In what century did the calendar appear? Where did the modern calendar come from?

The modern world owes its calendar to the Romans, who, having suffered with the eight-day week, chose the Babylonian system, widely used in the Middle East since the 3rd century BC. The number and order of the days of the week are dictated by the logic of ancient astrology.

In April 1963, the popular science writer Alexander Marshak, who was completing a book about the dawn of human civilization, came across an article about a small bone, riddled with strange incisions, found in Ishango, a Stone Age settlement at the source of the Nile in Central Africa. The find was dated to 6500 BC (this is 3000 years earlier than the first flowering of Egyptian civilization and the appearance of hieroglyphic writing).

For some reason, an unusual object captured the writer's imagination. Trusting his intuition, Marshak plunged into the study of notches on bones, and for a very short time he managed to “break the code”: he realized that it was a calendar, and the marks represented the number of days in successive lunar phases from the first appearance of the new moon, waxing until the full moon, and then waning until the next new moon.
Not entirely confident in his discovery, Marshak continued to examine dozens of similar samples from Stone Age settlements, especially from the famous caves Western Europe, decorated with rock paintings. Gradually, some patterns emerged, and, despite the initial skepticism of archaeologists, his work began to be taken seriously. Marshak built a completely plausible theory based on household items of modern “primitive” cultures - the Siberian Yakuts and the inhabitants of Nicobar Island off the coast of Malaysia, whose “calendar sticks” are very similar to prehistoric examples.
Some of the evidence turned out to be very convincing. The marks on the eagle bone, found in Le Placard (France) and dating back to the 13th-11th millennia BC, are specially applied notches, and not random scratches. The tiny nicks on the bone were consistent with Marshak's lunar theory. He later found a second eagle bone from the same cave, which was thought to be lost; striking resemblance Marks on both bones convinced Marshak that his assumptions were correct.

Only a few archaeologists agreed with all of Marshak's statements. Some of the “notches” he discovered, especially early examples, may indeed turn out to be accidental scratches, and not all objects with specially applied marks are necessarily calendars. Some of them may represent a completely different type of communication (like the “stick letters” of the American Indians). Nevertheless, Marshak's work has produced a subtle revolution in our understanding of prehistoric intelligence. The possibility that lunar calendars existed as early as 30,000 BC is no longer considered outrageous in high archaeological circles.

Marshak is certainly right in his opinion that the earliest calendars were lunar. The moon played an important role in the lives of communities that relied on hunting and fishing for their livelihood; Some animals were hunted only at night.

Unlike the Sun, the Moon does not simply rise and set, but follows a more mysterious path, which must have made a strong impression on our ancestors who lived approximately 500,000 years ago. The reproduction of important food items such as fish, turtles and other marine animals is linked to the lunar phases that control the ebb and flow of the tides. And it is unlikely that women of prehistoric times ignored the fact that the female menstrual cycle is the approximate equivalent of a lunar month consisting of 29.5 days.

Determining the length of the year

On the other hand, there are also patterns in the movement of the Sun that determine the change of seasons. Although it is easier to count days by the lunar phases than by the solar phases (they are shorter, and the accompanying celestial phenomena are clearly visible), it is quite clear that between the repetition of important seasonal events, such as the spring flood or the longest day of summer, a period of time passes, not much. exceeding 350 days. It's not that difficult to calculate relative accuracy number of days in a year.

Determining the length of the year requires patience and skill, not sophisticated instruments. To do this, you need a flat horizontal surface, such as a piece of land, pebbles and a straight stick stuck into the ground. To check its verticality, you can use a plumb line (rope with a sinker).

By preparing an inventory, a hypothetical prehistoric scientist could experimentally determine the length of the year. Every day after sunrise, the peg cast a shadow, the end of which gradually moved towards the peg until noon, then the shadow moved in the other direction. The curve (parabola) drawn by the upper end of the peg could be marked on the ground.

As the year progressed, these curves moved further away from the peg as winter approached (when the Sun casts its longest shadows) and closer to the peg as summer approached (when the Sun is almost directly overhead). With a series of similar curves marked on the ground by pebbles, the patient scientist of prehistory could calculate that the entire cycle from the shortest to the longest shadow was 365 days. He could also accurately determine when the longest and shortest days of the year occurred (solstices) and on which day the turning points between them occurred (equinoxes).

At a very early stage in its history, humanity could already have accurate knowledge of both the lunar phases and the length of the year, sufficient to create a working calendar. However, this is where the real difficulties began. The problem with all calendars is that our seemingly harmonious solar system is actually extremely confusing.

One rotation of the Earth on its axis means one day, but 365 rotations do not equal the time it takes for the globe to complete one orbit around the Sun (that is, one year). This time period is 365.242199 days. Similarly, the lunar month is not measured round number: it is 29.53059 days. And although there are approximately 12 lunar months in a year, they are only 354.36706 days - 11 days less than in the solar year.

Try to consider all these factors in a single system, and you are guaranteed to have a headache. Therefore, the creation of a current calendar has become one of the most urgent tasks of humanity, the solution of which took a lot of time.

The earliest calendar of which there is written evidence was invented Sumerian civilization from Southern Iraq. Around 3000 BC, the Sumerians came up with a relatively simple calendar for two seasons (winter and summer), divided into 12 months of 29 or 30 days each.

The length of the month was regulated by observations of the Moon; Each new month began in the evening when the crescent of the waning moon disappeared. To compensate for the difference between the seasonal and lunar years, the Sumerians simply added an extra month when the need arose.

The addition of an extra month, first attested among the Sumerians in the 21st century BC, remained (and still exists in a slightly different form) the standard method of adjusting the calendar. By this time, the Sumerians had also introduced a nominal year of 360 days, based on rounding the lunar month to 30 days multiplied by 12. This corresponded to their six decimal system number system (based on the number 60, as opposed to the more widespread and currently used decimal system). Although the solar year is 5 days longer, a year of 360 days is exactly divisible by 60, so it became the basis for all the calendar and astronomical philosophy of Ancient Sumer. Following the example of the Sumerians, we still divide the sky, and indeed any round object, into 360 mathematical degrees.

Around the same time as the first calendar experiments in ancient Sumer, huge circles of roughly hewn stones erected by the megalith builders of Western Europe served as platforms for constant observations of the Sun and Moon. These observations were undoubtedly related to the agricultural calendar. But assumptions about the use of complex programs of astronomical observations and calculations to compile an absolutely accurate calendar are far from true.

They come from modern astronomers imagining themselves as ancient scientists trying to solve problems that interest them. The real purpose of celestial alignments in stone circles was most likely to impress spectators during annual rituals. The most famous example of such structures is Stonehenge, where around 2000 BC a circle of massive stone blocks (weighing up to 50 tons each) was built, inside which there is a stone horseshoe with a long axis directed towards the sunrise on a midsummer day (summer). solstice). For observers standing with their backs to the "Altar Stone" and looking through the open end of the horseshoe, rising sun was framed by a double “window”.

The "prophetic bones" used by the rulers of the Chinese Shang dynasty to predict the future in the 14th-13th centuries BC show that the Chinese had a lunar calendar similar to the Sumerian one. To twelve lunar months of 29 or 30 days, a thirteenth month was added every 2-3 years to ensure consistency with the solar year. Later, the need for a reliable calendar increased due to its association with astrology, and one of the main responsibilities of the emperor was to oversee the accurate maintenance of the calendar.

To this end, about one hundred calendar reforms were carried out by the imperial court, from the first unification of the empire in 221 BC until the end of the Ming dynasty in 1644 AD, that is, approximately one reform every 20 years.

Calendar cycles

Meanwhile, in the New World at the beginning of the 1st millennium BC, the highly developed Indian civilization of the Zapotecs carried out independent work on creating an accurate calendar. The Zapotec calendar is detailed in a series of inscriptions on the walls around the main ceremonial court of the city of Monte Alban in the mountains of Mexico. Perhaps the Zapotecs despaired of establishing a connection between lunar and solar motion, since their system was completely different from those of the Old World. Instead of basing their calendar on a lunar year of approximately 354 days, they adopted a sacred calendar of 260 days, the origin of which remains unclear, for their religious festivals.

However, this allowed the Zapotecs, and later the Mayans and Aztecs, to turn the calendar into a kind of bizarre, increasingly complex number game. In 52 years of 365 days according to the usual solar calendar, 73 years of 260 days pass, and both calendar cycles begin counting the year from the same day. The 52-year cycle (18,980 days) became an integral feature of ancient Mexican culture. When the Spaniards conquered Mexico in the 16th century, they noted that the end of the next 52-year cycle was greeted by the Indians with great despondency - for fear that the sun would not rise again, and the first dawn of the new calendar cycle was the cause of wild celebration.

Even more complex numerical manipulations were performed by the Mayans, who, 1000 years after the Zapotecs, worked with a 360-day year; it was called tun and was divided into 18 months of 20 days; The 5 days remaining in the 365-day year were considered “days of bad omens.” The Mayans also had a 260-day calendar similar to the Zapotec calendar, which they called Tzolk'in. It was a cycle of 20 named days combined with a numerical sequence from 1 to 13, i.e., it consisted of 20 weeks of 13 days.

Each day had its own signs and associations, so the cyclic calendar is a kind of constantly operating prediction mechanism that guides the fate of the Mayan people. Later they combined Tzolkin with lunar calendar in a cycle of 405 lunar months, or 46 Tzolkins (11,960 days). This calendar system was still in use by the Aztecs in 1519, when the Spanish conquistadors arrived in Mexico.

In general, Central Americans believed in the magical power of calendar cycles, the most famous of which was the Mayan Long Count. It was based on a tun of 360 days; 20 tuns made up a katun (7200 days), 20 katuns made up a baktun (144,000 days), and 13 baktuns made up the “Great Cycle” (1,872,000 days, or 5130 years), at the end of which, as the Mayans themselves believed, and the whole world will cease to exist. According to the generally accepted interpretation, the next “Great Cycle” will end on December 24, 2011, i.e. the "end of the world" will come.

The calendar cycle can also be traced in Egypt, although here it presumably arose by chance rather than according to a predetermined plan. The Sun God was always the most important in the Egyptian pantheon, so the solar year of 365 days was the most respected. But since the solar year consists of 365.25 days, then every four years Egyptian calendar would be at odds with reality by one day. After 730 years, the situation would have become outrageous, since the winter and summer months would have changed places.

Such an imperfect calendar actually existed in Egypt between the 3rd century BC and the 2nd century AD, but there is reason to believe that before that the Egyptians, like other ancient peoples of the Middle East (including the Sumerians, Babylonians and Jews), produced regular reforms calendar to “keep up with the times.”

This is precisely what is well reflected in the historical documents of the Ptolemaic era in Egypt (323-31 BC), when the country was ruled by a dynasty of Macedonian Greeks descended from Ptolemy, one of the military leaders of Alexander the Great.
Alexander himself tried to offer the Egyptians a Macedonian calendar, where the lunar and solar periods were “synchronized” through the periodic addition of a new month. But the Egyptians did not accept this innovation.

During the reign of Ptolemy III (247-222 BC), the connection between the Macedonian calendar and the lunar months was formally abolished, and the Macedonian system came into line with the Egyptian one. Under the same king (in 238 BC), a council of priests issued a decree which ordered the insertion of an additional day into the Egyptian calendar every four years in order to eliminate the inconvenient "quarters" in a solar year consisting of approximately 365.25 days. This simple idea, which became the basis for today's calendar, did not take root at first, and only the military power of Rome was able to hammer it into the heads of the Egyptians, and then impose it on the rest of the world.

Julian calendar

The Romans became interested in the Egyptian calendar vicissitudes because they experienced similar problems. When trying to correct their calendar in 153 BC, the Romans moved the beginning of the year from March 1 to January 1, making the ordinal names of the months no longer meaningful. The months from 7th to 10th began to take place from 10th to 12th, and we still retain this confusion: the names September, October, November and December come from the Latin numerals (7-10) and reflect the position months in the Roman calendar until 153 BC.

To make matters worse, the Romans for centuries combated the 355-day lunar year with an extra month of 22 or 23 days added in February every two years. Responsibility for regulating the annual cycle rested with the college of pontiffs, whose decisions were too often influenced not by calendar factors at all, but by tax collectors interested in extending the year in order to collect more money, or important politicians who received undesirable positions (for example, governors of remote poor provinces) who wanted to make the year as short as possible.

Julius Caesar decided to put an end to these abuses and get rid of the problems associated with the Roman calendar forever. The rapid transformation of Rome from a state limited by the borders of Italy into a powerful power that dominated the entire Mediterranean only aggravated the situation: each conquered people had its own calendar system, so the only solution was to create and introduce by law a new universal system.

