Indian Calendar
Indian Calendar
Indian Calendar
A calendar is a means of grouping days in ways convenient for regulating civil life and
religious observances and for historical and scientific purposes. The word is derived from
the Latin calendarium, meaning interest register, or account book, itself a derivation from
calendae (or kalendae), the first day of the Roman month, the day on which future
market days, feasts, and other occasions were proclaimed. (see also Index: chronology)
The development of a calendar is vital for the study of chronology, since this is
concerned with reckoning time by regular divisions, or periods, and using these to date
events. It is essential, too, for any civilization that needs to measure periods for
agricultural, business, domestic, or other reasons. The first practical calendar to evolve
from these requirements was the Egyptian, and it was this that the Romans developed
into the Julian calendar that served western Europe for more than 1,500 years. The
Gregorian calendar was a further improvement and has been almost universally adopted
because it satisfactorily draws into one system the dating of religious festivals based on
the phases of the Moon and seasonal activities determined by the movement of the Sun.
Such a calendar system is complex, since the periods of the Moon's phases and the Sun's
motion are incompatible; but by adopting regular cycles of days and comparatively
simple rules for their application, the calendar provides a year with an error of less than
half a minute. (see also Index: Egypt, ancient)
Collections by Aravind Iyengar
COMPLEX CYCLES
The fact that neither months nor years occupied a whole number of days was recognized
quite early in all the great civilizations. Some observers also realized that the difference
between calendar dates and the celestial phenomena due to occur on them would first
increase and then diminish until the two were once more in coincidence. The succession
of differences and coincidences would be cyclic, recurring time and again as the years
passed. An early recognition of this phenomenon was the Egyptian Sothic cycle, based
on the star Sirius (called Sothis by the ancient Egyptians). The error with respect to the
365-day year and the heliacal risings of Sirius amounted to one day every four tropical
years, or one whole Egyptian calendar year every 1,460 tropical years (4 ×365), which
was equivalent to 1,461 Egyptian calendar years. After this period the heliacal rising and
setting of Sothis would again coincide with the calendar dates (see the section below The
Egyptian calendar ).
The main use of cycles was to try to find some commensurable basis for lunar and solar
calendars, and the best known of all the early attempts was the octaëteris, usually
attributed to Cleostratus of Tenedos (c. 500 BC) and Eudoxus of Cnidus (390-c. 340
BC). The cycle covered eight years, as its name implies, and so the octaëteris amounted
to 8 ×365, or 2,920 days. This was very close to the total of 99 lunations (99 ×29.5 =
2,920.5 days), so this cycle gave a worthwhile link between lunar and solar calendars.
When, in the 4th century BC, the accepted length of the year became 365.25 days, the
total number of solar calendar days involved became 2,922, and it was then realized that
the octaëteris was not as satisfactory a cycle as supposed.
Another early and important cycle was the saros, essentially an eclipse cycle. There has
been some confusion over its precise nature because the name is derived from the
Babylonian word shar or sharu, which could mean either "universe" or the number 3,600
(i.e., 60 × 60). In the latter sense it was used by Berosus (c. 290 BC) and a few later
authors to refer to a period of 3,600 years. What is now known as the saros and appears
as such in astronomical textbooks (still usually credited to the Babylonians) is a period of
18 years 11 1/3 days (or with one day more or less, depending on how many leap years
are involved), after which a series of eclipses is repeated.
In Central America an independent system of cycles was established (see below Ancient
and religious calendar systems: The Americas ). The most significant of all the early
attempts to provide some commensurability between a religious lunar calendar and the
tropical year was the Metonic cycle. This was first devised about 432 BC by the
astronomer Meton of Athens. Meton worked with another Athenian astronomer,
Euctemon, and made a series of observations of the solstices, when the Sun's noonday
shadow cast by a vertical pillar, or gnomon, reaches its annual maximum or minimum, to
determine the length of the tropical year. Taking a synodic month to be 29.5 days, they
then computed the difference between 12 of these lunations and their tropical year, which
amounted to 11 days. It could be removed by intercalating a month of 33 days every third
year. But Meton and Euctemon wanted a long-term rule that would be as accurate as they
could make it, and they therefore settled on a 19-year cycle. This cycle consisted of 12
years of 12 lunar months each and seven years each of 13 lunar months, a total of 235
lunar months. If this total of 235 lunations is taken to contain 110 hollow months of 29
days and 125 full months of 30 days, the total comes to (110 × 29) + (125 ×30), or 6,940
days. The difference between this lunar calendar and a solar calendar of 365 days
amounted to only five days in 19 years and, in addition, gave an average length for the
tropical year of 365.25 days, a much-improved value that was, however, allowed to make
no difference to daily reckoning in the civil calendar. But the greatest advantage of this
cycle was that it laid down a lunar calendar that possessed a definite rule for inserting
intercalary months and kept in step with a cycle of the tropical years. It also gave a more
accurate average value for the tropical year and was so successful that it formed the basis
of the calendar adopted in the Seleucid Empire (Mesopotamia) and was used in the
Jewish calendar and the calendar of the Christian Church; it also influenced Indian
astronomical teaching.
