Fact Check - 10. Social Justice Sanctified, From Inanna and Nanshe to Nemesis
From The Observatory
Query: 10. Social Justice Sanctified, From Inanna and Nanshe to Nemesis
Fact Check
Quoted text:
the constellation Libra came to rule the barley harvest month, which in Mesopotamia fell in May/June (Simanu,[1] the third month of the Babylonian year which began on the spring solstice in mid-March, when the barley was just beginning to ripen)
Can you help us verify this and/or add a source link here to cite in a footnote? Since Libra season is in autumn (as stated a few paragraphs later; see also this query), this is a little confusing to talk about it ruling spring barley harvest time in ancient Mesopotamia.
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- ↑ As J.J. Finkelstein (“The Edict of Ammisaduqa: A New Text,” Revue d’Assyriologie et d’Archéologie Orientale, Vol. 63, No. 1 (1969), pp. 57f.) has elaborated, Simanu “was the month par excellence for the settlement of debts and obligations and the beginning of contractual arrangements for the ensuing new agricultural year. One is even tempted to suggest that the name of month III, Simanu, does not derive from the activity of brickmaking, but rather from the far more significant activities of the agricultural economy which took place during this time. One might even posit that siman šadutti(m) ‘the season for settlement (of debts)’ represents the full designation of the period denoted as a proper month name in somewhat elliptical fashion as Simanu, ‘The Season (par excellence).’”
