Ministry of Education of the Republic of Belarus

Belarusian State University

History department

Department of Source Studies

Direction of specialty: Records management (documentary support of management)

Test

TYPES AND TYPES OF CALENDARS

Completed by: 3rd year student

part-time reduced form of education

Nalivaiko Olga Olegovna

Lecturer: Dean of History

faculty Khodin S.N.

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 1. TYPES OF CALENDARS AND THE PRINCIPLES OF THEIR CONSTRUCTION

CHAPTER 2. THE MOST SIGNIFICANT CALENDAR SYSTEMS

Ancient Egypt calendar

Chinese ancient calendar

Indian calendars

Calendar of Ancient Mesopotamia

Calendar Ancient Greece

Jewish calendar

Muslim calendar

Mayan calendar

Julian calendar

Gregorian calendar

French Republican calendar

World Calendar Projects

CONCLUSION

LIST OF USED LITERATURE SOURCES

INTRODUCTION

The units of time calculation given by nature - day, month and year formed the basis of the most ancient calendars.

Calendars are time counting systems based on the periodicity of natural phenomena, visibly represented by the movement of heavenly bodies. The need to create such systems first arose with the emergence of productive forms of economy in the early Neolithic. Agriculture and cattle breeding are closely connected with seasonal natural phenomena. Identical shapes economic life and common initial units of time calculation led to the formation of similar calendar systems.

The first compilers of calendars encountered great difficulties, since the units of time calculation turned out to be incommensurable: the synodic month did not consist of an equal number of days, and the astronomical year could not be divided into an equal number of months and days. This forced people to look for ways to harmonize these units, which gave rise to several calendar systems. The most common of them are: lunar, where the day is consistent with the month; lunisolar, in which the day of the month is consistent with the year; sunny when year and day agree.

CHAPTER 1. Types of calendars and principles of their construction

As mentioned above, three types of the most common calendar systems can be distinguished: lunar, lunisolar, and solar.

Lunar calendars, without taking into account the change of seasons, among many peoples of the world preceded other time counting systems. They could be used in primitive era when neither agriculture nor cattle breeding were developed. With the development of productive forms of economy, lunar calendars gave way to lunisolar and solar calendars, which take into account the change of seasons.

According to lunar calendars, the duration of the months is associated only with the change in the phases of the moon; each month, starting with the new moon, lasts alternately 29 and 30 days: 12 months make up a lunar year, which is 354 days. Since the synodic month was longer than the calendar month (by 44 minutes 2.9 seconds), it was required through a certain amount of years to insert one additional day into the calendar year. There are two methods by which the astronomical and calendar lunar years are brought into line. Both methods are based on the introduction of an additional day in the year of the lunar calendar. According to one of them, an eight-year period (“Turkish cycle”) was chosen, during which astronomical lunar years lagged behind simple lunar years by three days. In order to equalize the lunar calendar calendar with the lunar astronomical one, an additional day was inserted in the 2nd, 5th, 7th years of the calendar in every eight years. Another way is more accurate. He proceeds from the position that 30 simple lunar years are 11 days ahead of 30 astronomical years. To eliminate the gap, additional days were introduced in the following years of this period, called the Arabic cycle: 2nd, 5th, 7th, 10th, 13th, 16th, 18th, 21st, 24th th, 26th and 29th. Since the year lunar calendar lasted 354 (sometimes 355) days, then its beginning was ahead of the year of the solar calendar each time by 11 days. Consequently, the beginning of the year and its parts did not coincide with the seasons, but moved systematically from one season to another.

If at some point the beginning of the year coincided with the beginning of spring, then after about 9 years it marked the beginning of winter, and after the same period it opened autumn. It was impossible to make forecasts of agricultural work according to such a calendar.

Until now, the lunar calendar has been preserved (for religious reasons) in some Muslim countries.

Solar calendars are based on the apparent annual movement of the Sun. The length of a year of twelve months is 365 or 365 1/4 days. Observations of the Sun associated with religion (the cult of the Sun) have been carried out since ancient times among many peoples of the world, but the official calculation of time according to the solar calendar was rare. The most famous is the ancient Egyptian calendar. Solar is the modern international calendar.

In many countries of antiquity there were lunisolar calendars. They took into account both the change in the phases of the moon and the annual movement of the sun. To do this, an additional (thirteenth) month was periodically introduced into the account system. Complex lunisolar calendars were used in ancient times in China, Babylonia, Judea, Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. Until now, it has been preserved in Israel.

CHAPTER 2. The most significant calendar systems

Ancient Egypt calendar

The life of the ancient Egyptian society was closely connected with the Nile. Of great importance to the Egyptians was the fact that the rise of the water in the lower reaches of the river always coincided with the summer solstice.

The constant repetition of these phenomena was a convenient standard for measuring time: from flood to flood, from solstice to solstice. At the turn of IV and III millennia BC. during the solstice and, consequently, the flood of the river, the first morning appearance of Sirius, his first heliactic sunrise, also took place. The first appearance of Sirius in the rays of the morning gave rise to the flood of the Nile, the future harvest, the beginning of a new agricultural year.

Arising in the 4th millennium BC, one of the oldest in the world, the Egyptian calendar belonged to the solar type. The year in it consisted of three seasons, each of which included four thirty-day months.

The calendar length of the year of 365 days (365 + 5) was quite accurate for the era of Herodotus, but differing from the tropical one by 0.25 days, it gave an error of 1 day every four years. Therefore, the original New Year (1st Thoth) slowly shifted relative to the seasons. The visible evidence of such a shift for the Egyptians was the "delay" of the first (heliactic) rising of Sirius. As the error accumulated, the calendar year began earlier and earlier, shifting to spring, winter, autumn. In 1460 tropical years (365x4=1460), or in 1461 according to the ancient Egyptian calendar, the New Year again coincided with the first appearance of Sirius and the beginning of the flood of the Nile. This period of 1460 years, called the "period of Sothis", played an important role in Egyptian chronology.

In Egypt, they knew about the discrepancy between the length of the calendar year and the movement of the Sun. IN Hellenistic Egypt an attempt was made to improve the calendar. In 1866, a slab with an inscription of Ptolemy III Euergetes, one of the kings of the Ptolemaic dynasty, was found in the Nile Delta. The text of this so-called Canopic Decree.

The date of this monument is 238 BC. e. It outlined the system of the high school. However, judging by the following sources, the reform of Euergetes did not take root, and only much later, in 26 BC. Augustus introduced the Julian calendar system to Egypt.

After the reform, the Egyptian calendar retained basically its structure and the names of the months, but acquired a fixed New Year (August 29 according to the Julian calendar) and leap years. Leap years were considered those years, the absolute number of which, when divided by 4, gave a remainder of three. For example, in our calendar it would be 1975, 1979, 1983, 1987, not 1972, 1976, 1980, 1984.