The Metonic cycle was improved by both Callippus and Hipparchus. Callippus of
Cyzicus (c. 370-300 BC) was perhaps the foremost astronomer of his day. He formed
what has been called the Callippic period, essentially a cycle of four Metonic periods. It
was more accurate than the original Metonic cycle and made use of the fact that 365.25
days is a more precise value for the tropical year than 365 days. The Callippic period
consisted of 4 ×235, or 940 lunar months, but its distribution of hollow and full months
was different from Meton's. Instead of having totals of 440 hollow and 500 full months,
Callippus adopted 441 hollow and 499 full, thus reducing the length of four Metonic
cycles by one day. The total days involved therefore became (441 × 29) + (499 ×30), or
27,759, and 27,759 {division} (19 × 4) gives 365.25 days exactly. Thus the Callippic
cycle fitted 940 lunar months precisely to 76 tropical years of 365.25 days.
Hipparchus, who flourished in Rhodes about 150 BC and was probably the greatest
observational astronomer of antiquity, discovered from his own observations and those of
others made over the previous 150 years that the equinoxes, where the ecliptic (the Sun's
apparent path) crosses the celestial equator (the celestial equivalent of the terrestrial
Equator), were not fixed in space but moved slowly in a westerly direction. The
movement is small, amounting to no more than 2° in 150 years, and it is known now as
the precession of the equinoxes. Calendrically, it was an important discovery because
the tropical year is measured with reference to the equinoxes, and precession reduced the
value accepted by Callippus. Hipparchus calculated the tropical year to have a length of
365.242 days, which was very close to the present calculation of 365.242199 days; he
also computed the precise length of a lunation, using a "great year" of four Callippic
cycles. He arrived at the value of 29.53058 days for a lunation, which, again, is
comparable with the present-day figure, 29.53059 days.
The calendar dating of historical events and the determination of how many days have
elapsed since some astronomical or other occurrence are difficult for a number of
reasons. Leap years have to be inserted, but, not always regularly, months have changed
their lengths and new ones have been added from time to time and years have
commenced on varying dates and their lengths have been computed in various ways.
Since historical dating must take all these factors into account, it occurred to the 16th-
century French classicist and literary scholar Joseph Justus Scaliger (1540-1609) that a
consecutive numbering system could be of inestimable help. This he thought should be
arranged as a cyclic period of great length, and he worked out the system that is known as
the Julian period. He published his proposals in Paris in 1583 under the title De
Emendatione Temporum. (see also Index: historiography)
The Julian period is a cycle of 7,980 years. It is based on the Metonic cycle of 19 years, a
"solar cycle" of 28 years, and the Indiction cycle of 15 years. The so-called solar cycle
was a period after which the days of the seven-day week repeated on the same dates.
Since one year contains 52 weeks of seven days, plus one day, the days of the week
would repeat every seven years were no leap year to intervene. A Julian calendar (see
below) leap year cycle is four years, therefore the days of the week repeat on the same
dates every 4 × 7 = 28 years. The cycle of the Indiction was a fiscal, not an astronomical,
period. It first appears in tax receipts for Egypt in AD 303, and probably took its origin in
a periodic 15-year taxation census that followed Diocletian's reconquest of Egypt in AD
297. By multiplying the Metonic, solar, and Indiction cycles together, Scaliger obtained
his cycle of 7,980 years (19 ×28 ×15 = 7,980), a period of sufficient length to cover most
previous and future historical dates required at any one time.
Scaliger, tracing each of the three cycles back in time, found that all coincided in the year
4713 BC, on the Julian calendar reckoning. On the information available to him, he
believed this to be a date considerably before any historical events. He therefore set the
beginning of the first Julian period at January 1, 4713 BC. The years of the Julian period
are not now used, but the day number is still used in astronomy and in preparing calendar
tables, for it is the only record where days are free from combination into weeks and
months.
(C.A.R.)
Collections by Aravind Iyengar
COMPLEX CYCLES
The fact that neither months nor years occupied a whole number of days was recognized
quite early in all the great civilizations. Some observers also realized that the difference
between calendar dates and the celestial phenomena due to occur on them would first
increase and then diminish until the two were once more in coincidence. The succession
of differences and coincidences would be cyclic, recurring time and again as the years
passed. An early recognition of this phenomenon was the Egyptian Sothic cycle, based
on the star Sirius (called Sothis by the ancient Egyptians). The error with respect to the
365-day year and the heliacal risings of Sirius amounted to one day every four tropical
years, or one whole Egyptian calendar year every 1,460 tropical years (4 ×365), which
was equivalent to 1,461 Egyptian calendar years. After this period the heliacal rising and
setting of Sothis would again coincide with the calendar dates (see the section below The
Egyptian calendar ).
