Let them intercalate a month; all the stars of the sky have fallen behind. Month
XII must not pass unfavourably. Let them intercalate.^83But other sources suggest that although astrologers were expected to make
recommendations, the decision to intercalate was ultimately the king’s.^84 Thus
in one text, Mar-ištar writes from Babylonia to the Assyrian king that a second
Ululu should be intercalated; but a little later, on or after the 6th of (first)
Ululu, the same Mar-ištar reports that because the king’s order to intercalate
had not reached Babylon until that date, the cult ceremonies that should have
been postponed to the second Ululu had already been performed.^85 The king’s
authority over intercalation is further evident in several neo-Assyrian royal
orders instructing Babylonian temple officials to intercalate Ululu or Ad-
daru.^86 In the neo-Babylonian period, likewise, King Nabunaid commands
for example a temple official in Uruk to intercalate Addaru;^87 and in another
text from this period, temple officials in Babylon convey to their counterparts
of the Eanna temple in Uruk that the king has ordered the intercalation of
Addaru.^88
The dispatch of royal intercalation orders from Assyria to Babylonia in the
neo-Assyrian period expresses, far more explicitly than in the context of
month beginnings and month-lengths (on which see above), an expectation
that intercalations should be uniformly made throughout the regions of the
empire. But to what extent Babylonians were willing to comply with the
decisions of the Assyrian king is not always clear. A letter to King Esarhaddon
reports that noblemen from Babylon and Borsippa were asking him whether
there should be an intercalation;^89 but this request was only transmitted to the
king through the intermediary of an Assyrian astrologer in Calah (Urdu-
Nabû), so the accuracy of the report may be open to doubt. Certainly in
periods of Babylonian revolt or independence from their Assyrian masters one
expects the calendar to have been run differently; and yet evidence of calendar
divergence in the neo-Assyrian period is very scant. In 678/7BCEit seems that
a second Ululu was intercalated in Assyria and a second Addaru in Babylonia;
and in 667BCEa second Addaru in Assyria was followed by a second Ululu in
(^83) Parpola (1970–83) i, no. 325, as corrected ibid. ii. 342; Hunger (1992) no. 98; I have cited
the translation of Brown (2000) 150.
(^84) Oppenheim (1969) 133 n. 52. This applies even to Balasî, who in another letter, if correctly
reconstructed, suggests that an intercalation had been ordered by the king: Parpola (1993) no. 44.
(^85) Parpola (1970–83) i, nos. 285 and 287 respectively, which he dates both to 670BCE(see
commentary ii. 282–5 and n. 516). No. 285 is, however, very fragmentary. On the scholars Balasî
and Mar-i 86 štar, see ibid. ii, p. xvi, Rochberg (2010) 238.
Parpola (1970–83) i, no. 190 (1993: no. 253), ii. 285; Cole and Machinist (1998) 6–7 nos.
4 and 5.
(^87) Parpola (1970–83) ii. 504–5 (from Clay 1919: no. 115), with further examples ibid. 285; see
also Parker and Dubberstein (1956) 1,Wacholder andWeisberg (1971) 230.
(^88) Parpola loc. cit. (from Clay 1919: no. 152); seeWacholder andWeisberg loc. cit.
(^89) Parpola (1970–83). ii. 187; Cole and Machinist (1998) 54–5 no. 60.
96 Calendars in Antiquity