Regnal Years Research Articles

「閏月のある平年」

A normal year with an intercalary month—What does it mean? Such a curious year cannot theoretically exist. But the Drehem calendar could have such a year once in its short history. This article is devoted to the in all probability only one example of such a seemingly very curious phenomenon which did take place in the third regnal year of Susin, the fourth king of the III Ur dynasty.According to Drehem texts, years began either with the iti-mas-da-ku month or with the iti-se-gur10-ku5. That we find two different systems of calendar in one and the same place, Drehem, has seriously disturbed many eminent Assyriologists as, for instance, F. Thureau-Dangin, H. de Genouillac, B. Landsberger. Of course this kind of coexistence cannot be true, because otherwise it must necessarily have brought inevitable confusions into all spheres of everday life and activities of those days. In fact, both of these two systems were not used simultaneously. One which began with the iti-mas-da-ku month was used only in the years between the 39th regnal year of Sulgi and the third year of Susin. On the contrary, the other system beginning with the iti-se-gur10-ku5 month and thus making the iti-mas-da-ku month the second was not used until the fourth year of Susin.This change of the month with which years began leads us to the acceptable assumption that an amendment which made the iti-se-gur-ku5 the first month must have taken place most probably at the end of the third year. If so, the iti-se-gur10-ku5 month as first month of the fourth year follows immediately after the month of the same name, i. e. another iti-se-gur10-ku5 which is the last month of the previous year. What happens, then? A very serious confusion in dating of administrative documents isn't to be avoided. I see a clear trace of scribes' endeavor to avoid such a not always inevitable confusion in their placing an intercalary month in the third year of Susin.This year has been, however, considered as an undoubtedly pure intercalary year by scholars with no single exception because of its having an intercalary month, i. e. iti-diri-ezem-dme-ki-gal (-e-us-sa) ‘an additional (month which follows the) month of the festival of me. ki. gal.’ If this is correct, then the year must have had not 12 but 13 months. But at end of some texts of the year man finds the following colophon: iti-mas-da-ku-ta iti-diri-ezem-dme-ki-gai (-e-us-sa)-se iti-12-kam. This indicates the absence of the month iti-se-gur10-ku5 in the year. The insertion of an intercalary month as a very substitute of the normal twelfth month iti-se-gur10-ku5 and instead the omission of the latter are, in my judgemet, a wise device in order to avoid the above-mentioned possible confusion.How can we prove our assumption true? We find some referrences to some of Nippur festivals among Drehem texts. The ezem-gu4-si-su festival after which the second month of the Nippur calendar, iti-gu4-si-su, was named, was celebrated in this city in the second month and animal disbursement for it was recorded in Drehem texts of the iti-ses-da-ku (in the years Sulgi 46, Amarsin 1, 3, 4, 7, Susin 1, 2) and iti-mas-da-ku (in Susin 7). This shows us clearly that the second month of the Nippur calendar, iti-gu4-si-su, corresponded to the iti-ses-da-ku in the period before Susin 3 and to the iti-mas-da-ku since Susin's fourth year. It means the amendment of the Drehem calendar took place in his

The Giparu at Ur

The purpose of the building called the giparu , built and rebuilt from possibly as early as Early Dynastic times down to the Neo-Babylonian period, was to serve as the official dwelling of the entu -priestess. This is clearly stated by the entu Enanedu herself. She describes herself as “patroness who had the giparu built for its entu office on the sacred site “, and speaks of the giparu as “my abode of the entu -ship”. King Nabonidus who rebuilt the giparu for the last time records on bricks that, “for Sin, my lord, I built the giparu -temple, the house of the entu -priestess.” The entu living in the giparu was a priestess of the highest order, elected by the god Nanna and revealed to the country through omens. So important was the office that the priestess was always of royal blood, the daughter or sister of the king. Ninmetabarri, daughter of AN.BU, king of Mari, whose inscribed calcite cup was found at Ur, may be the first entu of Nanna who has left any written record of herself. Enanedu spoke of herself as daughter of Kudur-Mabuk, sister of Warad-Sin; and Nabonidus, who revived the office of entu after hundreds of years of oblivion, established his daughter Ennigaldi-Nanna as entu in Ur after learning through lengthy divination that she was Nanna's choice. The importance of the office of entu is further stressed by the evidence that the kings occasionally named their regnal years after the appointment and the installation of the entus .