The account of years in Ancient Egypt was originally carried out according to the years of the reign of the pharaohs (I-XXX dynasties), and in the Hellenistic era the “era of Nabonassar” was used, the beginning of which, according to the Julian calendar, dates back to February 26, 747 BC. e. At the end of the III century. AD Diocletian introduced dating in Egypt according to the consular year, which began on January 1, and a new "era of Diocletian", its beginning according to the Julian calendar - 284 AD. The era took root, but the beginning of the year returned again to August 29th. The era of Diocletian has survived to this day in the church calendar of Coptic Christians, direct descendants of the ancient Egyptians.

Chinese ancient calendar

The origins of the lunisolar Chinese calendar go back to the 3rd millennium BC. e., in bronze age.

China - classical country agriculture, and here the close connection between nature and society, the fertility of the earth and royal power is especially clearly seen. Questions of time counting were important and were sometimes introduced into the rank public policy.

Emperors of the Zhou era (XI-III centuries BC) once every five years were required to travel around the country, adhering to a strict ritual. In the spring, at the beginning of the year, the emperor and his retinue in green clothes went to the eastern part of the empire, in the summer they moved south in red clothes, in the fall, changing the color of the dress to white, they went west and completed the journey in winter, going around the northern regions of the country in black robes .

Over the next four years, the emperor annually symbolically made a similar journey in a special "hall of fate" - a kind of model of the universe. There he made a yearly circle, turning alternately facing east (spring), south (summer), west (autumn) and north (winter), thus solemnly opening the beginning of months and seasons. In the third summer month, the emperor, dressed in yellow, sat on a throne in the center of the "hall of fate", symbolizing the middle of the year.

A complex ritual was subordinated to the idea that the empire should be governed in accordance with the movement of the universe.

At the same time, good social governance was a necessary condition for maintaining order in nature.

Many features of these ancient rites existed in China until the abolition of the monarchy in 1911. The Chinese calendar, associated with such traditions, is equally stable. Twelve lunar months of 29 and 30 days alternately made up a year of 354 days. Months corresponded to twelve zodiac constellations and grouped by three in each season. Months did not have names and were designated by ordinal numbers, the days within the month were counted by decades. Originally, every third and fifth year a month was added if the Sun was found to be in the same sign at the end of the month as at the beginning. Then a more precise 19-year cycle began to be applied. During each cycle, seven additional months were introduced: in the 3rd, 6th, 8th, 11th, 14th, 16th and 19th years. The thirteenth month was always placed after the winter solstice, and the beginning of the year fell on the new moon in the middle of the period between the winter solstice and the vernal equinox.

In the III century. BC. a seasonal calendar was used in the country, according to which the year was divided into 24 seasons, each season had a name, for example: “awakening of insects”, “earing of bread”, “cold dew”, etc.

The calendar helped the population to plan and carry out agricultural work.

At the same time, in China and neighboring countries (Mongolia, Korea, Japan) there was a system of counting time according to 60-year cycles. The years were grouped into cycles of sixty years. The beginning of this original reckoning was conditionally considered 2397 BC.

The number of the year in the 60-year cycle was indicated by the sign of one of the five elements: wood, fire, earth, metal and water. Each of the elements acted in two states: a tree - a plant and a tree - construction material, natural fire and hearth fire, metal in nature and metal in the product, wild land and cultivated land, flowing water and stagnant water. The elements in two qualities made up ten so-called "celestial branches": five odd and five even. At the same time, the cycle was divided into 12 periods - the so-called "earthly branches", indicated by the name of the animal: mouse, cow, tiger, hare, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, chicken, dog, pig.

To designate the year within the cycle, the signs of the heavenly and earthly branches were called: for example, the 1st year is a tree and a mouse, the 2nd is a tree and a cow, the 3rd is fire and a tiger, the 10th is water and a chicken, etc. . Tab. 1 allows you to quickly determine the position of the year within the cycle. Thus, the third year of the 60-year cycle is designated by the cyclic sign of the earth branch and is called the tiger. Under the sign of the tiger in the cycle, in addition to the third, there are also years 15, 27, 39 and 51. To indicate which of the years of the tiger in question, a specific year is also indicated by the sign of the celestial branch. In this case, the third year will be the year of "fire and tiger", the 15th "earth and tiger", the 27th "metal and tiger", etc.

To date current events, it was enough to indicate the sign of the "earth branch", that is, to name the corresponding animal. The relationship of the date to the "celestial branches" is often not indicated, as it is determined by circumstantial circumstances. The transition from one year to the next in the table is traced diagonally from top to bottom and from left to right.

To translate the dates of the modern calendar into a cyclic one, in addition to using the table, it is necessary to know which years of our chronology accounted for the beginning of 60-year cycles.

Since 1949, the international Gregorian calendar has been officially introduced in China, but in everyday life the cyclic calendar still retains its significance both in China and in a number of neighboring countries.

Indian calendars

Ethnic diversity, linguistic and political disunity of the tribes and nationalities of India led to the creation of many calendar systems, led to the existence of numerous eras. Most of the Indian calendars belonged to the lunisolar type, but there were also lunar and solar calendars.

A year lasting 365-366 days was divided into 12 months with the number of days from 29 to 32. In lunisolar systems, an additional 13th month was inserted once every three years to match the length of the solar year.

In addition, the year was divided into 6 seasons associated with natural phenomena: spring (vasant), hot season (grishma), rainy season (varsha), autumn (sharat), winter (hemanta), cold season (shishira). The New Year was timed to coincide with various days, but most often with the points of the spring or autumn equinoxes.

On March 22, 1957, India introduced the Unified National Calendar, developed on the basis of the systems most common in the country. The years are counted according to the Saka era, the beginning of which, according to our reckoning, dates back to 78 AD. e. The beginning of the year is the day following the vernal equinox.

Leap years are defined in the same way as in the modern Gregorian calendar. The Indian year is divided into 12 months.

Calendar of Ancient Mesopotamia

Also in III millennium BC. The priests of ancient Mesopotamia, through regular scientific observations of the starry sky, accumulated a lot of astronomical information. Already at that time, multi-storey towers - ziggurats up to 20 meters high - were built for observation at temples. To the original deified celestial bodies - the Sun, the Moon and

Venus - deified Mercury, Saturn, Mars and Jupiter soon join. It was established that all the planets keep near the "path of the Sun", that is, the ecliptic; here the first maps of the starry sky, lists of constellations, etc. were compiled.

