Daniel's 70 weeks (6) Redating the historical eclipses during Xerxes the Great's reign

In my previous video titled “Nabonidus was Nebuchadnezzar, proven by lunar eclipse in Nabonidus' 2nd year reign” I showed that historians gave the wrong date for the lunar eclipse that occurred in the 2nd year of Nabonidus which they dated September 26, 554 BC. I dated this lunar eclipse seven years earlier on August 15, 561 BC instead. 

The Reign of Nabonidus King of Babylon 556-539 BC, pg 127 last paragraph by Paul-Alain Beaulieu: It is known from the Royal Chronicle that the eclipse must have taken place in the second year of Nabonidus or slightly before…

If the lunar eclipse indeed took place on August 15, 561 BC during the early part of Nabonidus’ second year, then the first year of Nabonidus must have been in 562 BC instead of 556 BC, or six years earlier than the historically recognized date. 

We know for certain that Astyages, the last king of Media, was defeated by the Persian king Cyrus the Great in the sixth year of his Babylonian colleague Nabonidus as recorded in the Nabonidus Chronicle Column II lines 1-2:

[ii.1] [The sixth year: Astyages] mustered (his army) and marched against Cyrus, king of Anšan, for conquest [...]

[ii.2] The army rebelled against Astyages and he was taken prisoner. Th[ey handed him over] to Cyrus.

Since the first year of Nabonidus was actually in 562 BC, this means his sixth year starts from 557 BC and ends in 556 BC. I picked 556 BC instead of 557 BC as the last year of Astyages’ reign as this choice will put Darius the Great’s reign starting in 519 BC. Darius the Great was the third Persian King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire following Cyrus the Great and Cambyses II. 

According to Herodotus Book I: Clio par. 214, Cyrus the Great who succeeded Astyages as king of Media, “had reigned in all thirty years wanting one (or twenty nine years)”. Counting twenty nine years from the end of Astyages’ reign in 556 BC (according to my dating) takes us to 527 BC as the end of Cyrus’ the Great’s reign. He was succeeded by his son Cambyses II who in turn was succeeded by a usurper and together their reigns lasted for eight years. Darius the Great ascended to the throne of Persia in 519 BC, or eight years after the end of Cyrus the Great’s reign in 527 BC, according to my dating of Persian chronology.

Herodotus Book 7: Polymnia par. 4. Dareios himself died, having been king in all six-and-thirty years;

Thirty six years from 519 BC is 483 BC as the final year of Darius the Great’s reign. The last letter from Babylon written during the reign of Darius was dated by historians on November 17, 486 BC, and the first one during the reign of his son and successor Xerxes I was dated by historians on December 1 of the same year. In the two weeks between these dates, Darius died. Using the Keisan calculator we get Kislev 9 and Kislev 23 as the respective Hebrew dates in 486 BC for these two letters. Using my dating instead, Kislev 9 and Kislev 23, 483 BC corresponds to November 14 and November 28, 483 BC as the possible time frame between which Darius the Great could have died.

Herodotus Book 7: Polymnia par. 7 & 20 … in the next year after the death of Dareios he made a march first against those who had revolted. Having subdued these and having reduced all Egypt to slavery much greater than it had suffered in the reign of Dareios …

During four full years from the conquest of Egypt he was preparing the army and the things that were of service for the army, and in the course of the fifth year he began his campaign [against Greece] with a host of great multitude.

The next year sometime in 482 BC after Darius’ death between November 14 and November 28, 483 BC according to my dating, Xerxes I marched against those who revolted in Egypt. Four full years later after preparing his army, Xerxes I started his invasion of Greece at the beginning of spring in 478 BC.

Herodotus Book 7: Polymnia par. 37. … the army set forth from thence fully equipped, at the beginning of spring, to march to Abydos; and when it had just set forth, the Sun left his place in the heaven and was invisible, though there was no gathering of clouds and the sky was perfectly clear; and instead of day it became night. 

Using Stellarium and setting the Algorithm of delta T to JPL Horizons, and the date to February 17 (which was early spring) of 478 BC (or -477 in astronomical year numbering) at 10:19 UTC, one can see an annular solar eclipse which was visible in Abydos or the Hellespont with coordinates 40° 11′ 43″N, 26° 24′ 18″E. The time of maximum eclipse occurred just thirteen minutes before culmination at local noon, with an eclipse obscuration of 89.4%. 

Historians stubbornly date the start of Xerxes I’s invasion of Greece at the beginning of spring in 480 BC instead of 478 BC when the eclipse happened. And regarding this event, this is what these stubborn historians have to say:

Eclipses during the war of Xerxes with the Greeks, by Lynn: in the seventh book of Herodotus, where he says that in the early spring, whilst Xerxes was at Sardis, preparing to set out on the Grecian expedition, “the Sun leaving his seat in heaven became invisible, and instead of day it became night”... The date when this expedition … took place is considered to have been one corresponding to 480 BC. No eclipse of the Sun, however, could have been visible in Western Asia during the spring of that year... 

Take note: instead of admitting that their calculated date for the Persian invasion of Greece was wrong, historians would rather blame Herodotus by saying “that Herodotus had the sequence of events wrong”. But as you can see, if your dating of historical events is right, you don’t have to contradict what ancient historians have to say about these events. 

Now a considerable number of Aramaic papyri have recently been found at Elephantine, opposite Assuan, four hundred miles south of Cairo. These Aramaic manuscripts are fully fifteen hundred years older than the oldest Hebrew parchment of the Bible. Aramaic papyrus 6 or AP 6 gives us the month, day, and regnal year when Xerxes I presumably died and passed on the kingship to his successor Artaxerxes I.

