The Calendar of Neo-Sumerian Ur and Its Political Signifi cance*

§1.1. The calendar used in the city of Ur during the Ur III period before the twelfth month of the 30th year of Šulgi’s reign has been the subject of several earlier studies.1 Based on a few tablets using Girsu month names and an alleged absence of month names belonging to the regular calendar of Ur before this date, Edmond Sollberger (1954/56, 19-20) argued that Ur originally used the Girsu calendar. After the twelfth month of Šulgi 30, Ur took over the calendar used in Puzriš-Dagan. Sollberger’s reconstruction of the early Ur calendar can be displayed as shown in figure 1