What Type of Art Did Sumerians Very Well Do

The Sumerian Calendar was probably the outset calendar ever invented, which, co-ordinate to material show and bachelor gimmicky documents was invented in the belatedly centuries of the third millennium BCE.

All the same, to be fair if nosotros become by the traditional starting time engagement of the ancient Indian Saptarishi calendar which begins counting in 6676 BCE, and the Mayan calendar on 11 Aug 3114 BCE, these 2 both have earlier ancestry. Still we have no prove they were actually invented on these dates, so well say the Sumerian Calendar, also called the Umma Calendar, is the oldest.

The Sumerian agenda became the model for the later Babylonian Calendar, the Hebrew Calendar, even the much afterwards Muslim Calendar, and a number of ancient calendars of the About East.

Calendar Blazon

The Sumerian agenda was lunisolar, meaning that it was organized around the three obvious natural cycles: (ane) the unit of the twenty-four hour period based the regular rising and setting of the Lord's day due to the Earth'due south rotation; (two) the lunar month, the flow chosen the lunar cycle which is the transition of the Moon through its cycle of phases back to the arbitrary starting phase; and lastly (3) the solar cycle which is the alter throughout the year of the Sunday's ascent and setting positions, and the change in the Sun'due south elevation above the horizon throughout the yr.

What the Sumerians would have seen, because they lived in latitudes slightly north of the equator, is the Sun ascension in the East further and further N towards the June Solstice when information technology achieves a sunrise that is furthest north from due east. Afterwards the Sun rises gradually more than to the s-of-e until it reaches its greatest altitude south from due eastward around the December Solstice. The dusk patterns are the same (north towards June solstice and south towards December solstice) though taking place on the western horizon.

These are some of the motions that Sumerian scribes (particularly those who were astronomer-priests) would have studied in depth through nightly observation and records.

The other motion of the Sun forth its yearly journey is that in northern latitudes specifically, the Sun around noon in December volition only attain a small distance to a higher place the horizon. Compared to how high in the sky from the southern horizon that it reaches in June.

Watching the Sunday every day at noon, facing due due south the Sumerians would have seen it crest higher and higher at apex from December to June, and so lower and lower in the sky from June to December, until December 21st/22nd when it reaches its lowest indicate in the sky.

Here it will stay for almost three days until Dec 25th when information technology begins to rise in the sky again. This is the source of the December 25th birth myth attributed to many deities, originally relating to solar phenomena, which is so attributed to solar deities.

Amalgam the Sumerian Agenda

The Sumerian scholar-scribes and priests were intimately familiar with these natural cycles. Every bit were all ancient people, because they lived their lives predominantly exterior, ascent and setting themselves with the Sun as they didn't have electric lights, televisions, and computers to occupy them through the night. Though they did have candles and books, so I tin can about guarantee yous that there was a scribe, noble, farmer, and carouser or two who burnt the candle on both ends, so to speak.

The in a higher place dirt antiquity is probably an ancient Sumerian Star Nautical chart (not the Sumerian Calendar, I believe).

These people also hunted more than frequently, had to travel guided by the Lord's day and stars without GPS and, almost chiefly, were an agriculture-based people. Meaning that they needed knowledge of stellar and solar alignments to indicate to them fourth dimension of the yr then that they knew when to plant, when the rivers would flood in spring, when snow may come (in the due north) and when to harvest. Indeed these concerns would have been a motivating factor in the creation of the Sumerian calendar in the start place.

In any case, it was these natural cycles upon which the Sumerians based their so-chosen Sumerian Calendar. Though to speak of a single "Sumerian Calendar" is erroneous because during the Sumerian menstruation in that location was not a single calendar used universally by all Sumerian city-states. Each had their own, with largely unique calendar month names.

Solar Cycles & Years

Based on these appreciable natural cycles of the Lord's day and Moon, the obvious divisions were that of what nosotros call the calendar month and the year. The largest division was that of the year. We may generally sympathise the year as perhaps the almost of import segmentation, only because the phases inside the year – the seasons and flooding of the rivers which allowed Mesopotamian civilizations to flourish – take the greatest impact on agronomical civilizations.

