chapter 22

making sense of time: observational and

theor etical calendars

john m. steele

What is a calendar? In its broadest terms, today the term ‘calendar’ is used to describe a system governing the division of time into intervals (generally days, months, and years) that can be navigated to provide a frame of reference for temporal events. It can also refer to a document (a pocket or desk diary, a wall calendar, etc.) divided into sections for each day, which can be used to record past events that took place on a specifi c occasion and to keep track of future appointments and provide reminders of coming holidays, birthdays, or dates when bills must be paid. But in other cultures the idea of a calendar can include diff erent astronomical and social activities from those we are familiar with from our own calendar. For example, in ancient and medieval China the term li 曆, which is usually translated into English as ‘calendar’, encompasses not only the production of what we might think of as a calendar, but refers to a complete astronomical system for predicting astronomical events, including eclipses of the sun and moon and planetary phenomena, as well as the dates of month beginnings. Whilst a li provides a framework for keeping track of days it also has other uses, not the least of which is in regulating the heavens through the prediction of astronomical phenomena, reducing the number of unexpected, and therefore ominous, astronomical events (Sivin 2009 : 37) .

Evidence from Mesopotamia indicates that there were several diff erent uses for the calendar. Some of the earliest cuneiform sources attest to systems for the reckoning of days for administrative and cultic purposes. Later we also fi nd hemerologies which set out good and bad fortune days throughout the year, and astronomical almanacs which contain, amongst other things, the length of each month (including an intercalary month if needed) calculated for a coming year. But whilst we know the Akkadian for year ( šattu ), month ( arhu ), and day ( umu ), as well as the name for a hemerology ( uttuku ) and an almanac ( mešhi ša kašadi ša bibbi ), to my knowledge there is no Akkadian word that can be translated comfortably as ‘calendar’. In what follows, therefore, I will adopt a

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broad, and at times fl exible, defi nition of what constituted ‘the calendar’ in the cunei-form world.

Calendars in Mesopotamia

Th e calendar used throughout Mesopotamia was luni-solar. Months began on the evening when the new moon crescent could be seen for the fi rst time and lasted for either 29 or 30 days until the next new moon crescent was seen (Figure 22.1 ) . Twelve months made up a normal year, making a year total about 354 days. However, a solar year—the time between the return of the sun to its same place in the ecliptic, which defi nes the seasons—lasts a little less than 365 �� days. In order to keep a calendar based upon twelve lunar months in line with the seasons it is sometimes necessary to add an extra ‘interca-lary’ month to a year. Th ese intercalary months, named atru in Akkadian (usually writ-ten with the logogram diri ), need to be added slightly more oft en than once every three years in order to have a calendar that does not drift too far with respect to the seasons. Years themselves were either named for individuals, events, or other things of the king’s choosing or counted sequentially from the accession year of the king.

In addition to the luni-solar calendar that operated in daily life and formed a struc-ture for cultic activities, at certain periods a simpler calendar where each month was taken to contain 30 days was used for certain administrative purposes (Englund 1988 ) . Th is administrative calendar served to simplify calculation of rations, interest payments, etc. It is worth noting that in North America a similar system was used to calculate bank interest until the 1970s (Britton 2007 : 117) .

figure 22.1 Th e thin lunar crescent at its fi rst visibility shortly aft er conjunction. (Photo © Steve Kluge)

