Regnal Years Research Articles

Was Amenmesse the Viceroy of Kush, Messuwy?

During the mid-1970s, Rolf Krauss developed the controversial thesis that the usurper pharaoh, verily was the former Viceroy of Messuwy, who had held office during the reign of Pharaoh Merenptah (1212-1202 B.C.). In addition he argued that Messuwy usurped the throne after Sety-Merenptah, son and chosen successor of Merenptah, had succeeded to the throne and had ruled for a short time, and that the usurpation took place in the far south of Egypt and Nubia.1 During his tenure as Viceroy of Messuwy, like all other viceroys left relief scenes and inscriptions depicting himself venerating his pharaoh, Merenptah, and also reflecting his own position and prestige in the Nubian administration. Since the creation of the viceroy's office, early in Dynasty 18, or perhaps even in Late Dynasty 17,2 the appointed official who served as Viceroy of Kush was a non-royal person almost consistently.3 Perhaps this was deliberate pharaonic policy since the viceroy held considerable authority within Nubia, and also controlled military forces available in the Battalion of a largely Nubian force recruited mainly from local Nubian and Kushite peoples.4 command structure under the viceroy was modeled after the Egyptian military pattern, and the viceroy also commanded the civil administration of Nubia. Furthermore, Nubia had considerable resources, especially gold and manpower, with Upper Nubia, the former Kushite Kerma area, also possessing a strong agriculturalpastoral base. In the absence of a strong Egyptian state, Kush had already once previously emerged as a powerful state during the Late Middle Kingdom era.5 It was in the light of this experience and the potential power base that Nubia and Kush represented, that the early Dynasty 18 pharaohs devised the office of Viceroy of Kush to administer this region. In Egyptian, this title read, literally, King's Son of Kush, though as stated earlier, this official normally was not a direct physical son of the reigning pharaoh. lengthy reign of Ramesses II (12791212 B.C.) had passed largely uneventfully in Nubia, except for the building of major temples at many locations in Nubia and Kush.6 largest of these were the double temples of Abu Simbel, built early in the reign, as was Beit elWali, also a mostly rock-cut shrine. Later the temples of Derr, Gerf Hussein, Amara, Gebel Barkal, and Wady es-Sebua were added, or rebuilt. This large-scale temple construction was the final phase of the Egyptianization of NubiaKush.7 Ramesses II's final viceroy, Sethau, was a notable character who carved many scenes and inscriptions of himself, and who also oversaw the Wady es-Sebua temple's construction, during regnal year 44. Abu Simbel, the largest temple complex, and its rock environs became covered with inscriptions of the viceroys and their subordinates, carved into the rock surfaces 1 Rolf Krauss, Untersuchungen zu Konig Amenmesse, 1. teil, Studien zur Altdgyptischen Kultur 4 (1976), 161-99; idem, Untersuchungen zu Konig Amenmesse, 2. teil, SAKb (1977), 131-74. 2 Bruce G. Trigger, Nubia Under the Pharaohs (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1976), 104, and fig. 2, on 107. 6 George A. Reisner, The Viceroys of Ethiopia, JEA 6 (1920), 28-55, especially p. 47, no. 15; also Krauss, SAKb (1977), 131-36. Trigger, Nubia Under the Pharaohs, 110-17. 5 David O'Connor, Egypt and Black Africa Early Contacts, Expedition 14 (1971), 2-9; Joyce L. Haynes, Nubia: Ancient Kingdoms of Africa (Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1992), 20-22. 6 Kenneth Kitchen, Pharaoh Triumphant (Mississauga: 1982), 177. Trigger, Nubia Under the Pharaohs, 114-31.

The Length of Sneferu's Reign and how Long it Took to Build the ‘Red Pyramid’

Statistical analysis of dated documents from Sneferu's reign implies that the cattle count took place more often annually than biennially. Thus the ‘twenty-fourth occasion of the (cattle) count’, which is the highest date yet known for Sneferu and which exceeds the 24 years allotted him in the Turin Canon, cannot be equivalent to 45 regnal years but rather to about 30. On the basis of the dates preserved on blocks from the king's Red Pyramid, a model can be constructed to demonstrate that about eleven years were required for its construction. This period accords well with a reign of about 30 years.

