STANDARD BABYLONIAN (NIPPUR-BABYLONIAN) CALENDAR - Календарные праздники древнего Востока

Written by Vladimir V. Emelianov.

Nippur was the city of one of the main gods of the Sumerian pantheon, whose name was Enlil (En-lil₂), which meant “lord wind” or “lord air”. He was the god of wind, air, nature, and the creator of various cataclysms: in particular, Enlil was considered the initiator of the flood in both Sumerian and Akkadian texts. Since Enlil was the lord of Nippur, he united around him all the other gods of the Sumerian pantheon. As the personification of nature, Enlil was also the keeper of time. Therefore, the Nippur calendar became the standard for the rest of Mesopotamian calendars.

It was the Sun and the solar cult of the greatest importance in the formation of the Nippur-Babylonian calendar. It is known that the full moon of the first month coincided with the spring equinox:

On the 15^th day of Nisannu, the day and the night were equal: six double hours of light, six double hours of darkness.
(SAA 8, 140-142).

The Sun had the same influence at the changing seasons of the year. The year was divided into four seasons. Literally, it was said:

From 1 Addaru till 30 Ajaru, the Sun follows the way of Anu, wind and warmth.
From 1 Simanu till 30 Abu, the Sun follows the way of Ellil, harvest and drought.
From 1 Ululu till 30 Arahsamna, the Sun follows the way of Anu, wind and warmth.
Fom 1 Kislimu till 30 Shabatu, the Sun follows the way of Ea, severe cold.
(MUL.APIN GAP 2: 1-7; Horowitz, 2012, 15)

There is no division into seasons in any Sumerian text. Starting from the Old Akkadian time, however, in the economic texts of the Third Dynasty of Ur, there are names of sacrificial lambs: lambs born in spring, summer and winter (sila₄-nim^{^[1]}, sila₄-buru₁₄, sila₄-en-te-na). Thus, in this text, there is a distinction of three seasons, autumn lambs are not mentioned. In the Akkadian texts we can also find equivalents for these three seasons. Spring – daš’ū “blooming, opening”, summer – ḫarpu or ebūru “summer” (lit. “early (sowing)”, “(early) harvest (of fruits)”), winter – kuṣṣu “cold, severe cold”. According to astronomical data, the seasons were divided into three star paths: the season of Anu, the season of Enlil (in Akkadian pronunciation – Ellil), and the season of Ea. Each path consisted of 12 stars. In total, 36 stars and three paths were fixed. The path of Anu included stars near the celestial equator, the path of Ellil was to the north of it, the path of Ea was to the south. At that, the season of Anu included the spring and autumn months, the season of Anu – summer, the season of Ea – winter. The term for autumn as a separate season is not found in the calendars of Ancient Mesopotamia.

Nippur

bara₂-za₃-ĝar “see of the sanctuary”
gu₄-si-su₃/su/sa₂ “sending oxes”
sig₄-u₃-šub-ba-ĝar-ra “setting brick into the mold”
šu-numun “barley sowing”
NE-ĝar “setting fires”
kin-^dInnin “work of Inanna”
dul-ku₃ ”sacred hill”
apin-du₈-a “releasing the plough”
gan-gan-e₃ “exit of the Killer”
ku₃-su_x / ab-ba-e₃ “Kusu / exit of the fathers”
ZIZ₂.A.AN
še-kin-ku₅ “barley harvesting”

As it has been already mentioned, we learn about the Nippur calendar from numerous commentaries, as well as from literary texts. The Nippur calendar was started in the spring, in March-April. It was the time of the enthronement of the king. The king became the actual head of the state precisely from the moment he was approved in the course the New Year ritual, and it is known that the king had to undergo the ritual in Nippur, and then it was repeated in the city where that king lived. From this it is clear that the New Year was, at the same time, the starting point for counting the years of any new reign. Therefore, there was a very complex royal ritual, which was held in Nippur, at first; and later it was held in Babylon. That Babylonian royal ritual has lasted for 11 days.

