Calendars - 3


Egyptian Calendars

The Egyptians were probably the first to adopt a mainly solar calendar. They noted that the Dog Star, Sirius, reappeared in the eastern sky just before sunrise after several months of invisibility. They also observed that the annual flood of the Nile River came soon after Sirius reappeared. They used this combination of events to fix their calendar and came to recognize a year of 365 days, made up of 12 months each 30 days long, and an extra five days added at the end. But they did not allow for the extra fourth of a day, and their calendar drifted into error. According to the famed Egyptologist J. H. Breasted, the earliest date known in the Egyptian calendar corresponds to 4236 B.C. in terms of the Gregorian calendar.

The ancient Egyptians originally employed a calendar based upon the Moon, and, like many peoples throughout the world, they regulated their lunar calendar by means of the guidance of a sidereal calendar. They used the seasonal appearance of the star Sirius (Sothis); this corresponded closely to the true solar year, being only 12 minutes shorter. Certain difficulties arose, however, because of the inherent incompatibility of lunar and solar years.

To solve this problem the Egyptians invented a schematized civil year of 365 days divided into three seasons, each of which consisted of four months of 30 days each. To complete the year, five intercalary days were added at its end, so that the 12 months were equal to 360 days plus five extra days.

This civil calendar was derived from the lunar calendar (using months) and the agricultural, or Nile, fluctuations (using seasons); it was, however, no longer directly connected to either and thus was not controlled by them. The civil calendar served government and administration, while the lunar calendar continued to regulate religious affairs and everyday life.

In time, the discrepancy between the civil calendar and the older lunar structure became obvious. Because the lunar calendar was controlled by the rising of Sirius, its months would correspond to the same season each year, while the civil calendar would move through the seasons because the civil year was about one-fourth day shorter than the solar year.

Hence, every four years it would fall behind the solar year by one day, and after 1,460 years it would again agree with the lunisolar calendar. Such a period of time is called a Sothic cycle.

Because of the discrepancy between these two calendars, the Egyptians established a second lunar calendar based upon the civil year and not, as the older one had been, upon the sighting of Sirius.

It was schematic and artificial, and its purpose was to determine religious celebrations and duties. In order to keep it in general agreement with the civil year, a month was intercalated every time the first day of the lunar year came before the first day of the civil year; later, a 25-year cycle of intercalation was introduced.

The original lunar calendar, however, was not abandoned but was retained primarily for agriculture because of its agreement with the seasons. Thus, the ancient Egyptians operated with three calendars, each for a different purpose.

The only unit of time that was larger than a year was the reign of a king. The usual custom of dating by reign was: "year 1, 2, 3 . . . , etc., of King So-and-So," and with each new king the counting reverted back to year One. King lists recorded consecutive rulers and the total years of their respective reigns.

The civil year was divided into three seasons, commonly translated: Inundation, when the Nile overflowed the agricultural land; Going Forth, the time of planting when the Nile returned to its bed; and Deficiency, the time of low water and harvest.

The months of the civil calendar were numbered according to their respective seasons and were not listed by any particular name--e.g., third month of Inundation--but for religious purposes the months had names. How early these names were employed in the later lunar calendar is obscure.

The days in the civil calendar were also indicated by number and listed according to their respective months. Thus a full civil date would be: "Regnal year 1, fourth month of Inundation, day 5, under the majesty of King So-and-So." In the lunar calendar, however, each day had a specific name, and from some of these names it can be seen that the four quarters or chief phases of the Moon were recognized, although the Egyptians did not use these quarters to divide the month into smaller segments, such as weeks.

Unlike most people who used a lunar calendar, the Egyptians began their day with sunrise instead of sunset because they began their month, and consequently their day, by the disappearance of the old Moon just before dawn.

As was customary in early civilizations, the hours were unequal, daylight being divided into 12 parts, and the night likewise; the duration of these parts varied with the seasons. Both water clocks and sundials were constructed with notations to indicate the hours for the different months and seasons of the year. The standard hour of constant length was never employed in ancient Egypt.








