calendrical aberrations like Shulgi’s forty-fourth year, which appears to have had a total
of nineteen months, created by repeating each one of the first six months.^32 Certainly
we are missing a great deal of information from these periods, but enough data from
the relevant archives survives to show such “superyears” existed. One could also have
years that appear to have too few months, for instance, Shulgi’s forty-eighth year
appears to have had only seven months.^33 Why is another matter. It seems possible that
marking off periods of exactly 360 – 365 days was not necessarily the calendar’s only or
even chief purpose in ancient Mesopotamia.
Calendrical reformsThird millennium calendrical reforms can be subdivided into two categories: reforms
intended to increase the efficiency of administration, and reforms with a political or
religious agenda.
A prime example of the first type of reform occurred late in the Ur III period, when
the new king Shu-Sin undertook to reform administration, including the Reichskalendar.
Shu-Sin’s administrative reforms had multiple elements, some seemingly intended to
make the government run more smoothly by synchronizing calendars and intercalations,
some seemingly intended to streamline administrative transactions through new
terminology and practices (Sallaberger 1999 : 170 ). After Shu-Sin’s calendrical reforms,
major state centers of government such as Ur and Puzrish-Dagan began with the same
month and intercalated at the same time (Gomi 1979 : 2 – 3 ; Whiting 1979 : 12 ). Such
reforms were no doubt great aids in administration.
But we must not lose sight of the fact that the calendar’s chief purpose was to keep
the local cultic calendar rolling along. While the calendrical regularity of the Standard
Babylonian calendar used in the late second and first millennia may seem a welcome
relief from the anarchic plethora of third millennium calendars, its very standardization
is a mask. Political and religious reforms there no doubt were in later centuries, but
the standardized calendar cannot reflect them, resulting in a net loss of information.
Subdividing the month: days and weeks
We subdivide the month in two different but concurrent ways. Each day of the month
is numbered, from the first to the thirtieth (or the requisite number allotted for that
month). Babylonian scribes also show evidence of this practice, often noting on a tablet
ud- 4 -kam, “it is the fourth day” or the like.
We also subdivide by weeks, that is, a period of seven days, starting either Sunday
or Monday. The week is organized around a sequence of day names, Sunday, Monday,
Tuesday etc. There is no connection between the numbering of the day (its position
in the month) and the day name. November 1 can be a Monday, but it can also just as
easily be a Friday. Weeks can start in one month and end in the next.
Did ancient Near Eastern people utilize the concept of a week? Certainly no
evidence for day names survives from ancient Mesopotamia, and administrative tablets
from the third millennium subdivide the month by notations like ud-x-kam, it is day
x, and never with reference to a week. Powell concluded, “the seven-day week played
no role in Sumerian accounting procedures” (Powell 1976 : 433 ). Although much ink
has been spilled on the topic of whether the Sabbath of ancient Israel had any–– Calendars and counting ––