In the context of the Babylonian royal ritual, there were three main events. The first event was an isolation of the god in a special building, which was called akitu. This building was located outside the city, and there, for some time before the New Year, a statue of the god stayed. The statue of the god was in akitu in complete darkness, and, apparently, it coincided with the days of disappearance of the moon from the sky. The god disappeared just as the moon, then sacrifices were made, the god gained strength and followed in a solemn procession in a chariot to his city, where the New Year holiday began in his honor (Sumer.: za₃-mu “the end of the year”). The second important event was the following: during the New Year's ritual, the Babylonian epic about the creation of the world was read, which, according to the first words of the first line, is called Enuma Elish “When Above." It was on the fourth day of the month, and the epic was read throughout the day. Finally, the third event of the royal ritual was the temporary humiliation of the king. On the fifth day of the first month, the high priest of the temple took away the signs of power from the king, put him on his knees, and pulled his ears and beaten him on the cheeks. If the king cries at that moment, it was a good sign: it meant that there would be abundance in the city. If the eyes of the king remained dry, it was a bad fortune: either there would be drought, or the enemy would attack the state, something bad would happen. So, when the king kneeled, he was to take an oath that during the previous year he did not harm either his city or his country, that he was pious, fed the gods with sacrifices in time, did not allow the enemy to attack the city. And after that oath, the priest raised the king from his knees, returned the signs of power to him, and said that only the god of his city was the true king. All others were only officials in the service of God.

In the standard Mesopotamian calendar, each month has two names — Sumerian and Akkadian ones. For each of the months, the deciphering of the names and the main rituals of each period are known from a document called “Astrolabe B” (KAV 218; Emelianov, 1999; Horowitz, 2014). This document is kept in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin; it was compiled in the middle of the second millennium BCE. The oldest lists are dated to the fifteenth — fourteenth centuries BCE; and in its full form it came from the eleventh century BCE, from the city of Ashur. The text consists of several parts: the first part is the enumeration of the list of constellations and the so-called “star paths”, and the second part is a list of months and holidays (see Appendixes).

The first month is bara-zag-ĝar (Sumer.) or Nisannu (Akkad.) – March-April. Its Sumerian name means “see of the sanctuary”. The Akkadian name can be traced in many languages (Arabic, Hebrew, Turkish). The word Nisannu has Sumerian etymology: ni₃-saĝ “the first head/sacrifice”. It is said in the comments of the “Astrolabe B”: “The Month of the See (bara₂)^{^[2]}: (in the sky) Field (= Paegasus), the see of the Sky; the see is set, the see is settled (Akkad.: the king is set, the king is settled); the good beginning of An and Allil; the month of Nanna, the firstborn son of Ellil”. The month Nisannu is the time of the high water, the flood of Tigris and Euphrates. That time was perceived as the period of the reign of the god Marduk, who had defeated the monster named Tiamat. He divided Tiamat into two parts: from one part he created the Heaven, from the other one — the Earth, and in the centre he put the city of Babylon and Esagila, the temple of Marduk. It meant that the world had been created on the base of the sacrifice, and that sacrifice was Tiamat. Such interpretation of time was shaped as early as in the Babylonian time, in the second millennium BCE; and even earlier, in the Sumerian time, it was the time of bringing the first fruits and first-born cattle as a sacrifice to the main gods of the city. March-April was the time of sacrifices; and, as a rule, the sacrificial list was opened with immaculate white lambs that did not have any marks on their bodies, because only such animals were pleasing to the gods. Therefore, after that sacrifice, the onset of spring became possible. If the gods did not receive the sacrifice, there was a risk that the spring would not come and the agricultural year would not be started. People had to provide sacrifices (usually temple products) for the coming of the new year.

Some attention to the Sumerian name allows to see that bara₂ means “a throne, an elevation on which a statue of a deity stands”. The throne was the most important place in the temple, the sacred centre that supported all the forces of the outside world longing to break out. The people of Mesopotamia built temples around the throne. The royal throne was a copy of the divine one. Some of ancient thrones were ornamented with snake heads. The king, sitting on the throne, as if did not allow the serpentine chaotic beginning to break into the world. By the way, the monster Tiamat defeated by Marduk was also considered serpentine and she was sea water in its substance.

Another important feature of the month of Nisannu is that the people of Ancient Mesopotamia were very afraid of the children who were born in that month. The Neo-Assyrian texts contain prescriptions according to which a baby was to be carried until the next month. There were spells against the evil power of babies born in Nisannu. Those spells were read by the baby's parents, who make a sacrifice to the god of the river (see Appendices). It was the time of floods, the river “became evil” and swept away everything on its path. People were afraid that at that time the properties of the river would transfer to the character of the newborn. Children who were still born at that month were called Nisanu (male) and Nisanitu (female). Those children were thought to be overly aggressive, and they were compared to the god Marduk. Another text about such children said the following: “If a child is born in the month of Nisannu, he will destroy his father’s house with his legs” (Labat, 1965, 64). Thus, the first month of the calendar was associated with the enthronement, the first sacrifices, and the beginning of the flood of the rivers.

