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gncxx King-Size Canary
Great Old One Joined: 25 Aug 2001 Total posts: 13561 Location: Eh? Gender: Male |
 Posted: 13-10-2013 16:03 Post subject: When was the first Monday? |
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| When did people start dividing the time up into months, weeks and days? Was it a gradual thing or did someone say, right, today is Monday (or whatever they called it)? When did we become aware that the week was starting or ending? When was the first Monday? |
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| Pietro_Mercurios Heuristically Challenged
Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 13-10-2013 16:17 Post subject: |
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I've been thinking about the naming of the days of the week, recently. The Wikipedia entry blames the Romans, who swapped their old eight day system for a seven day system, sometime in the last century BC and the first centuries AD.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_the_days_of_the_week
Months are based on lunar cycles and years are how long it takes to go from summer back to summer, or winter back to winter again. The time takes the same, although when the beginning and end of the year actually starts, can vary from culture to culture. Of course, the longest and shortest days of the year would be a good place to start in Northern or Southern latitudes. |
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| rynner2 What a Cad!
Great Old One Joined: 13 Dec 2008 Total posts: 21365 Location: Under the moon Gender: Male |
| Posted: 13-10-2013 16:32 Post subject: Re: When was the first Monday? |
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| gncxx wrote: | | When was the first Monday? |
The day after the first Sunday? 
It must have all started with the phases of the moon, a complete cycle forming a month. Astronomers use several definitions of month, but they're mostly 27 days and a bit. The one that laymen notice is the synodic month, about 29.5 days. These are not easy numbers to subdivide, but early people must have thought of seven days as roughly a quarter of the month, and these correspond roughly with the 'quarters' of the Moon. (New Moon, 1st quarter, Full Moon, 3rd quarter, and back to New.)
Once you have a week of seven days, it simplifies things to identify them, and most early peoples did this by naming them after their Gods. In fact, this system has lasted to the present day in many different languages. The first Monday was originally Moon-day.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Days_of_the_week |
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| theyithian Keeping the British end up
Joined: 29 Oct 2002 Total posts: 11704 Location: Vermilion Sands Gender: Unknown |
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| gncxx King-Size Canary
Great Old One Joined: 25 Aug 2001 Total posts: 13561 Location: Eh? Gender: Male |
| Posted: 14-10-2013 16:18 Post subject: |
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| I wonder if religious occasions such as a Sabbath made the naming of days necessary? Or did those arrive much later, and it was more a case of simplifying the problem of wanting to see someone again, but not having a specific day to decide on? "OK, see you next, erm..." |
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