Particular attention was paid to the moon. Not surprisingly, the first city-state calendars were lunar. However, under Hammurabi (1792-1750 BC), who united Mesopotamia under the auspices of Babylon, the lunisolar calendar of the city of Ur was recognized as official. The written decrees of Hammurabi conveyed to us evidence of such transformations: “Since the year has a shortage, let the month that is now beginning be called the second ululu, and therefore Babylon is due not on the 25th of the Tashrit, but on the 25th of the second ululu ".

This method of arbitrary insertions of an additional month was kept in Babylon from the era of Hammurabi to the 6th century. BC e., when they switched to a system of periodic or cyclic calculation. At the same time, from the beginning of the VI to the end of the IV century. BC e. the addition of the 13th month was carried out regularly three times in eight years, and from the end of the 4th century. BC e. - 7 times in 19 years.

According to the Babylonian calendar, the year consisted of 12 months.

Each month consisted of 29 or 30 days. The beginning of the year was considered the day of the vernal equinox.

The Babylonians adopted the seven-day week from the Sumerians.

Years were counted from the dates of the beginning of the reign of the Babylonian (later Assyrian) kings. The operation of the Babylonian calendar spread over time to Assyria, the Persian state, and then to the Hellenistic states of the Eastern Mediterranean.

Calendar of Ancient Greece

Initially, various Greek centers had their own time counting systems, which led to considerable confusion. This was due to the independent adjustment of the calendar in each policy. There were differences in the definition of the beginning of the calendar year.

The Athenian calendar is known, which consisted of twelve lunar months, the beginning of each of which approximately coincided with neomenia. The duration of the months varied within 29-30 days, and the calendar year consisted of 354 days.

Since the true lunar year includes 354.36 days, the phases of the moon did not exactly correspond to the calendar dates to which they were attributed. Therefore, the Greeks distinguished between the calendar "new moon", that is, the first day of the month and the actual new moon.

The names of the months in Greece were in most cases associated with certain holidays and only indirectly correlated with the seasons.

The beginning of the Athenian year fell on the month of Hecatombeon (July-August), associated with the summer solstice. To align the calendar year with the solar year, the 13th (embolismic) month, the 2nd Poseideon, was inserted in special years, lasting 29-30 days.

In 432 BC Athenian astronomer Meton developed a new 19-year cycle with seven embolismic years: 3rd, 6th, 8th, 11th, 14th, 17th and 19th. This order, called the "Metonic cycle", provided a fairly high accuracy. The daily discrepancy between solar and lunar years accumulated over 312 solar years.

Later, the cycles of Calippus and Hipparchus were developed, which further refined the lunisolar calendar. However, in practice, their amendments were almost never applied.

Up to the II century. BC e. The 13th month was added as the need arose, and sometimes for political and other reasons.

The Greeks did not know the seven-day week and counted the days within a month by decades.

The dating of the events in Athens was carried out according to the names of the archon officials. From the 4th century BC e. The chronology according to the Olympiads, which were held once every four years, became generally accepted.

The beginning of the era was considered the first Olympiad, held in the summer of 776 BC.

In the Hellenistic era in Greece, various eras were used: the era of Alexander, the era of the Seleucids, etc.

The official calendar, due to deviations from the solar year, was inconvenient for agriculture. Therefore, the Greeks often used a kind of agricultural calendar based on the apparent movements of the stars, on the change of seasons. A detailed description of such a calendar in the form of advice to the farmer was given back in the 8th century. BC e. Hellenic poet Hesiod.

Such a folk calendar had a great practical value and was preserved along with the official account of time for many centuries Greek history.

Jewish calendar

In 568 BC. e. After the capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian calendar and chronology were introduced in Judea. Prior to this, the Jews had a complex system of lunar time counting. The year consisted of 12 lunar months with 29 or 30 days each. The beginning of the month was determined by the direct observation of neomenia by two persons. As soon as the crescent of the moon appeared, the population of the country was notified by the sounds of trumpets and kindling fires about the birth of a new month.

Initially, the months were designated by numerals: the second, third, fourth, etc. Only the first month, which symbolized the beginning of spring, was called Aviv, which means the month of ears.

Subsequently, the Babylonian names of the months were borrowed and a seven-day week independent of the lunar phases was established. Sunday was considered the first day of the week, and the day began at 6 pm.

The lunar year consisted of 354 days, so the official count of the moons diverged from the religious ceremonies associated simultaneously with the new moon and with the ripening of barley. The administration added an extra month to the year as needed.

The replacement of the lunar calendar by the lunar-solar one was completed only in the 5th century BC. n. e. Extra month from 499 CE e. began to be inserted into certain leap years of the 19-year cycle, familiar to us from the Greek calendar.

Years of 12 months are usually called simple, and leap years containing 13 months are called embolismic.

Religious regulations did not allow combining the beginning of the Jewish year with Sunday, Wednesday or Friday.

The Jewish chronology is based on the mythical date of the "creation of the world", which is taken as October 7, 3761 BC. This so-called "age from Adam" is officially adopted in modern Israel, although they use the Gregorian calendar.

Until the end of the III century. BC e. the year of the ancient Jews began in the spring, and then the new year was moved to autumn.

Muslim calendar

An example of a purely lunar account of time is the Muslim calendar. Before the spread of Islam, the pagans of the Asian East used calendars of the lunisolar type.

In the 7th century n. e. with the emergence of a new Muslim religion - "Islam" - for religious and political reasons, a new, purely lunar calendar was introduced.

Religious dogma (Koran) forbids believers to consider a year with a duration of more than 12 lunar months.

At present, the Muslim calendar is used by Arabs, Turks, Mohammedan Hindus and some other peoples of the globe.

The calendar consists of 12 lunar months of 30 and 29 days alternately.

Since the total number of days in a year was 354, and the astronomical lunar year was 354 days 8 hours 12 minutes 36 seconds, then to last month one day was periodically added either according to the "Turkish cycle" (3 times in 8 years) or according to the "Arab cycle" (11 times in 30 years).

The Muslim calendar lunar year (simple - 354 days, leap year - 355 days) is shorter than the solar year, consisting of 365 days (leap year of 366), by about 11 days. He "overtakes" the solar calendar by about 1/33 of the year (more precisely, by 11/366). Therefore, 33 lunar years equal approximately 32 solar years.

The beginning of the year in translation into the European calendar is transitional. Therefore, in the lunar calendar there are no summer, winter or autumn months- all months are mobile relative to the seasons.

In the Muslim calendar, days are counted by seven-day weeks, and the beginning of the day is considered to be the time of sunset.