Regnal Years and Civil Calendar in Achaemenid Egypt

This paper describes ancient Egyptian regnal and calendar dating in the Twenty-seventh Dynasty or First Persian Period, reviewing the evidence from Aramaic, cuneiform, Demotic Egyptian, Greek, and hieroglyphic Egyptian sources. A table listing the Egyptian regnal years of Persian kings is appended.

Evidence for Accession Dating under the Achaemenids

THIS PAPER IS CONCERNED WITH the way or ways in which Persian kings counted their regnal years.1 Three regnal dating methods, attested in Babylonia and Egypt, need to be considered. First, in the postdating system, years can be counted from one New Year's Day to the next, with Year 1 beginning on the first New Year's Day after the accession. The time from accession to the first New Year's Day is the accession year. This system was standard in Babylonia at the time of Cyrus' conquest in 539 B.C.E. A second method, antedating or predating, was used in Egypt throughout the Saite Period, which begins in 664 B.C.E., and down to the time of Cambyses' annexation of Egypt in 526/525.2 Regnal years were counted from one New Year's Day to the next, as in Babylonia. But the first year began, not on the New Year's Day after the accession, but-at least notionally-on that preceding the accession. In effect, the time from accession to the first New Year's Day was counted as Year 1.

The Ordering of Time: From the Ancient Computus to the Modern Computer by Arno Borst

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 437 The Ordering of Time: From the Ancient Computus to the Modem Computer. By Arno Borst. Translated by Andrew Winnard. Chicago: Univer­ sity of Chicago Press, 1993. Pp. ix+ 168; illustrations, notes, index. $39.95 (cloth); $17.95 (paper). In The Ordering of Time, the medieval historian Arno Borst looks at how time was calculated in the Middle Ages by a procedure called computus and how and if the results influenced the timekeeping of future generations. He defines computus or compotus (so modified by the Dutch in the 15th century to make it easier on the ear) as a medieval process used to fix dates and times when the weakened Roman empire could no longer designate time by regnal years. Not only did this new science calculate Easter each year, it reckoned eccle­ siastical time and restricted work and canonical hours for laymen. Five questions are introduced in the first chapter which Borst summa­ rizes as: “How did medieval Europeans reckon their time, what did they inherit from antiquity, and how much of it did they bequeath to the modern period?” (p. 4). Believing today’s medieval historians have forgotten computus and its connection to original time calculation, Borst agrees with his men­ tor Herbert Grundmann, who said of these specialists that although they see its importance, only a few actually understand computation the way every medieval cleric studying mathematics and astronomy did. They believe there is no need, since our present-day calendars are the result of the computations of those early scholars (p. 3). To correct this omission from the history of timekeeping, Borst thor­ oughly describes time-reckoning strategies through the centuries by first looking at the writings of Plato and Aristotle and other early philosophers, as well as political and religious leaders. Borst gives examples of medieval time reckoning still with us, such as a.m. and p.m. and German usage of sine tempore (s.t.) meaning “ex­ actly at the stated time” or cum tempore (c.t.) meaning “within fifteen minutes of the stated time.” He says modern-day historians overlook the etymology of the word “computer” as they withdraw money from their banks and type words into their terminals. Other books on time­ keeping give the computus only passing references. David S. Landes’s Revolution in Time did credit medieval science for progress in the calculation of time and the calendar with computus. He also mentioned that extrapolating dates into the future was so difficult that even brilliant mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss was unable to reduce the calculation to a comprehensive algorithm. But that is Landes’s only mention of the subject; and G. J. Whitrow, in Time in History, considers computus to mean simply “the calculation of Easter” by Bede in the 8th century. Borst has skillfully researched and communicated how historical figures such as Cassiodorus, Bede, Hermann the Lame, Roger Bacon, Nicholas of Cusa, and Montaigne agreed with or dis­ puted studies of human time, moral time, mystical time, natural time, and salvation time. As the title implies, there is an abundance of 438 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE information about how political and religious leaders and scholars ordered time, but little is revealed about how time and its order af­ fected the common person living in the Middle Ages. It is disappointing that Borst devoted only eight pages to the me­ chanical clock and does not relate the timekeeping systems to the push to develop and use a mechanical clock. Although in his first chapter he says that the 12th-century mechanical clock became the symbol of universal time and prototype of all machines, he later doubts its revolutionary influence and states it is overrated by modern scholars (p. 92). The Ordering of Time is convincing in its proof of Borst’s thesis that the Middle Ages saw time as more than a temporal order, simplified many of the complexities of time reckoning, and significantly affected future generations. But although the medievalists may have started the reckoning of time with their use of computus, augmented later with sandglasses, sundials, astrolabes, chronologia, and other calendar reforms, Borst concludes that the resulting computer has made it no...

