Case file · Declassified record
Mawangdui silk comet atlas
A silk manuscript buried in a Han tomb at Changsha in 168 BCE draws 29 kinds of comet, each with the disaster it was thought to foretell.
168 BCE · 28.21, 113.03 · status: official
The account
Found in 1973 in Tomb 3 at Mawangdui, the 'Divination by astronomical and meteorological phenomena' is the oldest known comet catalogue, pairing tail shapes with omens of war, plague and death.