Note 41 — Chapter V

Ungnad ("Beitr. z. Assyr.," VI., Hft. 3, p. 7 f.) has collected a number of formulæ from documents, dated either on the first day of Nisan, or within the first six days of the year, which suggest that this was the practice; even the completion of the cutting of a canal might have been foreseen. Very rarely, a formula may have been framed from an important event of the preceding year, perhaps occurring towards its close; the defeat of Nîsin in Sin-muballit's seventeenth date-formula is an instance in point, since one document which bears the formula is dated on the sixth of Nisan. But there is little to be said for Poebel's theory (cf. "Babylonian Legal and Business Documents," pp. 109 ff.), which is based on the assumption that this was the usual practice. For editions of the First Dynasty date-formulæ, see "Letters and Inscriptions of Hammurabi," III., pp. 212 ff.; Poebel, "Legal and Business Documents," pp. 56 ff.; Johns, "Year-Names of the First Dynasty of Babylon" (1911); and Schorr, "Urkunden," pp. 582 ff.