The Muslim era is called Hijra (flight). In September 622 A.D. e. The founder of Islam, the Prophet Muhammad, fled with a group of followers from Mecca to Medina, fleeing religious persecution. For Muslims this significant event became the starting date of the new chronology. In 638, Caliph Omar introduced a new lunar calendar, the starting point of which was decided to be the 1st day of the first month (Muharram) of the year of Muhammad's flight. The astronomical new moon that began Muharram 622 was July 15, a Thursday in the Julian calendar; however, the visible appearance of the lunar crescent (neomenia) occurred a day later, therefore, July 16, 622 (Friday) is considered to be the starting point of the Muslim account of time.

Mayan calendar

The original time counting systems were developed by the peoples of the New World. The most famous are the calendars of the Mayan Indians, who created in the 1st millennium BC. e. original culture in Central America. The Maya made progress in astronomy related to the practical needs of agriculture.

The Maya knew the duration of the solar year, they knew how to calculate the time of the onset of eclipses of the Sun and Moon.

Questions of chronology had great importance both religious and civil life Mayan. The priests used a short 260-day year, called the tzolkin, to calculate the rites.

Except short year Maya knew 2 types of long years:

) a year of tun lasting 360 days had a special purpose and was rarely used.

) 365-day year haab, which consisted of 18 months of 20 days.

Maya had special images for each month.

The priests knew the true duration of the solar year and believed that counting the years of haab for 60 years gives an error of 15 days. The Mayan solar calendar was adopted by the Aztecs.

In Maya time counting, four years were important: thirteen 4-year cycles made up a period of 52 years, which was convenient in that it allowed short and long years to be compared together.

Mayan dating of an event consisted of the number (or number) of the day within the 13-day week, the name of the day, the day of the month, and the name of the month.

The ancient Maya had a lunar calendar with a duration of each month of 29 or 30 days and a numerical designation of the days within the month. After six lunar months, the lunar half-year ended, then the counting began again from the 1st month.

The Mayan calendar was one of the most accurate in human history. The duration of the solar year, determined by them in antiquity, differed from that adopted in modern science only by 0.0002 and equaled 365.2420 days. With such accuracy, the error per day accumulated only for 5000 years.

Julian calendar

The modern solar calendar, adopted in most countries of the world, goes back to the ancient Roman account of time. Information about the first Roman calendar, which arose back in the legendary period of the reign of Romulus (mid-VIII century BC), is contained in the work of Censorinus (II century AD). The calendar was based on the so-called agrarian year of 304 days. The year, consisting of ten months of different lengths, began on the first day of the first spring month. Initially, the months were denoted by ordinal numbers, but by the end of the 8th century. BC. four of them received individual names.

In the 7th century BC. calendar reform was carried out. Tradition connects her with the name of one of the semi-legendary kings of Rome, Numa Pompilius. The calendar became lunisolar. The year was extended to 355 days by adding two more months: Januarius, named after the two-faced god Janus, and Februarius, dedicated to Februus, the god of the underworld.

The unusual distribution of days over months is explained by the fact that the superstitious Romans considered even numbers to be unlucky and sought to avoid them.

A year of 355 days annually lagged behind the solar one by 10-11 days. For coordination, an additional month of marcedonius was introduced once every two years, consisting of 22-23 days.

An additional month was inserted after 23 February. The remaining 5 days of February were added at the end of the year, so that in fact marcedonius consisted of 27 or 28 days.

The appointment of an additional month was the responsibility of the priests. Because the terms of office of key elected officials were measured calendar year, often for political reasons, intercalations were appointed at the wrong time or were not appointed at all. As a result of such abuses, the Roman account of time, up to the reform of Caesar, diverged significantly from the solar year, and attempts to regulate the calendar were based more on the will of the priests than on the laws of astronomy.

In 46 BC. e. Gaius Julius Caesar, dictator and consul, begins to introduce new calendar. To align the months with the corresponding seasons, he had to add 90 days to the year. A group of astronomers from Alexandria, led by Sosigen, participated in the development of the new calendar.

From January 1, 45 BC. e. The solar calendar began to operate with a year duration of 365 days, called the Julian.

The new calendar adopted a year of 365 days. But since the astronomical year consisted of 365 days and 6 hours, in order to eliminate the difference, it was decided to add one day to every fourth year. For convenience, these days were assigned to years divisible by four.

Days began to be added to the shortest month - February. But for religious reasons, they did not dare to simply add them to the last February day, but tried to “hide” them between the ordinary days of this month.

Sosigene retained the name of the months, but changed their duration, establishing a certain order of alternation of long odd and short even months. After the transfer of the New Year to January, the names of a number of months (numerals) began to not correspond to their place in the calendar. This discrepancy has been preserved in our calendar.

After the death of Caesar (44 BC), some changes took place in the calendar.

The new calendar was adopted by the Christian Church (at the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD) and applied with various eras.

Gregorian calendar

lunar time Gregorian calendar

Christian church claiming Julian calendar faced a difficult task. Main holiday new religion- Easter - was celebrated according to the lunisolar calendar, on the first Sunday after the first spring full moon. Such a full moon could only occur after the vernal equinox (March 21 according to the Julian calendar). To calculate the day of Easter, it was necessary to find an agreement between the days of the week with the dates of the solar calendar and the lunar phases. Bishop scholars had been working on this issue long before the Council of Nicaea. One of them, Eusebius of Caesarea, turned to the forgotten 19-year Metonic cycle and his proposal was approved by the Council of Nicaea.

In the Byzantine, and later in the Old Russian chronology, there was an era from the “creation of the world”, which differed from our era (the era of the “nativity of Christ”) by 5508 years. Here is the calculation serial number years in a 19-year cycle was carried out by directly dividing the date in the "creation of the world" system by 19.

In the Julian calendar, the same day of the week falls at the beginning and end of the year. In 1981, according to the Julian calendar, January 1 and December 31 are Wednesdays. The starting point for counting time by solar cycles was the "creation of the world." Therefore, the definition of the circles of the sun for years, expressed in the system from the "creation of the world", is given by direct division of the date by 28. Using the solar and lunar cycles Christian church approved the so-called "Easter limits", that is, the framework in the Julian calendar system (March 22-April 25), beyond which Easter day cannot go. Since the order of the alternation of Easter days over a number of years is determined by the golden numbers and the circles of the sun, it is possible to calculate the period after which the combinations of the numbers of the solar calendar and the lunar phases will be repeated.

However, the rules for determining Easter, approved by the Council of Nicaea, soon ceased to correspond to the Julian calendar. Due to the inaccuracy of the calendar, the spring equinox gradually shifted to earlier dates, and the Easter holiday also shifted accordingly. This happened because the average length of the year according to the Julian calendar is 11 minutes and 14 seconds longer than the tropical one, which leads to an error of 1 day in 128 years.

