* Astronomy

Title: The earliest known solar eclipse record redated
Authors: T. de Jong & W. H. van Soldt

An astronomical event recorded on a clay tablet found in 1948 among the ruins of the ancient city of Ugarit, in what is now Syria, was identified 20 years ago as a description of a total solar eclipse that occurred on May 3, 1375 B.C. A new historical dating of the tablet, and mention in the text of the visibility of the planet Mars during the eclipse as well as the month it which it occurred, are used here to show that the recorded eclipse in fact occurred on March 5, 1223 B.C. This new date implies that the secular deceleration of the earth's rotation has changed very little during the past 3000 years.

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