While the Moon is pretty and its phases striking, its influence on agriculture is negligible compared to the seasons. Nonetheless the Sumerians were acutely attuned to the Moon. Moreover the Moon can accept an impact culturally which in some cases are extreme. Not intrinsically but due to meaning fastened to it, such as when a whole culture believes strongly in astrology. In Rome at least one individual became Emperor literally considering of his natal horoscope, his birth nautical chart. Octavian if memory serves.

Since the Sumerian new year started in the spring, that is, around March or the March Equinox (March 21st/22nd) we can make the educated guess that the Sumerians determined their year equally when the Sun rose due east. In other words, when the daily sunrise crossed the "center line" as it transitioned from rising in the southeast during the winter, crossing the Eastward-West line effectually March 21st, before and then ascension in the NE for the duration of the Summer.

If the Sumerians did indeed gloat the New Twelvemonth or Akitu in spring, and so it was the rise of the Dominicus due East (and its setting due West) that signified the birth of a new year's day. The priests would probably accept had a specific mountain peak or even architectural alignment they used as a sight-line to determine this date. Such that "When the Lord's day rises behind the peak of such-and-such Mount is when the New Yr begins" and "On that 24-hour interval our commemoration of the New Year begins" or something to that effect.

The Calendar month & the Lunar Wheel

The Sumerians as well counted lunar cycles, the return of the Moon from one phases back to the same phase. The Sumerians counted the offset day of each month as when the New Moon or New Moon Crescent was kickoff visible in the western sky simply later the Sun had set/was setting. Probably not by accident this is likewise the very best time to view the New Moon Crescent.

In modern western terminology, the New Moon is the catamenia when the Moon is up during the 24-hour interval and is aligned with the Sun at Noon (either beneath or above the Sun, because when it crosses the Lord's day at this New Moon phase nosotros take the event called a solar eclipse). The Moon is actually invisible in the daytime sky at this specific phase because of it's alignment with and proximity to the Sun which then renders it invisible due to the Sun's intense brightness. This means New Moon proper (by western standards) is a very poor month marker for observational astronomy.

All the same, just after the Moon comes out of alignment with the Sun it is visible on the left-hand side of the Sun equally an ultra-sparse crescent. This is all-time observed at sunset just as/after the Lord's day has dipped below the horizon because the Sun's glare on the eyes is slightly diminished making the pilus-sparse sliver of the New Moon Crescent visible.

The Sumerians called this the New Moon and in the lunisolar Sumerian Calendar marked their get-go of the calendar month. Interestingly, this ancestral tradition is likewise the reason why modern Islamic people using the Islamic Calendar also telephone call this the New Monday and consider this the first of the month.

Each transition of the Moon through its phases takes about 29.53 days. Then each Month (called iti) in the Sumerian calendar is either 29 or 30 days in duration, by and large alternating based on the fact that the lunar cycle doesn't marshal perfectly with a whole 24-hour interval and volition always end on a 1/2 day. So one month you round down to 29 days, but the next month those two i/2 days add up to a full and give a xxx-day long month.

Intercalary Month

Within the interval of 1 twelvemonth there is enough time for 12 lunar months, since 12 lunar months take about (12 10 29.53=) 354.36 days to complete.

In any given year, which has a fairly precise length of 365.25 days, we have about x.89 days left over (which we'll circular to 11 days) that are either taken upwardly by a month already underway when the year began, or by a month which did non accept time to finish earlier the years end, which both technically are the same situation.

What this means is that the lunar year, the time that it takes the Moon to consummate 12 total cycles, does not perfectly accommodate with the solar year. It lasts merely 354.36 days, whereas the solar year is 365.25 days.

