Re: hypothetical Yangshao calendar (early China)

From: Franz Gnaedinger (frgn_at_bluemail.ch)
Date: 03/24/05 

Date: 23 Mar 2005 23:50:19 -0800

Have there been connections between Sumer and China?

One A.T. Lacouperie believed so, according to some
lines in "History of Mathematics" by David Eugen Smith
(Dover NY 1923/51): "It is this emperor Yau and his
successor, the emperor Shun, who, it is said, carried
farther to the eastward the dominion established by
the Bak tribes which had come from western Asia.
These tribes had been under the civilizing influences
of the people of Susiana, who in turn had rceived their
civilization from Babylon. If this theory proves to be
correct, the similarity between certain early forms of
astronomy and mathematics in the East and the West is
more easily explained." The people of Susiana were the
dwellers of Susa, while the Bak tribes might have given
their name to much later Bactria in SE Uzbekistand and
N Afghanistan.

Sumerian and Akkadian lapis lazuli, presumably also the
one of predynastic, protodynastic and dynastic Egypt,
came from NE Afghanistan. Recently a team led by a Swiss
archaeologist searched for a legendary town in the Takla
Makan desert, province of Xinjiang, on a former river
that flew from the Karakoram. They found some microliths
and pottery sherds which testify to neolithic dwellers,
and are planning a next expedition in search of 'their'
lost town. In the province of Qinghai, Jianzha county,
Lanao ruins, 9 km west of Lanao village, has been found
a five-thousand-year-old polished stone knive with seven
holes that clearly form the constellation of the Big
Dipper (Chinese press release; recent link in Google
beta). More finds may be expected from the once greener
regions in between Mesopotamia and the Chinese provinces
of Shaanxi, Shanxi and Henan on the middle course of the
Yellow River, homeland of the Yangshao culture.

My calendar reconstructions - another piece of online
research that is a pleasure for me and hopefully also
for some of my readers - lead me to the provisional
conclusion that there might well have been an early
influence of Mesopotamia on China.

Next time: a complex calendar variant, valid for the
Mesara plain in southern Crete and the Argolis in
the Middle Minoic / Helladic period of time
-
Regards Franz Gnaedinger www.seshat.ch
-

> The wedjat eye of ancient Egypt was the lunar eye of
> Horus as restored by Thoth, Lord of Time and Reckoner
> of the Year. It is composed of six parts which also
> serve as unit fractions: eye-white between iris and
> nose 1/2, iris 1/4, eyebrow 1/8, remaining part of
> eye-white 1/16, oblique sign under the eye 1/32,
> vertical sign under the eye 1/64.
>
> The wedjat eye was called "the whole one." However,
> the fractions '2 '4 '8 '16 '32 '64 do not add up to 1,
> a small part is missing, namely another 64th.
>
> What, then, does "the whole one" mean? I propose the
> following answer. The wedjat eye represents a lunation,
> a month of 30 days multiplied by the Horus Eye series.
> 30 days times '2 '4 '8 '16 '32 '64 yield 29 '2 '32 days
> (with a small mistake of less than one minute).
>
> Paul: you are right in saying that the Horus Eye series
> was also used for dividing the hekat. 1 cubic cubit
> equals 30 hekat. 1 hekat equals 320 ro. The Horus Eye
> divisions of the hekat yield 160 80 40 20 10 5 ro.
>
> There is another measure of capacity called dja. One
> Tanja Pommerening, a pharmacologist, solved the problem
> of the dja by reading the medical papyri of ancient
> Egypt and asking herself what would make sense for a dja
> if one actually prepares medicines according to recipes
> in those papyri? A dja, she found, equals 5 ro, which is
> one 64th of a hekat, and must have served as the basic
> measure of capacity in Egyptian medicine. (Readers in
> German may look up Tanja Pommerening's paper via Google
> scholar).
>
> We have here an interesting parallel: when Thoth was
> healing the lunar eye of Horus, one 64th of a month
> was missing, while another 64th, now of a hekat, was
> the basic measure of capacity in Egyptian medicine ...
> -
> Regards Franz Gnaedinger www.seshat.ch
> -
>
> > The Maya combined a Solar Year of 365 days, 18 x 20
> > days plus 5 "unlucky days" with a Sacred Calendar of
> > of 260 days. A Calendar Round lasted 73 Sacred Cycles
> > or 52 Solar Years or 18,980 days, allowing to calculate
> > and name dates for thousands and millions of years ahead
> > or back in time. In Quirigua near Copan the cosmic order
> > was based on a fictive date which lies 90 millions of
> > years in the past.
> >
> > The cycle of 260 days was called tzolkin by the Maya,
> > tonalpohualli by the Aztecs, and is believed to have
> > had only ritual purposes. Really? I checked the number
> > 260 and found the following relations:
> >
> > 46 tzolkin equal 405 lunations
> >
> > 1 lunation equals 46 x 260 / 405 days
> >
> > mistake less than 24 seconds
> >
> > 59 tzolkin equal 42 years
> >
> > 1 year equals 59 x 260 / 42 days
> >
> > mistake less than 6 minutes
> >
> > I checked alternative numbers for the tzolkin, 240 250
> > 270 280 253 255 180 200 160 days, but none provided such
> > a good double - both lunar and solar - solution as does
> > the given number 260. So I assume that the tzolkin served
> > not only for ritual purposes but was a lunar and a solar
> > calendar, with a mistake of less than one day in some
> > 240 years.
> >
> > Actually I should check all the numbers, say, from 21
> > to 364 or so, but I leave this task to an expert on Maya
> > astronomy, mathematics and calendar cycles. If you wish
> > to try yourself you may use the following numbers, modern
> > values from 1988:
> >
> > 1 lunation 29 days 12 hours 44 minutes 2.9 seconds
> >
> > 1 solar year 365.24219879 days
> > -
> > Regards Franz Gnaedinger www.seshat.ch

Relevant Pages

  • Re: hypothetical Yangshao calendar (early China)
    ... lines in "History of Mathematics" by David Eugen Smith ... My calendar reconstructions - another piece of online ... > a month of 30 days multiplied by the Horus Eye series. ... > There is another measure of capacity called dja. ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: hypothetical Yangshao calendar (early China)
    ... lines in "History of Mathematics" by David Eugen Smith ... My calendar reconstructions - another piece of online ... > a month of 30 days multiplied by the Horus Eye series. ... > There is another measure of capacity called dja. ...
    (sci.archaeology)
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