About
A Quick Rundown
The Shanati Project reconstructs the ancient Babylonian Calendar and synchronizes with the proleptic, or backward counting, Julian Calendar during the years 750 BCE - 100 CE. This is achieved by compiling and integrating all known relevant cuneiform and other ancient textual data, organizing the types of data according to an algorithm, and, when there is a lack of data, supplementing it with a state-of-the-art astronomical model of first lunar visibility. Shanati’s reconstructed daily ancient Babylonian Calendar is positioned to become the new international standard for pre-Julian, recorded Western calendrical time. Apropos of the project's work, "Shanati" means "years" in ancient Babylonian.
By setting these two calendars on one synchronized timeline, the ancient world becomes temporally connected with the modern world. This assists in bridging the wide gulf between perceptions of our modern world and of the ancient Old World. Shanati’s results offer unprecedented daily precision in 1st millennium BCE chronology, opening new vistas for research. The project’s results are available in a forthcoming volume and in this website, which is designed to allow for future updates as new texts with relevant date information are added when they become published in the future.
Follow these links for access to Shanati's Publications & Digital Tools and for an explanation of the problems and solutions Shanati engages.
Team
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David Danzig Creator and Lead Researcher Researcher, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University |
Alexander Jones NEH Principal Investigator Director, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University |
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Joshua Jeffers Assyriology Researcher Lecturer, Department of Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations, University of Pennsylvania |
Victor Temprano Web Developer Mapster Inc |
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Henrik Roschier Astronomy Researcher PhD Candidate, Department of Language and Communication Studies, University of Jyväskylä, Finland |
Advisory Board
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John Steele Lead Babylonian Astronomy Advisor Professor of the History of the Exact Sciences in Antiquity, Department of Egyptology and Assyriology, Brown University |
Tom Elliott Lead Digital Advisor Associate Director for Digital Programs and Senior Research Scholar, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University |
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Michael Jursa Professor of Assyriology, University of Vienna |
Christopher B. F. Walker Retired Deputy Keeper Department of the Middle East Antiquities, British Museum |
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Hermann Hunger Associate Professor Emeritus, University of Vienna |
Teije de Jong Professor Emeritus of Astrophysics, Anton Pannekoek Institute for Astronomy, University of Amsterdam |
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Mathieu Ossendrijver Senior Fellow, Free University of Berlin |
Heather D. Baker Assistant Professor of Ancient Near Eastern History, University of Toronto |
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Johannes Hackl Professor of Ancient Near Eastern Studies, University of Jena |
M. Willis Monroe Assistant Professor, Department of Classics and Ancient History, University of New Brunswick |
