This book is an attempt to undermine the pillars on which Egyptian chronology has been built, in particular the view “that the Egyptians had monitored the heliacal risings of Sirius [Sothis] for millennia, and in such a way that we can date the various pharaohs and dynasties of even three or four thousand years ago by means of the ‘Sothic dates’ that they sometimes seem to provide” . For the most part, the book is a reevaluation of key (...) class='Hi'>calendar‐associated sources , but in the final chapters the author proposes a radical revision of the chronology of ancient Egypt. On the basis of a new analysis of the lunar dates in the El‐Lahun papyri, he shifts the Twelfth Dynasty, and by implication the whole Middle Kingdom , by some fifteen centuries to the period immediately preceding the conquest of Egypt by Alexander the Great in 332 b.c.In doing so, Lynn Rose follows in the footsteps of Immanuel Velikovsky, whose unproven theory of a near‐collision between Earth and Venus in the seventh century b.c. he fully accepts. In his opinion, all documents referring to a year of 365 or 365¼ days or lunar months of 29½ days must therefore be younger than this supposed catastrophe. The evidence presented to support these and other assumptions is unconvincing. Moreover, his overall approach is methodologically rather questionable. Convinced as he is of the superiority of astronomical evidence that must be considered decisive, Rose has little or no regard for historical, iconographic, and archaeological sources. And when he does refer to such material, it is only to dismiss it outright as suspect , anachronistic , or even censored . He also fails to take into account the evolution of script over a period of fifteen centuries, when he proposes to shift the El‐Lahun papyri, written in the so‐called hieratic script, from the nineteenth to the fourth century b.c.Despite all these flaws, some parts of Sun, Moon, and Sothis deserve to be taken into consideration. This is especially true of the reassessment of the 25‐year lunar cycle in the opening chapters, by far the best part of the book. Also interesting and useful are Rose's system to retrocalculate the dates of heliacal risings of Sirius and his discussion of the true length of the Sothic cycle. His findings in this respect should be compared with those of other scholars who have recently worked on the subject . Unfortunately, Rose himself ignores much of the recent work, not only on the heliacal risings of Sirius but also on the Egyptian calendar in general.Finally, I have the impression that the author has a somewhat anachronistic idea of how ancient calendars and cycles functioned in practice. He believes in their rigid application and thinks that the ancients took a similar approach to these devices. In this respect, he should have remembered the words of one of the authors mentioned in his bibliography, E. J. Bickerman, who wrote, precisely with regard to the Egyptian calendar and Sothic dating: “A calendar is a tool which cannot be justified by either logic or astronomy”. (shrink)

Os anos egípcios eram de 365 dias contados a partir da subida ao trono de cada rei. Esta contagem era independente das três estações em que se subdividia o ano solar, marcadas pelas necessidades agrícolas. As semanas iniciais de sete e oito dias, motivadas pelas fases lunares, cedo foram ultrapassadas por um sistema muito mais regular de meses de três décadas, cada uma marcada pelo aparecimento de um decano. Os decanos eram 36 estrelas visíveis por períodos de dez dias, completando-se (...) o ano com os cinco dias epagómenos. Sírio, a primeira, marcava outro início do ano. Em vez de utilizarem dois calendários, um baseado no Sol e na Lua, e outro na elevação helíaca de Sírio, reuniram os ciclos do Sol, da Lua e de Sírio num sistema único, um «grande ano», um sistema que anulava o atraso que o calendário tinha em relação ao tempo astral de um dia de quatro em quatro anos, ao fim dos 1461 anos do período sotíaco. (shrink)

(1984). A CALENDAR FOR THE MESSIANIC AGE A CONCEPT OF HENDRIK NICLAES, FOUNDER OF THE HOUSE OF LOVE / A Calendar for the Messianic Age, a concept of Hendrik Niclaes, Founder of The House of Love. Bijdragen: Vol. 45, No. 3, pp. 276-294.

This essay explores the astronomical works of Pierre de Lille, a little-known French participant in the debates on calendar reform during the Fifth Lateran Council (1512–1517). It argues that astrological ideas coupled with eschatological beliefs motivated his astronomical propositions to reform the Julian calendar. De Lille conceived the calendar solar year as a unit of a great cosmic year spanning 7,153 years, the duration that he assigned to the now-obsolete theory of the motion of trepidation of the (...) eighth sphere. Although his use of this astronomical model for astrological speculations about world chronology was not new, de Lille gave an original and bold reply to Pico della Mirandola’s devastating critique of astrology. The astronomical model and its astrological implications were eventually contested at the court and in academia in France, but the alliance of chronology, astrology, and apocalypticism was to play a major role during the second half of the sixteenth century in Lutheran thought. (shrink)

