The Signs of Heaven and Earth

The Sumerians, like the Greeks, commenced the counting of each day ("U-mu"), at sunset ("Kid-da-at u-mu"). Each day, then, was reckoned as the period from sunset to sunset. The months ("Itu") were begun in the period of the new moon ("Bu-ub-bu-lum", literally the 'time of the ravishment of the moon'), literally commencing at the time of the moons emergence in the heaven's following it's disappearance at the new moon ("U-na-am", literally the day of the moons renewal). At the end of each month, the astrologers of ancient Mesopotamia would man the parapets of their temples to watch for this 'first appearance', and in this way they would note the beginning of each new month.{42} These months were generally about 30 days long, with the first quarter occurring on the 7th, and the full moon on the 15th. These days, together with the period of the new moon, formed the sacred cycle of the month. The Sumerians celebrated these aspects of the moon's phases on the first, seventh, and fifteenth of each month. These three days formed the monthly "Essesu" Festival. The importance of these scared days is articulated in the Atrahasis myth, Tablet I, columns 204-207, as Enki sets about the creation of man, "Enki opened his mouth and addressed the great Gods, 'On the first, seventh, and fifteenth day of the month I will make a purifying bath"{43} The necessity for observation of these sacred days is reiterated in a number of collected Mesopotamian letters which refer to the necessity of 'passing the first, seventh, and fifteenth as you have been taught.' This observance, in the minimum, included a ritual bath: a sacred immersion in the symbolic 'Waters of Life'.

The first month of the year, Barag-Zag-Gar, began in the period of the first new moon following the barley harvest (our March-April). The months would then proceed apace at 30 days each, spanning 12 months. This wholly lunar cycle, however, invariably left a gap within the Solar year to be filled. To cure this problem, and be sure that the first month continued to follow the barley harvest, the Sumerians placed an intervening intercalary month known as Itu-diri BEFORE the twelfth month, Itu-Se-Gur-Kud, the 'month of the harvesting of the barley.' This intercalary month was used only when, upon examination of the length of time remaining in the barley season, it was determined that Barag-Zag-Gar would not fall directly after the barley harvest. Under the Meton Cycle, such intercalary months would be utilized at a frequency of roughly seven per nineteen years.

In the same way they were able to unify their year with the Circle of Life, so to did the Sumerians operate a system of time-keeping quite literally within the confines of a circle. Time was related to the degree of apparent motion of the sun, Samas, as it traveled across the heavens each day. Each degree of motion was calculated as 4 minutes, called one "Us." The entire circle was said to comprise 12 'temporal hours', or "Beru," which were literally double-hours of 30 Us each (see Fig. 3). The Sumerians had no concept of daylight savings, though they were well aware of the variances in the length of daylight and nighttime hours during the year. Thus, throughout the year the Day was held to be composed of 6 Beru of daytime and 6 Beru of nighttime, though the actual, or real hour, lengths varied. To correct for these differences, adjustments to the real hours, as opposed to temporal hours, were made. To this end, a series of associations was expounded. For example, a temporal hour of daylight plus a temporal hour of nighttime always equals 2 REAL hours. Thus, a measurement of the length in real hours of either daylight or nighttime will yield the solution to the length of the inverse. In addition, there were specific relations observed between and among the months of the year. Specifically, in the month of the Spring and Autumn Equinoxes, the length of daylight and nighttime real hours was assumed equal. Conversely, in the month of the Summer Solstice daylight was held to be twice the length of nighttime real hours, and in the month of the Winter Solstice, Nighttime was held to be twice the length of the daylight real hours. In addition, the months preceding the equinoxes were held to have the same ratio of daylight to nighttime real hours as the month following the Equinoxes, and the month preceding the solstices were similarly held to possess the same ratio of daylight to nighttime real hours' ratio as the month following the Solstices. With this complex system of relations, the calculation of the length of real daylight and nighttime hours was extremely simplified



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