In practice what this ways is that if 1 year starts on a New Moon perfectly, at the end of that yr there will be ~xi days of the next Lunar Cycle/Calendar month underway by years end. And then at the end of Twelvemonth 2 and then we would have 22 days of the 1st month of the next yr already completed. On the third Year we would have 33 days of the 1st calendar month of the next twelvemonth already completed on New Years mean solar day.

Thus in a lunisolar calendar, the months skid relative to the solar year. This situation is like January starting on January 1st one year, then on December 20th the adjacent year, so on December ninth the yr afterwards that, just because the lengths of the lunar year and solar twelvemonth are non equal.

To compensate for the slippage of the months relative to the twelvemonth, the Sumerians added an actress intercalary calendar month every 2 or 3 years. They did this at irregular intervals equally necessary past royal prescript, as they hadn't mathematically derived a meliorate method to somehow align the solar and lunar cycles. (Not until Babylonian times was a precise interval found, which is characteristically remembered by the name of the Greek who later espoused this number, rather than by its probable original discoverers.)

The actress intercalary month was called diri or min. It'south function was substantially to proper noun a lunar calendar month an "extra month" or "diri" once the commencement calendar month of the year got close enough to starting a full lunar month ahead of schedule.

Their solution was to add the actress month and then simply call next month by the name of the proper the outset month of the New Year roughly on schedule. Not a perfect system.

Weeks & Days

We do not know of whatever more often than not accepted sub-divisions of the month into weeks or days during the Ur 3 menses when the Sumerian Calendar or Umma Agenda was commencement invented. There are no explicit references available amidst Ur Three period documents. However, there are certain references that suggest there was a common arrangement with which the Sumerians divided the calendar month.

They divided the 30-twenty-four hour period month into 4 periods, each of them consisting of either 7 or viii days. Though the major division being of the 30 day calendar month into halves, which would accept been ii 15 day halves or a 14 and xv day "half", depending on whether the month had thirty or 29 days.

Ur III texts mention days such as usakar gula ("cracking crescent"), eudish ("house of day 7"), euudish ("business firm of day 15") and usakar u ("crescent of 24-hour interval fifteen"). [one.3] These seem to have denoted specific days of the calendar month which would have also divided the month into 4 weeks.

My interpretation of this is that the "nifty crescent" refers to the New Moon Crescent, the starting time of the month. While the "House of Day vii" would so be what nosotros call the First Quarter or Half Moon, which is 7 days afterward the New Moon Crescent. "House of Twenty-four hours xv" then would be Full Moon, and "Crescent of Day fifteen" would be the crescent moon that forms from the full moon, what we telephone call Third Quarter or the Waning Crescent which begins on ~21st day of the lunar cycle.

The above is my best guess of what those designations hateful, which I am by no ways certain of. Though what is of import to have abroad is that within a lunar or lunisolar calendar the days of the month correspond to moon phases. For the Sumerians who measured the start of the month from the New Moon Crescent, Day 1 was e'er the New Moon Crescent, Day 7 always Starting time Quarter, Day 15 always Full Moon, and Day 21 always 3rd Quarter.

The Sumerians as well divided the day into 12 beru "double-hours," which is really the origin of our own modern division of the day into 24 hours. For the Sumerians then in that location were half-dozen hours of daylight and half dozen hours of night. Yet the interesting thing is that they adapted the length of their hours to the changing lengths of twenty-four hours and night at their slightly northern breadth.

The length of the hours varied from season to flavor because daylight was shorter in the winter, and longer in the summertime. Night being longer in wintertime and shorter in summertime. Then in the summer the 6 daylight hours were longer while the 6 nighttime beru hours shorter, and in the winter the 6 daylight beru were shorter while nighttime beru longer.

This also indicates that they based their daytime hours on the position of the Sun, and night hours on certain stars which marked hours at night, by their rising or setting, or by their position in the sky.

Sumerian Month Names In Various Cities

When the calendar was offset invented, there was no agreement betwixt cities on either month name, or month position. Each city had their own collection of month names. The names that did cross over would often be in different positions in the year. What is more, they even started the yr on different months and points in the twelvemonth.

