Almost all calendars in the world are based on cyclicality caused by astronomical phenomena: the rotation of the Earth around its axis and around the Sun, the change in the phases of the Moon, the movement of planets against the background of stars. The problem has always been that astronomical cycles are not ideally suited to the needs of timing. The so-called synodic month (time from new moon to new moon) consists of an average of 29.53 days, that is, it is not equal to a whole number of days. The tropical (solar) year also does not include an integer number of lunar months, or even an integer number of days, for it is 365.242 days.
The years are short and long
The Gregorian calendar now used almost everywhere belongs to the solar, that is, the solar type. This means that our chronology system is tied to only one astronomical cycle - the annual movement of the Sun. The gradually accumulating lag of the calendar year from the tropical one is compensated by leap days. However, the presence in our calendar of such time periods as a month and a week (now their beginning and duration have nothing to do with the phases of the moon), still reminds us that once our night star was a reference point for counting time.
Attempts to reconcile the lunar and solar cycles in one calendar have been made more than once in the history of mankind. The lunar-solar type includes, for example, the Hebrew calendar, according to which modern Jews celebrate their religious holidays. Another well-known example is the traditional Chinese (Far Eastern) calendar, one that feeds well the Chinese manufacturers and domestic sellers of the corresponding souvenirs (tigers this time).
It must be said right away that the combination of the lunar and solar cycles in one calendar leads to its noticeable complication. If we equate a calendar month with a synodic month, then a year consisting of 12 months will equal 354 days. And if we take into account that the length of the synodic month can fluctuate within a few hours, then in reality the lunar year can consist of 353 and 355 days. This means that each time it will lag behind the tropical one by 10-12 days plus about a quarter of a day, and over time the lag will rapidly accumulate. It is made up in the Chinese calendar in leaps and bounds, with the help of whole leap lunar months. It turns out "lengthened" years, which come with an interval of one or two years. It is easy to calculate that such years will have 383, 384 or 385 days.
Mythical branches
Promotional video:
How to calculate which year will be a leap year? According to the rules of the Chinese calendar, the winter solstice must necessarily fall on the 11th month (Chinese months are numbered from 1 to 12). If between the next two months of the solstice, in reality, not 12, but 13 new moons occur, a leap month is added to the year. It can go after any of the 12 months and will wear the same number as the previous one. To choose a leap month, you have to look at the sun. It is necessary to determine the first month of the year, during which it will remain in the same sign of the Zodiac. This month will become a leap month. The dates of new moons and the time the Sun crosses the boundaries of the zodiacal constellations are calculated in modern China using data obtained using astronomical instruments. And this despite the factthat in modern China, the Gregorian calendar has long been used in everyday life.
The tower clock (pictured) not only shows the time, but also determines the position of the Sun on the zodiacal circle, as if reminding that it was thanks to the heavenly bodies that people learned to count time.
The traditional Chinese calendar is also interesting in that the Jupiterian 12-year cycle is "intertwined" into its system (the cycle of Jupiter's revolution is 11.86 years). The Chinese years have well-known "animal" names. At the end of the sequence - Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Sheep, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, Pig - the period begins again. Fans of oriental horoscopes know that each Chinese year is also associated with a certain “element”. The sequence of elements - wood, fire, earth, metal, water - forms the "heavenly branch", in contrast to the "earthly" one associated with animals. The celestial branch rules an even larger cycle - 60 years.
Each element has two consecutive years. The 60th anniversary begins with the Year of the Wood Rat, followed by the Wood Bull, Fire Tiger, Fire Snake, etc. When the year of the Wood Rat comes again, 60 years will pass. The current 60th anniversary began in 1984. Chinese New Year falls on the second new moon after the winter solstice and falls on February 14 this year.
This diagram represents the relationship of the basic Mayan calendar cycles in the form of a mechanism of three gears. The smallest wheel - it is a cycle of 13 numbered days in the 260-day Tzolkin calendar. Bigger wheel - cycle of 20 days with proper names. These names - names of animals.
Craftsmen without wheels
If people tend to associate pleasant hopes for next year with another Chinese tiger-rabbit-snake, then the source of horror for especially impressionable citizens appears on the other side of the Pacific Ocean - in the region of the Mexican Yucatan Peninsula, where the ancient Maya Indians created one of the most interesting calendar systems.
Speaking of the civilizations of the indigenous inhabitants of America - be it Maya, Aztecs or Incas - it should be remembered that we are talking about a kind of alternative humanity. Indeed, the civilizations of the Old World were never completely isolated from each other. For example, from Europe to Indochina, alphabets based on Proto-Canaanite letters spread, and Ancient Rome traded with China.
As for America, people came there or sailed thousands of ten years ago with the economic and cultural baggage of primitive nomads. Their descendants, who created great states, had no one to learn and borrow from. Everything had to be invented by ourselves. And so, like the Egyptians, the Indians learned to build stone cities and pyramids, but they never invented the wheel.
Feng Shui orientation disc. The sophistication and exoticism of Chinese teachings about time and space make them so attractive today. True, most of us perceive the wisdom of the ancients through the prism of modern pop cultural clichés. And the first mentions of the Chinese calendar were found on the oracular bones of the 2nd millennium BC.
