debt book. In ancient Rome, debtors paid interest on the calendar day. Later - the calculation of large periods of time based on the periodicity of the visible movements of celestial bodies. A reference publication with a sequential list of numbers, days of the week and months of the year.
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CALENDAR
system of counting days in a year. In Ancient Egypt, there were two K. - lunar and solar. In different countries, calculations were often carried out from the beginning of the reign of a king or ruler. In Rome, chronology was carried out from the founding of Rome (753 BC), in Greece according to the Olympics (starting from 776 BC). In Mexico, a 52-year calendar cycle was known, starting in 3113 BC.
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"CALENDARS"
Calendars) - inventories and indexes of official documents stored in English. State public archive; published from ser. 19th century, contain hundreds of volumes. They give a brief summary of documents (often with significant excerpts from them), which allows the use of "K." as a kind of source. source. Most volumes are devoted to publ. State archive papers for the 16th-17th centuries. (“Calendar of State papers”), are published in three series: internal. policies (Domestic series), ext. politics (Foreign series), colonial politics (Colonial series), there is a special. series "K." on Irish issues ("Calendar of State papers relating to Ireland"). The volumes do not have a general numbering, but are arranged strictly chronologically - according to the reigns of the kings. For a complete list of “K.” published before March 1957, see the book: E. L. S. Mullins, Texts and calendars. An analytical guide to serial publications, L., 1958. See also the list of certain “K.” at Art. Great Britain (section Sources and literature for the article). G. R. Levin. Leningrad.
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Calendar
in Latin, calends - the 1st day of the month among the Romans) - a number system for large periods of time, based on the periodicity of the visible movements of celestial bodies. The most common solar calendar is based on the solar (tropical) year - the period of time between two successive passages of the center of the Sun through the vernal equinox. The modern calendar is called the Gregorian (new style), which was introduced by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 and replaced the Julian calendar (old style), which had been in use since 45 BC. (was introduced by Julius Caesar). The length of the year in the Gregorian calendar is shorter than in the Julian calendar, and averages 365.2425 days, which is only 26 seconds longer than the tropical year. The Gregorian calendar is more accurate, so it has fewer leap years, introduced to eliminate the discrepancy between the calendar and the tropical years. The starting point in it is the Nativity of Christ (or our era, or the new era). In Russia, the Gregorian calendar was introduced on February 14, 1918. The difference between the old and new styles was: in the 18th century - 11 days, in the 19th century - 12 days, in the 20th century - 13 days.
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CALENDAR
The calculation of time in Rus' before the adoption of Christianity was carried out according to the lunisolar calendar, which was reflected in the names of the months (see: January. February... December) in ancient chronicles and Slavic languages.
In the 10th century Together with Christianity, Rus' adopted the Julian calendar with Roman names of months, a seven-day week and the Byzantine era. The latter was established in the years from the Creation of the world back in the 6th century. Christian theologians, through complex calculations in connection with the Easter cycle, determined it at 5509 years. According to this calculation, the Christian Easter never coincided with the Jewish one.
Until 1492, the year began on both September 1 and March 1; with 1492, the beginning of the year, according to church tradition, officially becomes September 1. Peter I, by decree of December 15, 1699, decided to consider January 1 as the beginning of the year and calculate the calendar from the Nativity of Christ. Following December 31, 7208 from the Creation of the world, January 1, 1700 of the Christian era came. This calendar existed in Russia until January 26, 1918. With the coming to power of the Jewish Bolsheviks, it was replaced by the Western European Gregorian calendar, according to which in some years the Christian Easter coincided with the Jewish one and many centuries-old traditions of Orthodoxy were violated. The Russian Orthodox Church did not accept this blasphemous calendar and still continues to celebrate its holidays and significant dates according to the old style.
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CALENDAR
from lat. calendarium, literally - debt book; in ancient Rome, debtors paid interest on the calendar day - in the middle of each month), a system of notation for large periods of time based on the periodicity of the visible movements of celestial bodies. The most common is solar year, which is based on the solar (tropical) year. Modern K. is called Gregorian (new style); it was introduced by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 and replaced the Julian K. (old style), which was used from 45 BC. e. In Julian K., the average length of the year in an interval of 4 years was 365.25 days, which is 11 minutes 14 seconds longer than the tropical year. The length of the year in the Gregorian calendar is on average 365.2425 days, which is only 26 seconds longer than the tropical year. The Gregorian calendar is more accurate, so it has fewer leap years introduced to eliminate the discrepancy between the calculation of tropical years. In Russia, the Julian calendar was used, but the years were counted “from the creation of the world”; in 1700, the calendar “from the Nativity of Christ” was introduced. Gregorian K. was introduced on February 14, 1918. The difference between the old and new styles is in the 17th century. 10 days, in the 18th century. 11 days, in the 19th century. 12 days and in the 20th century. 13 days. A number of Muslim peoples use 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 give a lunar year of 354 days, which is 11 days shorter than the tropical year.
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Calendar
Calendar, a system for counting days and other periods of time, the periodicity of visible movements of celestial bodies. In Dr. In Egypt, one year or another marked the reign of a pharaoh or high priest. In Rome, years were counted from the foundation of the city (A UC - ab urbe condita), according to tradition - 753 BC, or, more often, with reference to the name of the ruling consul and emperor. In the 6th century. AD The date of birth of Jesus Christ was taken as the starting point for chronology, but a mistake of several magnitude was made in the calculations. years. Muslims use the date of Muhammad's flight from Mecca (622) as their starting point.
The earliest calendar in Rome was lunar, dividing the year into 10 months; later a 12-month system with 355 days a year was adopted. Pontiffs (priests) from time to time inserted additional. months, so that the year, at least in a rough approximation, does not diverge from the solar one. Initially in the first month. was March (hence "September" meaning "seventh month"), but by 153 BC. it was replaced by January. The months still carry Rome. name July (first “quincti-liy” - fifth) received the name. from the name of Julius Caesar during his lifetime, and Augustus (first “sextilius”) - from Augustus. Every month there were three named days: Kalends (1st), Nones (5th or 7th) and Ides (13th or 15th). In 45 BC. Julius Caesar introduced the solar system, which is still used today. The months were given the current number of days, and every 4th year was considered a “leap year” to compensate for those 6 hours that exceed 365 days in each solar year. However, the annual surplus of 11 min. 14 sec. by 1582 already amounted to 10 complete excess days. Specialist. a commission created by Pope Gregory XIII decided to skip these days. Catholic countries accepted this reform, and England agreed with it only in 1752, deleting 11 days from the Code. In Russia, the old code was preserved until 1918. The code was modified so that in each century only those years are leap years, the ordinal number of which is divisible by 4 (except for years ending in 2 zeros, but not divisible by 400 ).
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Calendar
lat. Calendarium - debt book)
in Rome, the name of the book in which the first days of each month were recorded - the calends, when debtors repaid their debts. Over time, the word acquired its modern meaning. meaning.
In the Roman calendar, the year initially had 10 lunar months, later King Numa Pompilius introduced two more months. Yu. Caesar, on the initiative of the Alexandrian scientist Sosigenes, carried out a reform of the kingdom, and from January 1, 47 BC. The solar calendar was introduced, which consisted of 12 months: Januarius, Februarius, Martius, Aprilius, Majus, Junius, Julius, Augustus, September, Oktober, November, December. During the Republic, the year was named after the consul; during the Empire, the year was counted from the founding of Rome, from 753 BC. the fifteenth days of March, May, July and October and the thirteenth days of the remaining months were called the Ides, the ninth days before the Ides were called nones (from nonus - ninth).
Greeks since 776 BC chronology was introduced for the Olympic Games. In Athens, the year was called by the name of the archon-eponym, in Sparta - by the name of the ephor. The month was divided into three decades; The names of the months in the Greek policies did not match. In the Athenian system, the year consisted of 12 months, 30 days each; after the introduction of months of 30 and 29 days (the year had 354 days), a thirteenth month was added a few years later. (For the Athenian and Delian calendars, see Appendix.)
Bickerman E. Chronology of the ancient world: the Middle East and antiquity / Transl. from English M., 1975. S. 16, 23-46, 175; Vinnichuk L. People, customs and customs of Ancient Greece and Rome / Transl. from Polish VC. Ronina. M., 1988. pp. 117-138.
Athenian and Delian calendars
Months of the Athenian calendar / Months of the Delian calendar / Months of the modern calendar
hecatombeon hecatombeon July - August
metageitnion metageitnion August - September
Boedromion Bufonion September - October
pianepsion apaturion October - November
Maimakterion Aresion November - December
Poseideon Poseideon December - January
gamelion lenayon january - february
anthesterion hyeros February - March
Elaphebolion galaxion March - April
munichion artemision April - May
Thargelion Thargelion May - June
skyrophorion panamos june - july
(I.A. Lisovy, K.A. Revyako. The ancient world in terms, names and titles: Dictionary-reference book on the history and culture of Ancient Greece and Rome / Scientific editor. A.I. Nemirovsky. - 3rd ed. - Mn: Belarus, 2001)
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CALENDAR
(English calendar), a cyclic system of time measurement. Its basis was the apparent movement of the Sun, which determined such units of measurement as the day and, with a greater or lesser degree of accuracy, the year. The lunar month is determined by the phases of the moon. Reconciling these three units of measurement is not an easy task because... none of them is a multiple of the others. The method of such coordination is the modern leap year. In Egypt (Sothic period) there was no attempt to combine them; the two K. existed in parallel and independently. A common method for determining the year is to link it to the reign of a king or other official (such and such a year of the reign of such and such a king of a certain dynasty). The counting of years from a fixed date began only in the classical era (the year “ab urbe condita” - from the founding of Rome in 753 BC or the year of such and such an Olympiad, the four-year interval between the Olympic Games in Greece, starting in 776 BC). The origins of the Mexican calendar in America are still unclear, although data from Monte Alban suggest that by the 6th century. BC. a 52-year calendar cycle was known. In other places by the 1st century. BC. (if not earlier) the long count system was used (Olmec, Izapa). Over time, all civilized peoples of Mexico adopted the calendar cycle, but the use of the long count was limited to the Maya region and adjacent territories. The calendar cycle consists of two cyclical calendars: 1. The 260-day Sacred K. was used only for ritual purposes and had nothing to do with astronomical phenomena. It was based on numbers from 1 to 13 and 20 names of days, each of which had its own hieroglyph. All possible combinations of day and number added up to 260, after which the cycle began all over again. 2. The solar annual calendar, consisting of 365 days, was divided into 18 months of 20 days each, plus a period of 5 “unlucky” days. Any day can be expressed in terms of both of these cycles. 52 years had to pass (73 sacred cycles or 52 solar) until the phases of both K. coincided again and the same combination was repeated. A simpler way of measuring time is by counting from a fixed date, as in the Christian era - the Mayan principle of long count (or "initial series", so called because their hieroglyphs are found at the beginning of Mayan inscriptions). This system calculates the number of days that have passed from an arbitrarily set point in time. For some reason, perhaps mythological, the long count begins with a date corresponding to 3113. BC, long before the appearance of developed cultures in Mexico. The Mayan secondary series present a K. adjustment formula, reminiscent of the modern leap year. Its goal was to prevent the 365-day solar year from advancing ahead of the true year of 365 and? day. On the inscribed steles, dates are expressed in terms of the official calendar cycle, the secondary rows showing how many days the 52-year cycle lags behind the exact date.
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CALENDAR
lat. calendarium, letters, debt book, so called because in ancient Rome debtors paid interest on the first day of the month, on the so-called calends), a system of counting time in various countries, which is based on the periodicity of natural phenomena, manifested especially clearly in the movements of the heavens luminary
At the initial stage of the primitive communal system, time was counted by the change of day and night, by months, and later by the phases of the moon: new moon and full moon (the concept of “month” as a period of time existed among all peoples). Attempts to establish the length of the year have encountered insurmountable obstacles, since the year does not contain either a whole number of days or a number with a certain fraction of a day. Determining the exact system for counting new moons caused the same difficulties. The incommensurability of the length of the year, month and day prevented the establishment of an astronomically accurate calendar system. Hence the many calendar systems and their reforms among various peoples.
Types of calculus - lunar (takes into account only the change in the phases of the Moon), lunisolar (takes into account the change in the phases of the Moon and the annual movement of the Sun), solar (based on the apparent annual movement of the Sun; a year of 12 months is 365 or 365 1/4 days).
Consistent counting of years in all calendar systems is carried out from some historical event.