Regnal Years and Civil Calendar in Achaemenid Egypt

Regnal Years and Civil Calendar in Achaemenid Egypt

Papyrus Greg の年代と内容理解

The so called “Necropolis Journal” is a day-by-day record of Necropolis workmen at Thebes. Thus, the study of this kind of documents is important in understanding their administration.In this paper I would like to focus upon one single typical text, the Papyrus Greg, which had long been unpublished, although it is well-known to the Egyptologist. Now, however, Prof. Kitchen's Ramesside Inscriptions contains a hieroglyphic transcription with a few textual notes. The document is now easily accessible. In these circumstances a comprehensive study of the Papyrus Greg (as well as the whole study of “Necropolis Journal”) has not yet appeared so far.In this present discussion we deal with two points concerning this Papyrus and the “Necropolis Journal”; To what reign does the Papyrus Greg belong? Some scholars believe it was written in the reign of Ramesses III. We can read regnal year 5 to 7 in the Papyrus Greg but the king's name is missing. We take special notice of the “gap” in this papyrus. If this papyrus was written in the reign of Ramesses III, we must suppose that about 12 months' entries of the recto and 13 months' entries of the verso are missing and must suppose a divergency of a month in the entries of the same length gap (between recto and verso). After considering the contents, we arrived at the conclusion that we cannot assume the existence of the gap—there is no gap. And this papyrus belongs to the reign of Siptah/Tawsert. After discussing the dating of the Papyrus, we went on to investigate how to locate and understand the Papyrus Greg in the whole range of the “Necropolis Journal”.

オソルコン3世後の上エジプト

In the middle of the 8th century B. C., King Osorkon III of the ‘Theban Twenty-third Dynasty’ was ruling Upper Egypt, from Heracleopolis to Elephantine. After his reign, however, in the late 8th century B. C., Upper Egypt was divided into three regions, which were Heracleopolis, Hermopolis and, in the south, Kush. In this paper, I will examine the relations among the ‘Theban Twenty-third Dynasty’, the Heracleopolite king and the Hermopolite king.From the genealogical point of view, it is clear that Peftjauawybast, King of Heracleopolis, was the son-in-law of Amenrud, who was a king of the ‘Theban Twenty-third Dynasty’. But the title s3t nswt (king's daughter) of Nestenet, who was a queen of King Nimlot of Hermopolis, shows that the Hermopolite king, too, probably belonged to the same dynasty.There are two pieces of evidence that show some links between Heracleopolis and Thebes. First, the two daughters of the Heracleopolite king Peftjauawybast had the title ‘Songstress of the Interior of Amen’. Second, a descendant of the same king was buried at Thebes. These two items of evidence, however, do not necessarily show that the Heracleopolite king himself was directly concerned with Thebes. For, on the first point, we know that some Libyan chiefs, who themselves did not have a direct concern with Thebes, placed their daughters in this post, and on the second point, the descendant was probably buried after the reign of Peftjauawybast.There is also some evidence that shows the links between Hermopolis and Thebes. The genealogical text on the statue Cairo CG 42212 indicates that a high priest of Hermopolis, who lived under the reign of King Thutemhat of Hermopolis, belonged to the family of the 4th prophet of Amen Djedthutefankh in Thebes. A bronze shrine BM EA11015 bears the name of King Thutemhat and the inscription of ‘the Estate of Amen’. A vase fragment in Rome (infra n. 33) has some inscription indicating that King Nimlot of Hermopolis had a connection with both God's Wife of Amen Shepenupet I, who was a daughter of King Osorkon III and her successor Amenirdis I, who was a daughter of the Kushite king Kashta. It is worthy of notice that the Hermopolite king himself was connected with God's Wife of Amen, which was the highest post of the Amen Temple in those days.From the last evidence, it is possible for us to reconsider the double-dated inscription at Wadi Gasus, for this inscription also bears the names of Shepenupet I and Amenirdis I. Therefore, concerning the regnal years of this inscription, we come to the conclusion that the year 12 associated with Amenirdis I could be that of a Kushite king and the year 19 associated with Shepenupet I could be that of a Hermopolite king. This Hermopolite king could be either Amenrud or Nimlot from the chronological point of view.Thebes was lost under the reign of Amenrud or immediately after his reign. As for the links with Thebes and Kush, it is possible that the Hermopolite king took a position as the political successor to the ‘Theban Twenty-third Dynasty’ in the late 8th century B. C.

