18. Sa arki

Many questions about the Eponym List and eponyms in general remain unsettled. The name of a new eponym often took months to reach outlying regions of the Assyrian empire. In the interim, documents might be dated limmum sa arki PN, which can be translated, eponymy: he who (came) after PN.

The sa arki idiom is one of several formulas that scribes used to date documents when the eponym was unknown or not yet selected. The formulas occasionally are equivocal and have no clear interpretation. Still, in order to track years, a scribe's eponym list calls for a yearly entry, even when the selection process falters.