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The following quote characterises the people of Tanganyika (the broader region of which Karagwe formed part) as "pre-literate" in the early 19th century. "We do not know what inland Tanganyikans believed in the early nineteenth century. They were pre-literate, and the religions of pre-literate peoples not only leave little historical evidence but are characteristically eclectic, mutable, and unsystematic."
[1]
[1]: (Iliffe 1979: 26) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/SB2AJMVC/collection. |
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“Although the ancient people of the Southwest didn’t have a written language, they had effective ways to communicate.”
[1]
[1]: (“Chaco Culture - Communication”) “Chaco Culture” NPS Museum Collections, accessed May 8, 2023, https://www.nps.gov/museum/exhibits/chcu/index6.html. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/NMRVDA5I |
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"As we have seen, to secure their essential ties, the ancient states, lacking writing and money, relied on kinship, trust, and personal relationships, which were periodically rekindled by direct contact and exchanged words."
[1]
[1]: (Chrétien 2006: 178) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/FXCVWDRI/collection. |
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“The question as to the manner in which a record of the age of these children was kept by a people who had no writing, poses itself here.”
[1]
[1]: HERSKOVITS, M. J. (1932). POPULATION STATISTICS IN THE KINGDOM OF DAHOMEY. Human Biology, 4(2), 252–261: 258. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/8T74FM7D/collection |
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The following quote suggests that a Yoruba written alphabet was invented in the nineteenth century. "Àjàyí[...] returned in 1841 to the Bight of Benin and the Bight of Biafra. Now officially known as Samuel Crowther, he [...] was the architect of Yorùbá modernization through his efforts as a linguist to reduce the Yorùbá language to writing, a major revolution in Yorùbá cultural and intellectual history. His accomplishments in this regard included the translation of the Bible into Yorùbá and the development of the first Yorùbá dictionary."
[1]
[1]: (Ogundiran 2020: 391) |
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The following quote suggests that a Yoruba written alphabet was invented in the nineteenth century. "Àjàyí[...] returned in 1841 to the Bight of Benin and the Bight of Biafra. Now officially known as Samuel Crowther, he [...] was the architect of Yorùbá modernization through his efforts as a linguist to reduce the Yorùbá language to writing, a major revolution in Yorùbá cultural and intellectual history. His accomplishments in this regard included the translation of the Bible into Yorùbá and the development of the first Yorùbá dictionary."
[1]
[1]: (Ogundiran 2020: 391) |
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“In Allada the local people, it was noted in 1670, in the absence of writing used knotted strings to keep records of various matters, including commercial transactions (“the price of goods”).”
[1]
[1]: Austin, Gareth, et al. “Credit, Currencies, and Culture: African Financial Institutions in Historical Perspective.” The International Journal of African Historical Studies, vol. 34, no. 1, 2001, p. 144: 33. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/SPXH2IUW/collection |
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The following quote suggests that a Yoruba written alphabet was invented in the nineteenth century. "Àjàyí[...] returned in 1841 to the Bight of Benin and the Bight of Biafra. Now officially known as Samuel Crowther, he [...] was the architect of Yorùbá modernization through his efforts as a linguist to reduce the Yorùbá language to writing, a major revolution in Yorùbá cultural and intellectual history. His accomplishments in this regard included the translation of the Bible into Yorùbá and the development of the first Yorùbá dictionary."
[1]
[1]: (Ogundiran 2020: 391) |
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The following quote suggests that a Yoruba written alphabet was invented in the nineteenth century. "Àjàyí[...] returned in 1841 to the Bight of Benin and the Bight of Biafra. Now officially known as Samuel Crowther, he [...] was the architect of Yorùbá modernization through his efforts as a linguist to reduce the Yorùbá language to writing, a major revolution in Yorùbá cultural and intellectual history. His accomplishments in this regard included the translation of the Bible into Yorùbá and the development of the first Yorùbá dictionary."
[1]
[1]: (Ogundiran 2020: 391) |
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The following quote suggests that a Yoruba written alphabet was invented in the nineteenth century. "Àjàyí[...] returned in 1841 to the Bight of Benin and the Bight of Biafra. Now officially known as Samuel Crowther, he [...] was the architect of Yorùbá modernization through his efforts as a linguist to reduce the Yorùbá language to writing, a major revolution in Yorùbá cultural and intellectual history. His accomplishments in this regard included the translation of the Bible into Yorùbá and the development of the first Yorùbá dictionary."
[1]
[1]: (Ogundiran 2020: 391) |
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"Literacy entered Uganda for the first time with the introduction of Islam in the late 1860’s and for nearly a decade instruction in Islam was progressing and flourishing at the royal court. When literacy was introduced into the kingdom of Buganda, it was confined to speakers of Arabic and Kiswahili. "
[1]
[1]: (Pawliková-Vilhanová 2014: 145) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/T7IMKZJJ. |
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The Iroquois initially used a non-written lunar calendar: ’Finally, the moon provides a basis for “counting” time ( eyõhseHtá[unknown] tha:k ‘people will count’ [line 316 in Williams]), i.e., for dividing the year into months, a theme mentioned by all speakers except Cusick and Sky.’
[1]
’Among the Iroquois there seems to have been a general division of the year into periods corresponding more or less closely with our spring, summer, autumn, and winter, besides [Page 33] that into moons or months. Loskiel remarks of the Delawares and the Iroquois that they “divide the year into winter, spring, summer and autumn, and each quarter into months, but their calculations are very imperfect, nor can they agree when to begin the new year. Most of them begin with the spring, some with any other quarter, and many, who are acquainted with the Europeans, begin with our New Year’s day.” His interpretations of the names given to the months, however, differ from those which follow.’
[2]
The lunar calendar determined the timing of festivals: ’Although there are six major festivals, a listing of the daily composition of the midwinterceremonies embraces all the external forms found in the subsequent celebrations.The two headmen of the longhouse watch the Pleiades throughout the fall and, when theyare near the zenith at dusk, call a meeting of the Faith-keepers to convene on the full moon,which is the first following the winter solstice. They meet at the longhouse in the morning(this occurred on December 31st, 1933), consult the people and set the date for the NewYear, which should be twenty days after this meeting, when the following new moon is five days old. Frequently they mistake the moon and advance or retard the date, which elicits remarks about hoeing corn in winter from their neighbors at Cattaraugus.’
[3]
The written Christian calendar was only later added to the Iroquois lunar system: ’The Christian Calendar had a yearly and a weekly cycle. The yearly cycle preserved two aboriginal patterns, that of community feasting at harvest and gathering at strawberry picking time. The aboriginal survivals were modified; Protestant religious services replaced the aboriginal ritual. In all other respects the yearly calondar resenblod that of any rural Ontarie community. The weekly calondar encouraged a strong work othic; one worked for six days and rested on the seventh.’
[4]
But for most of the time period in question, the agricultural calendar would have been orally transmitted and interpreted.
[1]: Foster, Michael K. 1974. “From The Earth To Beyond The Sky: An Ethnographic Approach To Four Longhouse Iroquois Speech Events”, 74 [2]: Waugh, Frederick W. 1916. “Iroquois Foods And Food Preparation”, 32 [3]: Fenton, William N. 1936. “Outline Of Seneca Ceremonies At Coldspring Longhouse”, 10 [4]: Foley, Denis 1994. “Ethnohistoric And Ethnographic Analysis Of The Iroquois From The Aboriginal Era To The Present Suburban Era”, 117 |
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’On the eighth day of their fourth lunar month (around mid-May), the Miao celebrate a festival during which they offer sacrifices to their ancestors and cultural heroes. This festival commemorates the day in which the heroes Ya Yi and Ya Nu died in battle while preventing a cruel ruler from his cruel custom of annually forcing the Miao to choose one of their beautiful young women to be his concubine. At the festival, they sing, play reed pipes (lusheng in Chinese) and bonze drums, and dance to honor their ancestors, ensure a good harvest and drive away evil spirits. On special occasions such as this, the Miao women wear large quantities of silver necklaces, bracelets and headdresses which jingle when they dance. This silver jewelry is handed down as a family heirloom.’
[1]
However, this time-reckoning system need not entail written calendars. The A-Hmao language was first written by the Pollard script in apprx. 1905.
[2]
[1]: http://www.arjumandsworld.com/blog/Miao-people-arjumand/ [2]: Duffy, John M. (2007). Writing from these roots: literacy in a Hmong-American community. University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 0-8248-3095-4. |
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The Sakha initially used a nonwritten lunar calender: ’The ancient Yakut divided the year into lunar months ( yi-syl ). According to Jonov, one year ( tögürüksyl ) in our calendar was regarded as two years: spring and summer were counted as one year and fall and winter as another. Consequently, the time count in old Yakut traditions is much confused. For example, after two years in our count had passed, the Yakut may have said that four years had elapsed. The month was divided into two sections. The first half, until full moon, was called “the new” ( sañata ); the second half, following the full moon, “the old” ( ärgätä ). The days in the first half of the month are enumerated regularly from one to fifteen; in the second half, they are counted in reverse order, from fifteen to one. Thus, there are two fifteenth days in the month, one at the end of the first half and another at the beginning of the second half. Some moments in the phases of the moon are poetically defined; for instance, of the first day of the first half of the month, the Yakut say: kys jaxtar kylamanbin kurduk kylbayan taxs[unknown]yta, it glistened like the eyelash of a young girl; of the twenty-eighth day (the Yakut second day of the second half of the month) they say: xotun jaxtar ytarhatyn iämähin saha ärgi[unknown]ciyä baranyta, it ends like the size of a woman’s earring.’
[1]
[1]: Jochelson, Waldemar 1933. “Yakut”, 100 |
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"None of the native peoples developed a system of writing comparable to that of the Mayas, and much less would the Spaniards encounter a native empire such as that of either the Aztecs or Incas. By 1500 A.D., the most advanced of the indigenous peoples were two Chibcha groups: the Taironas and the Muiscas."
[1]
[1]: (Hudson 2010, 5) |
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None of the native peoples developed a system of writing comparable to that of the Mayas, and much less would the Spaniards encounter a native empire such as that of either the Aztecs or Incas. By 1500 A.D., the most advanced of the indigenous peoples were two Chibcha groups: the Taironas and the Muiscas."
[1]
[1]: (Hudson 2010, 5) |
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The earliest phonetic hieroglyphic writing was found in the tomb J at the Abytos Cemetary U - on the pottery vessels and small bone/ivory labels
[1]
. They are dated to Naqada IIIA. But it should be noticed that already in Naqada I, signs similar to hieroglyphs have been found, especially on the pottery vessels (pot marks). However "none of these signs hints at the existence of phonograms, phonetic complements or detenninatives" and "the absence of an important component of the hieroglyphic writing system does not allow us to designate these signs as "hieroglyphic writing""
[2]
. It can be rather treated as an abstract symbolic system
[3]
[1]: Köhler, E. C. "Theories of State Formation". [in:] Wendrich, W. [ed.]. Egyptian Archaeology. Chichester: Blackwell Publishing. pg: 41. [2]: Kahl, J. "Hieroglyphic Writing During the Fourth Millennium BC: an Analysis of Systems". Archeo-NiI 11 (2001); 122, 124. [3]: Meza, A. 2012. ANCIENT EGYPT BEFORE WRITING: From Markings to Hieroglyphs. Bloomington: Xlibris Corporation. pg: 25. |
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The earliest phonetic hieroglyphic writing was found in the tomb J at the Abytos Cemetary U - on the pottery vessels and small bone/ivory labels
[1]
. They are dated to Naqada IIIA. But it should be noticed that already in Naqada I, signs similar to hieroglyphs have been found, especially on the pottery vessels (pot marks). However "none of these signs hints at the existence of phonograms, phonetic complements or detenninatives" and "the absence of an important component of the hieroglyphic writing system does not allow us to designate these signs as "hieroglyphic writing""
[2]
. It can be rather treated as an abstract symbolic system
[3]
[1]: Köhler, E. C. "Theories of State Formation". [in:] Wendrich, W. [ed.]. Egyptian Archaeology. Chichester: Blackwell Publishing. pg: 41. [2]: Kahl, J. "Hieroglyphic Writing During the Fourth Millennium BC: an Analysis of Systems". Archeo-NiI 11 (2001); 122, 124. [3]: Meza, A. 2012. ANCIENT EGYPT BEFORE WRITING: From Markings to Hieroglyphs. Bloomington: Xlibris Corporation. pg: 25. |
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No writing system in Allada the year before Whydah became independent, so likely the same in Whydah: “Another question arising from the incidence of credit in both the local economy and the overseas trade is the nature of the indigenous system of recordkeeping. In Allada the local people, it was noted in 1670, in the absence of writing used knotted strings to keep records of various matters, including commercial transactions (“the price of goods”). Several later accounts allude to other mechanical devices for keeping financial (and fiscal) records in Dahomey.”
[1]
[1]: Austin, Gareth, et al. “Credit, Currencies, and Culture: African Financial Institutions in Historical Perspective.” The International Journal of African Historical Studies, vol. 34, no. 1, 2001, p. 144: 33. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/SPXH2IUW/collection |
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"Documentary sources also become very scarce."
[1]
[1]: (Beaulieu 2017, 7Beaulieu, Paul-Alain. 2017. A History of Babylon, 2200 BC - AD 75. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/5T3ZBRQT. |
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There are lack of evidences suggesting that the writing system has been already invented.
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’Even though the Akan share a number of cultural traits with other ethnic groups in Ghana and Africa in general, they seem to possess certain unique cultural traits and institutions not found in other ethnic groups in Ghana. [...] Besides language, Boahen lists a common 40-day calendar [....].’
[1]
Prior to the Ashanti expansion and the introduction of literacy by missionaries, this would have been orally transmitted.
[1]: Yankah, Kwesi, 1989: 21; Literacy Database’ |
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“Since the end of the 15th century, a great deal of material about Benin has been supplied by sailors, traders, etc., returning to Europe. However, information on the Edo people before this date is very difficult to obtain, as there was no written record and the oral record is at best rather fragmentary.”
[1]
“The theme of this study presses the sources for the reconstruction of Benin military history to its limits because written documents scarcely exist, except for the reports and accounts of European visitors.”
[2]
[1]: Bondarenko, Dmitri M., and Peter M. Roese. ‘Benin Prehistory: The Origin and Settling down of the Edo’. Anthropos 94, no. 4/6 (1999): 542–52: 542. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/Y4V3D623/collection [2]: Osadolor, O. B. (2001). The Military System of Benin Kingdom, c.1440–1897. University of Hamburg, Germany: 27–28. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/N4RZF5H5/collection |
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The following quote implies that indigenous writing emerged in the region in the 19th century. "The first documented autochthonous, Mande script to appear in West Africa was the one created by Duala Bukere from Grand Cape Mount County in Liberia who created a Vai syllabary in 1833, which has been standardized to 212 characters (Dalby, 1967: 14-18). [...] Appearing first in the region, the Vai syllabary became the prototype for other writing systems that were created in the inter-wars among indigenous peoples in Sierra Leone and Liberia. Speakers of southern Mande languages such as the Mende (1921) and the Kpelle (1935), and speakers of the Kru languages such as the Bassa (1920-25) have based their writing systems on the syllabary (Dalby, 1967: 2-4)."
[1]
[1]: (Oyler 2001: 75) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/X7HQWWH9/collection. |
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No references found in the consulted literature to a written form of Nri that doesn’t use the Latin alphabet. “If these are the problems to be faced in languages that have written form hundreds of years ago one cannot imagine what problems there are in dealing with languages whose written forms are yet to be established.”
[1]
A calendar complex existed, but there’s nothing to suggest it was written down. “Nri dominance was founded on the control and manipulation of the agricultural cycle and calendar. The Igbo year was a rather complicated one since it was not only divided into days […], weeks […] moons […]; but also into ritual and farming cycles. This created the need for specialists who, from observing the heavenly bodies and the seasons, would declare the beginning and the end of each moon or cycle or year. This, in Igbo, was known as Igu Afo (counting the year) and was very important since it was tied to the very survival of the community.”
[2]
[1]: Onwuejeogwu, M. A. (1975). Some Fundamental Problems in the Application of Lexicostatistics in the Study of African Languages. Paideuma, 21, 6–17: 10. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/IISK3KCM/collection [2]: Afigbo, A. E. (1981). The Holy City of Nri. In Ropes of Sand: Studies in Igbo History and Culture (pp. 31–68). University Press in association with Oxford University Press; 51. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/RIZ4Q3BG/collection |
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"The great organisations of the first phase of urbanisation rose to prominence without writing. The latter developed relatively quickly as a response to these institutions’ needs."
[1]
[1]: (Leverani 2014, 73) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. |
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Written calendars were only introduced later on: ’The Iban still attach great importance to their stellar lore. Tungku, a tuai rumah of the Mujong headwaters, put it in these words:“If there were no stars we Iban would be lost, not knowing when to plant; we live by the stars.”(“ Enti nadai bintang tesat ati kami Iban, enda nemu maia nugal; kami idup ari bintang. ”) It must not be thought however that there is any dogma that rituals, etc. should be held on the exact dates given. The Iban are a pre-literate people without a calendar, and the movements of the Pleiades, Orion and Sirius are taken as no more than general indications of the time when the major operations of felling and planting should be embarked upon.’