Les systèmes de datation dans l’Est de l’Afrique du Nord à la fin de l’Antiquité et à l’époque byzantine

The chronological Systems in the Eastern part of North Africa in late Antiquity and in the Byzantine period The author resumes, bringing it up to date, the enquiry submitted by him to the 3rd Congress of Epigraphy in 1957. Contrary to Mauretania, the Eastern part of North Africa had no chronological system of its own. Consequently it used consular dating, as the rest of Empire generally did — although very moderately, especially in the epitaphs — up to the arrival of Vandals, and next sporadically in that part of Numidia which was handed back to the Empire. As early as the capture of Carthage in 429, Vandals adopted the regnal year. Yet the latter was usually left anonymous under Genserie, or disguised by its being styled “Carthaginian era”, which secondarily remained under the next reigns. Following the Byzantine reconquest, Justinian in 537 imposed to the whole Empire dating by regnal year and indiction, although retaining consular date. It can be verified that under this reign the emperor is unevenly mentionned in regnal dates, which after him remain rare and are eventually superseded by indiction and mention of the ruling emperor, both on coins and epitaphs. As for consulate, it appears only once in an official deed, a very late one (636). Indiction is by far the most common system (several thousands epitaphs). There is no reason for thinking that in Africa it could have antedated the reconquest, which it also outlives in the few late dated christian inscriptions from XIth century Tripolitania and Kairouan.

The Middle Ages: a concise encyclopaedia (review)

154 Reviews the female body. The womb and internal female organs were seen exclusively as an inversion of the male penis. The clitoris was not identified, except incidentally, as a site for female pleasure and the Renaissance anatomist Gabriel Fallopio was able to claim, with some exaggeration, that he was thefirstto identify what he caUed the pudendum. In this way, anatomical discussion can be seen to be an extension of male interpretations of the superiority of their own bodies. Hdary Carey Department of History University of Sydney Loyn, H. R., ed., The Middle Ages: a concise encyclopaedia, London, Thames and Hudson, 1989; cloth; pp. 352; 250 Ulustrations; R. R. P. AUSS79.95. The General Editor here has undertaken a daunting task, and one to which it is easy to take exception in matters of detail. On balance, however, he and his team of 40 specialists have put together in a most usable manner an attractive and selective, rather than comprehensive, guide to the chief events, persons, achievements and institutions of the Middle Ages. The volume will suit the generaUst reader rather than the speciaUst Suburban or school libraries might well find it an acceptable alternative to a series of more speciaUsed volumes. There are many satisfying and useful general articles; for example, agriculture, alchemy, annals (and chronicles), armour, architecture, astrology, burial customs, calendars, cathedrals, Celtic Churches (and Catholic Church, and Church-Eastern Orthodox), chivalry, Christianity, climate, clocks, comets, education ( a n d Universities), Exchequer (English), famine, feudalism, glassstained , Islam, Jews, language and dialect, law, libraries (also handwriting, books in manuscript, manuscript illumination, manuscript studies), monasticism, music, neoplatonism, pipe rolls, plague, political thought (and Marsilius of Padua), ships and shipping, slavery, synods, towns, war (and W a r s of the Roses), wills and testaments, w o m e n (but not m e n or children). Renaissances figure well (Northumbrian, twelfth-century and Italian), but there is no liturgy, literacy or even, surprisingly, Bible. The coverage is broad and weU-balanced: Arab, Turkish, Byzantine, Mongol, Russian, and Slav entries occur. There is no Peking but, to compensate, we find Arpad, the chief of the Magyars c. 850-905! Ancient culture and the Renaissance are represented by such entries as Aristotle, Aetius Flavius, Plotinus, Fra Angelica, Pico della Mirandola, Cisneros (but do not look up the latter under Ximenes). Art, literature and thought appear in a number of entries as do the main Italian towns (for example, Florence, Reviews 155 Milan, Venice, Rome, but not Siena, and Bologna only gets in under Bologna University, although Genoa gets a good guernsey). Some rather obscure glossators get in (Accursius, Azo and commentators) together with a few deUghtfully specialised characters of Great British interest only (Llywelyn ab Iorwerth the Great, but not M a el g w y n , R or y O'Conor, John Balliol), who seem to exclude such obscure continentals as, for example, Otto of Freising, though his famous biography of Frederick Barbarossa gets in as a reference under the entry for that ruler. Readers will be comforted to know that Otto's English contemporary William of Malmesbury makes it safely, as does the much more obscure continental A d a m of Bremen. It is nice to see entries such as Etienne Boileau, Union of Calmar, and Declaration of Arbroath, if only to remind one of one's ignorance. Giano della Bella's inclusion seems excessive since even Dante does not name him! Stave Churches (Stavkirchen) get an entry and an illustration. Scotland and Wales are well covered and even St. Andrews University is included. However, only some kings, popes and similar rulers are included so that despite some tables (Hohenstaufen, Plantagenets, for example) the work is not useful as a quick reference for regnal years and the like. The one or two bibliographical items after most entries are usually useful; although, there are exceptions to the rule. N. M. Haring's The case ofGilbert de la Poree is presented as a book to consult but is, however, unknown to the author of the entry who fads to cite its correct reference: N. M. Haring, The Commentaries on Boethius by Gilbert of Poitiers (Toronto, 1966). The reference given in the...