A large class of problems deals with temporal data. Identifying temporal patterns in these datasets is a natural as well as an important task. In recent times, researchers have reported an algorithm for finding calendar-based periodic pattern in time-stamped data without considering the purchased quantities of the items. However, most of the real-life databases are nonbinary, and therefore, exploring various calendar-based patterns with their purchased quantities may discover information useful to improve the quality of business decisions. In this (...) article, a technique is proposed to extract calendar-based periodic patterns from nonbinary transactions. In this connection, the concept of certainty factor has been introduced by incorporating transaction frequency for overlapped intervals. Algorithms have been designed to mine frequent itemsets along with intervals and quantity. In addition to that, we have designed an algorithm to find the periodicity of the pattern. The algorithm is tested with real-life data, and the results are given. (shrink)

We discuss the astronomical underpinning of the improved calendar of 1700. Starting from the astronomical motivation of the Gregorian calendar of 1582 and the rejection of this reform in Protestant states in Europe, we describe how the astronomical Easter reckoning based on Kepler’s Rudolphine tables led to the foundation of Berlin Observatory and enabled the founding of the Electoral Brandenburg Society of Sciences, which had to finance itself through a calendar monopoly.

In the nineteenth-century Ottoman empire, Cappadocia, in the heart of Anatolia, was one of the last regions where Rum Orthodox Christians cohabited with Muslims in rural areas. Among the main aspects of everyday coexistence were the beliefs and ritual practices that, shared by Muslim and Christian individuals, blurred religious belonging as it is traditionally defined. Anthropologists and ethnologists have studied exopraxis broadly, while historians have neglected the topic until recently. In the case of anthropologists, studies have mostly focused on the (...) spatiality of sharing that is characteristic of exopraxis. This article, based largely on testimonies collected in the Oral Tradition Archives of the Center for Asia Minor Studies in Athens, analyzes the temporality of exopraxis and inquires into the different but shared calendars that ordered the ritual life of Muslims and Orthodox Christians in Cappadocia. These testimonies, taken from Orthodox Christians who lived in Turkey prior to the exchange of populations between Turkey and Greece in 1923, help us to understand how the sharing of religious calendars resulted in feelings of belonging to a single collectivity. (shrink)

Temporal Type Theory (TTT) has been recently introduced as a topos-theoretic approach to understanding the behaviour of systems over time. A truly innovative point of TTT is that it makes truth inherently dependent on time; this is to be contrasted with the classical approach in which past, present and future are related via logical operators. Further on this line of research, the notion of truth is substituted by the ‘time duration’ over which a proposition is true, giving rise to the (...) logic of temporal landscapes. In this paper, we embed the main notions of the Calendar and Time Type System (a framework that was built for reasoning about calendric notions in the context of the Web and is centred around the notion of time granularity) in Temporal Type Theory, attempting to address a common requirement in the practical use of temporal formalisms: the ability to speak about certain time moments and appropriate time windows in (past and future) time, in the form of hours, dates, holidays, etc. With a view to concrete applications, we provide examples on how calendar types can be combined with temporal operators of TTT to augment the expressive power of this framework. In that respect, the addition of calendar types genuinely adds to the range of Temporal Type Theory as a powerful specification language. (shrink)

ABSTRACT A propositional temporal logic is introduced whose operators quantify over intervals of a reference time line. The intervals are specified symbolically, for example ?next week's weekend?. The specification language for the intervals takes into account all the features of real calendar systems. A simple statement which can be expressed in this language is for example: ?yesterday I worked for eight hours with one hour lunch break at noon?. Calendar Logic can be translated into propositional logic. Satisfiability is (...) therefore decidable. Since the translation is exponential, a tableau decision procedure for checking decidability is presented as an alternative. (shrink)

Presents an analogue of the Preface Paradox for intention, and discusses possible implications for the philosophy of action.

An eleventh-century manuscript in the Biblioteca Laurenziana in Florence preserves a short excerpt of a calendar outlining stages in the development of the foetus. It is headed Δαμναστού έκ τού Περί κυουσών καί βρεΦών θεραπείας, ‘Damnastes, from On the Care of Pregnant Women and of Infants’. Though its existence has long been noted, it has not been previously edited or published.

