aa r X i v : . [ phy s i c s . h i s t - ph ] A ug I N ORIGINAL FORM PUBLISHED IN :Habilitation at the University of Heidelberg arXiv: 0000.00000 [physics.hist-ph]
Date: 20th August 2020
Eclipses in the Aztec Codices
Emil Khalisi
D–69126 Heidelberg, Germanye-mail: ekhalisi[at]khalisi[dot]com
Abstract.
This paper centers on the collection of accounts on solar eclipses from the era of the Aztecs inMesoamerica, about 1300 to 1550 AD. We present a list of all eclipse events complying with the topologicalvisibility from the capital Tenochtitlan. Forty records of 23 eclipses entered the various Aztec manuscripts(codices), usually those of large magnitude. Each event is discussed with regard to its historical context, aswe try to comprehend the importance the Aztecs gave to the phenomenon. It seems that this culture paidnoticeably less attention to eclipses than the civilisations in the “Old World”. People did not understand thecause of it and did not care as much about astronomy as in Babylonia and ancient China. Furthermore, wediscuss the legend on the comet of Moctezuma II. It turns out that the post-conquest writers misconceivedwhat the sighting was meant to be.
Keywords:
Solar eclipse, Aztec, Mesoamerica, Astronomical dating, Moctezuma’s Comet.
The Mesoamerican peoples developed their culture inde-pendent from the civilisations in the Euro-Asian domain.Among the tribes on both American continents only theMaya achieved an advanced level of worldwide recognition.Of course, each culture bases its merits on forerunners, andso did the Maya, but they went further than any of the prede-cessors and contemporaries. The period of their flourishingspans from 250 to 900 AD. Thereafter other peoples soared:Toltec, Mixtec, Zapotec, Chichimeca, etc. The last empirebefore the arrival of the Europeans in 1519 was establishedby the Aztecs. They can be considered as the principal heirsof the Maya, though their legacy manifests itself signific-antly less developed. The destruction of the Aztec kingdomfollowed in August 1521.When getting involved into the scientific achievementsof the Aztecs, it comes to light that the knowledge aboutcelestial happenings remained on a rather low level. Wefind no systematic observations on the course of planets,no star maps, no profound models about the cosmic struc-ture, no attempts of computing a cycle. Mathematics didnot go beyond a rudimentary stage, and basic periods werehardly trailed. The only cycle they cared for was the cal-endar. Even this one was not their own invention, but com-monly used by other peoples in Mesoamerica. It is a matterof viewpoint whether this deficiency of technological pro-gress is owed to a lack of curiosity or inability. A nationnot producing mathematicians and scientists falls behindquickly. The Aztec culture exhibits some parallels to theRomans in the Mediterranean: both peoples were very su-perstitious, but their main concern was warfare and militarypower rather than the exploration of the world they livedin. Nonetheless, astronomical observations were a constant necessity, because the belief was interlocked with some re-peating phenomena, for instance, the end of the calendricalcycle, rebirth of the sun, or re-appearances of the planetVenus.Most reliable information about natural phenomenadates back to the last 50 years before the conquest. Olderinformation is enshrouded in a legendary style, and thereis suspicion that parts of the history were distorted andre-adjusted over time. This conjecture is based on the lackof accounts on striking astronomical phenomena. Neverthe-less, there are also indications that the cultural heritage washanded down surprisingly correct.In this paper we deal with astronomy during the Aztecperiod. After reviewing some few historical basics, we willfocus on solar eclipses in the manuscripts available. Wepresent a full list of any event that could have principallybeen registered from central Mexico. Many eclipses turnout mismatched, while others of large magnitude are absent.The magnitude (mag) of a solar eclipse is defined as the ra-tio of the apparent angular diameter of the obscuring moon, θ M , to the diameter of the sun, θ ⊙ , both of which are ap-proximately 0.5 ◦ depending on their exact distance from theobserver: mag = ( θ ⊙ + θ M − ∆ ) / θ ⊙ , (1)with ∆ the distance of the centers of the two disks during theongoing eclipse. Totality is achieved for mag >
1. The mag-nitude is not to be confused with “obscurity” which is thefraction of the overlapped area of the two disks [10]. Aneclipse is not necessarily observed, for the lighting condi-tions will start changing, if the magnitude exceeds a valueof ≈ . Khalisi (2020): Eclipses in the Aztec Codices event was actually perceived.The tracks of historical eclipses are shifted in longitudeagainst a constant rotation of the earth due to its long-termdeceleration. This displacement is characterised by ∆ T , thedifference between a perfectly uniform time and the civiltime. For the era of the Aztecs, ∆ T is well-known fromvarious astronomical measurements from medieval Europe,Arabia, and China. Hence, we are on safe ground whenpresenting eclipse data. We base our investigation on the Five Millennium Canon of Eclipses by Fred Espenak [7].
Our knowledge about the Mesoamerican peoples is gener-ally poor. On one hand, plenty of precious documents weredestroyed by European conquerers, on the other hand thenatives developed a different way of communication. TheAztecs used to sketch a message in the shape of a pictograph.This way of “writing” did not arrive at an abstract usageof characters or syllables, as the stylised figures were notmeant to reflect the spoken language. In our time, an issuehas to be guessed by discerning fine details in the glyphs.This is an important point and should be kept in mind, asthe entire method would be prone to misinterpretation andconfusion. On the whole, we know about the indigenouspeoples of pre-columbian Mexico very much less, thoughtemporally closer, than we do about the more ancient civil-isations of Mesopotamia or Asia.From the pre-hispanic time only very few manuscriptssurvived — less than two dozens, and they also disappearedover time. During the first decades following conquestin 1521 historical annals were recreated by missionaries.These books are called “Aztec Codices”. Table 1 specifiesthose codices we trawled through in search for eclipses.Some Spanish writers made an attempt to portray the formernative culture as both pictorial copy of the originals andwritten descriptions of what the painted images were meantto be. Thus, almost all preserved manuscripts are post-conquest works. In some few cases the writers were nativesgrown up and educated bi-lingually after the destructionof the Aztec Empire. None of the documents covers theAztec history in full, but they rather focus on events thataffected a particular city. Major episodes such as a droughtcan be usually found in multiple sources permitting a roughreconstruction of the political interconnections.The
Codex Borgia is believed to be one of very few sur-viving documents from before the Spanish conquest, but itmay also be a younger copy of a pre-columbian document.The
Codex Telleriano-Remensis could be another examplefor a copy of an Aztec original. The name comes from thelater owner, the archbishop Le Tellier of Reims in France,who possessed it in the late 17th century. We will abbreviateit to “Telleriano” henceforth. The author of this manuscriptis unknown, but it was produced on European paper in the16th century. The publisher of the recent facsimile, EloiseQuiñones Keber, has identified at least two different artistsand six different annotators as having worked on it [17].