"Yaw, Son of 'Omri": A Philological Note on Israelite Chronology

In December of 1846 at Nimrud (ancient Calah), A. H. Layard discovered the great Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III. The text of the monument proved to be of special interest to Biblical historians, since it mentioned tribute received from a certain mia-u'-a mar mhu-um-ri, who is kneeling before the Assyrian king in the relief. Since the time of Layard's discovery, two annalistic texts have appeared which specify that the tribute of mia-u-a or mia-a-u was received in the eighteenth regnal year of Shalmaneser III.' The name was quickly associated with that of of Israel, and the identification seems never to have been doubted seriously. Because the regnal year in question can safely be assigned by means of the Assyrian eponym lists to 841 B.C., this date has become a cornerstone of Biblical chronology. The general approval of this identification, however, is not unblemished. At least three apparent difficulties have had to be overcome. First, the correspondence of cuneiform ia-ti-a or ia-a-ti to the Israelite name even in its ninth-century form, Yaw-ha' (see below), is less than straightforward. This problem seems to have caused little concern, probably because of the frequent irregularities in cuneiform representations of foreign names. The second difficulty has received more attention. The application of the title mar HIumri, of 'Omri, to is quite surprising. He was not an Omride. Indeed, as the assassin of the entire house of Omri, he is perhaps the last king of Israel whom we would expect to be called of Omri. In reply to this objection it is usually argued that the title means no more than Jehu, successor of 'Omri, or Jehu of the House of 'Omri, that is, Jehu of Samaria.2 The third difficulty is that of chronology. Ahab is mentioned by name in the Assyrian records of the battle of Qarqar, which took place in 853. The Deuteronomist assigns two years to Ahab's son and successor, Ahaziah (1 Kgs 22:51), and twelve years to his brother, Jehoram (2 Kgs 3:1), whom murdered and replaced. If paid tribute to Shalmaneser III in 841, the Deuteronomistic chronology becomes very confined. Accordingly, scholars have found it necessary either to abridge the dates of the reign of Jehoram somewhat or to assume that regnal years were computed according to a system of antedating, wherein an accession year was counted twice, as the last year of the old king and the first year of the new king.3 To make the latter solution workable it is also necessary to assume that Ahab died the same year that he sent troops to the battle of Qarqar, and that Jehu's purge took place the same year he paid tribute to Shalmaneser III. As long as the identification of ia-a -a/ia-a-ti with is regarded as certain, these difficulties are little more than nuisances. On the other hand, they become of fundamental importance if serious doubt is cast upon the assumed identification. The evidence collected below suggests that ia-ui-a or ia-a-ti is at best an ambiguous reference to and can refer to Jehoram equally well. The ninth-century forms of the names and Jehoram were Yaw-ha, and Yaw-rdm.4 The syncope of h in the theophorous element (yah7>yaw) in both initial and final positions had already taken place in the North. This is clear from the Samaria ostraca of the early eighth century, where the form is regularly yaw.5 The Bible reflects the much later form of the name, Ye-h%', which is the result of dissimilation from Y6-hi', after the secondary contraction yaw[ y6.6 In a similar instance, the biblical form of Yaw-rdm is Y6-ram (or yeh6-rdm).7 It is to the ninth-century forms of the two names that the Assyrian evidence must be compared. The Yahwistic theophorous element yaw was normally represented in cuneiform as ia-u or ia-a-u. This is clear from references in the royal Assyrian annals to eighth-century kings of Judah. Especially important are the instances in the records of Tiglath-pileser III in which the name of Azariah (Uzziah) of Judah is given three times with the theophorous element represented as -ia-u, -ia-a-u, and ia-a-ut.8 That these readings are intended to be

A Tenth-Century "Emperor Michael of Constantinople"

THE pontificate of John XII (955-964) witnessed a major development in papal foreign policy. Repeating the actions of his predecessors two centuries earlier, John called a powerful northern ruler King Otto I of Germany to his aid against his Italian enemies. In the eighth century, however, the popes had had little choice, for the Byzantine Empire was entangled in its life-and-deathstruggle with the Arabs and the Bulgarians. But by the mid-tenth century, Byzantium had surmounted the crisis, and entered a new era of vigorous expansion on all fronts, including Italy. It has occurred to modern investigators that John XII may have considered calling in Byzantine aid, before he eventually threw in his lot with the Germans. Was there any evidence for this? The French scholar, Jules Gay, thought he had indeed discovered indications that John XII had made friendly overtures to Byzantium. In his work on southern Italy and the Byzantine Empire, published in 1904, but still regarded as definitive, Gay states that the official acts of Pope John XII, following the former protocol, which had been abandoned under [Pope] Hadrian I [772-775], bore the regnal year of the [Byzantine] basileus.' By 1922, the error had taken root deeply enough to become entrenched in the Cambridge Medieval History. C. W. Previte-Orton remarks in the third volume of that work that it is significant that he [John XII] renewed the long-forgotten habit of dating by the years of the Byzantine Emperor.2 The fallacy was current as late as 1962, for George Every, in his book on the Patriarchate of Constantinople, writes that the popes of the first half of the tenth century preferred the more distant protection of Byzantium [to that of the Germans]. John XII even dated his acts by the regnal year of the Byzantine Emperor.3 All three authors strongly imply that a large number of official papal acts was involved. But in fact, their assertion rests on the evidence of a single document. The dating of a unique source by the reign of the basileus can scarcely be said to constitute a trend. The document is brief enough to be quoted in toto:4