The main use of cycles was to try to find some commensurable basis for lunar and solar
calendars, and the best known of all the early attempts was the octaëteris, usually
attributed to Cleostratus of Tenedos (c. 500 BC) and Eudoxus of Cnidus (390-c. 340
BC). The cycle covered eight years, as its name implies, and so the octaëteris amounted
to 8 ×365, or 2,920 days. This was very close to the total of 99 lunations (99 ×29.5 =
2,920.5 days), so this cycle gave a worthwhile link between lunar and solar calendars.
When, in the 4th century BC, the accepted length of the year became 365.25 days, the
total number of solar calendar days involved became 2,922, and it was then realized that
the octaëteris was not as satisfactory a cycle as supposed.
Another early and important cycle was the saros, essentially an eclipse cycle. There has
been some confusion over its precise nature because the name is derived from the
Babylonian word shar or sharu, which could mean either "universe" or the number 3,600
(i.e., 60 × 60). In the latter sense it was used by Berosus (c. 290 BC) and a few later
authors to refer to a period of 3,600 years. What is now known as the saros and appears
as such in astronomical textbooks (still usually credited to the Babylonians) is a period of
18 years 11 1/3 days (or with one day more or less, depending on how many leap years
are involved), after which a series of eclipses is repeated.
In Central America an independent system of cycles was established (see below Ancient
and religious calendar systems: The Americas ). The most significant of all the early
attempts to provide some commensurability between a religious lunar calendar and the
tropical year was the Metonic cycle. This was first devised about 432 BC by the
astronomer Meton of Athens. Meton worked with another Athenian astronomer,
Euctemon, and made a series of observations of the solstices, when the Sun's noonday
shadow cast by a vertical pillar, or gnomon, reaches its annual maximum or minimum, to
determine the length of the tropical year. Taking a synodic month to be 29.5 days, they
then computed the difference between 12 of these lunations and their tropical year, which
amounted to 11 days. It could be removed by intercalating a month of 33 days every third
year. But Meton and Euctemon wanted a long-term rule that would be as accurate as they
could make it, and they therefore settled on a 19-year cycle. This cycle consisted of 12
years of 12 lunar months each and seven years each of 13 lunar months, a total of 235
lunar months. If this total of 235 lunations is taken to contain 110 hollow months of 29
days and 125 full months of 30 days, the total comes to (110 × 29) + (125 ×30), or 6,940
days. The difference between this lunar calendar and a solar calendar of 365 days
amounted to only five days in 19 years and, in addition, gave an average length for the
tropical year of 365.25 days, a much-improved value that was, however, allowed to make
no difference to daily reckoning in the civil calendar. But the greatest advantage of this
cycle was that it laid down a lunar calendar that possessed a definite rule for inserting
intercalary months and kept in step with a cycle of the tropical years. It also gave a more
accurate average value for the tropical year and was so successful that it formed the basis
of the calendar adopted in the Seleucid Empire (Mesopotamia) and was used in the
Jewish calendar and the calendar of the Christian Church; it also influenced Indian
astronomical teaching.
The Metonic cycle was improved by both Callippus and Hipparchus. Callippus of
Cyzicus (c. 370-300 BC) was perhaps the foremost astronomer of his day. He formed
what has been called the Callippic period, essentially a cycle of four Metonic periods. It
was more accurate than the original Metonic cycle and made use of the fact that 365.25
days is a more precise value for the tropical year than 365 days. The Callippic period
consisted of 4 ×235, or 940 lunar months, but its distribution of hollow and full months
was different from Meton's. Instead of having totals of 440 hollow and 500 full months,
Callippus adopted 441 hollow and 499 full, thus reducing the length of four Metonic
cycles by one day. The total days involved therefore became (441 × 29) + (499 ×30), or
27,759, and 27,759 {division} (19 × 4) gives 365.25 days exactly. Thus the Callippic
cycle fitted 940 lunar months precisely to 76 tropical years of 365.25 days.
Hipparchus, who flourished in Rhodes about 150 BC and was probably the greatest
observational astronomer of antiquity, discovered from his own observations and those of
others made over the previous 150 years that the equinoxes, where the ecliptic (the Sun's
apparent path) crosses the celestial equator (the celestial equivalent of the terrestrial
Equator), were not fixed in space but moved slowly in a westerly direction. The
movement is small, amounting to no more than 2° in 150 years, and it is known now as
the precession of the equinoxes. Calendrically, it was an important discovery because
the tropical year is measured with reference to the equinoxes, and precession reduced the
value accepted by Callippus. Hipparchus calculated the tropical year to have a length of
365.242 days, which was very close to the present calculation of 365.242199 days; he
also computed the precise length of a lunation, using a "great year" of four Callippic
cycles. He arrived at the value of 29.53058 days for a lunation, which, again, is
comparable with the present-day figure, 29.53059 days.
The calendar dating of historical events and the determination of how many days have
elapsed since some astronomical or other occurrence are difficult for a number of
reasons. Leap years have to be inserted, but, not always regularly, months have changed
their lengths and new ones have been added from time to time and years have
commenced on varying dates and their lengths have been computed in various ways.
