Assyrian eclipse

[1] The entry from Assyrian records is short and reads: The phrase used – shamash ("the sun") akallu ("bent", "twisted", "crooked", "distorted", "obscured") – has been interpreted as a reference to a solar eclipse since the first decipherment of cuneiform in the mid 19th century.

In 1867, Henry Rawlinson identified the near-total eclipse of 15 June 763 BC as the most likely candidate (the month Simanu corresponding to the May/June lunation),[2] visible in northern Assyria just before noon.

The Bur-Sagale eclipse occurred over the Assyrian capital city of Nineveh in the middle of the reign of Jeroboam II, who ruled Israel from 786 to 746 B.C.

The biblical scholar Donald Wiseman has speculated that the eclipse took place around when Jonah arrived in Nineveh and urged the people to repent, otherwise the city would be destroyed.

Ancient cultures, including Assyria, viewed eclipses as omens of imminent destruction, and the empire was in chaos at this time, struggling with revolts, famines and two separate outbreaks of plague.