The multiplicity and variability of the names of the months are found once more in ancient Sumer. In so comparatively late a period as the kingdom of Ur (in the middle of the second half of the third millenium B. C.) each minor state had its own list of months, which I here reproduce, together with the suggested explanations, chiefly from the latest work of Landsberger[834]. At this time there was in use in Nippur a list of months the terms of which later served as general ideograms for the months. The names are:--1, _bar-zag-gar(-ra)_ month of habitation or inhabitants of the sanctuary; 2, _gu(d)-si-sa_, the name is derived by the Babylonians themselves from an agricultural occupation, the driving of the irrigating-machine drawn by oxen: the moderns connect this name with the _gu(d)-si-su_ festival celebrated in this month at Nippur; 3, _šeg-ga_, shortened from _šeg-u-šub-ba-gar-ra_, ‘month in which the brick is laid in the mould’; 4, _šu-kul-na_, probably ‘sowing-month’, although the time does not fit: for displacements see below p. 261; 5, _ne-ne-gar(-ra)_, named from a festival; 6, _kin-^d Inanna_, named from an Istar festival; 7, _du(l)-azag(-ga)_, from a festival; 8, _apin-du-a_, ‘month of the opening of the irrigation-pipes’, which fits very well with the time of year; 9, _kan-kan-na_, probably ‘ploughing-month’, which also agrees very well with the season; 10, _ab(-ba)-e(-a)_, from a festival; 11, _aš-a(-an)_, ‘month of the spelt’; 12, _še-kin-kud-(du)_, ‘month of the corn-harvest’. There are therefore some names of the familiar kind, taken from agricultural occupations, but more are borrowed from festivals. It is very natural that the list of months should be regulated by ecclesiastical points of view, since Nippur was a great and very ancient centre of the religious cult.