Julius Caesar

Therefore, during a visit to Egypt in 48 BC, distracted from the ups and downs of his love story with Queen Cleopatra, Caesar spent many long hours in discussions with Egyptian scientists. Particular assistance was provided by the Alexandrian astronomer Sosigenes, who advised abandoning the lunar calendar altogether and starting all over again, using the Egyptian solar year of 365 days.

Caesar and Sosigenes agreed that an additional day should be added at the end of February every fourth year: then the calendar year would not diverge from the solar one. This is an invention borrowed from unsuccessful reform Egyptians 238 BC, still exists today.

Julius Caesar introduced the new calendar to the Romans on January 1, 45 BC. To put it into effect, he was forced to issue a decree that the previous year (46th BC) would last 445 days, in order to restore correspondence between the civil calendar and the agricultural year. And yet, despite the clarity of the Julian decision, the Roman pontiffs misunderstood it and began to add an extra day to February too often. During the reign of Emperor Augustus, Caesar's nephew, confusion arose again, and in 8 BC he had to issue a new decree prohibiting the 29th day in February for several years in order for the calendar to return to normal.

Eventually, the Julian calendar began to operate correctly throughout Europe and the Mediterranean. The efforts of Julius Caesar and Augustus received a worthy reward: the Roman months of Quintilia (July) and Sextilia (August) were renamed in their honor.

However, difficulties continued, since the Julian calendar year of 365.25 days still remained insufficiently accurate. The real solar year is slightly shorter - 365.242199 days. This difference of 11 minutes and 14 seconds could not have caused much of a problem in one person's lifetime, but it was enough to throw the calendar out of alignment after a few centuries. By the 16th century AD the difference had grown to around 10 days, causing widespread concern. The Pope had to continue the work begun by Julius Caesar and carry out another calendar reform. In 1582, Pope Gregory XIII, by a special edict, decreed that an additional day of a leap year should not be added to the last year of the century if the serial number of the year is not divisible by 400 without a remainder. Thus, the year 1600 should have been a leap year, not 1700. The formula is quite approximate, but generally suitable, since it works with an accuracy of one day in 3300 years.

But according to Gregory’s reform, as well as the Julian reform, before introducing a new calendar it was necessary to “reset the clocks” again. According to the papal order, it was necessary to skip 10 days and count the 15th day following October 4. It is quite understandable that many people, especially Protestants, were not enthusiastic about this idea. For example, Britain and its American colonies adopted a new calendar only in 1752, when the difference was already 11 days. Therefore, George Washington, born February 11, 1732, subsequently celebrated his birthday on the 22nd.

The next time you write in your planner, think about the scientists and sages who have worked hard to provide us with a functioning calendar for the next 30,000 years.

Days of the week

No matter how disdainful many modern scientists may be for astrology, every Friday, leaving the laboratory in the evening and saying to each other “see you Monday,” they unwittingly follow the principles of the ancient astrological system.

Not only the names of the days of the week, but also their number and sequence go back to the astrological ideas of the Babylonians. Around 700 BC, they came up with a seven-day week associated with the main planetary deities, which we still use today.

The modern Western world owes its calendar to the Romans, who, after struggling for some time with the eight-day week, eventually chose the Babylonian system, widely used in the Middle East since the 3rd century BC. The Romans simply replaced the names of the Babylonian planetary deities with their Roman equivalents. Thus the day of Nabu, the Babylonian god of writing, became the day of Mercury, the Roman god of trade. Modern French and Italian day names are close to the Latin ones - for example, the Roman day of Mercury became Mercoledi in Italy.

IN English the translation went through another stage: the pagan Anglo-Saxon ancestors of the English, who borrowed the basic system from the Romans, adapted it to the names of their own gods. In this northern European system (which was also used by the Vikings), Jupiter (the god of thunder) was known as Thor. Therefore, the Babylonian day of Marduk became the day of Jupiter among the Romans, Jeudi among the French, Thursday (Thor's day) among the English, and so on.

But why do the days of the week alternate in this sequence? Apart from the Sun-Moon pair (Sunday-Monday) at the beginning of the week, the sequence looks completely random. And although seven days correspond to the number of planetary deities, their sequence does not reflect the traditional order based on the ancient understanding of the structure of the solar system: Saturn - Jupiter - Mars - Sun - Venus - Mercury - Moon.

How is this discrepancy explained? The answer lies in another great invention of ancient astrology, which we still use today: dividing the day into 24 equal periods of time, or hours. The planetary deities, in their traditional sequence, rule the hours of the day. For example, Saturn rules the first hour of Saturday; he is followed by six other gods. Then the whole cycle repeats from the beginning: Saturn rules over the 8th, 15th and 22nd hours of the day. The 23rd and 24th hours are dedicated to Jupiter and Mars respectively, and the first hour of the next day is dedicated to the Sun god. Consequently, the Sun God rules over this day (Sunday).

A simple device was invented to calculate the days of the week according to the traditional sequence of planetary deities. By placing the gods at the ends of the heptagram, you can find out the order of the days of the week by following the diagonals. It is unknown when or who invented this clever geometric trick, but an example of such a figure is depicted in one of the graffiti discovered during excavations of the Roman city of Pompeii.

Thus, the names, number and order of our days of the week are dictated by the logic of ancient astrology. By establishing a seven-day week, the Babylonians not only dealt a sensitive blow to the pride of modern scientists, but also anticipated the discovery made by biologists in the 20th century. It has recently become known that the human body is governed by a seven-day biorhythm, which can be detected by slight changes in blood pressure and heart rate, as well as reactions to infection and even organ transplantation. The same biorhythm affects other forms of life, even simple organisms like bacteria.

Historical chronology of the calendar

It was the most ordinary day, the 3rd day before the January Nons of 754 years from the foundation of the City. The historian Titus Livius worked on his works. There was a “golden age” of poetry (as it would later be called). Virgil only recently died. “I sing battles and my husband...” - all the Romans knew this first line from Virgil’s “Aeneid” and even scratched it on the walls of their houses. On this day, however, one tipsy joker parodied it: “I glorify the clothiers and the owl, and not the battles and the husband...” In those days, Ovid was still working. He recently published “The Art of Love” - “for which he ended / his brilliant and rebellious age as a sufferer / in Moldova, in the wilderness of the steppes, / in the distance of his Italy.”

The day before our events, Horace, walking through the forum, saw slaves nailing copper tablets with the deeds of the emperor. He grinned: “but I erected a monument to myself... not made by hands... um, perhaps this should be written down... hey, boy,” he called his slave.

Things went on as usual. European winter. The interest on the debts had only just been paid in the past few days. Gladiator games were held. Little by little, the riots in Gaul and Britain were pacified. But the time was peaceful: civil wars in Rome ended, and the empire flourished under the wise leadership of Emperor Augustus. That day he signed several death warrants. His friend Maecenas, observing this, sent him a note “Stop, executioner!” and he, having read it, ... stopped. Perhaps this was the most significant incident of the day. Except that in the distant province of Judea, a boy of about five, while playing with other children, tripped and hurt himself. His mother and father did not calm him down for long, because the boy was lively and did not like to whine for a long time. And not a single person that day knew that exactly 2000 years later, Internet visitors would look at this page, and people all over the world would say that the third millennium had begun and would celebrate this event everywhere. However, we don’t know what that boy from Judea thought about it. His name was Jesus.

And we are now celebrating the 2000th anniversary of the Christian era. But since the calendar, which almost the whole world now uses, was created by the “pagan” Caesar, this is also a significant date for him, the calendar.

It is much easier for us than for the Roman monk Dionysius the Lesser, who in 241 of the era of Diocletian was engaged in calculating Easter eggs. He did not have the usual dating “so many years before or after the birth of Christ.” This is exactly the dating he created. What did he know? From the New Testament - that Christ was crucified at the age of 30 and resurrected on Sunday March 25 (15th day of the month of Nisan according to the Jewish calendar) - and this is the first Christian Easter. And that his birth took place during the reign of Augustus, and in Judea - King Herod. It was also known that the 1st year of the era of Diocletian corresponds to 1038 from the founding of Rome.

Dionysius had the task of calculating the Easter eggs, starting from the year 248 of the era of Diocletian. And Dionysius, moreover, knew that the dates of Easter are repeated every 532 years: the same number of Sunday corresponds to the same phase of the moon. This could make the job of calculating dates easier. Which he took advantage of.

He determined that the next Easter, falling on March 25, would be in 279 BC, subtracted 532 from this number and found that the first Easter was in 254 BC. I subtracted another 30 years and estimated that the birth of Christ was in 284 BC. Hence his proposal - to consider this year the first from the Nativity of Christ.

As a result of comparing the eras of Diocletian and from the founding of Rome, it follows that this 1st Christian year was in 754 from the founding of Rome. But then the Diocletian year 241, in which Dionysius worked, becomes 525 AD, and the Dionysian Paschals begin in the year 532 AD.

Maybe this calculation of his looks good. Yes, unfortunately (or maybe fortunately!), King Herod died in 750 from the founding of Rome. And Christ was born, as you know, before this moment! So the beginning of the Christian era does not entirely correspond to the date of Christ’s birth (neither the date nor the year of his birth is precisely known to science).

It was illogical for the Christian world to count the years from Diocletian, his worst oppressor. And Dionysius’s proposal was gradually accepted by Christian Europe over several centuries. And now we habitually say and write “BC” or “AD”. In recent years, people have begun to get used to the designation “from RH”.

Theoretically, it makes no difference at what point we take the beginning of chronology. However, in practice it would be more convenient if this point were placed in the more distant past. Then all historical events would fit into the interval after this point. Thus, the era “From the creation of the world” is in some ways more convenient than “our”, Christian one. Let us now note that in Rus' - from the time of the adoption of Christianity - exactly this era was used (in fact, there are several of them; “ours” was adopted in the 7th century in Greece). It is curious that in 1492 the beginning of the year in Muscovy was moved from spring to autumn.

That spring marked the year 7000 from the creation of the world. In this regard, as usual in Rus', the end of the world was expected. But since the end of the world still did not come, then, without waiting for the end of the year 7000, the church authorities decided to postpone its beginning to September and immediately announce the year 7001. The end of the world was postponed.

Further important calendar events are occurring again in Europe. Pope Gregory XIII finally decides to clarify the length of the calendar year so that it matches the length of the climatic year (in astronomical designation - “tropical”). The “Gregorian” calendar he adopted for 400 years has not 100, as in the Julian, but 97 leap years. A good balance was achieved between the accuracy of the calendar and the practical convenience of alternating leap years.

But the pope went further and completely brought the calendar into line with the decision of the Council of Nicaea (325 AD), according to which the calendar March 21 should fall on the day of the vernal equinox, as it was in 325. This, however, added confusion to the chronology and was one of the reasons why the Gregorian calendar was not adopted everywhere and not immediately.

The events related to the calendar reforms of Peter I are well known (and not least in connection with the bright and rich language of Peter's decrees). Peter moved the beginning of the year to January and established the era from Christ in Russia. Apparently, he was unable to go further and establish the Gregorian calendar (that is, to put even more pressure on the Orthodox Church).

Lenin, of course, had no problem pleasing the church, and after Julian January 1918, the Gregorian calendar was established in Russian civil life. Russian Orthodoxy For now he persists and shows no intention of abandoning the Julian calendar. Thus, the Orthodox world is separated from the rest of the Christian world. In some ways, by the way, this is akin to how Magomed (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him!), having converted to Islam, established a lunar calendar for the Arabs!

A few words about the 2001 calendar. It turns out that it practically coincides with the Stable Calendar, the draft of which is posted on our separate page. You just need to ignore February 29 (it doesn’t exist in 2001), and assign December 31 to January 0, 2002.

As a tool for measuring periods of time, the Stable Calendar is given the shape of a ring table - like a clock. In this form, the imperfection of our so familiar calendar is clearly observed. It can be seen that different numbers of days in months violate internal structure, which is also superimposed on a 7-day week. But what is most striking is that the last day of the year, December 31, has nowhere to fit into this circular table! The reason is simple: 365 days of the year (or 366) are not divided into 7 days of the week. This turns out to be 52 weeks and one (two in a leap year) day left. We are so used to this that we consider it as given from above. And we believe that this is how it should be, that each year begins with different days of the week.

Not at all, however. Familiarity with even our approximate scheme for the development of the calendar can, we hope, lead to the idea that the calendar will continue to improve in the future. And most likely, the upcoming reform will make the calendar stable, as a result of which each year will begin on the same day of the week. It's easy to do. It is enough to keep the date for the day of December 31st, but remove it from the week and give it a name, for example, “New Year’s Day.”

In the end, we will answer a question that might arise from an attentive reader: why did we assign the beginning of the era to an unremarkable, most ordinary day - “the 3rd day before the January Nones” of 754 a.u.c.? After all, this day corresponds to January 3rd... Why not the 1st? We answer. This is partly a joke. It is clear that the whole world correlates the onset of the 3rd millennium with January 1, 2011. The question, however, is which year is meant - Julian or Gregorian. And if we count back 2000 of our Gregorian years from our January 1, 2001, we will get the day January 3, 1 Julian year AD. The same one who was “figured out” by Dionysius the Small. You can check.