Table 1: Aztec codices deployed in this paper.
Codex Year AuthorAubin 1576–1608 (from Tenochtitlan)Azcatitlan ca. 1530? indigenous?Borgia pre-conquest Mexican nativeChimalpahin 1600. . . 1620? Mexican nativeChimalpopoca post-conquest unknownDuran ca. 1580 Diego DuranFlorentine 1545–1590 B. de SahagunHuichapan ca. 1632 J. de San FranciscoMendoza ca. 1541 variousMexicanus ca. 1590 Mexican native?Rios/Vaticanus A 1546–1560? Pedro de los RiosTelleriano-R. post-conquest variousTlaxcala 1581–1584 Diego M. CamargoTorquemada ca. 1615 J. de TorquemadaTovar/Ramirez 1579? Juan de TovarIt harbours natural phenomena like earthquakes, droughts,storms, and eclipses.The
Codex Mexicanus describes, among other codices,the history beginning with the migration from Aztlan, theancestral home of the Aztecs [5]. Much has been specu-lated about the possible location of Aztlan. Historians tendto place it either to northwestern Mexico near the Gulf ofCalifornia or to the southwest US. We know that once a ma-jor society, called Hokoham, existed in the area of Phoenixin Arizona/USA between 300 and 1500 AD. That place atGila River was proposed by the Mexican writer FranciscoClavijero (1731–1787), then challenged by others [8]. Wedo not intend to draw a link to the migrants who wouldbecome the Aztecs later, because we do not know better.The name “Azteca” is the native word for “people fromAztlan” used by several nomadic groups inhabiting the Val-ley of Mexico prior to the arrival of the foreigners. Thosenomads called themselves “Mecitis” or “Mexica” [2]. The
Codex Mexicanus contains calendrical and astrological in-formation, some of which is related to the practice of medi-cine.A very important work is the
Florentine Codex by theSpanish friar Bernardino de Sahagún (1499?–1590) [12].He journeyed to Mexico in 1529 and spent about 50 yearsstudying the indigenous culture. He worked on his booksuntil his death and produced 2,400 pages facilitating deeperinsight to the society before the invasion. Organised intotwelve books, the codex tells about religion, mythology, andtraditional life of the Aztecs.Today, some manuscripts are scanned and viewable onthe web page of the Foundation for the Advancement ofMesoamerican Studies, , or in the WorldDigital Library, . We base the lion’s shareof our analysis on these codices, and complement it withother documents wherever necessary. Unfortunately, Span-ish publications are not accessible to the author, and a lot ofvaluable information may not be included here. . Khalisi (2020): Eclipses in the Aztec Codices The original Aztec chronicles were constructed such thatthey featured one or two events as being significant for onespecial year. This way of recording someone’s own historyresembles the Indian tribes of North America who admin-istered their past in so-called “wintercounts”: a spiral oficons was penned on buffalo leather to memorise the incid-ent. A person in charge learnt the icons by heart and wasable to recount a story to any image, e.g. battles, floods,death of rulers, etc.The history of the Aztec people follows a timeline sub-divided into cycles of 52 years. Each year within the cycle isbuilt from names and numericals in a double arrangement,e.g. “8 Reed”. It originates from a day-number combina-tion of two calender types, a 260-day- and 365-day-calendar.The name of the solar year is identical with the last “regular”day at the end of that particular year (360th day excludingthe five extra days to complete it). For the basics of the cal-endar we refer to the elementary textbooks, e.g. [9]. Thefull round of 52 years is what the Aztecs called a “century”.Every century was marked by the “New Fire Cere-mony”, a religious festival to ensure the movement of thecosmos and the rebirth of the sun. The ceremony was notheld immediately at the beginning of the 52 years but atthe end of its first year, i.e. between the year designations“1 Rabbit” and “2 Reed”. The delay may be the resultof a calendar reform in 1506, because in earlier times thefirst year, 1 Rabbit, was marked by droughts and famine.This view about the 1-Rabbit-years was disseminated bySahagun telling that the Mexicas feared them of bad for-tune. The ancestors from time immemorial would havedeclared such years dangerous because of floods, eclipses,and earthquakes. The global destruction would come upas an option at the completion of each century. Thus, theAztecs performed great sacrifices to their gods, and, whenthe precise day arrived, did penance and abstained frommisbehaviour. Then they extinguished all lights and firesuntil the day ended and lit new fires [2]. A night vigil waskept watching the stars to pass certain marks. If they did,a new “contract” with the gods was signed; if not, the skywould stop turning around and the sun would not re-appear.People got prepared for the end of the world each timewhen the century ceased.The festivals are most likely a matter of fact, however,the Mexica’s fear from the so-called “1-Rabbit”-years is notasserted by all Spanish writers. During the early years ofcontact there was a lot of misunderstanding and probablydeliberate transformation of the native practices into a de-sired world view of the occupants. It is the typical courseof history that all representatives of any religion aimed atabolishing of “pagan” rites in the conquered land to be re-placed by their belief. Therefore, various old customs weredeliberately cast into a questionable light by later writers.Many important events in the history of the Aztecs aregeared to the year 1 Flint (others call this sign “Knife”). Itmarks the middle of the 52-year cycle. The name consti-tutes a historical peg to emphasise the “cosmic validity” of relevant political stages. In accord to the style of cyclichistory, time itself is said to have started in a year bearingthat name. The migration from Aztlan began in 1168 (oth-ers propose 1197 [15]); it ended after exactly 3 calendriccycles in 1324; the enthronement of the first king took placein 1376; independence was gained in 1428; and so on. Allthese years correspond to 1 Flint (except 1197). As in anyother culture, there is a sense of sacred balance to the story,so, not every date will be conform to reality.Legend has it that the capital Tenochtitlan was foundedin 1325 after more than 150 years of wandering around (seeparagraph on page 7). A chief called Tenoch (1299–1375)is said to have been elected to power by the council of eldersand ruled for about 51 years or so [8]. Tenoch’s successoris regarded as the first official ruler who renamed the cityin honour of the former chief. The military power of theAztecs commenced when a triple alliance was formed withtwo other cities, Texcoco and Tlacopan. Then the mightspread throughout much of the central and southern Mex-ico, drawing sustained tribute from the vanquished vassals.Because of this, the Aztecs were hated among the tribesgladly helping the Europeans to shake off the yoke. Whatfollowed was a complete destruction of all native culturesand an oppression even worse by the new masters.