Since historical dating must take all these factors into account, it occurred to the 16th-
century French classicist and literary scholar Joseph Justus Scaliger (1540-1609) that a
consecutive numbering system could be of inestimable help. This he thought should be
arranged as a cyclic period of great length, and he worked out the system that is known as
the Julian period. He published his proposals in Paris in 1583 under the title De
Emendatione Temporum. (see also Index: historiography)
The Julian period is a cycle of 7,980 years. It is based on the Metonic cycle of 19 years, a
"solar cycle" of 28 years, and the Indiction cycle of 15 years. The so-called solar cycle
was a period after which the days of the seven-day week repeated on the same dates.
Since one year contains 52 weeks of seven days, plus one day, the days of the week
would repeat every seven years were no leap year to intervene. A Julian calendar (see
below) leap year cycle is four years, therefore the days of the week repeat on the same
dates every 4 × 7 = 28 years. The cycle of the Indiction was a fiscal, not an astronomical,
period. It first appears in tax receipts for Egypt in AD 303, and probably took its origin in
a periodic 15-year taxation census that followed Diocletian's reconquest of Egypt in AD
297. By multiplying the Metonic, solar, and Indiction cycles together, Scaliger obtained
his cycle of 7,980 years (19 ×28 ×15 = 7,980), a period of sufficient length to cover most
previous and future historical dates required at any one time.
Scaliger, tracing each of the three cycles back in time, found that all coincided in the year
4713 BC, on the Julian calendar reckoning. On the information available to him, he
believed this to be a date considerably before any historical events. He therefore set the
beginning of the first Julian period at January 1, 4713 BC. The years of the Julian period
are not now used, but the day number is still used in astronomy and in preparing calendar
tables, for it is the only record where days are free from combination into weeks and
months.
(C.A.R.)
Collections by Aravind Iyengar
Babylonian calendars.
In Mesopotamia the solar year was divided into two seasons, the "summer," which
included the barley harvest in the second half of May or in the beginning of June, and the
"winter," which roughly corresponded to today's fall-winter. Three seasons (Assyria) and
four seasons (Anatolia) were counted in northerly countries, but in Mesopotamia the
bipartition of the year seemed natural. As late as c. 1800 BC the prognoses for the
welfare of the city of Mari, on the middle Euphrates, were taken for six months. (see also
Index: Babylonian calendar)
The months began at the first visibility of the New Moon, and in the 8th century BC court
astronomers still reported this important observation to the Assyrian kings. The names of
the months differed from city to city, and within the same Sumerian city of Babylonia a
month could have several names, derived from festivals, from tasks (e.g., sheepshearing)
usually performed in the given month, and so on, according to local needs. On the other
hand, as early as the 27th century BC, the Sumerians had used artificial time units in
referring to the tenure of some high official--e.g., on N-day of the turn of office of PN,
governor. The Sumerian administration also needed a time unit comprising the whole
agricultural cycle; for example, from the delivery of new barley and the settling of
pertinent accounts to the next crop. This financial year began about two months after
barley cutting. For other purposes, a year began before or with the harvest. This
fluctuating and discontinuous year was not precise enough for the meticulous accounting
of Sumerian scribes, who by 2400 BC already used the schematic year of 30 ×12 = 360
days.
At about the same time, the idea of a royal year took precise shape, beginning probably at
the time of barley harvest, when the king celebrated the new (agricultural) year by
offering first fruits to gods in expectation of their blessings for the year. When, in the
course of this year, some royal exploit (conquest, temple building, and so on)
demonstrated that the fates had been fixed favourably by the celestial powers, the year
was named accordingly; for example, as the year in which "the temple of Ningirsu was
built." Until the naming, a year was described as that "following the year named (after
such and such event)." The use of the date formulas was supplanted in Babylonia by the
counting of regnal years in the 17th century BC.
The use of lunar reckoning began to prevail in the 21st century BC. The lunar year
probably owed its success to economic progress. A barley loan could be measured out to
the lender at the next year's threshing floor. The wider use of silver as the standard of
value demanded more flexible payment terms. A man hiring a servant in the lunar month
of Kislimu for a year knew that the engagement would end at the return of the same
month, without counting days or periods of office between two dates. At the city of Mari
in about 1800 BC, the allocations were already reckoned on the basis of 29- and 30-day
lunar months. In the 18th century BC, the Babylonian Empire standardized the year by
adopting the lunar calendar of the Sumerian sacred city of Nippur. The power and the
cultural prestige of Babylon assured the success of the lunar year, which began on Nisanu
1, in the spring. When, in the 17th century BC, the dating by regnal years became usual,
the period between the accession day and the next Nisanu 1 was described as "the
beginning of the kingship of PN," and the regnal years were counted from this Nisanu 1.
It was necessary for the lunar year of about 354 days to be brought into line with the solar
(agricultural) year of approximately 365 days. This was accomplished by the use of an
intercalated month. Thus, in the 21st century BC, a special name for the intercalated
month iti dirig appears in the sources. The intercalation was operated haphazardly,
according to real or imagined needs, and each Sumerian city inserted months at will; e.g.,
11 months in 18 years or two months in the same year. Later, the empires centralized the
intercalation, and as late as 541 BC it was proclaimed by royal fiat. Improvements in
astronomical knowledge eventually made possible the regularization of intercalation; and,
under the Persian kings (c. 380 BC), Babylonian calendar calculators succeeded in
computing an almost perfect equivalence in a lunisolar cycle of 19 years and 235 months
with intercalations in the years 3, 6, 8, 11, 14, 17, and 19 of the cycle. The new year's day
(Nisanu 1) now oscillated around the spring equinox within a period of 27 days.