The second month of the Nippur-Babylonian calendar also has two names: gu₄-si-sa₂ “sending bull/oxen” is a Sumerian name, Ajaru^{^[3]} is an Akkadian one. A commentary of the Astrolabe B on this subject is following: “The Month of Ox (gu₄): (in the sky) Stars (= Pleiades), seven of them, they are great gods; opening of the earth, (when) oxen are sent, the damp earth is opened, ploughs are washed; the month of Ningirsu, the hero, Ensigal of Ellil.” It meant that in April-May there was a ritual ploughing, and ploughs opened the soil so that the virgin land was washed with its own water in those areas where the flood had already descended. A magical rite, which did not implied real ploughing, hinted at sacred marriage of the plough and the earth, and the king followed the plough, he held the handle of that plough made of tamarisk. The people greeted the king. Ornamented oxen were walking in the plough. Thus, the king, with the help of the plough, copulated with the earth. The ritual was performed so that the earth could “give birth” to barley. The second month was considered the month of Ninurta (who was called Ningirsu in Lagash) — the god of farmers in peacetime and the god of defense in wartime. In terms of his functions, he was close to the Christian St George the Victorious. But what about Ninurta?

In April-May, the flood reached its peak, and then rolled back. Wet ground opened up to be cultivated. At the same time, a battle between Ninurta and the monster Asag takes place in the mountains. According to the Sumerian epic, in winter, Asag retained water in the mountains, which was supposed to become waters of the flood. The water did not come down from the mountains to the fields, so agriculture became impossible. Ninurta goes to the mountains and there he defeats Asaga. After the victory, Ninurta was solemnly greeted as a giver of spring water, and a sports festival was held in his honor: wrestling and athletics competitions. Moreover, upon his return, they put up a special gate in the city of Nippur, and through those triumphal gates he passed to the temple of his father Enlil. Then, he laid out the trophies from the mountains in front of the temple of Enlil. After that, Ninurta was sent to the chambers of his wife, with whom he performed the rite of sacred marriage.

Sacred marriage was the main event of the second month, the most important ritual for the inhabitants of Ancient Mesopotamia. The king performed sacred intercourse with the priestess of the entum temple, and as a result of that intercourse, a child was to appear, who will be considered the offspring of the gods. Subsequently, that child would claim the highest status in the state, up to the royal one. The ritual symbolically ensured the fertility of the land, livestock, reproduction of people, and confirms the potency of the king. It was believed that if the king did not have male potency, the soil and the country would also not have potency. However, there were cases when a special representative of the king was appointed to replace him during the ceremony.

At the beginning of the tradition of sacred marriage, the priest had copulation with the earth, which took place right on the furrow. Later, the action was transferred to the temple, where they created a special paddock imitating a reed paddock for livestock — gipar. The ritual of sacred marriage was performed in that gipar. Witnesses who were present during the ceremony reported that everything was successful. That ceremony was repeated annually in April-May. Subsequently, the rituals of sacred marriage could be performed in autumn and even in winter. The time of a certain sacred marriage depended on the time of the celebration of the New Year (Emelianov, 2003; Lapinkivi, 2004).

The third month in Sumerian was sig₄-u₃-šub-ba ĝar “setting brick into the mold”, and Simānu in Akkadian “a term (of doing some work)”. There is a following commentary of the Astrolabe B: “The Month of Brick (sig₄): (in the sky) the Mouth of An, the crown of An (= Aldebaran); this star is like Girre^{^[4]}; the month of the brick mold of the king, (when) the king sets the brick in the mold; countries build their houses; month of Kulla (throughout) the country.” Kulla was the god of bricks. The waters of the flood eroded buildings made of mud brick every year. Buildings need to be restored, and the renovation of those buildings (temples, shrines) took the third month — May-June. It was comfortable time for the work, because the temperature was still gentle (22-25º C); therefore, all the forces of people at that time were directed to the reconstruction. It becomes clear that, in this case, Simānu meant the period for carrying out reconstruction before the drought and heat come.

Besides, the third month was associated with the constellation of Gemini, and Gemini was understood as the brothers Sin and Nergal. There is a piece of Sumerian literature, which is conditionally called “Enlil and Ninlil” by specialists. It says that the young god Enlil saw a beautiful girl bathing by the river, entered into an affair with her and was condemned for it. The gods sent them both to the Underworld. There they got a boy named Nanna, which means “the lord of Heavens”. Together they started to consider how to escape from the Underworld, and decided to leave a replacement for themselves. The god Enlil, taking on various forms, thrice copulated with Ninlil. She bore him three more deities. As a result, Enlil, Ninlil and Nanna left the Underworld, leaving three deities underground, the eldest of them was Nergal. Nanna became the god of the Moon. Subsequently, the Akkadian Semites gave Nanna a new name — Sin; and Sin and Nergal would become the divine twins — the image of the constellation Gemini.

