Transcript
1 PETROVA N.G. CALENDARS OF THE PEOPLES OF THE WORLD I know that there is a time when I am not asked about this, and when they ask me, the more I think, the more perplexed I am. St. Augustine The calendar is a thing that neither logic nor astronomy can explain. E. Bickerman PREFACE Time is a mystery that man has been trying to comprehend for thousands of years. Philosophers and astronomers, historians and poets have formulated dozens of definitions, comprehending the category of time. One of the ways to comprehend this secret is to create a time counting system, that is, a calendar. The calendar appears before us as a way of understanding the structure of the world, understanding its cyclical nature. Divine power creates the world as rational, therefore, the periodicity of the seasons, months, day and night also has a divine origin. The origin of the calendar was considered sacred in ancient times. That is why the measurement of time, various calculations associated with calendars, among all peoples was carried out only by priests or clergy. Any arbitrary change in the calendar could lead to the destruction of the order of life. Wanting to see their calendar, and therefore the entire course of life, orderly, many peoples deliberately allowed inaccuracies in the calendar for the sake of the symmetry of its basic units found in ancient times and, most importantly, for the sake of preserving its immutability. “It was not the calendar that depended on time, but in a certain sense, time depended on it,” as A.N. noted. Zelinsky.
2 PART I HISTORY OF THE CALENDAR Chapter 1 MYTHOLOGY OF THE CALENDAR In the ancient era, before the emergence of civilizations, mythology was primarily a way of understanding the world and explaining its contradictions. “How and why did the world come into being?”, “Who created it?”, “Why does the Sun shine during the day and the Moon at night?”, “Why do the seasons change?” The answers to these questions gave rise to a system of myths that are usually called cosmogonic, that is, revealing the essence of the structure of the universe. All of them are somehow connected with human attempts to explain the passage of time. The main “characters” of cosmogonic myths are darkness and light, chaos and order, planets (Moon, Sun, Earth, etc.), stars and constellations, and the plots of myths are built on the relationship of the main characters, their unity and struggle. And the consequence of this struggle explained the change of day and night, the change of seasons and much more. Let us turn to some of the cosmogonic myths. SUMERIAN MYTHS The Sumerian tribes, who settled in the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in the 3rd millennium BC, left behind many texts written on clay tablets. Among them there are texts describing myths. Heaven and earth, according to Sumerian ideas, were the main elements of the universe. The earth was shaped like a flat disk, and the sky was empty space. Between them there was a third element, a certain “lil”, an analogue of the modern atmosphere, which could move and occupy space. The Sun, Moon, planets and stars, like the lil, could move and, in addition, glow. Initially, there was only an ocean in which heaven and earth were not separated from each other, but then “lil” separated them. After the separation of the flat earth from the firmament, luminous bodies: Sun, Moon, etc. Finally, plants, animals and humans appeared. The Sumerians believed that the reason for world harmony and order was the existence of deities, each of which was responsible for a specific element of the universe. Enlil
3 “lord of the air”, “king of gods and men”, An the god of the sky, Ki the goddess of the Earth, Sin, or Nanna the god of the Moon, his children: Utu the god of the Sun and Inanna the goddess of love and fertility, ruling the planet Venus. The beginning of the universe, according to myths, looked like this: the sky god An and the earth goddess Ki gave birth to the god of air Enlil. Enlil separated heaven from earth. An, who appears rather passive in all myths, goes upstairs. And Enlil marries his mother, after which plants, animals and people are born. Regarding the birth of the planets, the moon god Sin was conceived after Enlil took possession beautiful girl Ninlil. The gods were angry with Enlil for this and drove him into the underworld. The devoted Nenlil follows him. However, the thought that their future son, the moon god, would be in the dungeon, instead of shining in the sky, prompts Enlil to commit a series of heroic deeds, as a result of which he and Nenlil emerge into the light. In later myths, Enlil appears to be a good rather than an evil god: he, taking pity on people, gives them day, helps the growth of plants on the earth, and teaches people agriculture. Enlil gives instructions to the god of wisdom Enki on how to arrange the lives of people. Enki, leaving general leadership behind himself, gives specific instructions to the various gods. Thus, Enki instructs the sun god Utu to monitor the observance of boundaries “in the entire universe,” and he instructs other gods to teach people how to build houses, brew beer, and weave. Only he does not give any instructions to the warlike goddess of love Inanna, which incurs her wrath. 1. BABYLONIAN MYTHOLOGY In the mythology of the Akkadians (Babylonians), who lived north of the Sumerians, much was borrowed from the mythological stories of their neighbors. The Sumerian sun god Utu was called Shamash by the Akkadians, the moon god Nanna Sin, the goddess of love and fertility Inanna Ishtar. God Shamash occupied an exceptional position among the gods, since he was the supreme judge on earth and in heaven, predicted the future, instructed and protected people. “The mighty mountains are full of your radiance, your light fills all countries. You are mighty above the mountains, you contemplate the earth, you soar at the ends of the earth, among the sky. You rule over the inhabitants of the entire universe. You crush the horn of the one who plots evil; you imprison an unjust judge, you execute the one who takes bribes; to that
4 Whoever does not take bribes and cares for the oppressed, Shamash is merciful, and his days are prolonged. Oh, Shamash, a traveler full of fear, a wandering merchant, a young merchant, a bearer of a purse of gold, comes running to you. Oh, Shamash, a fisherman with a net, a hunter, a butcher, a cattle driver prays to you,” this is what was said in the hymn dedicated to the god Shamash. However, with the rise of Babylon main role In Akkadian mythology, the god Marduk begins to play the role of the supreme deity of this city. According to Babylonian myths, the Earth is a round boat floating in the world's oceans, and the Sky is a dome covering the world. The entire celestial space is divided into three spheres: the upper sky belongs to Anu, the middle to Marduk, and in the lower sky, which people see, there are stars. The moon god Sin hides in the upper sky on those days when he is not visible from the Earth, and the sun god Shamash hides at night. Every morning, Shamash removes the lock, opens the “mountain of sunrise,” which is located in the east of the sky, and sets off across the sky. And in the evenings, having passed through the “sunset mountain”, he goes to bed. All stars in Heaven have their own place to which they are assigned, and on Earth they have an earthly image corresponding to them. For example, each Babylonian city has its own constellation. Everything that exists on Earth: countries, rivers, temples are just reflections of the starry Sky. The Earth itself, like an inverted “ki” boat, lies under the firmament. To strengthen the Earth, it was tied to Heaven with ropes and reinforced with pegs. The ropes we see are the Milky Way 2. Mesopotamian (the Greeks called Mesopotamia Mesopotamia) culture became famous for the creation of astrology. A huge number of clay tablets with texts of predictions and forecasts were found in the library of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal. Full and new moons, solar and lunar eclipses, unusual figures of clouds, the movement of planets, mainly Venus, relative to fixed stars, thunder, earthquakes - all these phenomena find their interpretations in astrological forecasts and horoscopes. True, some rulers were sometimes very skeptical about predictions and did not trust astrologers, however, judging by individual entries on the tablets, they always repented of their doubts: “Here is what he [the text] says about this eclipse, which [happened in] the month of Nisan: “If the planet Jupiter is in the sky during an eclipse, it is favorable for the king, because some one will die in his place. important person[at court],” but the king closed his ears and look, before a month had even passed, the chief judge died” 3.