The error of the Julian calendar was noticed long ago. There are known attempts to transform it, to make it more accurate. In the XI century. n. e. the well-known Persian poet and scholar Omar Khayyam proposed to correct the counting of time over 33-year cycles. Khayyam divided 33 years into 8 periods, of which 7 had 4 years each, and the eighth had 5 years. Each end year of the period was a leap year. According to Khayyam, in a 132-year period, leap years would fall on: 4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24, 28, 33, 37, 41, 45, 49, 53, 57, 61, 66, 70, 74, 78 , 82, 86, 90, 94, 99, 103, 107, 111, 115, 119, 123, 127, 132 years.

As a result, 132 years turned out to be not 33 (as in the Julian calendar), but 32 leap years, and the average length of the year turned out to be very close to the true one - 365, 2424 days. With such accuracy, the error per day would accumulate only over 4500 years, therefore, this calendar was more accurate not only than the Julian, but also the Gregorian.

In 1582, under Pope Gregory XIII, the reform of the Julian calendar was carried out. The reform used the project of the Italian mathematician Luigi Lilio Garalli. The project was, firstly, to leave unshakable the decision of the Nicaean Council, and therefore return the beginning of spring to March 21, and secondly, to eliminate the possibility of the same discrepancy in the future.

The first task was solved by the prescription of the pope: after October 4, 1582, it was proposed to count the next day not on October 5, but on October 15. To accomplish the second task, it was decided every 400 years to throw out of the calendar three days that had come running. The most convenient for this were recognized the years that complete the century. The only leap years left are those whose first two digits are divisible by 4.

New calendar style ( a new style) turned out to be much more accurate than the Julian (old style). In it, the year lags behind the astronomical one by only 26 seconds, and the discrepancy by a day can occur only after 3300 years. TO early XVII V. this calendar was adopted in the Catholic countries of Europe, and in the XVIII century. - Protestant, in the XIX - early XX centuries. - in Japan and in a number of Orthodox countries in Europe, in the 20s of the XX century. - in Greece, Turkey, Egypt. After the victory of the Great October socialist revolution By decree of the Council of People's Commissars of January 26, 1918, a new calendar was introduced in Russia.

It is currently considered international.

In the first years after the introduction of the Gregorian reform, there were objections to the new system of counting time. The French scientist, poet and publicist Joseph Scaliger spoke out against the Gregorian calendar. In 1583, he proposed to use the day, that is, the average solar day, as the main unit of account for chronological and astronomical calculations. In days, you can express any intervals of time between events recorded in different calendar systems, eras.

For such an account, Scaliger introduced the concept of a Julian period lasting 7980 years. The starting point, that is, the first day of the Julian period, the scientist proposed to consider a conditional date - January 1, 4713 BC. e.

Counting the Days of the Julian Period Eliminates Difficulties exact definition the time elapsed between any events recorded within the same calendar system.

French Republican calendar

During the years of the Great French Revolution an attempt was made to create a calendar free from religious influences and based on strictly scientific data. Its prototype was the work "Almanac honest people”, issued by S. Mareshal at the end of 1787.

The new calendar was developed by a commission of leading French scientists headed by Gilbert Romm and introduced by decree of the Convention on October 5, 1793.

In it, instead of the era from "the birth of Christ", a new era was established - the Republic, which began on the day of the proclamation of the Republic in France, which coincided with the day of the autumn equinox - September 22, 1792 AD. The length of the year and the number of months in the year remained unchanged. However, now each month was equal to 30 days and new names were established for them. Each month was divided into decades. Days within decades were denoted by an ordinal number.

Since there were 360 ​​days in 12 months, 5 extra days were introduced for the equation with the astronomical year, and 6 extra days for the leap year.

During the years of the French Revolution, an attempt was made, in accordance with the metric system introduced at that time, to divide the day into 10 hours, the hour into 100 minutes, the minute into 100 seconds. However, the innovation did not catch on.

The French revolutionary calendar, which provoked resistance from the church, lasted 13 years and was canceled by Napoleon on September 9, 1805. On the day of the Paris Commune, March 18, 1871. it was restored, but with the fall of the Commune on May 28, 1871, it was replaced by the Gregorian calendar.

One of the shortcomings of the Republican calendar was the lack of a clear system for introducing leap years, as well as replacing the usual seven-day week with decades.

Currently, the calendar of the French Revolution is not used; for historians, the exact dating of the events noted in this time counting system is important.

World Calendar Projects

Currently, new calendar systems are being created and old ones are being improved. In May 1923, the New Julian calendar, proposed by the Yugoslav astronomer Milanković, was approved at the Council of Eastern Orthodox Churches. In order to reduce the discrepancy between the calendar and astronomical years, it was proposed to consider leap years not all years that are divisible by 4, but only those of the years that complete the century, in which the number of hundreds when divided by 9 gives a remainder of 2 or 6.

However, the New Julian calendar will remain virtually unchanged from the Gregorian until 2800.

The Gregorian calendar, accepted almost all over the world, fixes with sufficient accuracy the tropical year and the synodic month. But in the 19th century and XX century. its shortcomings were revealed, which complicate the work of financial and other economic ones: the unequal number of days in months and quarters, the mismatch of numbers, months and days of the week in different years, etc.

In this regard, already in the first half of the XIX century. began to create projects of such a calendar that would eliminate the noted shortcomings. In 1923, the International Committee for the Creation of a Unified World Calendar was formed, which printed more than 200 projects. Since 1953, the United Nations has dealt with this issue.

Of the many projects, two of the most optimal can be distinguished.

According to the first of them, the year is divided into 13 months, each of which has 4 weeks of 7 days, and a total of 28 days. The main disadvantage of such a calendar is the inability to divide the year into semesters and quarters.

The second project proposes a calendar in which the year consists of 12 months, divided into 4 three-month quarters of 91 days. Each quarter contains 13 weeks. The first days of the year and quarter always fall on a Sunday. Since there are 364 days in such a calendar, a day without a number is inserted in the ordinary and leap years.

Such a calendar has a number of advantages: it repeats the number of months and days from year to year, each month contains the same number of working days; it is divided into semesters and quarters.

However, a violation of the weekly count due to the presence of days without a number in the calendar will shift the holy days of the Muslim, Jewish and Christian religions.

CONCLUSION

primitive people already in the early stages of development, they perceived the passage of time, distinguished between the change of day and night, the seasons, the period of rains and the ripening of fruits, but they did not keep track of time, since there was no need for this. Their memory of the past did not spread beyond one or two generations. The account of time begins to appear in people only with the development of agriculture, cattle breeding, exchange and navigation.

As the working life higher forms of production and economic life are being created among the people. There is a need to calculate long periods of time.