The fourth month (June-July) in Sumerian was called šu-numun “sowing barley”, and in Akkadian Du'ūzu, later Tammuz. According to a commentary of the Astrolabe B, “The month of the Hand (šu): (in the sky) Righteous Shepherd of Heaven (= Orion) – Ninshubur, grand vizier of An and Inanna; the month of pouring the seed, the germination of the early seed; the month of the cry of Ninrurugu; month (when) the shepherd Dumuzi was seized”. At the end of that month, when the moon disappeared, a three-day lamentation was arranged for the god Dumuzi going to the Underworld. Being the god of fertility, Dumuzi went to the Underworld to transfer his viviparous power to the earth; therefore, in Mesopotamian culture, there were many versions associated with the departure of Dumuzi. According to one version, robbers attacked him in the steppe. According to another version, he was carried away by a flood. According to the third version, he was betrayed by his wife, the goddess Inanna, to the demons of the Underworld, because he had not shown her the proper signs of attention. After his departure, Dumuzi was to be mourned by women. At the same time, the pouring and sowing of early barley took place. Three days later, a new month appeared in the sky, the sown barley gave first sprouts, and people said that Dumuzi had risen from death in the Underworld. The rite of mourning for Dumuzi has become so widely known throughout the Middle East that it was mentioned in the Bible, in the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel (6^th century BCE), where it is said that at the northern gate of Jerusalem, women mourn Tammuz (8:14), as well as in the book “Fihrist” by An-Nadim (10^th century AD), which refers to the month of Tauz. According to the beliefs of the northern Iraqi Sabi sect, the month was named so in honour of a young man who was hired to work for a miller. The miller ground the bones of the young man at the mill, so the women mourn Tauz, and the people should not eat anything grinded. It should also be borne in mind that the fourth month is the period of the summer solstice. It is clear from the texts of the first millennium, that the cult of Dumuzi leaving for the Underworld was associated with the backward movement of the Sun after the maximum (Fritz, 2003).

The fifth month (July-August) was called in Sumerian NE.NE ĝar “setting fires”, and Abu in Akkadian. The first researchers thought that abu meant a “father”, but then it turned out that it was a kind of a hole in the ground through which victims were delivered to the dead and from which the spirits of the dead can crawl out. This word is also in the Bible. Its origin is unknown, it has no common Semitic root. Apparently, ab(u) symbolizes some contacts between the living people and the dead that took place at that month. There is a commentary in the Astrolabe B: “The month of Fire (ne): (in the sky) the Arrow of Ninurta (= Sirius); the braziers are lit, the Anunnaki raise their torches, Girra descends from the sky, equals the sun; the month of Gilgamesh, (when) for nine days (Sumer.: on the ninth day) young men in wrestling (and) athletics compete in their quarters”. It can be concluded that that month was the time of maximum heat. In the text the “Death of Gilgamesh”, we find confirmation that the fire of torches helped people to expel the ghosts of the Underworld, hungry ghosts that could harm them. For the sake of fighting hungry ghosts, great sports games were organized, which are quite reminiscent of the Greek Olympic Games, because they also took place in July and by torchlight. The games in Mesopotamia, however, were dedicated to Gilgamesh, the king of Uruk, who wanted to be immortal and got the post of commandant in the Underworld after his death. The cult of Gilgamesh was widespread in Mesopotamia from early antiquity. Thus, the fifth month of Abu was the month when the living people were trying with all their might to resist the dead. On the ninth day of that month, people offered sacrifices to their dead relatives. It was believed that if the dead do not receive food and drink from their children for a long time, they come out of the Underworld and make harm. It means that it was necessary to appease them, so people went to burial places and left a lot of food there. Besides, July-August is the time when the Sun reaches its maximum strength, the air heats up to 45 degrees, and there is no shade anywhere, because Mesopotamia is a flat country with a minimum number of trees. Probably, it seemed to people a month of evil demons, so all the Underworld creatures needed to be coaxed with victims.

