Megalithic Calendar

[Boreades]

Tisi, thanks, those couple of sites are a good reference, if only to confirm my worst fears i.e. the names of months are a complete and utter dog's breakfast. If it's not mongrolised Latin/Roman names, it's seasonal agriculture names relevant to the locale. Even the Jewish months names are a mess. Viz: the Jewish calendar was greatly influenced by the Babylonian system. For example, the Jewish months were designated by numbers or with agricultural references. Then as their months began to be called by the Babylonian names, the Hebrew names disappeared.

[Boreades]

However, hope springs eternal, etc.

The Qumran Calendar

This is fascinating in many ways, not least because it was forgotten for nearly two thousand years; it only resurfaced after the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS) were discovered and translated. One astonishing thing is the high proportion of the DSS material that relates to calendars. One scholarly estimate says 80%.

Most significantly, the Qumran calendar is a 364-day solar calendar, divided into four quarters. Which would immediately put it at odds with the traditional 354-day Hebrew lunar calendar. The Qumran feast days were fixed to this solar calendar. Again, that would have put the feast days of the Qumran community at odds with the traditional Hebrew feast days, and marked them as a different to the wider Jewish society.

A calendar with four quarters is strikingly similar to the Calendar of Enoch. Can it be a coincidence that the DSS also contain many texts on the Book of Enoch and the Book of Jubilees?

[Boreades]

The DSS also contain references to the Noahide Laws (The Seven Laws of Noah). The Talmud regards these as a binding set of laws for the “children of Noah” and all of humanity.

The Congress of the United States of America appears to agree with that, as the Bill that created Education Day (in honour of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the leader of the Chabad movement) contained these words:
Whereas Congress recognizes the historical tradition of ethical values and principles which are the basis of civilized society and upon which our great Nation was founded; Whereas these ethical values and principles have been the bedrock of society from the dawn of civilization, when they were known as the Seven Noahide Laws.

Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Laws_of_Noah
and: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_and_Sharing_Day

[TisILeclerc]

To add a little more confusion into the calendrical mix I've just been browsing the fount of all knowledge, Dwelly, and he tells us that the months could be held back depending on the weather. So March wouldn't start until the weather was good for agricultural purposes. They even have old sayings for this sort of thing.

'Màrt -àirt, sm Month of March. 2 Tuesday. 3 Time suitable for agricultural work. 4* Busiest time at anything. 5 Great haste. 6* Seed-time.
There appears to be considerable confusion in Gaelic proverbs etc regarding the first three significations given above for Màrt, as is exemplified in the following notes from Nicolson's Gaelic Proverbs (NGP), Waifs & Strays (W) and Carmina Gadelica (AC).
In the first place the old “months” appear to have been moveable and depended for the time of their commencement upon whether the suitable weather had already arrived. If the weather had not come, neither had the month, e.g. Luath no mall g' an dig am Màigh, thig a' chuthag, late or early as May comes, (i.e. as May weather comes), so comes the cuckoo. The Names of several months or rather periods of various lengths occur twice, while Màrt occurs no less than three times.
The comparatively modern Màrt O.S., which is still in vogue in some parts, (says AC in speaking of the months in general) being still used in an O.S. manner, does not commence until the orthodox calendar month is half gone. AC i. 245, ii. 263 & NGP 413, both make Màrt extend into April. Nicolson appears to have been puzzled, for his explanations are obscure. On p. 26 (NGP) he translates “an ciad Mhàrt” as the first Tuesday, while from a note explaining the same proverb, it is evident that he thought Màrt stood for March.
The first Tuesday of the sowing-time or times, would appear to be “an ciad Mhàrt de Mhàrt na curachd,” in the same way as there was a Bealltainn of the Bealtainn and a Lùnastal of Lùnastal. AC gives “gaoth gheur nam Màrt” (pl). NGP p. 26 speaks of three Màrts. W. iii. 218, 298, 299 speaks of three — Apr. 12 to May 1, Aug. 12, Sept. 12 — (This triple occurrence of 12 is noteworthy).
NGP says 1st week of April is too soon to sow, so he would appear to prefer the 2nd or 3rd week. Is fhearr an sneachd na 'bhith gun sian, an déidh an sìol a chur san talamh, better snow than no rain-storm, when the seed is in the ground, (p. 251) shows that sowing were better done when snow is out of season, i.e. late in April. AC says seed is winnowed by “gaoth gheur nam Màrt,” before being sown, therefore the Màrt or Màrts must be nearly over, i.e late in April, before the seed is in the ground. W. gives Apr. 12 to May 1, i.e. late in April. Another proverb, (NGP. 24) Am feur a thig a-mach sa Mhàrt, théid e staigh sa Ghiblean, the grass that comes out in March shrinks away in April, implies that seed should not appear till Màrt be over or else it will he killed by the weather.
On the other hand, NGP gives Is fhearr aon oidhche Mhàirt na trì latha Foghair (for growth), so the seed, to judge by this, ought to be coming up in March, or else that sowing ought to be done earlier. [It is most likely that it is not growth which is referred to in this proverb, as Nicolson supposes, but the winnowing referred to by AC]. NGP says Tuesday for sowing, AC prefers Friday. There was also the “fìor” or suitable Màrt.'