This is incredibly curious to me, and indicates at least to my mind that the use of these calendars might date to before the Ur III flow. Simply considering if a calendar was invented, it seems that among cities so close to one another all within the country of Sumer, the same calendar would be transmitted from its place of invention and thus be more closely aligned in each location than it was early on. Such drastic differences in the Sumerian calendar seem to denote divergence in tradition over fourth dimension from its inception.

Almost of the names for the 12 lunar months of the Sumerian calendar were different. The one name that is found in every city is Shesagku which translates as "harvest" and is usually around the stop of the year or the beginning, and so around spring.

As tin be seen in the lists beneath the calendar month Shesagku was the 11th at Girsu, 12th at Drehem and Nippur, and 1st at Umma and Ur. This is around the period when intercalary months unremarkably inserted, i.e. around the end of the twelvemonth. [2.i] As well perhaps to keep the "Harvest" month aligned with the harvest time.

Each city-country had little business with synchronizing their calendars with other city-states, which makes sense for at this time there was a by and large less-national and more local awareness of its people. We are so connected with technology today that events the world over tin seem immediate and personal to us. Though in these ancient times, even synchronization with the next city over seemed plainly irrelevant.

We as well see that the calendar month names in a metropolis also tend toward honoring the principal deity of their own city, or deities peculiarly valued by that metropolis. Though retrieve that organized religion was incredibly homogeneous across the region, at to the lowest degree at the highest and nearly sacred levels of the pantheon. Well-nigh of the major calendar changes occurred during the reign of the pious Sumerian King Shulgi, who was honored with a calendar month named later on him at Ur and Drehem.

Beneath I have contained a list of the month names in the Sumerian agenda from the cities of Drehem, Ur, Umma, Girsu, Nippur, and Irisagrig. All of the information for the following lists of calendar month names, including the data for changes in the calendar month positions, came straight from the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. [1.3] The below is for scholars and scholarshoped-for.

Drehem month names

1. a₂-ki-ti, "Akitu". The calendar month of the New Year's festival. The 6th month earlier Shu-Suen'southward third twelvemonth, and during that year. The seventh month following Shu-Suen'southward 3rd year.
2. ezem-an-na, "Festival of heaven".
3. ezem-maḫ, "Lofty festival".
4. ezem-^(d)me-ki-gal₂ , "Festival of Mekigal".
5. ezem-^dnin-a-zu, "Festival of Ninazu".
6. ezem-^dšu-^dsuen, "Festival of Šu-Suen" one of the Sumerian Kings afterwards Male monarch Shulgi.
7. ezem-^dšul-gi, "Festival of Šulgi"
8. ki-siki-^dnin-a-zu "Weaving-place(?) of Ninazu"
9. maš_(two)-da_three-gu₇ , "Gazelle Banquet"
10. še-sag_(xi)-ku₅ , "Harvest". Month 12 before the reforms in Shu-Suen'southward tertiary year. Not used in Shu-Suen year 3. Month one in the years following Shu-Suen 3.
11. ses-da-gu₇ which translates as the month called "Piglet Banquet", indicating that in that location was probably a banquet during this month featuring piglets.
12. šu-eš_(v)-ša, "…". Month 8 before the reforms in Shu-Suen'due south third twelvemonth.
13. u₅-bi₂ ^(mušen)-gu_seven , "ubi(bird) Feast"
14. diri, "Extra (calendar month)"; the abbreviated designation for the xiii^th month was not employed in Drehem.

