‘shifted’(because subsequent to an intercalation) would have been unique and
unparalleled in the ancient world. Thirdly, in a context of a lunar calendar
where intercalations were regularly made, any month could be regarded as
having been, at some level, shifted. The information that a particular month
had been‘shifted’would have been of limited use, and indeed could have led to
confusion, unless there was a clear rule dictating for how long after an
intercalation the months would continue being called‘shifted’. Fourthly, the
termbeptikahas been interpreted (through linguistic derivation) as meaning
‘hostile’,‘rebel’,or‘foreign’,^17 none of which lend themselves to Hallock’s
translation‘shifted’: there would have been no good reason for a‘shifted’
month to be regarded as either hostile or foreign. In contrast,‘foreign’would
have been a very suitable designation for extra-sequential, intercalary months.
It is far more plausible, therefore, to interpret the Old Persianbeptikamonths
as being intercalary.^18
The Old Persian intercalations above-mentioned for 503/2 and 499BCEare
inconsistent not only with the Babylonian calendar, as we have seen, but also
with the Old Persian dates of other documents from the same corpus of
Persepolis Fortification Tablets that give for these years the same intercala-
tions as in the Babylonian calendar.^19 The four deviant cases of 503/2 and 499
BCEmay thus be regarded as exceptional to the general pattern of Old Persian
adaptation to the Babylonian calendar; they reveal that in this period, the
adaptation to the Babylonian calendar was not fully or consistently imple-
mented.^20 An explanation may in fact be given as to why the dates in these
(^17) See de Blois (2006) 44, 49–51, who subscribes nevertheless to Hallock’s interpretation of
beptika(in the context of Old Persian months) as referring to‘shifted’months, and argues that
shifted months were calledbeptika,i.e.‘hostile’, because these months could be wrongly
identified by negligent scribes and hence could lead to errors. This explanation seems unneces-
sarily far-fetched.
(^18) I follow here the interpretation of Hartner (1985) 746–8, except that in his view,beptika
means an intercalary month deemed to occurbeforethe regular month of the same name; this
however is refuted by no. 1046, where an Elamite XIIbeptikaappears at the end of the four-
month sequence from month X (see above, n. 15), and no. 1053 with an Old Persian four-month
period from Ibeptikato IV. Hartner’s interpretation is designed tofit his broader theory that
intercalation in the Old Persian calendar was regulated by the winter solstice, which itself is
unsubstantiated and implausible. 19
See above, n. 10. One tablet from 503/2BCE, no. 1943, is internally inconsistent: in l. 3, it
refers to a sequence of four months from VI 1 to VIII, including the Babylonian-compatible
intercalation of VI 2 ; but in ll. 13–14, 22–3, 35–6 it has sequences of months without the
intercalation of VI 2 (seven months from III to IX, seven months from II to VIII, and four
months from V to VIII). It is quite possible that in the latter section of the tablet, VI 2 was omitted
because the scribe switched, at that point, to the Old Persian calendar where the intercalation was
not made until later in the year (X 2 ).
(^20) This justifies my reluctance, in Ch. 2, to use Old Persian sources as evidence of Babylonian
intercalations. Further deviations from Babylonian intercalations are apparent in other docu-
ments, but these are less conclusive. Hallock (1969) no. 1055 refers to (Elamite) months XII to I
in the 22nd year (of Darius I, i.e. 500/499BCE) as a two-month period, which would imply no
intercalation of XII 2 ; yet this year is known in the Babylonian calendar to have been intercalated.
TheRise of the Fixed Calendars 173