Who first recorded a solar eclipse?

The oldest eclipse records, in order

1. Around 2134 BCE (legendary)

   China

   The Shujing tells of two court astronomers, Hsi and Ho, punished for failing to predict an eclipse. The date is an educated guess and the story may be a legend.

2. 5 March 1223 BCE or 3 May 1375 BCE

   Ugarit, Syria

   A clay tablet found at Ugarit is often called the oldest eclipse record. Astronomers have matched it to two possible dates, and most recent authors favour 1223 BCE.

3. 1200s and 1100s BCE

   Shang dynasty China

   Oracle bones used for divination contain the earliest datable eclipse records of any civilisation. One in Cambridge University Library records a lunar eclipse matched to the night of 26 December 1192 BCE.

4. 15 June 763 BCE

   Assyria, modern Iraq

   The eponym list for the year of the official Bur-Sagale notes a revolt in Assur and that “an eclipse of the sun took place”. It anchors the dating of the whole ancient Near East.

5. From about 720 BCE

   State of Lu, China

   The first systematic series of Chinese eclipse records begins, giving dates but no times or descriptions.

6. 28 May 585 BCE

   Anatolia, modern Turkey

   Herodotus says a battle between the Lydians and the Medes stopped when day turned to night, and that Thales of Miletus had predicted it. Historians debate both the date and the prediction.

A legend from ancient China

The most famous early eclipse story comes from the Shujing, one of the classics of Chinese literature. It says that when the Sun and Moon “did not meet harmoniously”, the court astronomers Hsi and Ho had failed to warn the emperor, and they were punished for it. NASA notes that the usual date, around 2134 BCE, is only an educated guess, because several eclipses were visible from China at that time, and some scholars think Hsi and Ho were mythical figures rather than real people.

The tablet from Ugarit

Ugarit was a trading city on the coast of what is now Syria. A clay tablet found there is generally regarded as the oldest surviving record of a solar eclipse. Two eclipses fit it, on 3 May 1375 BCE and 5 March 1223 BCE, and according to the High Altitude Observatory most recent authors favour the later date.

Oracle bones

The Shang kings of central China, between the 16th and 11th centuries BCE, asked questions of their ancestors by carving them on ox shoulder blades and turtle shells, heating them and reading the cracks. Cambridge University Library describes these oracle bones as containing the earliest datable eclipse records of any civilisation. Eclipses were seen as bad omens that called for offerings to the royal ancestors.

The Assyrian eclipse of 763 BCE

The Assyrians named each year after an official called the limmu. For the year of Bur-Sagale of Guzana, the list records a revolt in the city of Assur and, in the month of Simanu, an eclipse of the Sun. In 1867 Henry Rawlinson matched it to the eclipse of 15 June 763 BCE. Because the eponym lists run continuously for centuries, that single eclipse lets historians put exact dates on Assyrian history and, through it, much of the ancient Near East.

Thales and the battle of the eclipse

The Greek historian Herodotus wrote that the Lydians and the Medes had been at war for six years when, in the middle of a battle, day suddenly turned to night. Both sides stopped fighting and made peace, sealed by a royal marriage and a new border on the Halys River. Herodotus added that Thales of Miletus had foretold the eclipse. The eclipse of 28 May 585 BCE is the usual match, but historians debate both the date and whether anyone at the time could have predicted it.