Nippur calendar month names

1. bara₂-za₃-gar, a month proper name with unknown meaning.
2. gu₄-si-su, "…"
3. sig₄-ga, "Brick"
4. šu-numun, "Sowing"
5. NE-NE-gar, "…"
6. kin-^dinanna, "Work of Inanna"
7. du₆-ku3₃ , the calendar month of the "Shiny mound"
8. apin-du₈-a which translates every bit the calendar month of "Loosening the plough"
9. GAN-GAN-eastward_three , "…"
10. ku_three-SZIM (var. ab-e₃), "…"
11. udru^duru5 , "…"
12. še-sag_(xi)-ku^v , "Harvest"
13. diri, "Extra"

Ur month names

1. še-sag₍₁₁₎-ku₅ , "Harvest".
2. maš₍₂₎-da₃-gu₇ , "Gazelle Feast"
3. ses-da-gu₇ , "Piglet Feast"
4. u_five-bi₂ ^(mušen)-gu₇ , "ubi(bird) Banquet"
5. ki-siki-^dnin-a-zu "Weaving-identify(?) of Ninazu"
6. ezem-^dnin-a-zu, "Festival of Ninazu"
7. a₂-ki-ti, "Akitu". The calendar month of the New year's festival. The sixth month earlier Shu-Suen's third yr, and during that year. The 7th month post-obit Shu-Suen'southward 3rd yr.
8. ezem-^dšul-gi, "Festival of Šulgi".
9. šu-eš_(v)-ša, "…". Month eight before the reforms in Shu-Suen's third twelvemonth.
10. ezem-maḫ, "Lofty festival".
11. ezem-an-na, "Festival of heaven"
12. ezem-^(d)me-ki-gal₂ , "Festival of Mekigal"
13. diri ezem-^(d)me-ki-gal_two us2-sa, "Festival of Mekigal"
14. diri, "Extra"

Month Names in Umma (and mayhap in Girsu)

1. še-sag₍₁₁₎-ku₅ , "Harvest".
2. sig₄–^geši/u_iii-šub-ba-gar, "Brick placed in the mold".
3. še-kar-ra-gal₂-la, "Barley is at the quay".
4. nesag, "First fruit (offerings)".
5. dal, "Flight".
6. šu-numun, "Sowing".
7. min-eš_(three) , "Double sanctuary". The seventh month earlier Amar-Suen's seventh yr, and afterwards Shu-Suen's 2nd yr.
8. ezem-^damar-^dsuen, "Festival of Amar-Suen". The seventh month in the Umma agenda from Amar-Suen'due south 7th yr to Shu-Suen's 2nd twelvemonth.
9. east₂-iti-6(diš). "Business firm Month-6".
10. ^dli₉-si₄ , "Lisi".
11. UR, "…". Month 10 earlier Shulgi's 30th yr.
12. pa_four-u₂-e, "Pa-u'e".
13. ^ddumu-zi, "Dumuzi".
14. diri, "Extra"

Month Names in the City of Irisagrig

1. šu-gar(-gal)
2. ^gešapin
3. kir₁₁-si-ak
4. ses-da-gu_vii
5. ezem-^dli₉-si₄
6. ezem-a-bi
7. gi-sig-ga
8. ezem-^dšul-gi
9. nig₂–^den-lil₂-la_two
10. ezem-a-dara_iv
11. nig_ii-e-ga
12. ezem-an-na
13. še-sag_(eleven)-ku₅
14. diri

Further Reading

1. Popular Manufactures
   1. The Ancient Sumerian Calendar | Agenda World | [http://world.clndr.org/history/ancient-sumerian/]
   2. Babylonian Calendar | Wikipedia [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylonian_calendar]
   3. Ur III Calendars | Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative | University of Oxford [http://cdli.ox.air conditioning.uk/wiki/doku.php?id=ur_iii_calendars]
2. Scholarly Articles
   1. Synchronization of the Drehem, Nippur and Umma Calendars During the Latter Role of Ur III | Richard Firth | Wolfson Higher, University of Oxford | 19 Dec 2016 | [Online]
   2. The Agenda Synchronization and Intercalary Months in the Umma, Puzriš-Dagan, Nippur, Lagash and Ur During Ur III Period | Wu Yuhong | Northeast Normal University [Academia]

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Source: http://www.projectglobalawakening.com/sumerian-calendar/

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