john m. steele

It is believed that the luni-solar calendar operated from at least the latter part of the fourth millennium bc, and quite probably earlier, down to the end of cuneiform writing (see, for example, Cohen 1993 ; Steele 2007 ) . However, it must be admitted that the evidence in sup-port of this assumption is largely circumstantial before the fi rst millennium bc. Th is evi-dence includes statements such as that made by Rim-Sin, the ruler of Larsa, that the moon is the god ‘Nanna, who establishes the months, who completes the year’ (Cohen 1993 : 3) ; festi-vals taking place on the days of new moon, fi rst half crescent, and full moon during the Ur III period (Hallo 1977 ) ; the naming of the new moon as ‘great crescent at (or of) the head of the month’ (Hallo 1977 : 6) ; and references to the moon as the ‘crescent of the great heaven’, a designation that appears frequently in texts despite the phase of the moon, and that is also refl ected iconographically—the moon generally being portrayed as a crescent correspond-ing to the new or waxing moon (Stol 1992 ; Collon 1992 ) . All of these references, and others like them, link the new moon crescent with the month, suggesting that the month began with the fi rst sighting of the new moon. However, we do not have direct evidence for the months being truly lunar. No texts from before the fi rst millennium describe the technical details of the calendar. Dated contracts and letters can indicate that some months had 30 days, but a document dated to the 29th day could be from the last day of a 29-day month or the second to last day of a 30-day month. Indeed, even documents dated to the 30th of a month may not necessarily imply that the month really had 30 days, as some may have been written just aft er sunset at the beginning of the 30th day, before the moon had been spotted and that day became the fi rst day of a new month (see also Cohen 1993 : 4) .

By the fi rst millennium bc, however, we have unambiguous evidence for the luni- solar calendar. From 7th-century bc Assyria we have a large body of correspondence sent by Assyrian and Babylonian scholars to the kings Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal, a signifi cant number of which are concerned with the watch for the new moon at the end of a month, intercalation, and other calendrical matters (Hunger 1992 ; Parpola 1993 ; Casaburi 2000 –01). From the letters and reports sent by these scholars we can under-stand how the calendar operated in practice. At the beginning of the 30th day of the month a watch was kept for the new moon crescent. If the moon was seen an hour or so aft er the sunset (the beginning of the day in Mesopotamia), that day would be ‘turned back’ or ‘rejected’ ( turru ) and become the 1st day of a new month. Alternatively, if the moon was not seen that night, then the 30th day was ‘completed’ or ‘confi rmed’ ( kunnu ) and the new month would begin the next day (Beaulieu 1993 ) .

Th e Babylonian Astronomical Diaries and related texts (Sachs and Hunger 1988 ; 1989 ; 1996 ; Hunger 2001 ; 2006 ) provide extensive evidence for the operation of the luni-solar calendar from the mid-7th century bc onwards. Th e Astronomical Diaries routinely begin each month with a statement of whether the preceding month had 29 or 30 days and a measurement (or sometimes a calculation) of the time interval between sunset and moonset. Astronomical data from intercalary months is included as normal in those years where an intercalary month was necessary. Similar calendrical information is found in other astronomical texts.

Away from the astronomical material, evidence for 29- and 30-day months is found in a number of 6th-century bc tabular sacrifi ce records. Th ese tablets contain monthly

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ledgers of the numbers of sheep and goats to be used in regular temple sacrifi cial off erings (Robbins 1996 ) . Each tablet usually contains an introductory statement fol-lowed by a table divided into four columns. Th e fi rst column states the day of the month and in the following columns the number of animals from diff erent sources to be used as off erings is given. About half of the preserved examples have entries from days 1 to 29; the other half have entries for days 1 to 30 (Steele 2007 : 139) —exactly as we would expect for a real luni-solar calendar.

Two objections have been raised to the assumption of the continuity of use of the luni-solar calendar through Mesopotamian history. Tanret ( 2004 ) has argued that dur-ing the Old Babylonian period the administrative calendar, which used only 30-day months, replaced the true luni-solar calendar. Tanret provides three principal pieces of evidence in support of his claim. Th e fi rst is an ikribu -prayer which refers to the year containing 360 days and 360 nights, and hence twelve months of 30 days. However, this prayer is surely referring to the ideal calendar (see below), not the real calendar of the time. Secondly, Tanret refers to an edubba ’a-text in which a pupil states that during a month there are six vacation days and twenty-four school days. However, the text does not state that this is the case for every month of the year. Finally, Tanret discusses an administrative text which he claims shows that the month was taken to have 30 days. If this conclusion were correct (arguments against it are given by Brack-Bernsen 2007 : 93) , it would merely indicate a continuation of the practice of the administrative calendar, which assumes 30-day months for simplicity; it is not evidence that the everyday calen-dar used for cultic and other purposes did not have 29- and 30-day months.