5 EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY In a country that has preserved the only one of the seven “wonders of the world”, the symbol and embodiment of the eternity of the pyramid, in different periods history, various, sometimes contradictory, cosmogonic myths arose. The same heroes appeared in a wide variety of guises. For example, the sky goddess Nut was depicted as a celestial cow, whose body was covered with stars; sometimes in the form of a woman whose body is curved above the ground; sometimes in the guise of a pig, and as a protector and patroness of the dead with outstretched wings on sarcophagi. And each of these images embodied the Egyptians’ idea of heaven. In many myths, the world appears as being born of a deity who has neither name nor image. The Egyptian priests called him “He who exists by himself,” “The First Cause of all life,” “Father of fathers, mother of mothers.” To make it easier for people to imagine the appearance of the gods, they could take the form of an animal or bird. The falcon Horus (Horus), flying through cosmic space, gives birth to day and night, the seasons. His left eye is the Moon, his right eye is the Sun. According to one of the myths, the most perfect image of the creator god Sun-Ra, or Amon-Ra, appeared from a lotus flower. And there was light after you (Amon-Ra) arose. You illuminated Egypt with your rays, When your disk began to shine. People received their sight when your right eye sparkled for the first time, and your left eye drove away the darkness of the night. According to other myths, the world was originally chaos, from which the gods of air and moisture emerged. From their marriage, the earth god Geb and the sky goddess Nut were born, from whose marriage, in turn, the stars were born. Mighty is your heart, O great Nut, who has become the sky. You fill every place with your beauty. The whole earth lies before you, you have embraced it, you have surrounded the earth and all things
6 with your own hands. Initially, Nut and Geb were merged into one. Nut gave birth to stars in the evenings and swallowed them in the morning. This continued until Geb became angry with Nut, calling her a pig who eats her piglets. The Sun God Ra, seeing that heaven and earth no longer lived in harmony, separated them. During the day, Nut is above the ground, and at night it sinks down. Egyptian myths about the creation of the world are closely related to solar myths, reflecting the Egyptian ideas about the change of seasons. In Egypt there are three seasons, which in ancient times were called “the time of drought,” when sultry winds blow from the desert and all life comes to a standstill; “time of flood” during this period the Nile floods, and “time of rising” is the time to harvest. In the hottest season, when the sun mercilessly burns, this means, according to the Egyptians, that the sun god Ra is angry with people and punishes them for their sins. To fulfill his will, Ra sends his daughter Hathor to people in the form of a lioness. She pounces on people in the desert, tears them to pieces and fills the sand with blood. In the myth about the punishment of people, Ra, having seen his order fulfilled, asks the Hathor lioness to return. However, the beast, having tasted blood and felt the power over people, wants to destroy the entire human race. Horrified at the sight of the carnage perpetrated by his daughter, Ra comes up with a trick: he orders the beer to be tinted with red crushed powder and given to Hathor to drink. Having sated and drunk, Hathor leaves the people alone. Since then, in order to protect themselves, people annually bring jugs of beer to the statue of the goddess 4. The movement of the sun in the sky was imagined by the Egyptians as the journey of the god Ra in a golden boat along the celestial Nile. In the day boat Manjet he sails, illuminating the earth, and in the night boat Mesekset he moves along the underground Nile, illuminating world of the dead. During a daytime swim, the sun god Ra is waylaid by his enemy, the huge serpent Apep. He tries to destroy Ra by drinking the waters of the Nile. However, Ra and his retinue, fighting the serpent, invariably defeat him and force him to throw up the waters of the Nile back. One of the Egyptian myths tells about the reasons for the change of day and night as follows. When Ra grew old and decided to abdicate the throne, he called upon the god of wisdom Thoth and ordered him to shine in the sky in his place. But He refused to reign alone. Then Ra agreed to shine in the sky during the day, and gave the night time to Thoth: this is how the Moon appeared in the sky. Night comes to replace day, because Thoth and Ra replace each other on the throne. After the division of power, the silver boat Thoth Luna transports the souls of the dead across
7 to the night sky to the afterlife. “No god beats him, no carrier opposes him on the way: he is the one.” It is interesting that Thoth was not only the god of wisdom, the patron of knowledge, magic and sorcery, the god of the lunar disk in Egyptian mythology, but also the calculator of time. He was often depicted with a palm branch in his hand as a symbol of dominion over time. The sacred bird of the god Thoth was considered the ibis, whose arrival was associated with the beginning of the Nile floods. HINDU MYTHOLOGY Indian epics such as the Mahabharata and the Ramayana and many others describe the birth of the god Brahma from a cosmic egg, who then creates the universe. The earth appears in the form of a flat disk, in the center of which Mount Meru passes through the axis of the world. The Sun, Moon and stars revolve around the top of Meru. Six heavens rise in tiers above the Earth. The highest and most beautiful is the world of Brahma. The heavens are inhabited by gods, holy sages and beings of divine origin. Among the gods you can find the god of Heaven, called Dyaus, and his wife, the goddess of the Earth, Prithivi. Their son was the god of storms and rains, Indra, a fighter against the demon of drought, a monstrous serpent, in whose wombs captives languished: heavenly cows-clouds and heavenly waters. The thunder god Indra also fights with the sun god Surya, defeating him and taking the wheel from his chariot. The Sun God Surya, with burning hair, in a chariot drawn by seven blue horses, rushes across the sky, shines for the whole world and watches everything that people do. He is the all-seeing eye of the gods, one of the main deities. Surya is born in the east, circles the earth and sky during the day, pouring out light and warmth, expels darkness, illness, and enemies. The evil demon Rahu pursues Surya, and one day, in anger, the Sun God threatens to incinerate the entire world with his burning rays. Confirmation of the significance of the position of the Sun god in the hierarchy of gods can be seen, for example, in the number of main gods in Hindu mythology during a certain period: 12 gods personify the position of the sun in each of the 12 months of the year. Surya's wife is the goddess of the dawn Ushas. Here its sparkling rays appeared again. She gets up, drives away the black shapeless night
