February AD 919) lasted just nine seconds (http://science.nasa.gov) [Ⴆ] from the 8th-century BC onwards only a handful of astronomical scholars had an understanding of the celestial mechanics that produced eclipses and shooting stars [‘If you think an eclipse means doomsday, you’re not the first’, David Cox, BBC, 14-Aug-2017, www.bbc.com] [ƈ] it’s likely that Twain found inspiration for “Connecticut Yankee” in this historical incident",
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