Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Yigal Levin" <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>]

As long as we're quoting, here's Marc Cooper's response to Morisson:


It appears to me that you misunderstand Englund's article. He points out
that Ur had civil calendar in which 1 year is 12 lunar months consisting of
one lunation each with intercalations every three years or so. The evidence
for this is overwhelming. Englund also points to an accounting system used
by administrators in planning future labor payments which presumes a 30 day
month. Despite the interest of Ur III folks in predicting month length
(Shulgi claimed to be able to do it), the best they could actually do was to
presume all future months would have 30 days, and then set up budgets on
that basis. This is an accounting system. Despite the article, there is
plenty of evidence for 29 day months (and perhaps a 28 day month) including
intercalations in the Ur III calendars. In fact, when you look at texts
which account for deliveries after the fact, and cover one or more years, it
is often possible to calculate the average month length, and it comes out to
29.54 days not 30. I can see nothing in the any of the Ur III calendars
suggesting that they used anything but a precursor to the lunisolar calendar
standardized in the Old Babylonian period and I don't see how anything in
Englund's article calls that into question.





----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Banyai" <Banyai AT t-online.de>
To: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Wednesday, September 08, 2004 7:33 PM
Subject: [b-hebrew] hebrew month names


> Since we had just shortly the discussion about the early hebrew calendar
being a solar calendar or not, it would be interesting to quote a posting
from today´s ANE-list.
>
> It concerns a reevaluation of the Mesopotamian calendar, which apparently
had no lunar exclusivity. A big number of calendar data is probably at the
moment uncorrectly attributed to the lunar calendar, pertaining in reality
rather to a solar calendar.
>
> I have already mentioned in my previous mailings the existence of a rather
obscure mesopotamian solar calendar. This might have been even an
understatement of the case.
>
> I quote here Tod Morisson without making any changes in his previous mail
to the ANE-list.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Bányai Michael
> Stuttgart
>
> > I think you will find that the evidence has been presented by those
> > who established the "conventional picture."  I do not intend to repeat
> > the discussions that were presented in the reference works that I
> > cited.  That is the point of reference works.  They keep one from
> > having to keep reinventing the wheel.  The "conventional picture" is
> > the way it is because it is based on the evidence.  What Whiting has
> > shown is that you have no evidence to contradict it.
>
>
>
> I prefer to dwell as little as possible on the "holes" in the conventional
picture.  I respect the efforts of the scholars who collaged the picture.
Their erudition is admirable, even in instances when the work is
fundamentally flawed.
>
>
>
> My posting of August 17th drew attention to two studies that deal with
enigmatic data.  The authors try to shoehorn the data into the standard
picture, but they only succeed in spotlighting a fault in the foundation of
consensual chronology.
>
>
>
> R. K. Englund's "Administrative Timekeeping in Ancient Mesopotamia" (JESHO
XXXI, 1988, 121-133) proposes the following equation:
>
>
>
>           mu = 12 (intercalary: 13) iti = 360 (intercalary: 390) u sub 4
>
>
>
> In a long footnote Englund gives many examples of intercalation from Ur
III: 60 months, 2 intercalations; 93 months, 2 intercalations; 4 years and 8
months, 1 intercalation; 59 months and 26 days, 1 intercalation; etc.  The
intercalated and regular months all have 30 days (p.123).
>
>
>
> The data indicates that the calendar at Ur around 2000 BC was composed of
twelve months plus an intercalary month thrown in occasionally to keep the
calendar in alignment with the seasons.  This obvious interpretation seems
innocuous and acceptable.  After all, how much is securely known about 2000
BC calendars?
>
>
>
> Englund then proceeds to show that laborers for the state delivered 30
days of work a month.  Again, the findings appear reasonable - 30 days in a
month and 30 days of work a month makes simple mathematic sense.  But not in
Mesopotamia.  Here calendar months must average 29.5 days.  'Months in
Mesopotamia were lunar' is a tenet of conventional chronology.  In effect,
Englund had to explain how laborers worked 30 days in a month that averaged
only 29.5 days.
>
>
>
> Englund concludes that the state tricked the laborers: "These
administrative work ledgers, when viewed against the parallel synodical
calendar, favored the bookkeepers of the state . 300 workdays were demanded
of a crew of 10 men in a month not of 30 but of 29½ days: the laborers
'paid' 5 workdays each month . for the fact that the synodical month
approximated 30 from the underside."
