Last weekend, Twitter was flooded with images, blurry and not blurry, of the Super Blood Moon Eclipse. A rare phenomenon that in historical times was thought to be the harbringer or bad luck, ill omens, and even the end of the world.
But before social media and hashtags, early astronomers were already looking towards the sky to calculate and predict the movements of the heavens and record astrological events. The British Library has made public some images from a manuscript in its collection from 19th century Thailand which documents one of the Blood Moon Eclipses from history.
The manuscript is described as being from the time of King Rama IV. The Thai king's reign lasted from 1851 to 1868. He was an avid astronomer and he even accurately predicted a total solar eclipse which would be visible from the Southern part of Thailand. Tragically, he died when he contracted malaria during the excursion to view the said eclipse for himself.
The manuscript shows illustrations of an unmistakable red moon in its pages. Interestingly, the drawings depict two types of possible red moons and they also come with a warning:
"Following the occurrence of such a moon three bad things might happen: the price of rice may increase, robberies may take place, and there is even the prospect of war! The entire population, including governors and Brahmins (learned men) could suffer great hardship," describes the British Library of its translation of the manuscript.
It seems that even Thais in the 19th century thought that the Blood Moon could only be a signal of bad times.
The complete manuscript and all its colored, hand-drawn illustrations may be viewed online at the British Library website.
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