Researchers have unraveled the mysteries of four ancient Babylonian tablets, dating back 4,000 years, finding they are filled with foreboding predictions of death and destruction.

Unearthed more than a century ago in what is now Iraq, these clay tablets, part of the British Museum’s collection, have only recently been translated into modern language. According to a study published in the Journal of Cuneiform Studies, the inscriptions foretell the deaths of kings and the collapse of civilizations.

The Babylonians, residing in southern Mesopotamia, based their fortune-telling on the moon’s movements, particularly lunar eclipses — phenomena when the Earth casts its shadow on the moon. These tablets represent the earliest compendiums of lunar-eclipse omens discovered, as noted by authors Andrew George and Junko Taniguchi, Live Science reports.

The Babylonians analyzed eclipses meticulously — considering factors like time of night, shadow movement, duration, and dates — to make their predictions. They believed celestial events were divine warnings intended for the rulers and people of Earth.

Among the ominous predictions inscribed on the tablets are declarations such as “a king will die, destruction of Elam,” a region in ancient Mesopotamia now part of Iran. This was believed to occur if “an eclipse becomes obscured from its center all at once [and] clears all at once,” as reported by Live Science.

Another tablet forewarns the “downfall of Subartu and Akkad” if “an eclipse begins in the south and then clears.” Additional dire prophecies include locust swarms attacking lands, cattle losses, and the collapse of large armies.

The tablets are believed to originate from Sippar, an ancient Babylonian city southwest of modern-day Baghdad. Advisors to the king used the tablets to forecast the future, matching their observations with established celestial-omen texts.