>
>
>
> Englund portrays a dubious relationship between kings and commoners.
These kings swindle like the nineteenth century robber barons who forced
non-unionized laborers to work overtime without pay.  They are not the
blustering absolute monarchs of the Royal Annals.  Englund's thesis rescues
the tenet 'months in Mesopotamia were lunar," but it calls into question the
reliability of conventional chronology.
>
>
>
> The second reference I presented in the posting was the book "Time at
Emar" by Daniel E. Fleming.  He writes on p. 217, "The ritual texts show
that true lunar cycles were observed and that the ritual calendar did
maintain an association with the seasons. . In spite of these facts, no
months have been found at Emar that are marked "extra," "second," or the
like."
>
>
>
> Fleming analyzes various ways of overcoming the lack of intercalary
months.  He believes the Emar region is characterized by careful
preservation of the twelve-lunar-month series throughout many centuries, and
therefore the Emar calendar must have included intercalary months to keep it
aligned with the seasons.  The solution he proposes is "intercalation
without written distinction of the extra month."
>
>
>
> Undetectable evidence is never an appealing way out of a dilemma.  But if
Fleming's premises are valid, then his thesis appears viable.  The
appendices of "Time at Emar" include several texts, and they can easily be
checked to see whether the ritual texts depict true lunar cycles.
>
>
>
> Fleming writes, "Saggar is already associated with the zukru full moon in
both calendars - the 15th of SAG.MU in the festival and the 15th of Zarati
in the annual text" (p.145).  He footnotes the reader to the Emar 373: 44
and 375:3-4.
>
>
>
> Emar 373:44
>
>           They perform (the zukru festival) on the next day, the 15th (or)
Saggar-day
>
>
>
> Emar 375:3-4
>
>           During (the month of) Zarati, [on] the 15th day, they set aside
a lamb for Dagan
>
>           On the 15th day, the Saggar(-day) - the very same day -[Dagan]
goes out in procession, his face uncovered.
>
>
>
> The full moon is not referred to in these passages or in any others.
Saggar(-day) likely has something to do with the full moon because it is
linked to the 15th day, but the connection may be no more than a syncretic
feature of an earlier ritual. (Cf. p.155-57)  In any case, the full moon
does not always fall on the 15th of the month, and the Saggar-day festival
does not confirm that the Emar calendar is lunar.
>
>
>
> The tablet for the month of Abi (Emar 452 and 463) supposedly shows "a
noticeable concern to provide a ritual frame for the month as one cycle of
the moon" (p.175).  The text of Emar 452 is nearly fully preserved.  It
details the ritual offering on many days of the month, yet nowhere is the
moon explicitly mentioned.  Only a single line of the translation is taken
to refer to the moon.  Towards the bottom of the tablet, following the
ritual of day 27, line 55 reads:
>
>
>
>           At the head of the month, on the day of (the moon's)
disappearance (until?) [.] it shines (again): they purify the city.
>
>
>
> In a lunar-based astronomy, the beginning (or ending) of the month is when
observers watched for the moon to appear (or disappear), and hence Fleming
interpolated (the moon's).  However, the moon is not the only observable
that could disappear at the head of the month of Abi.  If the calendar were
solar (or stellar)-based rather than lunar-based, the start of Abi might be
linked to the disappearance of a star; or the disappearance may have
something to do with the equinox.
>
>
>
> The ritual texts presented in "Time at Emar" only mention the moon once.
Emar 446, line 100 reads, "The new moon (celebration) of Dagan falls on the
third day."
>
>
>
> The new moon cannot fall on the third day of a lunar calendar.  This
anomaly led to a disagreement with Arnaud, the original translator.  He did
not accept "3" [third day] and translated, "Au jour du renouvellement de
Dagan" (p.192, fn 226).  Fleming is confident of his reading, though he
acknowledges, "the focus on the second and third days is still troubling."
He proposes maybe "the first day of the month did not match the actual first
visibility of the moon."
>
>
>
> The evidence presented in "Time at Emar" shows the bedrock belief in the
lunar calendar is unwarranted.  The data points to a solar calendar, which
does not require that the moon reappear on the first of the month and be
full on the fifteenth.