K., accepted in our time, originated from the Roman. From the 7th century BC e. The Romans used the lunisolar system, according to which a year of 12 months with an odd number of days in each (out of superstition, the Romans were afraid of even numbers) was 355 days. Year Started March 1st. Rimsky K. did not know the ordinal count of days in a month. Counting was carried out by the number of days up to 3 specific moments within each month: calends - the 1st day of the month, coinciding with the new moon; nones - the 5th or 7th, - the day of the first quarter of the Moon; Ides – 13th or 15th – full moon (for example, March 8th was called “6th day before the Ides of March”, February 23rd – “7th day before the Kalends of March”).
In 46 BC. e. The Roman emperor Julius Caesar carried out a radical reform of Q. On the advice of the Egyptian astronomer Sosigenes, solar reckoning of time was introduced, according to which three years were counted as 365 days, and the fourth as 366 days. In the new K., only 1 additional day (bissextilis) was preserved, placed after February 23 (hence the Russian leap day). The beginning of the year was moved to January 1 (since from 153 BC, newly elected Roman consuls began their duties on January 1). The length of the months and the names of some of them changed: the month of Quintilis was renamed to July, the month of Sextilis to August. From the 4th century n. e. in Roman culture, a seven-day week was introduced. The reform of Roman history was finally completed only in the 8th century. n. e.
The new K., named Julian in honor of Julius Caesar, was accepted by the Christian Church (Council of Nicaea, 325) and passed to Byzantium (but with an ordinal count of days). In the VI century. Through complex theological calculations in connection with the Easter cycle, the 3 most accepted eras (time reference points) from the foundation of Rome were established, one of which is Byzantine, according to which 754 BC. e. from the founding of Rome was considered 5508, then moved to Russia.
In the VI century. in the West, dating of events from the Nativity of Christ arises.
Among the ancient Slavs, the year was divided into 12 months, the names of which were associated with natural phenomena: Sechen (January) - the time of deforestation; severe (February) – severe frosts; berezozol (March) – birch begins to bloom; pollen (April) flowering of herbs; grass (May) – the grass turns green; Cherven (June) – cherries turn red; Lipets (July) – linden blossoms; Serpen (August) – harvest time; heather (September) – heather blooms; leaf fall (October) – the time when leaves fall; Gruden (November) – from the word “gruda” – frozen rut on the road; jelly (December) – icy, cold.
In the 10th century in Russia, along with Christianity, the Julian calendar with Roman names of months, a seven-day week, and the Byzantine era is adopted. Before 1492, the year began on both September 1 and March 1; from 1492 "~ from September 1; from 1700 - from January 1; the Western European era from the Nativity of Christ was also established, following December 31, 7208, “from the creation of the world” came January 1, 1700 AD.
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CALENDAR (Luach Hashanah)
There is no data in the Torah about how the year was divided in the era of the patriarchs, but over time, when the sons of Israel settled in the country of Canaan and from nomadic shepherd tribes turned into a people of farmers, they began to divide the year according to seasons of field work, for example: plowing, sowing , harvest, threshing, etc. In the excavations of ancient Gezer, a clay tablet was found on which the names of the months corresponding to the agricultural seasons were carved in Hebrew script. In the Torah, months are named by their serial numbers: the first month (Nisan*), the third month (Sivan*), the seventh month (Tishri*); some by name: Aviv (spring), Ziv (shine), etc. In the books of the later Prophets and in the Scriptures, several names of months are mentioned that are still accepted today: Kislev * (Zchariah), Tevet *, Adar *, Nisan *, Sivan * (Book of Esther), elul* (Nehemiah). These month names, as well as the others used in modern Jewish calendar, were brought to Eretz Israel by Jews returning from Babylonian captivity. Jewish K. - solar and lunar at the same time. The time it takes for one revolution of the moon around the earth is one month. The month begins with the appearance of the moon in the form of a thin crescent (birth of the moon). The lunar crescent grows from night to night and, having passed its maximum size (full moon), begins to decrease in size until it disappears completely, and then reappears in the form of a crescent. A month lasts 29 days, 12 hours and three quarters of an hour. Since it is inconvenient to count a month in incomplete days, the Chazal* decided that a month lasts 29 days (incomplete) or 30 days (full), almost alternately. In ancient times, the beginning of the month was determined by the testimony of witnesses who reported to the Sanhedrin (in Eretz Israel) that they had seen the new moon. If there were no witnesses on the thirtieth day of the month, the Sanhedrin “rounded up” the month to thirty days, and the next day was considered the beginning of the month. The Sanhedrin announced to the Jews of the Diaspora through messengers the approach of the holiday. The management of K. was a special privilege of Eretz Israel, for months and holidays were determined in all countries of the Diaspora* by decree of the Sanhedrin, and the sages of the Diaspora did not have the right to determine the onset of holidays and the first day of the month according to their own understanding, even when they could calculate it accurately. If a messenger from the Sanhedrin did not arrive in a particular community on time, the Jews of that community celebrated for two days to avoid a mistake in case the Sanhedrin “rounded up” the month. Therefore, the second day of the holiday is called the “Second Day of the Diaspora Holiday.” When, as a result of persecution and persecution, the Sanhedrin ceased to exist in Eretz Israel, and a threat arose to the unity of the nation (if different communities stopped celebrating holidays and fasts at the same time), p. Hillel II decided to publish the Code, according to which the dates of holidays were established for all communities of Israel, wherever they were located. At the same time, he nevertheless obliged the Jews of the Diaspora to celebrate two days of the holiday in the future. Only Rosh ra-Shana* (New Year), which is also the beginning of the month, was celebrated over two days in Eretz Israel, so as not to risk violating the sanctity of the holiday. These two days were called "yoma arichta" (Aramaic) - "one long day." K., promulgated by Hillel, has remained in its original form to this day. The basis of Hebrew K., as already mentioned, is the time of the moon’s revolution around the earth. Twelve lunar months make up a simple year. Such a year lasts 353 days (an incomplete year, if the months of Marcheshvan* and Kislev* are not complete, that is, they last 29 days each), or 354 days (a normal year, if Marcheshvan* and Kislev* are complete), or 355 days (a full year, when both Kislev and Markheshvan are full). The lunar year is on average 11 days shorter than the solar year. Since the Torah dates our holidays to a specific season: Passover* - to spring, Shavuot* - to harvest, and Sukkot* - to harvest, the Chazal decided from time to time to add a month to the year (Adar* -30 days). Such a year has 13 months, and it is called “shana meuberet” (leap, or “pregnant” year). Our sages calculated that a period of 19 lunar years (small lunar revolution) is seven months (210 days) shorter than 19 solar years. Therefore, they decided to add seven months to 19 lunar years and thereby equalize them with 19 solar years. Thus, in every nineteen-year minor lunar revolution there are 12 common years and 7 leap years. Leap years in the period: third, sixth, eighth, eleventh, fourteenth, seventeenth and nineteenth. To find out whether a year is a simple year or a leap year, divide the serial number of the year (according to the Hebrew calendar) by 19, and if there is no remainder or the remainder is 3, ., 8, 11, 14 or 17, then the year is a leap year; if the balance is different, the year is simple. The sages established that the first day of Rosh Hashanah should not fall on Sunday, Wednesday or Friday. And if the new moon falls on one of these days, the New Year is postponed to the next day.
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Calendar
(from lat. kalendae or calendae).
1. The time reckoning system was already taking shape in the countries of Dr. East in the process of observing natural phenomena. According to other eastern system, a month of 29.5 days covered the time between two new moons. The basis for establishing the annual period was the time of the Moon's revolution around the Earth (for example, in Babylonia, 12 months with an alternating number of days - 29 and 30 - made up one year, numbering 354 days). The Greeks also used the lunar year as their basis for calculating time; As the methods of astronomy and observation improved, the Greek also improved. K. (594 BC - Solon, 432 BC - Meton, 320 BC - Calippus, finally, 2nd century BC - Hipparchus of Nicaea). Ultimately, the length of the year, in terms of maximum accuracy, approached the established one. now - 365.2420 days. However, the Greeks did not have a single calendar: each region adopted its own names for the months (about 400 names are known) and its own day on which the year began (between the end of June and the end of July). The Romans initially also calculated time in lunar years (the lunar year consisted of 355 or 377 - 378 days). The New Year began on March 1 - this is evidenced by the names. months, still accepted today, from “September” (proper “seventh”) to “December” (proper “tenth”). Subsequently, the first day of the year was moved to January 1, since from 153 BC. e. on this day the consuls took office (previously this ceremony was not associated with a specific day). In the 1st century BC e. Significant discrepancies were discovered between this other K. and the annual astronomical one. cycle, so Caesar called for the help of astronomers (primarily Sosigenes), who were supposed to carry out the reform of K. In 47 BC. e. Caesar issued a decree according to which the solar year adopted in Egypt was taken as a basis. K., and the next one, 46, should have consisted of 432 days in order to eliminate the accumulated difference of 67 days. In addition, Wed. the length of the year is 365.25 days and it was decided that after every three years of 365 days a leap year of 366 days would be “inserted”. To Rome K. recorded only three days in each month, each of which corresponded to the beginning of a new lunar phase (calends, nones, ides). Days were calculated in reverse order: for example, the day of May 20 was called “the thirteenth day before the June calendar.” The currently accepted calculation of days from the first to the last day of the month was established only in the 6th century. n. e. The names go back to Julian K. months accepted today: January (named after the god Janus), February (named after the annual cleansing rites - Februa), March (named after the god Mars), April, May (named after the goddess Maya), June (named after the goddess Juno - Juno); the month of quintiles (lit., “fifth”) began to be called from 44 BC. e. July (Julius) in honor of Julius Caesar, and sextiles (lit., “sixth”) - from 8 AD. e. - Augustus (Augustus) in honor of Emperor Octavian Augustus. Other names months also go back to this K. Attempts by Charlemagne or the leaders of the French bourgeois revolution to completely rebuild K. into German, or French. lads did not stand the test of time. The existence of different systems of chronology and calculation, often inaccurate, led to the fact that the number of days in a month and months in a year, as well as the method of including additional days, were not stable. Any ancient K., except for Rome, therefore had only local significance. In 1582, the Julian calendar was replaced by the Gregorian calendar (named in honor of Pope Gregory XIII), in which the system of “inserted” years was improved: in accordance with it, years whose ordinal number is divisible by 100 rather than 400 (1700, 1800, 2100, 2200) are no longer leap days. Thus, the difference with tropical. year on one day will arise only after 3400 years. This reform was first carried out. only in Catholic countries, the evangelical was adopted. church only approx. 1700, and the Orthodox - after 1914 - 1917. The idea of a new calendar reform arose back in 1930. Currently, its implementation is planned by the UN. The essence of the reform is the creation of a permanent worldwide calendar, in which the sliding of the days of the week by the numbers of the months would be eliminated. Therefore, each church holiday will also have a fixed day (currently church holidays are not associated with a specific day of the month). This project has still caused protest from Catholics. and the Orthodox Church, since, according to the decision of the Council of Nicaea, the day of Easter celebration is not fixed.
2. Designation of days of the year. In late antiquity, a calendar with pins was used, similar to our “perpetual” calendar. The 1st pin designated the day of the week - it was inserted into the hole under the image of the patron god of a given day (the row begins with Saturn, from left to right - see the figure, followed by the Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus). The 2nd pin served to indicate the month - it was inserted into the sector of the circle on which the zodiac sign corresponding to a given month was depicted, and the 3rd - to the left and right of the vertical columns - indicated the day of the month. It was customary to start a number of planets with Saturn, because it was considered the most distant planet from the Earth (of the planets known at that time) with the longest orbital time. Such K. tongue. eras were convenient, and therefore Christians willingly used them. On another K. known to us, with pins on top, 365 holes were made, corresponding to the number of days of the solar year.
rice. Calendar with interchangeable plates (from a stone slab of the 3rd-4th centuries AD, found in Rome).
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Calendar
lat. calendarium, from Kalendae - the first days of each month) is a system of dividing time into days, months and years, in which holidays are recorded in a special way. The science that deals with the calculation and division of time is called chronology. In addition to calculating the time required to conduct business activities, one of the most important goals of K. from his period. From the very beginning, holiday cycles have been about preserving the memory of what lay at the core of each culture. Therefore, K. has always been associated with rel. ideas, and in modern times - also with ideology (for example, the French revolutionary K.).
The first time division scale was introduced to humanity by an astronomer. phenomena, namely the apparent revolution around the Earth of two chapters. luminaries of the sky - the Sun and the Moon. K. are divided into lunar, solar, and lunisolar. Basic The difficulty in compiling calendar systems is that the number of days in both the lunar month and the solar year is expressed not as a whole number, but as a fraction, and the number of days in the solar year is not a multiple of the number of days in the lunar month.