The Babylonian month names were Nisanu, Ayaru, Simanu, Du`uzu, Abu, Ululu,
Tashritu, Arakhsamna, Kislimu, Tebetu, Shabatu, Adaru. The month Adaru II was
intercalated six times within the 19-year cycle but never in the year that was 17th of the
cycle, when Ululu II was inserted. Thus, the Babylonian calendar until the end preserved
a vestige of the original bipartition of the natural year into two seasons, just as the
Babylonian months to the end remained truly lunar and began when the New Moon was
first visible in the evening. The day began at sunset. Sundials and water clocks served to
count hours.
The influence of the Babylonian calendar was seen in many continued customs and
usages of its neighbour and vassal states long after the Babylonian Empire had been
succeeded by others. In particular, the Jewish calendar in use at relatively late dates
employed similar systems of intercalation of months, month names, and other details (see
below The Jewish calendar ). The Jewish adoption of Babylonian calendar customs
dates from the period of the Babylonian Exile in the 6th century BC.
Collections by Aravind Iyengar
THE AMERICAS
The Mayan calendar.
The basic structure of the Mayan calendar is common to all calendars of Meso-America
(i.e., the civilized part of ancient Middle America). It consists of a ritual cycle of 260
named days and a year of 365 days. These cycles, running concurrently, form a longer
cycle of 18,980 days, or 52 years of 365 days, called a "Calendar Round," at the end of
which a designated day recurs in the same position in the year. (see also Index:
Mesoamerican civilization)
The native Mayan name for the 260-day cycle is unknown. Some authorities call it the
Tzolkin (Count of Days); others refer to it as the Divinatory Calendar, the Ritual
Calendar, or simply the day cycle. It is formed by the combination of numerals 1 through
13, meshing day by day with an ordered series of 20 names. The names of the days differ
in the languages of Meso-America, but there is enough correspondence of meaning to
permit the correlation of the known series, and there is reason to think that all day cycles
were synchronous. The days were believed to have a fateful character, and the Tzolkin
was used principally in divination. Certain passages in the Dresden Codex, one of the
three Mayan manuscripts that survived the conquest, show various Tzolkins divided into
four parts of 65 days each, or into five parts of 52 days. The parts are in turn subdivided
into a series of irregular intervals, and each interval is accompanied by a group of
hieroglyphs and by an illustration, usually depicting a deity performing some simple act.
The hieroglyphs apparently give a prognostication, but just how the Maya determined the
omens is not known.
The 365-day year was divided into 18 named months of 20 days each, with an additional
five days of evil omen, named Uayeb. In late times, the Maya named the years after their
first days. Since both the year and the number (20) of names of days are divisible by five,
only four names combined with 13 numbers could begin the year. These were called Year
Bearers and were assigned in order to the four quarters of the world with their four
associated colours. Unlike day cycles, years were not synchronous in all regions. They
began at different times and in different seasons, and even among Maya-speaking peoples
there was imperfect concordance of the months. Some differences may be due to
postconquest attempts to keep the native year in step with the Christian calendar; others
no doubt have an earlier origin.
The manner of recording historical dates is peculiar to the ancient Mayan calendar. The
Maya did not use the names of years for this purpose. To identify a date of the Calendar
Round, they designated the day by its numeral and name, and added the name of the
current month, indicating the number of its days that had elapsed by prefixing one of the
numerals from 0 through 19. A date written in this way will occur once in every Calendar
Round, at intervals of 52 years.
This was not good enough to link events over longer periods of time. Mayan interest in
history, genealogy, and astrology required accurate records of events far in the past. To
connect dates to one another, the Maya expressed distances between them by a count of
days and their multiples. They used what was essentially a vigesimal place-value system
of numeration, which is one based on a count of 20, but modified it by substituting 18 for
20 as the multiplier of units of the second order, so that each unit in the third place had
the value of 360 days instead of 400. In monumental inscriptions, the digits are usually
accompanied by the names of the periods their units represent, although in the
manuscripts the period names are omitted and placement alone indicates the value of the
units. The period names in ascending order are: kin (day); uinal (20 days); tun (18 uinals
or 360 days); katun (20 tuns or 7,200 days); baktun or cycle--native name unknown--(20
katuns or 144,000 days); and so on up to higher periods. By introducing an odd multiplier
to form the tun, the Maya made multiplication and division difficult, and there are in the
Dresden Codex long tables of multiples of numbers that could be more simply
manipulated by addition and subtraction.
To correlate all historical records and to anchor dates firmly in time, the Maya
established the "Long Count," a continuous count of time from a base date, 4 Ahau 8
Cumku, which completed a round of 13 baktuns far in the past. There were several ways
in which one could indicate the position of a Calendar Round dated in the Long Count.
