The Nonintercalated Lunar Calendar of the Middle Assyrian Period

Bibliographic Data

ID6077476
AuthorsJoshua Jeffers (California University of Pennsylvania, corresponding author)
Year2017
Volume69
Issue1
Pages151-191
Publication date2017-01-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Cuneiform Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-0256 • E-ISSN: 2325-6737
PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.5615/jcunestud.69.2017.0151
OpenAlexW2683003230
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited4

Scholars generally assume that Assyria employed a luni-solar calendrical system during the Middle Assyrian period—akin to the one used in Babylonia—that kept the months of its year synchronized with the seasons of the solar year through periodic intercalation. With this understanding, the regnal dates assigned to the Middle Assyrian kings have traditionally been expressed in terms of solar years. The present article, however, argues that the Assyrians did not use this type of system. The author draws upon a variety of administrative tablets—primarily from the reigns of Shalmaneser I, Tukultī-Ninurta I, and Tiglath-pileser I—to demonstrate that the months of the Assyrian year were in fact not permanently affixed to particular seasons of the solar year, revealing that its year was not intercalated and was thus perpetually rotating slowly through the solar year. This article also explores how such a calendrical system impacts the Middle Assyrian kings' regnal dates, which would need to be lowered given that the unadjusted Assyrian lunar year was slightly shorter than its solar counterpart

Ancient history · Archaeology · Art · Assyria · Astronomy · Middle East · New moon · Period (music · Physics · Ancient Egypt and Archaeology · Ancient Near East History · History · Linguistics and language evolution

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