In Babylonia in the beginning. III millennium BC a lunar moon was created with 12 months a year, beginning at the moment the birth month appeared in the sky. The spring equinox was chosen as the beginning of the year. The month consisted of 29 or 30 days. To ensure that the beginning of the year did not shift relative to the day of the vernal equinox, another, 13th month was added. From 380 BC a 19-year cycle was adopted, during which an additional month was added 7 times. Babylonian scientists who conducted astronomy. observations of the Moon, counting the day starting from midnight; This tradition has been preserved in modern times. K. The 7-day week also dates back to the Babylonian tradition: in ritual Babylonian K. they were designated by the so-called. “happy” and “unlucky” days, the latter falling, as a rule (though not always), on the 7th day or on a day divisible by 7, on which it was prescribed to avoid all activities; also the term Saturday itself, borrowed by the ancient Jews (?abbat, Greek ????????, Latin sabbatum), is of Akkadian origin (?abattum or?apattum - full moon).
In ancient Egypt, lunar K was also used at first; Later, the most ancient solar calendar was created, the year of which consisted of 365 days and was shorter than astronomers. tropical year by 0.24 days. Based on observations of the rise of the brightest star Sirius (Sothis) Egypt. The priests set the length of the year at 365.35 days, and this revised K. was probably introduced in 2781 BC. The year was divided into 3 parts of 4 months, which was associated with agricultural works: the period of the Nile flood, the period of sowing and harvesting. The year had 12 months of 30 days, which were divided into decades (10 days).
Ancient Hebrew K. Since the Babylonian captivity (586–537 BC), the Jews adopted the lunisolar K. The beginning of the rel. year, the Jews had the day of the vernal equinox - the 14th day of the month of Aviv, which after the captivity received the name Nisan. The civil beginning of the year was the harvest festival - 1 Tishri. The day began in the evening (Genesis 1:5). The number 7 was of great importance: the week consisted of 7 days, every 7th year was a “Sabbatical year,” and every 50th (the next after the 49th, equal to 7 and 7) was a jubilee year.
Ancient Rome. In ancient Rome, at first there was a lunar moon, the so-called. The year of Romulus consisted of 10 months, of which the 1st, 3rd and 4th were named Rome. deities (Martius (March) - from Mars, Martis - Mars, Majus (May) - from Maja - goddess of fertility, Junius (June) from Juno, Junonis - Juno); the name of the 2nd month - Aprilis (April) - goes back to the verb aperire - to open; the names of the months from the 5th to the 10th are derived from Lat. ordinal numbers: Quintilis (fifth), Sextilis (sixth), September (seventh), October (eighth), November (ninth), December (tenth). Then (probably by King Numa Pompilius) two more months were introduced at the end of the year: Januarius (January), named after the god Janus, the patron of the beginning, the entrance, and Februarius (February), the name of which goes back to Februalia - a rite of ritual purification (or , according to another version, to the Latin febris - fever, cold). In 153 BC the beginning of the year was moved to January 1, when Rome. The consuls took up their positions. At the same time, the previous names of other months were preserved in order, although, in fact, September now became the ninth, October - the tenth, November - the eleventh, and December - the twelfth. In the 1st century BC. the month of Quintilius was renamed in honor of the emperor. Julius Caesar in Julius (July), and Sextilius in Augustus (August), in honor of the emperor. Augusta. 7 months had 29 days, 4 months had 31 days, and February had 28 days. Since there were a total of 355 days in a year, the short (20 days) month of Markedonia was added every 2–3 years. The designation of the day of the month was associated with three chapters. days from which the countdown was carried out. The 1st day of each month was called Kalendae, the 5th or 7th day - Nonae, the 13th or 15th day - Idus. In March, May, June and October, the Nones fell on the 7th day, and the Ides - on the 15th, in other months - on the 5th and 13th days, respectively. The remaining dates were designated by counting from these three chapters. days of the month (for example, “on the eve of the November calendar” meant October 31).
Instead of an 8-day week called nundinae (literally “nine days”, because it included the previous day of rest), in the 1st century. BC. a 7-day week (septimana, hebdomada) was introduced. Each day bore the name of a certain deity: Monday - the day of the Moon (dies Lunae, hence Italian lunedi, French lundi); Tuesday is the day of Mars (dies Martis, Italian martedi, French mardi); Wednesday - day of Mercury (dies Mercurii, Italian mercoledi, French - mercredi); Thursday is the day of Jupiter (dies Jovis, Italian giovedi, French jeudi); Friday is the day of Venus (dies Veneris, Italian venerdi, French vendredi); Saturday - the day of Saturn (dies Saturni, English Saturday); Sunday is the day of the Sun (dies Solis, English Sunday). At the beginning ch. the day of the week was the day of Saturn, and since the time of imp. Vespasian (d. 79) - day of the Sun.
Julian K. The reform of K. was carried out by Rome. imp. Julius Caesar, after whom K. received the name Julian. The need for the K. reform was caused by the discrepancy between the lunar and solar cycles. The new K. was developed by Alexander. astronomer Sosigenes and introduced by Julius Caesar on January 1, 46 BC. The basis of the Julian calendar is the solar year with a duration of 365.25 days, i.e. 11 minutes longer than the astron. tropical year (365 days 48 minutes and 46 seconds). 3 years have 365 days, followed by 1 year with 366 days.
Christianity. Early Christ. communities first used Hebrew. K., whose influence was reflected incl. on the calculation of Paschal, associated with the lunar K. At the same time, the Church used what was generally accepted in Rome. empire of the Julian K., into which Christ was introduced. holidays. In the 7-day week, Sunday (Lord's Day) became the holiday.
With the development of astronomy, the inaccuracy of the Julian Q became obvious. His reform was undertaken by Pope Gregory XIII. Special astronomer. the commission developed a new K., which was called the Gregorian K. after the Pope. Introduced by the papal bull Inter gravissimas on October 15, 1582, it is currently time is generally recognized by K. all over the world. However, some Churches (including the Russian Orthodox Church) still use Julian K.
French revolutionary K. In an effort to overthrow the legacy of the past French. The revolutionaries also abolished the Gregorian K., i.e. K. of the Catholic Church, and on 10/5/1793 they introduced the revolutionary K., in which the era from the Nativity of Christ was replaced by a revolutionary era, the beginning of which was 09/22/1792 - the day of the proclamation of the republic. Instead of the previous names of the months, new ones were introduced: pluviosis (“rainy”, January), vantose (“windy”, February), germinal (“month of swelling buds”, March), floreal (“blooming”, April), prairial (“meadow ”, May), Messidor (“harvest month”, June), Thermidor (“hot”, July), Fructidor (“fruitful”, August), Vendémière (“wine month”, September), Brumaire (“foggy”, October ), frimer (“cold”, November), nivoz (“snowy”, December). Instead of a 7-day week, decades were introduced, and the days were named in accordance with their serial number: primidi, duodi, etc. Every day, instead of the memory of saints, was associated with agricultural activities. products (for example, “strawberry day”), animals (for example, “horse day”) or tools of production (for example, “plow day”). Ch. holidays included the capture of the Bastille, the storming of the Tuileries, the execution of King Louis XVI, and the fall of the Gironde. An attempt was also made to reform the system of dividing the day, in which there should have been 10 hours of 100 minutes, which would consist of 100 seconds. On January 1, 1806, the revolutionary K. was abolished by the Emperor. Napoleon I, later revived during the Paris Commune, but was in effect for only 2 months (03/18–05/28/1871).
Liturgical calendar is a system of moving and fixed holidays of the liturgical year. In the Catholic Church there is a common liturgist. Calendarium Romanum generale, which contains the generally obligatory holidays of the Roman rite; private liturgist. K., including the own holidays of individual Churches and monastics. orders; permanent calendar (calendarium perpetuum), containing holidays associated with certain dates; annual calendar (calendarium annuale), which lists holidays for a specific year; regional calendar (calendarium regionale), intended for a specific region or state, which is correlated with the general calendar.
The most ancient liturgists. K. are compiled in Rome in the 4th century. Depositio martyrum and Depositio episcoporum Romanorum.
Literature: Seleshnikov S.I. History of calendar and chronology. M., 1970; Bickerman E. Chronology of the Ancient World. M., 1975; Zelinsky A.N. Constructive principles of the Old Russian calendar // Context (1978), 62–119; Klimishin I.A. Calendar and chronology. M., 1985; Langdon S. Babylonian Menologies and the Semitic Calendars. NY., 1935; Kessen A. Le Calendrier de la RОpublique FranНaise. P., 1937; Parker A. The Calendars of Ancient Egypt. Chicago, 1951; Chronologia polska. Wwa, 1957; Denis-Boulet N.M. Le calendrier chrOtien. P., 1959; Winniczuk L. Kalendarze staroеytnych GrekЧw i Rzymian. Wwa, 1960; Goudoever J. van. Biblical Calendars. Leiden, 1961; Levi L. Jewish Chronomy. NY., 1967; Couderc P. Le calendrier. P., 1970; Zajdler L. Dzieje zegara. Wwa, 1977; ZwoРniak P. Kalendarze. Wwa, 1981; Adam A. Ostern alle Jahre anders? Zur Geschichte und Verbesserung der Kalender. Paderborn, 1994; Dziura R., Wisowicz H., Gigilewicz E. // EK 8, 351–375; Czas i kalendarz / Red. Z. Kijas. Kr., 2001.
The concept of time emerged from the observation of changes to which all material bodies around us are subject. And it became possible to measure periods of time by comparing these changes with periodically recurring phenomena. There are several such phenomena in the world around us. This is the change of day and night, the change in the phases of the Moon and the rotation of the Earth around the Sun. The problem is that the day (the period of rotation of the Earth around its axis), the month (the rotation of the Moon around the Earth) and the year (the rotation of the Earth around the Sun) are incommensurable with each other. That is, more cannot be divided by less without a remainder. Therefore, it was necessary to come up with a system that would reconcile all these incommensurabilities and be simple and understandable for most people. The history of solving this problem is the history of the calendar.
Attempts to harmonize the day, month and year led to the emergence of three types of calendars. Lunar calendars that coordinate the course of the day and the lunar month; solar, in which the day and year are approximately coordinated, as well as lunisolar, which coordinate all three units of time with each other.
A day is a unit of time equal to 24 hours. But not everyone knows that there is a difference between a sidereal day, which is equal to the period of rotation of the Earth relative to the vernal equinox, and a solar day, which is the period of rotation of the Earth relative to the Sun. The length of a solar day varies from 24 hours 3 minutes 36 seconds in mid-September to 24 hours 4 minutes 27 seconds at the end of December. Therefore, the average solar day is equal to 24 hours 3 minutes 56.56 seconds of sidereal time. One minute of sidereal time is equal to 0.9972696 minutes of mean solar time.
A month is a period of time close to the period of the Moon’s revolution around the Earth. There are synodic, sidereal, tropical, anomalistic and draconic months. Synodic – the period of changing lunar phases. Sidereal is the period during which the Moon makes a full revolution around the Earth and takes its original position relative to the stars. Tropical is the period when the Moon returns to the same longitude. Anomalistic - the period of time between successive passages of the Moon through perigee. Draconic - the interval between successive passages of the Moon through the same node of its orbit.
A year is a period of time close in duration to the period of the Earth’s revolution around the Sun. Determining its duration was one of the most important tasks back in ancient times. A fairly accurate value of this value was known in Ancient Egypt. The ancient Greek scientist Hipparchus determined the year to be 365 1/4 days without 1/300 days, which is only 6.5 minutes different from the modern values of the year. There are sidereal, tropical, anomalistic, and draconic years. In addition, there are Julian and Gregorian years. In lunar calendars, a year is equal to 12 or 13 synodic months.
The lunar calendar is based on the time interval between two successive identical phases of the Moon, that is, the synodic month. There are 29.5 days in a lunar month. In order for the beginning of each month to coincide with the new moon throughout the year, odd (empty) months contain 29, and even (full) months contain 30 days. The lunar year contains 354 days, which is 11.25 days shorter than the solar year. To ensure that the first month of each year falls on a new moon, in certain years an extra day is added to the last month. Such years are called leap years.
