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The Babylonian calendar was a
lunisolar calendar A lunisolar calendar is a calendar in many cultures, combining lunar calendars and solar calendars. The date of Lunisolar calendars therefore indicates both the Moon phase and the time of the solar year, that is the position of the Sun in the Ea ...
with years consisting of 12 lunar months, each beginning when a new
crescent moon Crescent moon may refer to: Lunar phases *Fingernail moon, a lunar phase waxing until 7 days after or waning since 7 days before the new moon * Hilal (crescent moon), an Arabic term for the very slight crescent moon that is first visible after a n ...
was first sighted low on the western horizon at sunset, plus an
intercalary month Intercalation or embolism in timekeeping is the insertion of a leap day, week, or month into some calendar years to make the calendar follow the seasons or moon phases. Lunisolar calendars may require intercalations of both days and months. So ...
inserted as needed by decree. The calendar is based on a Sumerian ( Third Dynasty of Ur) predecessor preserved in the Umma calendar of Shulgi (c. 21st century BC).


Months

The year begins in spring, and is divided into ''reš šatti'' "beginning", ''mišil šatti'' "middle", and ''qīt šatti'' "end of the year". The word for "month" was ''arḫu'' ( construct state ''araḫ''). The chief deity of the Assyrians is assigned the surplus intercalary month, showing that the calendar originates in Babylonian, and not later Assyrian times. During the 6th century BC
Babylonian captivity The Babylonian captivity or Babylonian exile is the period in Jewish history during which a large number of Judeans from the ancient Kingdom of Judah were captives in Babylon, the capital city of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, following their defeat ...
of the Jews, the Babylonian month names were adopted into the Hebrew calendar. In Iraq and the Levant the Gregorian solar calendar is used with these names replacing the Latin ones as Arabic names of Roman months. The
Assyrian calendar Assyrian may refer to: * Assyrian people, the indigenous ethnic group of Mesopotamia. * Assyria, a major Mesopotamian kingdom and empire. ** Early Assyrian Period ** Old Assyrian Period ** Middle Assyrian Empire ** Neo-Assyrian Empire * Assyrian ...
used in is an example, also the
Turkish months The month names in Turkish are derived from three languages: either from Latin, Levantine Arabic (which itself took its names from Aramaic), or from a genuine Turkish word. The Arabic-Aramaic month names themselves originate in the ancient Babyl ...
. These were inspired by the Ottoman Rumi calendar, itself derived from the Roman Julian solar calendar. Despite appropriating the mere Babylonian names, their months are ''not equivalent'' to those of the Hebrew and Babylonian lunisolar calendar. Until the
5th century BC The 5th century BC started the first day of 500 BC and ended the last day of 401 BC. This century saw the establishment of Pataliputra as a capital of the Magadha Empire. This city would later become the ruling capital of different Indian king ...
, the calendar was fully observational, but beginning about
499 BC __NOTOC__ Year 499 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. In the Roman Empire it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Aebutius and Cicurinus (or, less frequently, year 255 '' Ab urbe condita''). The denomination 499 BC for this y ...
the months began to be regulated by a lunisolar cycle of 19 years equaling 235 months. Although usually called the Metonic cycle after
Meton of Athens Meton of Athens ( el, Μέτων ὁ Ἀθηναῖος; ''gen''.: Μέτωνος) was a Greek mathematician, astronomer, geometer, and engineer who lived in Athens in the 5th century BC. He is best known for calculations involving the eponymou ...
(
432 BC __NOTOC__ Year 432 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Tribunate of Mamercus, Albinus and Medullinus (or, less frequently, year 322 '' Ab urbe condita''). The denomination 432 BC for this ...
), Meton probably learned of the cycle from the Babylonians. After no more than three isolated exceptions, by
380 BC 38 may refer to: *38 (number), the natural number following 37 and preceding 39 *one of the years 38 BC, AD 38, 1938, 2038 *.38, a caliber of firearms and cartridges **.38 Special, a revolver cartridge *'' Thirty-Eight: The Hurricane That Transfo ...
the months of the calendar were regulated by the cycle without exception. In the cycle of 19 years, the month Adaru 2 was intercalated, except in the year that was number 17 in the cycle, when the month Ulūlu 2 was inserted. During this period, the first day of each month (beginning at sunset) continued to be the day when a new crescent moon was first sighted—the calendar never used a specified number of days in any month.


