Re: hypothetical Yangshao calendar (early China)

From: Franz Gnaedinger (frgn_at_bluemail.ch)
Date: 03/15/05 

Date: 14 Mar 2005 23:25:44 -0800

The temples at Goebekli Tepe in southeastern Anatolia,
Sanli-Urfa region, north of the Syrian Harran plain,
were built from 11500 BP on, and in use till 9500 BP.
The highest T-shaped pillars are eight meters tall,
while the largest pillar in a nearby quarry, if freed
from the rock, would weigh fifty tons. Reliefs on the
pillars show various animals. By now a moonlike region,
Goebekli Tepe was by then surrounded by lush meadows.
Game, heading for the cooler Anatolian hills and woods
in spring, were an easy prey for the local hunters
who also maintained an important flint tool industry
and worked on obsidian from a not so far away volcano.

The temples of Goebekli Tepe were in use for two
millennia, and then carefully filled up and abandoned.
Half a millennium later, in around 9000 BP, agriculture
started in the Harran plain. The tokens from Asia Minor,
a simple way of recording numbers, are known since the
same time (www.sumerian.org).

Tell Halaf near Harran gave its name to an early stage
of Mesopotamian culture, and the amazing dish from Tell
Arpachiyah was formed and painted some 7,000 years ago.

Agriculture, by then known since two millennia, requires
a calendar, and establishing a useful calendar requires
observations of the sun and moon for several decades,
hence a well organized and stable farming society,
plus a recording system. These prerequisites were given
in the region of Tell Arpachiyah some 7,000 years ago,
where I locate 'my' calendar: a short week of 5 days,
a long week of 10 days, a month of 30 days, a year of
12 months plus 5 and occasionally 6 days, yielding 365
or 366 days. 64 lunations equal 63 continual months or
1890 days. 25 years equal 9131 days: 9000 plus 131 days.

Geographical latitude of Tell Arpachiyah: 36 degrees
29 minutes. Angle of ecliptic in 7000 BP: 24.171375
degrees. Morning width of rising midsummer sun (top
/ center / bottom): 31.352 / 30.615 / 29.898 degrees.
This angle is measured from the EW axis. Measure it
from the NS axis and you obtain roughly 60 degrees
(athmospheric influences ignored).

The directions North - rising midsummer sun - rising
midwinter sun - South - setting midwinter sun - setting
midsummer sun divided the circle of the horizon into
6 equal angles. Halve them and you obtain 12 equal
angles. Divide them by three and you obtain 36 equal
angles. Halve them and you obtain 72 equal angles.
Divide them by five and you get a circle of 360 degrees.
-
Regards Franz Gnaedinger www.seshat.ch
-

> Lao-tse had presumably been born by the end of the 7th
> century BC in the province of Henan on the middle course
> of the Yellow River, homeland of the neolithic Yangshao
> culture. Saying 42 of his Daode jing tells me that he
> knew the old calendars, and his name as a scholar,
> Be Yang, Earl Sun, only confirms my assumption.
>
> In Saying 11 of the Daode jing he tells that 30 spokes
> share a wheel's hub, yet it is the empty space in the
> center of the hub that makes a wheel useful. The cavity
> makes a vessel and the empty rooms make a house useful.
> What is there defines the form, and what is not there
> defines the use.
>
> The wheel of 30 spokes makes me think of a month of
> 30 days, basic element of 'my' hypothetical Yangshao
> calendar. If so, what may be represented by the empty
> space in the center of such a wheel of time? It may
> be English becoming, French devenir, growing in time,
> and what we call time would then be the wheel, vessel,
> house or shell of becoming.
>
> At the end of Saying 11, Lao-tse opposes being and form
> (also possession) to usefulness, in a quite practical
> sense. In a more philosophical sense, usefulness goes
> along with a process, and a process involves becoming,
> which, in the Daode jing, goes along with the week and
> soft, young plants, or water. Water makes plants grown,
> it is a soft element par excellence, and yet rivers
> wash away the loess ground and carve deep gorges into
> hard rock, so the soft element water which enhances
> growth and life is actually very strong.
>
> I ignore time when ideas form, when I do a work I like,
> when I fall in love and am with the woman I love. Works
> of art appear 'timeless' when they look as if they had
> just become and were not really made. Be on the side
> of becoming, and you are in time, flowing with time,
> one with time itself ...
> -
> Regards Franz Gnaedinger www.seshat.ch
> -
> > Let me come back on the marvellous painted dish from
> > Tell Arpachiyah near Niniveh in northern Mesopotamia,
> > dating from around 5000 BC (rather than from 5500 BC,
> > as I said in a previous message).
> >
> > In the center is a flower of 32 long petals, followed
> > by two rings of 25 darker and 25 brighter alternating
> > squares, followed by three rings of 36 darker and 36
> > brighter alternating squares, each darker field marked
> > with a white cross.
> >
> > This Halaf dish had always struck me as very special.
> > Now I dare call it a free artistic version of a still
> > recognizable early Mesopotamian calendar.
> >
> > The central flower indicates a windrose of 2x2x2x2x2
> > directions: N E S W / N NE E SE S SW W NW / ...
> >
> > The outer rings contain 36 white croses each. 36 long
> > weeks of 10 days yield 360 days. Add 5 and sometimes
> > 6 days and you obtain a solar year of 365 or 366 days.
> >
> > The central flower has 32 long petals. Add the 32 dark
> > spaces between the tips of the petals and you obtain
> > the number 64. 64 lunations equal 63 months of 30 days,
> > one month being 3 long weeks of 10 days or 6 short
> > weeks of 5 days.
> >
> > The rings around the flower contain 25 white crosses
> > each. The number 25 might indicate that 25 years are
> > a whole number of days, namely 9131 days, with a small
> > mistake of 190 seconds per year, some 80 minutes per
> > 25 years, or a little less than a day in 450 years.
> >
> > >From this we find that 25 years of 360 days each
> > require 131 additional days, which can be given as
> > a regular pattern:
> >
> > 5 5 6 5 5 5 6 5 5 5 6 5 5 5 6 5 5 5 6 5 5 5 6 5 5
> >
> > The length of a year would be 9131/25 or 365.24 days
> > (exact value 365.24210829 days; modern value from
> > 1989 AD; we know the astronomical figures quite well,
> > while uncertainties arise from what happened inside
> > our planet, which make the earth revolve at different
> > speeds over time).
> >
> > Science and art can well go along, as in the case
> > of that wonderful dish from the Halaf period.
> > -
> > Regards Franz Gnaedinger www.seshat.ch

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