[1]
’Since most people now have western calendars, they know during which month the sowing, weeding or harvesting is to be done. Their “new year” begins after the harvest is completed, which may be some time in May or June. However, June 1st is “Dayak Day,” proclaimed by the government as the official Dayak New Year’s Day.’
[2]
[1]: Freeman, Derek 1955. “Iban Agriculture: A Report On The Shifting Cultivation Of Hill Rice By The Iban Of Sarawak”, 40 [2]: Komanyi, Margit Ilona 1973. “Real And Ideal Participation In Decision-Making Of Iban Women: A Study Of A Longhouse Community In Sarawak, East Malaysia”, 15 |
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"Literacy entered Uganda for the first time with the introduction of Islam in the late 1860’s and for nearly a decade instruction in Islam was progressing and flourishing at the royal court. When literacy was introduced into the kingdom of Buganda, it was confined to speakers of Arabic and Kiswahili. "
[1]
[1]: (Pawliková-Vilhanová 2014: 145) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/T7IMKZJJ. |
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In the 1950s, Freeman claimed no written calendars for the ’pre-literate’ Iban: ’The Iban still attach great importance to their stellar lore. Tungku, a tuai rumah of the Mujong headwaters, put it in these words:“If there were no stars we Iban would be lost, not knowing when to plant; we live by the stars.”(“ Enti nadai bintang tesat ati kami Iban, enda nemu maia nugal; kami idup ari bintang. ”) It must not be thought however that there is any dogma that rituals, etc. should be held on the exact dates given. The Iban are a pre-literate people without a calendar, and the movements of the Pleiades, Orion and Sirius are taken as no more than general indications of the time when the major operations of felling and planting should be embarked upon.’
[1]
Komanyi claims written calendars following the European pattern and literacy in the 1970s: ’Since most people now have western calendars, they know during which month the sowing, weeding or harvesting is to be done. Their “new year” begins after the harvest is completed, which may be some time in May or June. However, June 1st is “Dayak Day,” proclaimed by the government as the official Dayak New Year’s Day.’
[2]
On the other hand, mission schools were established in the 1920s already. Regional variation may explain the difference. We have chosen to go with the 1921 figure as it is congruent with the establishment of schooling in the area. This is open to re-evaluation, and expert feedback is absolutely essential on the matter.
[1]: Freeman, Derek 1955. “Iban Agriculture: A Report On The Shifting Cultivation Of Hill Rice By The Iban Of Sarawak”, 40 [2]: Komanyi, Margit Ilona 1973. “Real And Ideal Participation In Decision-Making Of Iban Women: A Study Of A Longhouse Community In Sarawak, East Malaysia”, 15 |
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The following quote characterises the people of Tanganyika (the broader region of which Buhaya formed part) as "pre-literate" in the early 19th century. "We do not know what inland Tanganyikans believed in the early nineteenth century. They were pre-literate, and the religions of pre-literate peoples not only leave little historical evidence but are characteristically eclectic, mutable, and unsystematic."
[1]
[1]: (Iliffe 1979: 26) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/SB2AJMVC/collection. |
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Languages spoken in Rwanda were turned into "written artefacts" only in the colonial period: "Before the arrival of the Europeans, Kinyarwanda and Kirundi were already employed in both kingdoms – Ikinyanduga in southern Rwanda and Ikiruundi in central Burundi – yet with a lot less linguistic unity in the two kingdoms than in (post)colonial times. The missionary and colonial interventions, therefore, rather focused on lexicon, resulting in status planning initiatives and contributing to the compilation of dictionaries, favouring a specific dialect over others. [...] The most salient and visible adaptations were a part of the primarily orthographic alignments of textualisation processes (turning languages into written artefacts)."
[1]
[1]: (Nassenstein 2019: 16-17) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/QUT3P5UT/collection. |
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‘The agricultural tasks which follow assignment of the plots to households are precisely defined, and are followed with considerable regularity. The Rengsanggri people have a nodding acquaintance with the European calendar and are sometimes able to arrange government business according to its terms; but in describing their own agricultural cycle they more often use the Bengali calendar, though even this is imperfectly understood. They are acquainted with the names of the twelve Bengali months, though the Garo pronunciation of them might surprise a Bengali. They know that a new moon marks the beginning of a new month, and they are usually able to assign a particular agricultural task or festival to a particular month; but they do not understand how the lunar calendar is kept in step with the solar year, and they cannot usually tell the name of the present month with confidence. Beyond any formal calendar, however, they also note natural signs: they know, for instance, that when the bright red blossoms of the mandal tree burst forth the time has come to plant rice.’
[1]
There was no written calendar before colonization.
[1]: Burling, Robbins 1963. “Rengsanggri: Family And Kinship In A Garo Village”, 30 |
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The following quote characterises the people of Tanganyika (the broader region of which the Fipa formed part) as "pre-literate" in the early 19th century. "We do not know what inland Tanganyikans believed in the early nineteenth century. They were pre-literate, and the religions of pre-literate peoples not only leave little historical evidence but are characteristically eclectic, mutable, and unsystematic."
[1]
[1]: (Iliffe 1979: 26) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/SB2AJMVC/collection. |
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Languages spoken in Rwanda were turned into "written artefacts" only in the colonial period: "Before the arrival of the Europeans, Kinyarwanda and Kirundi were already employed in both kingdoms – Ikinyanduga in southern Rwanda and Ikiruundi in central Burundi – yet with a lot less linguistic unity in the two kingdoms than in (post)colonial times. The missionary and colonial interventions, therefore, rather focused on lexicon, resulting in status planning initiatives and contributing to the compilation of dictionaries, favouring a specific dialect over others. [...] The most salient and visible adaptations were a part of the primarily orthographic alignments of textualisation processes (turning languages into written artefacts)."
[1]
[1]: (Nassenstein 2019: 16-17) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/QUT3P5UT/collection. |
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Languages spoken in Rwanda were turned into "written artefacts" only in the colonial period: "Before the arrival of the Europeans, Kinyarwanda and Kirundi were already employed in both kingdoms – Ikinyanduga in southern Rwanda and Ikiruundi in central Burundi – yet with a lot less linguistic unity in the two kingdoms than in (post)colonial times. The missionary and colonial interventions, therefore, rather focused on lexicon, resulting in status planning initiatives and contributing to the compilation of dictionaries, favouring a specific dialect over others. [...] The most salient and visible adaptations were a part of the primarily orthographic alignments of textualisation processes (turning languages into written artefacts)."
[1]
[1]: (Nassenstein 2019: 16-17) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/QUT3P5UT/collection. |
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First Roman calendar thought to be the 8th century BCE "Calendar of Romulus."
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First Roman calendar thought to be the 8th century BCE "Calendar of Romulus."
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The following quote implies that indigenous writing emerged in the region in the 19th century. "The first documented autochthonous, Mande script to appear in West Africa was the one created by Duala Bukere from Grand Cape Mount County in Liberia who created a Vai syllabary in 1833, which has been standardized to 212 characters (Dalby, 1967: 14-18). [...] Appearing first in the region, the Vai syllabary became the prototype for other writing systems that were created in the inter-wars among indigenous peoples in Sierra Leone and Liberia. Speakers of southern Mande languages such as the Mende (1921) and the Kpelle (1935), and speakers of the Kru languages such as the Bassa (1920-25) have based their writing systems on the syllabary (Dalby, 1967: 2-4)."
[1]
[1]: (Oyler 2001: 75) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/X7HQWWH9/collection. |
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"As we have seen, to secure their essential ties, the ancient states, lacking writing and money, relied on kinship, trust, and personal relationships, which were periodically rekindled by direct contact and exchanged words."
[1]
Languages spoken in this polity were turned into "written artefacts" only in the colonial period: "Before the arrival of the Europeans, Kinyarwanda and Kirundi were already employed in both kingdoms – Ikinyanduga in southern Rwanda and Ikiruundi in central Burundi – yet with a lot less linguistic unity in the two kingdoms than in (post)colonial times. The missionary and colonial interventions, therefore, rather focused on lexicon, resulting in status planning initiatives and contributing to the compilation of dictionaries, favouring a specific dialect over others. [...] The most salient and visible adaptations were a part of the primarily orthographic alignments of textualisation processes (turning languages into written artefacts)."
[2]
[1]: (Chrétien 2006: 178) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/FXCVWDRI/collection. [2]: (Nassenstein 2019: 16-17) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/QUT3P5UT/collection. |
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"The great organisations of the first phase of urbanisation rose to prominence without writing. The latter developed relatively quickly as a response to these institutions’ needs."
[1]
Liverani says the so-called "urban revolution" of the Uruk phase occurred 3800-3000 BCE.
[2]
[1]: (Leverani 2014, 73) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. [2]: (Leverani 2014, 69-70) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. |
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"The great organisations of the first phase of urbanisation rose to prominence without writing. The latter developed relatively quickly as a response to these institutions’ needs."
[1]
Liverani says the so-called "urban revolution" of the Uruk phase occurred 3800-3000 BCE.
[2]
[1]: (Leverani 2014, 73) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. [2]: (Leverani 2014, 69-70) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. |
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"The great organisations of the first phase of urbanisation rose to prominence without writing. The latter developed relatively quickly as a response to these institutions’ needs."
[1]
Liverani says the so-called "urban revolution" of the Uruk phase occurred 3800-3000 BCE.
[2]
[1]: (Leverani 2014, 73) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. [2]: (Leverani 2014, 69-70) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. |
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"The great organisations of the first phase of urbanisation rose to prominence without writing. The latter developed relatively quickly as a response to these institutions’ needs."
[1]
[1]: (Leverani 2014, 73) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. |
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"The great organisations of the first phase of urbanisation rose to prominence without writing. The latter developed relatively quickly as a response to these institutions’ needs."
[1]
[1]: (Leverani 2014, 73) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. |
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"The Indus civilization flourished for around five hundred to seven hundred years, and in the early second millennium it disintegrated. This collapse was marked by the disappearance of the features that had distinguished the Indus civilization from its predecessors: writing, city dwelling, some kind of central control, international trade, occupational specialization, and widely distributed standardized artifacts. [...] Writing was no longer used, though occasionally signs were scratched as graffiti on pottery."
[1]
[1]: (McIntosh 2008, 91-92) Jane McIntosh. 2008. The Ancient Indus Civilization. Oxford; Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio. |
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Possehl states that there was no writing before the urban phase in the Indus valley.
[1]
While seals have been found in Mehrgarh III layers, these show no evidence of script or writing.
[2]
[1]: Gregory L. Possehl. The Indus Civilization. A Contemporary Perspective. Walnut Creek, Altamira, 2002, p. 51. [2]: , C. A. (in press) Chapter 11, Case Study: Mehrgarh. In, Barker, G and Goucher, C (eds.) Cambridge World History, Volume 2: A World with Agriculture, 12,000 BCE - 500 CE. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. |
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Native time measurements followed the natural cycle: ’The Inonda people refer to the dry season as huvira because the huvira tree (Erythrina indica) flowers at that time. The wet season is divided into a number of periods which are recognized by the ripening of various nuts (especially hauga) and edible pit-pit (ina), and by the flowering of the garepa tree. For instance, the garepa season begins about November or December and lasts for two or three months. These are the wettest months of the year and plant growth is therefore rapid at that time. The pasiro (a variety of pit-pit) ripens about March, which is a time of more moderate rainfall. Food is in abundance at this period, and it is accordingly the most popular season for feasting.’
[1]
During the colonial period, European calendars were superimposed on the native system: ’In recent years, two further calendars have become superimposed upon the traditional one: that of the Christian festivals and that of the European economy, notably monthly coffee sales from June to December and the payment of Local Government Council tax supposedly in September.’
[2]
[1]: Crocombe, R. G., and G. R. (Geoffrey Robert) Hogbin 1963. “Land, Work, And Productivity At Inonda”, 6 [2]: Schwimmer, Eric G. 1969. “Cultural Consequences Of A Volcanic Eruption Experienced By The Mount Lamington Orokaiva”, 26 |
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"The great organisations of the first phase of urbanisation rose to prominence without writing. The latter developed relatively quickly as a response to these institutions’ needs."
[1]
Liverani says the so-called "urban revolution" of the Uruk phase occurred 3800-3000 BCE.
[2]
[1]: (Leverani 2014, 73) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. [2]: (Leverani 2014, 69-70) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. |
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"The great organisations of the first phase of urbanisation rose to prominence without writing. The latter developed relatively quickly as a response to these institutions’ needs."
[1]
[1]: (Leverani 2014, 73) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. |
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It is assumed here that the Christian calender was adopted with the religion: ’By the end of the 10th century, the Norwegians were forced by their king, Olaf I Tryggvason, to accept Christianity. The king also sent missionaries to Iceland who, according to 12th-century sources, were highly successful in converting the Icelanders. In 999 or 1000 the Althing made a peaceful decision that all Icelanders should become Christians. In spite of this decision, the godar retained their political role, and many of them probably built their own churches. Some were ordained, and as a group they seem to have closely controlled the organization of the new religion. Two bishoprics were established, one at Skálholt in 1056 and the other at Hólar in 1106. Literate Christian culture also transformed lay life. Codification of the law was begun in 1117-18. Later the Icelanders began to write sagas, which were to reach their pinnacle of literary achievement in the next century.’
[1]
Icelandic historiography indicates a clear sense of past events and chronology: ’One of the remarkable legacies of early Iceland is its wealth of literary production. Icelandic literary production encompassed continental chivalrous, hagiographic, and historical traditions, in addition to the autochthonous development of the saga. Among other topics, Icelandic sagas depict events from the early years of Icelandic society, the colonization of Greenland and the discovery of North America, and the civil wars that characterized the twelfth and thirteenth centuries in Iceland. The medieval manuscripts also preserve an artistic tradition in illumination. The literary levels achieved in Iceland, to some degree, developed from strong oral traditions of poetry and narrative. Much of the material culture of early Iceland has not been preserved but a strong tradition in artistic woodcarving is evident.’
[2]
We are unsure whether there were written calendars before the introduction of Christianity.
[1]: http://www.britannica.com/place/Iceland/Government-and-society#toc10088 [2]: Bolender, Douglas James and Beierle, John: eHRAF Cultural Summary for Early Icelanders |
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The Hmong used an unwritten lunar calendar: ’The method of reckoning time is that of the Chinese from whom it was evidently learned. A month is called a moon. There are twelve lunar months in one year and sometimes thirteen. Each month has thirty days and is divided into three periods of ten days each. Through the Chinese the Gregorian calendar is becoming known.’
[1]
’Recently, the Miao have adopted the Chinese custom of inviting friends and relatives to a feast and naming ceremony on the third day after a child’s birth. A name is sometimes adopted according to the time of birth. For instance, if a child is born in a certain month, it would be named after the month. The chief of the Miao at the time of the rebellion during the reign of Emperor Ch’ien Lung was called Wu pa-yüeh /Wu, Eighth Month/. Sometimes the name of the season when the birth occurred is adopted. In another case, the weight of the infant may be used as the name, for instance, an infant weighing so many chin at birth will be named for that weight. In still other cases, the name of an animal, a pig, goat, sheep, dog, or cow is used in the belief that the child will be easy to raise.’
[2]
This is supported by the relative irrelevance of exact dates in the Miao system: ’The calendar used by the various Miao-I tribes at An-shun is the lunar calendar, but as a rule nobody remembers dates or knows the exact time of the New Year’s day, those having almanacs at home being very few. To count the days they generally use the symbolic animals of the twelve cyclical branches, - rat, ox, tiger, hare, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, cock, dog and boar - because the markets are held on days named after these animals. But those who can calculate the days according to them are very few. Indeed the majority of the people do not even know the day and month in which they were born. The occurrence of an event on a particular day cannot be recalled with accuracy a month hence, and after a year it is relegated to limbo with at most perhaps a vague notion that it took place at the time of peach blossom, or in the planting season, or during harvest time.’
[3]
The written calender used by the administration was not adopted for the management of Hmong local affairs: ’Although those who were educated knew about the foreign calendar followed by the Chinese Government, it meant almost nothing to them. What they consulted were the lunar calendar and the Farmers’ Almanac. For them the year began with the lunar New Year (February 15 in 1942) and its festival days. This was the slack season of the year, and for the first month they did as little work as possible. The lofts were full of faggots and brushwood for fuel; the granaries were full of rice, both “big” and glutinous, white and black. The New Year pigs had been killed and made into smoked meat, cured meat, and sausage. There were hundreds of glutinous rice cakes, jars of rice wine, and much bean curd on hand. The gardens furnished a greater variety of vegetables than at any other season of the year.’
[4]
[1]: Graham, David Crockett 1937. “Customs Of The Ch’Uan Miao”, 24 [2]: Ling, Shun-sheng, Yifu Ruey, and Lien-en Tsao 1947. “Report On An Investigation Of The Miao Of Western Hunan", 140 [3]: Che-lin, Wu, Chen Kuo-chün, and Lien-en Tsao 1942. “Studies Of Miao-I Societies In Kweichow”, 98 [4]: Mickey, Margaret Portia 1947. “Cowrie Shell Miao Of Kweichow”, 29a |
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Calendar could not have been a written document. "Pachakutiq Inka Yupanki created the imperial calendar."