The Accession of Artaxerxes I by Julia Neuffer Pg. 72 The dateline of AP 6 reads: "On the 18th of Kislev, that is the [17th] day of Thoth, in year 21, the beginning of the reign when King Artaxerxes sat on his throne."

I mentioned earlier that the last letter from Babylon written during the reign of Darius was dated by historians on November 17, 486 BC which I corrected to November 14, 483 BC instead. And the first letter from Babylon written during the reign of Xerxes I was dated by historians on  December 1, 486 BC which I corrected to November 28, 483 BC instead. 

While Xerxes I ascended to the throne sometime between November 14 and November 28, 483 BC according to my dating, the first year of his reign is reckoned to start on the first day of the first month of the following year. Specifically, this was on Nisan 1, 482 BC which using the Keisan calculator fell on April 3, 482 BC. This means the twenty-first year of Xerxes I’s reign is between Nisan 1, 462 BC and the day before Nisan 1, 461 BC. And Kislev 18 in year twenty one of Xerxes I’s reign was on December 1, 462 BC Julian calendar or November 26, 462 BC Gregorian calendar. This was when Artaxerxes I first sat on his throne. 

The death of Xerxes I was dated by historians on the 14th of Av, 465 BC which corresponds to August 2 Julian calendar or July 28 Gregorian calendar of that year. This is more than three years earlier than December 1, 462 BC Julian calendar or November 26, 462 BC Gregorian calendar. Which is the date I gave for when Xerxes the Great’s immediate successor, Artaxerxes I, first sat on his throne.

The historical date of Xerxes the Great’s death was based on scholars’ interpretation of the astronomical tablet BM32234 which reports a lunar eclipse on the the third month of Sivan in the same year a king supposedly named Xerxes was killed by his son on the fourteenth of the fifth month. This eclipse was dated by historians on June 6, 465 BC, Julian calendar. 

I believe ancient astronomers made their observations wherever the king resided, so that they recorded what the king actually saw in the sky during his reign. The observed duration of the eclipse will help us identify the longitudinal position of the observational site. And here is what the tablet has to say regarding this:

At 18° … 40° onset, maximal phase and clearing. The garment of the sky was there. In the area of the four rear stars of Sagittarius it was eclipsed.

The tablet mentioned 18° along with some unreadable text. The scholars who interpreted this astronomical observation did not or could not explain this part of the tablet. Now the globe is divided into 360° longitude and 24 hours or 1440 minutes time zones, so that there are 4 minutes time zones per degree of longitude.  

Scholars explain that the “40° onset, maximal phase, and clearing” mentioned in the tablet refers to the entire duration of the eclipse which is equivalent to 160 minutes duration using the 4 minutes per degree conversion factor I just mentioned. Now compare this to the 184 minutes partial eclipse duration that happened on June 6, 465 BC  according to the NASA Catalog of Lunar Eclipses. 

Also, these scholars claim that the expression “garment of the sky” refers to clouds. But I beg to disagree, because a subsequent observation on Month VIII, the 14th, says “13° [or 52 minutes] after sunset, the moon came out of a cloud”. In other words, the ancient astronomer used plain language when talking about clouds in the sky instead of referring to it as “garments” of the sky.

In my humble opinion, I believe the garment of the sky refers to the horizon which covers the eclipsed Moon as soon as its entire diameter sets below the horizon. And 40° or 160 minutes refers to the actual duration of the eclipse from onset until clearing, whether observable or unobservable. While 18° or 72 minutes refer to the duration of the eclipse while the Moon or part of its eclipsed disk was still above the horizon. In other words, the unreadable portion of the tablet might have said “18° before Moonset”. This means the lunar eclipse started 72 minutes before the entire diameter of the Moon sets below the horizon. 

However, scholars do not share my point of view on this. And according to them the June 6, 465 BC partial lunar eclipse which had an umbral duration of 184.4 minutes,  was observed by the astronomer for 40° or 160 minutes before it was covered by “the garment of the sky”. And the June 6, 465 BC partial lunar eclipse did occur at Sagittarius just like the tablet says. So there is no reason to deny that these observations match what the tablet said

But if Xerxes I died on the fourteenth of the fifth month according to this tablet, then why did his successor Artaxerxes I sit on his throne on the eighteenth of the ninth month according to the Aramaic papyrus 6 which I discussed earlier? This is an unexplained delay of more than four months. 

In the first video of this series I said that planetary movements are cyclical and their exact relative positions can be repeated over a period of time. And this means astronomical positions which scholars believe happened in the reign of one king can repeat itself in the reign of another king. And errors in dating can happen in this case if the tablet either does not mention the name of the king or the name of the king is unreadable.

But didn’t the tablet mention Xerxes as the name of the king? Actually, no it did not. What the tablet actually said was “Xerxes his son killed him”, but the translators hyphenated it as “Xerxes - his son killed him”. This is to make it look like Xerxes was killed by his unnamed son. In my opinion, the statement should be read as is, in other words the unnamed king was killed by his son named Xerxes! 

And in fact, Xerxes I was not murdered by his son, it was Artabanus, the commander of the royal bodyguard and the most powerful official in the Persian court, who assassinated Xerxes with the help of a eunuch, Aspamitres. And according to Aristotle (in Politics 5.1311b), after Artaxerxes I discovered the murder, he killed Artabanus and his sons. 

Now a lunar eclipse similar to the one that occurred on June 5, 465 BC happened forty six years later which when observed and described matches exactly what the astronomical tablet BM32234 said. And in my revised interpretation and dating of this tablet, the unnamed king who died was Artaxerxes I, which according to the tablet was killed by his son Xerxes II who was also his immediate successor. I will be discussing this lunar eclipse in part seven of this Daniel’s seventy weeks series.