The Historical Inscriptions of Adad-Nirari III

The publication of BM 131124—a fragment of a stele from Sheikh Hammad on the Khabur—and a fresh treatment of another neglected fragment published by V. Scheil in 1917, identified and re-edited by A. R. Millard (above, p. 57 ff.) has increased considerably the small corpus of Adad-nirari's historical inscriptions. Each of the extant texts is a commemorative inscription, usually brief and self-contained, incised on a stele or a stone slab. Another feature which they all share is that they are mainly concerned with Adad-nirari's expeditions to the west, though the precise regnal year of these is not indicated there. This present inquiry will be concerned with the specific character of the best preserved inscriptions and their value as historical documents.None of the extant historical records of Adad-nirari III published so far can be classified as annals. They all belong to a category which we would like to designate as “summary inscriptions”. A distinctive feature of this type—called Prunkinschriften by Schrader and “Display Inscriptions” by Olmstead—is the condensation of early with later events into one geographically but not chronologically coherent narrative. Usually an inscription of this category is much shorter than any edition of the royal annals, especially as it was inscribed upon a surface with limited space, such as a commemorative stele or a slab. It normally contains the following elements: (a) a prologue, consisting of invocation to the gods and the king's titulature; (b) a geographically arranged summary of events; (c) the main section explaining the circumstances leading to the composition of the inscription, introduced by the formula ina ûmēšūma = “at that time”; (d) an epilogue with maledictions.

The Household Book of Queen Isabella of England, for the Fifth Regnal Year of Edward II, 8th July 1311 to 7th July 1312. F. D. Blackley , G. Hermansen

<i>The Household Book of Queen Isabella of England, for the Fifth Regnal Year of Edward II, 8th July 1311 to 7th July 1312</i>. F. D. Blackley , G. Hermansen

On Dating by Regnal Years of Diocletian, Maximian and the Caesars

On Dating by Regnal Years of Diocletian, Maximian and the Caesars

Appendix: The Sasanian coin from Qūmis

The coin is a drachma of the Sasanian king Hormizd IV (a.d. 579–590), and is dated the tenth regnal year, equivalent to a.d. 587/8. Its formal description may be given as follows:Obverse. Bust of Hormizd IV to right. To left, from 11 o'clock, Pahlavī inscription: ’pzwr “increase”. To right, from 1 o'clock (reading from the outside): ’wḥlmzdy “Hormizd”.

The Accession of Sinsharishkun

There are serious obJections to all the current reconstructions of Assyrian history during the 620s. They demand that some of the endence should be reJected, and that there should be regular double-dating or an extraordinary number of coups in several Babylonian cities. The purpose of this article is to show that, even if we accept that scribes normally dated contracts by the regnal year of the king or pretender controlling their district, a simpler solution is available. It is compatible with all the texts, and accounts for the recognized anomalies in two of them; it only requires some mild speculation, and the abandonment of some unnecessary preconceptions. I have borrowed ideas freely from other scholars an(l there is no need here to criticize individually the chronological schemes they have suggested; all but one of them are considered impllcitly below, and the exception, Borger's, has been adequately refuted elsewhere.2 AWy debt to Borger may best be demonstrated by omitting references to many of the relevant c3ntracts and other texts; he collected nearly all of them in 1965, and disoussed them where necessary; his remarks will have to be consulted anyway, and it would be expensive and futile to repeat every detail.

