The multiplicity and variability of the names of the months are found once more in ancient Sumer. In so comparatively late a period as the kingdom of Ur (in the middle of the second half of the third millenium B. C.) each minor state had its own list of months, which I here reproduce, together with the suggested explanations, chiefly from the latest work of Landsberger[834]. At this time there was in use in Nippur a list of months the terms of which later served as general ideograms for the months. The names are:—1, bar-zag-gar(-ra) month of habitation or inhabitants of the sanctuary; 2, gu(d)-si-sa, the name is derived by the Babylonians themselves from an agricultural occupation, the driving of the irrigating-machine drawn by oxen: the moderns connect this name with the gu(d)-si-su festival celebrated in this month at Nippur; 3, šeg-ga, shortened from šeg-u-šub-ba-gar-ra, ‘month in which the brick is laid in the mould’; 4, šu-kul-na, probably ‘sowing-month’, although the time does not fit: for displacements see [below p. 261]; 5, ne-ne-gar(-ra), named from a festival; 6, kin-d Inanna, named from an Istar festival; 7, du(l)-azag(-ga), from a festival; 8, apin-du-a, ‘month of the opening of the irrigation-pipes’, which fits very well with the time of year; 9, kan-kan-na, probably ‘ploughing-month’, which also agrees very well with the season; 10, ab(-ba)-e(-a), from a festival; 11, aš-a(-an), ‘month of the spelt’; 12, še-kin-kud-(du), ‘month of the corn-harvest’. There are therefore some names of the familiar kind, taken from agricultural occupations, but more are borrowed from festivals. It is very natural that the list of months should be regulated by ecclesiastical points of view, since Nippur was a great and very ancient centre of the religious cult.
Most interesting are the months from Girsu (Lagash). From the pre-Sargonic period about 25 names of months have hitherto been found, of which only 8 or 9 persisted up to the second and third periods. These 25 names of months are divided by Landsberger into the following groups:—(1) occasional names of months, under which he includes those which are consciously named after the object or employment mentioned in the document itself, or even improvised from the domestic occupation in question. Four names are given but are not translated. (2) isolated and foreign names of months: ‘month in which the shining (or white) star sinks down from the culmination-point’, a type familiar to us; ‘month in which the third people came from Uruk’, doubtless an accidental description. Further, two months named from festivals at Lagash. (3) agricultural by-names: itu še-kin-kud-du, see above; itu gur-dub-ba-a, ‘month in which the granary is covered with grain’; further a name not explained, perhaps identical with the foregoing. (4) terms belonging to the religious cult. Of these no fewer than 17 exist, not counting those already mentioned: they are nearly all named after festivals. Great pains have been taken to arrange the months in their position in the calendar, and the superfluous names have been set down merely as doublets, since they have been judged by the lists of months current among ourselves. When we compare the terms with those of the primitive time-reckoning, it becomes clear that the naming of the months is here in the same fluctuating state as e. g. among the Melanesians. According to circumstances, an agricultural occupation, the rising of a star, a festival, etc., is seized upon in order to describe the month. Certainly the months can be chronologically arranged, but to draw up a fixed series from these 25 names is impossible, even if tendencies towards the formation of such a series already exist. The development tends in this direction in order to facilitate a general understanding, and in the second period, at the time of the kingdom of Akkad in the 28th to 26th centuries, a list of this nature occurs[835]:—1, itu ezen gan-maš, perhaps ‘month of the reckoning’, i. e. of the profits of the agriculture, or ‘mois où la campagne resplendit’; 2, itu ezen har-ra-ne-sar-sar, ‘month in which the oxen work’; 3, itu ezen dingir ne-šu, of uncertain meaning but connected with the cult; 4, itu šu-kul, see above; 5, itu ezen dim-ku, month of the feast in which the