The Maya found their way in astronomy and mathematics, created several number systems at once, then brought them together and managed to scare the pale-faced people unknown to them and living in the distant future with the end of the world. In short, they turned out to be fantastic entertainers.
Civil and sacred
The Mayan calendar is well studied, but from the point of view of a person of the Old World, there are many non-obvious and sometimes mysterious things in it. For example, the Maya used a time period called "haab", which consisted of 365 days. The figure is hard not to recognize - of course, this is the approximate length of a solar year. But for some reason the haab divided the year not into twelve (suggested by the moon) months, but 18 to 20 days each. Plus an additional month "vayeb" of five days (18x20 + 5 = 365).
Moreover, the Maya, who were reputed to be skillful observers of the heavens, of course, were aware that the real solar year has a longer duration and the calendar will inevitably “creep”. However, they did not introduce any leap "haabs", obviously, without attaching special importance to offsets.
"Haab" served as the basis for the civil calendar, but the Maya also had another, the so-called sacred calendar. It was called "Tzolkin", and the year in it consisted of 260 days. What this figure is is completely incomprehensible. In any case, it has no obvious astronomical meaning, although there are versions linking the Tzolkin to planetary cycles. Sometimes a 260-day day is associated with the period of pregnancy in humans or with the maturation of crops.
A fortune-telling bone made of a turtle shell, mottled with primitive hieroglyphs
Where is the week and where is the month?
Another thing is also interesting. In the usual Gregorian calendar, the days of the week (genetically ascending to the duration of the moon phases) have names. The sequence of days of the month is indicated by numbers. In the Mayan Tzolkin calendar, the opposite happens. Speaking in a European way, the year consists of thirteen twenty-day "weeks", each day of which has its own hieroglyphic name, and twenty-thirteen-day months. One can, of course, say that there were months with numbered days and weeks with numbered days in the "Tzolkin" - this would not have changed much. In fact, this means that if after May 1, the next day is May 2, then in the sacred Mayan calendar, after the 1st ahau, the 2nd imix will come, and until the 2nd ahau, wait 40 days.
It is also interesting that the Maya used both calendars to designate dates, naming first the date value from Tzolkin and then from Haab. It turned out something like "4 ahau 8 kumku". Such a combination of two unique values could be repeated only after 52 years "haab" (365 days), which was equal to 73 years "tsolkin" (260 days). This period was named "Calendar Wheels".
History knows an example of a purely lunar calendar - this is the Islamic calendar. Each of its years consists of 12 lunar months and includes 353-355 days. The Muslim era began on April 17, 622, but due to shorter years, one day the Islamic calendar will catch up (and surpass) the Gregorian one. In the year 20874 according to the Gregorian calendar, May 1 will coincide with the 1st day of the 5th Muslim month of Jumadiyal Avval, 20874 AH.
Digital apocalypse
This already gives an idea of the style of thinking of the ancient Mesoamericans. Each time cycle was thought of by them as a kind of nesting doll, including the smaller one and enclosed in the larger one. If 52 years are quite comparable with the duration of a human life, then in the Mayan calendar system, traditionally called "long count", the term "baktun" appears, representing a time interval of 144,000 days (409 solar years). This is already clearly outside the scope of practical planning for anything. Further more. The Maya and others in Central America perceived their history as evolving within an era of 13 baktuns (approximately 5125 years). The era, according to them, began at a certain mythical point of reference, which corresponds to August 13, 3114 BC, and will end, respectively,December 23, 2012 (according to current estimates). This date on the "long count" is designated 13.0.0.0.0 4 ahau 8 kumhu. This is deciphered just in the nesting dolls: exactly 13 baktuns (144,000 days each) have passed since the zero date of the epoch, and day 4 ahau ("tsolkin") 8 kumkhu ("haab") has come. Zeros mean the absence of smaller time units in the corresponding digits (katun, tun, vinal, kin). That, in fact, is the whole arithmetic of the "coming" end of the world, or rather, the change of eras associated with the activities of the gods from the Indian pagan pantheon. "And what have we got to do with it?" - I want to ask with a smile …Zeros mean the absence of smaller time units in the corresponding digits (katun, tun, vinal, kin). That, in fact, is the whole arithmetic of the "coming" end of the world, or rather, the change of eras associated with the activities of the gods from the Indian pagan pantheon. "And what have we got to do with it?" - I want to ask with a smile …Zeros mean the absence of smaller time units in the corresponding digits (katun, tun, vinal, kin). That, in fact, is the whole arithmetic of the "coming" end of the world, or rather, the change of eras associated with the activities of the gods from the Indian pagan pantheon. "And what have we got to do with it?" - I want to ask with a smile …
Fear of time
The Gregorian calendar, which is used today for worldly purposes by all mankind, is the most accurate in the sense of linking dates to the seasons. And here its main advantage is practicality. In past eras, the practicality of chronology was not at all the main motive. The calendars, born out of fear of the infinity of time, from attempts to know the boundaries of the past and foresee the future, were based on both astronomical and mathematical calculations and mythopoetic fantasies.
At the same time, it cannot be said that modern man is completely free from fears that once tormented our ancestors. Perhaps even in the oppressive space of megalopolises, some of these fears have intensified and overgrown with new ones. That is why "technomistics" - mysticism framed by numbers and calculations - if it does not have many convinced supporters, then at least it is adequately represented in pop culture.
Oleg Makarov
