section_path: History/Past methods of numbering years
section_name: Past methods of numbering years
paragraph_text: Past methods of numbering years
  
  Before the adoption of the current Anno Mundi year numbering system, other systems were used. In early times, the years were counted from some significant event such as the Exodus. During the period of the monarchy, it was the widespread practice in western Asia to use era year numbers according to the accession year of the monarch of the country involved. This practice was followed by the united kingdom of Israel, kingdom of Judah, kingdom of Israel, Persia, and others. Besides, the author of Kings coordinated dates in the two kingdoms by giving the accession year of a monarch in terms of the year of the monarch of the other kingdom, though some commentators note that these dates do not always synchronise. Other era dating systems have been used at other times. For example, Jewish communities in the Babylonian diaspora counted the years from the first deportation from Israel, that of Jehoiachin in 597 BCE. The era year was then called "year of the captivity of Jehoiachin".
  
  During the Hellenistic Maccabean period, Seleucid era counting was used, at least in the Land of Israel (under Greek influence at the time). The Books of the Maccabees used Seleucid era dating exclusively, as did Josephus writing in the Roman period. From the 1st to 10th centuries, the center of world Judaism was in the Middle East (primarily Iraq and Palestine), and Jews in these regions also used Seleucid era dating, which they called the "Era of Contracts "; this counting is still sometimes used by Yemenite Jews. The Talmud states:
  
  Rav Aha bar Jacob then put this question: How do we know that our Era is connected with the Kingdom of Greece at all? Why not say that it is reckoned from the Exodus from Egypt, omitting the first thousand years and giving the years of the next thousand? In that case, the document is really post-dated! Said Rav Nahman: In the Diaspora the Greek Era alone is used. He thought that Rav Nahman wanted to dispose of him anyhow, but when he went and studied it thoroughly he found that it is indeed taught: In the Diaspora the Greek Era alone is used.
  
  In the 8th and 9th centuries, as the center of Jewish life moved from Babylonia to Europe, counting using the Seleucid era "became meaningless", and thus was replaced by the anno mundi system. The use of the Seleucid era continued till the 16th century in the East, and was employed even in the 19th century among Yemenite Jews.
  
  Occasionally in Talmudic writings, reference was made to other starting points for eras, such as destruction era dating, being the number of years since the 70 CE destruction of the Second Temple.