In the Emar texts, the references to years can be divided into two types, i. e., year names and eponymous references. Recent publication of new texts has provided more data on the year dates. Taking these also into account, the present writer has reexamined how the Emariote scribes used the year dates (in the Syrian type documents).
The new data has confirmed the view that the ‘urban scribes, ’ who worked for the urban authority (dNIN. URTA and the elders), usually used eponymous years (with month names). On the other hand, although the ‘royal scribes’ used year names when they indicate the year, they seldom do. However, this would not mean that the royal scribes were uninterested in indicating the date, since they sometimes refer to a month name (without year date) at the end of their documents (e. g., Emar VI 4; RE 14). In this respect, it is worth noting that in the royal documents they wrote a king or prince is referred to as the first witness. Based on this, we may suppose that such references functioned as indicator of time, i. e., during the reign of a certain king, so it was not considered necessary to indicate the year.
When the documents which concerned both the royal authority and the urban authority were drawn up, it was usually the task of the royal scribes. However, a document (TS 1) of this type written by the urban scribe Dagan-belu is known, and this enables us to try to synchronize the eponymous years with the reigns of kings.
Among the thirteen different eponymous years so far known, three are used by Dagan-belu himself, and six more probably date to the same period. Hence these nine years must be approximately contemporary with king Iasi-Dagan and his son Balu-kabar, who appear as witnesses in TS 1. If the currently accepted reconstruction of the Emar dynasty is really correct, these nine years are to be dated to the early period of the Emar texts.
