Case file · Cosmic event
Halley's Comet in the Babylonian diaries
Babylonian astronomical diaries on clay tablets record Halley's Comet passing in 164 BC (and again in 87 BC), with its position among the stars night by night.
164 BCE · 32.54, 44.42 · status: official
The account
The diaries, kept at Babylon from about 652 BC to the first century BC, logged weather, prices, river levels, omens and political news alongside celestial events. The comet entries, published in Nature in 1985, are among the earliest dated observations of Halley's Comet.