[1]
Alan Covey: The Incas maintained a lunar calendar that they corrected with solar observations. Each month had a name and many had important rituals and festivals. The calendar was not written down.
[2]
[1]: (Covey 2003, 351) [2]: (Covey 2015, personal communication) |
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First Roman calendar thought to be the 8th century BCE "Calendar of Romulus." Numa Pompilius reformed this calendar in 713 BCE>
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The following quote implies that indigenous writing emerged in the region in the 19th century. "The first documented autochthonous, Mande script to appear in West Africa was the one created by Duala Bukere from Grand Cape Mount County in Liberia who created a Vai syllabary in 1833, which has been standardized to 212 characters (Dalby, 1967: 14-18). [...] Appearing first in the region, the Vai syllabary became the prototype for other writing systems that were created in the inter-wars among indigenous peoples in Sierra Leone and Liberia. Speakers of southern Mande languages such as the Mende (1921) and the Kpelle (1935), and speakers of the Kru languages such as the Bassa (1920-25) have based their writing systems on the syllabary (Dalby, 1967: 2-4)."
[1]
[1]: (Oyler 2001: 75) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/X7HQWWH9/collection. |
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Scholars use oral tradition to help reconstruct life in the Segou kingdom.
[1]
The polity may not have used written documents but there were written documents in the semi-autonomous, Islamic ’marka’ towns, populated by Soninke and other Mande-speakers.
[1]: (Monroe and Ogundiran 2012) J Cameron Monroe. Akinwumi Ogundiran. Power and Landscape in Atlantic West Africa. J Cameron Monroe. Akinwumi Ogundiran. eds. 2012. Power and Landscape in Atlantic West Africa: Archaeological Perspectives.Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. |
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Koran. Classic Arabic of Koran."In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the first unambiguous evidence of North African or Islamic influences appears at Jenne-jeno in the form of brass, spindle whorls, and rectilinear houses. This occurs within a century of the traditional date of 1180 C.E. for the conversion of Jenne’s king (Koi) Konboro to Islam, according to the Tarikh es-Sudan."
[1]
"There are no written records of any description to throw light on the history of West Africa before 900 A.D."
[2]
"The West Africans who laid the foundations of their medieval empires during the centuries before 900 C.E. did not develop a written language they could use to record historical events."
[3]
Oldest example of writing in West Africa c1100 CE tomb inscription at Gao.
[4]
[1]: (Susan Keech McIntosh and Roderick J. McIntosh "Jenne-jeno, an ancient African city" http://anthropology.rice.edu/Content.aspx?id=500) [2]: (Bovill 1958, 51) Bovill, E W. 1958/1995. The Golden Trade of the Moors. Oxford University Press. Oxford. [3]: (Conrad 2010, 13) Conrad, D. C. 2010. Empires of Medieval West Africa. Revised Edition. Chelsea House Publishers. New York. [4]: (Davidson 1998, 44) Davidson, Basil. 1998. West Africa Before the Colonial Era. Routledge. London. |
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The first written records in the Valley of Oaxaca are from the Rosario phase (700-500 BCE).
[1]
[2]
Written records are therefore coded as absent for this period.
[1]: Flannery, K. V. and J. Marcus (1983). "The Cloud People." New York. [2]: Marcus, J. and K. V. Flannery (1996). Zapotec civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley, Thames and Hudson London. |
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Languages spoken in Rwanda were turned into "written artefacts" only in the colonial period: "Before the arrival of the Europeans, Kinyarwanda and Kirundi were already employed in both kingdoms – Ikinyanduga in southern Rwanda and Ikiruundi in central Burundi – yet with a lot less linguistic unity in the two kingdoms than in (post)colonial times. The missionary and colonial interventions, therefore, rather focused on lexicon, resulting in status planning initiatives and contributing to the compilation of dictionaries, favouring a specific dialect over others. [...] The most salient and visible adaptations were a part of the primarily orthographic alignments of textualisation processes (turning languages into written artefacts)."
[1]
[1]: (Nassenstein 2019: 16-17) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/QUT3P5UT/collection. |
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The Sakha initially used a nonwritten lunar calender: ’The ancient Yakut divided the year into lunar months ( yi-syl ). According to Jonov, one year ( tögürüksyl ) in our calendar was regarded as two years: spring and summer were counted as one year and fall and winter as another. Consequently, the time count in old Yakut traditions is much confused. For example, after two years in our count had passed, the Yakut may have said that four years had elapsed. The month was divided into two sections. The first half, until full moon, was called “the new” ( sañata ); the second half, following the full moon, “the old” ( ärgätä ). The days in the first half of the month are enumerated regularly from one to fifteen; in the second half, they are counted in reverse order, from fifteen to one. Thus, there are two fifteenth days in the month, one at the end of the first half and another at the beginning of the second half. Some moments in the phases of the moon are poetically defined; for instance, of the first day of the first half of the month, the Yakut say: kys jaxtar kylamanbin kurduk kylbayan taxs[unknown]yta, it glistened like the eyelash of a young girl; of the twenty-eighth day (the Yakut second day of the second half of the month) they say: xotun jaxtar ytarhatyn iämähin saha ärgi[unknown]ciyä baranyta, it ends like the size of a woman’s earring.’
[1]
The use of calenders by Christian Sakha resembles mnemonic devices more closely than written documents: ’After becoming Christians the Yakut no longer followed this method of reckoning time, but oriented themselves by the Christian holidays, for instance: kirisiäniye (Russian, krestcheniye ), baptism, January sixth; Kiristiäp (Russian, Kristov ). Easter: Orosuospa (Russian Rozhdestvo ), Christmas; bul[unknown]astar (Russian, Vlasii ), or ynax tañarata (cow’s holiday), February eleventh. Russians regard Saint Vlasii as the protector of domestic cattle and among the Yakut this saint replaced the female deity, Ayisit, of their old mythology. Among the Yakut are experienced individuals who know the number of days between holidays since it is easier to deal with immovable feasts. For movable festivals, they must often consult their priest. On the wall of every Yakut dwelling is a calendar, usually consisting of a small board with holes corresponding to the number of days in the year. The immovable feasts are marked by crosses over the holes. A wooden peg is placed in the hole to indicate the current date, thus showing whether it is an ordinary day or a holiday. Fig. 1 shows a circular calendar; the inner circle has seven perforations, corresponding to the seven days of the week. A peg is shown in the hole for Sunday, over which there is a cross. The outer ring has thirty holes. When the month has thirty-one days, the peg is kept in the last hole for two days. If the month has twenty-nine or twenty-eight days, the peg must be transferred to the first day of the next month. The calendar is called kün ahar, it counts the days, or sibaska (Russian, svyatzy, calendar of saints), or nädiälä asarar mas, board which shows the week.’
[2]
’The Yakut began to count the month by weeks only after Russianization. Thus, for week, they use the Russian word nädiälä ( nedielya ). The days of the week are also known by Russian names’
[3]
[1]: Jochelson, Waldemar 1933. “Yakut”, 100 [2]: Jochelson, Waldemar 1933. “Yakut”, 101 [3]: Jochelson, Waldemar 1933. “Yakut”, 102 |
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"There are no written records of any description to throw light on the history of West Africa before 900 A.D."
[1]
"The West Africans who laid the foundations of their medieval empires during the centuries before 900 C.E. did not develop a written language they could use to record historical events."
[2]
Oldest example of writing in West Africa c1100 CE tomb inscription at Gao.
[3]
[1]: (Bovill 1958, 51) Bovill, E W. 1958/1995. The Golden Trade of the Moors. Oxford University Press. Oxford. [2]: (Conrad 2010, 13) Conrad, D. C. 2010. Empires of Medieval West Africa. Revised Edition. Chelsea House Publishers. New York. [3]: (Davidson 1998, 44) Davidson, Basil. 1998. West Africa Before the Colonial Era. Routledge. London. |
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"There are no written records of any description to throw light on the history of West Africa before 900 A.D."
[1]
"The West Africans who laid the foundations of their medieval empires during the centuries before 900 C.E. did not develop a written language they could use to record historical events."
[2]
Oldest example of writing in West Africa c1100 CE tomb inscription at Gao.
[3]
[1]: (Bovill 1958, 51) Bovill, E W. 1958/1995. The Golden Trade of the Moors. Oxford University Press. Oxford. [2]: (Conrad 2010, 13) Conrad, D. C. 2010. Empires of Medieval West Africa. Revised Edition. Chelsea House Publishers. New York. [3]: (Davidson 1998, 44) Davidson, Basil. 1998. West Africa Before the Colonial Era. Routledge. London. |
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"There are no written records of any description to throw light on the history of West Africa before 900 A.D."
[1]
"The West Africans who laid the foundations of their medieval empires during the centuries before 900 C.E. did not develop a written language they could use to record historical events."
[2]
Oldest example of writing in West Africa c1100 CE tomb inscription at Gao.
[3]
[1]: (Bovill 1958, 51) Bovill, E W. 1958/1995. The Golden Trade of the Moors. Oxford University Press. Oxford. [2]: (Conrad 2010, 13) Conrad, D. C. 2010. Empires of Medieval West Africa. Revised Edition. Chelsea House Publishers. New York. [3]: (Davidson 1998, 44) Davidson, Basil. 1998. West Africa Before the Colonial Era. Routledge. London. |
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c500 CE and after: "It may be assumed that by then some of the Juan-juan already lived a settled life and practised agriculture. The original sources repeatedly mention that their khagans obtained ‘seed millet’ from China (some 10,000 shi each time). This shows that the Juan-juan society and state had gradually developed from nomadic herding to a settled agricultural way of life, from yurts to the building of houses and monumental architecture, from the nomadic district to towns. They had invented their own system of writing and developed their own local culture and Buddhist learning flourished."
[1]
[1]: (Kyzlasov 1996, 317) |
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The following quote implies that indigenous writing emerged in the region in the 19th century. "The first documented autochthonous, Mande script to appear in West Africa was the one created by Duala Bukere from Grand Cape Mount County in Liberia who created a Vai syllabary in 1833, which has been standardized to 212 characters (Dalby, 1967: 14-18). [...] Appearing first in the region, the Vai syllabary became the prototype for other writing systems that were created in the inter-wars among indigenous peoples in Sierra Leone and Liberia. Speakers of southern Mande languages such as the Mende (1921) and the Kpelle (1935), and speakers of the Kru languages such as the Bassa (1920-25) have based their writing systems on the syllabary (Dalby, 1967: 2-4)."
[1]
[1]: (Oyler 2001: 75) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/X7HQWWH9/collection. |
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"According to the Sanguo zhi [Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms], because Kebineng’s lands were near the Chinese border, many Chinese people (Zhongguo ren 中國人) fled the warlord depredations of late Han and Three Kingdoms China to join Kebineng, teaching the Xianbei how to make Chinese-style arms and armor, and even introducing some literacy."
[1]
[1]: (Holcombe 2013, 7-8) |
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Koran. Classic Arabic of Koran."In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the first unambiguous evidence of North African or Islamic influences appears at Jenne-jeno in the form of brass, spindle whorls, and rectilinear houses. This occurs within a century of the traditional date of 1180 C.E. for the conversion of Jenne’s king (Koi) Konboro to Islam, according to the Tarikh es-Sudan."
[1]
"There are no written records of any description to throw light on the history of West Africa before 900 A.D."
[2]
"The West Africans who laid the foundations of their medieval empires during the centuries before 900 C.E. did not develop a written language they could use to record historical events."
[3]
Oldest example of writing in West Africa c1100 CE tomb inscription at Gao.
[4]
[1]: (Susan Keech McIntosh and Roderick J. McIntosh "Jenne-jeno, an ancient African city" http://anthropology.rice.edu/Content.aspx?id=500) [2]: (Bovill 1958, 51) Bovill, E W. 1958/1995. The Golden Trade of the Moors. Oxford University Press. Oxford. [3]: (Conrad 2010, 13) Conrad, D. C. 2010. Empires of Medieval West Africa. Revised Edition. Chelsea House Publishers. New York. [4]: (Davidson 1998, 44) Davidson, Basil. 1998. West Africa Before the Colonial Era. Routledge. London. |
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Certainly absent.
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"Literacy entered Uganda for the first time with the introduction of Islam in the late 1860’s and for nearly a decade instruction in Islam was progressing and flourishing at the royal court. When literacy was introduced into the kingdom of Buganda, it was confined to speakers of Arabic and Kiswahili. "
[1]
[1]: (Pawliková-Vilhanová 2014: 145) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/T7IMKZJJ. |
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The Iroquois initially used a non-written lunar calendar: ’Finally, the moon provides a basis for “counting” time ( eyõhseHtá[unknown] tha:k ‘people will count’ [line 316 in Williams]), i.e., for dividing the year into months, a theme mentioned by all speakers except Cusick and Sky.’
[1]
’Among the Iroquois there seems to have been a general division of the year into periods corresponding more or less closely with our spring, summer, autumn, and winter, besides [Page 33] that into moons or months. Loskiel remarks of the Delawares and the Iroquois that they “divide the year into winter, spring, summer and autumn, and each quarter into months, but their calculations are very imperfect, nor can they agree when to begin the new year. Most of them begin with the spring, some with any other quarter, and many, who are acquainted with the Europeans, begin with our New Year’s day.” His interpretations of the names given to the months, however, differ from those which follow.’
[2]
The lunar calendar determined the timing of festivals: ’Although there are six major festivals, a listing of the daily composition of the midwinterceremonies embraces all the external forms found in the subsequent celebrations.The two headmen of the longhouse watch the Pleiades throughout the fall and, when theyare near the zenith at dusk, call a meeting of the Faith-keepers to convene on the full moon,which is the first following the winter solstice. They meet at the longhouse in the morning(this occurred on December 31st, 1933), consult the people and set the date for the NewYear, which should be twenty days after this meeting, when the following new moon is five days old. Frequently they mistake the moon and advance or retard the date, which elicits remarks about hoeing corn in winter from their neighbors at Cattaraugus.’
[3]
The written Christian calendar was later added to the Iroquois lunar system: ’The Christian Calendar had a yearly and a weekly cycle. The yearly cycle preserved two aboriginal patterns, that of community feasting at harvest and gathering at strawberry picking time. The aboriginal survivals were modified; Protestant religious services replaced the aboriginal ritual. In all other respects the yearly calondar resenblod that of any rural Ontarie community. The weekly calondar encouraged a strong work othic; one worked for six days and rested on the seventh.’
[4]
For most of the time period in question, the agricultural calendar would have been orally transmitted and interpreted. We are unsure about the use of written calendars on reservations.
[1]: Foster, Michael K. 1974. “From The Earth To Beyond The Sky: An Ethnographic Approach To Four Longhouse Iroquois Speech Events”, 74 [2]: Waugh, Frederick W. 1916. “Iroquois Foods And Food Preparation”, 32 [3]: Fenton, William N. 1936. “Outline Of Seneca Ceremonies At Coldspring Longhouse”, 10 [4]: Foley, Denis 1994. “Ethnohistoric And Ethnographic Analysis Of The Iroquois From The Aboriginal Era To The Present Suburban Era”, 117 |
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|
SCCS variable 149 ’Writing and Records’ is coded as ‘1’ or ‘None’, not ‘Mnemonic devices’, or ‘Nonwritten records’, or ’True writing, no records’, or ‘True writing; records’.
|
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|
-
|
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|
"Literacy entered Uganda for the first time with the introduction of Islam in the late 1860’s and for nearly a decade instruction in Islam was progressing and flourishing at the royal court. When literacy was introduced into the kingdom of Buganda, it was confined to speakers of Arabic and Kiswahili. "
[1]
[1]: (Pawliková-Vilhanová 2014: 145) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/T7IMKZJJ. |
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|
Languages spoken in this polity were turned into "written artefacts" only in the colonial period: "Before the arrival of the Europeans, Kinyarwanda and Kirundi were already employed in both kingdoms – Ikinyanduga in southern Rwanda and Ikiruundi in central Burundi – yet with a lot less linguistic unity in the two kingdoms than in (post)colonial times. The missionary and colonial interventions, therefore, rather focused on lexicon, resulting in status planning initiatives and contributing to the compilation of dictionaries, favouring a specific dialect over others. [...] The most salient and visible adaptations were a part of the primarily orthographic alignments of textualisation processes (turning languages into written artefacts)."
[1]
[1]: (Nassenstein 2019: 16-17) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/QUT3P5UT/collection. |
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|
-
|
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-
|
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|
The first written records in the Valley of Oaxaca are from the Rosario phase (700-500 BCE).
[1]
[2]
Written records are therefore coded as absent for this period.
[1]: Flannery, K. V. and J. Marcus (1983). "The Cloud People." New York. [2]: Marcus, J. and K. V. Flannery (1996). Zapotec civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley, Thames and Hudson London. |
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|
-
|
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|
Khwarazm region: "The Khwarazmian solar calendar, related to the Zoroastrian system, is known to us thanks to Biruni, who argued that it was in advance of most other ancient systems for measuring time."
