tuesday
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leap years
Mar 24, 2006, 23:34
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how did they not end up late
that is, how did they make it all fit?
soltices,alignments and dates
I can't get my head round it
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Cursuswalker
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Re: leap years
Mar 24, 2006, 23:42
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This should make it all clear ;-)
http://www.cursuswalker.co.uk/metonic/
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tuesday
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Re: leap years
Mar 25, 2006, 00:24
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thankyou and hey that's amazing man - and i hope all your researches proved fruitful
......but how the fuck did THEY work it all out
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Cursuswalker
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Re: leap years
Mar 25, 2006, 00:48
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I never did get to see my sunset that year, BUT this year is one end of the cycle, so who knows?
Can you tell it was the summer holiday when I wrote that?
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tuesday
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Re: leap years
Mar 25, 2006, 10:12
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well, i guessed you must have had a bit of time / devotion free......
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gorseddphungus
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calendars
Mar 25, 2006, 13:34
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That webpage sums up the concepts of the lunar and solar measuring pretty well. Its measurements must have been crucial for the farmer/settlers in the past, if we also consider some/many megalithic monuments (callanish, recumbents, etc) to be alligned on the moon. The sun is fairly easy to measure from a fixed position during the year, and to mark its movements easy. The harder part was the moon.
In terms of calendars, the pre-christian calendar may have been a 13 month long year, ie one with lunar months of 28 days each, with one day extra every year. That extra day may have been the one devoted to New Year.
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elderford
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Re: seasons not 24/7?
Mar 25, 2006, 17:31
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Leap years are to do with keeping the "proper names and dates" of each month in the right place.
Every four years each day would slip back one day.
So in eight years you'd be two days out and so on.
So every 100 years (bear with me, I'm doing this in my head) the calendar will slip 25 days or so (call it a month, so every month would be a month out of wack (?)
So, in 600 years Christmas would be in Summer (?)
THAT SAID
If prehistoric people essentially want to know when to plant and harvest crops, the actual day is unimportant. March 3rd could infact now be December the 5. The date given to the day is not important. Its position in relation to a lunar and solar cycle is much more relevant.
Much of our calendar is to do with the working out where Easter falls as it is a moveable feast unlike say Christmas Day. although that also is based on lunar events and counting days (not including Sundays I believe), to correctly celebrate Lent, Good Friday, Palm Sunday, etc.
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FourWinds
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Re: seasons not 24/7?
Mar 25, 2006, 18:02
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"Much of our calendar is to do with the working out where Easter falls as it is a moveable feast unlike say Christmas Day. although that also is based on lunar events and counting days (not including Sundays I believe), to correctly celebrate Lent, Good Friday, Palm Sunday, etc."
Yep. Much of calculus was driven by this need, yet I could never see entirely why. The date for Easter could easily be worked out using a stone row aligned east-west. Easter Sunday is always the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Vernal Equinox. So, once you know when the Equinox is (with the help of your stone row) you can work out when Easter is.
I would imagine that the original pre-Ctristian feast was on the day of the full-moon or the day after.
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Cursuswalker
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ANYONE FANCY A BIT OF ASTRO-ARCHAEOLOGY
Mar 26, 2006, 00:45
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The other thing about the web-page is that I wrote that article in 2001, at mid-metonic cycle.
2006 is a year of extreme moon rise/set. Unfortunately I forgot to take bearings at the Winter Solstice and have also missed my chance at the last equinox. So at the Summer Solstice I plan to take bearings for both events to determine which extreme it is, which the method I outlined on the web-page cannot tell you.
I could look this all up somewher probably, but it's much more fun to actually collect the data yourself :-)
Just to clarify, in case anyone else wants to help out, I need to know if the Moon is setting 5 degrees north or south of where the Sun is setting this year. This could be determined on any day, so long as a bearing is taken for the place of sunrise/set as well. It's just that this bearing is known at the Solsti and Equinoxes, so no extra bering is needed.
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PeterH
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Re: calendars
Mar 26, 2006, 11:35
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"Its measurements must have been crucial for the farmer/settlers in the past"
Why? Farmers plant, sow and reap as the weather and soil conditions dictate. Some years, spring is early and warm - other years it's cold and late. I don't believe that stone circles, lunar and solar observations had any practical use whatsoever other than to give the appearance that the priests were essential to ensure good harvests and returning summers.
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