The Gentile Times Reconsidered Chronology Christ

388 THE GENTILE TIMES RECONSIDERED
All Murashu texts with preserved years; numbers of texts by year.
As shown by the ancient Greek historians, the months following
upon the death of Artaxerxes was a chaotic period. His son and
successor Xerxes II was murdered by his brother Sogdianus after
only a few weeks of reign. The usurper Sogdianus then held the
throne for about seven months, after which he was killed by Darius
II in February, 423 BC. But as Sogdianus was never acknowledged
as the legitimate king, the scribes continued to date their texts to
the reign of Artaxerxes for some months after his death. It is even
possible that Artaxerxes died toward the end of his 40 th year, as
some scholars argue, so that the scribes had to extend his reign
artificially to include a 41 st year. This is still a question debated
among scholars.
Not until Darius II ascended to the throne in the 11th Babylonian
month (corresponding to parts of February and March, 423 BCE)
did the scribes begin to date the texts to his reign also. But to avoid
any confusion, the scribes usually double-dated the texts,
mentioning both the 41 st year [of Artaxerxes] and the accessionyear
of Darius II. They did this, because it was important for them
to keep an exact chronological count of the reigns, as this was their
calendar and the ”era” by which they dated various events, such as
political events, astronomical observations, and economic
transactions.
A number of such double-dated tablets have been discovered. F. X.
Kugler, on page 396 of his Sternkunde und Stemdienst in Babel, II.
Buch, II. Teil, Heft 2 (Munster 1924), presented the chronological
information on four of these tablets. Other tablets of this kind