The page has now been turned on 2014, and as we begin a new year, editor Chad Merchant ponders just how we’ve come to mark the passage of time in the different ways that we do.

New Year’s Day – that is to say, the one on the Gregorian calendar – is the most widely celebrated single holiday on Earth, the closest thing we have to a truly global public holiday. Different countries and religions also use separate calendars, of course, so there are many other “new year” celebrations in other cultures apart from January 1, but most of those countries still observe and celebrate the common new year, too. Like many aspects marking time, it’s all somewhat fuzzy – time is that great and complex concept that both binds us and eludes us simultaneously. Much of it is tied to astronomical events, but some of it is quite arbitrary, archaic remnants from civilizations long gone from the world.

As we collectively embark on another trip around our sun, I found myself pondering all this. Like most people, I suspect, I never give much thought to time apart from its pressing influence on my day-to-day life. I know a year is one revolution around the sun, and a day marks a complete rotation of the Earth on its axis. But why 24 hours in a day, or seven days in a week – and what is this arbitrary division of a week, anyway? – and what’s the story behind the sexagesimal nature of minutes and seconds? I didn’t even know that word, but it’s related to the base-60 counting system. Today, we use the base-10, or decimal, system, but base-60 was used by the Babylonians, who inherited it from the Sumerians who were using the system well over 5,000 years ago, and it’s all down to divisibility. Though the numbers themselves are arbitrary, for dividing a day into segments, and for dividing those segments further still, 24 and 60 simply work better than any others. It was the ancient Egyptians who first used 24 hours to divide the day, using 12 hours from sunrise to sunset and 12 hours from sunset to the next sunrise. With that system in place, 60 was the best choice mathematically because it’s evenly divisible by plenty of smaller numbers (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, and 30). It’s pretty amazing that human beings sorted this out so long ago, and even more amazing that the system they devised spread around the world and is still firmly in use today.

The week is seven days long because of ancient Jewish observers who sought to follow the Bible’s “seven days of creation” story, with six days of work followed by a day of rest. Ancient Romans, however, actually used an eight-day week, with the days named simply by the letters A through H, with one day of the eight set aside for shopping. The other days were designated by their proximity to this shopping day, and this arrangement actually changed from week to week (so the shopping day wasn’t always “H”). After the introduction of the Julian calendar, the seven-day week began to grow in popularity, but it wasn’t a sudden change at all. For quite a long time, in fact, both the seven-day and eight-day weeks were used in Rome simultaneously. You can imagine the confusion. Finally, in 321 CE, Emperor Constantine decreed that the seven-day week would be the officially used one, and over the next few centuries, it took hold throughout Europe, largely because of the influence of Rome and the new Christian religion in that era.

The Romans named the seven days for their own gods, but as these names were adopted by other peoples of Europe, some of the names were changed to reflect other gods. Indeed, it is largely the Germanic and Norse gods whose names persist today for the names of the days in the English-speaking world. Some are named for well-known deities, like Woden’s Day (Wednesday), another name for the Norse god Odin, or Thor’s Day (Thursday), the Norse god of thunder. But Tuesday was named for a lesser-known god of war from the Germanic pantheon, Tiu. Friday is connected to Freya, the Norse goddess of love, and Saturday is named for the Roman god, Saturn. Sunday and Monday were named for the sun and moon, respectively. As for months, the ancient Roman calendar used to have only 10 of them, the first four named for Roman gods, and the final six named for their position in the calendar: Quintilis (5), Sextilis (6), September (7), October (8), November (9), and December
(10). (Now I’m wondering why October isn’t “Octember.”) During the reign of Julius Caesar, however, Roman astronomers found a need to have 12 months in a year rather than 10, with the addition of a leap year to synchronize the calendar with the seasons and lunar cycles of the year. Thus, the new months of January and February were added to the calendar, and the previous fifth and sixth months were repositioned as the seventh and eighth and renamed July and August, in honour of Julius and his successor, Augustus. Because these months were named after such auspicious leaders, they were given 31 days rather than 30.

So enjoy your next journey around the sun as you welcome 2015, and may it be a year of happiness, good health, and discovery for you. And as you glance at your watch or check your calendar, remember to thank the Egyptians, the Romans, the Babylonians, the Sumerians, and the Jews
for all our myriad ways of measuring the passage of our time here on Earth.

Read more:

• How to Spice Up Your Daily Routine after Getting Used to Life in Malaysia
• Be Reasonable when Making Resolutions and New Plans for the New Year
• Life in the Booming State of Johor

What are your thoughts on this article? Let us know by commenting below. No registration needed.

Source: The Expat Magazine Janury 2015