Th e second objection is the question of whether the Assyrian calendar during the sec-ond millennium was purely lunar, each year being made up of twelve months with no intercalation, or whether intercalation was practised and the calendar was luni-solar. Th is issue has been discussed at length by several authors (e.g. Weidner 1928 –29; Koch 1989 ; Gasche et al. 1998 ; Reade 2000 ; Veenhof 2000 ) , without consensus.

Despite these objections, I, and most other Assyriologists, remain convinced that the luni-solar calendar formed the basis of calendrical practice throughout most of Mesopotamian history.

The ‘ideal’ calendar

In the fi ft h tablet of the Babylonian creation epic Enuma Eliš Marduk entrusts the night to the moon-god. Every month he is to shine forth at the beginning of the month, reach half-moon on the 7th day, full moon on the 15th, and on the 30th meet with the sun at the end of the cycle. Implicit in this account is that the lunar month lasts 30 days, and therefore twelve months make a year of 360 days. Th is is fi ve or six days longer than a calendar year comprising twelve lunar months, and just over fi ve days shorter than the length of the solar year. It has been suggested that in Enu ma Eliš Marduk has cre-ated the ideal state of the universe at the moment of creation in which lunar months

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last 30 days, with full moon on the 15th day. Deviations from this ideal could then be interpreted ominously (Brown 2000 ) . As a consequence, the calendar has become known as the ‘ideal calendar’.

Enuma Eliš is thought to have been composed around the end of the 12th century bc (Lambert 1964 ) and clearly incorporates elements from earlier literary traditions, of which the ideal calendar is one example. Th is same calendar of twelve 30-day months making a year of 360 days is referred to in two Old Babylonian ikribu -prayers (De Mayer 1982 ; Tanret 2004 ) . Its origins, however, must go back to the administrative calendar of the Ur III period. In this calendar, months were always taken to be 30 days long in order to ease the calculation of rations, work-rates, interest, etc. (Englund 1988 ) . Th e civil cal-endar still operated as a real luni-solar calendar, however, and in years where the civil calendar contained an intercalary month, the administrative calendar would take this into account with a thirteenth month of 30 days, making a total of 390 days in a year.

A calendar identical in operation to the ideal calendar of Enuma Eliš appears in a wide range of astronomical texts from the early second millennium bc down to the end of cuneiform astronomy. Th e earliest example is an Old Babylonian tablet containing state-ments of the length of the night given in terms of the weight of water fl owing through a waterclock on the dates of the solstices and equinoxes (Hunger and Pingree 1989 : 163–164) . Similar schemes using the same 360-day calendar are found in tablet 14 of Enuma Anu Enlil (Al-Rawi and George 1991 –92) and in MUL.APIN (Hunger and Pingree 1989 ) , and the calendar also appears in parts of the work iNAMgišhurankia (Livingstone 1986 ) . In the Persian and Hellenistic periods the 360-day calendar appears in astrological texts such as the so-called Kalendertexte , which relate dates, positions in the zodiac, and (for example) ingredients used in medicine (Brack-Bernsen and Steele 2004 ) .

An important question is whether the ideal calendar of Enu ma Eliš and the 360-day calendar found in certain astronomical texts are the same. Technically, they are identi-cal: twelve months of 30 days making up a year of 360 days. But did they share the same conceptual status? If, as Brown ( 2000 ) has argued, the calendar presented in Enuma Eliš is truly an ‘ideal’ calendar representing the perfect state of the universe, is the 360-day calendar of the early astronomical texts also ‘ideal’? Brown ( 2000 ) has argued forcibly that this is the case, at least up to the Neo-Assyrian period. He proposes that the early astronomical schemes found in Enu ma Anu Enlil tablet 14, MUL.APIN, etc., all repre-sent the ideal state of the universe against which reality can be judged, agreement being a good omen, disagreement a bad omen. Other authors have taken a diff erent view. For example, Brack-Bernsen ( 2005 ) suggests that the 360-day calendar of the early astro-nomical texts acted as a fi xed grid against which the real calendar slid back and forth, and which was used to simplify calculation of astronomical phenomena by making it a two-stage process: an easy calculation using the 360-day calendar that was then adjusted to fi t the real calendar. Evidence can be found that appears to off er some support to both viewpoints, without being conclusive in either case. Indeed, it may be that we are wrong to seek a unique interpretation of these calendars. Th ey may have been used in more than one way by diff erent (or even the same) scribes in diff erent contexts.