8 This is what one of the hymns says about her. The birth of the Moon in some myths is associated with the drink of the gods, which gave immortality and strength for exploits with soma. When the gods drink the drink, there is less of it, and you have to wait until the sun refills the cup. Subsequently, the moon god himself began to be called Soma. In Indian mythology, the moon god was considered the patron of the stars, sacrifices and priests. One of the Indian poems tells how the son of Brahma marries 27 of his daughters, who represent the constellations, to Soma. lunar zodiac. The Moon God was also the patron of vegetation: at night, plants feed on moisture and that is why they grow. Along with Indra, Varuna appears as the main god. He paves the way for water flows, covers the Ocean, fills the sea with water, monitors the flow of rivers, and also protects truth and justice. This is the king of gods and people, the organizer of the entire universe. Varuna established the sequence of seasons, the change of months, and gave movement to the Sun, Moon and stars. He has a thousand eyes, and the Sun is one of them. By order of Varuna, day gives way to night. A year in Hindu mythology is the time of maturation of the god Brahma from an egg floating in the waters of the ocean. Brahma is born from an egg and creates the world 5. CHINESE MYTHOLOGY According to ancient Chinese myths, chaos reigned in the world for a long time, and nothing could be distinguished. But over time, Light and Darkness emerged from the chaos, from which Earth and Sky were formed. Then the first man, Pangu, appeared. He was huge and lived for a very long time. When Pangu opened his eyes, day came, and when he closed his eyes, night came. His breath generated wind, rain, thunder and lightning. After Pangu's death, nature and people were formed from various parts of his body: his arms, legs and torso turned into the four cardinal directions and five main mountains, blood turned into rivers, muscles into the earth's soil, hair into trees and grass. From his teeth and bones simple stones and metals were formed, and from his brain precious stones. The cycle of day and night in later times was explained by the myth of the ten suns. Each of the suns alternately travels from east to west. While one sun is on its way, the other nine are waiting their turn at the edge of the sky, so people
9 always see only one sun. But one day the order was disrupted: all ten luminaries appeared in the sky at the same time during the day and at the same time went beyond the horizon in the evening. There was a drought on earth, people were dying from the heat. Then the most skilled of the shooters, Hou Yi, took a long bow and shot until only one sun remained in the sky. Goddess of the Moon in ancient Chinese mythology Chang-e was the wife of a skilled shooter I. One day, secretly, she drank the potion of immortality, which was kept by her husband, and flew away to the moon. Since then she has lived there alone. According to other myths, a three-legged toad or white hare pounding the potion of immortality in a mortar. In Chinese mythology, there was a special deity, the lord of time Tai-Sui. It corresponded to the planet Jupiter, which the Chinese called “the ruler of time”, since the period of Jupiter’s revolution around the Sun is almost 12 years (11.9). Tai-Sui appears as a formidable commander, ruling over the months, seasons, and days. Before any work began, sacrifices were made to him. However, it was believed that a persistent desire to gain his favor, as well as a complete reluctance to reckon with him, equally lead people to misfortune. Often the god of time can be seen depicted with an ax and a cup, or a spear and a bell, trapping the souls of people 6. GREEK MYTHOLOGY The earliest Greek myths described the birth of the gods and all living creatures in the stream of the Ocean that washed the whole world. The black-winged goddess Night, reciprocating the Wind, gave birth to a silver egg in the womb of Darkness. The god of love, Eros, hatched from this egg, set the Universe in motion. The earth, sky, sun and moon were created by him. Night formed a triad along with Order and Justice. This is how the world was created. The appearance of Eros before other gods meant that no one could be born without him. Later, the Greeks imagined him as a headstrong boy, fluttering on golden wings and having no respect for the age or position of any of the people or gods. According to another version, the silver egg of Night is the moon. God of love Eros (or Fanet) the sun and symbol of light. His four heads, appearing as separate deities,
10 symbolized the four seasons: Zeus (ram) Spring, Helios (lion) Summer, Hades (snake) Winter, Dionysus (bull) New Year. In the Olympic period of mythology, the origin of the world was explained as follows: Chaos arose from Darkness, and from the union of Darkness and Chaos Night, Day, Erebus (underground darkness) and Air appeared. Night and Erebus gave birth to Doom, Old Age, Death, Murder, Voluptuousness, Sleep, Dreams, Quarrel, Sadness, Annoyance, as well as the goddess of justice Nemesis, Joy, Friendship, Compassion. From the union of Air and Day, the earth goddess Gaia, Sky, and Sea appeared. Air and Gaia, in turn, gave birth to Fear, Tiring Labor, Fury, Enmity, Deception, Oaths, Blinding of the Soul, Intemperance, Controversy, Oblivion, Sorrow, Pride, Battles, Ocean, the underground kingdom of Tartarus, as well as the titans and goddesses of vengeance Erinyes with snakes in the hair. The God of all things (sometimes the Greeks called him Nature) then separated the earth from the sky, put the universe in order, allocated hot, cold and temperate climates on earth, created mountains and valleys, grass and trees. He installed a rotating expanse above the earth and strewn it with stars, and placed five planets, the sun and the moon in the sky. He populated the seas and rivers with fish and the forests with animals. He also created man. Gaia, the earth and the sky, Uranus, initially gave birth only to monsters: hundred-armed giants and one-eyed cyclops. Therefore, Uranus cast all his children into Tartarus. But the titans he later generated rebelled and, with the blessing of mother earth, decided to take revenge on their father: the youngest of the titans, Kron, castrated Uranus and freed his brothers from the dungeon. Later, Cronus became the “Father of Time” among the Greeks with his inexorable sickle. According to the prediction of the dying Uranus, one of the sons of Cronus was also supposed to overthrow his father in the future. Fearing the prediction of Uranus, Cronus ate his children born of Rhea. The desperate Rhea hid the third child Zeus born to her, and instead gave Kron a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes. Cronus, who realized the deception, began to pursue Zeus, and he had to turn into a snake and turn his nannies into bears. This is how the constellations Serpent and Ursa appeared in the sky. Zeus is the god of thunder, rain, and only he has the power of lightning. With it he punishes gods and people when he administers his judgment. Zeus drew the path for all the heavenly bodies. From Zeus, the goddess of order Themis gave birth to the Seasons. She, according to the Greeks, divided the thirteen-month year into two seasons, winter and summer. Personification
