sossos

English

Etymology

From Ancient Greek σῶσσος (sôssos), from Akkadian 𒋗𒅆 (šu-ši /⁠šūš⁠/, “a unit of sixty”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈsɒsəs/, /ˈsɒsɒs/

Noun

sossos (plural sossoi)

1. (history, Babylon) A quantity of 60, such as a period of 60 years.
   • February 1984, Jöran Friberg, "Numbers and Measures in the Earliest Written Records." Scientific American, volume 250, number 2, page 110.

     There in about 340 B.C. the founder of a school of astrology, a Babylonian named Berossos, wrote a history of his homeland. In it he told his Greek readers that the numbers sossos (60), neros (600) and saros (3,600) occupied a special place in Babylonian arithmetic and astronomy.

   • 2001, Gerald P. Verbrugghe, John Moore Wickersham, Berossos and Manetho, Introduced and Translated: Native Traditions in Ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt., University of Michigan Press:

     Berossos used in his accounts saroi, neroi, and sossoi. A saros is a unit of time that consists of 3,600 years, a neros of 600 years, and a sossos of 60 years

2. (astronomy, archaic, rare) One tenth of a neros and one sixtieth of a saros – about 110 days.

See also

• saros
• neros