Next a climate change came. The drought was getting less and the heat was decreasing. The sixth month came, which was called kin-^dInnin “work of the goddess Inanna" in Sumerian, and Elūlu/Ulūlu in Akkadian (probably related to the verb elēlu “to purify”). It was a time of a rite of purification. What does the Astrolabe B say about it? “Month of Service (kin): (in the sky) Bow (= delta, sigma of the Canis Major) of Inanna of Elam (Akkadian: month of service for Inanna of Elam); Inanna's mothers in the River of Ordeals are cleansed, shine annually”. Statues of the goddess Inanna were cleansed, that is, washed, in the so-called “river of sacred ordeals”. Sacred ordeals were tests of people who did not want to confess their guilt. In Ancient Mesopotamia, there were several ways to force a person to confess if he denied his guilt. He was placed in front of the statue of the sun god Shamash, and if a person under Shamash did not admit his guilt, then he was dipped in a reservoir, which was located on the territory of the temple. Such dipping did not suppose hands binding or putting a man into a suck. A man was simply thrown into the water, and then no one knew how to swim. Moreover, in the languages of Ancient Mesopotamia there was no verb “to swim” at all. When a person was thrown into the reservoir, they were waiting for the reaction of the so-called God of the River. If the God of the River drowns a man, he was guilty, if a person survives, it means that his guilt is the work of the slanderer, that is, the one who accused him, and in this case, according to the law, the accuser is to be killed. One of epithets of Inanna was Nin-e₂-gal “mistress of a large house”. “The Big House” meant not only the palace, but also the prison. In August-September, Inanna was a prisoner of the Underworld, because, having gone in search for Dumuzi, she was killed for three days by her sister Ereshkigal. Therefore, Inanna-Ishtar, returning from the Underworld and being ritually impure, had to undergo a rite of purification. The case concerned not only the statues of the goddess Inanna. The entire country was cleansed. People plunged into water sources, preparing for the most important test for them: the test of the autumn New Year. As it mentioned earlier, there were two New Years in Ancient Mesopotamia: the New Year of harvesting, or the spring New Year, and in September-October — the autumn New Year, or the New Year of sowing. At that time (late September) barley was sown. Moreover, it was necessary to have time to sow the main variety of barley before the start of the rainy season, which began in the second half of October.

The Sumerian name for the seventh month was dul-kug “sacred hill”, while the Akkadian name was Tašrītu “beginning”. The sacred hill was a special place in the temple where the judgment of the gods was carried out. The Astrolabe B comments: “The Month of the Hill (du₆): (in the sky) the Yoke of Ellil, the emblems (of the gods) are consecrated (Akkadian: dwellings are consecrated), the names of people and rulers shine, the sacred annual libation to the Anunnaki is performed, the gates of the Abzu open, the wake of Lugaldukug is settled down; the month of the ancestors of Ellil”. Other texts say that it was the month of judgment and the most important was the seventh day of that month. It was the time when the Table of Fates was made, and the names of people were entered on the Table, both those who would survive the next year and those who were to be taken to the Underworld (Cavigneaux, Donbaz, 2007). It was necessary to prepare rather seriously for that time of judgment. The king took part in a complex ceremony. A reed hut (šutukku) was erected at the edge of the city, with a hole in the roof but without windows. On the eve of the seventh month, the king was brought there, but before entering there, the king performed the rite of releasing the birds. The birds released by the king were supposed to take his sins to heaven and thereby to purify the king. Then, the king entered the reed hut, and there he has been enclosed up for three days. During that time, he had to recollect all his sins, to cleanse himself, and, on the third day, in the morning to see the sunrise so that his eyes come in contact with the sun (Emelianov, 2012, 104-107). At that period, a statue of the city main god stayed in the building called akitu. On the third day of the seventh month, the statue solemnly marched from the akitu to the city. After it, the king came out of his reed hut. Next, the king entered the ablution house, where there were seven rooms. In each of them, some old clothes were removed from the king, he was dressed in new ones, incantations were pronounced in Sumerian language, and the king answered with incantations in Akkadian. After passing through the rite of purification, the king left the ablution house and walked to his palace. Until the very end of the seventh day, he was prohibited to eat fish or meat, to look at decorations, and to do anything that bring people pleasure.

