MemberlistThe Library Index  FAQFAQ   SearchSearch   RegisterRegister   ProfileProfile   Log in to check your private messagesLog in to check your private messages   Log inLog in 
Days and Confused (History)
Reply to topic Goto page Previous  1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
View previous topic :: View next topic  
aurelius



View user's profile
Reply with quote

Wile E. Coyote wrote:
All I can say is that I tried to move Dan's thread on with some original ideas, which I spelled out. Fair play to Auro, his idea attracted a lot more interest. Clearly when I contribute to others' ideas they will be less thought out.


I would like to revive Wile's own revival of D P Crisp's interesting ruminations on numbering systems in particular the days of the week, which I caused a distraction from but are far more imaginative than anything I am likely to come up with.

I found myself asking questions like, "how many identifiable days in a week were there pre-Christianity in the Roman Empire?", and needed to remind myself what the Romans would have called Tuesday or the other days we had substituted with Germanic gods.

The Greeks named the days week after the sun, the moon and the five known planets, which were in turn named after the gods Ares, Hermes, Zeus, Aphrodite, and Cronus. The Greeks called the days of the week the Theon hemerai "days of the Gods". The Romans substituted their equivalent gods for the Greek gods, Mars, Mercury, Jove (Jupiter), Venus, and Saturn. (The two pantheons are very similar.) The Germanic peoples generally substituted roughly similar gods for the Roman gods, Tiu (Twia), Woden, Thor, Freya (Fria), but did not substitute Saturn.


- http://www.crowl.org/lawrence/time/days.html

Why didn't they substitute Saturn, or for that matter the other days?
Send private message
Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
View user's profile
Reply with quote

aurelius wrote:

I found myself asking questions like, "how many identifiable days in a week were there pre-Christianity in the Roman Empire?",


The Romans during the republic...at least according to orthodoxy, had a sort of 8 day week. Called a nundinal system, it is etymologically linked to nine. Coz in Romance languages you count inclusively.................

For a time.....the Romans used both a 7 day and 8 day week.
Send private message
Boreades


In: finity and beyond
View user's profile
Reply with quote

7+8=15

Was that so that fortnights and months would be 15 and 30 days? (tidy like, for a Lunisolar calendar)

That's what we find in the Coligny Calendar.

The basic unit of the Celtic calendar was thus the fortnight or half-month, as is also suggested in traces in Celtic folklore. The first half was always 15 days, the second half either 14 or 15 days on alternate months


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coligny_calendar
Send private message
aurelius



View user's profile
Reply with quote

So pre-Julian the days weren't given planetary/god dedications, as implied here?

http://www.crystalinks.com/romecalendar.html
Send private message
Ishmael


In: Toronto
View user's profile
Reply with quote

Is there a relationship between the oak tree and the number eight?

Is there an association between the number eight and some other phonetic rendering of an "ack" of "ach" or "arch" syllable?
Send private message
Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
View user's profile
Reply with quote

Boreades wrote:
7+8=15

Was that so that fortnights and months would be 15 and 30 days? (tidy like, for a Lunisolar calendar)

That's what we find in the Coligny Calendar.

The basic unit of the Celtic calendar was thus the fortnight or half-month, as is also suggested in traces in Celtic folklore. The first half was always 15 days, the second half either 14 or 15 days on alternate months


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coligny_calendar


The Coligny calendar.......hmm.........it would be high on my list for a forgery.....still I ain't going on the evidence so will give it the benefit until proven otherwise.......it's something like a peg(?)and tables for a grumpy farmer (maybe) to predict (sort of astrology) the weather/ planting cycles.....

Even if there was a lot of grumpy "celtic" farmers around....they wouldn't have all been planting the same crops at the same time in the same district. Would they?
Send private message
aurelius



View user's profile
Reply with quote

Ishmael wrote:
Is there a relationship between the oak tree and the number eight?

Is there an association between the number eight and some other phonetic rendering of an "ack" of "ach" or "arch" syllable?


I have a book, Tree Wisdom, but nothing stands out regards numerology and eight. On a website,

http://www.ancient-wisdom.com/treelore.htm

the oak represents the seventh consonant in the Ogham alphabet and appears in the Celtic tree calendar as the seventh Moon of their thirteen month year, June 10 - July 7.

I expect you are already familiar with:

acorn (n.)
Old English æcern "nut, mast of trees, acorn," a common Germanic word (cognates: Old Norse akarn, Dutch aker, Low German ecker "acorn," German Ecker, Gothic akran "fruit"), originally the mast of any forest tree. It is by most sources said to be related (via notion of "fruit of the open or unenclosed land") to the source of Old English æcer "open land," Gothic akrs "field," Old French aigrun "fruits and vegetables" (from Frankish or some other Germanic source); see acre.