The most direct and unambiguous was to use an Initial-Series (IS) notation. The series
begins with an outsized composition of signs called the Initial-Series-introducing glyph,
which is followed by a count of periods written in descending order. On the earliest
known monument, Stela 29 from Tikal in Guatemala, the Initial Series reads: 8 baktuns,
12 katuns, 14 tuns, 8 uinals, 15 kins, which is written: IS. 8.12.14.8.15. It shows that the
Calendar Round date that follows falls 1,243,615 days (just under 3,405 years) after the 4
Ahau 8 Cumku on which the Long Count is based. Stela 29 is broken, and its Calendar
Round date is missing, but from the information above, it can be calculated to have been
13 Men 3 Zip (the 195th day of the Tzolkin, the 44th of the year).
Normally, only the opening date of an inscription is written as an Initial Series. From this
date, distance numbers, called Secondary Series (SS), lead back or forward to other dates
in the record, which frequently ends with a Period-Ending (PE) date. This is a statement
that a given date completes a whole number of tuns or katuns in the next higher period of
the Long Count. Such a notation identifies the date unambiguously within the historic
period. The latest Period Ending recorded on a given monument is also known as its
Dedicatory Date (DD), for it was a common custom to set up monuments on the
completion of katuns of the Long Count and sometimes also at the end of every five or 10
tuns. The Maya also celebrated katun and five-tun "anniversaries" of important dates and
recorded them in much the same way as the period endings.
Period-Ending dates gradually took the place of Initial Series, and, in northern Yucatán,
where Mayan sites of the latest period are located, a new method of notation dispensed
with distance numbers altogether by noting after a Calendar Round date the number of
the current tun in a Long Count katun named by its last day. Long Count katuns end with
the name Ahau (Lord), combined with one of 13 numerals; and their names form a Katun
Round of 13 katuns. This round is portrayed in Spanish colonial manuscripts as a ring of
faces depicting the Lords. There are also recorded prophesies for tuns and katuns, which
make many allusions to history, for the Maya seem to have conceived time, and even
history itself, as a series of cyclical, recurring events. (see also Index: Yucatán
Peninsula)
The discontinuance of Initial-Series notations some centuries before the conquest of
Mexico by Spain makes all attempted correlations of the Mayan count with the Christian
calendar somewhat uncertain, for such correlations are all based on the assumption that
the Katun Round of early colonial times was continuous with the ancient Long Count.
The correlation most in favour now equates the 4 Ahau 8 Cumku that begins the Mayan
count with the Julian day 584,283 (see above Complex cycles ). According to this
correlation, the katun 13 Ahau that is said to have ended shortly before the foundation of
Mérida, Yucatán, ended on November 14, 1539, by the Gregorian calendar, and it was
the Long Count katun 11.16.0.0.0. 13 Ahau 8 Xul. Some tests of archaeological material
by the radiocarbon method corroborate this correlation; but results are not sufficiently
uniform to resolve all doubts, and some archaeologists would prefer to place the
foundation of Mérida in the neighbourhood of 12.9.0.0.0. in the Mayan count.
Correlations based on astronomical data so far have been in conflict with historical
evidence, and none has gained a significant degree of acceptance.
The basic elements of the Mayan calendar have little to do with astronomy. A lunar count
was, however, included in a Supplementary Series appended to Initial-Series dates. The
series is composed of hieroglyphs labelled Glyphs G, F, E or D, C, B, and A, and a
varying number of others. Glyph G changes its form daily, making a round of nine days,
possibly corresponding to the nine gods of the night hours or Mexican Lords of the
Night. Glyph F is closely associated with Glyph G and does not vary. Glyphs E and D
have numerical coefficients that give the age of the current Moon within an error of two
or three days; Glyph C places it in a lunar half year; and Glyph A shows whether it is
made up of 29 or 30 days. The meaning of Glyph B is unknown. There are discrepancies
in the lunar records from different sites, but during a period of about 80 years, called the
Period of Uniformity, a standard system of grouping six alternating 29- and 30-day
moons was used everywhere.
Occasionally included with the Supplementary Series is a date marking the conclusion of
an 819-day cycle shortly before the date of Initial Series. The number of days in this
cycle is obtained by multiplying together 13, 9, and 7, all very significant numbers in
Mayan mythology.
It has been suggested that certain other dates, called determinants, indicate with a
remarkable degree of accuracy how far the 365-day year had diverged from the solar year
since the beginning of the Long Count, but this hypothesis is questioned by some
scholars. The identification of certain architectural assemblages as observatories of
solstices and equinoxes is equally difficult to substantiate. So far,it has not been
demonstrated how the Maya reckoned the seasons of their agricultural cycle or whether
they observed the tropical or the sidereal year.
