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Dingir Calendar of Mesopotamia
Posted:
Dec 4, 2010 4:10 AM
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My studies of the Ancient Near East in the light
of the Göbekli Tepe led me to the dingir calendar
of Sumer and Akkad and Babylon, a ceremonial or
liturgical calendar of these numbers:
A long month had 45 days, a year 8 long months
or 360 days, plus 5 days, 3 days of midsummer
and 2 days of midwinter, New Year following midwinter.
One year of 365 days was a short dingir cycle.
Eight years of 365 days each were a long dingir cycle,
2920 days, followed by 2 more days, so a long dingir
cycle had, all in all, 2292 days.
One year, short dingir cycle:
45 45 45 45 3 45 45 45 45 2 days or 365 days
Eight years, long dingir cycle:
365 365 365 365 365 365 365 365 2 days or 2922 days
Now the long dingir cycle combined 8 solar years
and 99 lunar years or lunations or synodic months
and 5 Venus years:
2921.9376 days --- 8 solar years
2923.5283 days --- 99 lunar years
2921 days --- 5 Venus years
2922.1553 days --- average
2922 days --- rounded average, long dingir cycle
The very ancient way of counting lunations or lunar
years or synodic months (29 days 12 hours 44 minutes
2.9 seconds, modern average value from 1989 AD) was
to lay out lines or rows of alternately 30 and 29
pebbles.
30 29 30 29 30 29 30 29 30 29 30 ... days or nights
for 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 ... lunations
15 lunations counted this way yield 443 days or nights,
and 17 lunations 502 days or nights:
15 lunations 443 days or nights
17 lunations 502 days or nights
32 lunations 985 days or nights
945 days or nights correspond to 32 lunations, mistake
less than one minute per lunation, or half a day in
a lifetime. 945 days are 21 times 45 days, the long
month of the dingir calendar.
Now the dingir cycle was symbolized by a rosette of
eight petals and a small circle in the center, each
petal a month of 45 days, and the central circle
5 more days, together 365 days or a year, and the
same rosette of eight petals symbolized the long
dingir cycle of 8 years, each petal a year and the
small circle in the center 2 more days at the end
of the long dingir cycle. Midwinter was symbolized
by a pair of opposing goats, while a goat nibbling
at a petal visualized the passing of time ...
There are numerous variants of visualizations;
the long dingir cycle could also be represented
as a tree of life of eight rosettes, or as two and
two branches bearing four rosettes each, held together
by the sky god Anu or An. On cuneiform tablets and
cylinder seals, the dingir sign became a star of eight
points in Sumer, in Akkad abbreviated to a cross with
an additional wedge indicating a second cross under
the first one, turned by 45 degrees. The dingir sign
indicated a deity, and the phonetical value was an
for sky.
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