Days

Counting from the
new moon In astronomy, the new moon is the first lunar phase, when the Moon and Sun have the same ecliptic longitude. At this phase, the lunar disk is not visible to the naked eye, except when it is silhouetted against the Sun during a solar eclipse. ...
, the Babylonians celebrated every seventh day as a "holy-day", also called an "evil-day" (meaning "unsuitable" for prohibited activities). On these days officials were prohibited from various activities and common men were forbidden to "make a wish", and at least the 28th was known as a "rest-day". On each of them, offerings were made to a different god and goddess, apparently at nightfall to avoid the prohibitions:
Marduk Marduk (Cuneiform: dAMAR.UTU; Sumerian: ''amar utu.k'' "calf of the sun; solar calf"; ) was a god from ancient Mesopotamia and patron deity of the city of Babylon. When Babylon became the political center of the Euphrates valley in the time of ...
and Ishtar on the 7th, Ninlil and
Nergal Nergal ( Sumerian: d''KIŠ.UNU'' or ; ; Aramaic: ܢܸܪܓܲܠ; la, Nirgal) was a Mesopotamian god worshiped through all periods of Mesopotamian history, from Early Dynastic to Neo-Babylonian times, with a few attestations under indicating hi ...
on the 14th, Sin and
Shamash Utu (dUD "Sun"), also known under the Akkadian name Shamash, ''šmš'', syc, ܫܡܫܐ ''šemša'', he, שֶׁמֶשׁ ''šemeš'', ar, شمس ''šams'', Ashurian Aramaic: 𐣴𐣬𐣴 ''š'meš(ā)'' was the ancient Mesopotamian sun god. ...
on the 21st, and
Enki , image = Enki(Ea).jpg , caption = Detail of Enki from the Adda Seal, an ancient Akkadian cylinder seal dating to circa 2300 BC , deity_of = God of creation, intelligence, crafts, water, seawater, lakewater, fertility, semen, magic, mischief ...
and
Mah ''Mångha'' (') is the Avestan for "Moon, month", equivalent to Persian ''Māh'' (; Old Persian ). It is the name of the lunar deity in Zoroastrianism. The Iranian word is masculine. Although Mah is not a prominent deity in the Avestan script ...
on the 28th. Tablets from the sixth-century BC reigns of
Cyrus the Great Cyrus II of Persia (; peo, 𐎤𐎢𐎽𐎢𐏁 ), commonly known as Cyrus the Great, was the founder of the Achaemenid Empire, the first Persian empire. Schmitt Achaemenid dynasty (i. The clan and dynasty) Under his rule, the empire embraced ...
and
Cambyses II Cambyses II ( peo, 𐎣𐎲𐎢𐎪𐎡𐎹 ''Kabūjiya'') was the second King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire from 530 to 522 BC. He was the son and successor of Cyrus the Great () and his mother was Cassandane. Before his accession, Cambyses ...
indicate these dates were sometimes approximate. The
lunation In lunar calendars, a lunar month is the time between two successive syzygies of the same type: new moons or full moons. The precise definition varies, especially for the beginning of the month. Variations In Shona, Middle Eastern, and Europ ...
of 29 or 30 days basically contained three seven-day weeks, and a final week of eight or nine days inclusive, breaking the continuous seven-day cycle. Among other theories of ''
Shabbat Shabbat (, , or ; he, שַׁבָּת, Šabbāṯ, , ) or the Sabbath (), also called Shabbos (, ) by Ashkenazim, is Judaism's day of rest on the seventh day of the week—i.e., Saturday. On this day, religious Jews remember the biblical storie ...
'' origin, the ''Universal Jewish Encyclopedia'' of Isaac Landman advanced a theory of Assyriologists like Friedrich Delitzsch that ''Shabbat'' originally arose from the lunar cycle, containing four weeks ending in Sabbath, plus one or two additional unreckoned days per month. The difficulties of this theory include reconciling the differences between an unbroken week and a lunar week, and explaining the absence of texts naming the lunar week as ''Shabbat'' in any language. The rarely attested ''Sapattum'' or ''Sabattum'' as the full moon is cognate or merged with Hebrew ''Shabbat'', but is monthly rather than weekly; it is regarded as a form of Sumerian ''sa-bat'' ("mid-rest"), attested in Akkadian as ''um nuh libbi'' ("day of mid-repose"). According to Marcello Craveri, Sabbath "was almost certainly derived from the Babylonian ''Shabattu'', the festival of the full moon, but, all trace of any such origin having been lost, the Hebrews ascribed it to Biblical legend." This conclusion is a contextual restoration of the damaged '' Enûma Eliš'' creation account, which is read as: " abath shalt thou then encounter, mid onthy."


