Evolution of Calendar
According to Collins a calendar is a chart or device which displays the date and the day of the week, and often the whole of a particular year divided up into months. The word ‘calendar’ is derived from the Latin calendarium “account book” or ‘kalendae’, the first day of the month in the Roman republican calendar when debts fell due and accounts were reckoned.
Antiquity of Calendars: The methods of time keeping go back to prehistoric age at least as old as the Neolithic. The Sumerian calendar is considered the earliest. However, a team of researchers found 12 large pits in Aberdeenshire, Scotland that mirrored the moon’s phases. These pits are estimated to be 10,000 years old. They are believed by some to be the oldest calendars in the world.
Concept of the New Year: The city of Babylon in ancient Mesopotamia or modern-day Iraq is credited to have the earliest record of instituting the concept of the New Year in 2000BCE about 4,000 years ago. The New Year would be celebrated around the time of the vernal equinox in mid-March. The celebration would last for eleven days. Various other ancient cultures began their New Year on different dates.
Types of Calendars: There are different types of calendar including solar calendar, lunar calendar and lunisolar calendar. In a solar calendar dates indicate the season and the position of the sun relative to the stars. The first solar calendar is believed to have been developed by the Egyptians. They used a fixed point of the annual sunrise reappearance of Sirius colloquially known as Dog Star in the eastern horizon that coincided with the annual deluge of the river Nile. They first shaped a calendar comprising 365 days of 12 monthsof 30 days each with 5 days added at the end of the year. But their calendar was not perfect as they failed to account for the extra fraction of a day.
Roman Origin: However, the present New Year day is considered to have Roman origin. The dating system evolved from the Greek lunar calendar. The Romans borrowed parts of their earliest known calendar from the Greeks. Romulus, the founder of Rome, instituted the calendar in about 738 BCE. It consisted of 10 months in a year of 304 days. The months were termed as Martius, Aprilis, Maius, Juniius, Quintilis, Sextilis, September, October, November and December.
Reformations: Numa Pompilius (753 – 673 BCE), the legendary second king of Rome, reformed the Roman calendar to create a 12-month year by adding January. In 452 BCE, February was inserted between January and March. But the lunar year comprising 355 days was full of confusion as it was ten and one fourth days shorter than the solar year. Occasional intercalation of an extra month of 27 or 28 days called Mercedonius (from merces, meaning wages, since workers were paid at this time of year), as per direction of Numa Pompilius to make the calendar correspond approximatelyto the solar year confounded the matter to the point of extremity.
Julian Calendar : Julius Caesar (100 – 44 BCE) brought about a drastic reformation and improvement on the ancient Roman calendar and introduced a solar-based calendar in 46 BCE. He decreed that the New Year would occurJanuary 1 because it contained the festival of the god of gates. The Roman republican calendar still contained only 355 days. January, April, June, August, September, November and December were of 29days; March, May, July, and October of 31 days and Februaryof 28 days. Being a lunar calendar, it was shorter by 10.25 days of a 365.25-day tropical year. Then an intercalary month was inserted between February 23 and 24. It consisted of 27 or 28 days that were added once every two years. The remaining 5 days of February were left out. Thus the intercalation was equivalent to an additional 22 or 23 days and in a four year period the total days in the calendar became (4x355) +22+23 = 1465 days. The average days per year were equal to 1465/4 or 366.25 days.
Gregorian Calendar: In October of 1582, the Gregorian calendar correcting slight errors in the Julian calendar was introduced and decreed by the papal bull inter gravissimas by Pope Gregory XIII. According to the Julian calendar, the length of a solar year was 365.25 days. But it was later found that a solar year is equal to 365.2422 days and 365.2424 days in tropical and equinox years. As a result, the Julian calendar missed nearly a day every 131years. 10 extra days were omitted from October in the Julian calendar to adjust in the Gregorian calendar. Therefore, the day following October 4 on which Gregorian calendar was adopted, was counted as October 15, 1582. Unlike a Julian calendar, all centurial years though divisible by 4 are not leap years. In that case they should be divisibleby 400. After protracted controversies, the Gregorian calendar was finally adopted by the Church.
Origin of months’ names:
JANUARY: Named after Janus, a two faced god of doors and gateways whose one face looked back on the old year while the other looked forward to the new one.
FEBRUARY: Named in honour of the Februa festival, personified by Februus, the Roman god of purification.
MARCH: Named after Mars, the god of war, with his month ushering in the start of the war season as hostilities resume after halting during winter.
APRIL: Named after Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty, or the Latin word aperire, meaning “to open,” representing the season plant life begins to open in spring.
MAY: Named after Maia, a goddess of the earth and of plant growth, symbolising a month associated with a surge in plant activity.
JUNE: Named after Juno, the goddess of marriage and childbirth and also the wife of Jupiter, the king of gods. June has always been a popular month for weddings, as the goddess would bring happiness and prosperity to all those who wed in her month.
JULY: Previously called Quintilis, which is Latin for “fifth,” the month was later named after Julius Caesar in honour of his reorganising the calendar in 46 BCE.
AUGUST: Named after Augustus Caesar, the grand nephew and adopted heir of Julius Caesar, who in 8 BCE transformed Rome from a republic into an empire ruled by an emperor.
SEPTEMBER: From the Latin word septem (seven), as this had been the seventh month of the ancient Roman calendar which started the year in March.
OCTOBER: From the Latin word octo (eight).
NOVEMBER: From the Latin word novem (nine).
DECEMBER: From the Latin word decem (ten).
