Animal Offerings and Cultic Calendar in the Neo-Babylonian Sippar

The results of the authors' research were influenced by the decision to copy all unpublished and several published documents relating to animal offerings, as the collations, confronted with other studies, led to new important reading. The study focuses on three main issues: - Terminology denoting types of animal offerings: bulls, sheep and birds - Quality and quantity (number) of animals for the different deities. Analysis of this data shed important light on the cult, the period when offerings were established, enlarged or reformed, including the changes in the organization of the cult or in book-keeping. - Cultic calendar. Observation of the quality and quantity of animal offerings enables us to identify ordinary days, feast days and festival days in the cultic calendar. The outcome of the study was also importantly influenced by the identification of several unpublished documents, which shed new light on the increase in offerings in the time of Nebuchadnezzar and later, especially in the Persian period. Although the study contributes to the reconstruction of the cultic calendar of Sippar, the authors as aware that similar studies should also apply to the documents focusing on other types of offerings, which, however, goes beyond the present research. The study of these documents will allow identification of the character of the days in the cultic calendar of Sippar.