>
>
>
> <snip>
> > The point about being familiar with Mesopotamian culture is not
> > that it makes it clear that the calendar was lunisolar, but that
> > knowledge of the culture will keep you from making assumptions that
> > are counter to Mesopotamian cultural values when trying to present
> > evidence that it wasn't.
>
>
>
> The grandest ritual at Emar is the zukru festival celebrated for seven
days every seven years.  Fleming comments, "The origin of the seven-day
division in ritual time remains obscure. . The seven days of Emar ritual are
not defined by the lunar cycle, and it should be not assumed that the period
originated there.  More likely, the number seven was already held in high
regard, and such coincidences with natural phenomena were subsequently
attached to it.  The number's significance evidently did not derive from a
single source" (p.75-76).
>
>
>
> The seven-day division is a week, and may with some justification be
linked to the 364-day calendar.  The calculation that fifty-two weeks adds
up to 364 days has often been noted in connection with the Book of Enoch,
the Book of Jubilees and the Dead Sea Scrolls.  Enoch provides an idealized
account of the seasonal variation in sunrise over a cycle of 364 days.  This
calendar has received scant attention from ANE historians for an obvious
reason.  It is a solar calendar and conflicts with the tenet 'months in
Mesopotamia were lunar.'
>
>
>
> Further, the 364-day calendar is a day or so shy of the solar year
(assuming the length of the year is stable), and thus cannot be a "real"
calendar.  The texts from Emar hint at a way of overcoming this impasse.
>
>
>
> Like the grand seven-day zukru, the annual zukru is celebrated in the
month SAG.MU 'head of the year'.  Evidently the festival has something to do
with a new year observance.  It has much in common with the Akitu festival
which Fleming considers the prototypical new year celebration (p.130).
>
>
>
> The Akitu did not usher in a new year as currently understood.  At Ur, it
was based on events that occurred twice a year, about six months apart
(Cohen, The Cultic Calendars of the Ancient Near East, p.401).  The equinox
is the obvious event occurring in the first and seventh months.
>
>
>
> If the calendar at Emar were solar, as I propose, then the annual zukru at
the 'head of the year' (SAG.MU) would be the festival marking the equinox of
the first month.  The other equinox six months later was celebrated on a
famed day - the 7th day of the 7th month.  Cohen writes, ". we are aware of
certain festivals which transcended time and place: the Akitu-festival,
festivals for Dummuzi/Tammuz, the observance of the 7th day of the 7th month
. " (p.390).
>
>
>
> The grand zukru provides a clue to the way the 364-day calendar was made
into a "real" solar calendar.  The seven-day zukru celebration every seven
years works out to one day each year - the intercalation needed to bring the
364-day calendar into alignment with the 365-day solar year.  An apposite
day of the year for adding the intercalary day would be the equinox, either
at the 'head of the year' or at the 7th day of the 7th month.
>
>
>
> No evidence of an extra (undated) day is discernible in the annual zukru
festival.  Hence the intercalation of the 364/5-day calendar fell on the 7th
day of the 7th month.  This day is the double-day that ushered in a "new
year" in the seventh month.
>
>
>
> <snip>
>
> > But speaking of different kinds of calendars, I'm still waiting to
> > hear what kind of calendar you think fits the Neo-Assyrian evidence
> > better than the Standard Mesopotamina lunisolar calendar.
>
>
>
> I wish I could simply propose that the 364/5-day calendar dominated early
Eponym List times and afterwards the Standard Babylonian calendar prevailed.
However, matters of state seldom proceed that smoothly.  The calendar was a
kingdom's vehicle for organizing the population's relationship to the gods,
and thus the calendar revolution reflects the political disorder of the
times.
>
>
>
> The overthrow of the old calendar involved the clash of armies, looting of
temples and overturning of gods.  In particular, the assault on traditional
forms included anathematizing the key element of the old 364/5-day
calendar - the 7th day of the 7th month.
>
>
>
> "The 7th day of any month was unfavorable in many Mesopotamian traditions
and all the more so, then, the 7th day of the 7th month. . Hemerology
tablets from first-millennium B.C. Assur record lucky and unlucky days . And
for no day are there more warnings than for the 7th day of 'Tasritu', the
seventh month.  The term for this most-unlucky of days was 'sebut sebim'
'7th (day) of the 7th (month)'." (Cohen, p.391)
>
>
>
> Sorting out the chronology of the "calendar war" calls for a careful
examination of the preserved documentation.
>
>
>
>
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