Dionysius the Small at work.

The advent of the 3rd millennium AD certainly prompts us to pay tribute to the creators of the calendar, which has stood the test of time. Let us first glorify our energetic ancestors - the ancient Romans and the great Caesar, who gave us this priceless treasure. And let us give special praise to Christ, in whose name the history of all mankind is sanctified.

History of the calendar

In scientific terms, a calendar is a system for counting large periods of time, based on astronomical cycles - the Earth’s own rotation, the movement of the Moon around our planet and the Earth around the Sun. The calendar, although primitive, appeared in ancient civilizations.

The calendar, although primitive, appeared already in ancient civilizations, when people began to plan their economic activities and determine when to celebrate their religious holidays.
The history of the development of calendar systems is fascinating in its own way. It reflected not only the process of human accumulation of knowledge about the world around us, but also the struggle between politicians and religious ideas.
Even from an objective point of view, building a good calendar is a difficult task that has not yet been completely solved. Astronomers, mathematicians, and physicists have been working on it since ancient times, clarifying the periods of movement celestial bodies, then they multiplied and divided these numbers, trying to build an ever more perfect calendar.
But some wayward despot rulers and religious leaders at the same time seriously interfered with the progress of the calendar system. Leaders often strove to begin counting years from the beginning of their reign or change the number of days in the year and months as they pleased. In particular, this is why the exact dates of many well-known historical events are almost impossible to establish today.
Not all priests and rulers, of course, did such stupid things. Some even did the opposite: they invited talented scientists and organized competitions for best calendar for his people. Nevertheless, the great struggle of reason against arbitrariness continues, and some calendar chaos is observed today.

Lunar calendar

Already in ancient times, two different approaches to counting days arose - lunar and solar calendars. The official inventors of the lunar calendar are considered to be the ancient Sumerians who lived in southern Mesopotamia. The lunar year in the Mesopotamian calendar consisted of 12 lunar months, each lasting 29.5 days, i.e. only 354 days. Since it was significantly shorter than the solar one (now - 365.2421988 days), the beginning of the year always shifted relative to the spring floods of the rivers. The Sumerians did not like this and periodically introduced an extra month to accommodate the solar cycle.

Solar calendar

The history of the European calendar begins in Ancient Egypt about four thousand years BC. The agricultural life of the Egyptians was tied to the seasonal cycles of the Nile. Egyptian priests noticed that the annual flood of the great river began immediately after the summer solstice (now June 21-22). And at the same time, the star Sirius appeared in the pre-dawn sky after a 70-day period of its invisibility.
Having established the connection between these phenomena, ancient astrologers, based on calculations of the risings of Sirius, learned to predict the beginning of the Nile floods, with which the economic year began.
The Egyptians defined a year as the period between two solstices and considered it equal to 365 days. It consisted of 12 months of 30 days.
The last five days of the year, which were not included in any month, were holidays in honor of the children of the earth god Geb and the sky goddess Nut: Osiris, Horus, Set, Isis and Nephthys.

Gregorian calendar

The introduction of a leap year, however, did not completely solve the problem.
Since the year of the Julian calendar is still somewhat larger than its astronomical value, over time an error accumulates of approximately one day for every 128 years. For a long time they did not pay attention to this, although they knew. This calendar reform is probably too troublesome.
By the end of the 16th century, this error was already about 10 days. This greatly worried the Christian priests.
The fact is that, according to established church tradition, Christian Easter should be celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox. The calculation of Easter days for many years in advance was made in 325 AD. At the same time, the day of the vernal equinox was mistakenly considered to be March 21st. Julian calendar. Over the years, the real date of the spring equinox shifted closer to winter and in the 16th century already fell on March 11. Along with the calendar date of the spring equinox, Easter and other church holidays shifted. The Roman Catholic Church began improving the calendar in the 15th century.
In 1475, Pope Sixtus IV invited the outstanding German astronomer and mathematician Regiomontanus to Rome for this purpose. However, sudden death did not allow the scientist to complete the project. The reform dragged on for more than a hundred years.

Many well-known scientists at that time put forward projects to improve the calendar, but it was not possible to make a decision. In 1582, the Roman Pontiff Gregory XIII created a commission tasked with developing a new calendar system. The commission approved the project, the author of which was the Italian mathematician and doctor Luigi Lilio, a teacher at the University of Perugia. He proposed to remove 3 days from every four hundred years according to a certain law. If according to the Julian calendar there were 100 leap years in the four hundred year, then in the Gregorian there were only 97 of them. It was also decided to remove the additional days added by the Julian calendar since the beginning of its use.
The Gregorian calendar is generally accepted today. It is interesting to note that it is not an absolutely accurate solar calendar. An error of one day in it accumulates over 3300 years. This, in particular, leads to the fact that the sun now passes through the vernal equinox almost 3 hours earlier than 400 years ago. Later, more accurate calendar systems were proposed, but they did not take root.

Calendar in the Orthodox Church

In the Christian world to this day there is no unity in the use of the calendar. The Eastern Orthodox Church immediately refused to accept the Gregorian calendar reform. Many Orthodox Christians today recognize the inaccuracy of the Julian calendar, but still do not switch to the new one for a number of reasons.
Firstly, in the Gregorian calendar, Christian Easter sometimes falls on the same day as the Jewish one or even earlier, which some Orthodox believe is unacceptable. Secondly, it is easier to calculate church holidays using the old style, since it is consistent with the movement of the Moon. As Archimandrite Raphael states: “Through the Julian calendar, its mathematical-symbolic sign system, time is churched in the rhythms of worship, especially in Easter.”
But, probably, the main reason why the Russian Orthodox Church does not switch to new style- this is the fear of a split.
According to Yuri Belanovsky, head of the information and analytical department of the Moscow Center for the Spiritual Development of Youth, the Russian Patriarch does not raise the issue of switching to a new style, because he does not see a serious reason for this and because many believers, unfortunately, do not have the correct idea of the role of the calendar in church life.
Over the past ten years, most believers have not been able to obtain basic knowledge on the basis of which religious life is built. And some influential Old Calendar Christians consider the Julian calendar an integral part of their faith and the introduction of a new style may be considered the work of Satan himself. In addition to Russian Christians, the old style is also adhered to today by the Jerusalem and Serbian Orthodox Churches.
Of course, the existence of two calendars - state and church - creates some inconvenience for believers. Christians of the Orthodox Church of Constantinople and some ethno-Greek churches found an ingenious way out of this situation. They live according to the so-called New Julian calendar. This calendar is formally even more accurate than the Julian calendar, but for the next 800 years it coincides with the Gregorian calendar. We can say that they killed two birds with one stone: they didn’t deviate from their tradition, and they coordinated the account of time with the larger world.

Astronomical basics of the calendar

1. Day as one of the main units of time measurement

Rotation of the Earth and apparent movement of the starry sky

The main quantity for measuring time is related to the period of a complete revolution of the globe around its axis. Until recently, it was believed that the Earth's rotation was completely uniform. However, now some irregularities have been discovered in this rotation, but they are so small that they do not matter for constructing a calendar.

Being on the surface of the Earth and participating with it in its rotational movement, we do not feel it. We judge the rotation of the globe around its axis only by those visible phenomena that are associated with it. The consequence of the daily rotation of the Earth is, for example, the visible movement of the firmament with all the bodies located on it: stars, planets, the Sun, the Moon, etc.

Nowadays, to determine the duration of one revolution of the globe, you can use a special telescope - a passage instrument, the optical axis of which rotates strictly in one plane - the plane of the meridian this place, passing through the points south and north. When a star crosses the meridian, it is called the upper culmination.

The time interval between two successive upper culminations of a star is called a sidereal day.

A more precise definition of a sidereal day is this: this is the period of time between two successive upper culminations of the vernal equinox.

They represent one of the basic units of time measurement, since their duration remains unchanged.

A sidereal day is divided into 24 sidereal hours, each hour into 60 sidereal minutes, each minute into 60 sidereal seconds. Sidereal hours, minutes and seconds are counted on the sidereal clock, which is available in every astronomical observatory and always shows sidereal time.

Use in everyday life such a clock is inconvenient, since the same high point throughout the year falls on different times sunny days. The life of nature, and with it all work activity people is connected not with the movement of the stars, but with the change of day and night, that is, with the daily movement of the Sun. Therefore, in everyday life we ​​use solar time rather than sidereal time. The concept of solar time is much more complex than the concept of sidereal time. First of all, you need to clearly imagine the apparent movement of the Sun.

2. Apparent annual movement of the Sun. Ecliptic.

Watching from night to night starry sky, you can notice that at each subsequent midnight more and more new stars culminate. This is explained by the fact that due to the annual movement of the globe in orbit, the Sun moves among the stars. It occurs in the same direction in which the Earth rotates, i.e. from west to east. The path of the Sun's apparent motion among the stars is called the ecliptic. It is a large circle on the celestial sphere, the plane of which is inclined to the plane of the celestial equator at an angle of 23°27" and intersects with the celestial equator at two points. These are the points of the spring and autumn equinoxes. At the first of them, the Sun appears around March 21, when it passes from the southern celestial hemisphere to the northern. At the second point it is around September 23, when it passes from the northern hemisphere to the southern.

Zodiac constellations. Moving along the ecliptic, the Sun sequentially moves throughout the year among the following 12 constellations located along the ecliptic and making up the zodiac belt.

The apparent movement of the Sun along the zodiacal constellations.

Pisces, Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn and Aquarius. (Strictly speaking, the Sun also passes through the 13th constellation - Ophiuchus. This constellation would be even more correctly considered zodiacal than a constellation such as Scorpio, in which the Sun is located for a shorter time than in each of the other constellations.) These constellations , called zodiac, received their common name from the Greek word “zoon” - animal, since many of them were named after animals in ancient times.

The Sun stays in each of the zodiacal constellations for about a month on average. Therefore, even in ancient times, each month corresponded to a certain zodiac sign. March, for example, was designated by the sign of Aries, since in this constellation about two thousand years ago there was the point of the vernal equinox and, therefore, the Sun passed this constellation in March. The figure shows that when the Earth moves in its orbit and moves from position III (March) to position IV (April), then the Sun will move from the constellation Aries to the constellation Taurus, and when the Earth is in position V (May), the Sun will move from the constellation Taurus to the constellation Gemini, etc.

However, the point of the vernal equinox does not maintain a constant position on the celestial sphere. Its movement, discovered in the 2nd century. BC e. by the Greek scientist Hipparchus, it was called precession, i.e. the anticipation of the equinox. It is caused by the following reason. The Earth is not shaped like a sphere, but rather a spheroid, flattened at the poles. The gravitational forces from the Sun and Moon act differently on different parts of the spheroidal Earth. These forces lead to the fact that with the simultaneous rotation of the Earth and its movement around the Sun, the axis of rotation of the Earth describes a cone near the perpendicular to the orbital plane. As a result, the poles of the world move among the stars in a small circle with the center at the ecliptic pole, being at a distance of about 231/2° from it.

The movement of the north celestial pole among the stars over 26,000 years

Due to precession, the point of the vernal equinox moves along the ecliptic to the west, i.e., towards the apparent movement of the Sun, by an amount of 50.3 per year. Therefore, it will make a full circle in about 26,000 years. For the same reason, the north pole of the world, located in our time is near North Star, 4000 years ago was near Draco, and after 12,000 years it will be near Vega (a Lyra).

3. Solar day and solar time

True sunny days. If, using a passage instrument, we observe not the stars, but the Sun and daily note the time of passage of the center of the solar disk through the meridian, i.e., the moment of its upper culmination, then we can find that the time interval between the two upper culminations of the center of the solar disk, which is called true solar days, always turns out to be longer than the sidereal day by an average of 3 minutes. 56 seconds, or approximately 4 minutes. This comes from the fact that the Earth, revolving around the Sun, makes a complete revolution around it within a year, that is, in approximately 365 and a quarter days. Reflecting this movement of the Earth, the Sun moves approximately 1/365 of its annual path in one day, or an amount of about one degree, which corresponds to four minutes of time.

However, unlike the sidereal day, the true solar day periodically changes its duration. This is caused by two reasons: firstly, the inclination of the ecliptic plane to the plane of the celestial equator, and secondly, the elliptical shape of the Earth's orbit.

When the Earth is on a section of the ellipse located closer to the Sun, it moves faster; in six months, the Earth will be in the opposite part of the ellipse and will move in orbit more slowly. The uneven movement of the Earth in its orbit causes uneven visible movement of the Sun across the celestial sphere: at different times of the year the Sun moves at different speeds. Therefore, the length of the true solar day is constantly changing. So, for example, on December 23, when the true days are longest, they are 51 seconds. longer than September 16, when they are shortest.