Ancient Greek Calendars

The earliest sources (clay tablets of the 13th century BC, the writings of Homer and Hesiod) imply the use of lunar months; Hesiod also uses reckoning determined by the observation of constellations and star groups; e.g., the harvest coincides with the visible rising of the star group known as the Pleiades before dawn.

This simultaneous use of civil and natural calendars is characteristic of Greek as well as Egyptian time reckoning. In the classical age and later, the months, named after festivals of the city, began in principle with the New Moon.

The lunar year of 12 months and about 354 days was to be matched with the solar year by inserting an extra month every other year.

The Macedonians used this system as late as the 3rd century BC, although 25 lunar months amount to about 737 days, while two solar years count about 730 days.

In fact, as the evidence from the second half of the 5th century BC shows, at this early time the calendar was already no longer tied in with the phases of the Moon.

The cities, rather, intercalated months and added or omitted days at will to adjust the calendar to the course of the Sun and stars and also for the sake of convenience, as, for instance, to postpone or advance a festival without changing its traditional calendar date.

The calendric New Moon could disagree by many days with the true New Moon, and in the 2nd century BC Athenian documents listed side by side both the calendar date and that according to the Moon.

Thus, the lunar months that were in principle parallel might diverge widely in different cities.

Astronomers such as Meton, who in 432 BC calculated a 19-year lunisolar cycle, were not heeded by the politicians, who clung to their calendar-making power.

The civil year (etos) was similarly dissociated from the natural year (eniautos). It was the tenure term of an official or priest, roughly corresponding to the lunar year, or to six months; it gave his name to his time period. In Athens, for instance, the year began on Hecatombaion 1, roughly midsummer, when the new archon entered his office, and the year was designated by his name; e.g., "when Callimedes was archon"--that is, 360-359 BC. There was no New Year's festival.

As the archon's year was of indefinite and unpredictable length, the Athenian administration for accounting, for the dates of popular assemblies, etc., used turns of office of the sections (prytanies) of the Council (Boule), which each had fixed length within the year. The common citizen used, along with the civil months, the seasonal time reckoning based on the direct observation of the Moon's phases and on the appearance and setting of fixed stars. A device (called a parapegma) with movable pegs indicated the approximate correspondence between, for example, the rising of the star Arcturus and the civil date.

After Alexander's conquest of the Persian Empire, the Macedonian calendar came to be widely used by the Greeks in the East, though in Egypt it was supplanted by the Egyptian year at the end of the 3rd century BC. The Seleucids, from the beginning, adapted the Macedonian year to the Babylonian 19-year cycle (see above Babylonian calendars). Yet, Greek cities clung to their arbitrary system of time reckoning even after the introduction of the Julian calendar throughout the Roman Empire. As late as c. AD 200, they used the antiquated octa�teris (see above Complex cycles).

Months, days, seasons

The Athenian months were called Hecatombaion (in midsummer), Metageitnion, Boedromion, Pyanopsion, Maimacterion, Poseideion, Gamelion, Anthesterion, Elaphebolion, Mounychion, Thargelion, and Scirophorion. The position of the intercalary month varied. Each month, in principle, consisted of 30 days, but in roughly six months the next to last day, the 29th, was omitted.

The days were numbered within each of the three decades of the month. Thus, for example, Hecatombaion 16th was called "6th after the 10th of Hecatombaion." The Macedonian months were Dios (in fall), Apellaios, Audynaios, Peritios, Dystros, Xanthicos, Artemisios, Daisios, Panemos, Loos, Gorpiaios, and Hyperberetaios. In the Seleucid calendar, Dios was identified with the Babylonian Tashritu, Apellaios with Arakhsamna, and so on.

Similar to the Babylonian civil pattern, the daylight time and the night were divided into four "watches" and 12 (unequal) hours each. Thus, the length of an hour oscillated between approximately 45 and 75 present-day minutes, according to the season. Water clocks, gnomons, and, after c. 300 BC, sundials roughly indicated time. The season division was originally bipartite as in Babylonia--summer and winter--but four seasons were already attested by about 650 BC.