The lunar year is adopted among peoples who are engaged in cattle breeding, since it is the physiological cycles of animals that are associated with the lunar phases that occur during the month. People saw the Moon in the sky for about 28 days, dividing this period into 4 phases. Hence the division of the month into 4 weeks. Although, for example, in Byzantium they counted in “eight days” of the so-called trading week, seven days of which were working days, the eighth was market day. Among the Babylonians, seven days of the week were associated with the planets: Sunday was associated with the Sun, then with the Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn. The day ruled by Saturn, Saturday, was considered unlucky. Therefore, on this day they tried to refrain from any work. It began to be called Shabbat - rest. This is where the Jewish custom of abstaining from work on the Sabbath comes from.
The solar calendar was used by farmers, for whom it was important to correctly determine the start time of spring sowing. If they had used a lunar calendar, they would have discovered that the day of the vernal equinox, on which they began to sow, fell on different days of the lunar month. The solar calendar first appeared in Ancient Egypt. The year in it consisted of 365 days, which was shorter than the actual one by 0.2422 days. Its beginning was associated with the first pre-dawn rising of the star Sirius. The Egyptians had three annual seasons: flood, sowing, and harvest. Each season consisted of four months. Each month was divided into three ten-day periods (decades) or six five-day periods (pentads), for a total of 360 days. Another 5 days were added in honor of the gods Osiris, Horus, Set, Isis and Nephthys.
Initially, the ancient Roman calendar, consisting of 295 days, was divided into 10 months, named by their serial number: the first is Primidilis, the second is Duolilis and so on until Desember. The length of the year was associated with the beginning and end of agricultural work.
At the beginning of the 7th century BC. e. The ancient Roman king Numa Pompilius reformed the calendar, and 2 more months were added to 10. Now the length of the year was 354 days. In order for it to start in the same season, additional days were inserted. The first four and the newly added 11th and 12th received their own names. Martius was named after the god of war, Mars. Aprilis - either from the word aperire - to open, or from the word apricus - warmed by the Sun. It was dedicated to Venus. Maius was dedicated to the Earth goddess Maya. Junius to the sky goddess Juno. Januaris, the penultimate month of the calendar, was dedicated to the god Janus - the god of heaven, or, according to another version, the god of entrances and exits. It was believed that he opened the gates to the Sun in the morning and closed them in the evening. The last month was dedicated to the god of the underworld Februs.
Even in Ancient Egypt, due to the discrepancy between the beginning of the calendar year and the beginning of the tropical year, the beginning of the calendar year lagged behind by about one day in four years. Attempts were made to make corrections. So, in 238 BC. e. King Everget issued a decree according to which, once every four years, after the end of the additional days before the beginning of the new year, it was prescribed to celebrate the holiday of the gods of Everget. But this reform was carried out in Egypt much later. It is associated with the name of Julius Caesar. He invited the Alexandrian astronomer and mathematician Sosigenes to Rome. The latter developed a calendar reform, which was approved in 46 BC. e.
January 1 was taken as the beginning of the year. In the new calendar, the year had 365.25 days. Every fourth year was supposed to contain 366 days. The augmented year was called annus bissextus, which is where the word leap year comes from. The Julian calendar accumulates a difference equal to approximately 1 day every 128 years.
Along with the calendar, the starting point of chronology is of great importance. Different countries had their own calendar era. In Ancient Greece, the countdown began from the first Olympics - July 1, 776 BC. e.; in Ancient Rome from the founding of Rome - April 21, 753 BC. e.; The starting date of the Byzantine era was the creation of the world on September 1, 5508 BC. e. and etc.
In the 4th century AD e. Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire. In 325, the Council of Nicaea adopted the Julian calendar and established uniform Christian holidays for the entire empire, primarily Easter. The so-called “Easter limit” was adopted, which begins on the first day following the vernal equinox and ends on April 25. Due to the fact that Christianity became the dominant religion in Western Europe, it was decided to establish a new era, the beginning of which was associated with the date of birth of Jesus Christ. The monk Dionysius the Small calculated this date. But the chronology from the Nativity of Christ spread throughout the world very slowly. Thus, in Russia it was introduced by decree of Peter the Great only in 1700 to replace chronology from the creation of the world. New Year has moved from September 1st to January 1st.
During the Middle Ages, the definition of the equinox on March 21st became noticeably inconsistent with the actual spring equinox. In the 16th century, the difference was almost 10 days. In 1581, by decree of Pope Gregory XIII, a commission was created. She accepted for consideration the calendar developed in 1576 by Luigi Lilio, a professor at the University of Perugia. On February 24, Gregory XIII issued a bull introducing a new calendar. The count of days moved forward 10 days. To avoid repetition of errors, those years whose number ends in 00 and whose number of centuries is not divisible by 4 without a remainder are not considered leap years. So the years 1600 and 2000 were leap years, and the years 1700, 1800 and 1900 contained 365 days.
In 1582, the Gregorian calendar was legalized in Italy, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, France, and also in Catholic Denmark. In Soviet Russia, the Gregorian calendar was introduced by decree of the Council of People's Commissars only in 1918.
In countries whose state religion is Islam, lunar calendars are mainly common. In each 30-year period of this calendar, 19 years have 354 days each and 11 leap years have 355 days each. The calendar is calculated from July 16, 622, the date of the migration of the founder of Islam, the Prophet Muhammad, from Mecca to Medina. This date is called hijra (in Arabic - “relocation”). Friday is considered a holiday for Muslims.
The creators of lunisolar calendars saw their task as harmonizing the lunar and solar timing. They are adopted, in particular, in Israel and Iran. The modern Israeli calendar replaced the lunar Hebrew calendar, the number of days in which was 354. The new calendar introduced an additional 13th month, lasting 30 days. It is inserted seven times every 19 years. A year with 13 months is considered a leap year and is called “Ibbur”. The Jewish calendar is calculated from the date of creation of the world - October 7, 3761 BC. e. Until the end of the 3rd century. BC e. the new year began with the spring month of Nisan. Then the beginning of the year was moved to the autumn month of Tishri. Saturday is considered a holiday for Jews.
In Iran, in addition to the lunar Hijri calendar, adopted in other Muslim states, and the Gregorian calendar, the solar Hijri calendar is also widespread, also counting from July 16, 622. The year begins when the Sun is in the sign of Aries, which corresponds to March 20, 21 or 22. It contains 365 or 366 days. Leap years are arranged according to the following scheme: in each 33-year cycle there are 8 leap years, 7 of which repeat every 4 years, and the eighth - after 5 years. The week starts on Saturday. Official non-working day is Friday.
In the countries of East and Southeast Asia, in particular China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, a 60-year calendar cycle is adopted. It is a chronological system based on the astronomical cycles of the Sun, Earth, Moon, Jupiter and Saturn. Observing the movements of the large planets - Jupiter and Saturn, astronomers of the Ancient East established that Jupiter completes its circuit in about 12 years, Saturn - in about 30 years. The cycle was based on the time of two revolutions of Saturn and five revolutions of Jupiter.
This corresponded to the worldview of Chinese natural philosophy: the number five was a symbol of the five elements of nature - wood, fire, metal, water, earth, which corresponded to the colors blue or green, red, yellow, white, black. Since China and other East Asian countries have a 12-year animal cycle, each year has a corresponding animal: mouse (rat), cow (bull), tiger, hare (cat), dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog, boar Thus, in a 60-year cycle, the same animals are repeated five times. To clarify the year within the cycle, color symbolism is used.
The year in this calendar begins on the new moon, when the Sun is in the sign of Aquarius, that is, in the period from January 21 to February 20. The length of a year can be 353, 354, 355 or 383, 384, 385 days.
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A calendar is a number system for large periods of time, based on the periodicity of the visible movements of 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.
Even in those 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 longest night. This day of the longest night and shortest 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 - Mithras. 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 (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 in the last years of centuries were removed from the calendar: 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 a seven-day week was in effect. 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 the Julian calendar, “lagging” behind European countries by 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, 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 make up a lunar year of 354 days, which is 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 lunisolar calendar is used by Jews who profess Judaism to calculate the dates of religious holidays.
Calendar- a number system for large periods of time, based on the periodicity of the movement of celestial bodies.
In order to somehow coordinate the day, month and year, many calendars were created by different peoples in different eras. All of them can be divided into three main types: lunar(which were based on the periodicity of the Moon’s movement), solar(respectively, on the periodicity of the Sun’s movement) and lunisolar(which were based on the periods of movement of the Moon and the Sun).
Word "calendar" comes from Latin calendarium - that was the name of the debt book in Ancient Rome: debtors paid interest on the day of the calendar, the first of the month.
His homeland is Babylon. In this calendar, the year consisted of 12 lunar months, which had 29 or 30 days. The Muslim lunar calendar still exists today in some Arab countries. The number of days in months in this calendar changes so that the first day of the month begins with the new moon. The length of the year is 354 or 355 average solar days. Thus, it is shorter than the solar year by 10 days.
Solar calendar
The first solar calendars appeared in Ancient Egypt several thousand years BC. For them, a year was the period of time between two successive heliacal risings of Sirius, the brightest star in the sky. They noticed that the pre-dawn risings of Sirius approximately coincided with the beginning of the Nile flood, and their harvest depended on this. Observations of the appearance of Sirius made it possible to determine the length of the year - 360, and then 365 days. Based on these observations, a solar calendar was created: the year was divided into 12 months of 30 days each. The year was also divided into 3 seasons of 4 months each: the time of the Nile flood, the time of sowing, the time of harvest. After clarifying the duration of the solar year, an additional 5 days were added at the end of the year.
And the solar calendar, which is now used by almost all countries of the world, originated with the ancient Romans. Already from the middle of the 8th century. BC. they used a calendar in which the year consisted of 10 months and contained 304 days. In the 7th century BC. its reform was carried out: 2 more months were added to the calendar year, and the number of days was increased to 355. But it did not correspond to natural phenomena and therefore every 2 years an additional month was inserted, which alternately contained either 22 or 23 days. Thus, every 4 years consisted of two years of 355 days and two extended ones of 377 and 378 days.
But this created a fair amount of confusion, because changing the continuation of the months was the responsibility of the priests, who sometimes abused their power and arbitrarily lengthened or shortened the year.
In 46 BC. a new reform of the Roman calendar was carried out, carried out by Julius Caesar, a Roman statesman and commander. This is where the name comes from Julian calendar. The count began on January 1, 45 BC. In 325, the Julian calendar was adopted by Byzantium.
But the vernal equinox receded by 1 day every 128 years according to the Julian calendar; in the 16th century it was already 10 days behind, which complicated the calculations of church holidays. Therefore, the head of the Catholic Church, Pope Gregory XIII, convened a commission to create a calendar according to which the day of the vernal equinox would return to March 21 and would no longer deviate from this date. The new system became known as Gregorian calendar, or a new style. In Russia, the new style was adopted only in 1918, although in most European countries it was introduced in the 16th and 17th centuries.
This is a more advanced calendar in which the lunar months are approximately consistent with the solar year. The first such calendars appeared in Ancient Greece in the 1st millennium BC. The year according to this calendar was divided into 12 months, starting with the new moon. To connect with the seasons (solar year), an additional 13th month was inserted. This system has been preserved in the Jewish calendar to this day.
Story
Each nation used its own methods of dating historical events. Some tried to count the years from the creation of the world: the Jews dated it to 3761 BC. e., Alexandrian chronology considered this date to be May 25, 5493 BC. e. The Romans began counting from the legendary foundation of Rome (753 BC). The Parthians, Bithynians and others counted the years from the accession to the throne of the first king, the Egyptians - from the beginning of the reign of each subsequent dynasty. Each world religion founded its own calendar: according to the Byzantine calendar, the year is 7521 from the Creation of the World, in Islam - 1433 Hijri, according to the Buddhist calendar, the year is 2555 of the Nirvana era, according to the Bahai calendar - 168.
Conversion from one calendar to another is difficult due to the different lengths of the year and due to the different start date of the year in different systems.
What about in Russia?
In Ancient Rus', time was counted according to the four seasons of the year. A lunisolar calendar was also used, in which seven additional months were included every 19 years. There was a seven-day week (week).
After the establishment of Christianity in 988, years began to be counted according to the Julian calendar from the “creation of the world,” or more precisely, from the “creation of Adam” - from Friday March 1st, accepting the Byzantine version of this date - 5508 BC, but with some deviations. In Byzantium, the year began on September 1. In Rus', according to ancient tradition, spring was considered the beginning of the year, so the year began on March 1.
During the time of Ivan III in 1492 (7000 from the “creation of the world”) the beginning of the year was moved on September 1. The first printed church calendar in Russia was made on May 5, 1581. Ivan Fedorov.