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Intercalation

Th e insertion of an extra month into the calendar for a particular year is not only an astronomical issue but had direct consequences for civic, ritual, and everyday life. Tributes and other payments scheduled to be paid on a day in a month following the insertion of an intercalary months may have to be rescheduled to the intercalary month or accepted 29 or 30 days later than previously planned. For example, a well-known decree by the Old Babylonian king Hammurabi orders that the month that is just begin-ning should be designated an intercalary Month VI and as a consequence the tribute due in Babylon on the 25th of Month VII should instead be delivered on the 25th of Month VI 2 (Bickerman 1980 : 22) . Hammurabi evidently did not want intercalation to force him to wait for the tribute. But there may also have been a practical reason: news that the king had declared an intercalary month might take some time to reach the outer parts of the empire by which time the tribute might have already been on its way.

Ritual activities could also be disrupted by the practice of intercalation. For example, the akitu festival held at the beginning of the new year, which acted as a crucial link between the king, the people, and the gods, legitimizing the king’s rule (Pallis 1926 ; Bidmead 2002 ) , might have to be eff ectively put off for a month if an intercalary month was added at the end of the previous year. It is unsurprising, therefore, that decisions concerning intercalation were of concern to the king and his advisors.

Evidence for intercalary months before the Late Babylonian period is very incom-plete, but some peculiarities in the record can be mentioned (see Huber 1982 for lists of attested intercalations in the second millennium bc). During the reign of Ammi-ditana there is evidence for intercalary months in four consecutive years (years 25 to 28 of his rule); the same circumstance occurs again from years 32 to 35 of Hammurabi. Th ese cor-respond to a shift in the beginning of the year over those four years of roughly 75 days. A shift of this magnitude would make a clear diff erence to the alignment of months with seasonal occurrences (annual weather patterns, length of daylight, harvesting, etc.) and we must wonder why it happened. Intercalation must have been missed for several years in order to require such dramatic correction; another possibility is that for reasons that are unknown to us it was decided to shift the dates of the solstices and equinoxes into earlier months. A similar, although considerably more gradual, deliberate shift ing of the months of the solstices and equinoxes took place between the middle of the 8th and the end of the 7th centuries bc (Britton 2007 : 122–124) .

Rules for determining when to intercalate based upon astronomical observation are given in the early astronomical compendium MUL.APIN and related texts (Hunger and Pingree 1989 ; Hunger and Reiner 1975 ; Figure 22.2 ) . Most of these rules determine whether intercalation is necessary by consideration of the position of the moon relative to the Pleiades on the fi rst few days of the fi rst month of the year. If the conjunction of the moon and the Pleiades did not occur until a particular day then the year should be made a leap year. It is not clear from the texts whether this means that the current Month

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I should be changed to an intercalary Month XII of the previous year, or whether the rule indicates that twelve months later, at the end of the current year, an intercalary Month XII will be needed. It is unknown whether any of these schemes were ever used in practice, or even whether they were intended to be used (for diff ering opinions on this question see, for example, Brown 2000 , Williams 2002 ) .

From the middle of the 8th century bc onwards we have an almost complete record of intercalary months preserved in astronomical texts and attested in contracts and let-ters. Th ese show a generally increasing regularity, with the pattern of years contain-ing intercalary months repeating in either 8- or 19-year cycles, interspersed with occasional unexpected or delayed intercalations, some of which, at least, can be explained by periods of political instability (Britton 2007 ) . From the beginning of the reign of Xerxes, a regular 19-year cycle of intercalations continues uninterrupted until the end of the cuneiform record. Th is 19-year cycle distributes seven intercalations

figure 22.2 Late Babylonian copy of the fi rst tablet of the series MUL.APIN (British Museum, BM 86378). (Photo © Th e Trustees of the British Museum)

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within a 19-year period, all but one of which are intercalary Month XIIs. Th is cycle, which equates 235 lunar months with 19 solar years, was also used as a calendric cycle by Meton of Athens (Bowen and Goldstein 1988 ) and appears in several early Chinese cal-endrical systems such as the Santongli 三統曆 and the Sifenli 四分曆 (Sivin 1969 ) . It is possible that Meton learnt of the 19-year cycle (frequently called the ‘Metonic cycle’ in modern scholarship) from Babylon, but its use in China illustrates that the cycle is suffi -ciently simple to have been identifi ed independently.