Toward a Precise Date for the Samaria Ostraca

A new proposal is made to assign the dated ostraca to the regnal years of Jehoash (year 15) and his coregent, Jeroboam II (years 9 and 10). The texts could all be dated to the span of years between 784 and 783 B. C., following Thiele's chronology. The implications of this new proposal for understanding the texts are explored. Further defense of their significance as records of shipments to officials from their respective land holdings includes a remarkable parallel from the reign of Herod the Great.

St Wilfrid and two charters dated AD 676 and 680

No original Anglo-Saxon charter bearing an AD date earlier than 736 is extant, which seems to suit the traditional view that dating by the Era of the Incarnation, as opposed to the indiction or regnal years, was due to its popularisation by Bede's treatiseDe temponim rationeand hisHistoria ecclesiastica. ‘Consequently,’ in R. L. Poole's words, ‘not a few Anglo-Saxon charters which contain the date from the Incarnation have been condemned as spurious or corrupt.’ He then added that ‘there seems, however, to be no reason to suppose that the adoption of this era was originated by the treatise of Bede’, maintaining that it is ‘much more likely’ that it was derived from the Easter Tables of Dionysius Exiguus, arguing on the basis of the accounts of St Wilfrid's instruction at Rome and his speech at the Synod of Whitby in 664, that the saint championed the use of the Dionysian computation. Kenneth Harrison has shown how likely this is on various grounds. These include a defence of four charters bearing AD dates in the seventh century and arguably connected with Wilfrid. Harrison's case has been accepted by Nicholas Brooks, though not by Anton Scharer, and Harrison later brought two more charters into the discussion. The earliest of Harrison's charters, the foundation charter of Bath, dated AD 676 and attested by Wilfrid, and a charter concerning Ripple, Worcestershire, dated AD 680, will be discussed in detail below. Three others, all attested by Wilfrid, belong to the group of charters which Anton Scharer and Patrick Wormald associate with Eorcenwald, bishop of London, who also attests: Casdwalla of Wessex's grant of Farnham, Surrey, dated (problematically)AD 688, Eorcenwald's grant of Battersea, Surrey, dated AD 693, and his charter for Barking monastery, in which his visit to Rome is dated (again problematically) to AD 677. It is entirely possible that Wilfrid was responsible for the inclusion of theannus Dominiin these charters, even if their actual drafting was done by Eorcenwald or one of his circle; the absence of theannus Dominifrom the other credible ‘Eorcenwald’ charters is significant. (Eorcenwald attests the Bath foundation charter, but so does Wilfrid.) Harrison's remaining charter is Æthelred of Mercia's confirmation of a grant in Thanet to the Kentish abbess Æbbe, dated AD 691 in the best manuscript.6 Significantly, this is the only one of the thirteen charters between 675 and 737 in Elmham'sHistoria Monasterii S. Augustini Cantuariensisto bear an AD date. Wilfrid does not attest — the confirmation carries no witness list — but Brooks comments that, of the four charters originally discussed by Harrison (Birch,Cartularium Saxonicum, nos 42, 43, 51 and 72), onlyBCS42 [the Thanet charter] has no evident connection with Wilfrid. Yet it shows Wilfrid's friend and protector, King Æthelred of Mercia, intervening in Kent by force in January 6gi (‘dum ille infirmaverat terram nostram’) at a time when the see of Canterbury was vacant. Wilfrid was by this time again running into difficulties with the Northumbrian king, and his biographer claims that he had been offered the succession to the see of Canterbury by Archbishop Theodore himself.