Early Roman Calendars

The Romans apparently borrowed parts of their earliest known calendar from the Greeks. The calendar consisted of 10 months in a year of 304 days. The Romans seem to have ignored the remaining 61 days, which fell in the middle of winter. The 10 months were named Martius, Aprilis, Maius, Junius, Quintilis, Sextilis, September, October, November, and December. The last six names were taken from the words for five, six, seven, eight, nine, and ten. Romulus, the legendary first ruler of Rome, is supposed to have introduced this calendar in the 700's B.C.

According to tradition, the Roman ruler Numa Pompilius added January and February to the calendar. This made the Roman year 355 days long. To make the calendar correspond approximately to the solar year, Numa also ordered the addition every other year of a month called Mercedinus. Mercedinus was inserted after February 23 or 24, and the last days of February were moved to the end of Mercedinus. In years when it was inserted, Mercedinus added 22 or 23 days to the year.







Julian Calendar

By the time of Julius Caesar, the accumulated error caused by the incorrect length of the Roman year--and by the occasional failure to add extra days at the proper times--had made the calendar about three months ahead of the seasons. Winter occurred in September, and autumn came in the month now called July.

In 46 B.C., Caesar asked the astronomer Sosigenes to review the calendar and suggest ways for improving it. Acting on Sosigenes's suggestions, Caesar ordered the Romans to disregard the moon in calculating their calendars.

He divided the year into 12 months of 31 and 30 days, except for February, which had only 29 days. Every fourth year, it would have 30 days. To realign the calendar with the seasons, Caesar ruled that the year we know as 46 B.C. should have 445 days. The Romans called it the year of confusion.

The Romans renamed Quintilis to honor Julius Caesar, giving us July. Sextilis was renamed August by the Roman Senate to honor the Emperor Augustus. According to tradition, Augustus moved a day from February to August to make August as long as July.

The Julian calendar was widely used for more than 1,500 years. A Julian year lasted 365 1/4 days. But it was actually about 11 minutes and 14 seconds longer than the solar year. This difference led to a gradual change in the dates on which the seasons began. By A.D. 1580, the spring equinox fell 10 days earlier on the Julian calendar than its appointed date.

Two years later, in 1582, Pope Gregory XIII corrected the calendar with the newly developed Gregorian calendar.








Mayan Calendar

Maya priests observed the positions of the sun, moon, and stars. They made tables predicting eclipses and the orbit of the planet Venus.

The priests also used mathematics and astronomy to develop two kinds of calendars. One was a sacred almanac of 260 days. Each day was named with one of 20 day names and a number from 1 to 13. Each of the 20 day names had a god or goddess associated with it.

The priests predicted good or bad luck by studying the combinations of gods or goddesses and numbers. The Maya also had a calendar of 365 days, based on the orbit of the earth around the sun. These days were divided into 18 months of 20 days each, plus 5 days at the end of the year.

The Maya considered these last 5 days of the year to be extremely unlucky. During that period they fasted, made many sacrifices, and avoided unnecessary work.

The Maya Indians of southern Mexico and Central America used mathematics and astronomical observations to formulate two kinds of calendars--a sacred almanac of 260 days and a solar calendar of 365 days.







Aztec Calendar

The Aztec had a 260-day religious calendar. Priests used the calendar to determine luck days for such activities as sowing crops, building houses, and going to war. The Aztec also had a 365-day solar calendar. It consisted of 18 months of 20 days each plus 5 extra days.

Every 52 years, the Aztec held a great celebration called the Binding Up of the Years or the New Fire Ceremony. Before the celebration, people let their hearth fires go out. At the start of the new 52-year cycle, the priests lit a new fire on the chest of a sacrificial victim. People pricked themselves to add their blood to the sacrifice. Then they relit their hearth fires from the new fire and feasted.

Like the Maya before them, the Aztec Indians of Mexico had a religious calendar of 260 days and a solar calendar of 365 days. Many of the Aztecs' religious ceremonies, including frequent human sacrifices, were performed at the Great Temple (pictured), located in the center of their capital city of Tenochtitlan.








Incan Calendar

So little is known about the calendar used by the Inca that one can hardly make a statement about it for which a contrary opinion cannot be found. Some workers in the field even assert that there was no formal calendar but only a simple count of lunations. Since no written language was used by the Inca, it is impossible to check contradictory statements made by early colonial chroniclers. It is widely believed that the quipus of the Inca contain calendrical notations, but no satisfactory demonstration of this is possible.

