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12 While the Hebrew Prophets predicted Darkness at Noon, what were the “other nations” expecting as they awaited the Return of Nibiru? To judge by their written records and engraved images, they were expecting the resolution of the gods’ conflicts, benevolent times for mankind, and a great theophany. They were in, as we shall see, for an immense surprise. In anticipation of the great event, the cadres of priests ob- serving the skies in Nineveh and Babylon were mobilized to note celestial phenomena and interpret their omens. The phe- nomena were meticulously recorded and reported to the kings. Archaeologists have found in the remains of royal and temple libraries tablets with those records and reports that in many instances were arranged according to subject or the planet they were observing. A well-known collection in which some seventy tablets were combined—in antiquity— was a series titled Enuma Anu Enlil; it reported observations of planets, stars, and constellations classified according to the celestial Way of Anu and Way of Enlil—encompassing the skies from 30 degrees south all the way to zenith in the north (see Fig. 53). At first the observations were interpreted by comparing the phenomena to astronomical records from Sumerian times. Though written in Akkadian (Babylon’s and Assyria’s language), the observational reports extensively used Sume- rian terminology and mathematics and sometimes included a scribal note that they were translated from earlier Sumerian tablets. Such tablets served as “astronomers’ manuals,” tell- DARKNESS AT NOON