Peter I replaced the chronology in force in Russia from the “creation of the world” with the chronology from the Nativity of Christ from January 1, 1700 (the difference between the two chronology systems is 5508 years). By decree of the emperor of December 19 (29), 1699, it was necessary January 1 (11) 1700 “...and on the 1st of the next January the new year of 1700 and a new centennial century will begin...” On December 28, 1708, the first civil calendar was issued.
The difference between the old and new styles was 10 days in the 16th-17th centuries, 11 days in the 18th century, 12 days in the 19th century, and 13 days in the 20th-21st centuries.
As mentioned earlier, the Gregorian calendar was introduced in Soviet Russia on February 14, 1918. From 1930 to 1940, the Soviet revolutionary calendar was used.
During the operation of the Soviet revolutionary calendar, in parallel, in some cases, the Gregorian calendar was used. On August 26, 1929, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, in its resolution “On the transition to continuous production in enterprises and institutions of the USSR,” recognized the need to begin a systematic and consistent transfer of enterprises and institutions to continuous production from the 1929-1930 business year. The transition to “continuous work”, which began in the fall of 1929, was consolidated in the spring of 1930. A unified production timesheet was introduced. The calendar year had 360 days and, accordingly, 72 five-day periods. It was decided to consider the remaining 5 days as holidays.
The picture shows a report card for 1939. In fact, this is a calendar for any year, the only difference is the presence or absence of February 29. Therefore, on the one hand, this calendar can be called permanent. However, the six-day days (that is, weeks) were not continuous, since the thirty-first days of the month were not included in the six-day days. It is also interesting that after the fourth day of the six-day week - February 28 - the first day of the six-day week comes immediately - March 1.
The week in the USSR in 1929-1930 consisted of five days, while all workers were divided into five groups, named by color (yellow, pink, red, purple, green), and each group had its own day off (non-working day). week (the so-called “continuous”). Despite the fact that there were more days off (one per five-day week, instead of one per seven-day week previously), this reform was unpopular, as it significantly complicated personal, social and family life due to the discrepancy between the days off of different members of society.
Despite the fact that chronology continued according to the Gregorian calendar, in some cases the date was indicated as “NN year of the socialist revolution,” with a starting point of November 7, 1917. The phrase “NN year of the socialist revolution” was present in tear-off and flip calendars until 1991 inclusive - until the collapse of the USSR. As an artistic device, the countdown of years from the October Revolution is present in the novel by M.A. Bulgakov "The White Guard".
But…
The beginning of the calendar year is a relative concept. At different times in different countries, the new year began on March 25, and December 25, as well as on other days. 12 months a year and 7 days a week is also a conditional concept, although it has an astronomical justification.
The establishment of an era is also conditional. There were more than 200 different eras associated with various real or religious events.
The system of counting years from the Nativity of Christ is now accepted by most states and is called AD(or new era).
CALENDAR
(from Latin calendae or kalendae, "calends" - the name of the first day of the month among the ancient Romans), a way of dividing the year into convenient periodic intervals of time. The main tasks of the calendar are: a) fixing dates and b) measuring time intervals. For example, task (a) involves recording the dates of natural phenomena, both periodic - equinoxes, eclipses, tides - and non-periodic, such as earthquakes. The calendar allows you to record historical and social events in their chronological sequence. One of the important tasks of the calendar is to determine the moments of church events and “drifting” holidays (for example, Easter). Function (b) of the calendar is used in the public sphere and in everyday life, where interest payments, wages and other business relationships are based on specific time intervals. Many statistical and scientific studies also use time intervals. There are three main types of calendars: 1) lunar, 2) solar and 3) lunisolar. The lunar calendar is based on the length of the synodic, or lunar month (29.53059 days), determined by the period of change of lunar phases; the length of the solar year is not taken into account. An example of a lunar calendar is the Muslim calendar. Most peoples who use the lunar calendar consider the months to alternately consist of 29 or 30 days, so the average length of a month is 29.5 days. The length of the lunar year in this calendar is 12·29.5 = 354 days. The true lunar year, consisting of 12 synodic months, contains 354.3671 days. The calendar does not take this fractional part into account; Thus, over 30 years, a discrepancy of 11.012 days accumulates. Adding these 11 days every 30 years restores the calendar to the lunar phases. The main disadvantage of the lunar calendar is that its year is 11 days shorter than the solar year; therefore, the beginning of certain seasons according to the lunar calendar occurs year after year on increasingly later dates, which causes certain difficulties in public life. The solar calendar is consistent with the length of the solar year; in it, the beginning and duration of calendar months are not related to the change of lunar phases. The ancient Egyptians and Mayans had solar calendars; Nowadays, most countries also use the solar calendar. A true solar year contains 365.2422 days; but the civil calendar, to be convenient, must contain an integer number of days, therefore in the solar calendar an ordinary year contains 365 days, and the fractional part of the day (0.2422) is taken into account every few years by adding one day to the so-called leap year. The solar calendar usually focuses on four main dates - two equinoxes and two solstices. The accuracy of a calendar is determined by how accurately the equinox falls on the same day each year. The lunisolar calendar is an attempt to harmonize the length of the lunar month and the solar (tropical) year through periodic adjustments. To ensure that the average number of days per year according to the lunar calendar corresponds to the solar year, a thirteenth lunar month is added every 2 or 3 years. This trick is required to ensure that the growing seasons fall on the same dates each year. An example of a lunisolar calendar is given by the Jewish calendar, officially adopted in Israel.
TIME MEASUREMENT
Calendars use units of time based on the periodic movements of astronomical objects. The rotation of the Earth around its axis determines the length of the day, the revolution of the Moon around the Earth gives the length of the lunar month, and the revolution of the Earth around the Sun determines the solar year.
Sunny days. The apparent movement of the Sun across the sky sets the true solar day as the interval between two successive passages of the Sun through the meridian at the lower culmination. If this movement reflected only the rotation of the Earth around its axis, then it would occur very uniformly. But it is also associated with the uneven movement of the Earth around the Sun and with the tilt of the Earth’s axis; therefore, the true solar day is variable. To measure time in everyday life and in science, the mathematically calculated position of the “average sun” and, accordingly, the average solar day, which have a constant duration, are used. In most countries, the beginning of the day is at 0 o'clock, i.e. at midnight. But this was not always the case: in biblical times, in Ancient Greece and Judea, as well as in some other eras, the beginning of the day was in the evening. For the Romans, in different periods of their history, the day began at different times of the day.
Moon month. Initially, the length of the month was determined by the period of revolution of the Moon around the Earth, more precisely, by the synodic lunar period, equal to the time interval between two successive occurrences of identical phases of the Moon, for example, new moons or full moons. The average synodic lunar month (the so-called “lunar month”) lasts 29 days 12 hours 44 minutes 2.8 seconds. In biblical times, lunation was considered equal to 30 days, but the Romans, Greeks and some other peoples accepted the value measured by astronomers as 29.5 days as a standard. The lunar month is a convenient unit of time in social life, since it is longer than a day, but shorter than a year. In ancient times, the Moon attracted universal interest as an instrument for measuring time, since it is very easy to observe the expressive change of its phases. In addition, the lunar month was associated with various religious needs and therefore played an important role in the preparation of the calendar.
Year. In everyday life, including when compiling a calendar, the word “year” means the tropical year (“year of the seasons”), equal to the time interval between two successive passages of the Sun through the vernal equinox. Now its duration is 365 days 5 hours 48 minutes 45.6 seconds, and every 100 years it decreases by 0.5 seconds. Even ancient civilizations used this seasonal year; According to the records of the Egyptians, Chinese and other ancient peoples, it is clear that the length of the year was initially taken to be 360 days. But quite a long time ago the length of the tropical year was specified to 365 days. Later, the Egyptians accepted its duration as 365.25 days, and the great ancient astronomer Hipparchus reduced this quarter of a day by several minutes. The civil year did not always begin on January 1. Many ancient peoples (as well as some modern ones) began the year from the moment of the spring equinox, and in Ancient Egypt the year began on the day of the autumn equinox.
HISTORY OF CALENDARS
Greek calendar. In the ancient Greek calendar, a normal year consisted of 354 days. But since it lacked 11.25 days to coordinate with the solar year, every 8 years 90 days (11.25 * 8), divided into three equal months, were added to the year; this 8-year cycle was called an octaesteride. After about 432 BC. the Greek calendar was based on the Metonic cycle and then the Callippus cycle (see section on cycles and eras below).
Roman calendar. According to ancient historians, at the beginning (c. 8th century BC) the Latin calendar consisted of 10 months and contained 304 days: five months of 31 days each, four months of 30 and one month of 29 days. The year began on March 1; hence the names of some months have been preserved - September (“seventh”), October (“eighth”), November (“ninth”) and December (“tenth”). The new day began at midnight. Subsequently, the Roman calendar underwent considerable changes. Before 700 BC Emperor Numa Pompilius added two months - January and February. Numa's calendar contained 7 months of 29 days, 4 months of 31 days and February with 28 days, which amounted to 355 days. Around 451 BC a group of 10 senior Roman officials (decemvirs) brought the sequence of months to its current form, moving the beginning of the year from March 1 to January 1. Later, a college of pontiffs was established, which carried out a reform of the calendar.
Julian calendar. By 46 BC, when Julius Caesar became supreme pontiff, calendar dates were clearly at odds with natural seasonal phenomena. There were so many complaints that radical reform became necessary. To restore the previous connection of the calendar with the seasons, Caesar, on the advice of the Alexandrian astronomer Sosigenes, extended the 46th year BC, adding a month of 23 days after February and two months of 34 and 33 days between November and December. Thus, that year had 445 days and was called the “year of confusion.” Then Caesar fixed the duration of the ordinary year at 365 days with the introduction of one additional day every four years after February 24. This made it possible to bring the average length of the year (365.25 days) closer to the length of the tropical year. Caesar deliberately abandoned the lunar year and chose the solar year, since this made all insertions, except for the leap year, unnecessary. Thus Caesar established the length of the year exactly equal to 365 days and 6 hours; Since then, this meaning has been widely used: after three ordinary years there follows one leap year. Caesar changed the length of the months (Table 1), making February of 29 days in a normal year and 30 days in a leap year. This Julian calendar, which is now often called the “old style,” was introduced on January 1, 45 BC. At the same time, the month of Quintilis was renamed July in honor of Julius Caesar, and the vernal equinox was shifted to its original date of March 25.
Augustian calendar. After the death of Caesar, the pontiffs, apparently misunderstanding the instructions about leap years, added a leap year not every four years, but every three years, for 36 years. Emperor Augustus corrected this error by skipping three leap years in the period from 8 BC. to 8 AD From this point on, only years with a number divisible by 4 were considered leap years. In honor of the emperor, the month of Sextilis was renamed August. In addition, the number of days in this month was increased from 30 to 31. These days were taken from February. September and November were reduced from 31 to 30 days, and October and December were increased from 30 to 31 days, which maintained the total number of days in the calendar (Table 1). Thus, the modern system of months developed. Some authors consider Julius Caesar, not Augustus, to be the founder of the modern calendar.
Kalends, Ides and Nones. The Romans used these words only in the plural, calling special days of the month. Kalends, as mentioned above, were called the first day of each month. The Ides were the 15th day of March, May, July (quintilis), October and the 13th day of the remaining (short) months. In modern calculations, the nones are the 8th day before the Ides. But the Romans took into account the Ides themselves, so they had nones on the 9th day (hence their name “nonus”, nine). The Ides of March was March 15 or, less specifically, any of the seven days preceding it: from March 8 to March 15 inclusive. The nones of March, May, July and October fell on the 7th day of the month, and in other short months - on the 5th day. The days of the month were counted back: in the first half of the month they said that so many days remained until the nons or ids, and in the second half - until the calendars of the next month.