Most historians agree that the Inca had a calendar based on the observation of both the Sun and the Moon, and their relationship to the stars. Names of 12 lunar months are recorded, as well as their association with festivities of the agricultural cycle; but there is no suggestion of the widespread use of a numerical system for counting time, although a quinary decimal system, with names of numbers at least up to 10,000, was used for other purposes. The organization of work on the basis of six weeks of nine days suggests the further possibility of a count by triads that could result in a formal month of 30 days.

A count of this sort was described by Alexander von Humboldt for a Chibcha tribe living outside of the Inca Empire, in the mountainous region of Colombia. The description is based on an earlier manuscript by a village priest, and one authority has dismissed it as "wholly imaginary," but this is not necessarily the case.

The smallest unit of this calendar was a numerical count of three days, which, interacting with a similar count of 10 days, formed a standard 30-day "month." Every third year was made up of 13 moons, the others having 12. This formed a cycle of 37 moons, and 20 of these cycles made up a period of 60 years, which was subdivided into four parts and could be multiplied by 100. A period of 20 months is also mentioned. Although the account of the Chibcha system cannot be accepted at face value, if there is any truth in it at all it is suggestive of devices that may have been used also by the Inca.

In one account, it is said that the Inca Viracocha established a year of 12 months, each beginning with the New Moon, and that his successor, Pachacuti, finding confusion in regard to the year, built the sun towers in order to keep a check on the calendar. Since Pachacuti reigned less than a century before the conquest, it may be that the contradictions and the meagreness of information on the Inca calendar are due to the fact that the system was still in the process of being revised when the Spaniards first arrived. (T.P.)

Despite the uncertainties, further research has made it clear that at least at Cuzco, the capital city of the Inca, there was an official calendar of the sidereal-lunar type, based on the sidereal month of 27 1/3 days. It consisted of 328 nights (12 27 1/3) and began on June 8/9, coinciding with the heliacal rising (the rising just after sunset) of the Pleiades; it ended on the first Full Moon after the June solstice (the winter solstice for the Southern Hemisphere).

This sidereal-lunar calendar fell short of the solar year by 37 days, which consequently were intercalated. This intercalation, and thus the place of the sidereal-lunar within the solar year, was fixed by following the cycle of the Sun as it "strengthened" to summer (December) solstice and "weakened" afterward, and by noting a similar cycle in the visibility of the Pleiades.







Native American Calendar

No North American Indian tribe had a true calendar--a single integrated system of denoting days and longer periods of time. Usually, intervals of time were counted independently of one another.

The day was a basic unit recognized by all tribes, but there is no record of aboriginal names for days. A common device for keeping track of days was a bundle of sticks of known number, from which one was extracted for every day that passed, until the bundle was exhausted. Longer periods of time were usually counted by moons, which began with the New Moon, or conjunction of the Sun and Moon.

Years were divided into four seasons, occasionally five, and when counted were usually designated by one of the seasons; e.g., a North American Indian might say that a certain event had happened 10 winters ago.

Among sedentary agricultural tribes, the cycle of the seasons was of great ritual importance, but the time of the beginning of the year varied. Some observed it about the time of the vernal equinox, others in the fall. The Hopi tribe of northern Arizona held a new-fire ceremony in November. The Creek ceremony, known as the "Busk," was held late in July or in August, but it is said that each Creek town or settlement set its own date for the celebration.

As years were determined by seasons and not by a fixed number of days, the correlation of moons and years was also approximate and not a function of a daily count. Most tribes reckoned 12 moons to a year. Some northern tribes, notably those of New England, and the Cree tribes, counted 13. The Indians of the northwest coast divided their years into two parts, counting six moons to each part, and the Kiowa split one of their 12 moons between two unequal seasons, beginning their year with a Full Moon.

The naming of moons is perhaps the first step in transforming them into months. The Zuni Indians of New Mexico named the first six moons of the year, referring to the remainder by colour designations associated with the four cardinal (horizontal) directions, and the zenith and the nadir. Only a few Indian tribes attempted a more precise correlation of moons and years. The Creeks are said to have added a moon between each pair of years, and the Haida from time to time inserted a "between moon" in the division of their year into two parts. It is said that an unspecified tribe of the Sioux or the Ojibwa (Chippewa) made a practice of adding a "lost moon" when 30 moons had waned.

