Position in chronology
Astronomical tablet BM 32234
Translation · reference
ExperimentalSource: Wikimedia Commons file: File:Astronomical tablet BM 32234.jpg. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AAstronomical_tablet_BM_32234.jpg. Description: Clay cuneiform tablet. Astronomical, lunar eclipse table for at least 609-447 BC. Dated 4th century BC. From Babylon. Refers to the murder of the Persian king Xerxes I (485-465 BC) by his son. BM 32234. https://www.britishmuseum.org/collect
Why it matters
Transliteration
Scholarly note
Tablet image sourced from Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0). No scholarly translation referenced in source metadata. Source description: Clay cuneiform tablet. Astronomical, lunar eclipse table for at least 609-447 BC. Dated 4th century BC. From Babylon. Refers to the murder of the Persian king Xerxes I (485-465 BC) by his son. BM 3223
Attribution
Image: Zunkir — Wikimedia Commons. source
Translation excerpted from Wikimedia Commons file: File:Astronomical tablet BM 32234.jpg. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AAstronomical_tablet_BM_32234.jpg. Description: Clay cuneiform tablet. Astronomical, lunar eclipse table for at least 609-447 BC. Dated 4th century BC. From Babylon. Refers to the murder of the Persian king Xerxes I (485-465 BC) by his son. BM 32234. https://www.britishmuseum.org/collect.
Related tablets
Related sources
Whatever its purpose, this single tablet shows that Babylonian mathematicians, working in base-60, had an arithmetic understanding of right triangles a millennium before Pythagoras was born.