Dating convention for Urkesh/Tell Mozan

Back to top: Dating convention for Urkesh/Tell Mozan

Introduction

A dating convention is used that provides a full date with a set number of codes, in three categories, following each other in a fixed sequence:

1. season – either one capital letter, with or without hyphen, or two capital letters
2. month – either one number or one lower case letter
3. day – two numbers.

The full list follows for each of the three categories.

Back to top: Dating convention for Urkesh/Tell Mozan

1. Season code

Note. The lower case letters (a, b,c, etc.) refer to study seasons.

season code	calendar year	season #	old season #
-A	1984	1
-B	1985	2
-C	1986	3
-D	1987	4
-E	1988	5
-F	1989	5a
A	1990	6
B	1991	6a	60
C	1992	7
D	1993	8
E	1994	8a	61
F	1995	8b	62
G	1996	9
H	1997	10
I	1998	11
J	1999	12
K	2000	13
L	2001	14
M	2002	15
N	2003	16
O	2004	17
P	2005	18
Q	2006	19
R	2007	20
S	2008	21
T	2009	22
U	2010	23
V	2011	23a	63
W	2012	23b	64
X	2013	23c	65
Y	2014	23d	66
Z	2015	23e	67
ZA	2016	23f	68
ZB	2017	23g	69
ZB	2018	23h	70
ZB	2019	23i	71
ZE	2020	23j	72
ZF	2021	23k	73
ZG	2022	23l	74
ZH	2023	23m	75
ZI	2024	23n	76
ZJ	2025	23o	77

Back to top: Dating convention for Urkesh/Tell Mozan

2. Month code

Back to top: Dating convention for Urkesh/Tell Mozan

3. Day code

The day code is the same as the day number, but the first nine numbers are preceded by zero, hence day 1 is written as 01.

Back to top: Dating convention for Urkesh/Tell Mozan

Examples

Back to top: Dating convention for Urkesh/Tell Mozan

Printable version

- <a href="https://urkesh.org/MZ/A/MZ/PDF/seasons_brief_OLD.pdf" target="_blank">seasons'&nbsp;short&nbsp;list&nbsp;(PDF)&nbsp;&#8211;&nbsp;OLD</a>
- <a href="https://urkesh.org/MZ/A/MZ/PDF/seasons_brief_INTERMEDIATE.pdf" target="_blank">seasons'&nbsp;short&nbsp;list&nbsp;(PDF)&nbsp;&#8211;&nbsp;INTERMEDIATE</a>
- <a href="https://urkesh.org/MZ/A/MZ/PDF/seasons_brief_LAST.pdf" target="_blank">seasons'&nbsp;short&nbsp;list&nbsp;(PDF)&nbsp;&#8211;&nbsp;LAST</a>

A PDF with the dating system for each season (of excavation or study) can be downloaded at the following link.