The glyphs for solar eclipses vary in different codices (Fig.1). The sun was usually depicted as a circle of concentricrings with outstretched spikes for its rays. As for an eclipse,it was truncated and dot-like circles (stars) attached. Sincestars will not be visible in a partial eclipse, this glyph doesnot tell much about the particular event. The Aztec sign justapplied to any kind of eclipses of the sun. For us, it seemsimpossible to retrieve more detailed information neither ontotality, nor size of obscuration, nor the time of day, nor theseason of the year. Because eclipses and other astronomicalevents are amply available from Europe, Arabia, or China,they do serve for a reconstruction of the circumstances aswell as geophysical effects. In contrast, the Mesoamericaninformation precludes usefulness for scientific analysis, e.g.to precisely adjust the geographical position of the observer.As much as we know today about the peoples in oldMexico, they had a variety of mythological concepts abouteclipses. We present three examples. The first and easiestis given by the anthropologist Eduard Seler (1849–1922)referring to the
Codex Vaticanus [20]: the Aztecs thoughtthat a jaguar was going to eat the sun. The jaguar wasthe pictoglyph of the 14th day in the calendar as well asthe symbol of darkness. Of course, every eclipse was awe-inspiring, and people used to make as much noise as pos-sible to frighten away the monster to let the sun go.A completely different idea was that an “underworld”was located in the sky [9]. Because of the shining sun, itcould not be seen. Only at eclipses a glance would be gran-ted into the land of the dead. Planets and stars can go therefrom time to time, and they challenge the sun. For example, . Khalisi (2020): Eclipses in the Aztec Codices Figure 1: Various glyphs for eclipses from the codices. (a) Azcatitlan, 7v: eclipse of 1301, 1303, or 1311. (b) Vaticanus A,76r: eclipse of 1437. (c) Mendoza, 10r: eclipse of 1477. (d) Telleriano, 37r: eclipse of 1477. (e) Telleriano, 40v: eclipseof 1496. (f) Mexicanus, p56: eclipse of 1524(?).
Mercury and Venus were considered twins. Their commonfeature was the ability of approaching the hot luminary ex-tremely close. At times of conjunction they demonstratedtheir prowess to the lords of the dead: they performed “adance in the flames”. A couple of days later they wouldreappear in the sky unharmed. This dance is seen for a mo-ment during eclipses.A third belief concerned demonic creatures of darkness.They are depicted with banded faces wielding weapons, andthey have their hair pulled into two hornlike projections.These demons, named “Tzitzimime”, were sky-dwellingskeletal beings corresponding to the souls of sacrificedwarriors. Information about them is handed down in the
Florentine Codex by Sahagun in Books 7 and 8. Karl Taube,who studied these figures in more detail, gave a number ofexamples for their appearance [23]. Two of the warriorsare positioned to the left and right of the sun in Figure 7.However, the identification of special depictions is debatedamong scholars: some historians put them on a level withgoddesses of war and suggest various names, others withsupernatural beings, or they may stand for planets or starconstellations. One study links them with the black diskof the New Moon becoming visible at a solar eclipse [14]. Whatever the Tzitzimime are to represent, they are said todescend down to Earth during totality as well as other peri-ods of darkness and destroy the world. This would bringabout the end to mankind. Therefore, an extinguishing sunwas always feared as the end of the world.It is noteworthy that the Aztecs did not relate an ec-lipse with the death of an individual king or warfare. Thiscontradicts the statement by Susan Milbrath [14] who triedto make similar connections as they are commonly knownfrom the “old world”. Among natural disasters the eternaldarkness and the appearance of these Tzitzimime was takenserious but not understood as an announcement of upcom-ing floods or so. In spite of their superstitious attitude theAztecs distinguished between events in the sky and eventson earth.
The Aztecs did not record calendric days on which eclipsesoccurred, but the year can be in error by ± . Khalisi (2020): Eclipses in the Aztec Codices Table 2: Data for all solar eclipses over Tenochtitlan (19 ◦ ′ N, 99 ◦ ′ W) between 1300 and 1550 AD. Local time (LT),magnitude, and altitude of the sun refer to the instant of maximum eclipse phase. The star (*) in the type-column denotesthe path passing centrally over the city. — Additionaly, in the upper part of the Table: some eclipses in “Aztlan”.
Date Aztec year Type LT Magn. Alt. Codex Ref.1155, Jun 01 1 Reed A 16:47 0.800 26.5 (Aztlan) Fig. 21156, Nov 14 2 Flint A 16:19 0.945 6.0 (Aztlan) Fig. 21165, Nov 05 11 House A 10:46 0.797 36.7 (Aztlan) Fig. 21196, Sep 23 3 Flint T 12:35 0.965 52.0 Fig. 21198, Feb 07 5 Rabbit A 17:43 0.269 − (cid:30) mistaken? [1]1199, Jul 24 6 Reed A 15:03 0.485 47.5 Fig. 3; E.K.1200, Jul 12 7 Flint A 16:16 0.166 33.51203, May 12 10 Reed T 14:26 0.353 54.01205, Sep 14 12 House T 12:01 0.504 57.21301, Feb 09 4 House A* 9:49 0.975 42.3 Azcatitlan, Plate 9 Fig. 1a; [1]1303, Jun 15 6 Reed H 18:47 0.980 − − − − − − − (cid:30) mistaken? [18]; [1]1405, Jun 26 4 House H 10:21 0.990 65.8 (bad weather?)1409, Apr 15 8 House A 5:49 0.468 2.01410, Apr 04 9 Rabbit P 6:27 0.182 9.01412, Aug 07 11 Flint A 15:43 0.415 35.11416, Nov 19 2 Flint A 5:36 0.753 − . Khalisi (2020): Eclipses in the Aztec Codices Date Aztec year Type LT Magn. Alt. Codex Ref.1426, Oct 30 12 Rabbit H 11:24 0.799 53.8 Vaticanus, Plate 119? [8]; [14]1427, Apr 26 13 Reed A 15:31 0.111 39.11430, Feb 22 3 Rabbit T 16:36 0.657 20.31434, Nov 30 7 Rabbit A 18:26 0.945 − (cid:31) record mistaken?Fig. 1b; E.K.1442, Jul 07 2 Rabbit T 16:57 0.442 22.31444, May 17 4 Flint H 16:14 0.221 29.91449, Feb 22 9 House T 16:40 0.081 19.51451, Jun 28 11 Reed T 17:10 0.384 19.41452, Jun 17 12 Flint T 7:17 0.896 24.3 bad weather?1455, Apr 16 2 Reed A 19:03 0.430 − (cid:30) mistaken? [1]1456, Sep 29 3 Flint A 12:54 0.745 59.8 Huichapan, 19 (p38) [18]1457, Sep 18 4 House A 17:48 0.103 0.01459, Jul 29 6 Reed T 6:50 0.378 15.71466, Sep 09 13 Rabbit A 10:59 0.513 67.91467, Aug 29 1 Reed A 10:45 0.239 68.01470, Jun 28 4 Rabbit T 17:38 0.267 13.11477, Feb 13 11 House H 13:59 0.891 51.1 Mendoza, 10r; Telleriano Fig. 1c+d + 6; [2]; [4]1480, Dec 01 1 Flint H 14:52 0.535 29.5 Aubin, p37 (cid:30) mistaken? [1]1481, May 28 2 House A 8:48 0.809 45.7 Chimalpop.; Chimalpahin Fig. 6; [3]; [1]1484, Mrc 26 5 Flint T 16:55 0.621 18.01485, Mrc 16 6 House T 6:39 0.252 8.21488, Jan 13 9 Flint A 17:33 0.233 2.61489, Jan 01 10 House A 18:14 0.514 − − − (cid:30) mistaken? [3]1504, Mrc 16 12 Flint P 5:40 0.468 − ±