See also


Lunisolar calendars

* Hebrew calendar * Ancient Macedonian calendar


Other systems

*
Assyrian calendar Assyrian may refer to: * Assyrian people, the indigenous ethnic group of Mesopotamia. * Assyria, a major Mesopotamian kingdom and empire. ** Early Assyrian Period ** Old Assyrian Period ** Middle Assyrian Empire ** Neo-Assyrian Empire * Assyrian ...
* Mandaean calendar *
Persian calendar The Iranian calendars or Iranian chronology ( fa, گاه‌شماری ایرانی, ) are a succession of calendars invented or used for over two millennia in Iran, also known as Persia. One of the longest chronological records in human history, ...
* Islamic calendar * Solar Hijri calendar * Pre-Islamic Arabian calendar * Babylonian astrology * Babylonian astronomy *
Arabic names of Gregorian months The Arabic names of the months of the Gregorian calendar are usually phonetic Arabic pronunciations of the corresponding month names used in European languages. An exception is the Syriac calendar used in Iraq and the Levant, whose month names a ...
* MUL.APIN *
Egyptian Egyptian describes something of, from, or related to Egypt. Egyptian or Egyptians may refer to: Nations and ethnic groups * Egyptians, a national group in North Africa ** Egyptian culture, a complex and stable culture with thousands of years of ...
,
Coptic Coptic may refer to: Afro-Asia * Copts, an ethnoreligious group mainly in the area of modern Egypt but also in Sudan and Libya * Coptic language, a Northern Afro-Asiatic language spoken in Egypt until at least the 17th century * Coptic alphabet ...
, and
Ethiopian calendar The Ethiopian calendar ( am, የኢትዮጲያ ዘመን ኣቆጣጠር; Oromo: Akka Lakkofsa Itoophiyaatti; Ge'ez: ዓዉደ ወርሕ; Tigrinya: ዓዉደ ኣዋርሕ), or Ge'ez calendar ( Ge'ez: ዓዉደ ወርሕ; Tigrinya: ዓዉ ...
s * Zoroastrian and Armenian calendars *
Turkish months The month names in Turkish are derived from three languages: either from Latin, Levantine Arabic (which itself took its names from Aramaic), or from a genuine Turkish word. The Arabic-Aramaic month names themselves originate in the ancient Babyl ...


References


Notes


Citations


Bibliography

*Parker, Richard Anthony and Waldo H. Dubberstein. ''Babylonian Chronology 626 BC.–AD. 75''. Providence, RI: Brown University Press, 1956. *W. Muss-Arnolt, ''The Names of the Assyro-Babylonian Months and Their Regents'', Journal of Biblical Literature (1892). *Sacha Stern, "The Babylonian Calendar at Elephantine" in ''Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik'' 130 (2000) 159–171
PDF document
94 KB) *Fales, Frederick Mario, “A List of Umma Month Names”, Revue d’assyriologie et d’archéologie orientale, 76 (1982), 70–71. * Gomi, Tohru, “On the Position of the Month iti-ezem-dAmar-dSin in the Neo-Sumerian Umma Calendar”, Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und Vorderasiatische Archäologie, 75 (1985), 4–6. * Pomponio, Francesco, “The Reichskalender of Ur III in the Umma Texts”, Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und Vorderasiastische Archäologie, 79 (1989), 10–13. * Verderame, Lorenzo, “Le calendrier et le compte du temps dans la pensée mythique suméro-akkadienne”, De Kêmi à Birit Nâri, Revue Internationale de l'Orient Ancien, 3 (2008), 121–134. * Steele, John M., ed., "Calendars and Years: Astronomy and Time in the Ancient Near East", Oxford: Oxbow, 2007.


External links



{{Calendars Obsolete calendars
Calendar A calendar is a system of organizing days. This is done by giving names to periods of time, typically days, weeks, months and years. A date is the designation of a single and specific day within such a system. A calendar is also a physi ...
Lunisolar calendars