Average solar day. Due to the unevenness of true solar days, it is inconvenient to use them as a unit for measuring time. Parisian watchmakers were well aware of this about three hundred years ago when they wrote on their workshop coat of arms: “The sun shows time deceivingly.”

All our watches - wrist, wall, pocket and others - are adjusted not according to the movement of the true Sun, but according to the movement of an imaginary point, which during the year makes one full revolution around the Earth in the same time as the Sun, but at the same time moves along the celestial equator and completely evenly. This point is called the middle sun.

The moment the average sun passes through the meridian is called the average noon, and the time interval between two successive average noons is called the average solar day. Their duration is always the same. They are divided into 24 hours, each hour of mean solar time is in turn divided into 60 minutes, and each minute into 60 seconds of mean solar time.

It is the average solar day, and not the sidereal day, that is one of the main units of time measurement that forms the basis of the modern calendar. Difference between average solar time and true time at the same moment is called the equation of time.

4. Change of seasons

Apparent movement of the Sun.

The modern calendar is based on the periodic change of seasons. We already know that the Sun moves along the ecliptic and crosses the celestial equator on the days of the spring (around March 21) and autumn (around September 23) equinoxes. Since the plane of the ecliptic is inclined to the plane of the celestial equator at an angle of 23°27", the Sun can move away from the equator no more than this angle. This position of the Sun occurs around June 22, on the day of the summer solstice, which is taken as the beginning of astronomical summer in northern hemisphere, and around December 22, the winter solstice, when astronomical winter begins in the northern hemisphere.

Incline earth's axis. The axis of rotation of the globe is inclined to the plane of the Earth's orbit at an angle of 66°33". When the Earth moves around the Sun, the axis of rotation of the Earth remains parallel to itself. On the days of the equinoxes, the Sun illuminates both hemispheres of the Earth equally and throughout the globe, day is equal to night. The rest of the time, these hemispheres are illuminated differently. In the summer, the northern hemisphere is illuminated more than the southern one, there is a continuous day at the North Pole and the sun never sets for half a year, while at the same time it shines on the sun. South Pole, in Antarctica, it is a polar night. Thus, the tilt of the globe's axis to the plane of the Earth's orbit, combined with the annual movement of the Earth around the Sun, causes the change of seasons.

Change in noon altitude of the Sun. As a result of moving along the ecliptic, the Sun changes its rising and setting points every day, as well as its midday altitude. So, at the latitude of St. Petersburg on the day of the winter solstice, i.e. around December 22, the Sun rises in the southeast, at noon reaches the celestial meridian at an altitude of only 6°.5 and sets in the southwest. This day in St. Petersburg is the shortest of the year - it lasts only 5 hours. 54 min.

The next day the Sun will rise somewhat to the east, at noon it will rise a little higher than yesterday, and set somewhat to the west. This will continue until the vernal equinox, which occurs around March 21st. On this day, the Sun will rise exactly at the eastern point, and its altitude will increase by 23°.5 compared to the midday altitude on the day of the winter solstice, i.e. it will be equal to 30°. Then the Sun will begin to descend and set exactly at the west point. On this day, the Sun will make exactly half of its visible path above the horizon, and the other half below it. Therefore, day will be equal to night.

After the spring equinox, the sunrise and sunset points continue to shift north, and the midday altitude increases. This happens until the summer solstice, when the Sun rises in the northeast and sets in the northwest. The midday altitude of the Sun will increase by another 23.5 and will be equal to about 53°.5 in St. Petersburg.

Then the Sun, continuing its path along the ecliptic, sinks lower every day, and its daily path shortens. Around September 23rd, day equals night again. Subsequently, the midday Sun continues to sink lower and lower, the days in our hemisphere are shortened, until the winter solstice comes again.

The apparent movement of the Sun and the associated seasons were well known to ancient observers. The need to predict the onset of one or another season served as the impetus for the creation of the first calendars based on the movement of the Sun.

5. Astronomical Basics calendar

We already know that any calendar is based on astronomical phenomena: the change of day and night, changes in lunar phases and the change of seasons. These phenomena provide the three basic units of time that underlie any calendar system, namely: the solar day, the lunar month and the solar year. Taking the average solar day as a constant value, we will establish the duration of the lunar month and solar year. Throughout the history of astronomy, the duration of these units of time has been continually refined.

Synodic month

Lunar calendars are based on the synodic month - the period of time between two successive identical phases of the Moon. Initially, as is already known, it was determined at 30 days. Later it was found that there are 29.5 days in a lunar month. Currently, the average length of a synodic month is taken to be 29.530588 mean solar days, or 29 days 12 hours 44 minutes 2.8 seconds of mean solar time.

Tropical year.

The gradual clarification of the duration of the solar year was extremely important. In the first calendar systems, the year contained 360 days. The ancient Egyptians and Chinese about five thousand years ago determined the length of the solar year to be 365 days, and several centuries BC, both in Egypt and China, the length of the year was set at 365.25 days.

The modern calendar is based on the tropical year - the period of time between two successive passages of the center of the Sun through the vernal equinox.

Definition exact value The magnitude of the tropical year was studied by such outstanding scientists as P. Laplace (1749-1827) in 1802, F. Bessel (1784-1846) in 1828, P. Hansen (1795-1874) in 1853, W. Le Verrier (1811-1877) in 1858, and some others.

When in 1899, on the initiative of D.I. Mendeleev (1834-1907), a commission was formed at the Russian Astronomical Society to reform the Julian calendar that then existed in Russia, the great scientist decided that for the successful work of the commission, first of all, it was necessary to know the exact length of the tropical year . For this, D. I. Mendeleev turned to the outstanding American astronomer S. Newcome (1835-1909), who sent him a detailed answer and attached to it a table of tropical year values ​​he had compiled for various eras:

To determine the length of the tropical year, S. Newcomb proposed a general formula:

T = 365.24219879 - 0.0000000614 (t - 1900), where t is the ordinal number of the year.

In October 1960, the XI General Conference on Weights and Measures was held in Paris, at which a unified international system of units (SI) was adopted and a new definition of the second as the basic unit of time, recommended by the IX Congress of the International Astronomical Union (Dublin, 1955), was approved. .

In accordance with the adopted decision, the ephemeris second is defined as 1/31556925.9747 part of the tropical year for the beginning of 1900. From here it is easy to determine the value of the tropical year:

T = - 365 days 5 hours. 48 min. 45.9747 sec.

or T = 365.242199 days.

For calendar purposes such high precision is not required. Therefore, rounding to the fifth decimal place, we get

T = 365.24220 days.

This rounding of the tropical year gives an error of one day per 100,000 years. Therefore, the value we have adopted may well be used as the basis for all calendar calculations.

So, neither the synodic month nor the tropical year contains an integer number of average solar days and, therefore, all three of these quantities are incommensurable. This means that it is impossible to simply express one of these quantities through the other, that is, it is impossible to select some integer number of solar years that would contain an integer number of lunar months and an integer number of average solar days. This is precisely what explains the whole complexity of the calendar problem and all the confusion that for many millennia reigned in the issue of reckoning large periods of time.

Three types of calendars.

The desire to at least to some extent coordinate the day, month and year with each other led to the creation of three types of calendars in different eras: solar, based on the movement of the Sun, in which they sought to coordinate the day and year with each other; lunar (based on the movement of the Moon) the purpose of which was to coordinate the day and the lunar month; finally, lunisolar, in which attempts were made to harmonize all three units of time.

Currently, almost all countries in the world use the solar calendar. The lunar calendar played a big role in ancient religions. It has survived to this day in some eastern countries professing the Muslim religion. In it, the months have 29 and 30 days, and the number of days varies in such a way that the first day of each next month coincides with the appearance of the “new month” in the sky. The years of the lunar calendar contain alternately 354 and 355 days. Thus, lunar year 10-12 days shorter than the solar year.

Moon- solar calendar used in the Jewish religion to calculate religious holidays, as well as in the State of Israel. It is particularly complex. The year in it contains 12 lunar months, consisting of either 29 or 30 days, but to take into account the movement of the Sun, “leap years” are periodically introduced, containing an additional thirteenth month. Simple, i.e. twelve-month years, consist of 353, 354 or 355 days, and leap years, i.e. thirteen-month, have 383, 384 or 385 days.

Chronology and some calendar eras

An important feature of chronology is its connection with calendar eras - the initial moments of any chronology system. Such moments are usually some legendary or historical event. Different peoples used their eras at different times.

At the same time, the chronology system itself is also called an era. So, for example, the era we use is called Christian (also known as the new era or our era), since it counts the years from the date of birth of Jesus Christ accepted by most countries of the world.

The origin of the word “era” has a double meaning. It is generally accepted that “era” is a Latin word and means a single number. However, there is another explanation according to which the word “era” represents the initial letters Latin phrase“Ab exordio regni August!”, which means: “From the beginning of the reign of Augustus,” since in Alexandria there was once a count of years from the beginning of the reign of the Roman emperor Augustus Octavian.

There are many hundreds of eras in cultural history. We have already encountered some of them, which were quite widespread in the past, when presenting various calendar systems. These are the “era of the Olympiads” (July 1, 776 BC), the era of Nabonassar (February 26, 747 BC), the era “from the foundation of Rome” (April 21, 753 BC). ), the Diocletian era (August 29, 284 AD), the Muslim Hijri era (July 16, 622 AD), the French Revolution calendar era (September 22, 1792 AD). according to the new century), as well as very ancient eras, such as the Byzantine era “from the creation of the world” (October 1, 3761 BC), the Chinese cyclic era (2397 BC) and some others.

Let us give some details of the history of two eras, one of which, unlike those listed above, has highest value in our civil life, and the other is of no less importance in the work of astronomers and chronologists. Here we mean the Christian and Scaliger eras.

Christian era

Where did the Christian era come from, which is currently practiced in most countries of the world?

The multiplicity of time systems gave rise to great inconvenience. In the VI century. there was a need to finally establish a unified system for the majority of cultural peoples of that time.

In 525 AD e., or in 241 of the era of Diocletian, the Roman monk Dionysius the Small was engaged in calculating the so-called “Easters” - special tables for determining the time of the Easter holiday for many years to come. He was to continue them starting in 248 of the era of Diocletian.

Christians considered Diocletian their worst enemy for the persecution they suffered during his reign. Therefore, Dionysius expressed the idea of ​​​​replacing the era of Diocletian with some other one related to Christianity. And in one of his letters, he proposed to henceforth count the years from the “birth of Christ.”

Based on completely arbitrary calculations, he “calculated” the date of the birth of Christ and stated that this event occurred 525 years ago, that is, in 284 BC (284 + 241 == 525), or in 753 AD foundation of Rome." If we take into account that the Paschals of Dionysius begin in 248 of the era of Diocletian, then this should correspond to 532 from the “Nativity of Christ” (284 + 248 == 532).

It should be especially emphasized that for more than five centuries Christians did without their own chronology, did not have the slightest idea about the time of Christ’s birth and did not even think about this issue.

How did Dionysius manage to calculate the date of the birth of Christ - an event that, according to him, took place more than five centuries ago? Although the monk did not leave any documents, historians have tried to reconstruct the entire course of his reasoning. Dionysius probably proceeded from the gospel tradition that Christ was born during the reign of Herod. However, this is implausible, since the Jewish king Herod died in the fourth year BC. Obviously, Dionysius also had in mind another gospel tradition that Christ was crucified at the age of 30 and resurrected on the day of the so-called “Annunciation,” which is celebrated on March 25. From the gospel legend it follows that this happened on Sunday, the day of the “first Christian Easter.”

Then Dionysius began to look for the year closest to his time, in which March 25 would fall on Easter Sunday. Such a year was supposed to come 38 years later, that is, in 279 of the era of Diocletian and correspond to 563 AD. e. Subtracting 532 from the last number, Dionysius “established” that Christ was resurrected on March 25, 31 AD. e. Subtracting 30 years from this date, Dionysius determined that the “Nativity of Christ” occurred in the first year of our era.

But where did the number 532 come from? Why did Dionysius take it away from the number 563?

Churchmen call it the “great indiction.” It plays a big role in calculating the Easter tables. This number is the result of multiplying the numbers 19 and 28: 19 * 28 = 532.

The peculiarity of the number 19, known as the “circle of the moon,” is that every 19 years all phases of the moon fall on the same days of the month. The second number, 28, is called the “circle of the Sun.” Every 28 years, the dates of the month fall again on the same days of the week.

Thus, every 532 years the same numbers of months will correspond to the same names of the days of the week, as well as the same phases of the Moon. For the same reason, after 532 years, Easter days fall on the same dates and days of the week. This means that the first Easter Sunday on March 25 was in 31, and it was repeated again in 563.