For agricultural tribes, it is important to take into account the time of year - the annual period, because when engaging in agriculture, it is extremely important to foresee the timing of the onset of certain agricultural work that required collective labor for its implementation. All the most important festivities of agricultural tribes were associated with agricultural work and were timed to coincide with it.

In hot countries, where the scorching rays of the sun forced to transfer daytime work to night time, it was necessary to take into account the lunar phases - the monthly period of one revolution of the moon.

The initial accounting of time had a primitive character. It was carried out according to changes in nature - the change of seasons, the floods of large rivers, the alternation of winds, etc.

In the future, the needs of economic and social life made it necessary to clarify the rough and indefinite natural year and its subdivisions. The need to study the starry sky, to study the movement of the Sun and the Moon in order to keep track of time, was recognized very early.

The first time counting systems date back to 4 - 3 thousand BC.

LIST OF USED LITERATURE SOURCES

1. Berezhko, N.G. Chronology of Russian chronology. Problems of source studies / N.G. Berezhko - 1958.

Bikerman, E. Chronology of the ancient world / E. Bikerman M. - 1975.

Ermolaev, I.P. Historical chronology / I.P. Ermolaev - Kazan, 1980.

Kamentseva, E.I. Chronology / E.I. Kamentseva - M., 1982.

Klimishin, I.A. Calendar and chronology / I.A. Klimishin - M., 1985

6. Pronshtein, A.P. Questions of theory and methodology of historical research / A.P. Pronstein, I.N. Danilevsky - M., 1986. S. 63 - 112.

Pronstein, A.P. Methods of historical source studies / A.P. Pronstein - Rostov-on-Don, 1976. S. 186 - 205.

Pronstein, A.P. Methods of work on historical sources / A.P. Pronshtein, A.G. Zadera - M., 1977.

Pronstein, A.P. Chronology / A.P. Pronstein, V.Ya. Kiyashko - M., 1981.

Racer, S.A. Fundamentals of textology / S.A. Racer - M., 1978. S. 73 - 82.

11. Chronology Russian history: encyclopedic reference book - M., 1994.

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Since ancient times, man has tried to streamline his life and used for this various ways chronology. In ancient times, the movement of celestial bodies served as a measure, on the basis of which calendars were compiled. But the problem was that different tribes they interpreted the principles according to which it is necessary to count time in their own way, therefore, in order to answer the question of what a calendar is, we will find out how it appeared and what it was like among different peoples.

The concept of "calendar"

The calendar is a number system for long periods of time, depending on the periodicity of the movement of various celestial bodies, such as the Sun or the Moon.

The concept itself arose thanks to debt books, on the basis of which people had to pay. The return of the debt was usually appointed at the beginning of the month. These days were called Kalends. This is where the word calendarium comes from.

But different peoples considered completely different events to be the beginning for counting time. So, for the ancient Romans, the starting point was the foundation of Rome, and for the Egyptians, the date of the emergence of a new ruling dynasty.

Varieties of calendars

To understand what a calendar is, you need to know what it is based on. Until now, many nations different concept year, and the starting point of the reckoning creates confusion. Let's turn to history.

The ancient Greek calendar included 354 days. It was an attempt to reconcile the length of the lunar month and the solar year. Because of this, an extra 90 days were added to the year every eight years. Due to too many days, they were divided into several months.

The ancient Roman calendar began on March 1 and contained 304 days, which were divided into 10 equal parts. It was constantly reformed, and as a result, January 1 became the starting point. Two more months have also been added.

Julius Caesar watching natural phenomena revealed a certain periodicity in them. This is how the Julian calendar appeared, which was calculated with mathematical precision. It consisted of 365.25 days. It was Caesar who introduced the concept of "leap year". Its length increased by exactly one day. Observation of the movement of the Sun made it possible to avoid inaccuracies and the appearance of extra days in the year.

Gregorian calendar

During the time of Pope Gregory XIII, a new style of reckoning was introduced. Its main goal was to fix the date of the vernal equinox, which was constantly shifting. It was on March 21 that the day equaled the night, and this is as close as possible to the tropical year, where the difference is only 26 seconds. For this interval to be equal to days, it would take about 3300 years. The Gregorian calendar has such incredible accuracy.

Starting in 1918, a new style was approved in Russia and the Gregorian calendar was introduced, ahead of the old one by 13 days. That is why many people celebrate the Old New Year, which would just fall on January 13th.

The moon as a measure of time

When a lunar calendar is compiled for a year, the phase change of the earth's satellite is taken as the basis. So a month is 29.53 days. But the resulting "tail" after the decimal point is not displayed in the calendar, and therefore, over 30 years, another 11 extra days gradually accumulate. But there are adherents and followers of such a calculation of time. Muslim countries are a prime example.

Based on the lunar calendar, recommendations are developed, following which you can attract good luck and achieve success. Many gardeners check the phases of the satellite to start certain land work. Creativity, money matters and personal relationships are also associated with the influence of the Moon. Some even consider her position to get a haircut.

Flip variant

More recently, many families often used a flip calendar. But even now this species quite popular. However, its appearance has changed somewhat. Manufacturers add a convenient plastic stand and colorfully decorate each page.

Sheet with every day on the calendar must be torn off. You can also just open new page. Along with the name of the month, the day of the week, and the date on the sheet, a variety of interesting information associated with this day. It is very convenient to use such a calendar in offices. Often they are used as a corporate gift.

Wall calendar

Many are accustomed to hanging a calendar on the wall, the refrigerator door. Its peculiarity lies in the fact that it is visible whole year. It is immediately clear when holidays or weekends come. After all, they are highlighted in color.

As a rule, wall calendars are made of glossy paper. There are also more expensive plastic options. The popularity of wall calendars is due to ease of use, beautiful appearance and obtaining maximum information on a rather limited area.

Holiday calendar

If there is a need to find out which holiday will come on a particular day, a wall view will not be a good helper. This will require special calendar holidays, which is easy to find in electronic form on the Internet. You can also buy it there. On such a calendar, next to each date, absolutely all the holidays that occur on that day, even little-known ones, will be listed.

pocket calendar

A convenient option in the case when you need to have a calendar always at hand, will be a pocket version. It is a small card with dates and a picture on the back. Often companies leave their advertising images on such calendars and distribute them to visitors. With their help, it is convenient to track holidays and celebrate important dates. Often pocket calendars are used as bookmarks. They are easy to carry with you at all times.

Church chronology

Many people, coming to the temple, are faced with a completely different chronology. The fact is that the Orthodox calendar adheres to the Julian style, so there is a discrepancy. Indeed, over the millennia of existence, it gradually began to lag behind real time, and now the difference is two weeks.