The Regnal Years of Ptolemy II Philadelphos

SOMETIME DURING the spring of 1902, B. P. Grenfell and A. S. Hunt obtained a large and important group of papyri dating from the third century B.c. from the Ptolemaic necropolis of El-Hibeh (Grenfell and Hunt v). Those papyri included letters, receipts, and accounts dated by a series of Egyptian or Macedonian months and regnal years, so that the editors attempted the task, apparently mechanical, of placing the documents in chronological order (Grenfell and Hunt 332-367). In fact, neither Grenfell and Hunt nor any other scholars have completely sorted out the chronological problems raised by these documents in the last eighty-five years of study. We now know that Ptolemy II first reckoned his reign from Soter's death in 282 B.c. and that he later renumbered his regnal years from some point in 285, when, he alleged, he got the reins of power from his parent. This essay will review the divers kinds of evidence for regnal years and submit two dates for Ptolemy II's reform: 282 for the Macedonian calendar and 267 for the Egyptian calendar.

Justinian’s Coinage and Easter Reforms and the date of the Secret History

Procopius dates the composition of the Secret History precisely to the 32nd year of Justinian's reign, that is 1 April 558 – 31 March 559 if he meant the regnal year or 1 September 558 – 31 August 559 if he meant the indiction year. Unfortunately this is not as straightforward as might appear, as Procopius elsewhere appears to regard the period of Justin I (518 – 527) as being in effect part of Justinian's reign. This led Haury, who has been followed by several eminent scholars, to argue that by Justinian's 32nd year Procopius meant 549–550. Crossreference to the Wars 1-vn and indeed the very purpose of the Secret History (to correct his errors in Wars) ensure that it was no earlier than 550, while a promise in the Secret History to say more about the flooding of the river Skirtos at Edessa, which he fulfilled in the Buildings, suggests that the Secret History and the Buildings are close in date with the Secret History a little earlier. Again unfortunately there is no agreement on the date of the Buildings, Downey arguing for 558–560, Evans for 558 or shortly before, and Whitby for 560 or 561, while other scholars, notably SteinS and Averil Cameron claim that Procopius could not have referred to Hagia Sophia's dome as ‘hanging in the air’ in anything written after its collapse in May 558, and, with less strength, have argued that Procopius’ presentation of the Samaritans as contented Christians (Buildings V.7.16) must have been written before their revolt of July 555 and suggest 554 as the likely date. There remains no clear way of dating the Buildings.

Sais and the Kushite Invasions of the Eighth Century B.C.

The extant evidence suggests that the regnalyear dating system had, by the 24th Dynasty, reverted from the free-floating practice of the New Kingdom in which a regnal was dated from the day of the king's accession, to the predating mechanism in vogue in earlier times, and that regnal years were once again coterminus with the calendar year. As is well known, this was the system in use under the Saites,1 but there is uncertainty as to when the change took place.2 In the 9th century B.C. the New Kingdom regnal was still in vogue, as is demonstrated by a passage in Osorkon I's list of donations from Bubastis.3 This text reviews the list of royal bequests [which H. M. gave to] all the rtemples and shrines of the gods1 in Upper and Lower Egypt from1 regnal 1, first month , day 9(sic)4 to regnal 4, fourth month of shomu, day 25, making 3 years, 3 months and 16 days. This only makes sense if the date from which the time-span was reckoned was the accession of the king, since the purport of the inscription is to list all the benefactions the king has granted in his reign up until the time of writing. Two reigns later under Osorkon II the regnal was still independent of the calendar year. Osorkon's sd-festival occupied some part of the fourth month of akhet;5 and as in the New Kingdom the calendrical duration of this festival en ompassed e accession day,6 it is likely that Osorkon II's accession fell sometime in iv akhet and that his eign was dated therefrom. As late as Sheshonk III the practice remained unchanged. The Apis which died in Pemu's 2nd is said in the official stela of the interment7 to have been born in year 28 during the reign of the Majesty [of] the king of Upper and Lower Egypt Usermare Setepenre, son of Re, Sheshonk (III). The circumstances of his discovery are then related: They sought his beauty all over the Delta, and he was found in Shedebod after three months. ... He was introduced into Memphis to his father Ptah ... in regnal 28, second month of akhet, day 1. The search must have begun, then, at the beginning of the third month of shomu; and since when found the animal was sufficiently grown to be among the herd,8 its birth must have taken place some considerable time before the first month of akhet in which he was found. But both his birth and his induction are

