Re: hypothetical Yangshao calendar (early China)

From: Franz Gnaedinger (frgn_at_bluemail.ch)
Date: 03/09/05 

Date: 8 Mar 2005 23:25:06 -0800

FIRST CALENDAR, zodiac 12 mansions
short week 5 days, long week 10 days, month 30 days
year 12 months, plus 5 and occasionally 6 days
64 lunations equal 63 months or 1890 days
L = 30 days x '2 '4 '8 '16 '32 '64 (Horus Eye)

SECONDA CALENDAR, zodiac 28 mansions
long week 1 5 1 5 1 = 13 days
year 28 long weeks = 364 days, plus 1 or 2 days
81 lunations = 184 long weeks or 2392 days

Having established a year of 364 + 1(2) days we may
consider a further partition. 364 days can be given
as 52 weeks of 7 days, and one may count 7 days in
a continual manner, as we are doing: Sunday Monday
Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday
Monday ... If New Year's Eve is on a Friday, New
Year will be Saturday; it won't begin on a Sunday.
So we have a similar system: counting years on the
one hand; enumerating continual weeks of seven days
on the other hand, if only on a verbal level, no
longer actually counting them.

But let us count weeks in the frame of the second
(hypothetical) Chinese calendar. We know that 64
lunations equal 63 months of 30 days = 1890 days.
1890 divided by 7 yields 270. Hence 64 lunations
= 1890 days = 270 weeks of 7 days. Or 32 lunations
= 945 days = 135 weeks of 7 days.

SECOND CALENDAR B, zodiac 28 mansions
long week 1 5 1 5 1 = 13 days
year 28 long weeks, plus 1 or 2 days
81 lunations equal 184 long weeks;
alternative week 7 days, month 28 days
year 13 months, plus 1 or 2 days
32 lunations equal 135 weeks of 7 days

Next messages: How the second calendar paves the way
for the Chang cylce; lunisolar calendar of 19 years /
For the Halaf painted dish from Tell Arpachiyah again
/ "What is time? I know it as long as nobody asks me,
but I don't know it anymore when I am getting asked"
Saint Augustin. Lao-tse, who lived a long time before
Augustine, may have given the answer in his Daode jing.

Being invited to the country-side I will have to delay
my messages (Chang cycle Friday, Halaf dish Saturday,
Saying 11 Monday).
-
Regards Franz Gnaedinger www.seshat.ch