Gregorian calendar. The Julian year, with a duration of 365 days 6 hours, is 11 minutes 14 seconds longer than the true solar year, therefore, over time, the onset of seasonal phenomena according to the Julian calendar occurred on increasingly earlier dates. Particularly strong discontent was caused by the constant shift in the date of Easter, associated with the spring equinox. In 325 AD The Council of Nicaea issued a decree on a single date for Easter for the entire Christian church. In subsequent centuries, many proposals were made to improve the calendar. Finally, the proposals of the Neapolitan astronomer and physician Aloysius Lilius (Luigi Lilio Giraldi) and the Bavarian Jesuit Christopher Clavius were approved by Pope Gregory XIII. On February 24, 1582, he issued a bull introducing two important additions to the Julian calendar: 10 days were removed from the 1582 calendar - after October 4, October 15 followed. This allowed March 21 to be retained as the date of the vernal equinox, which it probably was in 325 AD. In addition, three out of every four century years were to be considered ordinary years and only those divisible by 400 were to be considered leap years. Thus, 1582 became the first year of the Gregorian calendar, often called the "new style". France switched to the new style the same year. Some other Catholic countries adopted it in 1583. Other countries adopted the new style over the years: for example, Great Britain adopted the Gregorian calendar from 1752; By leap year 1700, according to the Julian calendar, the difference between it and the Gregorian calendar was already 11 days, so in Great Britain, after September 2, 1752, September 14 came. In the same year in England, the beginning of the year was moved to January 1 (before that, the new year began on the day of the Annunciation - March 25). Retrospective correction of dates caused much confusion for many years, as Pope Gregory XIII ordered corrections of all past dates back to the Council of Nicaea. The Gregorian calendar is used today in many countries, including the United States and Russia, which abandoned the Eastern (Julian) calendar only after the October (actually November) Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. The Gregorian calendar is not absolutely accurate: it is 26 seconds longer than the tropical year. The difference reaches one day in 3323 years. To compensate for them, instead of eliminating three leap years out of every 400 years, it would be necessary to eliminate one leap year out of every 128 years; this would correct the calendar so much that in only 100,000 years the difference between the calendar and tropical years would reach 1 day.
Jewish calendar. This typical lunisolar calendar has very ancient origins. Its months contain alternately 29 and 30 days, and every 3 years the 13th month Veadar is added; it is inserted before the month of Nissan every 3rd, 6th, 8th, 11th, 14th, 17th and 19th year of the 19-year cycle. Nissan is the first month of the Jewish calendar, although years are counted from the seventh month of Tishri. The insertion of Veadar causes the vernal equinox to always fall on a lunation in the month of Nissan. There are two types of years in the Gregorian calendar - ordinary and leap years, and in the Jewish calendar - an ordinary (12-month) year and an embolismic (13-month) year. In the embolismic year, of the 30 days inserted before Nissan, 1 day belongs to the sixth month of Adar (which usually contains 29 days), and 29 days make up Veadar. In fact, the Jewish lunisolar calendar is even more complex than described here. Although it is suitable for calculating time, but due to the use of the lunar month it cannot be considered an effective modern instrument of this kind.
Muslim calendar. Before Muhammad, who died in 632, the Arabs had a lunisolar calendar with intercalary months, similar to the Jewish one. It is believed that the errors of the old calendar forced Muhammad to abandon additional months and introduce a lunar calendar, the first year of which was 622. In it, the day and the synodic lunar month are taken as the unit of reference, and the seasons are not taken into account at all. A lunar month is considered equal to 29.5 days, and a year consists of 12 months containing alternately 29 or 30 days. In a 30-year cycle, the last month of the year contains 29 days for 19 years, and the remaining 11 years contain 30 days. The average length of the year in this calendar is 354.37 days. The Muslim calendar is widely used in the Near and Middle East, although Turkey abandoned it in 1925 in favor of the Gregorian calendar.
Egyptian calendar. The early Egyptian calendar was lunar, as evidenced by the hieroglyph for "month" in the form of a lunar crescent. Later, the life of the Egyptians turned out to be closely connected with the annual floods of the Nile, which became the starting point for them, stimulating the creation of a solar calendar. According to J. Breasted, this calendar was introduced in 4236 BC, and this date is considered the oldest historical date. The solar year in Egypt contained 12 months of 30 days, and at the end of the last month there were five more additional days (epagomen), giving a total of 365 days. Since the calendar year was 1/4 day shorter than the solar year, over time it became more and more at odds with the seasons. Observing the heliacal risings of Sirius (the first appearance of the star in the rays of dawn after its invisibility during the period of conjunction with the Sun), the Egyptians determined that 1461 Egyptian years of 365 days are equal to 1460 solar years of 365.25 days. This interval is known as the Sothis period. For a long time, the priests prevented any change in the calendar. Finally in 238 BC. Ptolemy III issued a decree adding one day to every fourth year, i.e. introduced something like a leap year. This is how the modern solar calendar was born. The Egyptians' day began with sunrise, their week consisted of 10 days, and their month consisted of three weeks.
Chinese calendar. The prehistoric Chinese calendar was lunar. Around 2357 BC Emperor Yao, dissatisfied with the existing lunar calendar, ordered his astronomers to determine the dates of the equinoxes and, using intercalary months, create a seasonal calendar convenient for agriculture. To harmonize the 354-day lunar calendar with the 365-day astronomical year, 7 intercalary months were added every 19 years, following detailed instructions. Although solar and lunar years were generally consistent, lunisolar differences remained; they were corrected when they reached a noticeable size. However, the calendar was still imperfect: the years were of unequal length, and the equinoxes fell on different dates. In the Chinese calendar, the year consisted of 24 crescents. The Chinese calendar has a 60-year cycle, which begins in 2637 BC. (according to other sources - 2397 BC) with several internal periods, and each year has a rather funny name, for example, “year of the cow” in 1997, “year of the tiger” in 1998, “hare” in 1999, “dragon” in 2000, etc., which are repeated with a period of 12 years. After Western penetration into China in the 19th century. The Gregorian calendar began to be used in commerce, and in 1911 it was officially adopted in the new Republic of China. However, peasants still continued to use the ancient lunar calendar, but since 1930 it was banned.
Mayan and Aztec calendars. The ancient Mayan civilization had a very high art of counting time. Their calendar contained 365 days and consisted of 18 months of 20 days (each month and each day had its own name) plus 5 additional days that did not belong to any month. The calendar consisted of 28 weeks of 13 numbered days each, amounting to a total of 364 days; one day remained extra. The Mayans' neighbors, the Aztecs, used almost the same calendar. The Aztec calendar stone is of great interest. The face in the center represents the Sun. The four large rectangles adjacent to it depict heads symbolizing the dates of the four previous world eras. The heads and symbols in the rectangles of the next circle symbolize the 20 days of the month. Large triangular figures represent the rays of the sun, and at the base of the outer circle two fiery serpents represent the heat of the heavens. The Aztec calendar is similar to the Mayan calendar, but the names of the months are different.
CYCLES AND ERAS
Sunday letters are a diagram showing the relationship between the day of the month and the day of the week during any year. For example, it allows you to determine Sundays, and based on this, create a calendar for the whole year. The table of weekly letters can be written like this:
Each day of the year, except February 29 in leap years, is indicated by a letter. A specific day of the week is always indicated by the same letter throughout the year, with the exception of leap years; therefore, the letter that represents the first Sunday corresponds to all other Sundays of this year. Knowing the Sunday letters of any year (from A to G) you can completely restore the order of the days of the week for that year. The following table is useful:
SUNDAY LETTERS FOR ANY YEAR
Metonic cycle shows the relationship between the lunar month and the solar year; therefore, it became the basis for the Greek, Hebrew and some other calendars. This cycle consists of 19 years of 12 months plus 7 additional months. It is named after the Greek astronomer Meton, who discovered it in 432 BC, unaware that China had known about it since 2260 BC. Meton determined that a period of 19 solar years contains 235 synodic months (lunars). He considered the length of the year to be 365.25 days, so 19 years were 6939 days 18 hours, and 235 lunations were equal to 6939 days 16 hours 31 minutes. He inserted 7 additional months into this cycle, since 19 years of 12 months add up to 228 months. It is believed that Meton inserted extra months in the 3rd, 6th, 8th, 11th, 14th and 19th years of the cycle. All years, in addition to those indicated, contain 12 months, consisting alternately of 29 or 30 days, 6 years among the seven mentioned above contain an additional month of 30 days, and the seventh - 29 days. Probably the first Metonic cycle began in July 432 BC. The phases of the Moon are repeated on the same days of the cycle with an accuracy of several hours. Thus, if the dates of new moons are determined during one cycle, then they are easily determined for subsequent cycles. The position of each year in the Metonic cycle is indicated by its number, which takes values from 1 to 19 and is called the golden number (since in ancient times the phases of the Moon were inscribed in gold on public monuments). The golden number of the year can be determined using special tables; it is used to calculate the date of Easter.
Callippus cycle. Another Greek astronomer - Callippus - in 330 BC. developed Meton's idea by introducing a 76-year cycle (= 19ґ4). The Callippus cycles contain a constant number of leap years, while the Metonian cycle has a variable number.
Solar cycle. This cycle consists of 28 years and helps to establish the connection between the day of the week and the ordinal day of the month. If there were no leap years, then the correspondence between the days of the week and the numbers of the month would regularly repeat with a 7-year cycle, since there are 7 days in a week, and the year can begin with any of them; and also because a normal year is 1 day longer than 52 full weeks. But the introduction of leap years every 4 years makes the cycle of repeating all possible calendars in the same order 28 years. The interval between years with the same calendar varies from 6 to 28 years.
Cycle of Dionysius (Easter). This 532-year cycle has components of a lunar 19-year cycle and a solar 28-year cycle. It is believed that it was introduced by Dionysius the Lesser in 532. According to his calculations, just in that year the lunar cycle began, the first in the new Easter cycle, which indicated the date of Christ’s birth in 1 AD. (this date is often the subject of dispute; some authors give the date of Christ's birth as 4 BC). The Dionysian cycle contains the complete sequence of Easter dates.
Epact. Epact is the age of the Moon from new moon in days on January 1 of any year. Epact was proposed by A. Lilius and introduced by C. Clavius during the preparation of new tables for determining the days of Easter and other holidays. Every year has its own impact. In general, to determine the date of Easter, a lunar calendar is required, but epact allows you to determine the date of the new moon and then calculate the date of the first full moon after the spring equinox. The Sunday following this date is Easter. Epact is more perfect than the golden number: it allows you to determine the dates of new moons and full moons by the age of the Moon on January 1, without calculating the lunar phases for the whole year. The complete table of epacts is calculated for 7000 years, after which the entire series is repeated. Epacts cycle through a series of 19 numbers. To determine the epact of the current year, you need to add 11 to the epact of the previous year. If the sum exceeds 30, then you need to subtract 30. This is not a very accurate rule: the number 30 is approximate, so the dates of astronomical phenomena calculated by this rule may differ from the true ones by a day. Before the introduction of the Gregorian calendar, epacts were not used. The epact cycle is believed to have begun in 1 BC. with epact 11. The instructions for calculating epacts seem very complicated until you look into the details.
Roman Indicts. This is a cycle introduced by the last Roman Emperor Constantine; it was used to conduct commercial affairs and collect taxes. The continuous sequence of years was divided into 15-year intervals - indicts. The cycle began on January 1, 313. Therefore, 1 AD. was the fourth year of indictment. The rule for determining the year number in the current index is as follows: add 3 to the Gregorian year number and divide this number by 15, the remainder is the desired number. Thus, in the Roman indict system, the year 2000 is numbered 8.
Julian period. It is a universal period used in astronomy and chronology; introduced by the French historian J. Scaliger in 1583. Scaliger named it “Julian” in honor of his father, the famous scientist Julius Caesar Scaliger. The Julian period contains 7980 years - the product of the solar cycle (28 years, after which the dates of the Julian calendar fall on the same days of the week), the Metonic cycle (19 years, after which all phases of the Moon fall on the same days of the year) and the cycle of the Roman indicts (15 years). Scaliger chose January 1, 4713 BC as the beginning of the Julian period. according to the Julian calendar extended into the past, since all three of the above cycles converge on this date (more precisely, 0.5 January, since the beginning of the Julian day is taken to mean Greenwich noon; therefore, by midnight, from which January 1 begins, 0.5 Julian day). The current Julian period will end at the end of 3267 AD. (January 23, 3268 Gregorian calendar). In order to determine the year number in the Julian period, you need to add the number 4713 to it; the amount will be the number you are looking for. For example, 1998 was numbered 6711 in the Julian period. Each day of this period has its own Julian number JD (Julian Day), equal to the number of days that have passed from the beginning of the period until noon of this day. So, on January 1, 1993, the number was JD 2,448,989, i.e. By Greenwich noon of this date, exactly that many full days have passed from the beginning of the period. The date January 1, 2000 has the number JD 2 451 545. The Julian number of each calendar date is given in astronomical yearbooks. The difference between the Julian numbers of two dates indicates the number of days that have passed between them, which is very important to know for astronomical calculations.
Roman era. The years of this era were counted from the founding of Rome, which is considered to be 753 BC. The year number was preceded by the abbreviation A.U.C. (anno urbis conditae - the year the city was founded). For example, the year 2000 of the Gregorian calendar corresponds to the year 2753 of the Roman era.