A tally of years following an important event was sometimes kept on a notched stick. The best known record commemorates the spectacular meteoric shower (the Leonids) of 1833. Some northern tribes recorded series of events by pictographs, and one such record, said to have been originally painted on a buffalo robe and known as the "Lone-dog Winter Count," covers a period of 71 years beginning with 1800.

Early explorers had little opportunity to learn about the calendrical devices of the Indians, which were probably held sacred and secret. Contact with Europeans and their Christian calendar doubtless altered many aboriginal practices. Thus, present knowledge of the systems used in the past may not reflect their true complexity.


NEWS ARTICLES


Oldest lunar calendar identified

A dappled, brown horse and a lunar calendar

October 19, 2000 - BBC

What could be the oldest lunar calendar ever created has been identified on the walls of the famous, prehistoric caves at Lascaux in France.

The interpretation that symbolic paintings, dating back 15,000 years, show the Moon going through its different phases comes from Dr Michael Rappenglueck, of the University of Munich.

The German researcher has previously associated patterns left in the caves with familiar stars and constellations.

He now says groups of dots and squares painted among representations of bulls, antelope and horses depict the 29-day cycle of the Earth's satellite.

Works of art

With special permission from French authorities, I went into the Lascaux caves with Dr Rappenglueck to inspect the paintings for myself. It was an opportunity most people would never get - to protect the historic site from unnecessary wear and tear, all visitors now tour a mock-up of the caves, the so-called Lascaux II.

Dr Rappenglueck: "Count them. Count them"

"The secret of understanding these caves," Dr Rappenglueck told me as we descended into the dark, "is to understand the people who painted these walls.

"They painted the sky, but not all of it. Just the parts that were specially important to them."

With eyes becoming adjusted to the half-light, I entered the Chamber of the Bulls and stood there in amazement. Anyone who has seen the paintings on the walls can be left in no doubt that they represent some of the greatest works of art every created.

The animals were painted on to the walls of the chamber by Cro-magnon man, one of our close relations, 15,000 years ago. He thrived in a temperate valley in the Dordogne while the rest of Europe was held in the grip of an ice age.

As I marvelled at the spectacle, Dr Rappenglueck moved ahead of me.

"Here it is," he said, as he headed down the passage. He was pointing to a line of dots painted half way up the wall. "Count them. Count them."

Below a stunning painting of a deer was a row of 13 dots, ending in a square. "Why 13?" I asked.

Half the cycle: 13 dots and an empty square

"It's half of the Moon's monthly cycle," Dr Rappenglueck said. "One dot for each day the Moon is in the sky. At the new Moon, when it vanishes from the sky, we see an empty square, perhaps symbolically representing the absent Moon.

"But there's more, further along." The Munich researcher gestured to me to move along the passageway. Beneath a dappled, brown horse with a dark mane was another row of dots. This time there were more of them.

"There are 29 of them - one for each day of the Moon's 29-day cycle when it runs through its phases in the sky. It was a rhythm of nature that was important to these people."

Dr Rappenglueck looked around at the bulls, antelope and horses painted on the walls with such obvious admiration. "They were aware of all the rhythms of nature. Their survival depended on them, they were a part of them."

The Pleiades star cluster sits above the bull's shoulder

But there is another puzzle. I pointed to the series of dots that curve away from the main row. "Why do they do that?" I enquired.

"I think that indicates the time of the new Moon, when it disappears from the sky for several days," said Dr Rappenglueck.

There is definitely astronomy on the walls of Lascaux. Earlier this year, Dr Rappenglueck identified a series of constellations painted on the wall of a shaft off the main chamber at Lascaux. The tiny pattern of the Pleiades star cluster can also be seen hanging above the shoulder of a bull near the entrance to the main passageway.

We will probably never understand completely what Cro-magnon man had in mind when he painted the Lascaux caves. The images of the animals seem obvious but what are we to make of the geometrical shapes and patterns scattered in between these creatures?




CALENDARS

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