Chronology

Studies of Calendars and Calendar Systems

The alteration of day to night was already obvious to early prehistoric hunter-gatherers and probably was reflected in the peculiar Magdalenian notched bones that are often regarded as the earliest archaeological records of primitive notational systems. The origin of land cultivation and agriculture required more complicated chronometry where warm/cold and dry/wet seasons' alternation and repeated climatic events such as inundations were taken into consideration. Such observations could be recorded in the ornamentation of special forms of ceramic vessels and clay figurines used in celebration of fertility rites and traditional ceremonies supposed to exert an influence over the weather. Most such systems were correlated with the vernal and autumnal equinoxes, which were marked by special ceremonies involving thousands of people. Probably the original megalithic constructions, such as Stonehenge in Britain, were specially built to make these events easy to observe for shamans and pagan priests and illustrative for local populations. [Page 184]According to oral tradition, Druid priests were highly skilled in the organization of such calendar ceremonies.

The first complex calendar systems based on observation of lunar and solar phases appeared during the period of the formation of early civilizations in the Near East and were connected with the necessity of rational organization of the early state economy as well as appropriate celebration of basic cults of the community. Traditionally, it is thought that the earliest forms of the solar calendar were invented in ancient Egypt, and, with slight modifications caused by the need to correlate the solar calendar with the true astronomic year, reflected in the introduction of the leap year, it remains widely used in contemporary Western civilization. Early forms of the lunar calendar were developed by the Arabs, and today this calendar remains the basic form of timekeeping in the Muslim world. The ancient Hebrews are regarded as inventors of the lunisolar calendar, which continues to be applied in traditional Jewish chronometry up to the present day. Other ancient civilizations created their own particular systems of timekeeping, among which are included the Babylonian, Persian, Chinese, Indian, and Vietnamese calendars.

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