Other letters confirm that reports of new moon sightings were frequently sent
from various Assyrian cities to the royal court at Nineveh.^33 Some came from
even as far as Babylonia.^34 It is unclear whether reports from other cities were
sent as a matter of course, or only on demand. The letter of Adad-šumu-usur
(cited above) implies that a report from Assur was anyway expected, but
the letter just cited implies that reports from Assur and Arbela needed to be
actively sought. In any event, these letters seem to confirm that the resolution
of conflicts between pre/postdiction and actual sighting depended on new
moon sightings from other localities: astrologers and kings were still reluctant,
in this period, to rely on new moon pre/postdictions alone.
The socio-political context of these letters is also worthy of attention. It
seems clear that the relationship between astrologers and the king was crucial
to the process of determining the new month. The astrologers—many of
whom, in the neo-Assyrian kingdom, were directly employed by the king—
were invested with the responsibility, which also means the authority, of
observing the new moon at the beginning of every month and of communi-
cating their observations to the king. The regularity of their reports, at least
from astrologers in Nineveh, is evident from the large number of letters that
simply inform the king whether or not the new moon was sighted.^35 It is on
the basis of these reports that the decision was taken, presumably by the king,
on which day to begin the month. The letters cited above suggest that
whenever the matter was doubtful—in these cases, because of a conflict
between new moon prediction and sighting, but perhaps just as frequently,
when conflicting new moon sighting reports were received from different
cities—the decision rested entirely with the king.
The letter of Adad-šumu-usur cited above suggests that sometimes the king
would try to hand over the decision to his astrologers, a responsibility which
astrologers would be reluctant to accept. But in other cases astrologers were far
more assertive. In one text a Babylonian astrologer, Ašaredu the younger,
confirms the validity of his new moon sighting on the 30th (i.e. end of 29th) by
stating categorically that the moon cannot remain invisible for as much as four
days (between last sighting of the old moon andfirst sighting of the new); the
old moon had already been invisible on the 27th (in the morning).^36 The tone
(^33) Ibid. nos. 91 (Assur), 96, 99 (Arbela). But nos. 119 and 323 (cited above) were presumably
sent locally from Nineveh.
(^34) Ibid. no. 290 (Beaulieu 1993: 70): Mar-ištar, Esarhaddon’s agent in Babylonia, informs the
king that the moon was seen on the 1st (i.e. 31st of the old month), thus retroactively determining
the beginning of the month of Du 35 ’uzu.
Parpola (1970–83) i, nos. 91, 96–9, 100, 102, 352; (1993) nos. 140, 142, 145–6.
(^36) Hunger (1992) no. 346:‘On this 30th day [the moon became visible]. The lord of kings will
say:‘Is [the sign?] not affected?’The moon disappeared on the 27th; the 28th and the 29th it
stayed inside the sky, and was seen on the 30th; when else should it have been seen? It should stay
in the sky less than four days, it never stayed four days.’Beaulieu (1993: 66 n. 2) misinterprets
this text as referring to the interval between conjunction andfirst visibility of the new moon.
The Babylonian Calendar 81