[1]
[1]: (Starr 2013) Starr, S. Frederick. 2013. Lost Enlightenment: Central Asia’s Golden Age from the Arab Conquest to Tamerlane. Princeton University Press. Princeton. |
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|
government + literacy
|
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|
Islamic calendar
|
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|
inferred continuity with earlier phases of this polity
|
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|
literacy + government
|
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|
Islamic calendar
|
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|
"normally it is only after writing comes to be used for display that archaeology begins to find traces of it. Because administrative documents were almost certainly written on perishable materials like bamboo and papyrus, we will probably never find them."
[1]
We could infer that a ritual calendar was written down.
[1]: (Wang 2014, 179) Wang, Haicheng. 2014. Writing and the Ancient State: Early China in Comparative Perspective. Cambridge University Press. |
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|
"normally it is only after writing comes to be used for display that archaeology begins to find traces of it. Because administrative documents were almost certainly written on perishable materials like bamboo and papyrus, we will probably never find them."
[1]
We could infer that a ritual calendar was written down.
[1]: (Wang 2014, 179) Wang, Haicheng. 2014. Writing and the Ancient State: Early China in Comparative Perspective. Cambridge University Press. |
||||||
|
Inferred from the fact that contemporary polities wrote on perishable materials such as silk
[1]
, though this does mean that texts are less likely to be preserved, and that they had ritual calendars
[2]
.
[1]: (Cook and Major 1999, viii) Cook, Constance A. Major, John S. eds. 1999. Defining Chu: Image and Reality in Ancient China. University of Hawai’i Press. Honolulu. [2]: (Shaughnessy 1999, 343) Shaughnessy "Western Zhou History" in Loewe, Michael. Shaughnessy, Edward L. 2009. The Cambridge History of Ancient China: From the Origins of Civilization to 221 BC. Cambridge University Press. |
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|
Since ancient times the Chinese used astronomical calculations to predict equinoxes and seasons. Sixty-day divinatory calendar from Shang era "that is still in widespread use." Babylonians may have been "the original inspiration for the Chinese soli-lunar calendar."
[1]
[1]: (??? in Selin ed. 2008, 974-975) |
||||||
|
Accurate calendar.
[1]
10-day week.
[2]
"“The day xin-hai” refers to the sixty day calendar cycle of the Shang (the same system which today gives us the Year of the Dragon, Horse..."
[3]
This would likely have existed in some form of document.
[1]: (Cotterell 1995, 15) [2]: (Hook 1991, 143) [3]: (Eno 2008) Eno, Robert. Spring 2008. EALC E232. Indiana University" |
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|
Clear that each Warring State kingdom kept records and produced a great deal of political, philosophical, and religious work; most literature from this period was destroyed in various wars however, and ultimately systematically destroyed by Qin and later Han Empires, though parts of the works produced in this period were adapted or transmitted to later authors.
|
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|
Kautilya’s Arthasastra contains a chapter title "Measurement of Space and Time."
[1]
The Arthaśāstra "probably arose in the first half of the first millennium AD" but probably largely "derive[s] from older handbooks".
[2]
[1]: (Subramaniam 2001, 79) Subramaniam, V. in Farazmand, Ali. ed. 2001. Handbook of Comparative and Development Public Administration. CRC Press. [2]: (Schlingloff 2013: 15) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/DAMFF2NV. |
||||||
|
Islamic calendar.
|
||||||
|
Spain adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1582.
[1]
[1]: (Kamen 1998, 248) Kamen, Henry. 1998. Philip of Spain. New Haven: Yale University Press. https://www.zotero.org/groups/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/Z2SSCBKS |
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|
"Aksumite rulers who often spoke and read in Greek, put great store in written documents and in libraries to keep them".
[1]
"The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, around 50 CE, "describes the ruler of the region, King Zoscales, as ’well versed in Hellenic sciences’. This would naturally require fluency in Greek, the lingua-franca of the ancient economy."
[2]
No data on written documents but it is likely that they existed, especially in Greek along the parts of the coast engaged in trade with the Greek-speaking world, if not also further inland at the capital Aksum in Ge’ez - or its precursor language - with documents relating to the local religion and the state.
[1]: (Murray 2009) Stuart A P Murray. 2009. The Library: An Illustrated History. Skyhorse Publishing, Inc. [2]: (Glazier and Peacock 2016) Darren Glazier. David Peacock. Historical background and previous investigations. David Peacock. Lucy Blue. eds. 2016. The Ancient Red Sea Port of Adulis, Eritrea: Results of the Eritro-British Expedition, 2004-5. Oxbow Books. Oxford. |
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|
’Even though the Akan share a number of cultural traits with other ethnic groups in Ghana and Africa in general, they seem to possess certain unique cultural traits and institutions not found in other ethnic groups in Ghana. [...] Besides language, Boahen lists a common 40-day calendar [....].’
[1]
[1]: Yankah, Kwesi, 1989: 21; Literacy Database’ |
||||||
|
The local population followed the Byzantine calendar which is based on the Julian calendar, except that the year started on 1 September and the year number used an Anno Mundi epoch derived from the Septuagint version of the Bible.
[1]
The Arab inviders followed the Islamic calendar the first year of which begins in 622 CE during which the emigration of Muhammad from Mecca to Medina occurred.
[1]: Bryer, A. 2008. "Chronology and Dating," in Jeffreys,E. Haldon,J., Cormack, R. (eds). The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Studies, Oxford, 31-37. |
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|
Cretans named each year after the president of the board of Kosmoi (protokosmos or kosmos o epi poleos). In Hellenistic times, years were also reckoned in quadrennial periods according to the Olympiads. The year, started in the summer solstice, was divided into twelve months: Agyios (December-January), Dioskouros (January-February), Theodosios (February-March), Pontos (March-April), Rabinthios (April-May), Hyperberetos (May-June), Nekysios (June-July), Basileios (July-August), Thersmofhorion (August-September), Hermaios (September-October), Metarhios (October-November), Eiman (November-December).
|
||||||
|
The year was divided into named months (menos, μήνας in ancient Greek)
[1]
Two months are attested at Pylos: the pakijanijojo and the powowitojo, the latter interpreted as the sailing month. Months recorded at Knossos are the deukijojo, wodewijo, karaerijo, diwijojo, amakoto, and rapato. The data provided, however, by the preserved texts is not full enough to permit any reconstruction of the calendaric system (s).
[1]: Ventris, M. and Chadwick, J. 1973. Documents in Mycenaean Greek, Cambridge, 303-12; //////. |
||||||
|
In the Mycenaean world, the year was divided into named months (menos, μήνας in ancient Greek).
[1]
Two months are attested at Pylos: the pakijanijojo and the powowitojo, the latter interpreted as the sailing month. Months recorded at Knossos are the deukijojo, wodewijo, karaerijo, diwijojo, amakoto, and rapato. The data provided, however, by the preserved texts is not full enough to permit any reconstruction of the calendaric system (s).
[1]: Ventris, M. and Chadwick, J. 1973. Documents in Mycenaean Greek, Cambridge, 303-12. |
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|
Islamic prayer times are astronomically defined, as is determining the direction of Mecca. As such, astrological timekeeping, the body of literature called ’ilm-al-miquat’ replaced folk astronomy with mathematical precision.
[1]
[1]: Young, M. J. L., John Derek Latham, and Robert Bertram Serjeant, eds. Religion, learning and science in the’abbasid period pp. 283-4 |
||||||
|
In the 1950s, Freeman claimed no written calendars for the ’pre-literate’ Iban: ’The Iban still attach great importance to their stellar lore. Tungku, a tuai rumah of the Mujong headwaters, put it in these words:“If there were no stars we Iban would be lost, not knowing when to plant; we live by the stars.”(“ Enti nadai bintang tesat ati kami Iban, enda nemu maia nugal; kami idup ari bintang. ”) It must not be thought however that there is any dogma that rituals, etc. should be held on the exact dates given. The Iban are a pre-literate people without a calendar, and the movements of the Pleiades, Orion and Sirius are taken as no more than general indications of the time when the major operations of felling and planting should be embarked upon.’
[1]
Komanyi claims written calendars following the European pattern and literacy in the 1970s: ’Since most people now have western calendars, they know during which month the sowing, weeding or harvesting is to be done. Their “new year” begins after the harvest is completed, which may be some time in May or June. However, June 1st is “Dayak Day,” proclaimed by the government as the official Dayak New Year’s Day.’
[2]
On the other hand, mission schools were established in the 1920s already. Regional variation may explain the difference. We have chosen to go with the 1921 figure as it is congruent with the establishment of schooling in the area. This is open to re-evaluation, and expert feedback is absolutely essential on the matter.
[1]: Freeman, Derek 1955. “Iban Agriculture: A Report On The Shifting Cultivation Of Hill Rice By The Iban Of Sarawak”, 40 [2]: Komanyi, Margit Ilona 1973. “Real And Ideal Participation In Decision-Making Of Iban Women: A Study Of A Longhouse Community In Sarawak, East Malaysia”, 15 |
||||||
|
Aside from the Rabbinic calendar, whose months were determined by observation of each New Moon, several fixed calendars were in use. The so-called Qumran Calendar of 364 days is attested to in several of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the similar Enoch Calendar is described in the Book of Enoch.
[1]
[1]: Cf. Pratt (2000). |
||||||
|
Kautilya’s Arthasastra contains a chapter title "Measurement of Space and Time."
[1]
The Arthaśāstra "probably arose in the first half of the first millennium AD" but probably largely "derive[s] from older handbooks".
[2]
[1]: (Subramaniam 2001, 79) Subramaniam, V. in Farazmand, Ali. ed. 2001. Handbook of Comparative and Development Public Administration. CRC Press. [2]: (Schlingloff 2013: 15) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/DAMFF2NV. |
||||||
|
SCCS variable 149 ’Writing and Records’ lists no mnemonic devices or nonwritten records or ’True writing, no writing’. A’chik farmers were somewhat familiar with the Christian and Benghali calendars: ‘The agricultural tasks which follow assignment of the plots to households are precisely defined, and are followed with considerable regularity. The Rengsanggri people have a nodding acquaintance with the European calendar and are sometimes able to arrange government business according to its terms; but in describing their own agricultural cycle they more often use the Bengali calendar, though even this is imperfectly understood. They are acquainted with the names of the twelve Bengali months, though the Garo pronunciation of them might surprise a Bengali. They know that a new moon marks the beginning of a new month, and they are usually able to assign a particular agricultural task or festival to a particular month; but they do not understand how the lunar calendar is kept in step with the solar year, and they cannot usually tell the name of the present month with confidence. Beyond any formal calendar, however, they also note natural signs: they know, for instance, that when the bright red blossoms of the mandal tree burst forth the time has come to plant rice.’
[1]
[1]: Burling, Robbins 1963. “Rengsanggri: Family And Kinship In A Garo Village”, 30 |
||||||
|
Kautilya’s Arthasastra contains a chapter title "Measurement of Space and Time."
[1]
The Arthaśāstra "probably arose in the first half of the first millennium AD" but probably largely "derive[s] from older handbooks".
[2]
Moreover, in the preceding Gupta period, "The length of the solar year was calculated with a precision which even the Greeks had not yet achieved".
[3]
[1]: (Subramaniam 2001, 79) Subramaniam, V. in Farazmand, Ali. ed. 2001. Handbook of Comparative and Development Public Administration. CRC Press. [2]: (Schlingloff 2013: 15) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/DAMFF2NV. [3]: (Keay 2010, 153) Keay, John. 2010. India: A History. New Updated Edition. London: HarperPress. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/HSHAKZ3X. |
||||||
|
"The length of the solar year was calculated with a precision which even the Greeks had not yet achieved".
[1]
[1]: (Keay 2010, 153) Keay, John. 2010. India: A History. New Updated Edition. London: HarperPress. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/HSHAKZ3X. |
||||||
|
Kautilya’s Arthasastra contains a chapter title "Measurement of Space and Time."
[1]
The Arthaśāstra "probably arose in the first half of the first millennium AD" but probably largely "derive[s] from older handbooks".
[2]
Moreover, in the preceding Gupta period, "The length of the solar year was calculated with a precision which even the Greeks had not yet achieved".
[3]
[1]: (Subramaniam 2001, 79) Subramaniam, V. in Farazmand, Ali. ed. 2001. Handbook of Comparative and Development Public Administration. CRC Press. [2]: (Schlingloff 2013: 15) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/DAMFF2NV. [3]: (Keay 2010, 153) Keay, John. 2010. India: A History. New Updated Edition. London: HarperPress. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/HSHAKZ3X. |
||||||
|
Kautilya’s Arthasastra contains a chapter title "Measurement of Space and Time."
[1]
The Arthaśāstra "probably arose in the first half of the first millennium AD" but probably largely "derive[s] from older handbooks".
[2]
[1]: (Subramaniam 2001, 79) Subramaniam, V. in Farazmand, Ali. ed. 2001. Handbook of Comparative and Development Public Administration. CRC Press. [2]: (Schlingloff 2013: 15) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/DAMFF2NV. |
||||||
|
Court astrologers present.
[1]
Also, Kautilya’s Arthasastra contains a chapter title "Measurement of Space and Time."
[2]
The Arthaśāstra "probably arose in the first half of the first millennium AD" but probably largely "derive[s] from older handbooks".
[3]
Moreover, in the preceding Gupta period, "The length of the solar year was calculated with a precision which even the Greeks had not yet achieved".
[4]
[1]: (Mishra 1977, 138) Shyam Manohar Mishra. 1977. Yaśovarman of Kanauj: A Study of Political History, Social, and Cultural Life of Northern India During the Reign of Yaśovarman. Abhinav Publications. [2]: (Subramaniam 2001, 79) Subramaniam, V. in Farazmand, Ali. ed. 2001. Handbook of Comparative and Development Public Administration. CRC Press. [3]: (Schlingloff 2013: 15) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/DAMFF2NV. [4]: (Keay 2010, 153) Keay, John. 2010. India: A History. New Updated Edition. London: HarperPress. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/HSHAKZ3X. |
||||||
|
Kautilya’s Arthasastra contains a chapter title "Measurement of Space and Time."
[1]
The Arthaśāstra "probably arose in the first half of the first millennium AD" but probably largely "derive[s] from older handbooks".
[2]
Moreover, in the preceding Gupta period, "The length of the solar year was calculated with a precision which even the Greeks had not yet achieved".
[3]
[1]: (Subramaniam 2001, 79) Subramaniam, V. in Farazmand, Ali. ed. 2001. Handbook of Comparative and Development Public Administration. CRC Press. [2]: (Schlingloff 2013: 15) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/DAMFF2NV. [3]: (Keay 2010, 153) Keay, John. 2010. India: A History. New Updated Edition. London: HarperPress. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/HSHAKZ3X. |
||||||
|
Kautilya’s Arthasastra contains a chapter title "Measurement of Space and Time."
[1]
The Arthaśāstra "probably arose in the first half of the first millennium AD" but probably largely "derive[s] from older handbooks".
[2]
[1]: (Subramaniam 2001, 79) Subramaniam, V. in Farazmand, Ali. ed. 2001. Handbook of Comparative and Development Public Administration. CRC Press. [2]: (Schlingloff 2013: 15) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/DAMFF2NV. |
||||||
|
Kautilya’s Arthasastra contains a chapter title "Measurement of Space and Time."
[1]
The Arthaśāstra "probably arose in the first half of the first millennium AD" but probably largely "derive[s] from older handbooks".
[2]
[1]: (Subramaniam 2001, 79) Subramaniam, V. in Farazmand, Ali. ed. 2001. Handbook of Comparative and Development Public Administration. CRC Press. [2]: (Schlingloff 2013: 15) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/DAMFF2NV. |
||||||
|
"The Babylonians used a calendar based on cycles of both the moon and the sun. Time was divided into solar days, lunar months, and luni-solar years. Days ran from sunset to sunset and were divided into four parts or into twelve “double-hours.” Astronomical texts such as Enuma Anu Enlil provided information on how to calculate the length of daylight at different times in the year."
[1]
[1]: (McIntosh 2005: 268) McIntosh, J. 2005. Ancient Mesopotamia: New Perspective. Santa Barbara: ABC Clio. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/KK2E3KMD. |
||||||
|
"The Babylonians used a calendar based on cycles of both the moon and the sun. Time was divided into solar days, lunar months, and luni-solar years. Days ran from sunset to sunset and were divided into four parts or into twelve “double-hours.” Astronomical texts such as Enuma Anu Enlil provided information on how to calculate the length of daylight at different times in the year."
[1]
[1]: (McIntosh 2005: 268) McIntosh, J. 2005. Ancient Mesopotamia: New Perspective. Santa Barbara: ABC Clio. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/KK2E3KMD. |
||||||
|
"The Babylonians used a calendar based on cycles of both the moon and the sun. Time was divided into solar days, lunar months, and luni-solar years. Days ran from sunset to sunset and were divided into four parts or into twelve “double-hours.” Astronomical texts such as Enuma Anu Enlil provided information on how to calculate the length of daylight at different times in the year."
