The Babylonian Calendar in the Reigns of Lugalanda and Urkagina

Abstract

WITHIN the past three years a large number of documents' from the temple archives of Telloh, dated in the reigns of Lugalanda and Urkagina have been published, and these documents show that the calendar of the period which they represent was in some respects different from the calendar of the time of Sargon, or of the dynasty of LUr, or of Hammurabi, or of the later periods. For the most part, the names of the months in the time of Lugalanda and Urkagina were taken from agricultural processes and the agricultural festivals connected with them. There is but one exception to this; one month is named from a star. The names of these months had not yet crystallized into one conventional form. The names of several of them are expressed in a great variety of ways. Two or three of these names have survived into later times, as have fragments of several others of them. One who would reconstruct the calendar of this early time must be guided by the following clues. 1. He must adjust the month to the season described in its name. A harvest festival month must come at the time of harvest; a sheepshearing festival at the time of sheep-shearing, &c. 2. He should