Parise (1982) provides useful, though not infallible, tables for date conversion.įotheringham (1935) and the Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics (1910), in its section on "Calendars," offer basic information on historical calendars. Inclusion of the Julian calendar is justified by its everyday use in historical studies.ĭespite a vast literature on calendars, truly authoritative references, particularly in English, are difficult to find.Īveni (1989) surveys a broad variety of calendrical systems, stressing their cultural contexts rather than their operational details. With the exception of the Julian calendar, this chapter does not deal with extinct systems. The fundamental bases of the calendars are given, along with brief historical summaries.Īlthough algorithms are given for correlating these systems, close examination reveals that even the standard calendars are subject to local variation. This chapter is limited to the half-dozen principal calendars in current use.įurthermore, the emphasis of the chapter is on function and calculation rather than on culture. Whatever their scientific sophistication, calendars must ultimately be judged as social contracts, not as scientific treatises.Īccording to a recent estimate (Fraser, 1987), there are about forty calendars used in the world today. It is little wonder that calendars have held a sacred status and have served as a source of social order and cultural identity.Ĭalendars have provided the basis for planning agricultural, hunting, and migration cycles, for divination and prognostication, and for maintaining cycles of religious and civil events. Thus calendars serve as a link between mankind and the cosmos. In addition to serving practical purposes, the process of organization provides a sense, however illusory, of understanding and controlling time itself. The common theme of calendar making is the desire to organize units of time to satisfy the needs and preoccupations of society. Some calendars are codified in written laws others are transmitted by oral tradition. Some calendars are regulated by astronomical observations, some carefully and redundantly enumerate every unit, and some contain ambiguities and discontinuities. The generality of this definition is due to the diversity of methods that have been used in creating calendars.Īlthough some calendars replicate astronomical cycles according to fixed rules, others are based on abstract, perpetually repeating cycles of no astronomical significance. Kenneth Seidelmann, editor, with permission from University Science Books, Sausalito, CA 94965.Ī calendar is a system of organizing units of time for the purpose of reckoning time over extended periods.īy convention, the day is the smallest calendrical unit of time the measurement of fractions of a day is classified as timekeeping. Doggett Reprinted from the Explanatory Supplement to the Astronomical Almanac, P.
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