11 These two seasons represent Tallo, the deity of flowering, and Karpo, the deity of the ripe fruit. 7. The division of the year into seasons also explains the myth of Kore, the daughter of the fertility goddess Demeter. Kora, who was collecting wildflowers, was kidnapped by Hades, the god of the underworld and brother of Zeus, and taken to his underworld. Demeter searched in vain for her daughter, without touching food or drink. When she found out where her daughter was, she refused to return to Olympus and threatened that from now on all the trees on earth would stop bearing fruit and the grass would stop growing. Zeus, seeing that the human tribe could become extinct, decided to reconcile Demeter and Hades. An agreement was reached between them: from now on, Kore would spend three months with Hades and become the queen of the underworld, Persephone, and the remaining nine months could live with her mother Demeter. Therefore, during the winter three months of the year, it rains, cold winds blow and all vegetation dies. Mythology also reflected the Greeks' ideas about periods of human history. The first generation of people lived without worries, did not know sorrows and could not work, since fruits grew in abundance on the trees, and milk and honey dripped directly into their mouths. People had fun, laughed and were not afraid of death. They worshiped the god Cronus. The Greeks called this time the Golden Age. A period of bliss and abundance has been replaced by silver Age, in which people lived up to a hundred years and still could not work, but they themselves were already thoroughly deteriorated: they were grumpy and ignorant, did not worship the gods and did not make sacrifices to them, for which they were destroyed by Zeus. The people of the Copper Age were distinguished by rudeness and cruelty, they loved to fight with copper weapons, their food was bread and meat. They all died. The fourth generation of people also lived in the Copper Age, but came from gods and mortals and therefore were distinguished by their nobility and kindness. Among them, the most famous are such heroes as the Argonauts, Hercules and others. The current generation is people of the Iron Age, bitter and unjust, evil and deceitful, who do not show due respect to their parents. IRANIAN MYTHOLOGY
12 At the heart of Iranian mythology is the doctrine of the division of the world into two spheres, in which the forces of good and evil, light and darkness, generated by two creator spirits, operate. The struggle of these two forces permeates the cosmic, earthly and spiritual life of people. According to Iranian myths, the world appears divided into seven regions, or circles of karshvars. In the central, very big circle people live. In its middle is the high Mount Hara, around which the sun revolves. In the half where the sun is, people see light, and when the sun moves to the other half, darkness comes. The change of seasons and the entire order established in the world exist thanks to the law called Rta (its other name is Asha). This law also governs human actions. If people perform prayers and sacrifices, the good deeds of the Mouth are strengthened. Where evil deeds are done and vice reigns, the antipode of Asha, Drug (or Drukh), operates. At the top of Mount Khara live the gods of heaven and earth Asman and Zam, the gods of the sun and moon Hvar and Mah, the deities of the wind Vata and Vayu. Vata was the deity of the wind that brings rain, and Vayu was the merciful deity, the “soul of the gods.” A mythical river flows from a huge mountain, flowing into the great sea of Vourukasha, from which the clouds that rain over the earth are filled with water. In order for this to happen, the deity of the star Sirius Tishtryi approaches the sea every year on a white stallion. There the demon of drought is waiting for him on a black stallion, with whom they enter into a duel. If Tishtriya defeats him, he throws himself into the sea, and the waves of the mare produce water in abundance, and Vata delivers water to the clouds. With the emergence of Zoroastrianism, Ahura Mazda became the god of goodness, light, life and truth. He constantly fights on earth and in heaven with the spirit of evil and destruction, darkness and death of Anghra-Manyu. When the struggle ends with the victory of the almighty god of light, the kingdom of prosperity and goodness will come, evil will disappear forever, and the sun will shine forever 8. MAYAN MYTHOLOGY The mythology of the Mayan Indian tribes is known from hieroglyphic manuscripts, many of the plots of which are still studied and interpreted differently by scientists today. Mayan manuscripts served as a kind of reference books for priests who managed the economic cycle of work and followed the ritual of numerous festivals. The climate of Central America allows the main maize harvest to be harvested
13 Mayan culture several times a year. However, tropical soils are quickly losing their fertility, and farmers have to develop new areas, clearing them of forests. A long absence of rain, a sudden transition from drought to hurricane downpours, and hail all created difficulties in the life of the Mayans and required them to be observant, and then to create a very accurate calendar. The main Mayan deities were associated with the much-needed rain for the harvest. There are many rain deities: their names and iconography have changed several times. The personification of the cloudy sky, foreshadowing rain, was considered to be the Cloud Monster “Monster Kavak”, a creature with the features of a reptile and a jaguar. The patron god of the first day of the rainy season, as well as the owner of reservoirs, the god of the sky was the “Heavenly Lizard”, “the mighty and good ruler”, “the ruler of the world” Itzamna. Streams of rain fell from its open mouth onto the ground. He was depicted with a beard and a tuft of hair on his head; his forelimbs could look like hands, paws or deer hooves. According to some myths, the goddess of the rainbow Ish Chel was considered the wife of Itzamna. Both of them made up a pair of godmakers. The Jaguar, from whose head maize grows, became the protector god of the fields. The Jaguar is known in manuscripts under the names “Big Predator”, “Father Jaguar”, “Biting”, “Big Paw”, etc. The most common image among hieroglyphs: the god Jaguar sits in the mouth-cave of the Cloud Monster, above which from the clouds it's raining. The Mayans also traditionally associated snakes, especially boa constrictors, with the water element. Four mythical "Great Snakes" live in the four cardinal directions and send rain to the fields. The Mayans usually depicted the celestial sphere as a Cloud Serpent, the rattle on whose tail produced heavenly thunder, and from the serpent's mouth streams of rain fell to the earth. Many gods and city rulers were depicted as emerging from the mouth of the Cloud Serpent. Itzamna acts as the patron saint of priests and therefore he does not engage in agriculture. The main farmer among the gods, “bringer of rain”, “long-awaited” was the god Kash-ish with a long, curved nose-cloud. The four “colored” hypostases of this god symbolized the four cardinal directions. Terrible enemies of farmers, capable of destroying crops, are drought, sun, and hurricane. A whole group of gods personified these disasters. A pair of gods with the same name (Sak Soot) were gods of the storm without rain, “Deceptive Ratchet,” “threatening destruction.” On the head of the goddess Sak Soot a snake was depicted curled up in a ball and, apparently, not liking moisture, and the god Sak Soot captured Kash-ish and did not allow the rain to fall.