The first week of the month of Tashritu was sacred; it was the week of preparing the entry of names on the Table of Fates. For the men of Mesopotamia, the number of prohibitions increased every day of that month. First, a man was forbidden to go to a brothel; then, he was forbidden to go to a tavern and drink beer. Then, after the third day, he was severely restricted in food. On the fourth or fifth day, there was a restriction in actions and food; and, on the sixth day, a man could not even go to the toilet, because he should not spew any impurities from himself. A man had to be clean in order to appear in perfect form before the creators of the Table of Fates. By order of the god Enlil, the Table of Fates was created by the two wisest deities: the god Enki (the god of wisdom) and the goddess Nisaba (the goddess of writing, calculations and grain accounting). The same two deities recorded the fate of people on a special table. After the seventh day, the country was cleared, and, starting from the eighth day, people made sacrifices to the heavenly bodies rising at that time: the Sun, the god of the planet Saturn, and to some constellations. Gradually, people returned to their common life; in particular, on the ninth day, a man could enter his wife's bedroom in the women's half of the house (Casaburi, 2000).

On the fifteenth day of that month, the constellation rose, which, in honor of the events of the month, was called Libra — the star of truth and justice, as one astronomical commentary says. Thus, it became clear that for Ancient Mesopotamia the autumnal New Year was a time of purification — both external, when people washed themselves, and internal, when people were freed, as we would say now, from impurities through fasting. In addition, it was a time of repentance for sins. It is no coincidence that the king performed the ceremony of releasing birds: the birds were to carry his sins somewhere far into the sky so that they never returned. That New Year was in opposition to the spring New Year, because the strategy of the spring New Year included the worship of Ninurta and Marduk — aggressive gods who dealt with all their opponents, dismembered them and made a new world out of them. In autumn, the king and the country had to keep silence, fast, to indulge in auto-aggression and what we call the answer to the “voice of conscience”. People looked for their guilt, found it, and started to repent it.

Further events were associated with a gradual increase in the activity of the forces of the lower world, because the daylight hours decreased, darkness grew, there was a lot of rainwater and the air temperature felt. We can say that the rainy season began somewhere around October, 10. By the late October — early November, the rains were already pouring with might and main, and it was only the beginning, because the peak of the rainy season felt on January.

The name of the eighth month in Sumerian is apin-šu-du₈ “releasing of the plough", and in Akkadian it is called Araḫsamna “the eighth month". In a commentary of the Astrolabe B it is said: “The Month of Plough (apin): the Hoe and the Plough start a dispute in the steppe; akitu (for) ploughing is set; the month of Adad, overseer of the channels of the Heaven and the Earth”. After ploughing, the plough was placed in a special room where it was stored, and that place was figuratively called akitu. It is worth remembering that, according to the New Year's ritual, akitu was the house where the statue of the city god temporarily resided before the New Year. Why was Adad the god of the eighth month? October-November was the time when rains and bad weather intensified, and Adad was exactly the god of rain. As for the mention of a plough and a hoe, in Sumerian literature, there was a dialogue-dispute between the Plough and the Hoe, in the course if which they tried to find out who of them was more useful. The Plough said that it was more useful, because during the festive ploughing the king holded its handle, and the people on the sides of him rejoiced and sang solemn songs. The Hoe said that the Plough works for four months only, while the Hoe worked all year round (pp. 107-109; Cohen, 1993, 332). Therefore, in the dispute between the Hoe and the Plough, the Hoe won. The described time of the dispute between the two tools, according to the commentary of the Astrolabe B, felt on the eighth month of the calendar.

Then, the ninth month came, it is called in Sumerian gan-gan-e₃ “the exit of the Killer”, and in Akkadian it sounds like Kis(si)līmu. The etymology of the Akkadian name is unknown. In the Semitic calendar from Nuzi, this month is called Kinūnu “hearth, brazier” (Cohen, 1993, 371). A commentary of the Astrolabe B says: “The Month gan: abundance (and) prosperity are heaped; the mighty hero Erra the Great emerges from the Underworld — the crushing weapon of the twin gods (Akkadian: both gods); the month of the perfect hero Nergal”. Being the god of the Underworld, Nergal had the epithet “the lord of disease and murder”. He was the leader of various demons that spread disease. In the epic about Erra, Nergal-Erra is considered the deity-destroyer of civilization, the one who sets one people against another. It is also known that the 21^st day of that month was considered the birthday of demons. And all that happened in a situation where sunlight got its minimum, and darkness, on the contrary, grew. At the same time, the period (November-December) was the feast of harvesting of the last fruits, and for that reason the ninth month was considered to be a month of prosperity and abundance. The ninth month shown that the powers of the Underworld were started gradually coming to the Earth. They came to the Earth along with increasing darkness, accompanied by a decrease in daylight hours and, of course, a decrease in temperature.

