Society / Famine

374BC

Event #2820: Famine so severe people "sold" (ate?) their children in Babylon

Stable URL: http://cof.quantumfuturegroup.org/events/2820

Geographical sites:

  • Babylon (click here to focus in map) (see also Pleiades #727082)
    Pleiades_icon Babylon settlement, fort Geocontext: Fostat, Cairo
    Description: An ancient fortified city of the Delta of Egypt, located at Babylon in the area today known as Coptic Cairo.

Citations:

Text #3900

Sachs & Hunger. Astronomical Diaries and Related Texts from Babylonia
[p. 103]

A: BM 36622 + 37169
B: BM 34792

A
‘Rev.’
9’ - [a d]og (?) devoured a dog […]

B
Upper edge
1 - [… f]amine occurred in the land. People [sold their children (?) …]

Text #9113

Editorial comment by Laura Knight-Jadczyk

Since the line preceding is describing a dog devouring a dog, perhaps the line about people selling their children actually said that they ate their children?

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