MINOAN SOLAR CALENDARS (original) (raw)
Related papers
CENTER FOR HELLENIC STUDIES HARVARD UNIVERSITY , 2019
The use of kernoi has been the tantalizing subject among archaeologists since 1901. Archaeologists' conclusions do not converge, as they have suggested that Minoan flat kernoi are either: 1) libation tables, i.e. tables with some produce on their small cups offered to deities or 2) boards for the Minoans to play unspecified games or 3) unspecified board games connected with some ritual procedures; 4) one archaeologist put forward a fourth proposal, that the Mallia kernos is nearly a lunisolar calendar. In this paper the four previous considerations will be commented on. This study deals with the decoding of 73 Minoan flat kernoi and it is based on: a) the detailed observation on the measured characteristics of kernoi, i.e. the number, the size and the distribution of cups on them; b) the use of elementary statistics for the grouping of the above characteristics of kernoi; c) the knowledge of prehistoric Egyptian and Babylonian calendars. The analysis is based on the decoding of 73 kernoi, ten of which are decoded in detail. In the light of the proposed theory, one kernos found in pieces is shown to have been reconstructed incorrectly and a possible new reconstruction proposed.
THE EVIDENCE FROM KNOSSOS ON THE MINOAN CALENDAR
G. Henriksson, M. Blomberg, 2011
From the early results of our archaeoastronomical investigations at the peak sanctuaries on Petsophas and Mt Juktas, we inferred that the Minoans had a lunisolar calendar that began at a particular phase of the moon on or following the autumn equinox. We used classical archaeoastronomical methods: a digital theodolite with observations of the sun to determine the orientation of the coordinate system, measuring the orientations of foundations to celestial bodies, and determining the positions of celestial bodies at the appropriate times in the past using our own programs. In our later investigation of the palace at Knossos, we found further evidence including the impressive use of a reflection in the central palace sanctuary to determine the beginning of the Minoan year and for knowing when to intercalate a lunar (synodic) month in the lunisolar calendar. The reflection occurred at the precise moment of sunrise at the equinoxes and also during the eleven days before the spring equinox and after the autumn equinox. We also discovered that the non-integral length of the solar year would have been revealed by the unique shift of the reflection during a series of four years. Later results at three other Minoan sites underscored the probability that the Minoans had a solar calendar and twelve solar months.
in: D. Shibata/Sh. Yamada (Hg.), Calendars and Festivals in Mesopotamia in the Third and Second Millennia BC. Studia Chaburensia 9 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz) 1–34, 2021
In the third millennium, the age of early urbanism and city-states as polities, not only one calendrical system or set of similar calendars appeared, but various methods co-existed for counting the months of a year and for naming them. These authoritative sequences of month names represented a cultural construction of time beyond purely measuring it since the ancient inhabitants of Mesopotamia and Syria lived “in” their calendars. Beyond exploring the chronological and geographical reach of various calendrical systems, one wonders how these specific constructions of time can be placed in the worldview, the society and the role of the individual in the Early Bronze Age. By reference to dates, especially with the use of month names, a social group attributed meaning to time.
Asian Journal of Research in Social Sciences and Humanities, Ambedkar University Agra U.P (INDIA). Volume 4 Issue 11 pp.114-130, ISSN 2249-7315., 2015
Nations all over the world have sought different ways and methods to monitor, track and keep time in sequence with happenings around them. The Calendar serves as one of the greatest inventions of man to achieve this noble objective. A calendar therefore serves as a tool for man to keep records of events around them, to monitor changes in the environment, to keep themselves abreast with the dynamic weather conditions. As Nations have distinct characteristics, the evolution of Calendars all over the world was based on the movement of the astrological symbols such as the stars, moon and the sun in different regions of the world while having unique beliefs, cultures and traditional undertones of such nations at hand. This work sets to examine the development of Calendars in different nations of the world with an aim of understanding the factors that have shaped the development of calendars worldwide.
Mediterranean Archaeology and Archaeometry
Analysis of the symbols engraved on prehistoric unknown use terracotae, the so called frying pan vessels (Teganoschema), reveal a symbolic writing that depicts astronomical phenomena, that are complex calendars based on the Sun and the Moon and all then known planets. The frying pan vessels are mainly found in Cyclades, and around the Aegean, Crete, Attica, and Thessaly. They are artifacts of the Cycladic civilization of the Early Helladic Era. They have been found mainly in graves and settlements. The first findings came to light during the late nineteenth century in the islands of Cyclades and their possible use is still causing strong scientific interest, as it is unknown. Until now, archaeologists could not determine their use and the meaning of their representations. It was believed that these vessels were used in funeral rituals, therefore depicted patterns like the sun and the sea may be associated with beliefs about the afterlife. We have studied the morphology and the representations of the Cycladic frying pan vessels that are found in museums and in literature dating from the middle of the 4th millennium.