[1]
[1]: (McIntosh 2005: 268) McIntosh, J. 2005. Ancient Mesopotamia: New Perspective. Santa Barbara: ABC Clio. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/KK2E3KMD. |
||||||
|
"The great organisations of the first phase of urbanisation rose to prominence without writing. The latter developed relatively quickly as a response to these institutions’ needs."
[1]
Liverani says the so-called "urban revolution" of the Uruk phase was from 3800-3000 BCE.
[2]
[1]: (Leverani 2014, 73) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. [2]: (Leverani 2014, 69-70) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. |
||||||
|
e.g. Abu Rayḥān Biruni’s Ketāb al-āṯār al-bāqia ʿan al-qorun al-ḵālia ( “The Chronology of Ancient Nations”) contains calendars.
[1]
[1]: Stefano Carboni, ’IL-KHANIDS iii. Book Illustration’ http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/il-khanids-iii-book-illustration |
||||||
|
Evidence from Seleucia shows that the Parthians used the Babylonian system.
[1]
"In the indigenous Parthian lands the Zoroastrian calendar was also used beside the Seleucid era."
[2]
[1]: G. R. F. Assar, ‘Parthian Calendars at Babylon and Seleucia on the Tigris’, Iran, 41 (2003), 171-91. [2]: (Koshelenko and Pilipko 1994, 144) Koshelenko, G. A. Pilipko, V. N. Parthia. in Harmatta, Janos. Puri, B. N. Etemadi, G. F. eds. 1994. History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Volume II. The development of sedentary and nomadic civilizatins 700 B.C. to A.D. 250. UNESCO Publishing. |
||||||
|
Evidence from Seleucia shows that the Parthians used the Babylonian system.
[1]
"In the indigenous Parthian lands the Zoroastrian calendar was also used beside the Seleucid era."
[2]
[1]: G. R. F. Assar, ‘Parthian Calendars at Babylon and Seleucia on the Tigris’, Iran, 41 (2003), 171-91. [2]: (Koshelenko and Pilipko 1994, 144) Koshelenko, G. A. Pilipko, V. N. Parthia. in Harmatta, Janos. Puri, B. N. Etemadi, G. F. eds. 1994. History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Volume II. The development of sedentary and nomadic civilizatins 700 B.C. to A.D. 250. UNESCO Publishing. |
||||||
|
"Biruni’s research on calendar systems, which he undertook in the early years of the eleventh century, took as its point of departure the Khwarazian calendar."
[1]
e.g. the solar calendar introduced by Sultan Malik Shah.
[2]
[1]: (Starr 2013) Starr, S. Frederick. 2013. Lost Enlightenment: Central Asia’s Golden Age from the Arab Conquest to Tamerlane. Princeton University Press. Princeton. [2]: E.S. Kennedy, ‘The Exact Sceinces in Iran under the Saljuqs and Mongols’, in J.A. Boyle (ed.), The Cambridge History of Iran. Vol 5, The Saljuq and Mongol Period (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968), p.670. |
||||||
|
"The great organisations of the first phase of urbanisation rose to prominence without writing. The latter developed relatively quickly as a response to these institutions’ needs."
[1]
Liverani says the so-called "urban revolution" of the Uruk phase was from 3800-3000 BCE.
[2]
[1]: (Leverani 2014, 73) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. [2]: (Leverani 2014, 69-70) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. |
||||||
|
"The great organisations of the first phase of urbanisation rose to prominence without writing. The latter developed relatively quickly as a response to these institutions’ needs."
[1]
Liverani says the so-called "urban revolution" of the Uruk phase was from 3800-3000 BCE.
[2]
[1]: (Leverani 2014, 73) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. [2]: (Leverani 2014, 69-70) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. |
||||||
|
’In the medieval and early modern periods, the Japanese utilized the traditional lunar calendar. Dates on this calendar represented the day, month, and year, the last of which could be determined by several methods. Two such methods included the 60-year time cycle and the use of the era name, or nengo. Nengo was a unit of time comparable to an era, commonly employed to date events or chronological periods. The use of this measure of time began in the seventh century. The change of emperor included a change in era name.’
[1]
[1]: Deal, William E. 2005. Handbook to Life in Medieval and Early Modern Japan. Oxford University Press.p.355. |
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|
It is assumed here that the Christian calender was adopted with the religion: ’By the end of the 10th century, the Norwegians were forced by their king, Olaf I Tryggvason, to accept Christianity. The king also sent missionaries to Iceland who, according to 12th-century sources, were highly successful in converting the Icelanders. In 999 or 1000 the Althing made a peaceful decision that all Icelanders should become Christians. In spite of this decision, the godar retained their political role, and many of them probably built their own churches. Some were ordained, and as a group they seem to have closely controlled the organization of the new religion. Two bishoprics were established, one at Skálholt in 1056 and the other at Hólar in 1106. Literate Christian culture also transformed lay life. Codification of the law was begun in 1117-18. Later the Icelanders began to write sagas, which were to reach their pinnacle of literary achievement in the next century.’
[1]
Icelandic historiography indicates a clear sense of past events and chronology: ’One of the remarkable legacies of early Iceland is its wealth of literary production. Icelandic literary production encompassed continental chivalrous, hagiographic, and historical traditions, in addition to the autochthonous development of the saga. Among other topics, Icelandic sagas depict events from the early years of Icelandic society, the colonization of Greenland and the discovery of North America, and the civil wars that characterized the twelfth and thirteenth centuries in Iceland. The medieval manuscripts also preserve an artistic tradition in illumination. The literary levels achieved in Iceland, to some degree, developed from strong oral traditions of poetry and narrative. Much of the material culture of early Iceland has not been preserved but a strong tradition in artistic woodcarving is evident.’
[2]
We are unsure whether there were written calendars before the introduction of Christianity.
[1]: http://www.britannica.com/place/Iceland/Government-and-society#toc10088 [2]: Bolender, Douglas James and Beierle, John: eHRAF Cultural Summary for Early Icelanders |
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Calendar of Numa in use since 713 BCE. Pontifex Maximus determined when an intercalary month was to be inserted.
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Julian calendar, in use since 46 BCE. in 8 BCE Augustus renamed Quintilis as Iulius (July) and Sextilis as Augustus (August).
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First Roman calendar thought to be the 8th century BCE "Calendar of Romulus." Numa Pompilius reformed this calendar in 713 BCE>
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‘In the medieval and early modern periods, the Japanese utilized the traditional lunar calendar. Dates on this calendar represented the day, month, and year, the last of which could be determined by several methods. Two such methods included the 60-year time cycle and the use of the era name, or nengo. Nengo was a unit of time comparable to an era, commonly employed to date events or chronological periods. The use of this measure of time began in the seventh century. The change of emperor included a change in era name. However, in the early modern period, the nengo did not simply represent the duration of a governmental regime. New era names might be declared when auspicious events occurred or at certain points in the traditional 60- year (sexagenary) calendar cycle... Despite the official use of the lunar calendar, the solar calendar was also employed and was very important for farmers.’
[1]
[1]: Deal, William E. 2005. Handbook to Life in Medieval and Early Modern Japan. Oxford University Press.p.355. |
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‘In the medieval and early modern periods, the Japanese utilized the traditional lunar calendar. Dates on this calendar represented the day, month, and year, the last of which could be determined by several methods. Two such methods included the 60-year time cycle and the use of the era name, or nengo. Nengo was a unit of time comparable to an era, commonly employed to date events or chronological periods. The use of this measure of time began in the seventh century. The change of emperor included a change in era name. However, in the early modern period, the nengo did not simply represent the duration of a governmental regime. New era names might be declared when auspicious events occurred or at certain points in the traditional 60- year (sexagenary) calendar cycle.’
[1]
[1]: Deal, William E. 2005. Handbook to Life in Medieval and Early Modern Japan. Oxford University Press.p.355. |
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|
’To judge by scanty evidence, the embassies brought for trade chiefly furs (tiger, leopard, bear), honey, ginseng, and other domestic goods and products; but they also may have regularly supplied items from China, like the copy of the Chinese Hsuan-ming calendar that was brought by an embassy in 859 and remained the official calendar of Japan, with growing inaccuracy, from 862 to 1684.’
[1]
[1]: Shively, Donald H. and McCullough, William H. 2008. The Cambridge History of Japan Volume 2: Heian Japan. Cambridge Histories Online Cambridge University Press.p.91. |
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|
The Chinese calender was known and studied in Japan from the 6th century ’Written records were now used to carry out government functions; Buddhism was enthusiastically embraced; and Chinese technology stimulated such diverse fields as calendar making...Missions from Japan to China no longer sought only luxury goods, or even Chinese recognition of a Japanese ruler’s authority, but sophisticated forms of learning as well.’
[1]
but does not appear to have been officially adopted until the Chinese Hsuan-ming calendar that was brought by an embassy in 859 and remained the official calendar of Japan, with growing inaccuracy, from 862 to 1684.’
[2]
[1]: Brown, Delmer M. 1993. The Cambridge History of Japan Volume 1: Ancient Japan. Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press.p.316 [2]: Shively, Donald H. and McCullough, William H. 2008. The Cambridge History of Japan Volume 2: Heian Japan. Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press.p.91. |
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|
‘In the medieval and early modern periods, the Japanese utilized the traditional lunar calendar. Dates on this calendar represented the day, month, and year, the last of which could be determined by several methods. Two such methods included the 60-year time cycle and the use of the era name, or nengo. Nengo was a unit of time comparable to an era, commonly employed to date events or chronological periods. The use of this measure of time began in the seventh century. The change of emperor included a change in era name. However, in the early modern period, the nengo did not simply represent the duration of a governmental regime. New era names might be declared when auspicious events occurred or at certain points in the traditional 60- year (sexagenary) calendar cycle... Despite the official use of the lunar calendar, the solar calendar was also employed and was very important for farmers.’
[1]
‘As the field of Western astronomy developed in Japan, the government appointed official astronomers (temmonkata) to serve and advise the shogunate. The first, Shibukawa Shunkai (or Harumi; 1639-1715), was a student of the theories of Copernicus. He utilized this knowledge to design a new calendar, the Jokyo calendar, based on a late 13thcentury Chinese calendar that was adopted as the official Japanese calendar in 1684.’
[2]
[1]: Deal, William E. 2005. Handbook to Life in Medieval and Early Modern Japan. Oxford University Press.p.355. [2]: Deal, William E. 2005. Handbook to Life in Medieval and Early Modern Japan. Oxford University Press.p.238. |
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"what do the highly sophisticated calendar systems that were in use in Khwarazm, Bactria, Parthia, Tokharistan, and Sogdiana tell us about the state of Central Asian science in the pre-Islamic centuries? It is surely worth noting that Biruni’s research on calendar systems, which he undertook in the early years of the eleventh century, took as its point of departure the Khwarazian calendar."
[1]
[1]: (Starr 2013) Starr, S. Frederick. 2013. Lost Enlightenment: Central Asia’s Golden Age from the Arab Conquest to Tamerlane. Princeton University Press. Princeton. |
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|
Khwarazm region: "The Khwarazmian solar calendar, related to the Zoroastrian system, is known to us thanks to Biruni, who argued that it was in advance of most other ancient systems for measuring time."
[1]
[1]: (Starr 2013) Starr, S. Frederick. 2013. Lost Enlightenment: Central Asia’s Golden Age from the Arab Conquest to Tamerlane. Princeton University Press. Princeton. |
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|
’At Angkor Wat [...] the measurements of both parts and whole contain calendrically and cosmologically significant totals. As an illustration of the part/whole relationship, the circumference of the fourth (outer) enclosure at Angkor Wat measures 1 lunar year expressed as 354.36 units. (There are 354.36 days in 12 lunar months). The circumference also includes a 28-unit ritual path through the triad of eastern, northern, and southern entrances. One lunar month is often expressed as 28 days of length and is a subdivision the lunar year. IN other words, the 28-unit path is contained within the 354.36-unit circumference, and the 28-day month is contained within the 354-day year. The part-whole relationship in architecture parallels the part/whole relationship in the calendar.’
[1]
’In Khmer astronomy, the positions of the planets and stars can be determined without using trigonometry. Nevertheless, at some point between the second and fifth centuries A.D., Indian astronomy adopted the trigonometric calculations of the Greeks and Romans. These methods may have been introduced into Cambodia by the fifth or sixth centuries. When solar and lunar alignments were found at Angkor Wat in 1976, it was clear that the angles between the towers, the moon or sun, and the observation points were carefully calculated, further suggesting that a knowledge of trigonometry was current when the temple was constructed.
[2]
’Calendrical values were part of a living cultural context and invariably emerge in Khmer inscriptions. In this simple one-sentence inscription, two or three words were enough to say that a Siva gingham was set up (read:in a temple constructed for that purpose), but it took several lines to explain when that happened. The planets’ positions in the 12 zodiac signs or in the 27/28 naksatra, the light or dark half of the lunar month, the solar month, the day of the week, and the year come first by custom-before the main statement. According to tradition, the era date is given ’backwards,’ with the smallest year first and the century last, and spelled out through numerical symbols.’
[3]
Attested as present during Angkorean times by David Chandler
[4]
. The central administration in Angkor must have had fairly detailed information for the purposes of taxation and core labour of all the empire’s inhabitants, for according to Zhou a census was taken during the ninth Cambodian month, where everyone (or, more likely, all heads of families) was called to the capital, and passed in review before the Royal Palace. Such census registers were kept in Aymonier’s day, and revised every three years.’
[5]
[1]: (Mannikka 1996, p.3) [2]: (Mannikka 1996, p.4) [3]: (Mannikka 1996, p.261) [4]: (Chandler 2008, p. 15) [5]: (Coe 2003, p. 145) |
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|
Spain had adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1582.(Kamen 1998: 248) Kamen, Henry. 1998. Philip of Spain. New Haven: Yale University Press. https://www.zotero.org/groups/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/Z2SSCBKS
|
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|
"The relations between the Khitan and the southern states of Wu-Yiieh and Southern T’ang were at their height in the late 930s and 940s; for a while Wu-Yiieh even used the Khitan calendar."
[1]
[1]: (Twitchett, D.C. and K. Tietze. 1994. The Liao. In Franke, H. and D.C. Twitchett (eds) The Cambridge History of China Volume 6: Alien Regimes and Border States, 907-1368 pp. 43-153. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. P. 72) |
||||||
|
Chinese astronomers "used Middle Eastern astronomical tables to revise Chinese calendars and produce a new calendar for the Mongol rulership."
[1]
[1]: Beatrice Forbes Manz, ‘The Rule of the Infidels: The Mongols and the Islamic World’, in David O. Morgan and Anthony Reid (eds), The New Cambridge History of Islam: Volume 3. The Eastern Islamic World, Eleventh to Eighteenth Centuries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 155. |
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|
’At Angkor Wat [...] the measurements of both parts and whole contain calendrically and cosmologically significant totals. As an illustration of the part/whole relationship, the circumference of the fourth (outer) enclosure at Angkor Wat measures 1 lunar year expressed as 354.36 units. (There are 354.36 days in 12 lunar months). The circumference also includes a 28-unit ritual path through the triad of eastern, northern, and southern entrances. One lunar month is often expressed as 28 days of length and is a subdivision the lunar year. IN other words, the 28-unit path is contained within the 354.36-unit circumference, and the 28-day month is contained within the 354-day year. The part-whole relationship in architecture parallels the part/whole relationship in the calendar.’
[1]
’In Khmer astronomy, the positions of the planets and stars can be determined without using trigonometry. Nevertheless, at some point between the second and fifth centuries A.D., Indian astronomy adopted the trigonometric calculations of the Greeks and Romans. These methods may have been introduced into Cambodia by the fifth or sixth centuries. When solar and lunar alignments were found at Angkor Wat in 1976, it was clear that the angles between the towers, the moon or sun, and the observation points were carefully calculated, further suggesting that a knowledge of trigonometry was current when the temple was constructed.
[2]
’Calendrical values were part of a living cultural context and invariably emerge in Khmer inscriptions. In this simple one-sentence inscription, two or three words were enough to say that a Siva gingham was set up (read:in a temple constructed for that purpose), but it took several lines to explain when that happened. The planets’ positions in the 12 zodiac signs or in the 27/28 naksatra, the light or dark half of the lunar month, the solar month, the day of the week, and the year come first by custom-before the main statement. According to tradition, the era date is given ’backwards,’ with the smallest year first and the century last, and spelled out through numerical symbols.’
[3]
Attested as present during Angkorean times by David Chandler
[4]
. The central administration in Angkor must have had fairly detailed information for the purposes of taxation and core labour of all the empire’s inhabitants, for according to Zhou a census was taken during the ninth Cambodian month, where everyone (or, more likely, all heads of families) was called to the capital, and passed in review before the Royal Palace. Such census registers were kept in Aymonier’s day, and revised every three years.’
[5]
[1]: (Mannikka 1996, p.3) [2]: (Mannikka 1996, p.4) [3]: (Mannikka 1996, p.261) [4]: (Chandler 2008, p. 15) [5]: (Coe 2003, p. 145) |
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|
A calendar based on astronomical measurements exists. ’Calendrical values were part of a living cultural context and invariably emerge in Khmer inscriptions. In this simple one-sentence inscription, two or three words were enough to say that a Siva gingham was set up (read:in a temple constructed for that purpose), but it took several lines to explain when that happened. The planets’ positions in the 12 zodiac signs or in the 27/28 naksatra, the light or dark half of the lunar month, the solar month, the day of the week, and the year come first by custom-before the main statement. According to tradition, the era date is given ’backwards,’ with the smallest year first and the century last, and spelled out through numerical symbols.’