http://dwelly.info/

We are always told that March is named after the Roman god of war but perhaps it's named after the local cattle market. I'm sure that would make more sense to people more interested in where their food is coming from than what Roman gods were getting up to.

[Boreades]

Just for once, the confusion is illuminating!

The agricultural months would blow in the breeze (so to speak), depending on what the weather and migrating critters were up to. The names of the agricultural months would be in common language, as the common names used by the common folk. That's Brits to you and me.

Whereas, the astronomical "months" would have more sacred names, along with the zodiac names, used by ..... ???? (no please don't say the elite caste with their rituals)

I like "4* Busiest time at anything. 5 Great haste. 6* Seed-time."
As in, there's lots of marching up & down the fields to be done in March.

We are always told that March is named after the Roman god of war but perhaps it's named after the local cattle market. I'm sure that would make more sense to people more interested in where their food is coming from than what Roman gods were getting up to.

I think you've hit the nail on its head.

Just like I keep telling visitors round here when they ask "where's the castle?" The mundane reason (hilltop enclosures for people trading their wares) is a 100-times less exciting, but a 100-times more realistic.

[Boreades]

The contra-case is interesting as well. i.e. if the world used to spin faster what would happen? e.g. 360 days in a year instead of 365.

Presumably the water would go the other way, to form more of a bulge at the equator, and much of the arctic and antarctic region would become drier?

I must confess to an appalling blunder.

If the world used to spin faster, the day would be shorter, and we would have had more days in the solar year, not less. I think?

So, for those (like me) intrigued by the notion that we once had a 360-day solar year, I think it only stands up if the planet somehow used to revolve slower, so that the solar day was slightly longer, and there would have been slightly fewer solar days in a solar year. I think.

Does it matter that there would have been more than exactly 24 hours in a day? That worried me at first, until I remembered that there can be 24 hours in a day no matter how long the day takes, just like you can cut a pizza into 24 slices, no matter how big the pizza is. The modern precision measurement is only an artefact, not a true definition of the number of hours in a day.

The unit of time, the second, was defined originally as the fraction 1/86,400th of the mean solar day. But that was divorced in 1997.

Considering that a very precise definition of the unit of time is indispensable for the International System, the 13th CGPM (1967) decided to replace the definition of the second by the following (affirmed by the CIPM in 1997 that this definition refers to a cesium atom in its ground state at a temperature of 0 K): The second is the duration of 9 192 631 770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the cesium 133 atom.

[TisILeclerc]

If I could interrupt your scientific musings for a moment I seem to remember reading a book many years ago about there being once 13 signs of the zodiac.