A Golden Calendar from the Bronze Age
Archaeological Discovery
A golden object found in southern Sweden 170 years ago is found, in fact, to be an ancient calendar. The golden object is ornamented with 12 sun-symbols and 12 moon-symbols; i.e. a combined picture of the annual movements of the Sun and the Moon through the sky. It is divided into 6 wedges by spoke structures. This is a representation of the Sumerian sexagesimal system. Similar images are present in rock-carvings in Sweden, and on a stone tablet from the ancient temple in Sippar in Mesopotamia. This gives evidence of a remarkably advanced knowledge in astronomy and a wide distribution of this knowledge from Mesopotamia all the way up to Scandinavia.
Making Sense of Time: Observational and Theoretical Calendars
in K. Radner and E. Robson (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Cuneiform Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 470-485
What is a calendar? In its broadest terms, today the term 'calendar' is used to describe a system governing the division of time into intervals (generally days, months, and years) that can be navigated to provide a frame of reference for temporal events. It can also refer to a document (a pocket or desk diary, a wall calendar, etc.) divided into sections for each day, which can be used to record past events that took place on a specifi c occasion and to keep track of future appointments and provide reminders of coming holidays, birthdays, or dates when bills must be paid. But in other cultures the idea of a calendar can include diff erent astronomical and social activities from those we are familiar with from our own calendar. For example, in ancient and medieval China the term li 曆, which is usually translated into English as 'calendar' , encompasses not only the production of what we might think of as a calendar, but refers to a complete astronomical system for predicting astronomical events, including eclipses of the sun and moon and planetary phenomena, as well as the dates of month beginnings. Whilst a li provides a framework for keeping track of days it also has other uses, not the least of which is in regulating the heavens through the prediction of astronomical phenomena, reducing the number of unexpected, and therefore ominous, astronomical events (Sivin 2009 : 37) .
Plants and flowers depicted in Minoan art didn't have just a decorative, but a calendrical and spiritual function, as e.g. visible in the “Blue Bird Fresco” (Knossos) that shows a synopsis of a whole year cycle: Crocus/saffron standing for the renewal of nature/life in autumn (not spring, as usually suggested!) after the first rains; Iris unguicularis for the end of winter and sowing time; Lilium candidum for a time of passage before harvest and the dry death of nature in summer; pomegranate for beginning and end of summer/autumn, surviving draught and death until the beginning of the next year cycle; mint for the height of summer and the importance of knowing humid places for agriculture in a country with months without rain. Additionally these plants must also have been used as remedies to support human fertility and health throughout the seasonal cycle - or rather spiral, because the passing of time was not seen as a return to the same spot but as a continuous flow from (re-)birth through life to death and beyond. Some basically important calendrical moments for agriculture – as beginning and end of the time the soil is arable and humid enough for sowing, or harvest – could thus be integrated into a wider symbolism of life, together providing a mythical context for spiritual and practical living.
AYP Vol. II: Archontic (Civil) Year Calendar Intercalations
The Athenian Year Primer Vol II, 2023
The Placement of Embolismic Months: Chapter from the forthcoming Athenian Year Primer Vol. II. The excerpt presupposes familiarity with the methodologies and arguments presented in AYP. Chapter tackles one of the most fundamental and crucial yet least understood calendrical practices, which all lunisolar calendars must follow: insertion of an extra (thirteenth) lunar month to keep a lunar year’s Synodic Cycles aligned to a Sidereal Solar Year (i.e., solstice ↔ solstice or equinox ↔ equinox). 1) Show that ancient Greeks across the ancient Aegean proved far more astronomically savvy than currently appreciated. 2) Argue that ancient Athenians could not have used any fixed or absolute thus, in effect, arbitrarily inserted embolismic month to keep Archontic Years aligned. Significant, existential (practical) considerations existed. 3) Consequently, also argue that intercalations must have possessed “rules” or at least firmly established “guidelines.” The most obvious in fact being any number of seasonal festivals (e.g., Anthesteria, Eleusinian Mysteries). Seasonal festivals, moreover, promptly follow all Panhellenic gatherings (addressed in subsequent Chapters). 4) Attempt to unlock the methodologies used so one can not only understand the underlying math but also establish the base astronomical “template.” 5) Finally, knowing what Calendar Equations ought have occurred aids greatly when working with recovered epigraphical evidence that display such equations. When any deviations surface, we can develop a thorough understanding of why they took place.