The absurdity of attempts to establish the date of Christ's birth is so obvious that even many theologians were forced to admit it. Thus, when in 1899, at a meeting of the Commission of the Russian Astronomical Society on calendar reform, the question of Christian chronology was raised, the representative Holy Synod Professor of the Theological Academy V.V. Bolotov stated: “It is better to exclude the year of Christ’s birth from the list of those eras on which the Commission can choose. It is impossible to establish scientifically the year of Christ’s birth (even just the year, and not the month and day). It is clear that this speech, made at a closed meeting, was not widely publicized.

Thus, it is irrefutably established that Dionysius has no information about the birth of Christ. All the Gospel dates to which he refers are contradictory and devoid of any reliability.

How Christian chronology was introduced. The chronology proposed by the monk Dionysius was not immediately accepted. The first official mention of the “Nativity of Christ” appeared in church documents only two centuries after Dionysius, in 742. In the 10th century. the new chronology began to be used more often in various acts of the popes, and only in the middle of the 15th century. all papal documents necessarily had a date from the “Nativity of Christ.” True, at the same time the year from the “creation of the world” was also required.

Ruling classes and the clergy accepted Christian chronology because it helped strengthen faith in the existence of Christ. Thus, the current calendar is completely arbitrary and is not connected with any historical event.

In Russia, as we already know, Christian chronology was introduced in 1699 by decree of Peter I, according to which “the best for the sake of agreement with European peoples in contracts and treatises” after December 31, 7208 from the “creation of the world” began to be considered 1700 from “ Nativity of Christ."

There are two ways of counting years - historical and astronomical. One of the disadvantages of Christian chronology is considered by many historians to be that it began in relatively recent times. Therefore, many questions of history and chronology related to the highly cultural countries of the ancient world were considered for a very long time in more ancient eras, in particular “from the founding of Rome” and “from the first Olympiads.”

Only in the 18th century. English scientists began to use counting in the years before the “birth of Christ” (ante Deum - before the Lord or abbreviated “a. D.” We used the abbreviation “before R. X.” In English “V.S.” - before Christ (before Christ). The designation “from R. X.” in Latin corresponds to “A.D,” which means “Anno Domini” (year of the Lord). However, although this method of counting is the cause of many computational misunderstandings, it has remained in place. historical science and therefore received the name historical or chronological account. In it the first year AD. e. preceded by the first year BC. e., then the second year BC. e. etc.

In 1740, the French astronomer Jacques Cassini (1677-1756), in his works “Elements of Astronomy” and “Astronomical Tables”, first proposed a year preceding the first year AD. e., conditionally called zero, the year preceding zero is minus the first, etc. Thus, all other years BC. e., of course, except for zero, they began to be designated by negative numbers. This type of counting of years, in contrast to the historical counting, is called astronomical counting.

Era of Scaliger

This era is better known as the Julian period. It was first introduced by the French scientist Joseph Scaliger (1540-1609), who in 1583 published a treatise entitled “A New Work on Improving the Account of Time.” In it, Scaliger proposed to count time in chronological calculations in the so-called days of the Julian period, and January 1, 4713 BC was taken as the beginning of counting days. e.

The total duration of one Julian period of Scaliger is 7980 years. This number is not arbitrary, but is a product of three factors - 28 * 19 * 15. Here:

28 is the number of Julian years of the solar cycle, after which the days of the month fall on the same days of the week;

19 is the number of years of the Metonic lunar cycle, after which all phases of the Moon fall on the same dates of the month, and finally,

15 - the number of years of Roman indiction, after which emergency taxes were levied in the Roman Empire. At the same time, indiction was a 15-year period of time calculation, introduced in 312 by the Roman emperor Constantine the Great instead of the previously used “pagan” Olympiads. It was often used by historians and chronologists to establish dates for various historical events.

The Julian period of Scaliger has a very important property: the counting of days in it occurs continuously and sequentially throughout the entire period from the conditional starting date and is not divided into years. Therefore, the Julian period counting system is widely used in astronomical and chronological calculations.

In astronomy, the Julian period is used in the study of various periodic phenomena. By counting time in Julian days, we can express the moment of any astronomical phenomenon by the positive number of average solar days and their fractions with the required degree of accuracy. This makes it possible to accurately determine the time interval between two events, for example between two maximum or minimum brightness variable star. Astronomers designate the days of the Julian period (or Julian days) with the letters J. D. or Yu. D. In chronology, the Julian period of Scaliger made it possible to connect different calendar eras, expressing their eras through Julian days.

Origin of the seven-day week

The seven-day week as an intermediate unit of time between a day and a month originated in Ancient Babylon. From here it passed to the Jews, and then to the Greeks and Romans; from the Romans it spread widely throughout Western Europe. The seven-day week has also gained recognition among many peoples of the Arab East.

The Babylonians attributed magical meaning to the number seven, considering it “sacred.” Such veneration was associated with the number of planets known at that time (which also included the Sun and Moon).

Probably, the origin of the seven-day week as a unit of time is also connected with another reason - with the change in lunar phases, repeating every 29.5 days. If we take into account that during the new moon the Moon is not visible for about 1.5 days, then the duration of its visibility will be 28 days, or four weeks. And now we divide the period of change in the appearance of the Moon into four parts, which we call the first quarter, full moon, last quarter and new moon. Each quarter of the lunar month lasts approximately seven days.

Names of the days of the week. The names of the days of the week are of astrological origin. Even in Ancient Babylon, the day was divided into 24 hours and each hour was under the auspices of some planet. Thus, the first hour of Saturday was dedicated to the most distant planet - Saturn, the second hour - to Jupiter, the third - to Mars, the fourth - to the Sun, the fifth - to Venus, the sixth - to Mercury and the seventh - to the Moon. According to astrological rules, days received their names depending on which planet the first hour was dedicated to. Therefore, Saturday was called the day of Saturn.

The remaining hours of Saturday were also distributed between the planets. Thus, the 8th, 15th and 22nd hours were again dedicated to Saturn, the 23rd hour belonged to Jupiter, the 24th to Mars. The first hour of the next day - Sunday - fell on the Sun. That is why it was called the day of the Sun.

Continuing this calculation further, we find that the first hour of the third day fell under the protection of Lupa, the fourth - Mars, the fifth - Mercury, the sixth - Jupiter and the seventh - Venus. Accordingly, the days of the week received their names, the Latin names of which and symbols are given in Table. 1.

Table 1. Russian and Latin names of days of the week

The peoples of Western Europe adopted various customs, as well as many words and expressions, from the Romans. Therefore, in the languages ​​of European peoples - Italians, French, Spanish, Germans, English, Swedes, Norwegians, Danes, Dutch - many names of the days of the week, borrowed from the ancient Romans, have been preserved to this day. Thus, in French, only Sunday (dimanche) is not associated with “planetary” names and comes from the Latin words dies domenica, meaning “Lord’s day.”

In Italian and Spanish, the five days of the week still have planetary names. In English, the names of days such as Saturday (Saturday - the day of Saturn), Sunday (Sunday - the day of the Sun) and Monday (Monday - the day of the Moon) directly correspond to the planets; the remaining days also bear the names of planets, but they are named after the gods of Scandinavian mythology Tiu, Wotan, Thor and Freya, corresponding in their role to the Roman Mars, Mercury, Jupiter and Venus.

In German to this day, Sonntag (day of the Sun) is Sunday and Montag (day of the Moon) is Monday, and Friday (Freitag) reminds us of the already mentioned goddess Freya.

It is interesting that among some Asian peoples the days of the week are named after the same planets. In India, the days of the week are called as follows (in Hindi): Monday - Somvar (moon day)
Tuesday - Mangalvar (Mars day)
Wednesday - Budhavar (Mercury day)
Thursday - Virvar (day of Jupiter)
Friday - Shukravar (Venus day)
Saturday - Shanivar (Saturn day)
Sunday - Ravivar (day of the Sun)

In Russian, as in other Slavic languages ​​(Ukrainian, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Czech, Serbo-Croatian, Polish), the names of the days of the week are associated with their ordinal numbers and with some religious customs. Our names for the days of the week came to Ancient Rus' from Bulgaria, a South Slavic country whose culture was at the highest level at that time.

Religious people believe that the seven-day week was established by God himself, who worked for six days, and on the seventh he “rested from his work.” Therefore, the Bible strictly forbade violating the sanctity of the Sabbath, a day dedicated to God. This day was a weekly holiday for Christians and Jews. In the II century. n. e. The Roman Emperor Hadrian forbade Christians from celebrating the Sabbath. Then the day of rest was moved to the next day of the week - the day of the Sun. In 321, the Roman Emperor Constantine, who converted to Christianity, legalized this day as a weekly public holiday.

In Rus', the weekly holiday was long called a week or “week” - a day when “they don’t do”, don’t work. Monday means that it comes after "week" (i.e. Sunday), Tuesday is the second day after "week", Wednesday is the middle day, Thursday and Friday are the fourth and fifth; Saturday comes from the Hebrew word “Sabbath” (Sabbath), which means rest, peace.

After Russia adopted Christianity, only one day of the year was called Sunday - the day the celebration of Easter began. In the sense of the day of the week, the word “Sunday” began to be used only in the 16th century. in memory of the resurrection of Christ, the word “week” was preserved for the entire seven-day period instead of the word “week”.

Muslim peoples, having adopted a seven-day week, consider Friday as the seventh, i.e., non-working day, as if their prophet Muhammad was born on this day.

The seven-day week played a big role in astrology. For many centuries, astrologers saw a certain mystery in the location of the seven planets relative to the Earth, which they expressed with a special drawing. They drew a circle, divided it into seven equal parts, and at the intersection points they placed the signs of the planets (including the Sun and Moon) in the order of the synodic times of their revolutions or their estimated distances from Earth. Then two straight lines were drawn from each point to the ends of the opposite arc. Thus, seven mutually intersecting lines formed an inscribed seven-pointed star. Astrologers deciphered this drawing as follows: if you go from the top of one angle to the top of another along their common side, from the top of the second to the top of the third also along common side etc., then you get the accepted order of the days of the week. So, if you start from the Moon and go to Mars, then from Mars you will need to go to Mercury, from Mercury to Jupiter, from Jupiter to Venus, from Venus to Saturn, from Saturn to the Sun; from here we will return again to the Moon. Thus, the entire week will be depicted sequentially - from Monday to Sunday.

Is a seven-day week necessary? The history of the development of calendar systems shows that the “week” is an unsuccessful unit of time measurement, since it does not agree with either the length of the month or the length of the year. In lunar calendars it still had some meaning, as approximately a quarter of a lunar month, but in solar calendars it lost all meaning. One of the first solar calendars, which originated in Ancient Egypt, did not have a seven-day week. It was not in the republican calendar of the French Revolution either.

History of the calendar in science and technology.

We call the eternal image moving from number to number time. Reflecting on this, a person began to climb one of the highest peaks of knowledge, because we are talking about a very important concept: the spatio-temporal unity of the world.

Augustine, nicknamed the Blessed, sought time “in the depths of his own soul,” and, obediently following this church philosopher of the early Middle Ages, the physicist late XIX V. E. Mach argued that “space and time are ordered systems of series of sensations.”

It took several tens of thousands of years for people to understand that winter would return in many days with the same inexorability as it left, that the rain would begin as inevitably as it would end. The man realized this and began to “think ahead,” to plan not only for today, which “will pass, thank God,” but also for a longer period. For example, what was important for the Russian peasant was not the date January 24, not the church holiday of St. Aksinya, which falls on it, but the fact that Aksinya is a “half-bread store,” and if there is still half of the reserves left in the bins, then that means there will be enough until the new harvest.

Year after year, characterized by either hotter summers or less snowy winters, a person’s entire life passed from birth to death. A “natural”, phenological calendar arose, which had a purely local significance. Developed over many centuries, it retained its place in the life of the peasant and hunter even when the authorities sent a priest and a policeman and introduced a unified system of counting days and years.

Moon and month

The moon is filled with an inexplicable charm even for us, people of the rational 20th century. It is easy to imagine how they adored her in those distant times, when the silver disk was a living creature endowed with magical powers. How many poetic legends were dedicated to him!

Among the Slavs, the Month was the king of the night, the husband of the Sun. He fell in love with the Morning Star, and as punishment the other gods split him in half... We find a strangely similar legend on the diametrically opposite edge of the planet, among the Australian aborigines: the young Moon, who fell in love with someone else's wife, was expelled from his tribe and forever wanders across the sky in search of shelter.

Africans from the Namaka tribe say that the good Moon God wanted to make people as immortal as he was, to make them die and rise again. But the hare decided to spoil the people and said that they would be like him, the hare: if they die, they will never be resurrected. And it came true as the stupid hare prophesied. For this, the Month threw his battle ax at the hare and cut his lip, which since then has remained forked in all hares. Almost the same plot can be traced in the tale of the South American botocudas: the moon can cause thunder, lightning, punish with crop failure, and sometimes it falls to the ground, and then people die in large numbers...