Th e transition from irregular intercalation ordered by the king to an astronomically regulated system for intercalation raises interesting questions about the importance of the calendar and a possible change in the power relationship between the king and his astronomical advisors. During the Neo-Assyrian period the king retained the right to decide when to intercalate, although he was advised in this by the scholars he employed. For example, in a letter to Esarhaddon, Balasi, a very senior advisor, answers the king’s query as to whether the year should contain an intercalary month saying that ‘this is (indeed) a leap year’ (Parpola 1993 : no. 42/ Parpola 1970 : no. 38).

Th e decision as to whether to intercalate was important for the ritual calendar, and in particular for the preparations for the major festivals. In the sixth month of 671 bc, Marduk-šakin-šumi, the chief exorcist, wrote to the king aft er his decision to insert an intercalary Month VI asking when a festival should take place:

[Concerni]ng the intercalation [of] the year [about which the k]ing said as follows: ‘Let us add an intercalary Elul (VI)!’—the matter is (now) settled. [May the kin]g, my lord, live forever on account of that! [Th e king, my lo]rd, knows that Bel is dressed (for the festival) [on the 7]th of Tishri (VII); on the 8th day the gate (of the temple) is kept open, and the procession of Bel sets out as the month Nisa[n (I). Th e cerem]onies of the city of Der are conducted in the same way. [In fa]ct, [the king], should (now) decide what t[o d]o (with these ceremonies) [and send word] (about it). (Parpola 1993 : no. 253/ Parpola 1970 : no. 190; see also Parpola 1983 : 186–188)

Th e king’s answer to this question was that the festival should be carried out in the fol-lowing month, and he sent instructions to this eff ect to his representatives throughout the empire. His agent in Babylonia, Mar-Issar, wrote back:

As to what the king, my lord, wrote to me: ‘Th e month Elul (VI) is intercalary; do not perform the ceremonies this month’—Ammu-salam entered Babylon on the evening of the 6th day; the god Nabû had come before him, on the 3rd. Th e gate was kept open before Bel and Nabû on the 4th, the 5th and the 6th, and sacrifi ces were performed. When I saw the king my lord’s sealed order, I issued the order: the rest of the ceremonies of Elul (VI) will be performed in the coming month, as the king, my lord, wrote to me. (Parpola 1993 : no. 357/ Parpola 1970 : no. 287; see also Parpola 1983 : 284–285)

Th e uncertainty in whether a festival should be performed caused by irregular intercala-tion was clearly a serious matter. As the empire grew, the potential for confusion would increase: orders sent by the kings to cities throughout the empire would take diff erent lengths of time to arrive, perhaps arriving too late in some cases to prevent the festival

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from being delayed until the next month. Avoiding this problem may have been one of the reasons why intercalation cycles of 8 and 19 years were developed in the Neo-Babylonian and early Persian periods (for details of these cycles, see Britton 2007 ; Parker and Dubberstein 1956 ) . Nevertheless, only the king continued to have the right to declare an intercalation. Notices sent out in the king’s name proclaimed when intercalations should occur, as in the following example from the reign of Nabonidus:

A word from the king to Kurbanni-[Marduk]: I am well, you can be happy. For your information: I have intercalated this Addar (Month XII) of the 15th year. (YOS 3 115; translation Parpola 1983 : 504)

