The Babylonian calendar was a lunisolar calendar used in Mesopotamia from around the 2nd millennium BC until the Seleucid Era (294 BC), and it was specifically used in Babylon from the Old Babylonian Period (1780s BC) until the Seleucid Era. The civil lunisolar calendar was used contemporaneously with an administrative calendar of 360 days, with the latter used only in fiscal or astronomical contexts.[1] The lunisolar calendar descends from an older Sumerian calendar used in the 4th and 3rd millennium BC.[2]
The civil lunisolar calendar had 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, at first by decree and then later systematically according to what is now known as the Metonic cycle.[3]
Month names from the Babylonian calendar appear in the Hebrew calendar, Assyrian calendar, Syriac calendar, Old Persian calendar, and Turkish calendar.
- ^ Brack-Bernsen, Lis (2007). "The 360-Day Year in Mesopotamia". In Steele, John M. (ed.). Calendars and Years: Astronomy and Time in the Ancient Near East. Oxbow Books. pp. 83–100. ISBN 978-1-84217-302-2.
- ^ Sharlach, Tonia (2013-08-29). "Calendars and Counting". In Crawford, Harriet (ed.). The Sumerian World. Routledge. pp. 311–318. ISBN 978-1-136-21912-2.
- ^ Britton, John P. (2007). "Calendars, Intercalations and Year-Lengths in Mesopotamian Astronomy". In Steele, John M. (ed.). Calendars and Years: Astronomy and Time in the Ancient Near East. Oxbow Books. pp. 115–132. ISBN 978-1-84217-302-2.