The tenth month ab-ba-e₃ is translated from Sumerian as “the exit of the fathers”, or “the exit of the elders”. It also had a second meaning, which can be traced in a play on words. ab-ba means both “father” and “sea”, so the name can be interpreted as “exit of the sea”. This meaning is reflected in the Akkadian name of the month Ṭebētu, which means “flood, deluge”. A commentary of the Astrolabe B says the following: “The Month ab: the great feast of Heaven (is held); the month of great brilliance of Ishtar; the elders of the city come out to the Assembly; the Ishum gates (for) them [unlocks]; the sun sets liberation and rests of the earth; this month until the end of its […]”. That month felt on December-January, that is, at the time of the winter solstice. The exit of the Sun from the Underworld, that is, the increase in daylight hours, was perceived as a great event. Together with the Sun, the dead (fathers of the city) and the god of fertility Dumuzi come out of the Underworld. The earth during that period was resting, it was preparing for a new reproduction of grain. Of course, that time was associated with the rituals of feeding the dead who exited from under the Earth. Moreover, either the deceased kings of the past, or the gods, who were considered the founders of the city, they were considered as fathers. In any case, thrones were set, treats appeared on the tables: pies, beer, and wine.

Why did the second name for that month exist: "exit of the sea" (or "flood")? At that time, the early flooding of the channels began, the wind speed increased, the Persian Gulf started to attack coastal structures. Because of that, there was flooding of areas adjacent to the Persian Gulf, and areas located too close to the channels in every city. For that reason, such a flood was a characteristic sign of the tenth month (December-January). Besides, it should be noted that the rainy season continued, so the water flowing from above merged with the water flowing below. It seemed that some kind of global flood really began.

Those natural events reached their apogee in the eleventh month (January-February), which in Sumerian has a very vague name: either “spelt" or "darkness”. It was some kind of complex code, to which the ancient people did not give the key. The month has been known since the 24^th century BCE. It is written AŠ₂.A or AŠ₂.A.AN. The electronic dictionary of the Sumerian language ePSD provides many contexts and references to syllabaries. From them we learn that the combination of characters can be read in several ways:

ziz₂.duru₅ “wet/soft spelt” or ziz₂.duru₅.an “wet spelt from heaven";
ud₂.duru₅ = udduru (lu₂.al.aš₂.a = ḫalpu, udduru “a cursed person; one who has been corrupted”).

However, the same ud₂-duru₅ in the gloss is read as ud-ra, and this is again saltum “the flour of some kind of cereal”.

It turns out some kind of game with bilingual homophones and homographs. On one hand, there was cereal sent by heaven. On the other hand, there was perdition. In Akkadian, the eleventh month is called Šabāṭu, which means “sweeping away (everything in its path)”. The Astrolabe B gives the following commentary on this month: “The Month ziz₂: (in the sky) Zababa's Eagle (= Eagle); all the grasses in the steppe…; the month of the joy of the heart of Ellil; the month of wrath […]”. Indeed, it was the favorite month of the god Enlil. The fact is that, at this time (January-February), a very curious Enlil festival was held, in which many mourners took part. In particular, the state ritual of the city of Assur contained a liturgical reading of laments called a-ab-ba-hu-luh-ha (“O furious sea!”). It was a whole series of laments addressed to the god Enlil. The inhabitants of Nippur and other cities appealed to Enlil with requests not to flood their city and not to freeze them. At the same time, a memorial ceremony was held for all drowned people (Kutcher, 1975). Based on this, it can be assumed that the eleventh month was associated with lamentations for people who died as a result of the flood. It becomes clear that the rainy season and all other adverse climatic events were at their peak and there had been already victims in need to be remembered and mourned.

The twelfth month is called še-kin/gur₁₀-ku₅ “barley harvesting” in Sumerian, and Addaru in Akkadian. Apparently, the Akkadian name is formed from a verb meaning “to be dark, gloomy, dangerous". The Astrolabe B comments on its name: “The Month Barley (še): (in the sky) Pisces; current plains are filled, sickles are not lazy on wide fields; the month of the joy of the heart of Ellil; the month of Ea”. The twelfth month was declared the month of the water god Ea. In the Neo-Assyrian menology, it is considered the month of seven demons: asexual beings who do not give birth to children and who are generally “neither men nor women" (as they say about them in spells) (Labat, 1965, 105, 12). Those creatures spread various diseases, which in fact meant a sharp increase in the number of infectious diseases in February-March, because, at that time, drinking water containing a lot of alluvial silt as a result of canal spills became quite dangerous. People got diseases, primarily related to the intestines and stomach, diseases of internal organs, the digestive system, because it was absolutely unacceptable to drink such water. At that month, people tried to drink non-alcoholic beers, something like kvass. Thus, that time (February-March) was perceived as a bad time of the calendar, when negative beings reigned over the Earth. Besides, the twelfth month was considered the time when the largest cities of Mesopotamia — Akkad and Ur — were destroyed.