1? [5]; [1]1506, Jul 20 1 Rabbit T 5:18 0.671 − − − . Khalisi (2020): Eclipses in the Aztec Codices Figure 2: Three annular eclipses in the mid-12th century inthe vicinity of Aztlan. magnitude, and they usually escape attention of an unpre-pared.Most records belong to the last 52-year cycle that pre-ceded the Spanish invasion. Conspicuous obscurationsfrom the 14th century are missing, while other phenomenalike severe droughts and locusts plagues were put to record.For example,
Chimalpahin and
Mexicanus tell about adrought in 1332 and 1354–55, respectively. Dendrochrono-logy verifies a severe drought in the absolute years 1332 to1335 [24], however, this period is not mentioned among theso-called “megadroughts” [22]. On balance, we can inferthat a good part of the chronicles may be reliable.
In the region what is meant to be “Azt-lan” in the northwest of Mexico, there were three eclipsesof magnitude > Boturini , Azcatitlan , and
Aubin ) worked out essen-tially identical itineraries for the migration [19]. Accordingto the timeline in
Azcatitlan , the capital was founded in1354 (instead of 1325, see below).
A celestial event is indicated in the
Mexicanus (Fig.3). Two persons are pointing at a star and the sun. The pic-ture is placed at 5 Rabbit (1198) which is assumed the 31styear of migration. Anthony Aveni interprets the allusion tothe sun as an eclipse in 1198 [1]. It would have occurred ona winter’s day at sunset.The collection of historical comets by Donald Yeomansholds an entry from China and Korea [25]. A comet ap-
Figure 3: Two persons pointing at a celestial event: a starand the sun, their order probably reversed, in ≈ peared for three weeks from 16 August to 6 September 1199moving in the northern sky from Hercules through Draco toUrsa Major. The parameters of the comet suggest its closepassage by the earth at a distance d ≈ Mexicanus by 1 year as well as the sequence interchanged: the eclipseof a somewhat larger magnitude occurred on 24 July 1199and prior to the appearance of the comet.
A monstrous animal devouring thesun is shown in the
Azcatitlan while the group of peoplewas continuing its migration from a hill Yohualtecatl nearGuadalupe (Fig. 1a). The event corresponds to an eclipse,indeed, and increases the veracity of the historical record.On the other side, the location names are badly identifiedand not mentioned in other codices. The timeline does notprovide an exact year, but 1301 is favoured by us, thoughthe second eclipse in 1303 must have been conspicuous, too,for its magnitude reaching 0.83 precisely at sunset. Thesun at a low altitude has the advantage of glancing into itsdimmer light reducing eye damage. The year 1311 cannotbe ruled out, either.
The foundation of Tenochtitlan is wrapped in tales.The date is specified to 14th March 1325, the day afterspring equinox in the year after the arrival of the migrantsfrom Aztlan at Lake Texcoco. That is not to say that thefoundation really happened in this year nor on that preciseday. The date just equals the beginning of the second solaryear of the 52-year cycle. The choice strongly suggests afabrication by the Aztec chroniclers to adjust a desired pro-gress of events.Modern historians tend to expand this date to involvea quasi-astrological relationship [1]: The day of 14 March1325 was New Moon. Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars were ap-proaching each other and gave an impressive clustering inthe sky. Since the three planets are the slowest wanderersand meet least often, the Maya associated with this configur-ation a creation myth, though no such context is known forthe Aztecs. The planets attained their narrowest separation . Khalisi (2020): Eclipses in the Aztec Codices Figure 4: The total solar eclipse of 13 April 1325 flashed bythe Aztec capital Tenochtitlan [7]. on 11 April 1325. Two days later a total eclipse occurred(Fig. 4). The zone of totality missed the city of Tenochtit-lan by 35 km, but an obscuration of 99% will be impressiveenough.A record about this eclipse is not known, and thereseem to be no myths about it. Usually, the sudden loss ofdaylight leaves many traces worldwide, and they are con-verted into legends that would go so far as to concern therise and fall of cultures. From the old continents there areexamples of legends encompassing the foundation of Rome,the construction of Amarna, the sack of Babylon, or the endof Ugarit [10, 11]. The Indian tribes in the United Statesfarther north considered eclipses as a “moment of renewal”,and the idea still holds today. For Tenochtitlan there does exist an appropriate eclipse of large magnitude, but no-oneseemed to care. The coincidence of astrological signs in thesky cries out for wrapping the establishment of the nationinto a legend. From its non-existence we draw the conclu-sion that either bad weather prevented observation or thealleged date of the foundation is wrong.
The observation of the partial eclipse of such lowa magnitude (mag = 0.44) at noontime is anything but self-evident. We attribute it to unknown advantageous condi-tions, as it caught someone’s attention by chance: a slightcloudiness unharmful for the eye, or the lowered altitude ofthe sun at winter’s time. The event was followed by an al-most total eclipse of the moon 15 days later. Much largerobscurations of the sun occurred in summer of 1402 and1405, respectively. It is possible that the writer was mis-taken at counting to one side or the other.