Catholic countries took into account given fact and came to the Gregorian calendar. But Orthodox people did not take into account the new style and adhere to the old chronology. However, the Orthodox calendar of some countries has changed. It was called the New Julian, which now coincides with the Gregorian.

At all church calendars have their own characteristics. Therefore, when understanding what a calendar is, it is important to take into account the country of its origin and the religion of its people. So, there are Vedic, Buddhist, Islamic, Coptic systems of chronology. In this case, different measures are used: the Moon, the Sun, the stars, the emergence of a dynasty. Therefore, their time differs from the officially accepted in European countries.

Schedule of work and rest

An indispensable assistant in the work is a production calendar. It is especially useful for accountants. The production calendar not only helps with the calculation of hours of work, but also facilitates the calculation of sick and vacation pay. In addition, the number of days that are officially considered working days different years varies due to holidays and the transfer of days that fall on the weekend. The production calendar is an official document, where all days are distributed by decree of the Government of the Russian Federation.

The document is important not only for accounting, but also necessary for personnel officers. With its help, wages are calculated, bonuses are based on official working hours and an accurate schedule of working days is drawn up. In addition, the production calendar is necessary for the timely sending of reports to various official structures and for the calculation of sick leave and vacations.

Depending on drop official holidays they are transferred to weekdays or weekends. Every year their order is announced and fixed by legislative acts. Thus, a calendar for the year with holidays and weekends is being developed. It takes into account all requirements Labor Code Russian Federation.

In anticipation new year holidays many people care about the calendar for December, but unlike the first month of the year, there are usually no special changes here. It often happens that on December 31, when everyone is preparing for the New Year, you have to go to work. The calendar for December can only please if the 31st falls on a weekend, but then the January holidays can be shortened.

Conclusion

When studying the question of what a calendar is, it is important to consider the method of reckoning and the place of its use. So, in Russia, two types are still in use. The public lives according to the Gregorian calendar. But the church sticks to the old style.

Now there are several types of calendars. But differing in some content, they all have the same basis. Their functions and purpose are generally similar. They are necessary for time planning and precise organization of all events.

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Calendar - history and modernity

Initially, the calendar served as a numbering system for the days of the year and was based on the periodic change in the movements of celestial bodies. However, in different historical periods different cultures interpreted the principles that should underlie the creation of a calendar differently, hence the variety of types of calendars, as well as numerous disputes that continue to this day. In this article, we will talk about the different types of calendars and how to create a calendar yourself using special software.

What is a calendar

According to Wikipedia, Calendarium is a debt book that was settled on calendar days, that is, on the first days of the month. different peoples used their own methods of dating historical events, for example, the Romans counted from the founding of Rome, and the ancient Egyptians - from the beginning of the reign of a new dynasty.

Types of calendars

Translation from one system of chronology to another sometimes causes significant difficulties due to the different lengths of the year, as well as the unequal date of the beginning of the year in different systems.

IN ancient greek calendar the year contained 354 days. However, due to the discrepancy with the solar year by 11.25 days, every eight years, ninety additional days were added to the year, divided into three equal months.

Initially ancient roman calendar consisted of 304 days divided into 10 months, and the first month of the year was considered the date - the first of March. Subsequently, the Roman calendar underwent numerous reforms, in particular, two more months were added, and the date of the new year was also changed from the first of March to the first of January.

Introduction Julian calendar was also associated with the name of Julius Caesar, who sought to link calendar dates with seasonal natural phenomena. Julius established the length of the year as 365.25 days. According to the Julian calendar, every four years there is a leap year, which lasts 366 solar days. Orientation to the solar cycle made it possible to avoid unnecessary "inserts" in the calendar (with the exception of the leap year), as well as to bring the calendar dates closer to the natural cycle.

Gregorian calendar was introduced under Pope Gregory XIII and designated as the "new style" instead of the "old style" (Julian calendar). The purpose of the introduction of the Gregorian calendar was to return the real date of the vernal equinox - March 21, established back in the days of the Council of Nicaea, which approved Paschal. The Gregorian calendar is as close as possible to the tropical year, the difference is only 26 seconds. This difference will reach a day in 3333 years, but to compensate for this error, the Gregorian calendar was introduced special rule, based on the fact that three leap years must be excluded from every 400 years. This could correct the calendar so much that an error of one day did not occur until a hundred thousand years later. The Gregorian calendar was introduced in Russia only in 1918, the difference between the new and old styles in the 21st century was 13 days.

Other classifications

There are other types of calendars that basically contain different systems of chronology: Egyptian, Jewish, Muslim, Chinese, etc.

At the heart of any calendar, with rare exceptions, is the cyclicity of the two main celestial bodies - the moon and the sun. In connection with this, there are three main types of calendars.

1. Lunar calendar. It is based on the cyclic change of lunar phases during the synodic month, equal to 29.53 days. Thus, the lunar year contains 354.37 days. The main disadvantage of this calendar is that it does not take into account the fractional part, and for every 30 years an extra 11 days accumulate. A typical example of the lunar calendar is the Muslim calendar.

2. Solar calendar is based on the annual solar cycle and has a duration of 365.24 days. To eliminate the resulting error, a special leap year is introduced every four years, containing an extra day. The main dates that such a calendar focuses on are the days of the equinox and the solar solstice. The Gregorian calendar is solar.

3. Lunisolar calendar. As the name implies, this is an attempt to connect two types of calendars and, accordingly, to coordinate two cycles - lunar and solar. It is rather complicated both in calculations and in application. For example, to eliminate discrepancies, an additional thirteenth month is added every two or three years. An example is the Jewish calendar.

How to make a calendar on a computer?

Thus, from time immemorial, the calendar served not only as a means of measuring time intervals, but also helped to organize the life of people and their work. The calendar has not lost its functions to this day. It is difficult to do without a calendar both at home and at work. Using the calendar, we plan upcoming trips, determine the number of working days in a year, specify the dates of state or church holidays. On the shelves of stores you can find a huge number of calendars of the most diverse designs.

But a much more pleasant and original solution would be a calendar that you make yourself. Using the editor "Calendar Design" from AMS Software, you will be able to prepare beautiful photos with just a few minutes! All you have to do is choose a calendar style, add a photo, and your stylish calendar is ready! Such a calendar will be a good addition to your image and a great gift for any occasion.

Today, the most famous chronology systems are the Julian calendar (“old”), introduced in the Roman Republic by Julius Caesar on January 1, 45 BC, and the Gregorian calendar (“new”), which was introduced by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582. But history also knows other calendars - some of them were used by the ancients, while others were put into use quite recently.

