the Semites of Babylonia also a fixed series of months was formed only gradually, by selection, and indeed under the influence of the Sumerian calendar from which the ideograms were borrowed. The Elamite calendar is known partly from the so-called syllabar of months, and partly from documents[836]: the latter offer 13 names of which Hrozný tries to explain away the last by identifying it with another. The names in the two sources sometimes vary considerably, but are chiefly of Babylonian origin. Several, according to Hrozný’s interpretations, refer to the seasons: _še-ir(-i)-eburi_, (month of the) prospering of the harvest; _tam-ti-ru-um_, month of rain; _tar-bi-tum_ (month of the) growth (of plants). _Pi-te-bâbi_ means ‘opening of the gate’, and probably refers to a religious ceremony. The ancient Assyrian list of months is partly preserved in the syllabar of months, and also occurs in the inscriptions of the early Assyrian kings and in the so-called Cappadocian tablets, which come from an Assyrian colony of the third millenium at Kara Eyjuk in Asia Minor. We find:--2, perhaps month of the moon-god; 3, _ku-zal-li_, shepherd’s month; 4, _al-la-na-a-ti_, also shepherd’s month; 6, _ša sa-ra-te_, perhaps the name of some employment; 12, _qar-ra-a-tu_, name of an occupation (?). The other names are missing or are uncertain. In regard to the interpretation of the names from occupations a certain caution should be exercised, since in accordance with all the examples hitherto given a name like ‘shepherd’s month’ ought to refer not to the occupation as such but to the pasture season. All other explanations are quite problematical.