Figure 5: Year sign for 1508 in the Huichapan [18].
Plate 5 of the
Telleriano says that “the earth becameeclipsed” [8]. We cannot verify whether the account refersto the solar eclipse of 30 October. The magnitude of 0.8 ison the verge of an accidental detectability.Another statement concerns that this eclipse “presaged”the death of the king Chimalpopoca [14]. Most historiansput his death a quarter of a year later, at least, in 1427. Ac-cording to the
Codex Chimalpopoca that king was murderedin 1428, and there is no mention of an eclipse. Also,
Mend-oza does not tell anything about it. The time gap seems toolarge to draw a direct connection with the eclipse. In gen-eral, we cannot confirm the concept of relating such eventsto the death of rulers, because there is no single example.No codex gives a clue to such an association. It seemsan idea from the old world rather than of the cultures inMesoamerica.
A sun symbol appears on page 76v of the
VaticanusA with a tie to a warrior that himself is close to the plaque ofeither 12 Reed (1439) or 11 Rabbit (1438), see Figure 1b. Alarge obscuration happened in 1437, and we take the libertyof assigning the symbol to this year.
The
Huichapan Codex mentions three eclipses:1404, 1456, and 1508. They are said to have occurred inthe years of the New Fire ceremony, albeit not on the exactdays of the festival. All magnitudes were small to medium,and it is absolutely not clear whether or not the followinginterpretation of the glyphs is correct: Above the sign “2Reed”, which is drawn on a black background for all threeyears, the last eclipse of 1508 shows a snake (Fig. 5). Itcarries three circles on its body and a flag standing on thecenter of it (second circle). An idea by Rossana Quiroz . Khalisi (2020): Eclipses in the Aztec Codices Ennis for its meaning concerns a possible 52-year-cycle ofeclipses [18].Mathematics involves only the counting of days betweenthe three eclipses yielding two intervals of slightly differentlength: 19,254 and 18,722 days, respectively. The asym-metric intervals equate to an integer of synodic months andhalf-integer of draconitic months, as will be required for aneclipse cycle. Especially, those 18,722 days of the secondinterval are equivalent to a “Thix period” taken twice. TheThix is an interval of 9360 days plus one, known to theMaya, as they experimented with Venus- and eclipse-cycles[21]. It is composed of 36 × the sacral 260-day-calendar,26 × the 360-day-year, and coming close to 16 × the syn-odic period of Venus of ≈
584 days (actually, 1 day more).Although such a period is deprived of a physical basis, theMaya (and later the Aztecs) could have assumed such acycle. Being unaware of a better solution, they arrived at agood guess, indeed.However, when the next eclipse will be due after those26 solar years, the observer is displaced by almost 5 hours inregard to the previous scene. It is a matter of chance that wefind this sequence of the Thix series in our list. For example,the intermediate event of 1430, which would account forthe next incident after 1404, might have escaped attentionbecause of any reason and, therefore, not recorded.We want to emphasise that the interpretation of thisglyph in favour of the 52-year-cycle is appealing, but asunsteady as any other suggestions, because the Aztecs didnot compute cycles. For the discovery of a long-term cycle,systematic records are mandatory. The task usually com-mences with much shorter periods, tentatively within a gen-eration, before being expanded to longer ones. An Aztecmathematician — if any existed — might have surmised such a cycle, but we cannot confirm that he was lucky inidentifying this special occasion in his chronicles. Mathem-atics was poorly conceived, or, to put it more gently: wedo not know about its level. On one hand, we lack of genu-ine manuscripts from the pre-hispanic era, and, on the otherhand, the Spanish missionaries did not provide helpful in-formation about that. Probably they were themselves hardlyfamiliar with mathematics and did not understand what theywere told. In this special case we just meet the interval of 52years because of three pillars pegged (not very well) to theyear designation “2 Reed”. The suggestion for this cycle isa nice ansatz but not supported by crude facts.
Anthony Aveni cites the Spanish friar and chron-icler Juan de Torquemada (1562?–1624) as a source forthree accounts linked to the years 1473, 1475, and 1476 [1].Each is accompanied by a bad omen: the death of a king ina neighbouring city, a battle as well as an earthquake, andthe wounding of the Aztec ruler in another battle, respect-ively. However, there were no solar eclipses in any of theseyears to be observed in Mexico. Two eclipses of the moondid take place (1473 and 1475), but it seems futile to inventa hypothesis to please the three accounts. Torquemada isthe only writer known having implanted these omen-relatedeclipses into history (see “1499” below). Unfortunately, no
Figure 6: Two total eclipses (grey) and an annular eclipse(yellow) in 1477, 1481, and 1496.
English translation of his work exists, and we cannot traceback how he got the information about it.In a like manner the native writer Chimalpahin (1579–1660) states that eclipses occurred in 1476, 1478, and 1479.For the event of 1478, he writes that it was total such that“. . . stars were visible on the day 1 Movement”. Aveni be-lieves that Chimalpahin could have used a non-Aztec calen-dar or misread a pictorial source, but he does not providea suggestion for a correct reading to understand the error.What other calender systems were in use besides the Aztec?
Telleriano on page 37r connects the glyph of a partiallycovered sun with 1476 (Fig. 1d), while
Vaticanus A (Codex
Tell-eriano , shows the same glyph close to a warrior in 1478 or1479. Since there were no eclipses in Mexico in any of theseyears, all entries should be considered a fault for 1477.
The only notable event of the 1470ies happened on13 February 1477 (Fig. 6). The
Codex Mendoza shows acropped sun next to the symbol for a defeated town (Fig.1c). The king Axayacatl conquered 37 towns between 1469and 1481, one of which was Tetenanco as the ninth [2]. Theeclipse of 1477 had the highest magnitude (mag = 0.89) dur-ing the entire reign of that king. We assign the
Mendoza glyph to this year.
In the
Codex Aubin the sun symbol is placed at1479 and alludes to the ruler Axayacatl who died in the sub-sequent year. The ruler died in 1481 (see below), so eitherthe timeline is short by one year, or the writer skipped ayear. It is unclear whether he really meant the small eclipse(mag = 0.53) of 1480, or he is mistaken by 2 years up ordown: both 1477 and 1481 would fit. In all, there is muchconfusion concerning the whole decade.