14 Mistress of the north wind and goddess of storms Chak Kit: in a patterned skirt and feather-trimmed cape, this goddess appears, holding in her hands a vessel from which cold water pours onto the fields. She blows an icy wind at the corn god and he falls dead. Great Chuck Keith is the only one female character in the pantheon of the main Mayan gods. Once upon a time, the main patroness of harvest and fertility among the Mayans was the moon goddess, depicted against the background of a lunar disk with a bare chest and wearing a military helmet. Her throne stands in a cave, which is entwined with shoots of plants, and rain clouds float above it. Symbolic image 12 lunar months six drops on the goddess's helmet and six drops on her skirt decorate the outfit of the Great Moon Goddess. Among many Indian tribes, the moon goddess was considered the patroness of women and women's handicrafts, the goddess of fertility, sea tides and lakes, as well as the goddess of bodily love, impurity and debauchery. The god of thunderstorm Tosh was considered a companion of the moon goddess and an enemy of abundance. On the head of the warrior god is a hat with feathers from the Heavenly Owl, mistress of the sky of showers. Next to him was a captive of the bound god of corn. Later, with the transition of the Maya from the lunar to the solar calendar, the Moon was transformed into the image of the destroyer of the harvest. Her place as the mistress of lakes and wells, the patroness of women, was taken by the maiden goddess Sak Ch up. In Mayan mythology, Ish Chel, the goddess of the rainbow, is the patroness of childbirth, medicine and weaving. The Mayan Sun God appears in two forms: as the master of the warm summer “Good Sun”, “Sun-Eyed Lord”, and as the god of drought “Scorching Forests” and “Bringer of Disasters”. He was depicted with a parrot mask on his head, the “Sun with a beak,” which glows with “multi-colored fiery rays, like guacamayo feathers.” The Sun God needs to constantly make sacrifices: feed him so that he can make his way across the sky. In the northern regions, the god of drought and death was considered not the sun, but the Lord of Skulls, Um Tsek. He was depicted as a half-skeleton with a necklace of death made of jade rings and bore the title “Threatening of Death.” The picture of the world order in Mayan mythology appears in the image of the world ceiba tree. From a cave filled with water grows a mythical tree, depicted as a snake standing on its tail. The two parts of the cosmos (heaven and underworld) make up the top and bottom of the tree. The cave is the root of the sky. Once upon a time, according to myths, the earth and the underworld were one with the sky, but the sky collapsed and separated from the earth. Now the underworld, earth and sky represent the three floors of the universe. IN
In the future they will change places, but for now in the Mayan world tree the roots are at the top, that is, the tree appears upside down. The earth is suspended from the sky, and the sky is supported by four pillar trees: red in the east, white in the north, black in the west, yellow in the south. Cloud serpents twine around the branches of the tree. At the same time, the tree appears as a symbol of life and abundance. People came from its roots, and through it the souls of the dead go to the underworld. Fruits and shoots of edible plants grow on the branches of a tree, there is water in the trunk and under the roots, when people cut down a tree, its chips turn into fish. The world tree also contains the idea of renewal of life: people cut down a tree, but it grows again. Both the world tree and people themselves were created in a cave. Numerous transformations occur on the tree. Heroes who fall onto the branches of a tree or its roots turn into animals or birds. Animals, on the contrary, in the cave take on the appearance of people. The entire night world is a cave, the animal deities of the planets, the rainbow heavenly river, the rope in the daytime sky, the Milky Way is the night river, the essence of the umbilical cord of the world. According to one myth, when there was no sun, dwarf people built pyramids in the dark. At that time, a rope was tied in the sky, an “umbilical cord” stretching from west to east, in which blood flowed. People moved along the rope, and food was delivered to the palaces of the rulers. When the sun appeared, the rope broke and blood flowed out of it. Thus ended the era of dwarf people 9. SLAVIC MYTHOLOGY The cosmogonic myths of the Slavs are associated primarily with the image of the world tree, which, however, also existed in the mythology of other peoples. The roots of the tree represent the image of the earth, the top of the tree represents the sky. Three parts of the tree are compared with various animals and birds: the branches, the top, the habitat of the falcon, nightingale, mythical birds, as well as the sun and moon; the middle part of the tree, its trunk belongs to deer, cows, horses, bees; roots to snakes, beavers, and sometimes bears. The image of a tree symbolized the system of three worlds: heaven, earth and underworld; life and death: dry and green Tree; the person himself (in embroidery, a woman giving birth was depicted as a sprouted tree).
16 Many myths tell about the conclusion of a union between heaven and earth in the spring with the help of birds and other characters. Spring often appears as an independent character, whose appearance is associated with the funeral of Winter, the release of heat, marriage with the forces of fertility Yarila, Kostroma, etc. The Sun was embodied in Slavic mythology in several characters: this is Svarog, the god of fire and the father of the sun, and Dazhdbog (“God willing”), the god of warmth and sunlight, the god of the giver of blessings, and Khors the sun was shining. Often the latter appeared in the form of a fiery wheel at the top of the world tree or a sun loaf. Mythology researchers believe that the name of the god Khorsa was preserved in ritual vocabulary in the words “round dance”, circular dance, “horoshul”, round pie, etc. 10. The image of the sun is also associated with the god of fire, rain and thunder in Slavic mythology, Perun. The Thunderer Perun rides in a horse-drawn chariot of the sun across the sky. With the adoption of Christianity, the image of the Thunderer merged with Elijah the Prophet. The Moon appears in myths as the Moon entering into an alliance with the Sun. Among the mythological characters personifying the change of day and night, such Slavic deities are known as Zorya or Mertsana, Zarnitsa, whose appearance in August indicated a ripening harvest; Sventovit, whose horse is white during the day and splashed with mud at night. The four heads of the idol of this god point to the four cardinal directions. The annual circle of the sun and the change of seasons in Slavic mythology are associated with such characters as Kolyada and Kupala. Kolyada is a symbol of the birth of a new, young sun, escaped from the captivity of the gloomy and cold winter, marked the turn of winter to summer, which occurs at the end of December. Day summer solstice(end of June) was represented as the meeting of the Sun with its husband the Month and was celebrated with the holiday of Kupala. The sun in the form of a wheel was rolled down the mountain, which meant the turn of summer to winter, and the Kupala doll was burned at the stake (bathed in fire). At the end of the holiday, all its participants swam in rivers and lakes to remove all sorts of illnesses and damage. Chapter 2 CALENDAR BASICS TIME UNITS
17 Days People learned to count time in ancient times. The very first units of time measurement were days and months, since a person could observe the sunrise and sunset, the new moon and the full moon. In Russian, the word “day” comes from the verb “sutikat”, which means to compose, connect. Day and night, light and dark times “bumped together”, that is, they were combined into one whole. Many peoples divided the day into two parts: day and night, but they kept track of time in different ways. Thus, the Babylonians and Persians began the day at sunrise, the Jews, the ancient Greeks and Romans, the Gauls, the Germans at sunset, and the Arabs at noon. The Zoroastrians, who considered the calculation of time by the moon to be false, argued that a day is the period of time between sunrises. In Rome there were dies civilis "civil day" and "naturalis dies" "natural day". They both started at midnight. The Romans divided the day into watches or shifts. The Babylonians, Old Testament and Homer distinguished three watches by day and three watches by night, the Greeks and Romans later adopted the Egyptian system of four watches, which was also widely adopted in civil life to designate the parts of the night. Four watches took place during the night, four during the day, each lasting 3 hours. In Jerusalem under the Romans, the hours of the night were also distinguished by the crow of a cock. The division of the day into hours was first noted in Egypt and Babylonia. An hour in ancient times was, however, not 1/24 of a full (astronomical) day, as it is now, but 1/12 of the actual time from sunrise to sunset or from sunset before sunrise. The length of an hour naturally varied with latitude and season. During the day, the clock was counted from sunrise, at night from the onset of darkness. Thus, the 7th hour roughly corresponded to our noon (or midnight) and marked the end of working time, as evidenced by the saying, “six hours are most suitable for work, and the four that follow them, if expressed in letters, tell people: live!” (The Greeks used letters of the alphabet as numbers, so 7, 8, 9 and 10 ZHOI “Live!”). For night ceremonies in temples, Egyptian priests already around 1800 BC. they used the so-called sidereal clock (the hour was recognized by the appearance of a certain star in the corresponding ten days of the month). There were two systems
18 divisions of the day: into 12 equal parts, as the Babylonian priests did, and into 24 parts, as the Egyptian priests did. Later, astronomers adopted the Egyptian division of the calendar day, but, following the Babylonian counting system, divided the Egyptian hour into 60 equal parts. Medieval astronomers used the same system, and to this day we divide an hour into 60 minutes. Nevertheless, the hour of variable duration continued to be used in Everyday life, and in some areas of the Mediterranean it persisted even in the 19th century 11. The day, the period of revolution of the globe around its axis, is also the main unit of time measurement in the modern calendar. However, in astronomy there are two types of days: sidereal and solar. Watching starry sky at night, you can see that the stars, like other heavenly bodies, rise in the east, rise higher and higher and, having reached their greatest height, that is, their highest culmination, continue to move west and fall below the horizon. The next night the stars repeat their path again. The length of time between the two upper culminations of a star is called the sidereal day. This period is 23 hours 56 minutes 4 seconds and remains unchanged. A sidereal day is divided into 24 sidereal hours, an hour into 60 sidereal minutes, and a minute into 60 sidereal seconds. Sidereal time is used in astronomy to determine which parts of the starry sky will be visible at one time or another of the year or day in a certain area. However, in everyday life, which is associated with the movement of the sun, we use solar rather than sidereal days. The inconvenience of using sidereal days is that the same sidereal hour throughout the year occurs at different times of the solar day, which are longer than sidereal hours by almost four minutes. But even with the use of solar days there is a certain complexity. Begin sunny day at midnight, but their duration from midnight to midnight at different times of the year is not the same: in winter the solar days are longer, and in summer they are shorter. The longest solar day (December 23) is longer than the shortest (September 16) by 51 seconds. This phenomenon of unevenness is explained by the fact that the trajectory of the Earth around the Sun is not a circle, but an ellipse. It is not for nothing that the Parisian watchmakers chose the words: “The sun shows time deceivingly” as the motto for their workshop coat of arms.
