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27th May 2014 Academy Discourse: The date of Hammurabi

Speaker: Professor Werner Nahm, MRIA
Venue: Academy House, 19 Dawson Street, Dublin 2
Date: Tuesday 27 May, 18:00

Admission is free but booking is essential

 

In the 2nd millennium BC Hammurabi became king of Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq, Kuwait, the northeastern section of Syria and parts of Turkey and Iran). The chronology of Mesopotamia in the 2nd Millennium still differ by more than 150 years. This has prevented us from understanding the relationship between climate change and the serve crisis at the end of the Hammurabi dynasty which saw the cities of southern Babylonia abandoned.

This discourse will explore the Venus observations which were first recognized in 1860, the Assyrian eclipse record, the dendrochronology (dating based on the analysis of patterns of tree rings) and the record of a worldwide tree growth anomaly that have contributed to finding the correct dates and help to understand this chapter in history.