the structures that were common to allancient calendars, and for this reason
Ishallfocus on days, months, and years.
For similar reasons, and in order to keep this study within a manageable
scope,Ishallonly dealwith thestructureof ancient calendars, as described
above, but not with theircontents. By contentsImean the identification of
certain days or dates within the calendar as religious festivals and fasts, as
auspicious or inauspicious, as days appropriate or inappropriate for various
economic, political,legal,orreligious activities, etc. Lists of festivals and other
such qualified days are wellrepresented in Mesopotamian hemerologies and
menologies and in the Romanfasti, but outside the scope of the present study.^9
Furthermore,Ishallnot dealwith the practicaluses of the calendar, such as
dating. ThusIshallnot address, for example, the questions of which activities
or events were chosen to be dated—i.e. brought into relation with calendars—
and with what precision; how dates were expressed and presented in docu-
ments and inscriptions; and how different calendars or dating systems could
be simultaneously used.^10 The contents and uses of calendars were culture-
dependent and subject to considerable diversity, which makes themless
obviously susceptible to a comprehensive and integrated history of calendars
in Antiquity.^11 It is my narrow focus on the common dimension of ancient
calendars, i.e. their structure and method of reckoning, that permits me to
capture, in a single monograph, the history and development of calendars in
Antiquity as a whole. My scope is thus at once very narrow and very broad.
My period extends from the origins to the Muslim conquest in the early
seventh century, althoughIdo not go much beyond thefifth centuryCE. The
territory whichIcall, eurocentrically, the‘ancient world’extends roughly from
the Middle East to the Atlantic; its geographicallimits couldbedefined more
precisely as the borders of the Achaemenid Empire to the east, and of the
Roman Empire to the west.
SOURCES, METHODOLOGY,THEORYThe evidence consists almost entirely of the written word; but whetherliterary,
epigraphic, or documentary, it is very sporadic and incomplete. This is because
most ancient societies did not bother to write out their calendars in full. The
(^9) On ancient Near Eastern cultic calendars, seeCohen ( 1 993). On Mesopotamian hemerol-
ogies and menologies, Labat ( 1 939) is now very outdated; a new edition and study are being
prepared by Alasdair Livingstone. On Romanfasti, see Rüpke ( 1995 ) and, in summary, Feeney
(2007) 184 – 9.
(^10) Dating practices are given some generalconsideration by Bickerman ( 1 968).
(^11) For similar reasonsIshallnot dealwith the use, meaning, and etymology of day and month
names, on which see Greengus ( 1 987), (200 1 ) for Mesopotamia and Trümpy ( 1 997) for Greece.
Introduction 7