Month namesWe subdivide the year into twelve months. We begin our year in winter and use
traditional month names, many handed down from Roman times (e.g. July after Julius
Caesar, August after Augustus, December from Latin decem, ten, originally the tenth
month in the Roman calendar). Our year is based in the solar year, that is, the time it
takes for the earth to complete its orbit around the sun. The solar year, sometimes also
called the tropical year, is reckoned at 365 days in length, but its actual length is
fractionally more than that ( 365. 242 days).
Such was not the case in ancient Mesopotamia. Babylonians began their year in the
spring and used a lunar calendar. As Horowitz explained, “In the lunar calendar,
months begin with the appearance of the new moon on the western horizon at sunset
at the end of the first day of the month, and continue for twenty-nine or thirty days
until the last night of the old month, when the moon is not visible at all.” (Horowitz
1996 : 36 , see also Sallaberger 1993 : 306 ). Human observation determined the month’s
length, that is, whether it had twenty-nine or thirty days (Cohen 1993 : 4 ; Sallaberger
1999 : 233 ).
Almost all third millennium calendars feature twelve month names. There were,
however, exceptions. In the powerful Early Dynastic city state of Lagash, for instance,
forty month names are attested,^22 as will be discussed in the section on calendrical
oddities that follows.
Many third millennium month names were linked to agricultural or religious events
that took place in that month.^23 For example, Sumerian names for months include iti
ezem-mah, “month of the great festival,” iti masˇ 2 -da-ku 2 , “month (for) eating gazelle,”
iti sˇe-KIN-KUD, “month (for) harvesting barley” (Sallaberger 1999 : 234 – 236 , Cohen
1993 : 119 ). Month names and the celebrations they reflected were often local.
Third millennium month names in Akkadian are attested too, and these, according
to Cohen, particularly stress natural and agricultural events (Cohen 1993 : 8 ). These
month names might be used in several different city-states. Examples include Za-’a-
tum, “Flocks,” attested at Ebla, Mari and Abu Salabikh among other places (Cohen
1993 : 25 ), and Bahir warki(written ba-hi-ir EGIR, “Later Heat”) attested at Adab and
Eshnunna (Cohen 1993 : 35 ). Much later on, a standard list of Semitic month names
would be used in Mesopotamia.^24
While months no doubt served to mark the linear passage of time, it is hard to
escape the conclusion that the primary use of the months in the third millennium BC
was to mark cycles of the cult, to know when to make the proper offerings. Because
each city-state had its own patron goddess or god, and its own individual version of the
cycle of festivals and religious celebrations, each city-state used its own set of month
names. From a religious point of view, this makes eminent sense. From an admini-
strative point of view, keeping track of a multiplicity of calendars is problematic.
A further headache stems from the apparent lack of synchronicity among local
calendars. If all the various city-states began a year of 360 days on the same day, then
month i in one city state, for example, Ur, would correspond to month i in Nippur or
month i in Ur. One would simply need to know all the names for month i in the
various regions.
Surprisingly, even for periods as centrally organized as the Third Dynasty of Ur, local
calendars ran independently. Aside from the fact that the length of the year could vary
–– Calendars and counting ––