Eponym list

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Eponym lists were the calendar system for Assyria for a period of over a thousand years. Every year was associated with the name, an eponym, of the Limmu, an appointed royal official. These names were kept on clay tablets.

Nineteen clay tablets with limmus have survived. Some of these clay tables show a total number of years. This was a means to check whether the data were correct. That way, copyists could determine whether they had indeed copied all the names.

The oldest eponym lists date back to about 1200 BC, but these are very rare. The lists are continuous up to 910 BC, and are accurate to within a year. Some of the lists also contain information about solar and lunar eclipses. 763 BC for example, the year of Bur-Sagale, witnessed the Assyrian eclipse.

In later years Rome would adopt a similar system, in the form of the list of consuls.