The Vietnamese still have a beautiful custom of contemplating the moon on the sixteenth day of the eighth month of their lunar calendar: a bright face, not covered by clouds, promises a good harvest this year, half-shrouded in a foggy veil - full bins after the second grain harvest, but what if the sky is completely closed clouds, you will have to wait for a lean year... Even a European who does not believe in God or the devil will show the young moon a shiny coin lying in his pocket: let’s go, they say, more money. And in the old days, the peasant was seriously upset if at such a crucial moment he did not have silver money in his pocket.

Celebrations in honor of the moon were, willy-nilly, regular, just like the regular change of lunar phases. And man measured his life against these cycles. The interval from new moon to new moon (or from full moon to full moon - different tribes believed differently) turned out to be firmly associated with the silvery celestial body. It is not for nothing that among many peoples “month is a luminary” and “month is a period of time” are one and the same word.

seven days

The variety of faces of the moon divided the lunar month into smaller parts. Among the Babylonians we find a seven-day week, but associated not with the phases of the Moon, but with astrological rules. The Babylonian priests knew seven celestial bodies, seven celestial beings: the Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn. Each one had a special day. There were very complex tables that were used to calculate the favorable moment for starting a commercial enterprise or a wedding. Only the initiated - the Priests - could understand them.

The common people knew one thing for sure: the last day of the week, ruled by Saturn, is the most unlucky. On this day, they tried to abstain from any work, and the word “Sabbath”, “rest” in Babylonian, became a designation for a forced day off, dictated by superstition.

From the Babylonians, the word "Sabbath" migrated to the ancient Jews and, slightly changing into "Sabbath", brought with it the same injunction of peace, sanctified not by astrological, but by religious, very severe considerations: the Jewish god Yahweh was a formidable god and quick to kill. Orthodox Jews hired special servants on Saturday, who were supposed to do all household chores on that day. “Sabbath” and “Sabbath” are heard in our “Saturday,” but according to the Christian religion, a day free from work is not Saturday, but Sunday. Why? This difference is a memory of religious strife between Christians and Jews who equally revere the Old Testament.

We see the Babylonian personification of the days of the week in the names preserved in English, German, and French. “Saturn day”, Saturday, is called “saterdi” by the English, “samedi” by the French, and “sunny day”, Sunday, is called “Sunday” in English, “sonntag” in German. These names are more than four thousand years old...

Phases of the Moon, lunar months... It’s a very natural unit of counting, it just begs to be picked up. So the Babylonians and the ancient Greeks, Romans and Jews considered the year to be lunar months. The lunar calendar has survived to this day among Muslims. They are not embarrassed by the fact that in the lunar calendar, which they adhere to, the same month can fall in winter, then in spring, then in autumn, then in summer, that in one year according to European calculation they sometimes have to celebrate the New Year twice . Why is this calendar so strange? Because, alas, the Solar system was “created” without a plan - the time of revolution of the planets is expressed in incorrect numbers that do not have common divisors. (The time of revolution of the Moon around the Earth is 29.5305... days, and the time of revolution of the Earth around the Sun is 365.24219... days.)

Moon and Sun

Twelve lunar months is almost the time of the planet’s annual revolution around its star, but “almost” is extremely approximate. The difference is close to eleven days. The moment of the vernal equinox, the holiday of spring and the awakening of nature, which the farmer so eagerly awaits, will fall on the first day of the first month of the lunar calendar in one year, on the twelfth in the next, and on the twenty-third a year later. An uneducated person, unable to understand the confusion of tables, can only listen to the priest, the bearer of “wisdom”.

Not all priests were happy with the jumping calendar. We had to resort to all sorts of tricks to stop his run. For the farmer, it is not the phases of the moon that are important, but the seasons, the solar year, determined by the movement of the Earth in its circumsolar orbit. And they began to “link” the lunar calendar to the solar one. To begin with, they introduced the thirteenth month into every fourth lunar year: after all, it becomes easier to take into account the shift of days in such a number that is no longer “running,” but “swinging.” And then they try to indicate for each day of the lunar year which constellations rise and set at that time. The calendar turns into a lunisolar calendar. Religious rituals are performed according to the Moon, field work begins according to the Sun.

In 433 BC. The ancient Greek astronomer Meton made a remarkable discovery: it turns out that every 235 lunar months, i.e. 19 years later, the New Lunar Year again coincides with the spring equinox. The Greeks greeted this news with delight. After all, the calendar they used thus turned into an eternal one! It was enough to draw up a table of the days of all lunar months, associate the positions of the Sun and Moon with them - and all the worries associated with calculating the timing of field work automatically disappeared. The nineteen-year cycle was called Metonic. Literally every Greek knew the name of the scientist; stone pillars with his calendar stood in the squares of many ancient Greek cities.

And yet it must be said that the lunar calendar is very inconvenient. Many peoples, who initially gave preference to it, eventually switched to counting days “according to the Sun,” for example, the ancient Romans, from whom we received the calendar accepted today by almost all of humanity. In other countries, local and religious calendars have been preserved, but when entering the international arena, they are forced to use the generally accepted ancient Roman one.

The birth of the calendar and pontiffs

If you believe the legends, the Romans initially lived according to a rather strange calendar: it had only 10 lunar months.

Only the priest-pontiffs knew when the new year would come, and with it the calendar counting of days. They watched the appearance of the new moon. When a brilliant crescent finally appeared in the sky, citizens were summoned to the Capitol and the beginning of the month - the Kalends - was announced. And on the first new moon in March, the beginning of the year was solemnly proclaimed.

But the Kalends were famous not only for the beginning of the month. On this day debts and interest were supposed to be paid. The debt book was called “calendarium” - it’s a stone’s throw from the usual “calendar”.

On the day dedicated to the first quarter of the moon - "nones" ("nonus" in Latin means the ninth, i.e. 9 days before the "Ides" - the middle of the month), the pontiffs announced what and when the holidays would be in the beginning of the month, which for the Romans, with their incredible polytheism, was information of special value. The Romans did not count the days sequentially, as we do, but differently. They said: “There are so many days before the Kalends, Nones, and Ides.”

The ten-month calendar did not last long. In 700 BC, if you again believe the legend, the second Roman king Numa Pompilius, who considered himself a direct descendant of the sacred Romulus, added two more months: Januarius, named after Janus, the two-faced god of entrances and exits (and not at all a two-faced scoundrel, as the ignorant barbarians considered him), and Februarius, whose name reminded of Februs, the god of the underground kingdom of the dead, is a sad month, which is why they made it the shortest, 28 days. The beginning of the year still fell on spring Martius - the month of field work, which was patronized by Mars, then the god of spring shoots, and not bloody wars. Then came Aprilis, the month when the buds open (“aperire”) on the trees; Mayus, glorifying the fertility goddess Maya; and finally, Junius, dedicated to Juno, goddess of the firmament, wife of Jupiter, “queen of gods and men.”

For some reason, the months from the fifth to the tenth were not given to any gods and were simply called Quintilis, Sextilis, September, October, November and December. Numa Pompilius turned out to be a bad astronomer. His year turned out to be short, only 355 days, ten and a quarter less than required.

To prevent the beginning of the year from jumping, so that the holidays in honor of the gods would not move, the pontiffs introduced an additional month between the 23rd and 24th of Februarius - Marcedonius, which got its name from the verb "marcere" - to fade. Marcedonius seemed to fade away for two years, and then reappear inside the februarius - sometimes 22 or 23 days long. The system, needless to say, is complex and requires constant attention. And it was precisely the pontiffs who lacked attention. Very soon they became confused and did not find anything better than to obtain permission to make an intercalary month of such length “as needed.” This happened in 191 BC, and for almost one hundred and fifty years after this event, the pontiffs were engaged in the most amazing underground trade - trading in the days of Marcedonius.

Suddenly shortening the year, they brought down sudden calends on unsuspecting debtors. If necessary, they removed an objectionable consul whose powers unexpectedly ended. But for a necessary and generous person, the year stretched on, as if by magic.

No one tried to fight the willfulness of the pontiffs. They were too powerful and too powerful people supported them. And the calendar... The calendar is so confused that it has turned into a true national disaster.

“Roman generals always won,” Voltaire quipped, “but they never knew on what day they did it.”

The first Roman emperor Gaius Julius Caesar was not only an emperor, but also a great pontiff. He had the full power that was needed to put an end to the calendar disorder, which had a destructive effect on the economy and trade. The emperor invited the famous Egyptian astronomer Sosigenes to Rome.

The Egyptians had three seasons: flood, sowing, and harvest. Each one lasts four months. Within a month there are three ten-day periods - decades (i.e. six five-day periods - pentads). Only 360 days. An error of five days. But this is a calendar of the fourth millennium BC. Astronomical knowledge still clearly lacked depth. Several centuries pass, and we see an addition: five more days are added to 360 days, holidays in honor of the children of the earth god Geb and his wife Nut - Osiris, Horus, Set, Isis and Nephthys.

Now we know that this figure - 365 days - differs from the true length of the year by a quarter of a day. But this difference could not yet be felt by the astronomers of the Ancient Kingdom. However, soon the servants of Isis discovered that every four years this brilliant star was one day late in rising. The story with the lunar calendar repeated itself, only with a longer period. In order for the rising of Sothis to again fall on the first day of the month "that", 1461 Egyptian years were required (1460 years according to modern chronology). This return of the star was celebrated with a solemn holiday in honor of Eternity...

In 238 BC. King Ptolemy Evergetes, a descendant of the Greek commander Ptolemy, who served in the victorious troops of Alexander the Great and conquered Egypt for Greece, ordered to celebrate another holiday every four years in honor of the patron gods of Evergetes. An annual quarter of a day was added to the calendar, and its run slowed down so much that one extra day began to run once every 128 years. Such a small error seemed insignificant to the astronomers of that time.

A similar calendar was proposed to Julius Caesar by Sosigenes. The emperor decided to carry out the reform in 46 BC. By that time, the Roman calendar had diverged from the solar calendar by 70 days due to the mercy of careless pontiffs, and another ten days had to be added so that the year would become of normal length. Finally, according to the principle of “cut it down in one fell swoop,” Julius Caesar moved the beginning of the year to Januarius 1, the date the newly elected consuls took office. And although it turned out to be a mere coincidence that the first Januarius coincided with the full moon so revered by the Romans, the Great Pontiff did not fail to take advantage of this circumstance: he said that the gods themselves were favorable to the innovation. Well, the year turned out to be the longest in the history of Rome, at 445 days. That’s what they called it: “the year of great confusion.”

An additional day (the same one that Euergetes added) was left in place of the previous Marcedonius, between the 23rd and 24th of Februarius, six days before the Kalends of March. The sixth in Latin means "sextus", and the double sixth means "bisextus". The word came to the Russian language through the Greeks, who instead of “b” said “v”; We call a bisex year a leap year.

Caesar did not forget himself. The month of Quintilis was renamed “Julius” by the obsequious Senate at the request of the emperor, writes the ancient Roman historian Suetonius.

Caesar's successor, Emperor Octavian Augustus, followed his example and perpetuated his name by renaming the sextilis in his honor. He also rearranged the number of days in the months so as to be sure to have a lucky odd number of days in “his”. This is the form in which the popes and emperors of Constantinople received the calendar - almost the same one by which we live. The difference is in the name: we inherited Julian from the Romans, but we live according to Gregorian. The difference between them seems to be insignificant, three-quarters of a day per century, but the meaning is enormous.

Gregorian calendar

Sosigenes, following Euergetes, did not attach importance to one extra day that had accumulated over 128 years. He neglected the observations of the great ancient astronomer Hipparchus, who back in the 2nd century. BC found that the year does not last 365.25 days, but a little less (according to the latest observations, by 0.0078 days). Julian year turned out to be a little slower than the sundial hands. However, the Romans did not have time to feel this “flaw” in any serious way. Rome as a state ended when the difference between calendar and solar time did not even reach three days. Those who had to worry were the Christians.

At the end of the 14th century. The Christian church, which adopted the Julian calendar as the basis for chronology, suddenly discovered that the spring equinox no longer coincides with March 21, and moreover, every 128 years it comes one more day earlier. Meanwhile, according to the decree of the Council of Nicea (it took place in 325), the equinox had to fall “forever” on March 21, as it was in the year of the council. It was necessary to bring the calendar “back to normal,” and the first voices about this were heard in Byzantium, the most zealous guardian of the canons. But canons are canons, and reform by reform is a dangerous matter. Emperor Andronicus decided that the innovation would not cause anything other than church unrest, and rejected all proposals (although, as the Brockhaus and Efron dictionary says, a certain Nicephorus Gregoras “proposed changing the calendar on the same basis on which this was later carried out by Pope Gregory XIII” ).