[1]
Attested as present during Angkorean times by David Chandler
[2]
. The central administration in Angkor must have had fairly detailed information for the purposes of taxation and core labour of all the empire’s inhabitants, for according to Zhou a census was taken during the ninth Cambodian month, where everyone (or, more likely, all heads of families) was called to the capital, and passed in review before the Royal Palace. Such census registers were kept in Aymonier’s day, and revised every three years.’
[3]
[1]: (Mannikka 1996, p.261) [2]: (Chandler 2008, p. 15) [3]: (Coe 2003, p. 145) |
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|
’At Angkor Wat [...] the measurements of both parts and whole contain calendrically and cosmologically significant totals. As an illustration of the part/whole relationship, the circumference of the fourth (outer) enclosure at Angkor Wat measures 1 lunar year expressed as 354.36 units. (There are 354.36 days in 12 lunar months). The circumference also includes a 28-unit ritual path through the triad of eastern, northern, and southern entrances. One lunar month is often expressed as 28 days of length and is a subdivision the lunar year. IN other words, the 28-unit path is contained within the 354.36-unit circumference, and the 28-day month is contained within the 354-day year. The part-whole relationship in architecture parallels the part/whole relationship in the calendar.’
[1]
’In Khmer astronomy, the positions of the planets and stars can be determined without using trigonometry. Nevertheless, at some point between the second and fifth centuries A.D., Indian astronomy adopted the trigonometric calculations of the Greeks and Romans. These methods may have been introduced into Cambodia by the fifth or sixth centuries. When solar and lunar alignments were found at Angkor Wat in 1976, it was clear that the angles between the towers, the moon or sun, and the observation points were carefully calculated, further suggesting that a knowledge of trigonometry was current when the temple was constructed.
[2]
’Calendrical values were part of a living cultural context and invariably emerge in Khmer inscriptions. In this simple one-sentence inscription, two or three words were enough to say that a Siva gingham was set up (read:in a temple constructed for that purpose), but it took several lines to explain when that happened. The planets’ positions in the 12 zodiac signs or in the 27/28 naksatra, the light or dark half of the lunar month, the solar month, the day of the week, and the year come first by custom-before the main statement. According to tradition, the era date is given ’backwards,’ with the smallest year first and the century last, and spelled out through numerical symbols.’
[3]
Attested as present during Angkorean times by David Chandler
[4]
. The central administration in Angkor must have had fairly detailed information for the purposes of taxation and core labour of all the empire’s inhabitants, for according to Zhou a census was taken during the ninth Cambodian month, where everyone (or, more likely, all heads of families) was called to the capital, and passed in review before the Royal Palace. Such census registers were kept in Aymonier’s day, and revised every three years.’
[5]
[1]: (Mannikka 1996, p.3) [2]: (Mannikka 1996, p.4) [3]: (Mannikka 1996, p.261) [4]: (Chandler 2008, p. 15) [5]: (Coe 2003, p. 145) |
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Notably, the famous 10th Century BCE Gezer calendar is argued by some to have been Phoenician.
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Present in Yuan and imperial Mongol times. Chinese astronomers "used Middle Eastern astronomical tables to revise Chinese calendars and produce a new calendar for the Mongol rulership."
[1]
[1]: Beatrice Forbes Manz, ‘The Rule of the Infidels: The Mongols and the Islamic World’, in David O. Morgan and Anthony Reid (eds), The New Cambridge History of Islam: Volume 3. The Eastern Islamic World, Eleventh to Eighteenth Centuries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 155. |
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c500 CE and after: "It may be assumed that by then some of the Juan-juan already lived a settled life and practised agriculture. The original sources repeatedly mention that their khagans obtained ‘seed millet’ from China (some 10,000 shi each time). This shows that the Juan-juan society and state had gradually developed from nomadic herding to a settled agricultural way of life, from yurts to the building of houses and monumental architecture, from the nomadic district to towns. They had invented their own system of writing and developed their own local culture and Buddhist learning flourished."
[1]
[1]: (Kyzlasov 1996, 317) |
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Several glyphs carved on stones at Monte Albán have been interpreted as calendrical glyphs, based on analogy with later periods
[1]
[2]
More specifically, the glyphs on Stele 12 and 13 at Monte Alban seem to refer to days on the 365 day calendar, or yza secular year as it was known in the historical periods. In addition to evidence for the ritual 260 day calendar (or piye calendar) at San Jose Mogote, this suggests that both the two calendars were being used from this time.
[3]
[1]: Flannery, K. V. and J. Marcus (1983). "The Cloud People." New York. [2]: Spencer, C. S. and E. M. Redmond (2004). "Primary state formation in Mesoamerica." Annual Review of Anthropology: 173-199, p179 [3]: Marcus and Flannery (1996) Zapotec Civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley. p159 |
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Several glyphs carved on stones at Monte Albán have been interpreted as calendrical glyphs, based on analogy with later periods
[1]
[2]
More specifically, the glyphs on Stele 12 and 13 at Monte Alban seem to refer to days on the 365 day calendar, or yza secular year as it was known in the historical periods. In addition to evidence for the ritual 260 day calendar (or piye calendar) at San Jose Mogote, this suggests that both the two calendars were being used from this time.
[3]
[1]: Flannery, K. V. and J. Marcus (1983). "The Cloud People." New York. [2]: Spencer, C. S. and E. M. Redmond (2004). "Primary state formation in Mesoamerica." Annual Review of Anthropology: 173-199, p179 [3]: Marcus and Flannery (1996) Zapotec Civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley. p159 |
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Several glyphs carved on stones at Monte Albán have been interpreted as calendrical glyphs, based on analogy with later periods
[1]
[2]
More specifically, the glyphs on Stele 12 and 13 at Monte Alban seem to refer to days on the 365 day calendar, or yza secular year as it was known in the historical periods. In addition to evidence for the ritual 260 day calendar (or piye calendar) at San Jose Mogote, this suggests that both the two calendars were being used from this time.
[3]
[1]: Flannery, K. V. and J. Marcus (1983). "The Cloud People." New York. [2]: Spencer, C. S. and E. M. Redmond (2004). "Primary state formation in Mesoamerica." Annual Review of Anthropology: 173-199, p179 [3]: Marcus and Flannery (1996) Zapotec Civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley. p159 |
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inferred continuity with earlier periods in the region
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Several glyphs carved on stones at Monte Albán have been interpreted as calendrical glyphs, based on analogy with later periods
[1]
[2]
More specifically, the glyphs on Stele 12 and 13 at Monte Alban seem to refer to days on the 365 day calendar, or yza secular year as it was known in the historical periods. In addition to evidence for the ritual 260 day calendar (or piye calendar) at San Jose Mogote, this suggests that both the two calendars were being used from this time.
[3]
[1]: Flannery, K. V. and J. Marcus (1983). "The Cloud People." New York. [2]: Spencer, C. S. and E. M. Redmond (2004). "Primary state formation in Mesoamerica." Annual Review of Anthropology: 173-199, p179 [3]: Marcus and Flannery (1996) Zapotec Civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley. p159 |
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Spanish written records refer to the Zapotec calendars, one 365 day calendar and one 260 day ‘ritual’ calendar called ‘pije/ piye’, which links to the Zapotec word ‘pé’ for life).
[1]
[1]: Flannery, K. V. and J. Marcus (1976). "Formative Oaxaca and Zapotec Cosmos." American Scientist 64(4): 374-383, p376 |
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Glyphs carved onto Monument 3 at San Jose Mogote refer to the 260-day ritual calendar, based on analogy with later periods.
[1]
[2]
[1]: Spencer, C. S. and E. M. Redmond (2004). "Primary state formation in Mesoamerica." Annual Review of Anthropology: 173-199, p179 [2]: Marcus, J. and K. V. Flannery (1996). Zapotec civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley, Thames and Hudson London, p130 |
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Given the institutionalization of Church authority and ecclesiastical learning, we have assumed written calendars present.
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"By 229 CE, Himyar had enough control of southern Arabia that their calendar system began to be employed throughout the region (heralding the arrival of a unified state in Arabia), while the rest of the peninsula retained its tribal character."
[1]
In the late third century "The Himyarite era, an absolute system of dating, now became commonly used throughout south Arabia."
[2]
[1]: (Maroney 2010, 91-92) Eric Maroney. 2010. The Other Zions: The Lost Histories of Jewish Nations. Roman & Littlefield Publishes, Inc. Lanham. [2]: (Hoyland 2001, 47) Robert G Hoyland. 2001. Arabia and the Arabs: From the Bronze Age to the Coming of Islam. Routledge. London. |
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"By 229 CE, Himyar had enough control of southern Arabia that their calendar system began to be employed throughout the region (heralding the arrival of a unified state in Arabia), while the rest of the peninsula retained its tribal character."
[1]
In the late third century "The Himyarite era, an absolute system of dating, now became commonly used throughout south Arabia."
[2]
[1]: (Maroney 2010, 91-92) Eric Maroney. 2010. The Other Zions: The Lost Histories of Jewish Nations. Roman & Littlefield Publishes, Inc. Lanham. [2]: (Hoyland 2001, 47) Robert G Hoyland. 2001. Arabia and the Arabs: From the Bronze Age to the Coming of Islam. Routledge. London. |
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"Sabaʾ’s culture was represented through a language, Sabaʾic, a pantheon, a calendar, and a dating system, all specific to this kingdom."
[1]
[1]: (Robin 2015: 94) Robin, Christian Julien. 2015. “Before Himyar: Epigraphic Evidence for the Kingdoms of South Arabia.” In Arabs and Empires before Islam, edited by Greg Fisher, 91-126. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Seshat URL: https://www-oxfordscholarship-com.ezp.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199654529.001.0001/acprof-9780199654529-chapter-3. |
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"Sabaʾ’s culture was represented through a language, Sabaʾic, a pantheon, a calendar, and a dating system, all specific to this kingdom."
[1]
[1]: (Robin 2015: 94) Robin, Christian Julien. 2015. “Before Himyar: Epigraphic Evidence for the Kingdoms of South Arabia.” In Arabs and Empires before Islam, edited by Greg Fisher, 91-126. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/ZMFH42PE. |
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"Sabaʾ’s culture was represented through a language, Sabaʾic, a pantheon, a calendar, and a dating system, all specific to this kingdom."
[1]
[1]: (Robin 2015: 94) Robin, Christian Julien. 2015. “Before Himyar: Epigraphic Evidence for the Kingdoms of South Arabia.” In Arabs and Empires before Islam, edited by Greg Fisher, 91-126. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Seshat URL: https://www-oxfordscholarship-com.ezp.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199654529.001.0001/acprof-9780199654529-chapter-3. |
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“Although not one of the richest graves at Tikal in terms of jade or other precious goods, Animal Skull’s Burial 195, embedded within Temple 32 of the North Acropolis, is certainly one of the most fascinating… The wooden hoards feature a damaged but legible date of 9.8.0.0.0 or 593, and go on to provide Animal Skull’s name, titles and Tikal emblem, as well as his status as a 3 K’atun Ajaw (i.e. aged between 39 and 59 years).”
[1]
[1]: (Martin and Grube 2000: 41) Martin, Simon and Grube, Nikolai. 2000. Chronicle of the Maya Kings and Queens: Deciphering the Dynasties of the Ancient Maya. London; New York: Thames & Hudson. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/5WIIDVRJ |
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“Throughout the early modern period the English were still using the Julian calendar, which was 10–11 days behind the more accurate Gregorian calendar in use on the continent from 1582. The British would not adopt the Gregorian calendar until the middle of the eighteenth century. Further, the year began on March 25. We give dates according to the Julian calendar, but assume the year to begin on January 1.”
[1]
[1]: (Bucholz et al 2013: xvi) Bucholz, Robert, Newton Key, and R.O. Bucholz. 2013. Early Modern England 1485-1714: A Narrative History. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uvic/detail.action?docID=1166775. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/XQGJH96U |
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At Canterbury Cathedral a silver tablet was found which listed the months and when hung from a chain acted as a portable sundial.
[1]
[1]: (Cathedral House and The Precincts Canterbury) ‘Anglo-Saxon Canterbury’, Canterbury Cathedral (blog). https://www.canterbury-cathedral.org/heritage/history/anglo-saxon-canterbury/. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/KTYTGA3V |
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e.g. 《紀元曆》, 《重修大明曆》
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e.g. Bureaucratic use.
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e.g. Used by bureaucracy.
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they possessed a lunar calendar and the hieroglyphs with which they could write it down
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they possessed a lunar calendar and the hieroglyphs with which they could write it down
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Islanders traditionally did not use a written calendar: ’The calendar of the Truk people has two annual seasons, räs, the breadfruit season, and äfän, the curcuma season, the northern trade season, which, of course, varies greatly. The names of the seasons are also used as designations for the entire year. Instead of saying, “I am 10 years old,” the Truk native says, “ e[unknown]ol ai räs” or “e[unknown]ol ai äfän,” that is, “I am 10 räs” or “I am 10 äfän old.” They also indeed have a name for year, namely, ir, the English /207/ word year. Similarly the word wik is of English origin (week) = Woche /“week” in German/.’
[1]
’The year of the Truk people is a lunar year and has 12 months ( maram). Some old pölu also say 13. But the 13th one is then only a substitute month for another one which is left out, so that in practice there are always only 12. The months are reckoned from the first quarter to the next first quarter. They regard as lying in between 30 moonlight nights ( puinin maram), the names of which are taken from the phases of the moon. The names of the months themselves are star names.’
[1]
’They are: 1. Oromai (Arcturus); 2. Täu; 3. Pumur (Scorpio); 4. Man (animal = large dog); 5. Mälap (the Great = Aquila); 6. Soda (the one lying toward sunrise = Equuleus); 7. Na (Pegasus); 8. Ku (Dolphin = Aries); 9. Un (Aldebaran); 10. Elimada; 11. Mörgör (Pleiades); 12. Elidau.’
[2]
’Another factor apparently of psychological importance in some case of isolation of Causcasians is the time dimension. For some reason, many people appear to cling with desperation to some ingeniously contrived means of estimating the time of day and the date, a last contact with reality or basis for hope which, when lost, marks their real breakdown. For the Trukese this is a matter of little or no concern. Aboriginally they were equipped to reckon the seasons, and to divide the day into morning, daytime, afternoon, evening, and night, but these were means for relating oneself to the realities of nature, not an arbitrary system for bounding one’s activities. In response to the demands of foreigners they have learned to tėll time and the date, but when not [Page 898] in a foreign context they pay little attention to either. A man who has acquired a watch and wears it as a sign of status is concerned if it does not run, but may not even bother to set it if he discovers it is an hour or two off. We may therefore conclude that losing track of the time, which so dismays Western castaways, matters little or not at all to the Trukese.’
[3]
Nevertheless, we have assumed that Christian missionaries also spread the use of calendars when they taught reading and writing.
[1]: Bollig, Laurentius 1927. “Inhabitants Of The Truk Islands: Religion, Life And A Short Grammar Of A Micronesian People”, 227 [2]: Bollig, Laurentius 1927. “Inhabitants Of The Truk Islands: Religion, Life And A Short Grammar Of A Micronesian People”, 228 [3]: Gladwin, Thomas 1958. “Canoe Travel In The Truk Area: Technology And Its Psychological Correlates”, 897 |
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Islamic calendar.
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Islamic calendar.
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Islamic calendar.
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inferred continuity with earlier periods
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inferred continuity with earlier and later periods
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Zoroastrian calendar.
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Literacy and concept of time present.
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Literacy and concept of time.
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Literacy and concept of time.
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First Roman calendar thought to be the 8th century BCE "Calendar of Romulus." Numa Pompilius reformed this calendar in 713 BCE>
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E.g. Christian calendar.
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E.g. Christian calendar.
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E.g. Christian calendar.
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The calendar followed the Gregorian Reform of the 16th century.
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E.g. Christian calendar.
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Julian calendar, in use since 46 BCE.
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Existing calendar of Numa, and the reform of Lex Acilia in 191 BCE.
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Islamic calender.
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Islamic calender.
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c582 CE: "The First Turkic Khaganate officially split into the Western and the Eastern Turkic Khaganate. In the Eastern Turkic Khaganate, the Sogdian language and script was used for chancellery purposes and inscriptions."
[1]
[1]: (Hosszú 2012, 285) Hosszú, G. 2012. Heritage of Scribes: The Relation of Rovas Scripts to Eurasian Writing Systems. Rovas Foundation. |
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Islamic calender.
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The ritual and secular calendars from the earlier periods continued to be in use until the Spanish conquest in the 1520s.