Mexican historians who started to write afterthe conquest mention two great eclipses of the sun thathappened in the interval of five years and of the eventswhich preceded them [8]. The first eclipse occurred afterthe victory of the king Axayacatl, and the other after the . Khalisi (2020): Eclipses in the Aztec Codices death of the same. With this information at hand we canfix the two eclipses to 1477 and 1481 implying an “in-clusive counting” (Fig. 6). Both events had the same yeardesignation except for the numerical character. The nativenaturalist Chimalpahin asserts that Axayacatl died before7th June 1481, and his successor was installed the secondday after. Chimalpopoca tells about eclipses of the sun in1490 and 1492 and that stars appeared [3]. Actually, thefirst eclipse took place over the South Pole in Antarctica.The writer must be mistaken by one year to one side or theother: • On 1 January 1489, an observer would have princip-ally been able to watch the very beginning of an ec-lipse during sunset. After about fifteen minutes, thesun sank below the mathematical horizon with a mag-nitude of 0.27. • In 1491, the sun would rise partially eclipsed on8 May with a magnitude of 0.38 and decreasing.Within 25 minutes after its appearance above thehorizon, the disk would be cleared.The qualitative chances for visibility are almost thesame for both eclipses. Since the date of 8 May 1491 givesa smaller distance to the historical context in Chimalpo-poca’s chronology, we prefer this one. But there is nojustification for the statement on stars visible. An eclipse in1492 is correct, but the entry itself can be in error.
Chimalpopoca records an eclipse for 1493, but itshould be shifted to the following year. Similar to the caseof 1491 above, it happened immediately at sunrise with amagnitude of 0.26 and diminishing. The additional state-ment “stars appeared” is wrong, either.
Inspite of the impressively high magnitude of thisspectacle, it is missing in several important manuscripts(Fig. 6).
Telleriano shows a new style of an eclipse image,differing from the glyph on the previous page (Fig. 1e).Having stars and a crescent moon it goes with an Europeanstyle rather than with the Aztec style [4]. Two pages furtheron, the classic Aztec glyph is used for 1508 again.According to Anthony Aveni, the
Codex Chimalpahin speaks of a “. . . complete eclipse of the sun, so that it wasas dark as in the deepest night, and the stars were seen withcomplete clarity” [1]. Again, this is an exaggeration, foronly Venus and Mercury would have shown up, and prob-ably Sirius as the brightest star. Mars was close by with astellar magnitude of +2 m only. It is doubtful that anybodytook notice of these particulars and just called them “stars”altogether. Moreover, Aveni states in a note that there wasa minor eclipse on 3 January 1497, but we cannot confirmthis. He probably meant the event on 2 February of thatyear, but it was only seen from Antarctica and the adjacentoceans. The report is given by Juan de Torquemada onlyand embedded into a sense of divination [1]. It was to “. . .announce an inundation and a great famine”. The massiveflood is mentioned in every Aztec codex implying that itturned into one of the greatest disasters of the Aztec history.It lasted for three or four years till 1502. The
Codex Chim-alpopoca adds that the earth shook four times in 1499 [3].Next year waters spread out everywhere reaching other cit-ies. The codices
Mexicanus and
Aubin depict streams of wa-ter and a man carrying a stone, respectively. According to
Codex Duran , Tenochtitlan had to be rebuilt after the flood[5]. Since crops were destroyed, a famine followed.The eclipse itself did not cause that bunch of disasters,of course, but we can reflect on why only Torquemada,who lived a century later, mentions it in connection withthe other affairs: the eclipse slid into the background uponsevere problems to be managed; or he contrived the fatefulconnection of natural phenomena announced by God fromhis religious education; or the eclipse was not observedat all, and he amended it fictitiously to enhance the effectof his version of the story. Acts like the latter were quitecommon in history and they still are, see [10] for variousexamples. The “identification” of the eclipse is wrong then.
Chimalpopoca mentions an eclipse in 1503. A par-tial obscuration took place, indeed, on 27 March of that yearin the late afternoon before sunset (mag = 0.14). However,the native writer gives in his chronicle one numeral less forthe year than it should be (compare the entries “1491” and“1494” above). We proceed from this latter assumption andbelieve that the event should be placed correctly in 1504.On 16 March 1504 at 7:04 a.m., the sun rose above the ho-rizon with a magnitude of 0.34 and decreasing. This wouldbe the third small obscuration at the early hours of sunrise.
The eclipse was not visible from central Mexico.Again, it remains a mystery why the artists of some codicesrecorded it. They related it with those Tzitzimime, the “ec-lipse demons”, that are said to descend to earth during to-tality, but there was no totality far and wide. A misdatingwith one prior or later year is unlikely, for both proximateyears comprised weak partial eclipses only. For the previ-ous year, see “1504” above. One year later, on 20 July 1506at 6:41 a.m., the sun rose obscured at half (mag = 0.56) anddecreasing, too.The eclipse of 1505 was to occur shortly before thecompletion of the 52-year cycle. Perhaps the post-conquestmissionaries were targeted at anxiety among the Aztecs anddesigned the Tzitzimime in connection with the cataclysmicevents at the end of the 52-year count? Also, a misinterpret-ation of the New Fire ceremony cannot be ruled out.
This eclipse has been discussed in literature severaltimes.
Telleriano connects the sun glyph with a warrior,the completion of a temple, an earthquake, the drowningof 1,800 men in a river, and the New Fire ceremony. . Khalisi (2020): Eclipses in the Aztec Codices Figure 7: The Bilimek Vessel with an eclipse sign (above the skeletised head), which is menaced by two Tzitzimime.
Another symbol for this event can be found on theBilimek Vessel (Fig. 7). The vessel, stored in the Museumfür Völkerkunde in Vienna/Austria, is covered with icono-graphic reliefs. Of particular interest is a partly covered sunabove the head. The sign differs slightly from other illus-trations in that the lower portion of the sun is curved, muchlike the edge of the moon during a solar eclipse. On eachside there are figures, identified as the “eclipse demons”,Tzitzimime, menacing the sun with stones and woodenstaffs from both sides [23]. However, the magnitude of thiseclipse was far from having any effect on sunlight. Sincethe Tzitzimime are creatures of darkness, their appearanceis highly questionable in this context.Other icons on the vessel are accompanied by circularelements. The meaning of the small circles is still unclear.Eduard Seler interpreted them as numerical coefficients ofcalendrical dates, Karl Taube suggests certain stars, andthey can also be ornaments without any meaning.The vessel holds at least three and probably four itemsappearing in the codices
Borgia and
Vaticanus B . The signof an earthquake on the underside of the vessel lets SusanMilbrath assume that it took place in the same year as thesolar eclipse [14]. In combination with the Tzitzimime-argument she concludes that the vessel was manufacturedshortly after the events in 1508. However, earthquakes hap-pen in Mexico so often that their coincidence with an ec-lipse becomes of no use for dating purposes. The years1480, 1489, 1496, and 1499 harboured this pair of cata- strophes as well, while the combination with the New Fireceremony is true for 1455/1456. The sole argument in fa-vour of the year 1508 is the shape of the sun itself: the mooncovered the lower part of the disk agreeing with the approx-imate view from central Mexico.
