The reckoning of time began with the emergence of writing. There was constant observation of natural phenomena, stars, in particular, the Moon and the Sun. Motion analysis
The moon by its phases made it possible to establish the initial period for further time counting - the earth's day.
They were put in a full cycle, and on average they left thirty days. Twelve cycles later, the first was repeated. This is how the year appeared. Lunar calendars for many peoples served for a long time, although they had some errors.
How to count years, centuries, eras
How to fix these days into a permanent and stable list, with a beginning and an end? For thousands of years, people in different places on the planet have been looking for an answer to this question. But they did not come to a consensus. The days were folded into months, creating a calendar of the year, but different peoples have their own, different from others. All the same, it was the beginning of some sort of ordering of monthly and annual cycles.
We celebrate the New Year, that is, its first day, the first of January, someone - at the beginning of March, others - have shifted their year reckoning even further. The latter term refers to the counting of long periods of human existence. In some ancient civilizations, there was a kind of dualism: along with specific years there was a calculus by the name of the ruler, for example, in Ancient Egypt - "the year of Akhenaten such and such", in Ancient Rome - "the first year of Varona".
Calendars of different nations
Promotional video:
Much later, scientists-historiographers moved from calculating simply years to their larger sums, that is, to the periodization of the life of all mankind: centuries (centuries), epochs, events "BC" and "AD". The countries created an internal time periodization. In Ancient Egypt, history is divided into eleven periods of existence: from prehistoric to Hellenistic (Ptolemaic, with the capture of the army of Alexander the Great and the dominance of Greek rulers) - from the 1st century BC to the 1st century AD.
In ancient Rome, the history was somewhat simpler, only three cycles are distinguished in it: the royal (the disappearance of primitiveness and the appearance of slavery), belonging to the republicans and the monarchy. In years it looks like this: 753 BC and 476 AD.
The countdown of Russian ancient history dates back to 862 AD, with the arrival of the northern Varangians in Russia. There are only two periods in it - Kievan Rus and Muscovy (Muscovy). As you can see, our civilization is relatively Egyptian or Roman, young.
Ancient Rome: from Gaius Julius to Gregory
If the Mayan tribes had their own calendar, what can we say about the Roman civilization. How could they plan to seize more and more territories around the Mediterranean Sea without a specific date for the legions to leave by land, and ships by water ?!
Calendar in Ancient Rome
They compiled their calendar based on the cyclical nature of the seasons of nature, the length of the bright part of the day. Although they chose the year of the beginning of the reckoning presumably (in different interpretations there was a difference of three years), this referred to the founding of Rome: April 21, 753 BC. Astrologers found that while the founders of the capital of the future Roman Empire were born, a solar eclipse occurred.
Julius Caesar - Roman emperor who approved the Julian calendar
In parallel, there were other ways of calculating years, for example, by the names of the appointed consuls. These were the chief rulers of Rome. They were appointed in pairs to ensure collegiality in the highest echelons of power. For example, Guy Julius Caesar Octavian Augustus (for the 7th time) is the first consul, with him Mark Vipsanius Agrippa Augustus is the second consul.
They were appointed for only a year, and the years were counted according to them. A child was born to someone, he was recorded as the seventh year of Caesar's reign. Gaius Julius became the steward more than others - thirteen times. Not to be confused with almost "namesakes": Gaius Julius Caesar Vipsanian - the grandson of Gaius Julius and Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (better known by the nickname Caligula). They were also the first consuls.
Pope Gregory III, introduced the Gregorian calendar
Julian and Gregorian calendars
Collegiality did not help to avoid concentration in the hands of the highest power. This Octavian simply usurped it, pushing aside the democratic body - the Senate, was the first emperor of Ancient Rome. But he became the author of a more successful than before, the Julian calendar.
He added to the ten months (three hundred and four days) of the previous division into the years the current January and February (28 days). There is a leap year - every four. The Roman "new year" previously started in March. And March has moved to its third place among all the current months. But the beginning of the year was counted from January 1.
Julian calendar
The time of rotation of the Earth around the Sun was also taken into account. It was just a unique achievement of ancient times. The names of prominent people of Rome were added to the calendar - the summer months were called July and August.
The day in hours was not a constant, but a variable value. There were eight days in the Roman week, they were called not by words, as it is now in Russian and in the modern Islamic calendar, but by the first letters of the Latin alphabet. Rome switched to the seven-day period in the first century BC, having "written off" it from the calendar of the Middle East. There the week is graduated with numbers, except for Saturday, it was called the time of rest. The countries of Europe, including Russia, have been using the Julian calendar for thirteen centuries!
Towards the end of the 16th century, the Julian calendar was replaced by the Gregorian calendar. By the name of the Pope. The fourth of October was simultaneously replaced by the fifteenth of the same month. This difference has been growing since the beginning of the Gregorian calendar. Three more days will run from 1900 to 2100.
Gregorian calendar, picture of 1586
According to it, the year is equal to three hundred and sixty-five days with some ten-thousandths. A large number of leap years and simple ones were introduced, the new year could begin on any day of the week.
Ancient Egyptian calendar
The chronology system in Ancient Egypt and Ancient Rome had both similarities and differences. The ancient civilization of the inhabitants of the north-east of the African continent was limited geographically - near the Nile River. It was he who brought to life the lunar calendar, according to which the floods of this turbulent river flowing through all of Africa and its ten countries were determined.
But besides agricultural work in the Nile valleys, a calendar was needed to establish the days of the holidays of various mythical deities. The lunar division did not provide for them.
A civil calendar was also invented. It is unclear why it was 309 months in a quarter of a century, and how it functioned. Neither the lunar nor the civil calendar lasted long.
Ancient Egyptian calendar
The Egyptian ministers of the polytheistic religion of that period - the priests - were the first to understand the need to transfer the calendar to a solar "regime". It is based on the solar year. In this case, the influence of the moon was discarded. According to the solar list, the priests learned to predict the appearance of a particular star. Based on the analysis, they were able to predict natural phenomena by the positions of stars in the sky. As in the lunar calendar, the new one paid attention to the floods of the territory in July - November. After that, you need to sow the crop, and after a while, harvest it in order to catch up to the most sultry winds from the Sahara desert. If you miss it, there will be hunger. Now in Russia they say this: the day feeds the year.
Therefore, the solar calendar had to give an accurate forecast for the year, taking into account a number of factors. Two of them were in favor of the solar calendar: the summer solstice was the signal for flooding, as well as the appearance of a special star every seventy days. So that Akhet and Peret (in Egyptian, the exit of the Nile from the channel and return to it) to know thoroughly.
From the point of view of astronomy, this calendar was not accurate, as it consisted of fewer days. They were then brought almost to the standard - 360 days, and five "dangling" days were not attached to any month, the Egyptians simply celebrated them. The beginning of the year was considered with the arrival of a new pharaoh. There have been attempts to reform the existing calendar. But the Sun has won!