Mayan calendar

The Mayan calendar actually consists of three different calendars: the Long Count (astronomical calendar), the Tzolkin (divine calendar) and the Haab (civil calendar). The Haab calendar had 365 days, and it was divided into 19 months: 18 months had 20 days, and 19 months had only 5 days. The Tzolkin had 20 "periods" of 13 days each. The Tzolkin was used to determine the days of Maya ceremonies and religious events. The long count was used to determine long periods of time in the "general cycle", which has 2.88 million days (about 7885 years). The ancient Maya believed that the universe was destroyed and rebuilt every 2.88 million days.

International corrected calendar

The International Corrected Calendar has 13 months, each with 28 days. Months in it go, as in a regular calendar - from January to December, and also in June-July, the 13th month is added - "Sol". According to such a calendar, Easter will always be on April 15, every Christmas will fall on Wednesday, and every year will start on Sunday. However, every month the 13th will be a Friday. The calendar was made by Moses Costworth in 1899 but was never adopted.

Egyptian calendar

The first calendar that the ancient Egyptians began to use is the lunar calendar, based on the floods of the Nile River. This calendar turned out to be very inaccurate, and an error of up to 80 days could occur in it. Therefore, the Egyptians introduced a solar calendar based on the movement of the star Sirius. The two calendars were in use at the same time, but they soon began to differ greatly, forcing the Egyptians to add an extra month to the lunar calendar every three years. But even with the extra month, the calendars didn't match, so the Egyptians introduced a new calendar that had 365 days divided into 12 months. Each month had 30 days, and at the end of the year 5 extra days were added.

positivist calendar

The positivist calendar was intended to replace the Catholic calendar. It was invented in 1849 by Auguste Comte. In all of his 13 months, there were exactly 28 days, divided into four seven-day weeks. Each week of this calendar is dedicated to an outstanding personality in world history.

Chinese calendar

The Chinese calendar was solar-lunar, that is, it was calculated based on the position of the Sun and Moon. There were 12 months and 353-355 days in a year, while a whole extra month was added in a leap year (resulting in 383-385 days in a year). A leap month was added about once every three years. Although this calendar is still used in China, it is mainly used to calculate the days of Chinese ceremonies and weddings, and the Gregorian calendar is used for everything else.

Ethiopian Orthodox calendar

Ethiopia celebrated the new millennium on September 12, 2007, seven and a half years after the rest of the world. This happened because in Ethiopia they use the Coptic Orthodox calendar, which has 13 months of 30 days each. In leap years, an extra month of five or six days is added. The calendar was often used in the West until 1582, after which it was replaced by the Gregorian calendar. Ethiopia did not switch to the Gregorian calendar due to excessive conservatism and religiosity in the country.

French revolutionary calendar

The French Revolutionary Calendar is also called the French Republican Calendar and was unsuccessful attempt"de-Christianization" of France. The calendar was used in France from October 24, 1793 until January 1, 1806, when it was finally abolished. The year of the beginning of the revolution (1792) was declared the beginning new era. The era "from the birth of Christ" and the beginning of the year on January 1 were abolished. Instead, each year began on September 22 (the first day of the Republic). Given that the calendar was introduced in 1793, it had a 1st year, instead, the countdown immediately started from the 2nd year.

Roman calendar

The Roman calendar is a perfect example of what a calendar shouldn't look like. This chronology, sometimes referred to as the "pre-Julian calendar", was created by King Romulus during the founding of Rome. The calendar had 10 months, a total of 304 days, and an additional 61 days that were not included in any month or week. Since the months did not coincide with the seasons of the year, King Numa Pompilius added two extra months, januarius (January) and februarius (February). Subsequently, the pontiffs added additional months for their own personal purposes. Some of them were even bribed to add or reduce the length of the year. Julius Caesar later introduced the Julian calendar after he became pontiff.

Aztec calendar

The Aztec calendar was made up of two different calendars: Xiupoualli and Tonalpoualli. The regular Xi'poualli calendar had 365 days, divided into 18 months of 20 days each. Five extra days were added at the end of the year, and another 12 days were added every 52 years. IN ritual calendar tonalpoualli had 20 months divided into 13 days, i.e. there were 260 days in a year. Each of these 260 days was designated by a separate symbol and was dedicated to a specific god. Both calendars coincided once every 52 years, and the Aztecs believed that the world could be destroyed at the end of each such cycle. To avert impending doom, they performed a 12-day ritual called the New Fire Festival, during which they practiced human sacrifice.

Instruction

The calendar allows you to fix dates and measure time intervals. This is necessary to register events in chronological order. Since ancient times, calendars have been used to designate church holidays - including those that do not have an exact date, as is the case with Easter. IN secular life wage, interest payments and other liabilities are also tied to time intervals.

The main types of calendars are solar, lunar and lunisolar. The length of a day is determined by the rotation of the Earth around its axis. The lunar month is tied to the revolution of the moon around the earth. The solar year is given by the rotation of the Earth around the Sun.

Ancient Egyptians, Maya and most modern countries follow the solar calendar. It is tied to the length of the solar year, which has 365.2422 days. The civil calendar has been corrected for the integer 365, and the missing fractional part is taken into account by adding one day to the leap year.

IN lunisolar calendar an attempt was made to match the duration of the solar year with the lunar months by means of fittings. This is the official Jewish calendar in Israel.

In different historical periods, attempts were made to improve the timing. The problem is that both the solar year and the lunar month contain fractional parts that can be taken into account in different ways. This is done with the help of amendments with a certain frequency.

Greek calendar. The year consisted of 354 days. Every 8 years, 90 days were added to it, divided by three months.

The Roman calendar consisted of 10 months, then two more were added. Around 451 BC. the beginning of the year was moved to January 1 and the sequence of months was brought to the current form.

Julian calendar. At first, the dates did not coincide with the natural seasons. After the reform of Julius Caesar, a leap year appeared. The Julian calendar is called the "old style".

August calendar. When Caesar died, a leap month was added not every four years, but every three. This mistake was corrected by Emperor Augustus. He also changed the length of some months. As a result, the current system has emerged.

Chinese calendar. For several millennia BC. Emperor Yao ordered the creation of a calendar suitable for agricultural work. Until 1930, the peasants used the ancient calendar, then it was banned.

Gregorian calendar. Pope Gregory XIII added to the Julian calendar, and March 21 became the day of the vernal equinox. Since 1582, the so-called new style appeared. The correction of dates introduced confusion, because Gregory XIII ordered that corrections be made to past dates. Now the Gregorian calendar is used in Russia, the USA and other countries. The Gregorian calendar is consistent with natural phenomena, but it also has flaws. There is talk of improving and reforming the calendar.

Edwards' perpetual calendar is divided into quarters. Every week starts on Monday, which is convenient for business. Friday does not fall on the 13th. In the United States, they even submitted a bill to the House of Representatives to switch to this calendar.