The sense was gradually restricted in Low German, Scandinavian, and English to the most important of the forest produce for feeding swine: the mast of the oak tree. The regular modern form would be *akern; the current spelling emerged 15c.-16c. by folk etymology association with oak (Old English ac) and corn (n.1), neither of which has anything to do with it. Acorn squash is attested by 1937.


http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=acorn
Send private message
Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
View user's profile
Reply with quote

Boreades wrote:

That's what we find in the Coligny Calendar.

The basic unit of the Celtic calendar was thus the fortnight or half-month, as is also suggested in traces in Celtic folklore. The first half was always 15 days, the second half either 14 or 15 days on alternate months


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coligny_calendar


The Parapegmata is to the calendar what the Portolan Chart is to the Map.

It looks at circular time rather than linear time.

It is really a very different beast....well at least in the distinctions drawn in Wiley's mind.

Which is not to say the ancients had no concept of linear time. Just as economic cycles and political revolutions occur today, the ancients had a knowledge of a linear time.....
Send private message
Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
View user's profile
Reply with quote

aurelius wrote:

I found myself asking questions like, "how many identifiable days in a week were there pre-Christianity in the Roman Empire?",


In my opinion orthodoxy doesn't have much to offer.... There is a lot of interesting excavation going on by religious types (the stakes are higher) because how Jesus observed the Sabbath actually matters to them......

http://www.essene.com/Church/Sunday.htm

Wiley applauds their industry, very useful.
Send private message
aurelius



View user's profile
Reply with quote

Wile E. Coyote wrote:
aurelius wrote:

I found myself asking questions like, "how many identifiable days in a week were there pre-Christianity in the Roman Empire?",


In my opinion orthodoxy doesn't have much to offer.... There is a lot of interesting excavation going on by religious types (the stakes are higher) because how Jesus observed the Sabbath actually matters to them......

http://www.essene.com/Church/Sunday.htm

Wiley applauds their industry, very useful.


Yes I agree, thanks.
Send private message
aurelius



View user's profile
Reply with quote

Wile E. Coyote wrote:

The German name for the day, Mittwoch (literally: "mid-week"), replaced the former name Wodanstag ("Wodan's day") in the tenth century.


And who gets the blame for this? Likely Charlemagne, whoever he was, initially through the Saxon wars and the forcible conversion of Germanic pagans into Catholicism. The most notorious event being the execution of up to 4500 Saxons in the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_of_Verden.

Did Samstag (Assembly day) replace an older pagan god around the same time?

Another (pedantic) thought, in German, is Donnerstag from Donar (runic þonar ᚦᛟᚾᚨᚱ), stemming from a Common Germanic *Þunraz (meaning "thunder").

rather than 'thunder' day?

Going back to the enforced Catholicisation of the Saxons,

Charlemagne claimed suzerainty over Saxony and in 772 destroyed the Irminsul, an important object in Saxon paganism, during his campaign to Christianize the Saxons.


The Irminsul, a totem pillar stylistically symbolised as



was another 'tree' guarded by a serpent (relevant to my Dark Age Obscured thread).

But I should return to the main point of your thread, the numbering of the days of the week. Whilst a Lunar and ideally a Lunisolar calendar would have been essential to the British tribes pre-Roman invasion, what grounds do we have that they used or needed a weekly pattern at all? If they were counting on their fingers, would not multiples of five be the way they counted days, almost but not quite reaching the 29 and a half per lunar cycle?

This is not to imply I don't admire or am not interested in yours (and Crisp's) imaginative numbers to days theory, including Yan tan tethera...
Send private message
Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
View user's profile
Reply with quote

aurelius wrote:


But I should return to the main point of your thread, the numbering of the days of the week. Whilst a Lunar and ideally a Lunisolar calendar would have been essential to the British tribes pre-Roman invasion, what grounds do we have that they used or needed a weekly pattern at all?


My view is the ancients did not have and did not need a linear time Lunisolar calendar.

God created the world in 7 days so we can be reasonably confident that about the time and place of God, the 7 day week was important?

Jesus is linked to the development of linear time.


aurelius wrote:

If they were counting on their fingers, would not multiples of five be the way they counted days, almost but not quite reaching the 29 and a half per lunar cycle?


I dont agree but who knows.....

aurelius wrote:
This is not to imply I don't admire or am not interested in yours (and Crisp's) imaginative numbers to days theory, including Yan tan tethera...


The regional sheep counting systems Yan tan tetherra reflect regional different use of base normally four of five so you might have some support for pinky counts.
Send private message
Display posts from previous:   
Reply to topic Goto page Previous  1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Jump to:  
Page 6 of 6

MemberlistThe Library Index  FAQFAQ   SearchSearch   RegisterRegister   ProfileProfile   Log in to check your private messagesLog in to check your private messages   Log inLog in 


Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group