Old Persian and Elamite calendarsThe most ancient calendars attested east of Mesopotamia are those of Persia
and Elam.^4 The evidence is tenuous, but until the mid-first millenniumBCE,
they were almost certainly lunar. This is supported by an Elamite document
from late second-millenniumBCEAnšan, that appears to include an intercalary
month.^5 But our knowledge of the ancient, Old Persian and Elamite calendars
derives mainly from early Achaemenid sources of the sixth–fifth centuriesBCE,
more precisely from the reigns of Darius I (the trilingual Behistun inscription,
dated year 1 of Darius or 522/1BCE, and the Persepolis Fortification Tablets)
and of Xerxes and Artaxerxes I (the Persepolis Treasury Tablets), which use
Old Persian and Elamite as well as Babylonian month-names concurrently.^6
Reference in these sources to Old Persian and Elamite intercalary months
suggests again lunar calendars; more importantly, the correlation of these
three calendars confirms that like the Babylonian calendar, the Old Persian
and Elamite calendars were lunar.^7
The similarity of the Old Persian to the Babylonian calendar in the sixth
centuryBCEis most evident in the trilingual Behistun inscription, where the
same days of the month are recorded for Old Persian months in the Old
Persian and Elamite texts as for Babylonian months in the Akkadian text.
These exact equivalences, however, cannot be taken at face value: they only
mean that the Akkadian translators of the Elamite or Old Persian texts^8
believed both calendars to be identical, or assumed so for translation conve-
nience. In reality, even if both calendars were lunar, there could have been
(^4) See Cohen (1993) 362–6, citing evidence of Elamite month-names from Susa and Anšan
going back to the late second—earlyfirst millenniaBCE. For an attempt to reconstruct the ancient
Elamite calendar, see de Blois (2006).
(^5) Hinz and Koch (1987) ii. 1153, s.v.še-ru-um (1), with a plausible restoration‘še-ru-um
DIRIG’(i.e. intercalaryŠerum).
(^6) For a translation of the Behistun (also known as Bisitun) inscription, see Lecoq (1997)
83 – 97 and 187–217; for a full edition of the Aramaic version found at Elephantine, see Porten
and Yardeni (1986–99) iii. 60–71. For the Persepolis Fortification Tablets, see Hallock (1969),
with discussion on pp. 74–5; for the Persepolis Treasury Tablets (which actually begin at the end
of the reign of Darius I), see G. G. Cameron (1948), (1965). The Behistun inscription has Old
Persian and Babylonian month-names (in the Old Persian and Akkadian texts, respectively); its
Elamite text does not give Elamite month-names, but only Old Persian month-names in
transliteration. The Persepolis Fortification Tablets, written in Elamite, have mainly Old Persian
month-names but also other names that are presumed to be Elamite, on the grounds that tablets
with these month-names relate to the administration of workforces in various regions of Elam
(so Hallock 1969: 74–5), and more importantly, that some of these month-names are similar to
those in Elamite documents from late second-millenniumBCEAnšan (see Stolper 1984: 14–15; de
Blois 2006). The Persepolis Treasury Tablets, also written in Elamite, have only Old Persian
names.
(^7) Old Persian month-names suggest an association with agricultural seasons (Boyce 1975–91:
ii. 23–5; Lecoq 1997: 171–4); but this would be compatible to a lunar calendar with intercalation.
(^8) The earliest and main text of the inscription is either the Elamite (Kuhrt 1995: ii. 666) or Old
Persian (Lecoq 1997: 87) versions, of which the Akkadian version is a translation.
170 Calendars in Antiquity