Codex Mendoza shows the glyph of a solar eclipsenext to two conquered towns during the reign of MoctezumaII (1502–1520). The years are not given, so we cannot as-sign an eclipse to the glyphs. The years 1508 and 1510 hadthe largest magnitudes among the options. Possibly the twotowns were defeated shortly after another in the same year.
Aveni rejects the eclipse entry by Chimalpahin be-cause of his statement that “no eclipses were visible in thatyear” [1]. Basically, this is true, if we neglect the diminish-ing obscuration during sunrise at 7:16 a.m. When the sunclimbed the horizon, it exhibited a tiny bump correspondingto a magnitude of 0.02 only. It would be very remarkable, ifsuch small an irregularity on a perfectly circular disk wouldhave caught any attention.
This eclipse would be interesting in regard to itsdate. It occurred one month after devastating Tenochtitlan(21 August 1521) and the massacre of the Aztec people byHernan Cortes. Actually, there seems to be no record for theeclipse. A mistake with the eclipse of 1524 is possible, but . Khalisi (2020): Eclipses in the Aztec Codices it will be difficult to explain the discrepancy of more than 1year. It is a remarkable trait of all codices that the accuracyof the accounts on natural phenomena rarely exceeds ± Codex Aubin pictures the sun accompanied by “8Oct” for the year name 5 Reed (1523), but there was noeclipse in this year. The
Mexicanus also shows a half-darkened sun (Fig. 1f). That day was usual New Moon, andthe symbol of the sun does not make sense in this context.Maybe someone tried to predict an eclipse and failed? Theeclipse would fit better next year (6 Flint), but the day is stillwrong. Alternatively, it may have a metaphorical meaning:the collapse of the Aztec society led to an extinct light forthe indigenous culture.
Perhaps the last eclipse glyph usingthe Aztec style is found in the
Telleriano on page 44r anddenotes the incident of 1531. However, the last two imagesfor the sun itself are on page 46r of that codex and linked tothe years 1541 and 1543, respectively. An eclipse did takeplace on 31 July 1543, but the sun is drawn uncovered andgives an impression of a torching summer responsible for adrought. Maybe the eclipse was not noticed on that day.
Accounts on eclipses of the moon were not kept. The tem-poral darkening of the moon’s face seem to be considered“normal”, for it takes place almost every year.
Codex Tel-leriano explicitly states in connection to the solar eclipseof 1510 that “. . . [the Aztecs] never took much account ofeclipses of the moon. . . ” [1]. The mere existence of sucha remark points to an observer who did not experience thatphenomenon for a longer period of time. Suddenly he wasreminded of it when it happened again, presumably in con-nection with an event in 1511. There was a period of 2,5years between 1508 and 1511 when no lunar eclipses wereto be seen in Mexico. In case of bad weather, the intervalcan be prolonged.Albert Gallatin said that, when a lunar eclipse occurred,people believed “the sun would have eaten the moon” [8].It remains unclear whether the Aztecs really understood thecause of eclipses, or this expression would be intermingledwith modern knowledge. We plead for the latter. Taking theview of an uninformed person, the phenomenon of a lunarand solar eclipse presents itself very different in nature: dif-ferent in frequency, different in daytime, different in length,different in the visual conditions. It is not obvious at all tocomprehend that an eclipse is nothing more than an inter-play of shadows caused by the bodies of earth or moon.The original sources do not permit an unequivocal viewon the reaction of the people when they unexpectedly sawthe moon turning red and disappearing. Decapitated figuresin the codices were presented as a proof that the loss ofheads would be equivalent to a loss of light in a lunar eclipse[15]. We cannot join in this opinion because the pictographs are not accompanied by calendric dates, especially concern-ing the moon. If the hypothesis was true, the arrangement ofthe images would coincide with celestial events, but this isnot provided. Moreover, after the moon will look restored,the incident will be forgotten on a short timescale, while adecapitated being does not recover. This discrepancy im-pedes a parallel.The same study lists twelve pairs of eclipses within ayear between 1440 and 1511. No accounts on actually ob-served events are given, just the astronomical dates. Theauthor assumes that all pairs were observed without con-straints to weather conditions. “Disrupted” pairs are notconsidered, either, i.e. those pairs that span a year bound-ary. It is much too speculative to construct a timeline forhistory based on celestial opportunities only. Astronomy isa strong assistant for historical research, but it is not meantto deliver input data a priori for a desired story.