I think the thirteenth was Arachnid or Ariadne. From what I remember there was a 'patriarchal' takeover in the ancient world and she was booted out. From being a beautiful woman spinning wool she became an ugly spider. A la Soviet unpersoning of persons. Or for that matter the ancient Egyptians erasing of inconvenient pharaohs' names etc.

I think the book was Arachne Arising by James Vogh. There is an intriguing review of it by someone calling himself Manny. I think this review is quite intriguing as he seems to sum up how ideas and thoughts can be manipulated.

'This almost unknown book, written by the late John Sladek under a pseudonym, is very good, and I warmly recommend it to anyone who is genuinely interested in how science works. Not because it's suddenly convinced me that there's a thirteenth sign of the Zodiac, called Arachne, the Spider, and that people born under it are psychic - I still have serious doubts about that. What's impressive is that it shows you how easy it is to be fooled by well-presented lies. Of course, the idea is preposterous; if you're in any doubt, he explicitly winks at you a few times. I particularly liked the ancient Babylonian calculations of the length of the nodical month (I'd never heard of it before either), which agree with modern values to within a tenth of a second. All due to that famous astronomer, Kidinnu.

But, despite everything, in the face of solemnly presented charts, statistics, anecdotes, historical arguments etc, I discover every now and then, to my horror, that I'm starting to wonder whether there might not be something to it. He's done a good job. So imagine what it's like when you don't know in advance that what you're reading is nonsense. I will be much more careful next time I review a scientific paper, and do my best to maintain a properly skeptical attitude. It's not enough just to note that what I'm reading sounds plausible. Kick it around. Does it actually make sense? I realize I don't think that way often enough. The book is a fine wake-up call.

I'm not sure I can present a decent summary of the argument, which is wonderfully bizarre and has a certain poetic force to it. The ingredients contain at least the following: there is an opposition between the forces of reason, identified with the Sun and Yang, and the forces of mysticism, identified with the Moon and Yin; the Zodiac we know is the "Solar Zodiac"; a lunar month contains 28 days, hence we have 13 lunar months in a year; the Solar Zodiac has 12 signs, but the Lunar Zodiac needs an extra sign; the ancient Druidic religion, forced underground by Christianity, used the Lunar calendar; 28 is a perfect number, and perfect numbers have mystical properties; there are connections between the Moon, Crete, the Minotaur (= geMINI + TAURus, you see), Ariadne, Arachne, spiders, labyrinths and threads; the missing sign of Arachne, the Spider, must be between Taurus and Gemini, to be exact between May 16 and June 13; psychic people are born disproportionally often during that period; and they consist of exactly 5% of the population, a number which he obtains to two decimal places (!) though some delightfully bogus astrological/genetic calculations. Sladek was an imaginative guy.

Oh, and while searching for a picture of the cover I learned that it has been translated into Japanese. How about that?
_________________________________________

Damn! Sladek got me! Four years after posting this review, I discover in Neugerbauer's The Exact Sciences in Antiquity that there really WAS a famous Babylonian astronomer called Kidinnu!

How many more Easter eggs are there in his book?'

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3951 ... hne-rising

Not to be outdone wiki tells us that some even say that there are fourteen signs of the zodiac. Arachne becomes Ophiuchus in this one. He's a serpent bearer in this one. It would appear that astrology can be a moveable feast in the same as was atomic timekeeping.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ophiuchus_%28astrology%29

[spiral]

Well spi...ders predate spinners and spinsters....

Looks like a trickster to me.

SPIRAL.

[Boreades]

Maybe it was making mythology out of the real change from the Jewish lunar calender (c.13 lunar months in the year) to the Essene/Coptic solar calendar?

As in the mythology is usually the fairy stories, originally invented as aide-memoires, but being simpletons we remember the mythology but forget what it was supposed to remind us of.

[Boreades]

I'm still trying to find anything substantive (not the usual crackpot Alien Invasions stuff) that might explain how or why the planet somehow used to revolve slower, to give 360 days in a year.