Statements of Time-Spans by Babylonian and Assyrian Kings and Mesopotamian Chronology

The statements of time-spans (Distanzangaben) were thoroughly investigated by scholars discussing the problem of Mesopotamian chronology in the second millennium B.C., and were recently the subject of a detailed article. Some of these statements are no more than approximate estimates (e.g. all the statements of time-spans in Nabonidus' inscriptions) and are of no help for the establishment of an exact chronological scheme. Other statements reflect the efforts of the scribes to base their calculations on available data, thus becoming an important source for the study of chronology.The publication of the Assyrian King-Lists (henceforth AKL) accelerated the investigation and understanding of the statements of Distanzangaben of the Assyrian kings. Poebel, who believed that the AKL supplies all the necessary data for the establishment of an exact Assyrian chronology, tried to fit the statements of time-spans into his kinglists-based chronological scheme. Soon afterwards, Weidner took the same line of enquiry. Later on, Landsberger demonstrated that there is a major chronological gap in the tradition of the AKL following the reign of Isme-Dagan (son of Samsi-Addu I) and that it is impossible to establish an exact chronological scheme just by combining all the available numbers of regnal years. Landsberger proposed that in the time of the Middle Assyrian kingdom there had still existed an “ungekurzte Rezension der Konigliste”, and that this recension had served as basis for the calculations of time-spans by Shalmaneser I and Tiglath-pileser I. By calculating these time-spans backwards he tried to overcome the gaps existing in the tradition of the AKL in its present form, and this approach was accepted by subsequent scholars.

The Mesopotamian God Kakka

AMONG the thousands of deities that formed the lower echelon of the Mesopotamian pantheon most are known to us only by their names and from scattered accidental references. One thus welcomes any new information which adds to our knowledge of these obscure deities. An Ur III tablet from Drehem, published here in hand-copy, yields new data pertaining to one such god, called Kakka. The tablet in question belongs to the Oriental Institute, University of Chicago, and carries the accession number A 3210 (see fig. 1). I wish to express my thanks to Professor John A. Brinkman, former director of the Oriental Institute, for giving me his permission to publish this document. The tablet is dated to the fifth regnal year of Amar-Sin and deals with a receipt for animals. Line 8 of the tablet contains the following entry: udu nin-dingir dga-ga mag-gin-gar-ru-umki, 10 sheep (delivered by) the nin-dingir priestess of Kakka of Malkan-garrum. From this passage we learn that the town of Ma?kan-?arrum was a center of the cult of Kakka during the Ur III period. Let us then examine other data which are available for this town and Kakka. The earliest references to Magkan-garrum come from Ur III texts.' The crucial evidence for the location of Magkan-garrum is provided by the so-called Sargon Geography.2 Line 8 of this document reads: [ultu... ]-rxi radii ma -kin-LUGAL mdt ag-gurki, [from ... ]-rx to Magkan-garru/garri (is) the country of Assyria. Based on this passage, W. F. Albright located Magkan-garrum on the Tigris a little south of Assur, near the mouth of the Lower Zab,' while E. Forrer, identified it with the modern Tell Melkin, located 47 km north-west of Baghdad.4 A bit more general location of Magkan-garrum was suggested by E. Herzfeld, who sought it in the area where the Tigris enters the alluvium.s All three of them unanimously agreed, though, that Magkan-garrum represented the southernmost point of Assyria, not far from the border of Babylonia.6 The data pertaining to Kakka have recently been collected by D. O. Edzard.7 Kakka is listed as dga-ga in two Old Babylonian god lists (Textes cuneiformes du Louvre 15 10:379; Sumerian Lexical Texts 122 vii 9'). The same spelling appears in An = Anum I