Chronology of the Early Kings of Iberia

The are several reasons why the problem of early-Georgian, and particularly early-Iberian (East Georgian), chronology has been a vexing one. In the first place, the early-Georgian historical works contain almost no direct chronological indications, i.e., dates, but rather offer quite numerous relative indications, i.e., synchronisms, lengths of reigns and lives, regnal years, the distance between events, etc. Secondly, in these historical works, hard facts of history often lie buried under a superimposition of myth, legend, and epos, or are occasionally fused with the picture of other historical facts, occurring at different epochs, that is projected on them. And, thirdly, the attempts at establishing such a chronology, which have not been wanting, have tended to be somewhat vitiated by misconceptions upon which they were based. Thus, early in this century, the imaginative attempt of S. Gorgadze was ruined by the fact that he preferred the evidence of the king-lists (Royal List, I, II, III), which form a later addition to the seventh-century Conversion of Iberia, to that of the more authoritative and older (eighth-century) History of the Kings of Iberia by Leontius of Ruisi, which contains a still older historical tradition. Gorgadze, accordingly, tended to neglect what chronological indications are found in Leontius. And in our own days, another such attempt was made by P. Ingoroqva, which cannot be described as entirely successful.

On the Chronology of the Twenty-First Dynasty

THE divergent results of several recent attempts1 at elucidating the chronology of the Twenty-first Dynasty indicate that there is still confusion in our understanding of the period. Disagreement exists concerning the order of the Tanite rulers and also concerning the sequence of the Theban high priests. That the dating of events following the Renaissance period was in terms of the regnal years of the Tanite kings has been maintained by most of these studies. Certain of the Theban high priests (Herihor, Painutem I, and Menkheperre) expressed claims to kingship, but it has usually been assumed that Theban documents of their reigns were almost exclusively dated according to the regnal years of their Tanite contemporaries.2 With regard to the sequence of the Tanite pharaohs, it is the position of Nepherkheres that is problematical.3 That his reign was contiguous with that of Psusennes I is indicated by the juxtaposed cartouches of the two kings on a set of bow finials found in the Tanite tomb of Psusennes I,4 and that he had an independent reign is suggested by the four years assigned to him by Manetho 5 and strongly indicated by the fact that one of the persons in the Twenty-second Dynasty Berlin genealogical table of Memphite priests is actually placed in the reign of Nepherkheres.6 The problem that must be resolved is whether we should accept the Manethonian tradition, according to which Nepherkheres was the successor of Psusennes I, or give greater credence to the Berlin genealogical table giving the reverse order. Since this latter document was drawn up only one dynasty later than the Twenty-first, it would be most reasonable to accept it as giving the correct sequence, as Cerny has argued. The historical value of the Berlin table has been

The ‘Shirazi’ Colonization of East Africa

The paper puts forward a new interpretation of aspects of the early history of the East African coast, and in particular maintains that the immigration of the ‘Shirazi’ took place some zoo years later than the date in the latter part of the tenth century which has hitherto been accepted.After a brief summary of the Arabic sources bearing on the history of the coast, and of the received history of Kilwa before the beginning of the fourteenth century, the two versions of the Kilwa Chronicle are examined. The Arabic version is concluded to be more reliable than the Portuguese, though very little reliance should be placed on the regnal years of the sultans as given in either.The archaeological evidence, based chiefly on recent excavations at Kilwa, is examined, with particular reference to the coins minted on the coast. Certain types of these coins are found to have been hitherto wrongly attributed, notably those of 'Ali bin al-Hasan, which are shown to be the earliest.An outline of the history of the coast is presented, based on the combined historical and archaeological evidence. No satisfactorily attested relics of the period of trade with the Graeco-Roman world have yet been found. The earliest settlements discovered date from the eighth to ninth century A.O., most or all of which were probably pagan, but already trading with the Muslim world. By about i ioo there were several Muslim towns on the coast. This period is related to the Debuli of the traditions.The arrival of the ‘Shirazi’ is related to the appearance of coins of 'Au bin al-Hasan, who is identified with the first ruler of the ‘Shirazi’ dynasty at Kilwa (about A.0. I 200); Mafia was of equal importance at this time. A marked cultural break in the latter part of the thirteenth or early fourteenth century is thought to be related to a change in dynasty at Kilwa, a fresh settlement of immigrants, and the gaining of control of Sofala and the gold trade.It is suggested that the Shirazi settlement consisted not of a migration of people from the Persian Gulf direct to Kilwa and other places, but rather a movement of settlers from the Banadir coast.

