Although this festival began as a simple agricultural Sumerian festival, it grew into a large Babylonian festival that eventually became political, revolving around the king. I'm keeping it here so that you can see the hints of the old Sumerian elements in it.

The Akiti (New Year) months were Nissannu (Mar/Apr) and Tishritu (Sept/Oct).

The Mesopotamian cultic calendar was influenced by the seasonal cycle and the lunar cycle. However, the Mesopotamians were affected by a third cycle –the period between the equinoxes, a period when the sun and moon vied with each other for time in the sky.

The ancient Hebrews recognized the significance of this cycle, referring to the equinoxes, the times when the year turns, as t’qufat hashana (Exodus 34:22): “You shall observe the Feast of Weeks, of the first fruits of the wheat harvest; and the Feast of Ingathering at the turn of the year”) the autumnal equinox) and as t’shubat hashana (2 Samuel 11:1): “At the turn of the year, the season when kings go out to battle,” (probably referring to the vernal equinox).

Being a semi-annual event, the akiti festival in Ur was not a celebration of the New Year of the seasonal cycle. Rather, it would seem to have been based upon an event occurring twice a year, six months apart. The most obvious event occurring around the first and seventh months of the year was the equinox. The Mesopotamians unswervingly adhered to fixing all annual festivals to the lunar cycle, even if this meant that the observance would not coincide exactly with the solar or seasonal even being celebrated. Thus Ur fixed the celebration of the vernal and autumnal equinoxes, the beginning of the equinox-years, to the months in which they usually occurred, the first and seventh months.

There may have been at least two factors which determined the days of the month in which to celebrate the event. Since the festival marked the beginning of the equinox-year, the six month cycle between the equinoxes, it seemed only proper that the new year should begin on the new moon. However, a more mythological underpinning may have been involved. The equinoxes began a period of disharmony between the moon and the sun. During the equinox-year between the seventh and the first month the moon was visible longer in the skies, the reverse during the other equinox-year. In Ur, the city of the moon, the akiti was a celebration of the triumph of Nanna, the moon –particularly the akiti of the seventh month, when Nanna would begin having visible superiority over the sun, Utu. This may be the reason why at Ur the akiti of the seventh month was more important than that of the first month. By celebrating the akiti at the new mono, the waxing moon represented the arrival of Nanna into his city (as the moon became larger and larger, Nanna seemed to be coming closer and closer) –an arrival which was reenacted by a triumphal entry of the stature of Nanna back into Ur from the akiti building. (A small building outside the city which housed the statue before it’s grand re-entry)

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