In the Western, Roman church, the entire 15th and first half of the 16th centuries passed under the sign of proposals for calendar reform. To solve the problem, the famous Nuremberg astronomer Regiomontanus, famous for his astronomical calendar, which was used by Columbus himself, was invited to Rome. Alas, as soon as he arrived, the scientist fell ill and died. The question of changes was again postponed. The V Lutheran Council, held at the very beginning of the 16th century, also discussed how to correct the calendar. In particular, Copernicus presented his opinion to the audience: he believed that the length of the year was not yet known with the accuracy that would guarantee against errors in the future. The Council of Trent in 1563 instructed Pope Pius IV to take the matter of calendar reform, as they say, under personal control. But it turned out to be a tough nut to crack. Pius IV died, he was replaced by Pius V, then Gregory XIII took the throne, and what the new calendar would be like, the debate went on and on.

Meanwhile, the project, in all respects remarkably simple, had already been developed. Its author was the doctor Aloysius Lillo, who lived in the Italian city of Perugia, a professor of medicine at the local university. To stop the movement of the calendar, he proposed simply throwing out the extra days accumulated since the time of Julius Caesar, and then counting as leap years those years that are divisible by 4 and not divisible by 100. Lillo completed his calculations in 1576. But he did not have time to present the project to the papal commission : even a slight illness in that era turned into a fatal illness... The scientist’s papers were taken to Rome by his brother. It rarely happens that even the most wonderful project passed through the commissions without any comments: each of those sitting believes that he is no more stupid than the author and is trying with all his might to demonstrate this. But Lillo’s project turned out to be so impeccably executed that it was adopted without a single amendment.

Pope Gregory XIII approved the decision of the commission by issuing the bull “Iter Gravissimo...”: all Christians were commanded to consider October 5, 1582 not the fifth, but immediately October 15.

The "Gregorian style" was immediately adopted in Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, and the Netherlands. A year later it was introduced by Poland, the German states, and Switzerland. Conservative England waited until 1751, and then “killed two birds with one stone”: it corrected the calendar and moved the beginning of 1752 from March 25 to January 1. Some of the English perceived the reform as a true robbery: it’s no joke, three whole months of life disappeared! They say that some ladies seriously demanded that the government return the “stolen ninety-four days” to them...

The “fathers” of the Eastern Orthodox Church turned out to be even more conservative. They still live according to the Julian calendar. And they not only live, but whenever possible they tried (in Tsarist Russia very successfully) to prevent the transition to a new style. They objected, for example, to it because the Easter holiday, if calculated based on the Gregorian calendar, can sometimes coincide with the Jewish Passover - an unacceptable thing according to Christian canons. But the main thing, of course, was not this circumstance, but the desire to emphasize their independence from Rome.

Representatives of the secular authorities stood in the same ranks with the clergy in Russia, but for reasons of “protective” order. The well-known reactionary Prince Lieven, Minister of Public Education, wrote in 1830 that “due to ignorance masses the inconveniences associated with the reform will far exceed the expected benefits." According to the sad Russian tradition, the opinion of the titled obscurantist prevailed over scientific work half a dozen academicians, with facts in their hands, tried to prove to the government the urgent need to switch to a new calendar “for the sake of convenience of trade, improvement of communications, expansion of connections with other nations and scientific activity.”

The October Revolution, which eliminated all institutions of power, easily resolved the issue of calendar reform. Decree of the Council People's Commissars from January 26, 1918, after January 31, it was no longer February 1, but immediately the fourteenth.

Chronology

A one-year calendar is, of course, important, but that's not all. There is also such a thing as chronology, the counting of years, which arose much later than the calendar. Concentrated history, as it is sometimes called. And in fact, do dry dates: 1914, 1917, 1941, 1945, say little to the imagination of a person well acquainted with history?

That's what's interesting. Calling the year “one thousand nine hundred and fourteen,” we do not think at all that this is the year from the “Nativity of Christ,” and the “Nativity” itself was calculated by the monk Dionysius the Lesser in 525 AD.

During the time when Dionysius lived, his “discovery” went unnoticed. Up until 1431, all encyclicals of the Pope dated “from the creation of the world,” and the “most Christian” Spanish church, until the 12th century, took as the beginning of the countdown not even this date, consecrated by the authority of the popes, but 38 AD, when the emperor Octavian Augustus granted the conquered Iberians who inhabited the Iberian Peninsula the status of inhabitants of a Roman province.

Years were also counted from the creation of the world in Russia, or rather, from the creation of Adam, which (in accordance with the decree of the Council of Nicea) occurred on March 1 of the 1st year of creation, on Friday. 1492 was, for example, 7000 years from the creation of the world. It was supposed to begin in March, but Tsar Ivan III did not take into account traditions and moved the New Year to the fall, to September 1. (Isn’t it a tradition since those times to start the school year on this day?).

The second reformer of the calendar was Peter I, who ordered to switch to a civil count of years and instead of January 1, 7209 from the creation of the world, write January 1, 1700 from the birth of Christ. At the same time, the beginning of the year was postponed to January. However, not wanting conflicts with adherents of antiquity and the church, the tsar made a reservation in the decree: “And if anyone wants to write both those years, from the creation of the world and from the birth of Christ, freely.”

Ethnographers encountered a strange phenomenon when, after October Revolution began to study the life of the peoples of the North. They were amazed that the Chukchi could not answer the question “how old are you?” And not because they didn’t know how to count, but simply because they thought the question was meaningless. Does it matter how many years have passed since your birth, if you are a good hunter, if you are strong and brave and can always feed your family?

“The countdown of time was incomprehensible to them, and this was not due to a lack of memory,” writes Professor L.N. Gumilyov. “The time of making a thing and its relationship to life events was very clear. They ignored time as such, as an abstraction.”

“People,” the scientist continues, “count time the way they need it and don’t use other counting systems, not because they don’t know how, but because they don’t see the practical meaning.”

What is the “practical meaning” of chronology? In relations - economic and political. Within an individual family, between families within a community, between communities within a state and between states.

When did the chronology begin? Apparently, only with the formation of the state. And this chronology was not at all the sequential counting of years that we are accustomed to. The accession “to the helm of power” of the next ruler was a very solemn date; it is no wonder that it became the “reference point.” Thus, the chronology “from the birth of Christ” played the role of a scale combining facts from the history of different peoples of the planet.

On the threshold of a new millennium

There is a belief that leap years are unlucky. A person considers unsuccessful what does not suit him. There was a lot of snow in winter - good for the future harvest. In the spring, the water in the river rose high - bad...

Let us remind you. Leap year is calculated using simple algorithm: if the digit of the year is divisible by 4, but not divisible by 100 without a remainder, it is a leap year. The algorithm makes an error once every 400 years. Thus, 2000 is a special leap year.

One of the problems that we inherited from the outgoing millennium is the year 2000 problem. At the dawn of the creation of software shells, the priests of the 20th century saved two decimal places in the utility operating system current date representation. Legend has it that they did it with good intentions.

“The road to the kingdom of Hades is paved with good intentions” and modern pontiffs began to inflate the problem of the year 2000, as in ancient times they provoked the underground trade in the days of Marcedonius. This was facilitated by the popular belief that a computer can do anything. The problem is that he can't think.

In the modern world information Technology are taking up more and more space. Not knowing the basics is a common mistake: few people are ready to admit even to themselves that they do not understand something about what is happening in such close proximity. Thus, without realizing it, he joins the orderly ranks of consumers of one of the many puzzles of the pontiffs since the beginning of 1991, but that is another tale.

The accuracy of the calendar does not matter - for example, earlier a year started on April 1st. The old Julian calendar, adopted by Julius Caesar based on the recommendations of the astronomer Sosigenes, also fits this description.

The Julian calendar was extremely simple and actually solved the only task: harmonize the length of the calendar with the length of the solar year. At the same time, the beginning of the year, the duration and the beginning of the months were in no way connected with the lunar and solar cycles. Pope Gregory XIII, in 1582, introduced a minor change that improved the calendar's alignment with the solar year.

The average duration in the Julian calendar is 365.25 days, while the solar year is 365.2422 days. This discrepancy in the Julian calendar led to a delay of a day for 128 years, and by 1582 the lag was 10 days. Pope Gregory established the following in the Julian calendar: years divisible by 100 years that are not divisible by 4 without a remainder after division by 100 are not considered leap years. This reduced the calendar error to one day every 4240 years, and essentially means that 1900 and 2100 are not considered leap days, unlike 2000. However, both the Gregorian and Julian calendars can be considered civil, since the dates of many religious holidays are calculated in a special way. For example, Christian Easter does not have a fixed date in the calendar, but is celebrated on the first Sunday after the full moon that occurs after the vernal equinox and a week after the Jewish Passover.

There are still two different ones for the Gregorian calendar. The first is that since it is the simplest and most understandable, let it be the standard (de facto, it is for Western countries). Some believe that such “simplicity is worse than theft,” and use a calendar synchronized with solar and lunar cycles, that is, they will try to combine civil and religious time. Such "floating" calendars are used in many Asian and Islamic countries.

Unfortunately, a perfect calendar is impossible, since it is impossible to find an absolutely accurate one for the cycles of the Earth, Moon and Sun. common denominator. Different cycles were chosen to play the role of the temporary “skeleton” of the calendar, which was determined by geography and the main occupation of the population. The most famous is the 19-year Metonic cycle, which the Greek mathematician Meton described in the 5th century BC. During this period, the Moon and the Sun return to almost the same position relative to the Earth and stars as at the beginning of the period. This cycle, equal to 235 lunar (synodal) months, is important for some modern calendars. In many eastern lunar calendars it is used for lunisolar synchronization. Meton made his calculations using a vertical gnomon (in fact, a sundial) in Athens.

To evaluate different calendars, you can introduce an indicator such as its error - that is, the length of the year, calculated in solar days in accordance with a given calendar system. As a standard, one could take the astronomical year, which in days is equal to 365.242198. This is the duration of a complete revolution of the Earth around the Sun, calculated relative to the fixed stars, taking into account precession, that is, the rotation of the Earth's axis. A full cycle of precession takes 25,800 years, and ancient astronomy it is known as Plato's year. Thus, if we take this movement into account, the Earth’s full revolution around the Sun will occur a little faster than it does within the solar system. However, from gnomonics it would be more natural to take the tropical year as a standard, that is, the interval between the two points of the vernal equinox. A tropical year is equal to 365.2424 days.

As will be clear, not all calendars are tied to solar cycles, so the solar accuracy indicator will not make sense for them.

When comparing calendars in terms of accuracy, it is worth keeping in mind that any calendar is a consolidation of temporary symbolism in the deep memory of the people. That is why ideas about are extremely conservative and constant, and simply changing them, even for the sake of accuracy, is unlikely to work.

Ancient calendars

Long before our era, complex astronomical observations were carried out using gnomons and primitive instruments in Sumer, Egypt, China, India and America. For example, in China, a thousand years BC, the tilt of the earth's axis was calculated as 23°54". The deviation known to us differs from the calculated one by less than half a degree and is about 23°27" (even a school protractor cannot measure such an error). In addition to the Sun and Moon, our ancestors observed Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and also some bright stars. All these extremely complex and fairly accurate observations formed the basis of what is now commonly called astronomy, and at that time was part of gnomonics and astrology. Initially, the gnomon was used to determine the local meridian (north-south direction), as well as to monitor the cycles of passage of stars and planets through the local meridian. Ordinary life was built according to a schedule that presupposed a counting of days that was understandable to the people and coincided with the rhythm collective works. That's why solar cycles formed the basis for the calendars of agricultural communities, and lunar cycles were important for cattle breeders, hunters and fishermen.

Mayan calendar. It made an attempt to combine two times at once: civil and sacred. The 260-day cycle determined the cult routine, in which the names of the days and numbers of the week were repeated, it was called Tzolkin. The next cycle is a four-year cycle, and in it the name of the day and date of the month are repeated. The civil year - tun - of the Maya was equal to 365 days and consisted of 13 months of 20 days and 5 holidays at the end. Four years later, the new year fell on the same month, but in different numbers 13-day week. 20 tuns formed a katun, 20 katuns formed a baktun, and, finally, 13 baktuns made up a great cycle of 5130 years. There was also a 52-year cycle (13 times 4 years), which synchronized the cycles of 365 and 260 days. The accuracy of the Mayan solar calendar is 365.242129 days! Usually the fact of such high accuracy, as well as proximity to the astronomical, greatly excites the imagination of ufologists. However, the true reasons for the cycles chosen by the Indians remain unknown. It is also unclear why the Mayans had such a reverent attitude towards the numbers 13 and 20, in contrast to the Sumerian 12, 24, 30 and 60, which underlie our modern calculation of time.