dim consecrated to the deity was eaten; 6, itu ezen dingir Dumu-zi, month of the Tammuz feast; 7, itu ur; 8, itu ezen dingir Bau, month of the feast of the goddess Bau; 9, itu mu-šu-gab, meaning uncertain; 10, itu mes-en-du-še-a-na (?); 11, itu ezen amar-a(-a)-si, amar = ‘young brood’, a = ‘water’, si = malu = ‘to be full’, and therefore probably ‘spawning month’; 12, itu še-še-kin-a, another form for še-kin-kud; 13, itu ezen še-illa, ‘mois où le blé monte’, according to Radau ‘grain grow(n)’, according to de Genouillac, whom Kugler follows, ‘mois où on lève le blé pour les moutons’: i. e. after the corn has been trodden out on the threshing-floor by the oxen, the stalks are taken up for the cattle. The list has therefore thirteen months. Further, two points are to be noted. In the first place only eight months (nos. 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 11, 12, and 13), or perhaps nine—if itu ur is to be regarded as an abbreviation of itu ga-udu-ur-(ra-)ka—are taken over from the preceding period. The multiplicity and instability of the names of months were therefore at an earlier period still greater than the known names indicate. In the second place the word ezen, ‘feast’, is a secondary addition to the names of the 2nd, 3rd, 13th, and probably the 4th months, that is to say, the ecclesiastical point of view has penetrated into the nomenclature of the months to such an extent that even months with names borrowed from agricultural occupations are explained anew by festivals. The third period is the time of Dungi and his successors. The list of months differs only in that 7, itu ur, was re-named as itu ezen dingir Dungi, and the tenth month of the above list is missing, so that we have 10, itu amar-a-asi; 11, itu še-kin-kud; 12, itu se-illa; in the intercalation 11 is doubled, itu dir še-kin-kud. The seventh month takes its name from a festival celebrated in honour of the deified king Dungi; it is therefore the oldest example of a naming of a month from deified rulers which originates in the festivals bound up with the cult; such names are familiar from the Graeco-Roman period and examples still survive in the words ‘July’ and ‘August’. Still another version of this list exists in the so-called syllabar of months, in which six series of names of months are enumerated. This list is not completely preserved. The most considerable deviation is that only two months instead of three intervene between the months šu-kul-na and ezen d Bau: the order of succession is therefore broken. Landsberger conjectures that we have to do either with a later form of the calendar from Lagash, at the time of the kings of Larsa and Isin—afterwards the Nippur list was used, this being employed everywhere, at least ideographically—or else with a local offshoot. In any case the list affords valuable evidence of the instability of the months.
In modern Drehem there is found a list of months in which each month is allotted to an official of the cult, so that the result is a monthly regulation of the cult. The list is assigned to the town of Ur. 1, maš-da-ku, ‘month of the gazelle eating’, from a festival ceremony; 2, šeš-da-ku, and 3, u-bi-ku, borrowed from religious festivals; 4, ki-sig d Nin-a-zu, month of the mourning festival of Ninazu; 5, ezen d Nin-a-zu, month of the (joyful) festival of Ninazu; 6, a-ki-ti, named from a feast; 7, ezen d Dungi, see above; 8, šu-eš-ša, unexplained, later ousted by itu ezen d Su- d Sin; 9, ezen-mah, ‘month of the high feast’; 10, ezen-an-na, month of the Anu feast; 11, ezen Me-ki-gal, doubled in intercalation; 12, še-kin-kud. There are also many variants. The names, with the exception of that of the old harvest month, are all taken from feasts: the ecclesiastical nomenclature has therefore been carried out very fully.
The list of months from Umma:—The months 1, 2, and 6 are borrowed from the Nippur list. Of undoubted religious origin are:—9, d Ne-gun; 10, ezen d Dungi; 12, d Dumu-zi. 11 has the variant itu d Pap-u-e. To none of the four local systems can itu azag-šim be allotted.
A fifth list is known only from the above-mentioned syllabar, and is not certainly localised. The names of months refer to festivals and religious ceremonies, and have not all been completely preserved.