Interestingly, two similar letters from the reigns of either Cyrus or Cambyses were written by offi cials in the Esangila temple and do not mention the king’s authority (on these letters, see Parker and Dubberstein 1956 : 1–2 ; Parpola 1983 : 504–505 ; Kleber 2008 : 267–268) . Th e absence of a reference to the king seems to suggest a shift in responsibility from the king to the temple, although it may be that the temple was merely the conduit through which the king chose to communicate at this time. Nevertheless, combined with the increased adherence to intercalation governed by the 19-year cycle, it is sugges-tive of a decline in royal control of (and interest in?) the calendar. Th e importance of the calendar for ritual, as well as its eff ect on the economy through possible changes in the dates of loan repayments and the receipt of tributes, meant that the king lost some of his discretionary power to implement intercalations which might give him short-term ben-efi t, and placed power over these matters in the hands of the astronomical offi cials. In return the king received calendrical regularity, with the long-term economic benefi ts that provided. In addition, a regular calendar that could be predicted far in advance gave practical benefi t for the preparation and performance of rituals and festivals.

Th e adoption of a strictly astronomically regulated calendar occurred at a time of for-eign rule in Babylonia. In part this was simply due to the level to which astronomy had developed at the time. But it is tempting to ask whether a Babylonian king would have felt able to relinquish control of the calendar in the same way. I do not wish to stress this point as our understanding of the relationship between the king and astronomers dur-ing the Neo-Babylonian and Persian periods is very limited, but I believe it is a question worthy of future research.

The length of the month

Most calendars that use lunar months, such as the Islamic calendar, begin the month on the evening when the thin lunar crescent can be seen for the fi rst time. Th e visibility of the new moon crescent depends upon several factors, some astronomical (the elonga-tion of the moon from the sun, lunar latitude, the angle of the ecliptic to the horizon, the time of conjunction, etc.), some not (weather conditions, pollution in the atmosphere, the eyesight of the observer, etc.). Th e former can be modelled, but the latter introduce an

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uncertainty into predictions of the visibility of the lunar crescent that cannot be over-come. Th us, modern methods of predicting the length of the month can only give results which will accord with observation most of the time. Whilst month lengths calculated by modern methods cannot be used to compare individual cases of preserved month lengths with computation, they can provide a good estimate of the relative proportion of months of diff erent lengths over certain time periods. Huber ( 1982 : 24–25) has calcu-lated the length of every month in Babylon for the period from 2457 bc to ad 212 and found that only three types of months occur: 29-day (46.9), 30-day (53.1), and 31-day months (<0.1).

No examples of 31-day months are known from Mesopotamia and so it seems that the beginning of the month was not strictly governed by the visibility of the moon, but through a rule that can be expressed as follows: if the lunar crescent is seen on the evening at the beginning of the 30th day, that day would be ‘turned back’ or ‘rejected’ ( turru ) and become instead the 1st day of the new month; otherwise that day would be ‘completed’ or ‘confi rmed’ ( kunnu ) as the 30th day and the next evening would mark the beginning of the 1st of the new month (Britton 2007 ; Steele 2007 ; Beaulieu 1993 ) . In other words, the beginning of the month is determined purely by whether the new moon crescent is visible on the 30th.

Weather will sometimes prevent the moon being seen for several days and, at least during the Neo-Assyrian period, it seems that in these cases the decision of whether to begin the new month on a certain day was made by the king on the advice of his schol-ars. A letter sent by Adad-šumu-usur to Assurbanipal provides a nice example of this situation. He writes that the moon was too high in the sky on the evening when it was fi rst seen and advises the king that he should check with reports from elsewhere before deciding whether the month in fact began a day earlier:

I observed the (crescent of the) moon on the 30th day, but it was high, too high to be (the crescent) of the 30th. Its position was like that of the 2nd day. If it is accept-able to the king, my lord, let the king wait for the report of the Inner City (i.e. Assur) before fi xing the date. (Parpola 1993 : no. 225)

A large number of letters and reports sent by scholars to the Neo-Assyrian kings deal with the fi rst sighting of the new moon crescent. Some indicate that attempts were made to try to predict the day of crescent visibility in advance, though it appears that these were as a guide for when to watch, or as a reserve measure in case of bad weather, and that observation remained the norm.

