Ancient Times, Ancient Calendars & Clocks

somyajeet

Some Facts

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1. Warren Field site, Scotland

- Pits dug between 8,000 and 10,000 years ago;

- Configuration of the pits matches the lunar calendar;

- Central pit matches the mid-winter sunrise, which was a sort of correction don by hunter-gatheres to make corrections for the diffenrece between the solar year and the lunar year;

2. Babylonian calendars

- The Sumerian (and later Babylonian) calendar was a lunar synodic calendar of 12 months with a thirteenth month inserted when needed;

- No fixed days in the calendar;

- Each month (29 or 30 days long) started when there was a new moon;

- Babylonians considered every seventh day (after the first day of any month) to be an evil-day or a holy-day (which we now call "holiday").

Officials were not allowed to perform a range of activities on these days.

- The twenty-eighth day of every month was known as a "rest-day", and no one did anything except give offerings to the gods.

- The calendar consisted of three weeks each with seven days, and a final week with either eight or nine days, depending on when the new moon was spotted (a month of 29 or 30 days, since the synodic lunar month is actually 29.53 days).

3. Egyptian calendars

- 365 days with 12 months of 30 days each and 5 days added at the end of the year;

- Months were divided in 3 weeks of 10 days each;

- Months were simply numbered frm 1 to 12, and referred to as the sixth month, or eight month, etc.

- Egyptian calendar was merely quarter of a day off of the actual length of the year.

After one day every four year, Egyptians noticed the change in the position of the stars. Instead of making corrections like our leap year, Egyptians calculated the difference and considered it to be a cycle of 1,461 Egyptian years called the Sothic cycle.

After 1461 yars had passed, the star Sirius (Sopdet in Egyptian, and translated to Greek as Sothis) would just become visible at the horizon just before sunrise in Egypt.

4. Indian calendars

- Indian regional calendars are based on lunar cycle and calculate a sidereal year (365.256 days)

N: Gregorian calendar calculates the tropical year- 365.243 days.

- A sidereal year is longer because it calculates the time taken for the Earth to orbit the Sun using the fixed background of stars as a reference point.

Because the Earth's axis also roates (or wobbles), a tropical year is just a tad shorter than a sidereal year, and this was known in ancient India.

5. Clocks

- The oldest clocks that archaeologists have found evidence of thus far are possibly Chinese water clocks that have been dated to about 4,000 BCE (over 6,000 years old).

- Most of the ancient water clocks found across civilisations are outflow types - fill water to a mark in a vessel and it empties slowly, marking off how much time has elapsed.

N: The water clock or clepsydra in Greek (Source: 1001 Inventions That Changed The World)

N: They were to be only useful if someone was continuously on watch to refill the outflowed water in the end.

Fun Facts: A popular usage of clocks was to time a client's visit to a lady working in a brothel.

Facts: In Greek and Roman courts, clocks were used to time the defendants. They were lenient enough to allow more time for serious cases.

- Candle clocks were used at night, especially in China and Japan. There were not very accurate in telling time by measurement of burning out of the candle.

- The incense clock, which burned a stick of incense instead of a candle, were probably invented in India.

Oldest one was found in Japan but with Devanagiri script writing on them, which suggests that they were used by Buddhists and were perhaps of Indian origin.

The incense clock was a little more accurate than the candle clock, because there was no flame that would flicker and change th rate of burn.

{Source: digit dmystify- Time}

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soothsayer

wish you had added indian version of timekeepers too

Omega Castle

The months in the Māori lunar calendar
Most iwi (tribes) list 12 months in the lunar year.

Each month also had its own name, which sometimes varied between tribes.

Tūtakangahau, a Ngāi Tūhoe chief from Maungapōhatu, provided the ethnographer Elsdon Best with these names and descriptions:

Whiringa-ā-nuku (September–October)
Kua tino māhana te whenua.
The earth has now become quite warm.

Whiringa-ā-rangi (October–November)
Kua raumati, kua kaha te rā.
It has now become summer, and the sun has acquired strength.

Hakihea (November–December)
Kua noho ngā manu kai roto i te kōhanga.
Birds are now sitting in their nests.

Kohi-tātea (December–January)
Kua makuru te kai: ka kai te tangata i ngā kai hou o te tau.
Fruits are now ripe and man eats the new food of the season.

Hui-tanguru (January–February)
Kua tau te waewae o Ruhi kai whenua.
The foot of Ruhi (a summer star) now rests upon the earth.

Poutū-te-rangi (February–March)
Kua hauhake te kai.
The crops are now harvested.

Paenga-whāwhā (March–April)
Kua putu ngā tupu o ngā kai i ngā paenga o ngā māra.
All straw is now stacked at the borders of the plantations.

Haratua (April–May)
Kua uru ngā kai kai te rua, kua mutu ngā mahi a te tangata.
Crops are now stored in pits. The tasks of man are finished.

Pipiri (May–June)
Ka pipiri ngā mea katoa i te whenua i te mātao, me te tangata.
All things on earth are contracted because of the cold; likewise man.[1]

somyajeet

Omega Castle 17-4-2018 03:16 AM
The months in the Māori lunar calendar
Most iwi (tribes) list 12 months in the lunar year.

Thank you.

clive48

If someone can share a tool to create the ancient clocks, that will be awesome