We have seen what a multiplicity prevails among the Sumerian names of months. At the time of the dynasty of Hammurabi the signs of the Nippur list are used as ideographic signs of the months. The phonetic readings are known. The names are the common ones which were also adopted by the Jews in exile. The explanations are, according to Muss-Arnolt:—1, nisanu, from nesu = ‘to stir, to move on, to leap’; 2, airu, from aru, ‘bright’, or ir, ‘to send out, to sprout’, and therefore the month of blossoming and sprouting; 3, sivanu; 4, duzu, ‘son of life’; 5, abu, ‘hostile’ (on account of the heat); 6, ululu; 7, tašritu, ‘origin, beginning’; 8, arah-samna, ‘the eighth month’; 9, kislivu; 10, dhabitu, ‘the gloomy month’; 11, sabadhu, ‘the destroyer’; 12, addaru, ‘the dark (month)’. The names are therefore borrowed throughout from natural phenomena. Numerous phonetic writings in legal documents are alone sufficient to shew that, at least for Sippar, our common pronunciations of the month-ideograms of this time were not the only ones in use. Landsberger gives 12 other names, of which only a few can be explained. Sibutim, sibutu is the name for the 7th day and its festival, as the name of a month therefore, carrying over the idea to the year, it is the sibutu of the year; ki-nu-ni, ‘oven month’, because the oven must then be heated; arah ka-ti-ir-si-tim, ‘hand of the underworld’, probably something like ‘month of epidemics’. One or two are named from gods. Therefore among the Semites of Babylonia also a fixed series of months was formed only gradually, by selection, and indeed under the influence of the Sumerian calendar from which the ideograms were borrowed.
The Elamite calendar is known partly from the so-called syllabar of months, and partly from documents[836]: the latter offer 13 names of which Hrozný tries to explain away the last by identifying it with another. The names in the two sources sometimes vary considerably, but are chiefly of Babylonian origin. Several, according to Hrozný’s interpretations, refer to the seasons: še-ir(-i)-eburi, (month of the) prospering of the harvest; tam-ti-ru-um, month of rain; tar-bi-tum (month of the) growth (of plants). Pi-te-bâbi means ‘opening of the gate’, and probably refers to a religious ceremony.
The ancient Assyrian list of months is partly preserved in the syllabar of months, and also occurs in the inscriptions of the early Assyrian kings and in the so-called Cappadocian tablets, which come from an Assyrian colony of the third millenium at Kara Eyjuk in Asia Minor. We find:—2, perhaps month of the moon-god; 3, ku-zal-li, shepherd’s month; 4, al-la-na-a-ti, also shepherd’s month; 6, ša sa-ra-te, perhaps the name of some employment; 12, qar-ra-a-tu, name of an occupation (?). The other names are missing or are uncertain. In regard to the interpretation of the names from occupations a certain caution should be exercised, since in accordance with all the examples hitherto given a name like ‘shepherd’s month’ ought to refer not to the occupation as such but to the pasture season. All other explanations are quite problematical.
In the above I have only been able to reproduce the material collected by Assyriologists and the explanations given by them: but from this it clearly appears that the development of the series of months has proceeded in the same fashion here as elsewhere. At the beginning we find an indefinite number of names of months borrowed principally from natural phenomena. Among these a selection takes place, the result of which, however, is different in each city. At first it seems as though series of 13 months arose. But these series, as the examples from Lagash shew, were not fixed throughout. New names penetrate into them, even the position of the month can be altered. Finally the series becomes quite fixed, and with this seems to be connected the falling away of the thirteenth month: in the series of months now fixed at twelve the leapmonth becomes a doubling of the preceding month. While this development continues, the calendar takes on more and more an ecclesiastical stamp, since months named from festivals are constantly ousting those named from natural phenomena, and finally attain to almost exclusive predominance. This is easily to be understood in the case of ancient Sumer, since not only were the priests alone—here as elsewhere—in possession of the art of writing and the other higher branches of knowledge of the people, but the temples also had the largest landed property, with an extensive administration. Occupations and religious ceremonies, festival seasons and time-reckoning for practical purposes were more closely connected at that time than at any other. The Semitic calendars all present the same characteristics as the ancient Sumerian, a resemblance which is only slightly disguised by the fact that the signs of the now fixed Sumerian series of months are used as ideograms of the months. Everyone read the ideograms in accordance with his custom, so that a variety in the names of months still existed, as the phonetic writings testify. But the fixed writing naturally contributed to bring about fixed readings, i. e. a fixed series of months.