Thus, by the twelfth month, the forces of the Underworld were effectively masters in the upper world. There was a triumph of chaos. Against that celebration, the New Year's hero Marduk or Ninurta rose, they defeated those forces and built a new world.

If we look at the calendar as a system, we will see that there is a certain plot in it: the confrontation between the world of the living and the world of the dead. In spring, the forces of the upper world triumph over the lower. We see that this victory is represented in two main rituals: welcome of the New Year's hero (the king's enthronement) and sacred marriage. Summer is the period when the forces of the Underworld come into motion and fight the world of the living. But then they fail to win, because the world of the living sends its messengers to the Underworld. Autumn is the time of balance, which has the mythology of judgment: the god of the Sun, the God of the planet Saturn, and several other gods create the Table of Fates and everyone will know that there is a single fate for all, written on one table — someone to live, someone to die. The fourth part of this system is winter, when the forces of chaos gradually rise up and take over the world of the living. This is how the standard Babylonian calendar functions, which consists of a Sumerian (Nippurian) part and a Babylonian part.

This calendar is still used by Jews, Christian Arabs, Arameans (including modern Assyrians), and partly Turks. It gets only a few changes. So, the month of Simanu (May-June) is replaced by ḫazȋrān. This name does not yet have an exact etymology. Perhaps, it refers to a sheaf of wheat. Tashritu and Arahsamna became two months with the name Tishrin (from Tashritu). Kislimu and Tebetu also became two months with the name Kanun (from Akkadian kinūnu “hearth, brazier”). The rest of the names have not changed.

Literature:

Emelianov V.V. Nippurskyi calendar i rannyaya istoriya Zodiaka (The Nippur calendar and the early history of the Zodiac). St. Petersburg: Peterburgskoe vostovedenie, 1999.
Emelianov V.V. Assiro-vavilonskyi obryad vapuskaniya ptits /dopolnenie k statie V.K. Shileiko ‘Rodnaya starina’ (The Assyrian-Babylonian ritual of releasing birds/ and addition to the V.K. Shileiko article ‘Native antiquity’) // Bestiary II. Zoomorfizmy Azii: dvi;enie vo vremeni. St. Petersburg: The Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 2012. P. 99–110.
Casaburi M.C. The Alleged Mesopotamian “Lent”: The Hemerology for Teshritu // Studi epigrafici e linguistici sul Vicino Oriente antico. 2000. Vol. 17. P. 13–29.
Cavigneaux, A., Donbaz V. Le mythe du 7. VII: les jours fatidiques et le kippur mésopotamiens // Orientalia. 2007. No. 4. P. 293–335.
Fritz M.M. „und weinten um Tammuz“: die Götter Dumuzi-Amaʾušumgalʾanna und Damu. Münster, Ugarit-Verlag, 2003.
Horowitz, W. The three stars each: The Astrolabes and related texts. Wien: Institut für Orientalistik der Universität Wien, 2014.
[KAV] – Schroeder, O. Keilschrifttexte aus Assur verschiedenen Inhalts. Leipzig, 1920.
Kutcher R. Oh Angry Sea (a-ab-ba hu-luh-ha): The History of a Sumerian Congregational Lament. New Haven, 1975.
Labat R. Un calendrier babylonien des travaux: des signes et de mois. P.: Librairie Honoré Champion, 1965.
Livingstone A. Hemerologies of Assyrian and Babylonian Scholars (Cornell University Studies in Assyriology and Sumerology). Bethesda: CDL Press 2013.

^[1]Sila₄-nim “lamb of spring” = Akkad. ḫurāpu (CAD H, 245).

^[2]In this text full Sumerian names of the months are shortened up to one sign each.

^[3]The exact meaning of the word is unknown. There are many words similar to this one. Firstly, it is a solar rosette used in the temple decoration. Secondly, it is a donkey. In many text, tsar taking part in the ritual of sacred marriage was likened a donkey. It might be a symbolical image of the tsar in the ritual of sacred marriage. Thirdly, it was a bridegroom — one more association with sacred marriage. Finally, it could be a young rival, a young fighter (CAD A1, 229-230).

^[4] I.e. it was bright as flame. Girra was the god of fire.

Tags: Ancient Mesopotamia, Vladimir V. Emelianov