Olympic era. The Olympics are 4-year intervals between Greek sports competitions held in Olympia; they were used in the chronology of Ancient Greece. The Olympic Games were held on the days of the first full moon after the summer solstice, in the month of Hecatombaeion, which corresponds to modern July. Calculations show that the first Olympic Games were held on July 17, 776 BC. At that time, they used a lunar calendar with additional months of the Metonic cycle. In the 4th century. During the Christian era, Emperor Theodosius abolished the Olympic Games, and in 392 the Olympiads were replaced by the Roman Indictments. The term "Olympic era" appears frequently in chronology.
Era of Nabonassar. It was one of the first introduced and named after the Babylonian king Nabonassar. The era of Nabonassar is of particular interest to astronomers because it was used to indicate dates by Hipparchus and the Alexandrian astronomer Ptolemy in his Almagest. Apparently, detailed astronomical research began in Babylon during this era. The beginning of the era is considered to be February 26, 747 BC. (according to the Julian calendar), the first year of Nabonassar's reign. Ptolemy began counting the day from the average noon on the meridian of Alexandria, and his year was Egyptian, containing exactly 365 days. It is not known whether the era of Nabonassar was used in Babylon at the time of its formal beginning, but in later times it apparently was used. Keeping in mind the "Egyptian" length of the year, it is easy to calculate that the year 2000 according to the Gregorian calendar is the year 2749 of the era of Nabonassar.
Jewish era. The beginning of the Jewish era is the mythical date of the creation of the world, 3761 BC. The Jewish civil year begins around the autumnal equinox. For example, September 11, 1999 on the Gregorian calendar was the first day of 5760 on the Hebrew calendar.
The Muslim era, or the era of the Hijra, begins on July 16, 622, i.e. from the date of Muhammad's migration from Mecca to Medina. For example, April 6, 2000 according to the Gregorian calendar begins the year 1421 of the Muslim calendar.
Christian era. Began on January 1, 1 AD. It is believed that the Christian era was introduced by Dionysius the Lesser in 532; time flows in it in accordance with the Dionysian cycle described above. Dionysius took March 25 as the beginning of the 1st year of “our” (or “new”) era, so the day is December 25, 1 AD. (i.e. 9 months later) was named the birthday of Christ. Pope Gregory XIII moved the start of the year to January 1. But historians and chronologists have long considered the day of the Nativity of Christ to be December 25, 1 BC. There was a lot of controversy about this important date, and only modern research has shown that Christmas most likely falls on December 25, 4 BC. Confusion in establishing such dates is caused by the fact that astronomers often call the year of Christ’s birth year zero (0 AD), which was preceded by 1 BC. But other astronomers, as well as historians and chronologists, believe that there was no zero year and just after 1 BC. follows 1 AD There is also no agreement on whether to consider years such as 1800 and 1900 the end of the century or the beginning of the next. If we accept the existence of a zero year, then 1900 will be the beginning of the century, and 2000 will also be the beginning of the new millennium. But if there was no zero year, then the 20th century ends only at the end of 2000. Many astronomers consider century years ending in "00" to be the beginning of a new century. As you know, the date of Easter is constantly changing: it can fall on any day from March 22 to April 25 inclusive. According to the rule, Easter (Catholic) should be on the first Sunday after the full moon following the spring equinox (March 21). Moreover, according to the English Breviary, "... if the full moon occurs on a Sunday, then Easter will be the following Sunday ". This date, which has great historical significance, has been the subject of much debate and discussion. The amendments of Pope Gregory XIII are accepted by many churches, but since the calculation of the date of Easter is based on the lunar phases, it cannot have a specific date in the solar calendar.
CALENDAR REFORM
Although the Gregorian calendar is very accurate and quite consistent with natural phenomena, its modern structure does not fully correspond to the needs of social life. There has been talk for a long time about improving the calendar and even various associations have emerged to carry out such a reform.
Disadvantages of the Gregorian calendar. This calendar has about a dozen defects. Chief among them is the variability of the number of days and weeks in months, quarters and half-years. For example, quarters contain 90, 91, or 92 days. There are four main problems: 1) In theory, the civil (calendar) year should have the same length as the astronomical (tropical) year. However, this is impossible, since the tropical year does not contain an integer number of days. Because of the need to add extra days to the year from time to time, there are two types of years - ordinary and leap years. Since the year can start from any day of the week, this gives 7 types of ordinary years and 7 types of leap years, i.e. a total of 14 types of years. To fully reproduce them you need to wait 28 years. 2) The length of months varies: they can contain from 28 to 31 days, and this unevenness leads to certain difficulties in economic calculations and statistics. 3) Neither ordinary nor leap years contain an integer number of weeks. Semi-years, quarters and months also do not contain a whole and equal number of weeks. 4) From week to week, from month to month and even from year to year, the correspondence of dates and days of the week changes, so it is difficult to establish the moments of various events. For example, Thanksgiving always falls on Thursday, but the day of the month varies. Christmas always falls on December 25th, but on different days of the week.
Suggested improvements. There are many proposals for calendar reform, of which the following are the most discussed:
International Fixed Calendar. This is an improved version of the 13-month calendar proposed in 1849 by the French philosopher, founder of positivism, O. Comte (1798-1857). It was developed by the English statistician M. Cotsworth (1859-1943), who founded the Fixed Calendar League in 1942. This calendar contains 13 months of 28 days each; All months are the same and start on Sunday. Leaving the first six of the twelve months with their usual names, Cotsworth inserted the 7th month "Sol" between them. One extra day (365 - 13ґ28), called the Day of the Year, follows December 28th. If the year is a leap year, then another Leap Day is inserted after June 28th. These “balancing” days are not taken into account in counting the days of the week. Cotsworth proposed abolishing the names of the months and using Roman numerals to denote them. The 13-month calendar is very uniform and easy to use: the year is easily divided into months and weeks, and the month is divided into weeks. If economic statistics used a month instead of half-years and quarters, such a calendar would be a success; but 13 months are difficult to divide into half-years and quarters. The sharp difference between this calendar and the current one also causes problems. Its introduction will require great effort to obtain the consent of influential groups committed to tradition.
World Calendar. This 12-month calendar was developed by decision of the International Commercial Congress of 1914 and was vigorously promoted by many supporters. In 1930, E. Ahelis organized the World Calendar Association, which has been publishing the Journal of Calendar Reform since 1931. The basic unit of the World Calendar is the quarter of the year. Every week and year starts on Sunday. The first three months contain 31, 30 and 30 days, respectively. Each subsequent quarter is the same as the first. The names of the months are kept as they are. Leap Year Day (June W) is inserted after June 30, and Year End Day (Peace Day) is inserted after December 30. Opponents of the World Calendar consider its disadvantage to be that each month consists of a non-integer number of weeks and therefore begins with an arbitrary day of the week. Defenders of this calendar consider its advantage to be similar to the current calendar.
Perpetual Calendar. This 12-month calendar is offered by W. Edwards of Honolulu, Hawaii. Edwards' perpetual calendar is divided into four 3-month quarters. Every week and every quarter starts on Monday, which is very beneficial for business. The first two months of each quarter contain 30 days, and the last - 31. Between December 31 and January 1 there is a holiday - New Year's Day, and once every 4 years between June 31 and July 1, Leap Year Day appears. A nice feature of the Perpetual Calendar is that Friday never falls on the 13th. Several times, a bill was even introduced into the US House of Representatives to officially switch to this calendar.
LITERATURE
Bickerman E. Chronology of the ancient world. M., 1975 Butkevich A.V., Zelikson M.S. Perpetual calendars. M., 1984 Volodomonov N.V., Calendar: past, present, future. M., 1987 Klimishin I. A., Calendar and chronology. M., 1990 Kulikov S. Thread of times: a small encyclopedia of the calendar. M., 1991
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Goals and objectives of the lesson.
General education: formation of concepts: calendar, lunar and solar calendars, lunar month and tropical year, seven-day week, old and new styles, leap year, formula for converting dates from one chronology system to another.
Educational: familiarization with the main types of calendars, the concept of “leap year” and the translation of dates of the Julian and Gregorian calendars.
Developmental: developing the skills to solve problems on calculating the conversion of chronology dates from one chronology system to another.
Lesson plan.
- Updating the material.
- Formation of concepts about the main types of calendars, their differences among themselves and application.
- Formation of concepts about new and old styles.
- The problem of the World Calendar.
- Solving the problem of converting a date from one style to another. Reflection.
- Homework.
Visual aids: presentation for the lesson.
During the classes
1. The entire centuries-old history of human culture is inextricably linked with the calendar.
The need for calendars arose in ancient times, when people did not yet know how to read and write. Calendars determined the onset of spring, summer, autumn and winter, periods of flowering of plants, ripening of fruits, collection of medicinal herbs, changes in the behavior and life of animals, weather changes, time of agricultural work and much more. Calendars answer the questions: “What date is today?”, “What day of the week?”, “When did this or that event occur?” and allow you to regulate and plan the lives and economic activities of people.
2. (Slide No. 2) The basis of any calendar is long periods of time, determined by periodic natural phenomena - the change of lunar phases and the changing seasons of the year.
As a result of attempts to coordinate the day, month and year, three calendar systems arose:
(Slide No. 3)lunar, in which they wanted to coordinate the calendar month with the phases of the moon;
(Slide No. 4)solar, in which they sought to coordinate the length of the year with the periodicity of processes occurring in nature;
(Slide No. 5)lunisolar, in which they wanted to reconcile both.
Each calendar must establish a certain order of counting days (days), the number of days in long periods of time and indicate the beginning of the counting of the periods themselves. The first problem does not cause any difficulties, the third one is also easy to solve, because Any real or mythical event can be taken as the beginning of the count. The second problem would be solved easily if the period of changing lunar phases, called lunar month And tropical year(the period of change of seasons of the year) contained exactly an integer number of days. But all three periods are incommensurable with each other: a tropical year is 365 days 5 hours 48 minutes 46.08 seconds, a lunar month is 29 days 12 hours 44 minutes 2.98 seconds.
(Slide No. 6) Calendar - a certain system of counting long periods of time with their divisions into separate shorter periods (years, months, weeks, days). The very word “ calendar" comes from Latin words “saleo” - proclaim and “calendarium” - debt book.
(Slide No. 7) The first reminds us that in ancient Rome the beginning of each month was proclaimed separately, the second - that it was customary there to pay interest on debts on the first day of the month.
(Slide No. 8) First moon calendar appeared in the middle of the 3rd millennium BC. in Ancient Babylon. At the same time, a seven-day week was introduced. This “sacred” number extremely inspired the priests, who knew 7 bright “divine” luminaries in the sky: the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Each day of the seven-day period could be devoted to one of the heavenly bodies.
This seemed especially important and symbolic. The custom of measuring time by a seven-day week became common among many ancient peoples.
(Slide No. 9) The larger and, from a modern point of view, least important unit of time is the month. The month, as the name itself emphasizes, is associated with the Moon - initially the month corresponded to the duration of the full cycle of changing lunar phases, which is associated with the Moon’s revolution around the Earth. The periodic “dying” and “rebirth” of the lunar disk served as an eternal “clock”.
The lunar month was naturally divided into four quarters: from the “birth” of the Moon to the moment when exactly half of the “young” lunar disk is visible (this moment is now called the first quarter), from the half-illuminated disk to the full moon, then from the full moon to half “ old” Moon and, finally, from the half-lit disk to its complete disappearance at the new moon. The fourth part of the month is rounded to 7 days.
(Slide No. 10) At the dawn of modern civilization, the inhabitants of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers used the lunar month as the main unit of measurement for long periods of time. The true length of the lunar month averages about 29 and a half days. The beginning of the new month was determined directly from observations of the first appearance of the narrow crescent moon after the new moon. The lunar months turned out to be of different lengths: they alternated between 29 and 30 days.
The Babylonian priests judged the existence of an annual cycle of natural phenomena mainly by river floods. Observing them, they concluded that there are 12 lunar months in a year. This number also had to be very satisfying to the priests: it fits well into the Chaldean sexagesimal system of counting and clearly indicates that the world was created by the gods in a highly intelligent manner.
However, 12 months that count as either 29 or 30 days add up to 354 days. This is more than 11 days less than the true length of the solar year. Thus, counting 12 lunar months a year, the Babylonian priests were soon to discover that their spring month of Nissan wandered tirelessly through all seasons. It becomes either a summer month, or an autumn month, or a winter month. The Babylonian purely lunar calendar needed improvement.