By the beginning of the 6th century bc in Babylonia, very eff ective techniques had been developed for predicting the beginning of the month. Th ese methods mainly uti-lized six time intervals recorded every month, named by Sachs ( 1948 ) the ‘lunar six’. Th e most important of these intervals is the time between sunset and moonset on the fi rst day of the month (called NA). Four intervals between sunrise/set and moonrise/set on days around full moon (called ŠÚ, NA, ME, and GE 6 ) and the time between moonrise and sunrise on the night when the moon is seen for the last time during the month (called KUR) complete the lunar six. Regular observations of the lunar six began by at

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least 643 bc in Babylon and continued to be made until the end of cuneiform astronomy (Huber and Steele 2007 ) .

By around 600 bc a simple but elegant and extremely eff ective method of predicting the lunar six using observations made 18 and 18 �� years earlier was being used to fi ll in the observational record where bad weather had prevented an observation being made (Huber and Steele 2007 ; Huber and Britton 2007 ) . Th e method, discovered by Brack-Bernsen ( 1999 ) , is fully described in the 3rd- or 2nd-century bc tablet from Uruk, TU 11 (Brack-Bernsen and Hunger 2002 ) ; partial accounts of it are also preserved on earlier tablets from Babylon (Brack-Bernsen 2002 ) . Several sections of TU 11 explain how this method can also be used to predict the length of the month. For example, section 18 stipulates that if the NA you calculated for the fi rst day of the month is greater than 12 UŠ then the moon will be visible and the new month begins. However, if the NA is less than 12 UŠ, the moon will not be seen until the next day. A revised NA for this next day can now be calculated and this day will be the fi rst day of the month.

Reports of the length of the month are regularly given in Late Babylonian astronomi-cal texts (Figure 22.3 ) . Th ese accounts are usually very formulaic: at the beginning of the entry for a particular month will be written ‘30’ or ‘1’ to indicate whether the previous month had 29 or 30 days—‘30’ meaning that the previous month had 29 days, ‘1’ indicat-ing that it had 30 days (Sachs and Hunger 1988 : 20) —followed by a measurement of the lunar six interval NA and any remarks on the appearance of the moon or weather aff ect-ing its sighting. If the moon could not be seen because of bad weather, a calculated NA value was given.

Th ere are several examples of the month beginning aft er a 29-day month even though the moon had not been seen because of the weather. Th e earliest example of this comes from the Astronomical Diary for 374 bc:

figure 22.3 Late Babylonian collection of month lengths and related data (BM 40277). (Photo © Th e Trustees of the British Museum)

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[Month] VIII, (the 1st of which was identical with) the 30th (of the preceding month); sunset to moonset: 10° 30¢; mist, I did not see the moon. (Sachs and Hunger 1988 : no. -373B)

Because of the mist the moon could not be seen on the 30th evening of Month VII, but the new month began anyway. Th is implies that the decision to begin the new month must have been made based on a prediction of the visibility of the moon. In other words, sometimes the date of the beginning of a month was determined purely on the bases of advance prediction, not on observation. Indeed, I have argued (Steele 2007 ) that during the Seleucid period at least, and quite possibly earlier, the begin-nings of the months were normally determined in advance using calculation and not based upon observing the moon. Strong evidence for this opinion comes from com-parison of Astronomical Diaries (the contemporary observational accounts which preserve information on the calendar in use) and related texts, with the normal star almanacs and almanacs, which contain predicted astronomical data for a coming year. Overlapping texts show almost complete agreement between the predicted month lengths given in the almanacs and normal star almanacs and the month lengths given in the Astronomical Diaries and related texts. Stern ( 2008 ) has argued against my interpretation and believes instead that the day of the beginning of the month was sometimes based upon observation and sometimes on calculation. I do not fi nd his reasons for rejecting my arguments, which are based upon his statistical analysis of the discrepancies between the dates of lunar crescent visibility and mod-ern computation, convincing.

