Season – Winter – Qīt Šatti – The End – □□ Known as: Month of Beginning (start of the second half-year). Season – Mišil Šatti – Summer/Fall – The Middle – □□ Season – Reš Šatti – Spring – The Beginning – □□ĭuring this period, the first day of each month (beginning at sunset) is the day when a new crescent moon was first sighted-the calendar never used a specified number of days in any month. After no more than three isolated exceptions, by 380 BC the months of the calendar were regulated by the cycle without exception. In the cycle of 19 years, the month Adaru 2 was intercalated, except in the year that was number 17 in the cycle, when the month Ulūlu 2 was inserted. Until the 5th century BC, the calendar was fully observational, but beginning about 499 BC the months began to be regulated by a lunisolar cycle of 19 years equaling 235 months. The lunation of 29 or 30 days basically contained three seven-day weeks, and a final week of eight or nine days inclusive, breaking the continuous seven-day cycle. Tablets from the sixth-century BC reigns of Cyrus the Great and Cambyses II indicate these dates were sometimes approximate. On these days, offerings were made to a different god and goddess at nightfall to avoid the prohibitions: On these days officials were prohibited from various activities and common men were forbidden to “make a wish”, and the 28th was known as a “rest-day”. The chief deity of the Assyrians is assigned the surplus intercalary month, showing that the calendar originates in Babylonian, and not later Assyrian times.ĭuring the 6th century BC Babylonian captivity of the Hebrews, the Babylonian month names were adopted into the Hebrew calendar. In Iraq and the Levant, the Gregorian solar calendar is used with Arabic names of the Roman months replacing the Latin names.Ĭounting from the new moon, the Babylonians celebrated every seventh day as a “holy-day”, also called an “evil-day” (meaning “unsuitable” for prohibited activities). The year begins in spring, and is divided into reš šatti “beginning”, mišil šatti “middle”, and qīt šatti “end of the year”. The Babylonian calendar was a lunisolar calendar with years consisting of 12 lunar months, each beginning when a new crescent moon was first sighted low on the western horizon at sunset, plus an intercalary month inserted as needed by decree.
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