Calendars in Antiquity. Empires, States, and Societies

likely to have been set—by whoever was in charge of setting the calendar—on the basis of prediction alone. Another conclusion th ...

and predicted on the same day, then obviously the month began on that day. If the new moon was not sighted on either the 30th or ...

(first centuryBCE), but it is quite possible that decisions were still taken by the king or his administration. As we have seen ...

sighting (in the Achaemenid and Seleucid periods) demands an explanation. It reflects, perhaps, increased confidence in the astr ...

suggests that there too, Babylonian months could diverge from the central Babylonian calendar, presumably for exactly the same r ...

intercalate may have been largely a matter of royal decree, as implicit in the following letter from Hammurabi (king of Babylon ...

Let them intercalate a month; all the stars of the sky have fallen behind. Month XII must not pass unfavourably. Let them interc ...

Babylonia.^90 Some have conjectured that in these years, the Assyrian king had momentarily lost political control over Babylonia ...

of intercalations and is clearly inadequate for a lunar calendar; it has also been argued that the other rules in MUL.APIN (e.g. ...

The institution of afixed cycle: the evidence It is commonly accepted that in the Achaemenid period, from the earlyfifth century ...

Intercalation in the neo-Babylonian period In Table 2.1, I present the intercalated years ranging from the reign of Nabopolassar ...

Table 2.1.Intercalations in the neo-Babylonian period YearBCE Intercalation (month number) Interval from previous intercalation ...

Avoidance of an over-rigid pattern (such as the 2½-year scheme) in the reigns of Nebuchadnezzar and his successors enabled a mor ...

scheme was slightly more precise than the 2½-year scheme of Nabopolassar, although it entailed, this time, slightly insufficient ...

The origins of the eight-year cycle are unclear, but its institution may have come about in an unintentional manner. A sequence, ...

The 19-year cycle The institution of a 19-year cycle is generally ascribed to Darius’reign, around the turn of thefifth century. ...

to 517/16 (see Table 2.2), but inasmuch as it was not repeated, it was presumably not intended as a cycle. Its fortuitous occurr ...

above), Balasî confirms that the year should be intercalated, but suggests that they wait and see when to add the intercalary mo ...

Table 2.4.Intercalations under Darius I, Xerxes, and Artaxerxes I YearBCE Intercalation (month number) Interval from previous in ...

sequence is repeated. Moreover, the 19-year cycle that seems to have been used from the 470s may still have been perceived, at t ...