Re: hypothetical Yangshao calendar (early China)
From: Franz Gnaedinger (frgn_at_bluemail.ch)
Date: 03/02/05
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Date: 1 Mar 2005 23:52:43 -0800
My thesis: 5,000 years ago the same lunisolar calendar
was known in Egypt, Sumer, Persia, India, and China.
A short week lasted 5 days, a long week 10 days. 3
long weeks = 30 days were a month. 12 months plus 5
and sometimes 6 days yielded a solar year of 365 and
occasionally 366 days, while 64 lunations equaled 63
months or 1890 days. The latter relation was known
as 'Horus cycle' in Egypt, since one lunation equals
30 days multiplied by the series of the Horus Eye:
1 lunation = 30 days x '2 '4 '8 '16 '32 '64
= 29 '2 '32 days (mistake only 58 seconds)
The Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities at Stockholm in
Sweden keeps an anthorpomorphic lid from Banshan in the
province of Gansu, central northern China, from around
2500 BC. It shows a round head on a cylindrical neck
that goes over into a wide collar framed by a zig-zag
line. As far as I can tell from a large reproduction in
a book of mine there are 48 angles: 24 (filled) angles
pointing outward, and 24 (empty) angles pointing inward.
If these numbers are correct, the almost spherical head
might symbolize the early Chinese moon god, while the
zig-zag line of the collar may symbolize the cycle of
64 lunations modulo 48:
Begin with the central (empty) angle a-1 where the ends
of the painted collar meet. Count 64 angles in clockwise
direction, perform a full circle of 48 angles and then
advance by 16 further positions: thus you will end on
angle a-16. Begin another cycle from that position and
you will end on angle a-32. Begin a third cycle from
that angle and you will end on angle a-48 = a-1.
You can go on as long as you wish, the cycles will
always end on the same angles a-16 a-32 a-1 that form
an equilateral triangle. Remarkably, also the eyes and
mouth - holes in the round face - form an equilateral
triangle, and so do three protuberances on top of
the round head.
Marie E.P. Koenig understood the Neolithic number 3 as
lunar symbol representing the phases waxing moon, full
moon, waning moon. In the case of the Banshan moon god
these phases might be representd by the left eye, the
slightly bigger mouth, and the right eye respectively.
A protuberance on top of the head of the Banshan moon
god might represent a long week of ten days, all three
protuberances a month of 3 x 10 = 30 days.
Is there a round hill or mountain at Banshan that might
have served as Moon Hill or Moon Mountain?
Next time: Chinese Bi, symbol of sky, sun, moon, month
of 30 days and cycle of 64 lunations (five Bi measured
and their numbers interpreted in terms of 'my' calendar)
-
Regards Franz Gnaedinger www.seshat.ch
-
PS. I apologize for a typo in my previous message.
The chinese forerunner of the Meton cycle was the Chang
cycle (Chang, not Chong).
> The Yangshao culture in China flourished roughly from
> 5000 to 2000 BC and excelled in marvellous pottery.
> Some of these vessels are so beautifully painted that
> I dare assume a cosmological and hence calendarical
> meaning. I frequently encountered the number 12, or
> multiples of 12, and the number 16, given as 4 x 4
> dots in a cross-like arrangement within a circle or a
> spiral, and the same pattern repeated in four circles
> on the quasi-sphere of the urn (if my memory serves me),
> so that we have 4 x 4 x 4 = 64 dots (which might well
> anticipate the 64 hexagrams of the much later I-king).
>
> >From these patterns I infer that a hypothetical Yangshao
> calendar from the 3rd millennium BC would have divided
> the zodiac into 12 equal angles representing 30 days
> each. A month would have counted 30 days; a solar year
> 12 months or 360 days, plus 5 and occasionally 6 days,
> yielding 365 and sometimes 366 days.
>
> This annual calendar of 12 x 30 days plus 5 or 6 days
> would have been combined with a continual calendar of
> 30-day periods. The Yangshao astronomers might have
> observed that 64 lunations (e.g. from one to the next
> full moon) correspond to 63 periods of 30 days. The
> mistake is very small: less than one minute; or about
> one hour in over five years. (A lunation or synodic
> month lasts 29 days 12 hours 44 minutes 2.9 seconds;
> modern value from 1988 AD).
>
> Duodenary patterns (12 or multiples of 12) would refer
> to the solar calendar, while patterns of 4 x 4 x 4 =
> 64 dots would refer to 64 lunations that fit into the
> continual pattern of 30-day periods. A major insight
> of early astronomy, I dare say, also occurring in
> ancient Egypt, where it was linked, I believe, to the
> famous series of the Horus Eye:
>
> 1 lunation = 30 days times '2 '4 '8 '16 '32 '64
>
> = 29 '2 '32 days (mistake 58 seconds)
>
> On another urn I counted 17 dots in a circle or spiral.
> Also that number may refer to observations of the moon.
> Add the following numbers of days and you obtain very
> good conversions of lunations into days:
>
> 30 29 30 29 30 29 30 29 30 29 30 29 30 29 30 29 30
>
> The best conversion is obtained with 17 lunation that
> correspond fairly well to the sum of 502 days. Also
> such an observation was in principle accessible to
> the early Chinese astronomers.
>
> Now we have two fine definitions of a lunation:
> 30 day x 63/64, and 502/17 days, average 29 days 12
> hourse 43 minutes 40.6 seconds; mistake 22.3 seconds.
>
> >From here it is not far to the Chinese Chong cycle:
> 235 lunations eaqual 19 solar (tropical) years. We know
> that cycle as Meton cycle, named for a Greek astronomer
> who flourished in the 5th century BC. However, it had
> long before been discovered and used by the Chinese.
>
>
> Next time: moon god? anthropomorphic lid from Banshan,
> province Gansu, around 2500 BC; Museum of Far Eastern
> Antiquities, Stockholm, Sweden (64 modulo 48 ?)
> -
> Regards Franz Gnaedinger www.seshat.ch
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