The Reading of the Word for Regnal Year

Previous articleNext article No AccessThe Reading of the Word for Regnal YearAlan GardinerAlan Gardiner Search for more articles by this author Corrections to this articleErratum to JNES, VIII, 171, Left, Lines 17-18PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Journal of Near Eastern Studies Volume 8, Number 3Jul., 1949 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/370927 Views: 2Total views on this site Citations: 1Citations are reported from Crossref PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article: Shillman - Staccioli, ().https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110889352.1733Related articlesErratum to JNES, VIII, 171, Left, Lines 17-1829 Sep 2015Journal of Near Eastern Studies

Mesopotamian Chronology and the 'Era of Menophres'

The Mesopotamian evidence discussed in this article indicates 1356 for the accession of Ashur-uballiṭ I, who from the Amarnah correspondence is known to have been a contemporary of Akhenaten. Egyptologists believe that the lowest possible date for the death of Akhenaten is 1358. We are dealing here with a comparatively remote period, and a discrepancy of only 2 years may not seem very significant. But closer examination reveals that the discrepancy is considerably greater. Several years must be allowed for the overlap between the reigns of Akhenaten and Ashur-uballit; moreover, if the Menophres theory is accepted—that a Sothic cycle began in the first year of Seti I—the date 1358 for the death of Akhenaten does not allow for a sufficient interval between Akhenaten and Seti. The Mesa inscription proves that 59 years elapsed between the accession of Akhenaten and an unknown year in the reign of Horemhab. It has hitherto generally been assumed that the year in question was the last of Horemhab's long reign, but in the absence of any evidence to this effect such an assumption is absolutely inadmissible if we intend to abide by probabilities. Consequently, the discrepancy we are confronted with here must be increased by the number of years between this unknown regnal year of Horemhab and his death.

Regnal Years and Civil Calendar in Pharaonic Egypt

Regnal Years and Civil Calendar in Pharaonic Egypt

Regnal Years and Civil Calendar in Pharaonic Egypt

Regnal Years and Civil Calendar in Pharaonic Egypt

The Assyrian King List from Khorsabad (Continued)

Previous articleNext article No AccessThe Assyrian King List from Khorsabad (Continued)A. PoebelA. Poebel Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Journal of Near Eastern Studies Volume 1, Number 4Oct., 1942 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/370661 Views: 9Total views on this site Citations: 2Citations are reported from Crossref PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Bieke Mahieu THE ASSYRIAN DISTANZANGABEN IN RELATION TO THE REGNAL YEARS RECORDED IN THE ASSYRIAN KING LIST, Iraq 83 (Sep 2021): 67–85.https://doi.org/10.1017/irq.2021.8Jonathan Valk The Origins of the Assyrian King List, Journal of Ancient Near Eastern History 6, no.11 (Aug 2018): 1–17.https://doi.org/10.1515/janeh-2017-0009

The Reckoning by the Regnal Years and Victories of Valerian and Gallienus

The statement of L. Wickert that the numbers of the tribuniciae potestates of Gallienus (and of Valerian) are contradictory and also in part evidently wrong can also be applied to the numbering of the consulates of those rulers. There are, however, two kinds of discrepancy in the reckoning of imperial years in this period, caused respectively by ordinary blunders and by abnormal methods of numbering. As the latter kind of discrepancy does not alter the relative exactness of the chronology, abnormal reckoning has, rightly interpreted, the same documentary value as the strictly correct system. Inscriptions, of course, do not offer opportunities of discriminating between occasional mistakes and incorrect systems as the cause of error, but the character of erroneous reckonings can be discerned on coins through continuity of reckoning in successive years in any given mint.

Octavian after the Fall of Alexandria

When I received the welcome invitation to take part in this tribute to Sir Henry Stuart Jones, I realized, to my great regret, that other pressing obligations would not leave me time to prepare a paper worthy of the occasion. But, as altogether to miss this opportunity of expressing my respect and admiration would have been most distasteful, I have ventured to offer him the notes which follow, slight and modest though they are.It had long been known that in Egypt under Augustus dates were given, in accordance with age-old custom, by his regnal years; but the papyri have revealed, as I was able to show with the help of two examples in 1895, that side by side with this system there existed another method of dating by the years τῆς Καίσαρος κρατήσεως θεοῦ υἱοῦ, both systems alike reckoning from the Egyptian New Year's day in 30 B.C. ( I Thoth = 29 August).

Regnal years: use of incipiens and finiens

Regnal years: use of incipiens and finiens Get access A. E. S. A. E. S. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Notes and Queries, Volume CLXXI, Issue nov07, 7 November 1936, Page 337, https://doi.org/10.1093/nq/CLXXI.nov07.337 Published: 07 November 1936