A widespread myth surrounds the Aztec king MoctezumaII who is said to have sighted a comet that heralded the de-feat of his realm. Various authors correlated the comet withdiverse years like 1509, 1511, 1515–1519, or 1520/21.We tried to retrace the information, but we failed to findreports on the comet apart from Aztec sources. Neither theaccounts from China nor Europe attest an observation inthose years, and this cannot be attributed to negligence. Forexample, Johannes Stöffler (1452–1531), a German astro-nomer operating on the verge of astrology, made foretell-ings on social and political affairs. He computed the courseof planets, but he did not mention a comet, though it wouldbe easy for him to take advantage of such an appearance.Another humanist was Nicolaus Kratzer (1487–1550) whobecame an astronomer at the court of Henry VIII in England— also no mention of a comet. And the celebrated NicolausCopernicus (1473–1543) did not drop any note to be in linewith it. The list of historical comets by Donald Yeomans[25], which is itself based on a catalogue by Ho Peng-Yokeand Ang Tian-Se, does not provide an expedient observa-tion, either. The closest appearances are entries for 1506and for January 1520, respectively. In 1520, a broom starwas seen in China, but it must have been a faint object vis-ible for 29 days. Neither the constellation nor a movementare mentioned. — So, where does the note on Moctezuma’scomet originate from?Book 8 of the
Florentine Codex by Bernardino de Saha-gun deals with kings, lords, and how they governed theirreign. There he lists eight bad omens for Moctezuma andrepeats them in Book 12 in more detail. Two of them arecelestial signs, the others must be terrestrial. Omen . Khalisi (2020): Eclipses in the Aztec Codices Figure 8: Two images from Sahagun’s Florentine Codex onthe description of omen aggerated. More important is omen
FlorentineCodex , approximately 1574–81 [6]. Duran had access toa number of pre-conquest pictorial manuscripts, now lost,while Sahagun relied primarily on native informants. Thereis no evidence that the two writers ever met, and their writ-ings seem unrelated to each other. Duran speaks of an “ob-ject at night” in his book, and he included that picture thatwas to become famous (Fig. 9).Finally, the word “comet” is subsequently mentionedin two more works dealing with those eight omens [16].First, in a manuscript by the Jesuit Juan de Tovar (1546?–1626?), called the
Tovar Codex or Ramirez Codex , for thelatter re-discovered it in 1856. The completion of the ma-nuscript is estimated to 1579, and perhaps it is based onDuran’s history book. The second work is by Diego MuñozCamargo (1529?–1599), who was born in Mexico as a sonof an Indian mother. He grew up bi-lingually, and thisenabled him to become one of the first Spanish-languagechroniclers hearkening back to original information of thenatives. Muñoz Camargo also repeats the omens and writesthat the Lord of his hometown, when he was born upon thearrival of the Spaniards, got his name after a “great, horrific
Figure 9: Image from Diego Duran’s History [6], folio 182. comet with a great tail” that was seen in the sky spewingsmoke. All descriptions about that phenomenon turn outvery short, vague, and can be misleading.The
Telleriano depicts several geophysical events on fo-lio 42r covering the years 1507–1509. The words describea sort of . . .. . . mexpanitli or “cloud banner” (cloud ofsmoke?) as a brilliant light that was seen inthe eastern sky for over 40 days.The Figure 10 clearly shows a column of red flamesrising from a mountain up to the starry sky. A later annota-tion adds that the cloud banner preceded the return of Quet-zalcoatl whom the Aztecs seem to have associated with theforthcoming arrival of Cortes. Also, the chronology of Gal-latin says for the corresponding year that “a great light wasseen in the night towards the east” and it extended “fromthe earth to the sky” [8]. So, the sole allusion is some kindof a cloud or a light, but the premonition of foreign peopleadvancing must be a later supplement after the knowledgeof the existence of a man named Cortes. The phenomenonpoints to ash emission from an active volcano in remotedistance. The mountain Popocatepetl is located 50 km tothe southeast of Tenochtitlan. In the Nahuatl language ofthe Mexica the name translates “smoking mountain”. Thesuspicion of two strong eruptive episodes was expressedby Martin-Del Pozzo, who believes that they took place in1509 and 1519 each of which lasting for several months[13]. Later Spanish writers merged the two incidents tocreate a sign of possible disaster. The inclusion of omenspresaging an event reflects a re-working of historical factsunder late-medieval European influence.In fact, the Aztec belief shows much weaker connec-tions between earthly processes (droughts, floods) and ce-lestial ones (eclipses, planetary positions). Such is rather acustom of the astrological lore of Babylonians, Chinese, In-dians, and later Europeans. In Mesoamerica there existed re-ligious rituals, but it is difficult to judge from the pictogramswhether they were used as prayers, or horoscopes, or proph-ecies for future events. It is likely that the legendary stylewas imported as a post-conquest feature to make “sense” of . Khalisi (2020): Eclipses in the Aztec Codices Figure 10: Sketch from the Telleriano tied to the year plaqueof 1509. the historical present. In this spirit, many rumours were cre-ated by the Conquistadores to be part of a rationalisation ofthe Aztecs’ defeat in order to present Moctezuma as inde-cisive, powerless, and superstitious who ultimately causedthe fall of his own empire. The early Spanish writers oftenportrayed their arrival as an inevitable moment of historyordained by God. The Europeans had substantial motivesto log a “seamless transition” of power, especially, for theauthorities back home.
The primary concern of this paper is a new list on solar ec-lipses during the era of the Aztecs. We replenished the stockof previous lists with additional sources, debugged someerrors, and present (hopefully) sound data including a dis-cussion to particular items. Forty records from the variouscodices can be assigned to 23 eclipses. 32 entries (80%)belong to the last 50 years before the conquest. Only 19accounts seem to agree with the correct year, the others areshifted by one year give or take, and perhaps one or twoare doubtful. The error of different years for the same ec-lipse could have arisen from copying errors. In general, theAztec chroniclers present themselves as rather careful time-keepers. Our list of references for eclipses is far from com-plete and may inspire others to search for more entries ofthis kind. Along the way, we critically examined the astro-nomical knowledge of the Aztecs.We figured out that modern studies contain a lot of over-interpretation. The portraitures on the Aztec pictograms arewidely debated, and so are their derivative interpretations.For example, suggestions for a given figure range from agod to a demon to a ruler to the personification of celes- tial objects. Modern authors draw an analogy between anyof these options, and the work ends up in different fictitiousstories. The fundament is spongy, but many go on construct-ing a theory on “maybe”s and other speculations. It seemshard for historians to admit that they just don’t know whatthe Aztec images mean.The interest of the Aztecs in astronomy emerges quitelow. Though the calender is adopted from much earliertimes (Maya and other cultures), there is no sophisticatedcare for the sky. Neither simple star maps are known, noran accurate observation of the moon’s path. There is nosupport to the view that the Aztecs made computations, northey discovered any cycles, nor tried to predict celestialevents like eclipses. We find no evidence that they ever un-derstood the scientific basics for the cause of eclipses. Forexample, there is no single mention that solar eclipses arecorrelated with the moon. The Aztecs just recorded abouttwo dozen events with the recent ones more frequent. Nev-ertheless, eclipses were much feared but in a completelydifferent manner than prevalent in European or Mesopot-amian thought. Their superstition did not concern the fateof a ruler or their nation but the existence of the world as anentity. According to their mythology the sun would sufferan earthquake and perish in eternal darkness.More insights into their belief are to be discovered, butwe recommend future studies to be based on safer grounds.Astronomical events are precisely datable and can assist asan independent method for verification of any theory. Themost severe mistakes, however, are made upon interpreta-tion of the textual evidence.
Acknowledgements
This paper has its roots in Chapter 17.6 of the Habilita-tion submitted to the University of Heidelberg, Germany, inFebruary 2012. The issue is thoroughly revised, expandedto additional items and published “as is” without peer re-view. The progress of this work was marked by tremendousobstacles.
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