[1]
[1]: Marcus and Flannery (1996) Zapotec Civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley. Flannery and Marcus (1983) The Cloud People: divergent evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec civilizations. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Academic Press, New York. |
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Native time measurements followed the natural cycle: ’The Inonda people refer to the dry season as huvira because the huvira tree (Erythrina indica) flowers at that time. The wet season is divided into a number of periods which are recognized by the ripening of various nuts (especially hauga) and edible pit-pit (ina), and by the flowering of the garepa tree. For instance, the garepa season begins about November or December and lasts for two or three months. These are the wettest months of the year and plant growth is therefore rapid at that time. The pasiro (a variety of pit-pit) ripens about March, which is a time of more moderate rainfall. Food is in abundance at this period, and it is accordingly the most popular season for feasting.’
[1]
During the colonial period, European calendars were superimposed on the native system: ’In recent years, two further calendars have become superimposed upon the traditional one: that of the Christian festivals and that of the European economy, notably monthly coffee sales from June to December and the payment of Local Government Council tax supposedly in September.’
[2]
’The weekly pattern. The Sivepe people speak of Wednesdays as ‘Mission day’ (for work at Sasembata mission station), Fridays as ‘Council day’ (for road maintenance and cleaning the village) and Sundays as a day of rest and attendance at church services. Of the remaining days, Monday and Tuesday are devoted to cash cropping, and Thursday and Saturday to subsistence. They claim to have been directed by the Higaturu Local Government Council to work according to this routine and while it is not strictly adhered to, the concept of the week is firmly implanted in the Orokaiva mind (see Table 6:9).’
[3]
[1]: Crocombe, R. G., and G. R. (Geoffrey Robert) Hogbin 1963. “Land, Work, And Productivity At Inonda”, 6 [2]: Schwimmer, Eric G. 1969. “Cultural Consequences Of A Volcanic Eruption Experienced By The Mount Lamington Orokaiva”, 26 [3]: Waddell, Eric, and P. A. Krinks 1968. “Organisation Of Production And Distribution Among The Orokaiva: An Analysis Of Work And Exchange In Two Communities Participating In Both The Subsistence And Monetary Sectors Of The Economy”, 106 |
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Egyptian likely in use, transmitted via temples.
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-
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Islamic calendar.
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Islamic calendar.
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Islamic calendar.
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-
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-
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This is based on the codes for the Rasulids as ’Sultan ’Amir also appears to have been emulating the high period of Rasulid power a hundred years earlier’
[1]
[1]: Porter, Venetia Ann (1992) The history and monuments of the Tahirid dynasty of the Yemen 858-923/1454-1517, Durham theses, Durham University, p. 4 Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/5867/ |
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Islamic calendar.
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absent: 408-487 CE; present: 488-670 CE
[1]
Khwarazm region: "The Khwarazmian solar calendar, related to the Zoroastrian system, is known to us thanks to Biruni, who argued that it was in advance of most other ancient systems for measuring time."
[2]
[1]: Litvinsky B.A.,Guang-da Zhang , and Shabani Samghabadi R. (eds)History of Civilizations of Central Asia p. 143 [2]: (Starr 2013) Starr, S. Frederick. 2013. Lost Enlightenment: Central Asia’s Golden Age from the Arab Conquest to Tamerlane. Princeton University Press. Princeton. |
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"the former nomadic invaders came into possession of vast territories inhabited by settled agricultural peoples with a culture and traditions dating back many centuries, just as had been the case with the Tokharians ... who created the Kushan Empire. It seems likely that the administrative and government structure created by the Kushans was left largely intact under the Kidarites."
[1]
[1]: (Zeimal 1996, 132) Zeimal, E. V. The Kidarite Kingdom In Central Asia. in Litvinsky, B. A. ed. and Iskender-Mochiri, I. ed. 1996. History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Volume III. The crossroads of civilizations: A.D. 250 to 750. pp.123-137. unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0010/001046/104612e.pdf |
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“The twelve months of the Islamic calendar, in order are as follows (1) Muharram; (2) Safar; (3) Rab’I al-Awwal; (4) Rab’i al-Akhir (or al-Thani); (5) Jumada ‘l-Ula; (6) Jumada ‘l-Akhira; (7) Rajab (8) Sha’ban; (9) Ramadan; (10) Shawwal; (11) Dhu’-Qa’da and (12) Dhu ‘l Hijja.”
[1]
[1]: (Hanne 2006, 196) Hanne, Eric. 2006. ‘Dates and Calendars’ In Medieval Islamic Civilizations: A-K, Index. By Josef W. Meri. London: Routledge. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/search/Dates%20and%20Calendars/titleCreatorYear/items/8BDKDQRX/item-list |
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|
Islamic calendar. “The twelve months of the Islamic calendar, in order are as follows (1) Muharram; (2) Safar; (3) Rab’I al-Awwal; (4) Rab’i al-Akhir (or al-Thani); (5) Jumada ‘l-Ula; (6) Jumada ‘l-Akhira; (7) Rajab (8) Sha’ban; (9) Ramadan; (10) Shawwal; (11) Dhu’-Qa’da and (12) Dhu ‘l Hijja.”
[1]
[1]: (Hanne 2006, 196) Hanne, Eric. 2006. ‘Dates and Calendars’ In Medieval Islamic Civilizations: A-K, Index. By Josef W. Meri. London: Routledge. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/search/Dates%20and%20Calendars/titleCreatorYear/items/8BDKDQRX/item-list |
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“For example, the existence of a double recording system of lunar months is clearly documented in Somalia. There was normal usage to distinguish al-sana al-qama-riyya (‘lunar year’) – reckoned on the basis of months corresponding to the effective sightings of the new moon – from al-sana al-ta’ rīh iyya (‘civil year’) – reckoned according to the written Islamic calendar.”
[1]
[1]: (Classen 2010, 1654) Classen, Albrecht. 2010. Handbook of Medieval Studies: Terms, Methods, Trends. Berlin: De Gruyter. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/search/Classen/titleCreatorYear/items/R727NPC6/item-list |
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|
“Among Tigrinya Christians, the Church dominated every aspect of social life through its laws, calendar, and ownership of roughly one-third of Kebessa land.”
[1]
[1]: (Connell and Killion 2011, 410) Connell, Dan and Killion, Tom. 2011. Historical Dictionary of Eritrea. Second Edition. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/24ZMGPAA/collection |
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-
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|
“For example, the existence of a double recording system of lunar months is clearly documented in Somalia. There was normal usage to distinguish al-sana al-qama-riyya (‘lunar year’) – reckoned on the basis of months corresponding to the effective sightings of the new moon – from al-sana al-ta’ rīh iyya (‘civil year’) – reckoned according to the written Islamic calendar.”
[1]
[1]: (Classen 2010, 1654) Classen, Albrecht. 2010. Handbook of Medieval Studies: Terms, Methods, Trends. Berlin: De Gruyter. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/R727NPC6/library |
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|
“The twelve months of the Islamic calendar, in order are as follows (1) Muharram; (2) Safar; (3) Rab’I al-Awwal; (4) Rab’i al-Akhir (or al-Thani); (5) Jumada ‘l-Ula; (6) Jumada ‘l-Akhira; (7) Rajab (8) Sha’ban; (9) Ramadan; (10) Shawwal; (11) Dhu’-Qa’da and (12) Dhu ‘l Hijja.”
[1]
[1]: (Hanne 2006, 196) Hanne, Eric. 2006. ‘Dates and Calendars’ In Medieval Islamic Civilizations: A-K, Index. By Josef W. Meri. London: Routledge. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/search/Dates%20and%20Calendars/titleCreatorYear/items/8BDKDQRX/item-list |
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|
“The twelve months of the Islamic calendar, in order are as follows (1) Muharram; (2) Safar; (3) Rab’I al-Awwal; (4) Rab’i al-Akhir (or al-Thani); (5) Jumada ‘l-Ula; (6) Jumada ‘l-Akhira; (7) Rajab (8) Sha’ban; (9) Ramadan; (10) Shawwal; (11) Dhu’-Qa’da and (12) Dhu ‘l Hijja.”
[1]
[1]: (Hanne 2006, 196) Hanne, Eric. 2006. ‘Dates and Calendars’ In Medieval Islamic Civilizations: A-K, Index. By Josef W. Meri. London: Routledge. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/search/Dates%20and%20Calendars/titleCreatorYear/items/8BDKDQRX/item-list |
||||||
|
“The twelve months of the Islamic calendar, in order are as follows (1) Muharram; (2) Safar; (3) Rab’I al-Awwal; (4) Rab’i al-Akhir (or al-Thani); (5) Jumada ‘l-Ula; (6) Jumada ‘l-Akhira; (7) Rajab (8) Sha’ban; (9) Ramadan; (10) Shawwal; (11) Dhu’-Qa’da and (12) Dhu ‘l Hijja.”
[1]
[1]: (Hanne 2006, 196) Hanne, Eric. 2006. ‘Dates and Calendars’ In Medieval Islamic Civilizations: A-K, Index. By Josef W. Meri. London: Routledge. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/search/Dates%20and%20Calendars/titleCreatorYear/items/8BDKDQRX/item-list |
||||||
|
“The twelve months of the Islamic calendar in order, are as follows: (1) Muharram; (2) Safar; (3) Rabi’al-Awwal; (4) Rabi’al-Akhir (or al-Thani); (5) Jumada’l-Ula; (6) Jumada’l-Akhira; (7) Rajab; (8) Sha’ban; (9) Ramadan; (10) Shawwal; (11) Dhu’l-Qa’da; and (12) Dhu’l-Hijja. For administrative and agricultural reasons, medieval Muslims also used derivations of existing solar and/or fixed-month calendars from the region;”
[1]
[1]: (Hanne 2006, 196) Hanne, Eric. 2006. ‘Dates and Calendars’ In Josef W. Meri Medieval Islamic Civilization: A-K Index. London: Routledge. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/8BDKDQRX/library |
||||||
|
“The twelve months of the Islamic calendar, in order are as follows (1) Muharram; (2) Safar; (3) Rab’I al-Awwal; (4) Rab’i al-Akhir (or al-Thani); (5) Jumada ‘l-Ula; (6) Jumada ‘l-Akhira; (7) Rajab (8) Sha’ban; (9) Ramadan; (10) Shawwal; (11) Dhu’-Qa’da and (12) Dhu ‘l Hijja.”
[1]
[1]: (Hanne 2006, 196) Hanne, Eric. 2006. ‘Dates and Calendars’ In Medieval Islamic Civilizations: A-K, Index. By Josef W. Meri. London: Routledge. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/search/Dates%20and%20Calendars/titleCreatorYear/items/8BDKDQRX/item-list |
||||||
|
-
|
||||||
|
Islamic calendar.
|
||||||
|
“The twelve months of the Islamic calendar, in order are as follows (1) Muharram; (2) Safar; (3) Rab’I al-Awwal; (4) Rab’i al-Akhir (or al-Thani); (5) Jumada ‘l-Ula; (6) Jumada ‘l-Akhira; (7) Rajab (8) Sha’ban; (9) Ramadan; (10) Shawwal; (11) Dhu’-Qa’da and (12) Dhu ‘l Hijja.”
[1]
[1]: (Hanne 2006, 196) Hanne, Eric. 2006. ‘Dates and Calendars’ In Medieval Islamic Civilizations: A-K, Index. By Josef W. Meri. London: Routledge. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/search/Dates%20and%20Calendars/titleCreatorYear/items/8BDKDQRX/item-list |
||||||
|
“The twelve months of the Islamic calendar, in order are as follows (1) Muharram; (2) Safar; (3) Rab’I al-Awwal; (4) Rab’i al-Akhir (or al-Thani); (5) Jumada ‘l-Ula; (6) Jumada ‘l-Akhira; (7) Rajab (8) Sha’ban; (9) Ramadan; (10) Shawwal; (11) Dhu’-Qa’da and (12) Dhu ‘l Hijja.”
[1]
[1]: (Hanne 2006, 196) Hanne, Eric. 2006. ‘Dates and Calendars’ In Medieval Islamic Civilizations: A-K, Index. By Josef W. Meri. London: Routledge. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/search/Dates%20and%20Calendars/titleCreatorYear/items/8BDKDQRX/item-list |
||||||
|
“The twelve months of the Islamic calendar, in order are as follows (1) Muharram; (2) Safar; (3) Rab’I al-Awwal; (4) Rab’i al-Akhir (or al-Thani); (5) Jumada ‘l-Ula; (6) Jumada ‘l-Akhira; (7) Rajab (8) Sha’ban; (9) Ramadan; (10) Shawwal; (11) Dhu’-Qa’da and (12) Dhu ‘l Hijja.”
[1]
[1]: (Hanne 2006, 196) Hanne, Eric. 2006. ‘Dates and Calendars’ In Medieval Islamic Civilizations: A-K, Index. By Josef W. Meri. London: Routledge. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/search/Dates%20and%20Calendars/titleCreatorYear/items/8BDKDQRX/item-list |
||||||
|
“The twelve months of the Islamic calendar, in order are as follows (1) Muharram; (2) Safar; (3) Rab’I al-Awwal; (4) Rab’i al-Akhir (or al-Thani); (5) Jumada ‘l-Ula; (6) Jumada ‘l-Akhira; (7) Rajab (8) Sha’ban; (9) Ramadan; (10) Shawwal; (11) Dhu’-Qa’da and (12) Dhu ‘l Hijja.”
[1]
[1]: (Hanne 2006, 196) Hanne, Eric. 2006. ‘Dates and Calendars’ In Medieval Islamic Civilizations: A-K, Index. By Josef W. Meri. London: Routledge. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/search/Dates%20and%20Calendars/titleCreatorYear/items/8BDKDQRX/item-list |
||||||
|
“The twelve months of the Islamic calendar, in order are as follows (1) Muharram; (2) Safar; (3) Rab’I al-Awwal; (4) Rab’i al-Akhir (or al-Thani); (5) Jumada ‘l-Ula; (6) Jumada ‘l-Akhira; (7) Rajab (8) Sha’ban; (9) Ramadan; (10) Shawwal; (11) Dhu’-Qa’da and (12) Dhu ‘l Hijja.”
[1]
[1]: (Hanne 2006, 196) Hanne, Eric. 2006. ‘Dates and Calendars’ In Medieval Islamic Civilizations: A-K, Index. By Josef W. Meri. London: Routledge. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/search/Dates%20and%20Calendars/titleCreatorYear/items/8BDKDQRX/item-list |
||||||
|
“The twelve months of the Islamic calendar, in order are as follows (1) Muharram; (2) Safar; (3) Rab’I al-Awwal; (4) Rab’i al-Akhir (or al-Thani); (5) Jumada ‘l-Ula; (6) Jumada ‘l-Akhira; (7) Rajab (8) Sha’ban; (9) Ramadan; (10) Shawwal; (11) Dhu’-Qa’da and (12) Dhu ‘l Hijja.”
[1]
[1]: (Hanne 2006, 196) Hanne, Eric. 2006. ‘Dates and Calendars’ In Medieval Islamic Civilizations: A-K, Index. By Josef W. Meri. London: Routledge. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/search/Dates%20and%20Calendars/titleCreatorYear/items/8BDKDQRX/item-list |
||||||
|
Islamic calendar. “The twelve months of the Islamic calendar, in order are as follows (1) Muharram; (2) Safar; (3) Rab’I al-Awwal; (4) Rab’i al-Akhir (or al-Thani); (5) Jumada ‘l-Ula; (6) Jumada ‘l-Akhira; (7) Rajab (8) Sha’ban; (9) Ramadan; (10) Shawwal; (11) Dhu’-Qa’da and (12) Dhu ‘l Hijja.”
[1]
[1]: (Hanne 2006, 196) Hanne, Eric. 2006. ‘Dates and Calendars’ In Medieval Islamic Civilizations: A-K, Index. By Josef W. Meri. London: Routledge. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/search/Dates%20and%20Calendars/titleCreatorYear/items/8BDKDQRX/item-list |
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|
“The twelve months of the Islamic calendar, in order are as follows (1) Muharram; (2) Safar; (3) Rab’I al-Awwal; (4) Rab’i al-Akhir (or al-Thani); (5) Jumada ‘l-Ula; (6) Jumada ‘l-Akhira; (7) Rajab (8) Sha’ban; (9) Ramadan; (10) Shawwal; (11) Dhu’-Qa’da and (12) Dhu ‘l Hijja.”
[1]
[1]: (Hanne 2006, 196) Hanne, Eric. 2006. ‘Dates and Calendars’ In Medieval Islamic Civilizations: A-K, Index. By Josef W. Meri. London: Routledge. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/search/Dates%20and%20Calendars/titleCreatorYear/items/8BDKDQRX/item-list |
||||||
|
“The twelve months of the Islamic calendar, in order are as follows (1) Muharram; (2) Safar; (3) Rab’I al-Awwal; (4) Rab’i al-Akhir (or al-Thani); (5) Jumada ‘l-Ula; (6) Jumada ‘l-Akhira; (7) Rajab (8) Sha’ban; (9) Ramadan; (10) Shawwal; (11) Dhu’-Qa’da and (12) Dhu ‘l Hijja.”
[1]
[1]: (Hanne 2006, 196) Hanne, Eric. 2006. ‘Dates and Calendars’ In Medieval Islamic Civilizations: A-K, Index. By Josef W. Meri. London: Routledge. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/search/Dates%20and%20Calendars/titleCreatorYear/items/8BDKDQRX/item-list |
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“Moreover, in ancient India itself the dominant calendar is known, again through vedic sources, to have been lunar, whereas the 360- day savana year seems only to have functioned in certain contexts as a simplified scheme.”