19 Solar days, the duration of which is associated with the movement of the true Sun, are called true solar days. Using such a unit of measurement is of course inconvenient. Therefore, it is customary to take the so-called average solar day as the unit of time in all watches: wristwatches, towers and others, as well as in calendars, the duration of which does not change throughout the year and is 24 hours. Whatever unit of time we take: sidereal, true or average solar day, it will be different in different parts of the globe, on different meridians. At the end of the 19th century, Canadian scientist S. Flushing proposed dividing the Earth's surface into 24 time zones. Time within a time zone was considered to be the same for all its points. The prime or prime meridian, from which standard time begins, was agreed to be the meridian passing through the Greenwich Observatory in the suburbs of London. The mean solar time of the Greenwich meridian is called universal or world time. Time in time zones located east of the Greenwich meridian increases by an hour, and decreases to the west. At the same time, at the end of the 19th century, the date line was established. It begins at the North Pole on meridian 180 and, passing through the Bering Strait and the Pacific Ocean, reaches the South Pole. On the territory of our country, the “border of days” coincides with the state border separating Chukotka from Alaska. From this line a new day begins on the entire planet. The first people on Earth to meet him are the residents of the Chukotka village of Uelen. And the day ends in Wales, Alaska. The clocks in Wales and Whalen show the same time, but one day apart. If you cross the Bering Strait from west to east, you can get to yesterday, and if from east to west, then to tomorrow. 12. Month Another ancient unit of time, the month, was easily established by observing the appearance of the young Moon. Some calendar researchers believe that, apparently, it is no coincidence that in many languages the words “month”, “measure” and “Moon” have a common root, for example in Latin: “mensis” (month) and “mensura” (measure), in Greek “mene” (Moon) and “man” (month), English “moon” (Moon) and “month” (month).
20 As you know, the Moon does not have its own glow, but only reflects sunlight. The Moon, during its revolution around the Earth, is illuminated by the Sun unevenly. Therefore, an observer from the Earth either sees it illuminated completely (this phase of the moon is called a full moon), or does not see it at all; in this case, they speak of the birth of a new moon - a new moon. Following the new moon, the phase of the first quarter of the moon, the full moon, the phase of the last quarter of the moon and the new moon successively replace each other. The period of time between two identical phases of the Moon, for example, from new moon to new moon, is called a synodic month (from the Latin “sindos” “conjunction”, “convergence”). Initially, its length was determined to be 30 days, and the duration of each phase was approximately 7 days. Currently, the synodic month is taken to be equal to 29 days 12 hours 44 minutes 2.8 seconds of mean solar time. However, to see the moment of birth new moon is possible only during solar eclipses, which, as you know, do not occur often. Therefore, the appearance of the crescent moon after the new moon was considered to be the beginning of the month. This moment in astronomy is called neomenia, which translated from Greek means “the birth of a new moon.” Between the expected new moon and real appearance It takes 1-2 days for the new moon to appear in the sky. The length of time between the new moon and neomenia depends on various factors: latitude and longitude of the place where the observer is located, local atmospheric conditions, etc. Therefore, the actual length of the synodic month fluctuates relative to the length of its average value (29.5 days). Change of seasons. Tropical year Even in ancient times, people observed the change of seasons, explaining the origin of such a phenomenon in various mythological stories. In Greek mythology, for example, this is a story about the abduction of the daughter of the goddess of agriculture Demeter, young Persephone, by the gloomy ruler of the underworld Hades. In the Egyptian myth, Osiris, the god of fertility and at the same time the underworld, resurrects and dies again every year. What is actually associated with the change of seasons? We judge that our planet is undergoing a rotational movement by the visible movement of the firmament and what is on it: the stars, the Sun, the Moon. Astronomers call the apparent path of the Sun's movement among the stars the ecliptic. Plane
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A calendar is a number system for large periods of time based on the periodicity of visible movements. celestial bodies. Calendars already existed 6,000 years ago. The word “calendar” itself comes from Ancient Rome. This was the name of the debt books where moneylenders entered monthly interest. This happened on the first day of the month, which used to be called “Kalends”.
Different peoples at different times created and used three types of calendars: solar, lunar and solar-lunar. The most common is the solar calendar, which is based on the movement of the Sun, which allows the day and year to be coordinated. Currently, residents of most countries use this type of calendar.
One of the first creators of calendars were the inhabitants of Ancient Sumer (located in Iraq). They used a lunar calendar based on observing the movement of the Moon. With its help, you can coordinate the day and the lunar month. The ancient Sumerian year had 354 days, and it consisted of 12 months of 29 and 30 days. Later, when the Babylonian priest-astronomers determined that the year consists of 365.6 days, the previous calendar was reworked and it became lunisolar.
Back in the days when the first Persian states were just beginning to form, the ancient farmers already had their own calendar and knew: there is a day in the year when the shortest day is replaced by the shortest day. long night. This day is the longest night and the longest short day is called the winter solstice and, according to the modern calendar, falls on December 22. Many centuries ago on this day, ancient farmers celebrated the birth of the Sun God - Mithra. The festive event included many obligatory rituals, with the help of which people helped Mithra to be born and defeat the villainess Winter, ensuring the arrival of Spring and the beginning of agricultural work. All this was a very serious matter for our ancestors, because their very lives depended on the timely arrival of spring.