The Authorship of the Adulis throne text

Early in the sixth century A.D. the Greek author known generally as Cosmas Indicopleustes records in his ‘Christian Topography’ that he visited Adulis on the western Red Sea coast and there saw two Greek inscriptions, one on a marble throne and one on a stela standing behind it. The monuments have long ago disappeared, but we have the texts as copied by Cosmas. The stela belongs to Ptolemy III Euergetes (246–222 B.C.), but the throne text begins in mediis rebus without name of author, and is introduced by Cosmas with the slightly mysterious words ‘Then, as if sequentially, there is further written on the throne as follows’. Whatever he may have meant by this, it is certain, as modern scholars recognize, that the throne text is not part of the stela one: the former is drafted in the first person, the latter in the third; and the throne text was drafted ‘in the 27th year of my reign’, whereas Ptolemy HI died at the beginning of his twenty-sixth regnal year. This leaves the field open to speculations about the authorship and date of the throne text.

Jowitt's Dictionary of English Law. By the late the Right Honourable the Earl Jowitt and Clifford Walsh, ll.m., Solicitor of the Supreme Court. Second edition, by John Burke, Barrister, Sometime Editor of Current Law. [London: Sweet & Maxwell Ltd. 1977. 2 Vols.: vii, 1,922 and (Bibliography) 13 pp. £45·00 net.] - Osborn's Concise Law Dictionary. Sixth edition, by John Burke,

Jowitt's Dictionary of English Law. By the late the Right Honourable the Earl Jowitt and Clifford Walsh, <scp>ll.m.</scp>, Solicitor of the Supreme Court. Second edition, by John Burke, Barrister, Sometime Editor of Current Law. [London: Sweet &amp; Maxwell Ltd. 1977. 2 Vols.: vii, 1,922 and (Bibliography) 13 pp. £45·00 net.] - Osborn's Concise Law Dictionary. Sixth edition, by John Burke,

The Grammar and Syntax of the Year-Names of the First Dynasty of Babylon

VARIOUS methods of designating years were used in the Ancient Near East.1 They can be conveniently classified into two groups: 1) dating by numbers and 2) dating by names. Dating by numbers includes dating by the regnal years of a king, in which the years of each successive king were numbered consecutively from the first year to the last year of his reign, and dating by an era, in which the years of an epoch were numbered consecutively from a point at which some important event had occurred. Dating by names includes designating a year by the of a high official or by a sentence describing an event. Within ancient Mesopotamia each of these methods of dating was used in various geographic areas and at various times. In northern Mesopotamia, dating by the regnal years of a king was used in all periods of Assyrian history. From the time of Adad-Nirari II (ca. 911 B.C.) to the middle of the seventh century B.C. each year was also designated by an eponym, i.e., by the of a high official. This is called an eponym system, and lists called limmu-lists were compiled in antiquity that recorded the eponyms in chronological order. Such eponyms were also used in the Old Assyrian period and in the Kingdom of Mari. In southern Mesopotamia dating by regnal years occurred at the end (ca. 2400 B.C.) of the Early Dynastic period (ca. 2800-2400 B.C.) and during the span of time from the Kassite period (1595-1159 B.C.) to well into the time of the Seleucids (311-126 B.c.). A system similar to the Assyrian eponym system was also used towards the end (ca. 2400 B.C.) of the Early Dynastic period. In this system an event was chronologically anchored to the term of office (bala) of a high official. The system of designating a year by a sentence describing an event is called a year-name system, the sentence being the name (mu) of the year. A year-name was usually written in Sumerian. Date-lists, in which year-names were given in chronological sequence, were composed as an aid in identifying the chronological position of any particular year-name in relation to other year-names. A few year-names are known from the last part (ca. 2400 B.c.) of the Early Dynastic period. In the Akkad period (ca. 2400-2200 B.c.) it became the official dating system of the empire and continued as such to the end of the First Dynasty of Babylon (1894-1595 B.c.) at which point it was