[1]
[1]: (Stern 2012, 189) Stern, Sacha. 2012. Calendars in Antiquity: Empires, States, and Societies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/N6QDRSRQ/library |
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“Essentially, the Tamil calendar is a solar calendar, with aspects of the lunar cycle incorporated for fixing certain religious and temple festivals. The Tamil month begins when the sun enters a particular iraci (rasi-zodiac). Therefore, the number of days in a particular month does not remain constant or equal, although on the average the length of the year is 365 days.”
[1]
[1]: (Venkateswaran 2018, 274) Venkateswaran, T.V. 2018. ‘Ragoonatha Charry and his ‘Scientific’ Pancanga. In The Growth and Development of Astronomy and Astrophysics in India and the Asia-Pacific Region. London: Springer. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/7AH4P2I9/collection |
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“Moreover, in ancient India itself the dominant calendar is known, again through vedic sources, to have been lunar, whereas the 360- day savana year seems only to have functioned in certain contexts as a simplified scheme.”
[1]
[1]: (Stern 2012, 189) Stern, Sacha. 2012. Calendars in Antiquity: Empires, States, and Societies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/N6QDRSRQ/library |
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Islamic calendar. “The twelve months of the Islamic calendar, in order are as follows (1) Muharram; (2) Safar; (3) Rab’I al-Awwal; (4) Rab’i al-Akhir (or al-Thani); (5) Jumada ‘l-Ula; (6) Jumada ‘l-Akhira; (7) Rajab (8) Sha’ban; (9) Ramadan; (10) Shawwal; (11) Dhu’-Qa’da and (12) Dhu ‘l Hijja.”
[1]
[1]: (Hanne 2006, 196) Hanne, Eric. 2006. ‘Dates and Calendars’ In Medieval Islamic Civilizations: A-K, Index. By Josef W. Meri. London: Routledge. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/search/Dates%20and%20Calendars/titleCreatorYear/items/8BDKDQRX/item-list |
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“Moreover, in ancient India itself the dominant calendar is known, again through vedic sources, to have been lunar, whereas the 360- day savana year seems only to have functioned in certain contexts as a simplified scheme.”
[1]
[1]: (Stern 2012, 189) Stern, Sacha. 2012. Calendars in Antiquity: Empires, States, and Societies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/N6QDRSRQ/library |
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“Moreover, in ancient India itself the dominant calendar is known, again through vedic sources, to have been lunar, whereas the 360- day savana year seems only to have functioned in certain contexts as a simplified scheme.”
[1]
[1]: (Stern 2012, 189) Stern, Sacha. 2012. Calendars in Antiquity: Empires, States, and Societies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/N6QDRSRQ/library |
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“Essentially, the Tamil calendar is a solar calendar, with aspects of the lunar cycle incorporated for fixing certain religious and temple festivals. The Tamil month begins when the sun enters a particular iraci (rasi-zodiac). Therefore, the number of days in a particular month does not remain constant or equal, although on the average the length of the year is 365 days.”
[1]
[1]: (Venkateswaran 2018, 274) Venkateswaran, T.V. 2018. ‘Ragoonatha Charry and his ‘Scientific’ Pancanga. In The Growth and Development of Astronomy and Astrophysics in India and the Asia-Pacific Region. London: Springer. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/7AH4P2I9/collection |
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“Essentially, the Tamil calendar is a solar calendar, with aspects of the lunar cycle incorporated for fixing certain religious and temple festivals. The Tamil month begins when the sun enters a particular iraci (rasi-zodiac). Therefore, the number of days in a particular month does not remain constant or equal, although on the average the length of the year is 365 days.”
[1]
“The Pudu Mandapa is sometimes called the Vasanta or Spring Mandapa, a reference to the time of year when it is used. Vasanta is the Sanskrit term for the two Tamil months of Cittirai and Vaikaci (May-June).”
[2]
[1]: (Venkateswaran 2018, 274) Venkateswaran, T.V. 2018. ‘Ragoonatha Charry and his ‘Scientific’ Pancanga. In The Growth and Development of Astronomy and Astrophysics in India and the Asia-Pacific Region. London: Springer. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/7AH4P2I9/collection [2]: (Branfoot 2001, 195) Branfoot, Crispin. 2001. ‘Tirumala Nayaka’s ‘New Hall’ and the European Study of the South Indian Temple. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. Vol 11:2. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/FE5VZ76M/collection |
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During the period from 1776 to 1910, the Russian Empire used the Julian calendar.
[1]
[1]: “Russian Calendar History,” accessed November 24, 2023, https://myweb.ecu.edu/mccartyr/Russia.html. Zotero link: 6ISBAAIB |
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Calendars likely produced and used by literate, high-ranking mercantile minority. "In southern Senegambia, where non-Manding populations predominated, Manding was a prestigious language of the pagan aristocracy and, on the other hand, the language of the Muslim merchant network of Jakhanke. The existence of Manding Ajami in that area was already attested in the first half of the 18th century (Labat 1728; cited by Giesing & Costa-Dias 2007: 63), long before the pagan rule of the ñàncoo elite of the Kaabu was definitely smashed by Muslim Fulbe troops from Fuuta Jalon. In any case, the emergence of Ajami is not related to the establishment of a Muslim political power in this area: the main holders of Islamic writing in the area, the Jakhanke merchants, were for centuries integrated into the social system of the Kaabu confederation and often served as advisers and intermediates for the political elites."
[1]
"A number of terms have been used in this volume to refer to the usage of Arabic script for languages other than Arabic. Crosslinguistically, such writing systems are often termed ‘Arabic literature’, ‘Islamic literature’ or ‘Islamic writings’, and locally they are known by a large number of names, such as Wolofal, or Kiarabu. The term Ajami in particular (or variations, such as Äjam, Ajamiya, etc.), derived from the Arabic word ʿaǧam ‘non-Arab; Persian’, has gained some degree of popularity in academic literature and is also encountered as a self-denomination for these writing systems in some languages, such as Hausa."
[2]
[1]: (Vydrin 2014: 201-202) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/E8Z57DNC/collection. [2]: (Mumin and Verstegh 2014: 1) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/PVIK4HGV/collection. |
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"In the field of religion and culture, the nineteenth century is said to have witnessed the golden age of Islam in the Futa Jalon. It was the century of great scholars and the growth of Islamic culture. All the disciplines of the Quran were known and taught: translation, the hadiths, law, apologetics, the ancillary sciences such as grammar, rhetoric, literature, astronomy, local works in Pular and Arabic, and mysticism. Nineteenth-century European visitors were highly impressed by the extent of the Islamization, which was visible in the large number of mosques and schools at all levels, the degree of scholarship, the richness of the libraries, and the widespread practice of Islamic worship. All this seems to have been facilitated by the use of the local language, Pular, as a medium of teaching and popularization of Islamic rules and doctrine."
[1]
[1]: (Barry 2005: 539) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/SU25S5BX/items/6TXWGHAX/item-list |
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Islamic calendar likely came with mallams.
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Given the highly Islamicised nature of the Kanem-Bornu Empire, the adoption of the Islamic calendar is very likely. No clear reference was, however, found on its use in the scholarship.
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“Essentially, the Tamil calendar is a solar calendar, with aspects of the lunar cycle incorporated for fixing certain religious and temple festivals. The Tamil month begins when the sun enters a particular iraci (rasi-zodiac). Therefore, the number of days in a particular month does not remain constant or equal, although on the average the length of the year is 365 days.”
[1]
[1]: (Venkateswaran 2018, 274) Venkateswaran, T.V. 2018. ‘Ragoonatha Charry and his ‘Scientific’ Pancanga. In The Growth and Development of Astronomy and Astrophysics in India and the Asia-Pacific Region. London: Springer. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/7AH4P2I9/collection |
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The Russian Empire used the Julian calendar.
[1]
[1]: “Russian Calendar History,” accessed November 24, 2023, https://myweb.ecu.edu/mccartyr/Russia.html. Zotero link: 6ISBAAIB |
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The following quote implies that indigenous writing emerged in the region in the 19th century. "The first documented autochthonous, Mande script to appear in West Africa was the one created by Duala Bukere from Grand Cape Mount County in Liberia who created a Vai syllabary in 1833, which has been standardized to 212 characters (Dalby, 1967: 14-18). [...] Appearing first in the region, the Vai syllabary became the prototype for other writing systems that were created in the inter-wars among indigenous peoples in Sierra Leone and Liberia. Speakers of southern Mande languages such as the Mende (1921) and the Kpelle (1935), and speakers of the Kru languages such as the Bassa (1920-25) have based their writing systems on the syllabary (Dalby, 1967: 2-4)."
[1]
[1]: (Oyler 2001: 75) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/X7HQWWH9/collection. |
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England/Britain used the Julian calendar until adopting the Gregorian calendar in the mid-eighteenth century.
[1]
[1]: (Bucholz et al 2013: xvi) Bucholz, Robert, Newton Key, and R.O. Bucholz. 2013. Early Modern England 1485-1714: A Narrative History. Chicester, UK: John Wiley & Sons. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uvic/detail.action?docID=1166775. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/XQGJH96U |
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Britain used the Gregorian calendar from the mid-eighteenth century.
[1]
[1]: (Bucholz et al 2013: xvi) Bucholz, Robert, Newton Key, and R.O. Bucholz. 2013. Early Modern England 1485-1714: A Narrative History. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uvic/detail.action?docID=1166775. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/XQGJH96U |
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In 1923, a radical change in the calendar took place. Soviet Russia abolished both the Julian calendar, used by the Russian Orthodox Church, and the official Gregorian calendar that had been installed by Lenin. A new calendar was introduced, in which the weeks were changed and all religious feasts and holy days were replaced by five national public holidays associated with the Revolution.
[1]
[1]: “Russian Calendar History.” Accessed November 24, 2023. https://myweb.ecu.edu/mccartyr/Russia.html. Zotero link: 6ISBAAIB |
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"what do the highly sophisticated calendar systems that were in use in Khwarazm, Bactria, Parthia, Tokharistan, and Sogdiana tell us about the state of Central Asian science in the pre-Islamic centuries? It is surely worth noting that Biruni’s research on calendar systems, which he undertook in the early years of the eleventh century, took as its point of departure the Khwarazian calendar."
[1]
[1]: (Starr 2013) Starr, S. Frederick. 2013. Lost Enlightenment: Central Asia’s Golden Age from the Arab Conquest to Tamerlane. Princeton University Press. Princeton. |
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“The twelve months of the Islamic calendar, in order are as follows (1) Muharram; (2) Safar; (3) Rab’I al-Awwal; (4) Rab’i al-Akhir (or al-Thani); (5) Jumada ‘l-Ula; (6) Jumada ‘l-Akhira; (7) Rajab (8) Sha’ban; (9) Ramadan; (10) Shawwal; (11) Dhu’-Qa’da and (12) Dhu ‘l Hijja.”
[1]
[1]: (Hanne 2006, 196) Hanne, Eric. 2006. ‘Dates and Calendars’ In Medieval Islamic Civilizations: A-K, Index. By Josef W. Meri. London: Routledge. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/search/Dates%20and%20Calendars/titleCreatorYear/items/8BDKDQRX/item-list |
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The cultic calendar.
[1]
"During the period of the primacy of Hattusa, the Hittites are best known from their royal library and archives excavated at that site, written in the Cuneiform script on clay tablets, a script and medium borrowed from Mesopotamia. These archives, comprising many thousands of tablets, contain every kind of royal chancellery document: annals; edicts, treaties and laws; verdicts, protocols and administrative texts; letters; and a large number of religious texts, rituals and festivals."
[2]
[1]: Collins B.J.(2007) The Hittites and Their World, (Society of Biblical literature archaeology and Biblical studies; no. 7), Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, pp. 162 [2]: (Hawkins 2000, 2) John David Hawkins. 2000. Corpus of Hieroglyphic Luwian Inscriptions. Volume I. Inscriptions of the Iron Age. Walter de Gruyter. Berlin. |
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“For example, the existence of a double recording system of lunar months is clearly documented in Somalia. There was normal usage to distinguish al-sana al-qama-riyya (‘lunar year’) – reckoned on the basis of months corresponding to the effective sightings of the new moon – from al-sana al-ta’ rīh iyya (‘civil year’) – reckoned according to the written Islamic calendar.”
[1]
[1]: (Classen 2010, 1654) Classen, Albrecht. 2010. Handbook of Medieval Studies: Terms, Methods, Trends. Berlin: De Gruyter. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/search/Classen/titleCreatorYear/items/R727NPC6/item-list |
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“For example, the existence of a double recording system of lunar months is clearly documented in Somalia. There was normal usage to distinguish al-sana al-qama-riyya (‘lunar year’) – reckoned on the basis of months corresponding to the effective sightings of the new moon – from al-sana al-ta’ rīh iyya (‘civil year’) – reckoned according to the written Islamic calendar.”
[1]
[1]: (Classen 2010, 1654) Classen, Albrecht. 2010. Handbook of Medieval Studies: Terms, Methods, Trends. Berlin: De Gruyter. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/R727NPC6/library |
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“For example, the existence of a double recording system of lunar months is clearly documented in Somalia. There was normal usage to distinguish al-sana al-qama-riyya (‘lunar year’) – reckoned on the basis of months corresponding to the effective sightings of the new moon – from al-sana al-ta’ rīh iyya (‘civil year’) – reckoned according to the written Islamic calendar.”
[1]
[1]: (Classen 2010, 1654) Classen, Albrecht. 2010. Handbook of Medieval Studies: Terms, Methods, Trends. Berlin: De Gruyter. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/R727NPC6/library |
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“The twelve months of the Islamic calendar, in order are as follows (1) Muharram; (2) Safar; (3) Rab’I al-Awwal; (4) Rab’i al-Akhir (or al-Thani); (5) Jumada ‘l-Ula; (6) Jumada ‘l-Akhira; (7) Rajab (8) Sha’ban; (9) Ramadan; (10) Shawwal; (11) Dhu’-Qa’da and (12) Dhu ‘l Hijja.”
[1]
[1]: (Hanne 2006, 196) Hanne, Eric. 2006. ‘Dates and Calendars’ In Medieval Islamic Civilizations: A-K, Index. By Josef W. Meri. London: Routledge. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/search/Dates%20and%20Calendars/titleCreatorYear/items/8BDKDQRX/item-list |
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“The twelve months of the Islamic calendar, in order are as follows (1) Muharram; (2) Safar; (3) Rab’I al-Awwal; (4) Rab’i al-Akhir (or al-Thani); (5) Jumada ‘l-Ula; (6) Jumada ‘l-Akhira; (7) Rajab (8) Sha’ban; (9) Ramadan; (10) Shawwal; (11) Dhu’-Qa’da and (12) Dhu ‘l Hijja.”
[1]
[1]: (Hanne 2006, 196) Hanne, Eric. 2006. ‘Dates and Calendars’ In Medieval Islamic Civilizations: A-K, Index. By Josef W. Meri. London: Routledge. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/search/Dates%20and%20Calendars/titleCreatorYear/items/8BDKDQRX/item-list |
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“For example, the existence of a double recording system of lunar months is clearly documented in Somalia. There was normal usage to distinguish al-sana al-qama-riyya (‘lunar year’) – reckoned on the basis of months corresponding to the effective sightings of the new moon – from al-sana al-ta’ rīh iyya (‘civil year’) – reckoned according to the written Islamic calendar.”
[1]
[1]: (Classen 2010, 1654) Classen, Albrecht. 2010. Handbook of Medieval Studies: Terms, Methods, Trends. Berlin: De Gruyter. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/R727NPC6/library |
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Literate culture.
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No information found in sources so far.
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e.g. used by government
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e.g. by court/government
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likely used by government officials
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"Literacy entered Uganda for the first time with the introduction of Islam in the late 1860’s and for nearly a decade instruction in Islam was progressing and flourishing at the royal court. When literacy was introduced into the kingdom of Buganda, it was confined to speakers of Arabic and Kiswahili. "
[1]
[1]: (Pawliková-Vilhanová 2014: 145) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/T7IMKZJJ. |
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no clear evidence found
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no clear evidence found
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"Literacy entered Uganda for the first time with the introduction of Islam in the late 1860’s and for nearly a decade instruction in Islam was progressing and flourishing at the royal court. When literacy was introduced into the kingdom of Buganda, it was confined to speakers of Arabic and Kiswahili. "
[1]
[1]: (Pawliková-Vilhanová 2014: 145) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/T7IMKZJJ. |
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The following quote suggests that this era has left behind few written texts. "Historical information on those emerging years of the empire is dim and has to be carefully extracted from the accounts of Arab writers (Levtzion and Hopkins 1981), the scanty internal evidence in the Kanem-Borno king lists (Lange 1977), and the few fragments of internal scripts that have been recorded by the German traveler Heinrich Barth (1857-59; Lange 1987) and the British colonial officer Richmond Palmer (1967; 1970)."
[1]
[1]: (Gronenborn 2002: 103) |
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