The Jalālī (or Malikī) Calendar is well known to Iranian and Western researchers. It was established by the order of Sulṭān Jalāl al-Dīn Malikshāh-i Saljūqī in the 5th c. A.H. (The dates which are designated with A.H. indicate the Hijrī Calendar.)/11th c. A.D. in Isfahan. After the death of Yazdigird III (the last king of the Sassanid dynasty), the Yazdigirdī Calendar, as a solar one, gradually lost its position, and the Hijrī Calendar replaced it. After the (...) rise of Islam, nonetheless, Iranians preferred various solar calendars to the Hijrī one. The Jalālī Calendar must be considered the culmination of such efforts. The present article deals with the riddle of the radix date (epoch) of the Jalālī Calendar. The author examines the problem through a historical approach and provides a novel solution to the question. (shrink)

Summary This paper is concerned with a mechanical calendar described by the great scientist al-B?r?n?, who died in 440/1048. The description occurs in a book devoted to the construction of various types of astrolabe and related instruments. The Arabic text presented in this paper was prepared from three manuscripts. This is preceded by a brief introduction which gives a sketch of the life and works of al-B?r?n? together with information about the provenance and contents of the three manuscripts. The (...) text is followed by an English translation and the paper concludes with a technical commentary which discusses the construction and operation of the instrument. This commentary is accompanied by explanatory drawings reconstructed from al-B?r?n?'s descriptions. Photographs from the illustrations in the manuscripts are also provided. (shrink)

Summary Since its definition at the council of Nicea the date of Easter had been calculated on a cyclical basis. The Easter formula publicized by C. F. Gauss in 1800 has neither achieved recognition with the chronologists nor with the officials of the papal curia, responsible for the fixing of Easter. In the paper being presented here the elements of medieval computus are transformed on an arithmetical basis and from this a formula for the fixing of Easter is developed. With (...) the help of these two components it is possible to calculate the Julian as well as the Gregorian dates of Easter and, in addition the calendar of any given year. The formula for the date of Easter being submitted here can be traced back exclusively to the elements of the medieval computus and can be ratified by the chronologists. Thus it renders possible the fixing of every Easter date with the help of a pocket calculator or the use of two small tables. This demonstrates that the history of methodology contains tools in order to develop a ‘new’ solution of a systematical problem. (shrink)

Victorian devotional life, both Anglican and Roman Catholic, often focused on the feast days of the Church. Indeed, even the three academic sessions at Oxford University were named after the feast days at the beginning of each term: Michaelmas, Hilary, and Trinity ; similarly, events on the ecclesiastical calendar often anchored events in Victorian religious novels. This article explores the possible symbolism in the feast days that frame events in Newman’s novel, Loss and Gain.

The editors of the recently published English translation of Giacomo Leopardi’s Zibaldone—the philosophical and philological commentary/notebook begun in the summer of 1817, when he was 19 years of age, and abandoned in the winter of 1832, four years before his death in Naples—note that for the first time, in his entry on April 20, 1821, Leopardi supplements the date of the secular calendar with a Roman Catholic festival, such as Good Friday.1 Leopardi’s references to the Catholic calendar increase (...) in early 1822 and continue with greater frequency until the reference to Holy Week 1829. These cited festivals range from major holidays, such as Christmas and Easter (Z 4254.. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Council's Solar CalendarFrancis M. DunnIt is well known that for some time during the fifth century, the calendar used by the council in Athens to conduct its business ("prytany calendar") employed a year of a different length from that of the calendar used by the archon to schedule religious events ("festival calendar"). In the fourth century the archon's calendar consisted of twelve or (...) thirteen lunar months, while the council's calendar divided the same year of 354 or 383/4 days into ten prytanies, one for each tribe. For at least part of the fifth century, however, the two calendars ran for different periods, and began and ended at different times. The nature of this independent or noncoterminous year has been debated, and a consensus seems to be emerging that it was a schematic year of 366 days.1 In what follows I show that this schematic year is highly improbable and propose a new reconstruction of the council's calendar.In 1894 Bruno Keil demonstrated that in the late fifth century the archon's calendar of months did not begin or end at the same time as the council's calendar of prytanies.2 This finding was confirmed by subsequent scholars, who offered different explanations: Meritt (1928, esp. 72) argued that the council's calendar followed the solar year and was introduced by Cleisthenes, whereas Dinsmoor (1931, esp. 327–29) argued that it followed a precise astronomical scheme and was introduced by Meton. Meritt was able to show (1932, 152–58) that Dinsmoor's elaborate scheme was not consistent with known dates from the period, but he did not develop or explain his own hypothesis of approximate solar years. One crucial piece of evidence has been the Logistai Inscription (IG I3 369 [423/2]). From the accounts on this stone Kubicki and Meritt had shown that interest for the quadrennium 426/5 to 423/2 was calculated for 1,464 days, so that for those years the council's calendar averaged [End Page 369] 366 days.3 Meritt went on (1928, 70–71) to reconstruct four years of 366, 368, 365, and 365 days respectively for the period 426/5 to 423/2. This approximate solar year seemed to agree with the calendar equations for 423/2 ( = Prytany 10.2, IG I3 369 78–79) and 412/1 (Skirophorion 14 = Prytany 1.1, Arist. Ath. Pol. 32.1), from which he calculated an average of 365 4/11 days for the council's year during the period 423/2 to 412/1 (1928, 84–85). Meritt's view, in other words, was that the independent calendar of the council followed the solar (tropical) year, but because the council's calendar was not rigid or consistent, its agreement with the solar year was not exact.4Pritchett, however, has argued that the council's year consisted of fixed and regular prytanies.5 On this view, it follows that the quadrennium 426/5 to 423/2 consisted of four equal years, and Pritchett was able to show that the accounts on the Logistai Inscription were consistent with a schematic council calendar of 366 days comprising six 37–day prytanies followed by four 36–day prytanies in each year of the quadrennium.6 In support of this view, Pritchett added the negative argument (1964, 40–41, 49–50) that Meritt's average of 365 4/11 days for the subsequent period from 423/2 to 412/1 depends upon a contested reading of the Logistai Inscription and upon speculation concerning the calendar between 423/2 and 412/1. He added the positive argument (Pritchett and Neugebauer 1947, 95–96) that his own scheme is consistent with two additional inscriptions: rates of pay in the Erechtheum accounts imply that there were 37 days in Prytany 6 (IG I3 476 60–63 [408/7]) and 36 days in Prytany 8 (IG I3 476 266–70), while dates on the Choiseul Marble include Prytany 8.36, Prytany 9.36, and Prytany 10.36 (IG I3 375 29–34 [410/9]). The evidence is somewhat circumstantial, but taken as a whole it strongly... (shrink)

