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Calendars

Will you miss the hype of the past millennium shift? This week we feature alternative, non-western calendars that might come in handy when you plan the next celebration.

Posted by Tormod Guldvog
31 December, 2003 11:01:53

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Did you know that the Mayans had numerous time cycles to make sure that time would not end? They feared that if time came to and end, the world would end as well. To solve this "problem", they simply created a huge number of temporal cycles which made sure there would always be a new day after this.

For centuries and millenia, civilizations have kept unique calendars to keep track of the passing of the year, to celebrate important events, and to keep up with astronomical events. Long before the discovery of the telescope, celestial calendars helped the Mayas and other peoples to keep track of the motions of the astronomical bodies.

In the past years, it may have seem as if the world has always consisted of fixed calendars and New Year's Giga-Millennium parties. But take a moment to consider this - the Western calendar was put in use as late as 1582, and it took well into the 18th century for it to be universally accepted (across Europe!).

Still believe the passing of a millennium is cause for a big celebration? Why not wait until the Muslim calendar overtakes the Christian one - the 1st day of the 5th month of C.E. 20874 in the Gregorian calendar will also be (approximately) the 1st day of the 5th month of AH 20874 of the Islamic calendar.

And with these confusing thoughts, the Hypography staff wishes you a Happy New Year. We hope to see you back here often to help us build a better science community.

Related Links

The Calendar Zone
http://www.calendarzone.com/
If you need more - This is a web directory for calendar links. Beware - dates in Calendar are Closer Than They Appear!

Islamic calendar
http://www.ummah.org.uk/ildl/
The Islamic calendar is based on the visual sighting of the lunar crescent, which marks the beginning of a month. It is therefore impossible to create a printed calendar.

About the Hebrew Calendar
http://www.rtlsoft.com/hebrew/calendar/about.html
This page tells you how the lunar Hebrew calendar works, and how it compares to the solar Christian calendar.

The Maya Calendar
http://www.michielb.nl/maya/calendar.html
This is a brief explanation of the Mayan calendar, with day names and their appropriate meanings.

The Ancient Greek Calendar
http://www.polysyllabic.com/Greek.html
Of all ancient calendrical systems, the Greek is the most confusing. It was a lunisolar calendar which each city just fitted to their own needs.

Larry Freeman's Calendar Origin Page
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Larry_Freeman/calendar.htm
This is a thorough paper on different aspects of the calendar, like days, weeks and months, and their coutners in other calendars.

Chinese calendar
http://www.new-year.co.uk/chinese/calendar.htm
The Chinese Lunar New Year is the longest chronological record in history, dating from 2600BC. The Chinese Lunar Calendar names each of the twelve years after an animal.

Calendars through the ages
http://webexhibits.org/calendars/
This is a web exhibit which takes you through the workings of our year, other calendars and historical information.

Calendars and their history
http://astro.nmsu.edu/~lhuber/leaphist.html
This is an excellent paper discussing different calendars and their uses.

Calendar Conversions Overview
http://genealogy.org/~scottlee/cal-overview.html
Although this page is created to explain the workings of a piece of software, there are some good explanations of calendar conversion methods.

Ancient Calendars
http://physics.nist.gov/GenInt/Time/ancient.html
This is a part of an online exhibit called "A Walk Through Time". It has a good section on ancient calendars.