Chinese calendar. Typical example"floating" calendar, which is based on the cycles of the Moon and two planets: Jupiter (about 12 times 12 lunar months) and Saturn (about 30 times 12 lunar months). years, that is, the number of 12-year cycles in a 60-year period, coincides with the number of symbolic primary elements: wood, fire, earth, metal and water. Each element has its own color: blue (or green), red, yellow, white, black; own planet: Jupiter, Mars, Saturn, Venus, Mercury, and season: spring, summer, end of summer, autumn, winter. This account is both generally accepted (civil) and sacred, since it is inextricably linked with eastern astrology. It can also be considered commercial, taking into account how much money China earns from making colorful animals for the new one (the year promises us a white iron hare). The Chinese calendar is common in some southeastern countries.

Celtic calendar. Celtic civilization left us an entire temple in the form of the Stonehenge megaliths. This was done by Druid priests about 4000 years ago in the south of England. Interestingly, the Celts knew the exact 56-year cycle of repetition of the solar and lunar cycles (18.7 years). That is, they used a more accurate Metonic cycle 1500 years before the respected Greek, and it is safe to say that the Celts used a combination of lunar and solar cycles in their calendar.

Solar and lunar calendars

More understandable calendars appeared later. Historically, hunters and fishermen based their calendars on the phases of the moon. The moon played a major role both in magical rituals and in binding civilians to months and years. Such calendars are built on the lunar (synodic) month, the duration of which is not a multiple of a day - about 29.53. Therefore, in many lunar calendars, the length of the months alternates: sometimes 29, sometimes 30 days. The beginning either “floats” or is periodically adjusted by inserting additional months. Lunar calendars were the basis of the cultures of the East: the Babylonians, Chinese, Jews, Hindus, and Japanese.

Farmers preferred a strict seasonal division according to the phases of the Sun. The Egyptian calendar was typical. The year lasted exactly 360 days and consisted of 12 months of 30 days. The remaining 5 days present an eternal problem for those who want to base their calendar on the phases of the Sun. Since these days violate ideal harmony, they were usually treated negatively. There was a period when they were not counted, but were simply believed by the priests, who declared that “in the end there will be so many days displeasing to the gods.” This approach is very similar to the Mayan civil year, except that the Mayan 360 days were divided into 13 months of 20 days. In Egypt, the beginning was associated with the appearance of Sirius above the horizon (the moment coincided with the flood of the Nile), but it is more natural to consider it the beginning of the solar spring equinox, the nearest full moon from which is considered the beginning in many lunar calendars.

The era of Julius Caesar saw complete confusion with time, so the introduction of a calendar was a necessity. With its appearance, the account became completely civil and accessible ordinary people. The fact is that before the Julian calendar, time in Rome was a secret for the people and it was announced by the pontiff priests on the basis of astronomical observations, and then simply personal considerations. Obviously, such secrecy in relation had nothing to do with sacred meaning.

The Julian calendar is basically a typical solar calendar. The names of the months came partly from Greek and partly from Roman mythology. The accuracy of the Julian calendar is 365.25 sunny days, and Gregorian - 365.2425. The fact that the beginning is fixed and has nothing to do with astronomical phenomena, makes the Gregorian calendar very convenient and simple.

Unified calendar

Of the relatively modern solar calendars, which successfully combines lunar and solar cycles, the Persian calendar has been undeservedly forgotten.

Like Gregorian, it is based on the period of the Earth's revolution around the Sun. The year in this calendar is tied to the seasons and begins at the spring equinox. There are 12 months in a year, the first six have 31 days each, the next six have 30 days each, a month is equal to 29 days. normal year and 30 days on leap days. This calendar corresponds quite accurately to the Zodiac. The beginning is considered to be the transition of the Sun (local time) from the southern hemisphere to the northern. On average, there are 8 leap days per 33. A year is considered a leap year if its numerical value is divided by 33 and the remainder is 1, 5, 9, 13, 17, 22, 26 or 30. At one time, this calendar was used in Iran. Its accuracy is very good - 365.24242 days. The famous Arab mathematician, poet and Sufi Omar Khayam participated in the development of this calendar.

Speaking about modern time counting, we have to touch on a rather delicate topic: from what to count? The Gregorian and Julian calendars count time from the birth of Jesus Christ. Times in the Muslim calendar are counted from the Hijra, that is, the date of Muhammad's move from Mecca to Medina, which corresponds to July 16, 622 according to the Julian calendar. According to Jewish ideas, the new moon of the Universe, that is, the beginning of the countdown of life, occurred in 3761 BC, on Monday, at 5 o’clock and 204 parts of the afternoon.

The introduction of a single calendar is hardly possible precisely because the beginning of counting is the fundamental basis of different religious ideas. The fact that the Gregorian calendar, de facto, is an “Esperanto calendar” once again proves its convenience and simplicity, but the internal rhythm of different cultures is immeasurably more complex and diverse.

There are several opinions about when and where the first calendar appeared. IN Ancient Rus' There was a legend that the calendar was given to people by Kolyada. This is where the name of the calendar comes from: Kolyada’s Gift. Another name is Chislobog’s circle. It is a circle with months and seasons inscribed in it. True, their number and names differ from the current ones. The ancient Romans are also credited with creating the calendar. They needed a calendar to work in the fields, to predict river floods, so as not to destroy the harvest. Another version says that the debt book was called a calendar, and debtors paid interest on the day of the calendar, that is, the first days of the month. The Romans went further than just creating a calendar - they included holidays and other useful information in it.

The ancient Egyptian calendar also differs from the modern one: it is based not on the movement of the Sun or the Moon, but on the position of the brightest star Sirius in the sky. The time interval between two successive heliacal risings of Sirius is a year. Heliacal rising of a star is its appearance in the firmament before sunrise. Literally, in the first rays of dawn. Thanks to this star, the year was divided into 365 days. The appearance of Sirius coincided quite accurately with the flood of the Nile, which was important information for farmers.

Differences between the calendars of the peoples of the world

Calendars of different nations differ from each other. The ancient Egyptian calendar has twelve months, and the Mayan calendar has 18. I would especially like to mention the ancient Greek calendar. The most famous are its three versions: from Solon, Meton and Kalypos. The first took 8 years for a cycle and the third, fifth and eighth were leap years. The second considered a cycle of 19 years and considered leap years 3, 5, 8, 11, 13, 16 and 19 years of the cycle. The third sage increased the cycle to 76 years, and there were only four leap years in his cycle.

The predecessor of the modern calendar was invented by the Roman emperor Julius Caesar together with Alexandrian astronomers, and introduced on January 1, 45 BC.

The Gregorian calendar is now accepted in most countries. It was introduced by Pope Gregory XIII in Catholic countries on October 4, 1582, replacing the old Julian one: and the next day after Thursday, October 4, became Friday, October 15. Thus, the Julian calendar lags behind the Gregorian calendar by several days.

Let's talk about what a calendar is and what it represents. This word has had different meanings throughout its history. The term itself comes from the Latin calendae. This is the first day of the month in Ancient Rome. Later, the word calendarium appeared - a debt book in which, on each day of the new month, creditors entered obligations and interest on them. But in the Middle Ages the word already acquired its modern meaning.

Calendar: definition and brief classification

So what is a calendar in our understanding? This is a kind of system for counting long periods of time and dividing them into shorter periods (year, month, week, day). The need to coordinate the day among themselves led to the emergence of several calendar systems, or rather three:

• solar calendar,
• lunar,
• lunisolar.

The solar calendar was based on the rotation of the Sun, while coordinating
day and year. Lunar - on the movement of the Moon, coordinating the day with the lunar
month. In the lunisolar calendar, an attempt was made to connect all these periods of time.

From the history of the calendar

Now let's take another short excursion into history. A calendar showing the date, day of the week, month and allowing you to count how much time is left until some important event, were first created in Ancient Egypt. The Egyptians needed it to count the number of days remaining before the Nile flooded. They had to prepare in advance for this date: clean the canals, repair the dams. This was extremely important for them. If they had not retained the water, it would simply have gone into the sea, and the crop would have been lost without moisture. The priests noticed that a very bright star appeared in the sky at dawn. Now they call her Sirius. It was on this day that the Nile began to overflow. Then the Egyptians calculated that this star appears once every 365 days. They divided these days into 12 intervals, each of which consisted of 30 days (now we call them months). They placed the last 5 days at the very end of the year. This is what the “progenitor” of our modern calendar looked like.

Over time, the Egyptians realized that they had made a mistake in their calculations. After all, after 4 years, Sirius was a whole day late. And after eight years, another one... They found out that a year has 365 days and another 6 hours. The difference seems quite small to us, but in 4 years a whole day accumulates. The Egyptians did not change their calendar. And only in 46 BC. e. changes in their time system were made by the Roman emperor Julius Caesar. After this, the calendar was called Julian. According to it, each of the months of the year consisted of different quantities days (31, 30, and February - 28). One day was added to the shortest month (February) once every 4 years. Now we call this year a leap year. As you know, it has 366 days.

The modern calendar is slightly different from the ancient Egyptian and Julian, and has its own nuances... More careful calculations made it possible to determine the length of the year down to seconds. It would seem that all these minutes and seconds are such a small thing. But in 400 years they came for three days. Consequently, the calendar again turned out to be inaccurate. And again it was necessary to make adjustments.

In 1582, Gregory XII made his changes and named the calendar
Gregorian. Time passed. Over many years, the discrepancies between the Julian and were as much as 13 days. Europe switched to the time system proposed by the Pope. But Russia for a long time gave preference to the Julian one. In 1918, when switching to a new calendar, 13 days had to be removed at once. In Russia it was January 31st, and February 14th immediately arrived. And to this day, when describing events that took place a hundred years ago, many sources often indicate not one, but two dates - the old and the new style. It should be noted that the current calendar, to which we are all accustomed, is also imperfect and contains its own errors. It's about about an error of one day, which accumulates over 3300 years.

Types of calendars

It should be noted that currently the calendar is not just a means of determining the day, year, month. It has a wider application, which means there should be several varieties of it. We have all heard, for example, about children's calendars. And there is also church, astrological, meteorological, etc. Let’s briefly look at each of them. And let's start, perhaps, with the children's.

For the little ones

So, let's figure out what a calendar for children is, discuss what its purpose and distinctive features are.

The children's development calendar helps parents monitor the growth and changes in the baby's development: has he gained enough weight? How tall is he? Is there progress in motor development and psycho-emotional development? How to work with a child correctly, what first toys to offer him? Each baby is individual, and therefore develops at his own pace, and his achievements may not coincide with generally accepted standards. The task of calendars for children in this case is precisely to help parents navigate the necessary parameters.

We monitor the weather

In the course of our conversation, it would be unfair to ignore such varieties as astrological, religious, and weather calendars. The first two types are well known to us. But the issue of weather calendars should be studied more carefully. The history of their origin is interesting. So, let's look at what a weather calendar is and why it is needed.

Its appearance is due to the first need of people to systematize
their observations of weather phenomena. Information about weather conditions on various days of the year, months, and seasons was entered into the calendar. By analogy with astrological ones, weather forecasts predicted the future state of nature. Such calendars existed back in Ancient Rome. The peak of interest in them occurred in the Middle Ages. In those days, the “Book of Nature” was even published (1340).

It is easy to imagine how difficult it is to calculate long-term forecasts.
To present them only on the basis of ordinary signs is simply naive. But many weather calendars were compiled this way. And people believed in them. One of these was the centennial calendar. And it arose in the following way. In the 17th century there lived Abbot Mauritius Knauer. After a difficult war between Protestants and Catholics
the lands were devastated and ruined. Agriculture fell into decline. Abbot Knauer was very concerned about this. The weather did not please him either. Snow and late frosts in the spring prevented sowing, rains soaked crops, and drought in the summer ruined the harvest. Abbot Knauer began keeping a diary of weather observations. Of course, he did not have any meteorological instruments. He simply wrote down his observations and gave subjective assessments. The Holy Father mistakenly believed that the weather depended on the bright stars. He tried to find patterns. The abbot made his observations for 7 years. According to his calculations, the weather was supposed to repeat itself in the next seven years (according to the number of celestial bodies known at that time). However, he later became convinced that his predictions were not justified. Having failed, the abbot stopped keeping his diary of observations. However, based on them, he nevertheless published a book-guide for monasteries on farming.

Years passed, and the abbot’s notes came to the astrologer-doctor Helwig. And he, using them, published a weather calendar for a hundred years, the so-called centennial calendar. Of course, he was anti-scientific. But it was used throughout Germany. And in translations it spread throughout Europe. The scope of its application was quite wide, sometimes the forecasts even coincided. And people quickly forgot about unfulfilled “predictions”...

Well, we have looked at what a calendar is, how it appeared, and we remembered what varieties of it exist today. We hope the information was useful to you and you learned a lot of new and interesting things.

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 - Mithra. 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 Mithras 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 New Year invariably fell on January 1 - the date of 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 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 as amended current system chronologies 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 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, the period of 19 plays an important role. sunny years, equal to 235 lunar months (the so-called Metonic cycle). The lunisolar calendar is used by Jews who profess Judaism to calculate the dates of religious holidays.