At Gudea’s date, about 2,900 B.C., the 1st of Nisan, if it was dependent on the sun’s entry into Aries, must have fallen about midway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox, and as century succeeded century, the 1st of Nisan must slowly but surely have receded further from the solstice and have approached more and more to the equinoctial point.
In Accad, therefore, neither at Gudea’s nor at any later date, did the year begin at the winter solstice, and hence we can understand why in that state, and afterwards in Babylon, Ninib was not as highly honoured as in Lagash, and why he and his consort Bau (= Gula) were not referred to as the deities presiding over the beginning of the year.
In a former number of these Proceedings[31] I drew attention to the Accadian calendar. It was there suggested that the choice of the first degree of Aries as the initial point of the Zodiac was originally made when the winter solstice coincided with the sun’s entry into that constellation, i.e. about 6,000 B.C.
[31] January 1892, V. [p. 13].
If that suggestion, and the present one concerning the new year’s festival in Lagash are accepted, it will be easy to imagine that the Lagash observance betokened a sort of effort to reform the sidereal calendar in use in Accad, and it may be elsewhere.
In Accad the calendar makers clung to the originally instituted star-mark for the year, and made it begin with the sun’s entry into Aries; therefore by degrees the beginning of their year moved away from the winter solstice, and in the first century B.C. coincided very closely with the spring equinox.
In Lagash, on the contrary, the calendar makers clung to the originally established season of the year, and made it begin at the winter solstice; therefore by degrees the beginning of their year moved away from the constellation Aries, and in Gudea’s time the new year’s festival was held in honour of the goddess Bau = Gula = Aquarius.
IV
THE MEDIAN CALENDAR AND THE CONSTELLATION TAURUS
[Reprinted from the Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archæology, June 1897]
In a former number[32] of these Proceedings I contrasted as follows, what I believed to be the calendar of the Accadians with that of the inhabitants of Lagash:—