for at least fifty years, the late saleh al-ojeiri’s calendar played a significant role in the lives of most people of my generation. the paper calendar was the first thing one would see upon entering a shop or office, or even during morning m e e t i n g s . we would remove the page displaying the date, weather, and prayer times for the previous day and read the proverb printed on the back.
in most societies, particularly urban ones, the calendar is one of the oldest and most fundamental pillars of human civilization.
the earliest methods of measuring days and weeks date back more than 10,000 years.
the timekeeping techniques adopted by the ancient babylonians, egyptians, and romans gradually evolved into the calendar we use today.
according to the “history” website, it is crucial to pay attention to the word “gradually,” as it is key.
the transition from observing the phases of the moon to dividing the seasons and eventually determining fiscal years was a journey fraught with controversy and confusion over the centuries.
nevertheless, people have always been interested in perfecting methods of measuring the passage of time.
the oldest known calendar dates back to prehistoric times in scotland, around 8000 bc, and was discovered in 2013.
it consisted of 12 holes, believed to have contained wooden posts representing the months of the year, and was designed to track the phases of the moon. the famous stonehenge is thousands of years older.
the babylonians in mesopotamia, 6,000 years ago, used the phases of the moon to determine the days of the year. their year consisted of 354 days, slightly shorter than the solar year.
to reconcile the lunar and solar calendars, the babylonians adopted a system called intercalation, which allowed them to add an extra month when necessary.
they divided each month into seven-day weeks, based on the seven celestial bodies they could observe - the sun, the moon, and the five nearest planets.
like many ancient agricultural societies, the ancient egyptians also had three seasons.
the ancient egyptians measured time according to the planting and harvesting seasons. the nile river used to flood every year between may and august, according to the modern calendar.
this annual flood was crucial to egyptian society, as it determined the success of that year’s crops.
the modern calendar was established, in part, by julius caesar in 46 bc. the julian calendar was introduced to reform the roman timekeeping system, which suffered from numerous flaws. the fi rst day of each month was called a “kalends,” the etymological origin of the word “calendar.”
to address this problem, caesar established a new system based on the calculations of the greek astronomer sosigenes of alexandria, who determined the length of the year to be 365.25 days.the julian calendar miscalculated the length of the solar year and was susceptible to political manipulation, leading to further errors.
to compensate for the additional quarter of a day (0.25), the julian calendar added an extra day to february every four years, a system known as a “leap year.” although the calendar was not perfect, much of what caesar established remains in use today.
the gregorian calendar corrected caesar’s calculations by addressing the 11-minute discrepancy. by 1582, the calendar months had fallen out of sync with the seasons.
this worried pope gregory xiii, who noticed that easter was drifting further and further away from the spring equinox, creating a problem for the catholic church.
on october 4, 1582, the pope introduced the gregorian calendar, setting october 15 as the immediate follow-up date. this advanced the calendar by ten days, resulting in considerable confusion.
catholic countries adopted the reformed calendar, while many protestant countries waited more than a century before following suit.
the british empire and its american colonies did not switch to the gregorian calendar until 1752. russia adopted the new calendar much later, in 1918, following the russian revolution.