Rest Days; A Sociological Study I13 



first appearance of the new moon (supra). The seven-day 

 periods mentioned in the Rawlinson calendar were also reckoned 

 from the new moon, a fact clearly indicated by the description 

 for the first day of the month: Uuiu I . . . inunia ina arhi Sin 

 innauiaru. ..." The first day . . . when in the month the moon 

 becomes visible." We may reasonably assume from our knowl- 

 edge of the lunar reckonings among existing peoples that in Baby- 

 lonia the last day of the month (when the latter was reckoned at 

 29 days), or the last two days of a 30-day month, were regarded 

 as forming an epagomenal period which interrupted the regular 

 succession of 7-day cycles. It is not impossible that the Baby- 

 lonians who had estimated very closely the length of the moon's 

 synodic course, may have employed some such device as that of 

 the Gold Coast natives {supra) in order that four of their lunar 

 weeks should correspond exactly to the lunation. 



We may next inquire whether there is any additional evidence 

 which indicates that the 7-day periods had a natural origin in the 

 quartering of a lunation. It has already been noticed that in the 

 third millennium B.C. the Babylonians were probably familiar 

 with a 5-day period called hamustu which has been taken to con- 

 stitute a civil week. Whether it preceded the hebdomadal cycle 

 or afterwards supplanted it, perhaps as forming a closer divisor 

 of the lunation, or whether the two periods may not have existed 

 more or less contemporaneously within the Babylonian area, are 

 matters concerning which the cuneiform records tell us nothing. 

 We know, however, that the 5-day periods were closely associated 

 with the successive appearances of the moon {supra) ; and the 

 same associations are even more clearly exemplified in the case 

 of the hebdomadal cycle. 



From a remote antiquity the Babylonians observed the lunar 

 phases with special care and reckoned with remarkable accuracy 

 the length of both the synodic and sidereal months.-^ In the fifth 

 tablet of the Creation series, documents which in their original 



^ On this subject see F. K. Ginzel, "Die astronomischen Kenntnisse 

 der Babylonier und ihre kulturhistorische Bedeutung," KUo, 1901, i. 12 

 sqq., 200 sqq. 



I I 