As with intercalation, notice of the beginning of the month seems to have been sent out from the major cities and cult centres to smaller towns. Two letters are known that refer to communication of this information during the Neo-Babylonian period, one a request for information concerning the beginning of the month sent to the governor of Sippar, the other a letter from an individual in Larsa to the Eanna temple at Uruk noting that he has received the report from Uruk that the previous month had only 29 days (Beaulieu 1993 ) . Once more, the time taken for communication between cities and the importance of practising ritual activities on the correct day simultaneously throughout the empire, may have contributed to the development and acceptance of a predicted cal-endar that could be produced a year in advance.

Conclusions

Several diff erent calendars in Mesopotamia have been, or could be, called ‘ideal’ calen-dars. Th ose calendars which have generally been given this name are the 360-day calen-dar of Enuma Eliš , which perhaps represents a vision of the ideal state of the universe at creation, and the 360-day calendar found in some astronomical and astrological texts, which may or may not be conceptually the same as the calendar of Enuma Eliš . But we

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can also add the calendar governed by astronomical calculation adopted in the middle of the fi rst millennium bc. Th is calendar is ‘ideal’ in a diff erent way from the 360-day calendars. It is not an unobtainable ideal of perfection used either to judge reality against or to simplify calculation, but aims to remove the uncertainties of an observationally based calendar and replace them with regularity. It seeks, in eff ect, a practical ideal rather than a philosophical or cosmological one.

In making the transition from an observationally based calendar to one governed by astronomical theory the king and his government placed their trust in the expert knowl-edge of a small group of specialists. Th ese individuals in return provided Babylonia with the means to ensure that all of its towns and cities operated with the same calendar, har-monizing the performance of ritual throughout the country and making it easier for traders, diplomats, and governors to plan future budgets and actions.

Th is change in the relationship between the ‘ideal’ (represented by astronomical theory) and ‘reality’ (represented by observation), privileging the former over the latter, extended also into two other areas of astronomy. First, connected directly with the calendar are the dates of the solstices and equinoxes and the fi rst visibility, acro-nychal rising, and last visibility of Sirius. Reports of these phenomena in the Astronomical Diaries from around 320 bc onwards give dates derived from a simple mathematical scheme derived from the 19-year intercalation cycle (Neugebauer 1975 : 357–363 ; Sachs 1952 ; Sachs and Hunger 1988 : 26–27) . Occasionally these reports are accompanied by a remark that the phenomena had been observed on a slightly dif-ferent day, but normally they are simply given without comment, presumably indi-cating that no observation was made. Th e same dates for these phenomena are given in the Almanacs and Normal Star Almanacs which contain predicted astronomical data for a coming year.

Secondly, reports of observations of the fi rst (and occasionally last) appearance of a planet oft en give two dates: the fi rst the date on which the phenomenon was observed, the second an ‘ideal’ date upon which the planet should have been observed if the weather or the observer’s eyesight had been better, probably determined from a meas-urement of the length of time the planet remained visible on the night of the observation (if this time was too great it implied that the planet should have been seen one or more days earlier). Interestingly, if the observed and ideal dates are given for the fi rst visibility of the planet in the main body of an Astronomical Diary, generally in the end of month summaries the date given for the same phenomenon is the ideal date and it was this date that would be utilized in making predictions of future phenomena (Gray and Steele 2008 ) . Huber ( 1977 ) has argued that where only one date is given for the fi rst visibility of a planet in the Astronomical Diaries it is the ideal date.

Th e relationship between diff erent aspects of Babylonian astronomy is at present only imperfectly understood, especially with regard to questions such as the interplay between observation and theory and the status and authority of diff erent methods of astronomical prediction that were in use at the same time. Active research in these areas is under way and the answers to these questions will be of major importance to under-standing the nature and purpose of Babylonian astronomy.

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Further reading

Many of the issues surrounding the various calendars of Mesopotamia are discussed in greater detail in Cohen ( 1993 ) , Brown ( 2000 ) , Britton ( 2007 ) , and Steele ( 2007 ) . Th e Late Babylonian calendar is discussed in Parker and Dubberstein ( 1956 ) , which also includes tables for convert-ing between Babylonian and Julian dates. Unfortunately, an up-to-date introductory book on Babylonian and Assyrian astronomy has not yet been written. Brief accounts may be found in Britton and Walker ( 1996 ) and Steele ( 2008 : 19–65) .

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