The End of Cuneiform Writing in Uruk, Late Babylonian Astronomy, and the "Phoenix Cycle" By Eckart Frahm

https://www.academia.edu/164651422/The_End_of_Cuneiform_Writing_in_Uruk_Late_Babylonian_Astronomy_and_the_Phoenix_Cycle_?email_work_card=title An analysis of the latest cuneiform texts on clay tablets from the Mesopotamian city of Uruk, with a refutation of recent attempts to date TU 11 and TU 31 to the first, second, or third century CE. It is tentatively suggested that a cryptic allusion to a 654-year cycle in TU 11 is not concerned with the reappearance of the Phoenix bird, as has been posited, but may rather refer to the simultaneous occurrence of a comet, rain, floods, and an earthquake in some apocalyptic remote future. ...