In colonial times, the star group known as the Pleiades was used to mark divisions of the
night, and the constellation Gemini was also observed. A computation table in the
Dresden Codex records intervals of possible eclipses of the Sun and Moon. Another
correlates five revolutions of the planet Venus around the Sun with eight 365-day years
and projects the count for 104 years, when it returns to the beginning Tzolkin date. Three
sets of month positions associated with the cycle suggest its periodic correction. Other
computations have not been adequately explained, among them some very long numbers
that transcend the Long Count. Such numbers appear also on monuments and indicate a
grandiose conception of the complexity and the almost infinite extent of time. (See also
PRE-COLOMBIAN CIVILIZATIONS: The Maya calendar and writing system .)
Collections by Aravind Iyengar
Aztec
"Calendar
Stone." The
calendar,
discovered in
1790, is a
basaltic
monolith. It
weighs. . .
The Mexicans, as all other Meso-Americans, believed in the periodic destruction and re-
creation of the world. The "Calendar Stone" in the Museo Nacional de Antropología
(National Museum of Anthropology) in Mexico City depicts in its central panel the date 4
Ollin (movement), on which they anticipated that their current world would be destroyed
by earthquake, and within it the dates of previous holocausts: 4 Tiger, 4 Wind, 4 Rain,
and 4 Water.
Collections by Aravind Iyengar
Aztec
"Calendar
Stone." The
calendar,
discovered in
1790, is a
basaltic
monolith. It
weighs. . .
The Mexicans, as all other Meso-Americans, believed in the periodic destruction and re-
creation of the world. The "Calendar Stone" in the Museo Nacional de Antropología
(National Museum of Anthropology) in Mexico City depicts in its central panel the date 4
Ollin (movement), on which they anticipated that their current world would be destroyed
by earthquake, and within it the dates of previous holocausts: 4 Tiger, 4 Wind, 4 Rain,
and 4 Water.
Collections by Aravind Iyengar
Bibliography
BIBLIOGRAPHY. An important book on both the development of the calendar and its
calculation and possible reform is ALEXANDER PHILIPS, The Calendar: Its History,
Structure and Improvement (1921). A shorter and more up-to-date reference is the section
on the calendar in the Explanatory Supplement to the Astronomical Ephemeris and the
American Ephemeris and Nautical Almanac (1961, reprinted with amendments, 1977).
Also useful are FRANK PARISE (ed.), The Book of Calendars (1982), a general
reference source with a number of conversion tables; and WILLIAM MATTHEW
O'NEIL, Time and the Calendars (1975). LUDWIG ROHNER, Kalendergeschichte und
Kalender (1978), discusses the history of Western calendars. VLADIMIR V.
TSYBULSKY, Calendars of Middle East Countries (1979, originally published in
Russian, 1976), examines modern calendars.
Babylonian:
See references to special studies in E.J. BICKERMAN, Chronology of the Ancient
World, 2nd ed. (1980). On astronomy and calendar, see OTTO NEUGEBAUER, The
Exact Sciences in Antiquity, 2nd ed. (1957, reprinted 1969); and his chapter on "Ancient
Mathematics and Astronomy," in the History of Technology, ed. by CHARLES SINGER
et al., vol. 1 (1954). On the later Babylonian calendar cycle, see RICHARD A. PARKER
and WALDO H. DUBBERSTEIN, Babylonian Chronology 626 B.C.-A.D. 75 (1956).
Current bibliography is published in the quarterly review Orientalia.
Other Middle Eastern: (Assyria):
HILDEGARD LEWY, The Cambridge Ancient History, 3rd ed., vol. 1, pt. 2, ch. 25
(1971); and, on the "week," see also The Assyrian Dictionary, vol. 5 (1956). (Hittites):
ALBRECHT GÖTZE, Kleinasien, 2nd ed. (1957). (Ugarit): CYRUS H. GORDON,
Ugaritic Textbook (1965). (Phoenicians): J. BRIAN PECKHAM, The Development of
the Late Phoenician Scripts (1968). (Mari): Archives royales de Mari XII, vol. 2 (1964).
(Iran): E.J. BICKERMAN in The Cambridge History of Iran, vol. 3, pt. 2, ch. 21 (1983).
Early Egyptian:
See NEUGEBAUER (op. cit.); see also his Commentary on the Astronomical Treatise
(1969); "The Origin of the Egyptian Calendar," J. Near Eastern Stud., 1:396-403 (1942);
and OTTO NEUGEBAUER and RICHARD A. PARKER (eds. and trans.), Egyptian
Astronomical Texts, 3 vol. (1960-69). RICHARD A. PARKER, The Calendars of
Ancient Egypt (1950), is a good source on the subject--all older material is out of date; his
"Lunar Dates of Thutmose III and Ramesses II," J. Near Eastern Stud., 16:39-43 (1957),
is important for later lunar dates. H.E. WINLOCK, "The Origin of the Ancient Egyptian
Calendar," Proc. Am. Phil. Soc., 83:447-64 (1940), is also an important discussion.
Early Greek and Roman:
For the octaëteris, see D.R. DICKS, "Solstices, Equinoxes, and the Presocratics," J.
Hellenic Stud., 86:26-40 (1966); see also his Early Greek Astronomy to Aristotle (1970).
