This 5,500-Year-Old Sumerian Star Map Recorded the Impact of a Massive Asteroid
An ancient clay tablet housed at the British Museum has puzzled experts for more than 150 years. The Cuneiform tablet in the British Museum collection No K8538 is known as “the Planisphere.” Translated more than 10 years ago, the clay tablet is an actual ancient Sumerian Star Map. Researchers claim it describes an asteroid impact in ancient times.
The clay tablet was recovered in the 19th century from the underground library of King Ashurbanipal in Nineveh, Iraq, by Sir. Henry Layard.
The ancient Sumerians etched on the surface of the clay tablet details revealing they observed a massive object, visible in space, as it smashed through Earth’s atmosphere and eventually impacted against the planet.
The tablet is a copy of a set of notes inscribed by an ancient Sumerian astronomer that observed the sky. He referred to the object coming from the sky as a “white stone bowl approaching…”
That changed with the appearance of computer programs that can help simulate trajectories and reconstruct the night sky thousands of years ago.
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