Calendrical Issues in Elamite Sources of the Achaemenian Time
Dissertation by Basello Gian Pietro - English Summary
Introduction
Historical Introduction
(mainly based on Diakonoff from The Cambridge History of Iran and Vallat from Encyclopædia Iranica)
Notes on ancient geography
Khuzistan (Susa) and Anšan (Tall-i Malyān?): which was originally Elam?
a) Old Elamite kingdom b) Middle Elamite kingdom c) From the neo-Elamite kingdom to the Persian conquest
Introduction to the Elamite Language
(mainly based on Reiner's grammar)
System of writing
Phonology
Nominal base (gender suffixes)
Verb-base (personal suffixes)
Syntax
The sources
a) Proto/linear, old, middle and neo-Elamite
b) Achaemenid Elamite.
Names of the Months
Sources, subdivision in groups, relative and absolute order, dating formulae in administrative practice.
Names from Akkadian sources in the old Babylonian period from Susa, in the Middle Elamite kingdom from Haft Tepe and in Assyrian and Baylonian texts from the 1st half of I millennium b.C. (Reiner 1973, The Names of the Months in Elam; Langdon, Babylonian Menologies...; Cohen, The Cultic Calendars)
Tentative reconstruction of the native Old Elamite names of months from Akkadian sources by Hinz (Hinz 1963, Der altelamische Kalender)
Middle Elamite kingdom from Tall-i Malyān (Stolper, Texts from Tall-i Malyān)
Elamite and Babylonian month names in the Neo-Elamite kingdom from Susa
Achaemenian time
a) brief discussion on the languages of Persepolis administration: the Cyrus edict (according to Ezra 6:1ff) assumes the use of rolls; problem of the strings attached to the tablets b) distribution of month names in time c) Old Persian names in Elamite (with a discussion on the dates of Bīsotūn inscriptions) d) native Elamite names from the Persepolis Fortification Tablets (ordering, tentative etymology, distinction in the use compared to old Persian names) e) Babylonian months in Elamite? phonetic rendering (YBC 16813 nu-ša-an-na) and logographic rendering (PF 2055, PF 1803, PFa 11)
A Database for the Names of Elamite Months
(computer based - developed in Microsoft Access 97)
Analysis of the categories (according to Hallock, PFT), places and people involved in the tablets with the names of the native Elamite months
Calendars
The month, the year, intercalary schemes, indications and occurrences of intercalary months, synchronisms among the calendars.
Standard Babylonian calendar
system of intercalation in the VI-V century b.C.: use of the "Metonic" cycle?
Old Persian calendar
intercalations from the Persepolis tablets: are they parallel to the Babylonian calendar?
Old and Achaemenian Elamite calendar
only one year with an intercalary month from the Persepolis tablets
The Problem of Beptika
Tentative etymology according to Hallock and de Blois (hamiçiya-)
Evaluation of the hypothesis of Hallock, Hartner, Hinz and Koch, de Blois
Festivals
(work in progress)
The rhythm of the daily life: working days, cultic calendar
Addenda
The word "Elam"
in Elamite, Akkadian, Old Persian and in the biblical tradition (brief discussion of Genesis 14:1-12, Acts 2:9-11 and other biblical passages)