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This is a very large city, having many large markets and public buildings, and contains many rich Jews. The country is never troubled with rain, ice, or snow, but is often afflicted with insufferable heat. It is watered by the Nile, which begins to swell every year in the month Elul, and continues swelling during that month and Tisri , making the earth fruitful.
Ashurbanabal chooses this "favorable" day as the one on which to break up camp in the course of one of his military expeditions. We would naturally expect to find a festival month devoted to the god Ashur in Assyria. This month was Elul the sixth month. The choice of this month lends weight to the supposition that Ashur was originally a solar deity.
Lastly, the word rendered 'secret' is the same one that we came across in the precautions prescribed for the 7th day of the second Elul, where we are told that the priest is not to enter the 'secret' place. This term appears to describe the 'holy of holies' in the Babylonian temples where the oracles were obtained.
The day in question is suitable for obtaining a response to a question put to the deity, and a favorable occasion for invoking curses upon the enemy. It will be recalled that the 7th day of the second intercalated Elul is put down as one when it is not advisable to secure the ill will of the god against the enemy.
Variations from the list as given also occur. So Ashurbanabal calls the seventh month, Elul, the month of 'the king of gods Ashur, while Sargon assigns the fourth month to the 'servant of Gibil, the fire-god, by which Nin-gishzida is meant, and the third month he calls the month of "the god of brick structures."
Festivals in honor of Ninib were celebrated in Calah in the months of Elul the sixth month and Shabat the eleventh month. The sixth month, it will be recalled, is sacred to Ishtar. Ninib being a solar deity, his festival in Elul was evidently of a solar character.
The choice of two other months immediately following Nisan and Elul cannot be accidental. The interval of thirty-three days between the Nisan and Iyyar festivals and thirty-four days between the Elul and Tishri festivals may represent a sacred period. Tishri, moreover, as has been pointed out, is a sacred month in a peculiar sense.
Lastly, an interesting trace of Assyrian influence is to be seen in devoting to Ashur, "the father of the gods," the intercalated month, the second Adar. This introduction of Ashur points to the late addition of this intercalated month, and makes it probable also that the intercalation is the work of astronomers standing under Assyrian authority. A second intercalated month is Elul the second.
This month is sacred to Anu and Bel, just like Nisan, the first month. The list, therefore, begins anew with the intercalated month. Such a procedure is natural, and one is inclined to conclude that the intercalated Elul is of Babylonian origin and older than the intercalated Adar. It does not appear that the female consorts of the gods shared in the honors thus bestowed upon the male deities.
Their months always began with the new moon; and before the captivity they were merely named according to their order, the first, second, third, and so on down to the twelfth. But upon their return they used the terms which they found employed in Babylon, according to the following series: Nisan March. Zif, or Ijar April. Sivan May. Tamuz June. Ab July. Elul August. Ethanim, or Tisri September.
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