> Peter T. Daniels: my apologies for a plain stupid
> formulation. America did of course not get "the
> French constitution" - what I meant and remember
> having learned in school is that the ideas which led
> to the French Revolution from 1789 onward were also
> essential for the Constitution of the U.S., framed
> from 1787 on, going in effect on 4 March 1789. I had
> no reason to doubt what I had been taught in school,
> it seemed reasonable to me, what with all the refugees
> who had left the Ancien Régime for Northern America,
> where they settled everywhere from Quebec, Wild Onion
> (better known as Chicago, built on a former Indian
> market place where onions had been traded), Louisiana
> and New Orleans, where French survives. Is that wrong?
> I was so taken with Lao-tse that a silly formulation
> of mine could pass.
>
> ---
>
> Hypothetical calendar from Tell Arpachiyah in northern
> Mesopotamia in the Halafian: a month of 30 days; a year
> of 12 months plus 5 and occasionally 6 days: 64 moons
> or lunations equal 63 continual months or 1890 days.
>
> This calendar would have been known as Horus Calendar
> in early dynastic Egypt. 1 moon = 1 month times the
> Horus Eye series = 30 days x '2 '4 '8 '16 '32 '64
> = 29 '2 '32 days (mistake 58 seconds).
>
> The same calendar would have been used in China, e.g.
> at Banshan, Gansu, www.szcmpm.com/image.banshan.jpg
> (in the background a potential hill of the Moon God).
>
> Later on, allegedly under the reign of the legendary
> first king Fuh-hi, the Chinese zodiac was divided
> into 28 animals and mansions. What was gained with
> such a modification? Let me explore the numbers.
>
> 28 x 13 = 364. A long week might have counted 1 5 1 5 1
> = 13 days. 28 long weeks plus one and occasionally two
> days yield a year of 365 and sometimes 366 days.
>
> 184 long weeks equal 81 lunations; mistake 32 minutes.
> 1 lunation = 13 days times 184/81; mistake 23 seconds.
>
> This relation would be more precise than the first one
> (mistake 23 instead of 58 seconds), and, amazingly,
> it can be derived from the first one:
>
> 64 lunations equal 63 months of 30 days = 1890 days.
>
> 17 lunations equal 30 29 30 29 30 29 30 29 30 29 30 29
> 30 29 30 29 30 = 502 days.
>
> 64 + 17 = 81 moons = 1890 + 502 = 2392 = 184 x 13 days.
>
> The new calendar would have followed the same pattern
> while providing a more precise solution that must have
> been appealing as the key number 81 is again composed
> of a single small number: 64 = 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2,
> 81 = 3 x 3 x 3 x 3.
>
> When Lao-tse wrote in Saying 42: "... / Unity produces
> duality / Duality produces trinity / Trinity produces
> all creatures / ..." he might well have relied on the
> historical evolution of the early Chinese calendar:
> unity evokes the circle of the full moon; duality may
> refer to the number 2 in the key number of the first
> calendar 64 = 2x2x2x2x2x2; trinity to the number 3 in
> the key number of the modified calendar 81 = 3x3x3x3;
> and all creatures produced by the trinity would refer
> to the 28 animals of the modified zodiac.
> -
> Regards Franz Gnaedinger www.seshat.ch
>
>
> > Dylan and Paul: there are several good reasons for
> > assuming that 'my' calendar originated from northern
> > Mesopotamia in the Halaf period, as I shall explain
> > in a later message. - Good ideas spread. America got
> > the French constitution; Switzerland the American one;
> > Turkey the Swiss one. Same basis, different nations.
> > My calendar is another good idea that spread (Richard
> > Dawkins would speak of a good meme), and every region
> > made something special of it. Have a little patience.
> > >From tomorrow on I shall show you that the Chinese
> > modified the Mesopotamian calendar into an appealing
> > and more precise calendar, which paved the way for
> > the Chang cycle (lunisolar calendar of 19 years).
> >
> > ---
> >
> > A month of 30 days; a year of 12 months plus 5 and
> > occasionally 6 days; 64 lunations equal 63 months or
> > 1890 days - these are the basic numbers of a calendar
> > which I ascribe to Mesopotamia in the Halaf period,
> > and which may then have spread to Egypt, Persia,
> > India, and China.
> >
> > The number 64 became part of the famous Egyptian series
> > of the Horus Eye, which, mutliplied by the 30 days of
> > a regular month, yields a lunation:
> >
> > 1 'moon' = 30 days x '2 '4 '8 '16 '32 '64
> >
> > = 29 '2 '32 days (mistake only 58 seconds)
> >
> > The number 64 = 2x2x2x2x2x2 is useful as it allows
> > an ever finer windrose: North and South / N E S W /
> > N NE E SE S SW W NW / and so on.
> >
> > The numbers 2 4 8 16 32 64 became also important for
> > Chinese philosophy. Liang I: two principles, Yin and
> > Yang. Sz' Siang: four figures. Pa-kua: eight trigrams,
> > ascribed to the legendary first king Fuh-hi, and basis
> > of the 64 quasi-binary hexagrams in the later I-king.
> >
> > In the 'begin' was the Wu Gi or Non-Begin, represented
> > by an empty circle. The Wu Gi was followed by the well
> > known figure of the Tai Gi: Yin and Yang in a circle,
> > meeting each other along an S-line, one drop of Yin
> > included in the Yang, one drop of Yang in the Yin.
> >
> > We also find the number 3: Dao (sense, logos) produces
> > unity; unity produces duality; duality produces trinity;
> > and trinity produces all creatures ... From Saying 42
> > by Li, whose name as a young man was Erl or perhaps Er,
> > meaning Ear. His name as a scholar was Ye Bang, meaning
> > Earl Sun. His posthumous name of honor was Lao Dan,
> > meaning Old Long-Ear, Old Teacher. He is best known to
> > the world as Lao-tse, an appellativum meaning Old One.
> >
> > Lao-tse may have known the two calendars (tomorrow),
> > and, I believe, he had a deep understanding of time
> > as wheel, vessel, house or shell of becoming (by
> > the end of this week or next week).
> > -
> > Regards Franz Gnaedinger www.seshat.ch

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