Later, the god Mithra came from Persia to the Romans and became one of the gods they revered. In the Roman Empire, the months had different lengths (sometimes the length of the month could be changed for a bribe), but the New Year invariably fell on January 1, the date of the change of consuls. When the Roman Empire officially adopted Christianity and it turned out that the new, one God Jesus Christ was born on December 25, this further strengthened the traditions of celebrating the winter solstice and became a convenient time for New Year's festivities.
In 46 BC, Julius Caesar, who was not only a commander, but also a high priest, using the calculations of the scientist Sosigenes, moved to simple forms of the Egyptian solar year and introduced a calendar called the Julian. This reform was necessary, since the existing calendar was very different from the natural one, and by the time of the reform this lag from the natural change of seasons was already 90 days. This calendar was based on the annual movement of the Sun through the 12 zodiac constellations. According to the imperial reform, the year began on January 1. The first month of the year was named after the god Janus, who represents the beginning of everything. The average length of the year in the interval of four years was 365.25 days, which is 11 minutes 14 seconds longer than the tropical year, and this temporary inaccuracy began to creep in again.
In Ancient Greece, the beginning of summer fell on the longest day of the year - June 22. And the Greeks calculated chronology from the famous Olympic Games, which were held in honor of the legendary Hercules.
The second significant reform of the calendar was carried out by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582. This calendar was called the Gregorian calendar ( a new style), and it replaced the Julian calendar (old style). The need for changes was determined by the fact that the Julian calendar lagged behind the natural one. The vernal equinox, very important for determining the dates of religious holidays, shifted and became earlier every year. The introduced Gregorian calendar became more accurate. The date of the vernal equinox was fixed at March 21, leap years falling on last years centuries: 1600, 1700, 1800, etc. - therefore, there are fewer leap years introduced to eliminate the discrepancy between the calendar and the counting of tropical years.
The Gregorian calendar was immediately adopted by many European countries, and at the beginning of the 20th century it established itself in China, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey, and Egypt.
In Rus', the chronology invented by the Romans was used, and the Julian calendar with Roman names of months and seven day week. Before the decree of Peter I (1700), Russians kept their calendar “from the creation of the world,” which, according to Christian teaching, occurred 5506 BC, and the beginning of the New Year was celebrated in September, after the harvest, and in March. on the day of the spring solstice. The royal decree brought our calendar into line with the European one and ordered us to celebrate the New Year in winter - on January 1.
Until October 1917, Russia lived according to Julian calendar, "lag behind" European countries for 13 days. When the Bolsheviks came to power, they reformed the calendar. On February 1, 1918, a decree was issued declaring this day the 14th. This year turned out to be the shortest, consisting of 352 days, since according to the calendar reform, January 31 of the previous year immediately followed... February 14.
There was a danger of continuing to reform the Russian calendar in the spirit of revolutionary ideology. Thus, in the 1930s it was proposed to introduce “five-day weeks” instead of weeks. And in 1939, the “Union of Militant Atheists” took the initiative to assign other names to the generally accepted names of the months. It was proposed to call them this way (we list them from January to December, respectively): Lenin, Marx, Revolution, Sverdlov, May (agreed to leave), Soviet Constitution, Harvest, Peace, Comintern, Engels, Great Revolution, Stalin. However, sensible heads were found, and the reform was rejected.
Proposals with amendments to the current chronology system continue to appear. The last attempt to reform the calendar was made in 1954. A project was proposed for consideration by the UN and approved by many countries, including the Soviet Union. The essence of the proposed changes was that all the first days of the quarters would begin on Sunday, with the first month of the quarter containing 31 days, and the remaining two months - 30 each. This option for changing the calendar was considered and preliminarily approved by the UN Council as convenient for “service maintenance” "and was recommended for approval by the UN General Assembly, but was rejected under pressure from the United States and other countries. There is no information about new projects to change the calendar yet.
A number of Muslim countries still use a lunar calendar, in which the beginning of calendar months corresponds to the moments of new moons. The lunar month (synodic) is 29 days 12 hours 44 minutes 2.9 seconds. 12 such months are lunar year out of 354 days, which turns out to be 11 days shorter than the tropical year. In a number of countries in Southeast Asia, Iran, and Israel, there are varieties of the lunisolar calendar, in which the change in the phases of the Moon is consistent with the beginning of the astronomical year. In such calendars, a period of 19 solar years equal to 235 lunar months (the so-called Metonic cycle) plays an important role. The lunar-solar calendar is used by Jews who profess Judaism to calculate the dates of religious holidays.
For us it is a rectangular grid with days and weeks and the beginning of the year on January 1, but for other peoples the calendar looked different. This is what your custom calendar could look like if you were not born here and not in our time.
Calendars of different peoples of the world - from Egypt to China
- Egypt used both lunar and solar calendars. The Egyptians began using the lunar calendar back in the 4th millennium BC, and the solar calendar later, from about 1700 BC. e. The year lasted 365 days, and was divided into 12 months of 30 days. But there were not four seasons, as we are accustomed to, but three, which corresponded to the stages of sowing, harvesting and the flood season. At the end of the year there were 5 additional holidays in honor of the children of the earth god. Interestingly, the Egyptians kept count of the years from the moment the new pharaoh ascended the throne.
- The Chinese calendar is also called the Eastern calendar. Today it is still used to determine the dates of traditional Chinese holidays. This calendar became the basis for others - Vietnamese, Japanese, Tibetan and Korean. It consists of a 60-year cyclic system that combines two circles of cycles - the twelve-year cycle of the “earthly branches”, where each year has the name of an animal, and the ten-year cycle of the “heavenly branches”, after which each year belongs to one of the five elements - water , wood, fire, metal or earth.
- Everyone remembers the mythical end of the world on December 21, 2012, right? This “important” date comes from the Mayan calendar. In this calendar, all time was divided into cycles, or “suns.” The Mayans believed that at the end of each "sun" there would be a massive destruction of humanity. December 21, 2012 fell precisely at the end of the 5th cycle. The previous 4 cycles ended with earthquakes, hurricanes, rain of fire and floods, respectively. The sixth cycle in the calendar was empty, since the priests could not see the future after the end of the fifth “sun”.
Almost “modern” calendars of the peoples of the world
- At the beginning of the revolutionary era, the French decided to make their own calendar. It was introduced in 1793, but later, in 1806, Napoleon I abolished it. In principle, the calendar did not stand out in any way - the same 365 days, and 12 months - but 30 days each. The remaining 5 days (six for leap years) were not included in the month and had a special name. A feature of this calendar was the beginning of the year on the day of the autumn equinox - that is, every year there was a “new” New Year.
- It is impossible not to mention the Soviet revolutionary calendar! Although it didn’t catch on, it was quite interesting. The chronology was carried out as in the Gregorian calendar, but in the calendars themselves the year was indicated as “NN year socialist revolution" There were also 12 months, 30 days each, and the days that remained were called “monthless holidays.” The week consisted of 5 days, and for each layer of workers the day off fell on a different day.