This study aims to integrate hadith, astronomy and sociology studies in examining the implementation of Hijri calendar unification through a multidisciplinary approach. The Hijri calendar is based on the astronomical phenomena of the earth-moon-sun system and should refer to the provisions of Islamic law or fiqh to be implemented in worship. For the preparation of a good Hijri calendar, agreement on criteria, date line, and authority is necessary. Furthermore, agreement on criteria requires a valid argument based on (...) astronomical studies. An agreement on the implementing region boundaries is necessary due to the round earth and the hilal [crescent moon] cannot be observed simultaneously anywhere. It is also needed to resolve unavoidable differences, specifically in the appearance of the hilal and in schools of Islamic law. The problems to be solved are as follows: What is the strategy for implementing Hijri calendar unification? This study is based on a review of hadith and fiqh literature, analysis of astronomical data related to criteria, and experiences of Indonesia and Islamic countries regarding the Hijri calendar unification. The results show that implementing the Hijri calendar unification through the three approaches above can be carried out and accelerated. Contribution: This study contributes to showing the results of a multidisciplinary approach in the problem of implementation of the new Ministers of Religious Affairs of Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore (MABIMS) criteria towards unification of the Hijri calendar. (shrink)

This article analyses international large-scale assessments in education from a temporal perspective. The article discusses and compares the different conceptions of time in the early inter...

The Catholic concept of “sanctity” can be thought of as a “cultural unit” (Eco) composed of a wide variety of “grounds” (Peirce) or distinctive features. The figures of individual saints, i.e., tokens of sanctity, are characterized by a particular set of grounds, organized and represented in texts of different genres. This paper presents a semiotic study of texts seeking to offer an encompassing view of “sanctity” by listing all the saints and supplementing their names with a short description of their (...) lives emphasizing the grounds characterizing each of them. The analysis focuses on a seminal liturgical text, the Martyrologium Romanun (1584–2004), and the first official encyclopedia of saints, the Bibliotheca Sanctorum (1961–2013), as well as a sample of digital texts and media such as websites and mobile apps. While the first text offers a dogmatic perspective on sanctity and saintly figures and the second offers a historical and culturological one, websites succeed in reconciling the two paradigms into a single syncretic form of interactive fruition in which the more up-to-date encyclopedic model subsumes the traditional calendar one and, in the case of apps, adds a glocal dimension, enhancing situated cognition. The analysis shows that the introduction of the encyclopedic genre and subsequent proliferation of digital repertoires is connected to a shift in the Catholic “episteme” (Foucault) of sanctity and a growing tendency to consider saints as not (only) religious characters and objects of cult, but (also) as historical individuals and components of a culture and, consequently, as suitable objects of critical discourse. (shrink)