Astronomical calendars

Proceedings of the Conference ASTRONOMY of ANCIENT SOCIETIES of the European Society for Astronomy in Culture (SEAC) associated with the Joint European and National Astronomical Meeting (JENAM) Moscow, May 23-27, 2000, 2002

On the island of Gotland, in the middle of the Baltic Sea, there exist about 3600 grooves cut in the bedrock or on big stones. They can be found on the ancient shores of lakes and in connection with the coastal settlements and finds of the Neolithic Pitted Ware Culture. The grooves have a typical length of 50-110 cm, width of 5-10 cm and depth of 1-10 cm. They follow closely a circular arc in both the length and width crosssections (Fig. 1; 2). The surface is very smooth and they must have been cut by a stable machine, using quartz sand and water (Fig. 3) The mean of the radius of curvature for ca 400 grooves is 2.83 m.

Mediterranean Archaeology and Archaeometry, Vol. 18, No 4, 2018

The present research aims to clarify a certain visual and mythical–poetic elements of Lithuanian folk culture as codified images and symbols associated with the mythology of Baltic Aušra, Aušrinė (Morning star, Sun Maiden and Sunrise) and to highlight previously unnoticed systemic relations between investigated cultural phenomena, based on the tradition of the mythical world–view. Forms of particular rake type patterns in folk textiles, their ancient archaeological analogues, and their folk names are analysed. Comb/rake pattern forms and folk names are investigated as elements of mythical–poetic images, related to a combing action, in folklore and customs associated with textile techniques. Ethnographic, folkloric and archaeological data, and other local cultural and transcultural material is examined from an interdisciplinary perspective, using historical and typological comparative and semiotic approaches, and from ethnological and mythological points of view. The investigation of the Aušrinė image mythical–poetic context of wedding folklore, customs, textile technologies and patterns reveals that its semantic field embraces folkloric extraordinary maidens, divine virgins, characterised by the attributes of comb and rake, and the actions of hair combing and hair braiding, and hay raking. Magic–symbolic hair combing and braiding actions were very important in Baltic wedding rites of passage. This kind of textile technique, as well as the comb pattern on sashes in this context, are interpreted as a codification of the wedding transformation related to Morning Star mythology.

Fragmentology, A Journal for the Study of Medieval Manuscript Fragments, 2020

The Gambera Missal is an illustrated missal written around 1500, now in the Archivio Capitolare at Casale Monferrato. The manuscript includes the text of a Latin metrical calendar (the “Metrical Calendar of Gambera” or MCG) which, based on the feasts included, was suggested to have been composed some 450 years earlier and had a connection to the Abbey of St. Gall. This article discusses a second witness to the MCG, a single leaf that was used as a binding for a seventeenth-century book. The fragment has metrical text and computistical data virtually identical to that in the Gambera manuscript, and a large Ottonian painted KL (for “Kalends”). Based on the handwriting and style of the initials, the fragment dates to the second-half of the tenth century, likely from the Lake Constance area.

The following calendar systems, introduced in Europe from 18 th to 20 th century, which were in use for a shorter or longer period by a larger or smaller community, were reviewed and discussed: The French Revolutionary Calendar, the Theosebic calendar invented by Theophilos Kairis, the Revolutionary Calendar of the Soviet Union (or ’Bolshevik calendar’), the Fascist calendar in Italy and the calendar of the Metaxas dictatorship in Greece before World War II. Also the unique of them, which is still in use, the New Rectified Julian calendar of the Orthodox Church, adopted according to proposition of Milutin Milankovi ́c on the Congress of Orthodox Churches in 1923 in Constantinople, is presented and discussed. At the end, difficulties to introduce a new calendar are discussed as well.

This essay is an attempt to construct an annual calendrical model that would have existed among the heathen peoples of Scandinavia and Northern Europe prior to the advent of the Christian “Julian“ calendar. The evidence suggests that this annual cycle would be based around the movements of the sun and the moon, which determined when seasonal festivals and “holy times” took place. Such a model should help to reveal widespread and deep rooted traditions around the annual cycle that existed among heathen people prior to and during the Viking Age.

Some number crunching about the number of lines and strokes which occur on the so called Karanovo Calendar. We compare the figures to astronomical data. English translation with a little update. Published at www.Forschungskontor.de (private website of the author)

2006

One of the first things archaeologists try to define when dealing with an artefact or site is its age. Radiocarbon dating of organic material is the most common method used in modern archaeology to determine the age of an object. However, the selection of which organic material should be used for dating an object is not always very straightforward, since the received dates from radiocarbon dating can be skewed significantly by sample contamination, reservoir effects, old wood effects, and other factors. Large uncertainties in the reported radiocarbon age, and/or wide gaps between multiple dates from the same site, are indicators of problems in sample selection for dating. The present chronology of east Baltic prehistory is mainly built on such problematic dates. The aim of this paper is to draw attention to such potential problems, and discuss the challenges involved in the determination of a more precise chronology for our past.

BFI Working Paper Series WP-1-2024, 2024

The traditional societies evolved locally with the realms of time in their calendars while modern Gregorian based on the solar movement and some others use lunar or the combination with solar. Unveiling some information from the old manuscripts to gain the realm of traditional Batak people since the ancient times in settlements surrounding the tropical Lake Toba, North Sumatera, Indonesia, revival of cosmos is delivered. Uniquely the ancient Batak count days in a month by observing lunar phase and the period of year is by looking the observable Constellation of Orion & Scorpius within the new phase of the moon. Thus there are years with 12 months and some leap years with 13 months, and we propose to categorize the calendar to be lunar-star, relative to other widely analyzed calendars. In the realization of the use of the cosmogram, we cross the period of the leap year to the examination of contemporary data on agriculture event, i.e.: crop failure, as well as some profiles on weather. The revival of the Batak Calendar opens further interesting conjectures based on the rich cultural and astronomical knowledge embedded in tradition with deep connection between celestial observations and timekeeping.