Many nations have their own calendars, which are counted from some important event. The calendars of the Indians, Chinese, Muslims and Jews begin with different dates. In India, holidays are calculated using metal “perpetual” calendars.
Central American calendars date back to the 6th century BC. They were used by the Zapotecs and Olmecs, and later improved by the Mayans and Aztecs, who knew astronomy well. Calendars are based on the periodicity of the movements of celestial bodies. The beginning of the Aztec year, for example, was marked by the constellation Pleiades.
The Aztec calendar (“Sun Stone”) is a symbol of Mexico. It dates back to the 15th century AD. In the center of the disk is the face of the sun god, and the rings around it symbolize time periods. This stone shows the Aztec universe. They had two parallel calendars - a civil shiupoualli of 365 days (18 months of 20 days plus five days for New Year celebrations) and a ritual 260-day. Both of them are depicted on the Sun Stone.
Indian "perpetual" calendar for 1990-2019.
Chac Mool (Chichen Itza, Mexico) is a stone figure with a flat bowl on its stomach. The hearts of people sacrificed to the rain god were placed in the bowl.
The Mayans also had two calendars. Haab described a solar year of 365 days and was used for domestic life, sowing and harvesting. Tzolkin lasted 260 days and was used for ritual purposes. Birth charts were drawn for newborn boys to find out who they would become - soldiers, priests or victims. The 584-day cycle of Venus also played an important role: this planet was considered unfavorable and therefore associated with wars and other dark events.
The Inca calendar was based on observations of the sun, moon and stars. It consisted of 12 months (30 days each) and additional days. Measurements were taken using special pillars or stones. For example, in Machu Picchu there is the Intihuana stone (“pillar to which the sun is tied”). During the equinox it is directly above the pillar and therefore does not provide shade.
In Islam, holidays are calculated according to the lunar calendar, which is useless in agriculture, so others have become widespread calendar systems. There are also Chinese and ancient Indian lunar solar calendars, calendars of individual regions and various sects.
In India, disk “perpetual” calendars are often found, which make it possible to carry out calendar calculations over a long period of time.
Clocks are signs of time Humanity has always sought to measure time. The oldest instrument The sundial used for this purpose is a sundial.
Traditionally, sundials were often decorated with mottos, usually in Latin. The most common is “Time flies” (“Tempus fugit”).
The first mechanical watches did not have a dial; they simply chimed the time. However, few people could use numbers back then. The oldest public clock dates back to 1386 and is still working - this is the clock in the Cathedral of the English city of Salisbury.
In Salisbury Cathedral (England) there is an ancient clock that still works.
Orloj clock in Prague (Czech Republic).
The large chimes in Rouen (France) have only one hand - who cares about the minutes?
On old clocks there is often a figurine of a bell ringer striking the quarter hours. Such figurines can be seen, for example, in the cathedrals of Wells and Norwich in England. Wells has two "ringers" - inside and outside.
The large chimes in Rouen (Normandy, France) date back to 1389. They have one hand - at that time no one was interested in minutes. However, at the top of the dial there is a half black, half silver ball that allows you to determine the phases of the moon and mark the days of the week. The clock depicts allegorical figures of gods, symbolizing celestial bodies.
The Orloj astronomical clock in Prague is a work of art with sparkling hands and graceful circles. They show not only time, but also years, months, days, sunrise and sunset, the position of the zodiac signs. Around the clock there are four moving figures: Death in the form of a skeleton rings a bell; Vanity looks in the mirror; Greed shakes a bag of money, and the Turk in a turban shakes his head.
By the 18th century, global exploration and trade forced watchmakers to find ways to accurately mark time. The famous English inventor John Harrison created a chronometer that allows one to determine the position of a ship at sea with an accuracy of 1°. The sailors knew how to calculate local time, but to calculate the exact longitude they needed a certain reference point, which became the Greenwich meridian.
Harrison's chronometer saved many lives and ships, helped in trade and travel.
Greenwich Meridian Line in London. You can stand with one foot in the Eastern Hemisphere and the other in the Western Hemisphere.
Stonehenge is perhaps the oldest clock. The position of the stones corresponds to the sunrise in mid-winter and mid-summer.
We all count the days, some until vacation, some until the weekend, and also until an anniversary or some other important date. We owe the ability to count years, months and even days to the creators of calendars. And each of us dreams of forever capturing the happiest day or the face of a child dear to our hearts, so that when we look at the photo we know on what day, year and month this event took place. How many calendars have been created in the history of the earth? Answer to this question Even the greatest scientists can hardly dare to give it with 100% accuracy. The only thing we can say with certainty is that every people who has ever lived on our planet had their own calendars that helped them keep track of time, and the design of the calendars, their form and methods of calculating time were very different from each other.
“Calendar” is translated from Latin as debt book. Its name is associated with the fact that Ancient Rome debtors were obliged to pay interest to the borrower on the day - kalends, which fell on the first of the month. Initially, the calculation of large periods of time was based on the movement of large celestial bodies - the Sun and the Moon, on the basis of which lunar and solar calendars were created. Today, a calendar is a periodical publication that contains a strict sequence of days, weeks and months, and it also necessarily highlights holiday dates of various types.
Where did the first calendar originate?
The first calendar was created in Ancient Egypt. It was based on the regular floods of the Nile River, which occurred at regular intervals. The creation of the calendar was due to the fact that the Nile floods destroyed the harvest if it was not harvested on time. In addition, during the flood, river water brought great amount fertile soils. And in order to ensure that the crop did not perish and was planted and harvested on time, the ancients developed a calendar based on the cyclical nature of the Nile flood.
Each nation had its own ways of dating important historical events. For example, some peoples tried to calculate chronology from the creation of the world. In addition, each of the ever existing religions had its own calendar.
Julian and Gregorian calendars
Transferring from one chronology to another was associated with a number of inconveniences, which was primarily due to the different lengths of the year, since in each chronology system the calendar year began on different days and even months.
The countdown of the year starting from January 1 was introduced in 45 BC in Rome by the great Julius Caesar; over time, the calendar was named after its creator - the Julian. Thanks to the Julian calendar, it was established average duration an ordinary year has 365 days, and every fourth year was considered a leap year and its duration was 366 days. The modern Gregorian calendar appeared thanks to Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 on October 15. The Gregorian calendar was introduced to replace the Julian calendar in force at that time and was called the new style calendar.
Mayan calendar
However, perhaps the most mysterious calendar The ancient Mayan calendar is rightfully considered throughout the world. The Mayan calendar was created in Central America by the Mayan civilization during the pre-Columbian period. It was also used successfully by some other Central American peoples, such as the ancient Aztecs or Teltecs. The main feature and mystery of this calendar is that it last date was December 21, 2012.
Vikram samvat
Another world-famous calendar is rightfully considered the Vikram Samvat or Samvat calendar. This calendar was once widespread in India. Its main feature is that the length of the solar day is related to the length of the lunar months. The Neapolitan calendar was later created on the basis of Vikram Samvat.