STERLING DOW and ROBERT F. HEALEY, A Sacred Calendar of Eleusis (1966),
describes a calendar other than that of Athens. BENJAMIN D. MERITT, The Athenian
Year (1961), contains a reconstruction of the Athenian civil years. JON D. MIKALSON,
The Sacred and Civil Calendar of the Athenian Year (1975), includes useful
bibliographical references. For water clocks, see OTTO NEUGEBAUER and H.B. VAN
HOESEN, Greek Horoscopes (1959, reprinted 1978). WILLIAM KENDRICK
PRITCHETT, Ancient Athenian Calendars on Stone (1963), is good for the Athenian
calendar. See also his "Gaming Tables and I.G., I2, 324," Hesperia, 34:131-147 (1965);
and, with OTTO NEUGEBAUER, The Calendars of Athens (1947). Also useful are
BICKERMAN (op. cit.); and ALAN E. SAMUEL, Greek and Roman Chronology
(1972). For Roman calendars, see AGNES KIRSOPP MICHELS, The Calendar of the
Roman Republic (1967, reprinted 1978); and PIERRE BRIND'AMOUR, Le Calendrier
romain (1983).
Jewish:
The oldest systematic and complete book on the present fixed Jewish calendar is the work
of ABRAHAM BAR HIYYA (born c. 1065), known as Savasorda of Barcelona, that
bears the title Sefer ha-'Ibbur. A précis of this is contained in a section (ch. 6-10) in
MOSES MAIMONIDES, Sanctification of the New Moon, trans. from the Hebrew by
SOLOMON GANDZ, with an "Astronomical Commentary" by OTTO NEUGEBAUER
(1956), and supplemented in the "Addenda and Corrigenda" by ERNEST
WIESENBERG to MOSES MAIMONIDES, The Book of Seasons (1961). These treatises
from the Code of Maimonides are published as vols. 11 and 14 of the "Yale Judaica
Series." Additional details of the Jewish calendar of both the rabbinic and sectarian
varieties have been outlined by ERNEST WIESENBERG in "Calendar," and JACOB
LICHT in "Sectarian Calendars," both in Encyclopaedia Judaica, vol. 5, pp 43-53 (1971).
Indian:
The most complete account of the lunar-solar calendar of India may be found in "Indian
Calendar," ch. 5 of the Calendar Reform Committee Report of the Government of India
(1955). A good summary of the materials was published by JEAN FILLIOZAT in
"Notions de chronologie," an appendix of the encyclopaedic work on Indian history and
culture, L'Inde classique, by LOUIS RENOU and JEAN FILLIOZAT, vol. 2 (1953).
Chinese:
The Chinese calendar is discussed in JOSEPH NEEDHAM and WANG LING,
"Mathematics and the Sciences of the Heavens and the Earth," Science and Civilisation
in China, vol. 3 (1959).
Pre-Columbian:
The following are useful and authoritative references for the Mayan calendar:
SYLVANUS G. MORLEY, An Introduction to the Study of the Maya Hieroglyphs (1915,
reprinted 1975); and J. ERIC S. THOMPSON, Maya Hieroglyphic Writing: An
Introduction, 3rd ed. (1971), the most complete and authoritative account. See also
FLOYD G. LOUNSBURY, "Maya Numeration, Computation, and Calendrical
Astronomy," Dictionary of Scientific Biography, ed. by CHARLES COULSTON
GILLISPIE et al., vol. 15 (1978); and MIGUEL LEÓN-PORTILLA, Time and Reality in
the Thought of the Maya (1973). For the Mexican calendar: ALFONSO CASO, "El
Calendario Mexicano," Memorias de la Academia Mexicana de la Historia, vol. 17, no. 1
(1958); Thirteen Masterpieces of Mexican Archaeology (1938, reprinted 1976); and Los
Calendarios prehispanicos (1967). See also FRAY DIEGO DURÁN, Book of the Gods,
and The Ancient Calendar (1971; originally published in Spanish, 1867), containing
illustrated explanations of the Aztec calendar. For the Inca and related calendars:
ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT, Vues des Cordillères, et monuments des peuples
indigènes de l'Amérique, 2 vol. (1816); ALFRED L. KROEBER, "The Chibcha," in The
Handbook of South American Indians, ed. by JULIAN H. STEWARD, vol. 2 (1946,
reissued 1963); and JOHN HOWLAND ROWE, "Inca Culture at the Time of the Spanish
Conquest. Astronomy and the Calendar," also in The Handbook of South American
Indians. See also REINER TOM ZUIDEMA, "The Sidereal Lunar Calendar of the
Incas," in Archaeoastronomy in the New World, ed. by A.F. AVENI (1982).
For North American Indian chronologies, see the chapter by CYRUS THOMAS,
"Calendar," in The Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico, ed. by FREDERICK
W. HODGE, vol. 1 (1907, reprinted 1979).
(C.A.R./ J.D.Sc./E.J.Bi./ E.J.Wi./N.A.Z./ J.A.B.v.B./Ch.L./T.P.)
Collections by Aravind Iyengar