Subsequently, the lunar calendar was improved and is now called Muslim calendar adopted in a number of Asian countries. Muslim calendar year contains 354 days and is divided into 12 months, alternating between 30 and 29 days, which averages 29.5 days, i.e. close to the lunar month.
(Slide No. 11) In Ancient Egypt, three millennia BC. existed solar calendar. From observations it was established that the first pre-dawn appearance of bright stars after a period of their invisibility repeats approximately after 360 days. Therefore, the ancient Egyptian solar calendar contained 360 days and had 12 months. Each month had 30 days.
The Christian calendar is of Greco-Roman origin and is solar in type, but at the same time, the Christian church-liturgical annual cycle is rooted in Jewish tradition, therefore calculations and establishment of dates for a number of Christian holidays are made taking into account their relationship with the Jewish lunisolar calendar.
(Slide No. 12) Ancient Roman calendar developed in the 1st century. BC. The Roman calendar year, with a total length of 355 days, consisted of 12 months.
(Slide No. 13) This coincidence is not accidental. It is explained by the fact that the Romans at that time tied the calendar to the changing phases of the moon. The beginning of each month was determined each time by the first appearance of the crescent moon after the new moon, and by order of the priests, each time the heralds notified the Romans about the beginning of a new month or year, which was a big drawback of the ancient Roman calendar.
The fact that the Roman year was more than 10 days shorter than the tropical year also caused great difficulties. Every year the calendar numbers corresponded less and less to natural phenomena. But agricultural work played an important role in the economic life of the Romans, and in order to keep the beginning of the year close to the same season, they inserted additional days. At the same time, the Romans, for some superstitious reasons, did not insert a whole month separately, but in every second year between February 23 and 24 they “wedged in” alternately 22 or 23 days. As a result, the number of days in the Roman calendar alternated in the following order: 355 days; 377 (355+22) days; 355 days; 378 (355+23) days. The intercalary days were called the month of Mercedonia, although ancient writers simply called the intercalary month - intercalary (intercalis). The very word “mercedonia” comes from “merces edis” - “payment for labor”: it was the month in which settlements between tenants and property owners were made. As a result of the insertions, each quadrennial consisted of two simple years and two extended ones. The average length of the year in such a four-year period was 366.25 days, that is, it was a whole day longer than in reality. To avoid discrepancies between calendar numbers and natural phenomena, it was necessary from time to time to increase or decrease the length of additional months. All these corrections and changes in the calendar, as well as general supervision of its correctness, were entrusted to the high priest.
The right to change the length of an additional month since 191 BC.
belonged only to the pontiffs, headed by the high priest. But they often abused their power, lengthening the years and thus the terms of office for their friends and shortening those terms for enemies or those who refused to pay a bribe. Since at the beginning of each year the payment of debts and taxes was carried out, it is not difficult to imagine how firmly, with the help of the calendar, the priests held in their hands the entire economic and political life in ancient Rome. Over time, the calendar became so confusing that the harvest festival had to be celebrated in winter.
3. (Slide No. 14) At the time of the birth of Christianity (1st century AD), the official calendar of the Roman Empire was the solar calendar, called Julian It was created as a result of a reform carried out in 46 BC. emperor Julius Caesar (hence the name of the calendar) and was introduced on January 1, 45 BC.
The reform was caused by the imperfection of the old Roman calendar: the year in this calendar consisted of only 10 months and contained 304 days, which made it significantly shorter than the tropical year - the period of time between two successive passages of the center of the Sun through the vernal equinox, equal to 365 days 5 hours 48 minutes and 46 seconds of solar time.
Every year, calendar numbers corresponded less and less to astronomical and natural phenomena, and this, in turn, created difficulties in determining the timing of seasonal field work, the time of tax collection, and also violated the periodicity of public holidays.
Having visited Egypt, Julius Caesar became acquainted with the Egyptian calendar, which they had been using since the 4th millennium BC. The origin of the Egyptian solar calendar is associated with Sirius, the brightest star in the sky. The Egyptians based their calendar calculations on the time interval between the first two morning risings of Sirius, which coincided equally with the summer solstice and the flood of the Nile and amounted to 365? days.
(Slide No. 15) But the year in the Egyptian calendar consisted of 365 days and was divided into 12 months, 30 days each (at the end of the year, five holidays were added that were not part of the months). It was this calendar that Caesar decided to introduce in Rome. He entrusted the creation of a new calendar to a group of Alexandrian astronomers led by Sosigenes.
The essence of the reform was that the calendar was based on the annual movement of the Sun between the stars. The average length of the year was taken to be 365? days, which corresponded to the length of the tropical year known at that time. To ensure that the beginning of the calendar year always falls on the same date and at the same time of day, 3 consecutive years are counted as 365 days, and the fourth, leap year, as 366 days.
(Slide No. 16) The year was divided into 12 months, for which their traditional Roman names were retained:
January (Ianuarius) in honor of the god Janus;
February (Februarius) in honor of the god Februus;
March (Martius) in honor of the god Mars
April (Aprilis) from the Latin aprire (to open), as in this month the buds on the trees open;
May (Maius) in honor of the goddess Maya;
June (Iunius) in honor of the goddess Juno;
Quintilis fifth;
Sextilis (Sextilis) sixth;
September (September) seventh;
October (October) eighth;
November (November) ninth;
December tenth.
The number of days in months was ordered: all odd months had 31 days, and even months had 30. Only February of a simple year contained 29 days.
January 1 began to be considered the beginning of the new year (before that, the new year began in the Roman calendar on March 1). Just in 45 BC. The first new moon after the winter solstice fell on this day. This is the only element in the structure of the Julian calendar that has a connection with the lunar phases.
At the same time, the calendar reform did not affect the principles of traditional chronology: the records of the official calendar were dated in Rome by the years of the reign of the consuls, and subsequently the emperors. In addition, the unofficial calendar ab Urbe condita (from the foundation of the City), or the Roman era, which began in 753 BC, became widespread in Rome.
In gratitude to Julius Caesar for streamlining the calendar and his military services, the Roman Senate in 44 BC. renamed the month Quintilis (fifth), in which Caesar was born, to July (Iulius).
Slide No. 17) But the calendar reform was finally completed only in 8 BC. during the reign of Emperor Augustus. In his honor, the month Sextilis was renamed Augustus. By order of the emperor, starting in 8 BC. and ending with 8 A.D. In leap years, an extra day was not added. In addition, the alternation of long and short months changed: one day was added to August at the expense of February, at the same time one day of September was transferred to October and one day of November to December.
(Slide No. 18) The table “Names of the months in Old Church Slavonic, Ukrainian and Belarusian languages is provided.
The correct use of the Julian calendar began only in the 7th century. from R.H. From now on, all calendar years whose ordinal number is divisible by 4 are Leap years. The length of the Julian year was set at 365 days and 6 hours. But this value is 11 minutes 14 seconds longer than the tropical year. Therefore, for every 128 years, a whole day was accumulated.
Thus, the Julian calendar did not have absolute accuracy, but its advantage lay in something else - in its significant simplicity.
(Slide No. 19) In 325, the first Ecumenical (Nicene) Council of the Christian Church took place, which approved the Julian calendar for use throughout the Christian world. At the same time, the movement of the Moon with the change of its phases was introduced into the Julian calendar, which was strictly oriented towards the Sun, that is, the solar calendar was organically combined with the lunar calendar. This was an extremely important point in determining the timing of the celebration of the most important Christian holiday - Easter and the moving holidays associated with it: the Easter of the New Testament depended on the Old Testament Jewish Passover, which is always celebrated on the same day - the 14th of Nisan according to the Jewish lunar calendar.
The Church Julian calendar in its reformed form not only fulfilled the task of meeting all the requirements of church worship, but also put an end to disputes between the Roman, Constantinople and other Churches over exactly when Christian Easter should be celebrated and what rules should be followed for this.
The Council decided to celebrate Easter on the first Sunday after the full moon, which falls during the spring equinox. According to the Julian calendar at that time, the spring equinox fell on March 21. This date was recognized as the starting date for calculating the Easter holiday.
So, for every 128 years, the moment of the vernal equinox shifts relative to calendar dates by a whole day. Therefore, a need arose for calendar reform, since the celebration of Easter was increasingly moving away from the astronomical date of the spring equinox. In 1582, such a reform, aimed primarily at satisfying church needs, was carried out by Pope Gregory XIII.
The accumulated extra days were removed very simply by declaring October 15, 1582 immediately after October 4.
(Slide No. 20) Calendar introduced by Pope Gregory XIII
Calendar introduced by Pope Gregory XIII Gregorian calendar (new style), was adopted in the same year, 1582, in Italy, France, Spain, Portugal and other Catholic lands. Protestant countries did not recognize this innovation for a long time and switched to this calendar already in the 18th century. In 1873, the Gregorian calendar was adopted in Japan, in 1911 - in China.
IN Gregorian calendar (new style) The alternation of common and leap years within each century is carried out in exactly the same way as in the Julian calendar, but the last year of the century is considered a leap year only if the century number is divisible by 4. Thus, the years are 1600. 2000. 2400 for both calendars are considered leap years, but the years 1700, 1800, 1900 and 2100 are considered to be years in the Julian calendar leap years (366 days each), and in Gregorian - simple (365 days each), and thus for 400 years, for example, from 1600 to 2000, three days are excluded.
(Slide No. 21) In Russia, by the decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR of January 26, 1918, the day following January 31 began to be considered February 14. However, the Russian Orthodox Church did not switch to the new style and retained the Julian calendar.
But in secular usage, the Gregorian calendar has become international, as almost all countries of the world adhere to it.
Currently, the Julian calendar is 13 days behind the Gregorian calendar. Because and according to both the new and old styles, the year 2000 is a leap year, this difference will remain until February 28, 2100, after which it will reach 14 days.
The error of the Julian calendar over 400 years is 74 hours 53 minutes. And in Gregorian over the same period an excess of 2 hours and 53 minutes accumulates.
(Slide No. 22) To convert dates Julian calendar (old style) to the Gregorian (new style) one must add the number n to the number of the old style, calculated by the formula:
where C is the number of full centuries that have passed during this period,
C 1 is the nearest smaller number of centuries, a multiple of four.
(Slide No. 23) The number n can be determined from the table - “Difference between the Julian and Gregorian calendars.”
4. (Slide No. 24) Problem: What is the main difficulty in creating any calendar system?
Answer: The fact is that the natural measures of time that people are forced to use - year, month and day - are incommensurable with each other.
Today, from an astronomical point of view, our calendar is quite accurate and, essentially, does not require any changes. And yet reform has been talked about for decades. What is meant here is not a change in the type of calendar, nor the introduction of new methods for counting leap years. We are talking exclusively about regrouping the days of the year in order to equalize the length of months, quarters, half-years, and introduce such an order of counting the days of the year in which the new year would fall on the same day of the week, for example, Sunday.
In fact, our calendar months are 28, 29, 30, 31 days long; the length of the quarter varies from 90 to 92 days, and the first half of the year is three to four days shorter than the second. As a result, the work of planning and financial authorities becomes more complicated. It is also inconvenient that the week begins in one month or quarter and ends in another. Since a year contains 365 days, it ends on the same day on which it began, and each new year begins on a different day.
Over the past 60 years, all sorts of calendar reform projects have been put forward. In 1923, a special committee on calendar reform was created at the League of Nations. After the Second World War, this issue was transferred to the hands of the UN Economic and Social Council.
5. (Slide No. 25) Tasks.
1. Condition: A.S. Pushkin was born in Moscow on May 26, 1799. When should his birthday be celebrated according to the new style?
(Slide No. 26) Solution: In the 18th century In Moscow, the old style was in effect, in which, unlike the new style, the years 1800 and 1900 were considered leap years. Consequently, in 1799 both styles differed not by 13 days, but by 11 days, and according to the new style, the desired date was May 6, i.e.
n=C-(C 1:4)-2=17-(16:4)-2=11,
2. (Slide No. 27) What does the name of the month “August” mean? A clue in K. Vasiliev’s painting “The Harvest”?
(Answer: sickle).
6. (Slide No. 28) Homework. Determine your date of birth according to the old style.
Literature and websites:
- http://kref.ru/infotsennyebumagi2/57815/13.html
- http://coolreferat.com/History_of_calendars_part=3
- http://kruzhalov.ru/html/history-of-russia/lesson8/lesson8.html
- http://www.abc-people.com/typework/history/hist13.htm
- Klimishin I.A. Calendar and chronology. – M.: Nauka, 1985.
