The Babylonian astronomical diaries project

Record summary

Editions and studies of Babylonian astronomical diaries during this period made systematic use of dated observations of the Moon, planets, stars, weather, river levels, and political events, especially for the first millennium BCE. The corpus matters for comparing empirical sky records with omen literature, calendrical administration, and historical chronology. These tablets are real primary sources, but they are laconic scholarly records rather than modern observational logs, and many survive only in fragmentary copies. Translation, tablet joins, and chronological modeling remain areas for specialist verification.