Re: hypothetical Yangshao calendar (early China)
From: Franz Gnaedinger (frgn_at_bluemail.ch)
Date: 03/19/05
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Date: 18 Mar 2005 23:25:55 -0800
Picture yourself as a Mesopotamian astronomer, over
7,000 years ago, living on Tell Arpachiyah, observing
the sun as it rises from and sets on the flat horizon
of the wide river plain. You will make a marvellous
discovery. The directions North, rising midsummer sun,
rising midwinter sun, South, setting midwinter sun and
setting midsummer sun divide the circle of the horizon
into 6 perfectly equal angles ... Now you may divide
each angle into 60 fine angles and call them degrees.
Thus you obtain a circle of 360 degrees, which goes
along with a year of 360 days. Add 5 and occasionally
6 days and you obtain a whole year of 365 and sometimes
366 days. You will of course also observe the moon.
One moon or lunar cycle or lunation or synodic month or
lunar year is between 29 and 30 days; a little closer
to 30 days, and so you call a period of 30 days a month.
By observing the sky for years and years you notice
that 64 moons equal 63 continual months or 1890 days,
namely 9000 plus 131 days. From these relations you can
get fine numerical values for the lunar and solar year.
The famous tiles from the House of Tiles at Lerna in
the Argolis, Early Helladic period of time, came from
Asia Minor. The numbers provided by the decorative
patterns evoke the above calendar: the numbers 5 10 15
may perhaps indicate short weeks of 5 days; the numbers
6 12 24, as divisors of 360, may indicate a year; while
the numbers 4 8 16, as divisors of 64, would indicate
a cycle of 64 lunations.
The gold signet ring from Tiryns divides the circle of
the sun into six angles: www.seshat.ch/home/ring.gif
while the front of a bull-head from a Mycenaean tomb
is decorated with a flower of 16 long and narrow petals.
The number 16, belonging to the sequence 2 4 8 16 32 64,
may be a lunar number (the bull being a lunar symbol)
and stay for a cycle of 32 lunations that equal 21 long
months of 45 days or 945 days (assuming that the Middle
Minoan calendar from the Mesara plain in southern Crete
was also used in the Argolis from the Middle Helladic
onward).
Preview: Sumer - China / Maya calendar / brillant
historical Babylonian values for the lunation /
replying to Paul
-
Regards Franz Gnaedinger
-
> Walther Hinz deciphered Linear A tablet Hagia Triada 95
> as a list of grains that are to be given to the priests
> and priestesses of Adu (Baal) and his wife Dadumatha
> (the one loved by Baal). Hinz read the following signs,
> which also appear on other Linear A tablets, and on at
> least one hieroglyphic seal, as Mi-nu-the or Minut or
> Ebla in Syria, 40 km south of Aleppo, famous for its
> fine wheat (if you read my message via Google beta
> please install the opiton "fixed font"):
>
> o
> o o o ooooooo
> o o o o o
> o o o o ooooooo
> o o o oooooo o
> o o o o o ooooooo
> o o oooooo o
> o o o o o
> o o o o o o
> o o o
>
> I identified these signs as the head of a bull; a bull
> leaper in motion, a flip-flop figure standing on his
> feet his hands his feet again; and as a tree of life.
> Together they yield MI-NU-THE or - MINOS.
>
> The Minoans, then, would have come from Ebla, and so
> they may well have used the general calendar I ascribe
> to all of Mesopotamia and its neighbours. However, that
> calendar would have been modified and given in a very
> simple form as a rosette of either 8 or 10 petals.
>
> The rosette of 10 petals may symbolize ten months of
> 36 days, yielding 360 days. 5 or 6 addiontional days
> fill a year of 365 and occasionally 366 days, while
> 105 continual months or 3780 days equal 128 lunations.
>
> The flower of 8 petals may symbolize eight months of
> 45 days, yielding 360 days. 5 or 6 additional days
> fill a year of 365 and occasionally 366 days, while
> 21 continual months or 945 days equal 32 lunations.
> One month has five weeks of 9 days (week in Homer's
> Odyssey.
>
> Hoping that my ASCII drawing will be transmitted
> undisturbed, Franz Gnaedinger, www.seshat.ch
> -
>
> > A year ago I undertook an attempt at deciphering the
> > Vinca script (you may look up the thread Did the Trojan
> > war really happen the way Homer said it did?, or my web
> > page www.seshat.ch/home/vinca.htm).
> >
> > My interpretations of the round plaque from the burial
> > pit at Tartaria in western Romania, ca. 5300-5000 BC;
> > of a clay seal from Predionica near Pristina, end of
> > 6th millennium BC; of the charming shallow vessel from
> > Gradesnica near Vraca in western Bulgaria, ca. 5000 BC;
> > and of a fourfold sign incised in a pottery dish from
> > Bohemia, end of 6th - early fifth millennium BC (see:
> > Marija Gimbutas, The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe,
> > UCLA Press 1996) led me to an early European calendar:
> >
> > A year has 12 longer months of 25 days each, plus 4
> > shorter months of the solstices and equinoxes: 25 25 25
> > 16 (vernal equinox) 25 25 25 16 (summer solstice) 25 25
> > 25 16 (fall equi8nox) 25 25 25 17-18 (winter solstice),
> > yielding 365 and occasionally 366 days.
> >
> > Sequences of seven long and two short months
> >
> > 25 25 25 16 25 25 25 16 25
> > 25 25 16 25 25 25 16 25 25
> > 25 16 25 25 25 16 25 25 25
> >
> > yield 207 days each and correspond to seven lunations.
> >
> > This calendar would have given way to a second one:
> > year 52 weeks of seven days, plus 1 and occasionally
> > 2 days. Nine lunations equal 266 days or 36 weeks
> > (www.seshat.ch/home/stonehen.htm).
> >
> > A cycle of nine lunations equals roughly 266 days.
> > Nine cycles are about 2394 days - actually two days
> > less, namely 2392 days. Divide them by 9 x 9 and you
> > obtain a very good value for a lunation (mistake less
> > than 24 seconds).
> >
> > A cycle of seven lunations equals roughly 207 days.
> > Seven cycles are about 1449 days - actually two days
> > less, namnely 1447 days. Divide them by 7 x 7 and you
> > obtain a brillant value for a lunation (mistake only
> > two seconds).
> >
> > If my reconstructions hold, the first Vinca calendar
> > and the Halafian calendar differ markedly. There are
> > various numerical options for an early calendar. Why,
> > then, did Egypt and China wind up with the Mesopotamian
> > calendar model? For the time being I find it plausible
> > that Egypt and China took over the older Mesopotamian
> > model, and the same calendar spread to Crete and the
> > Argolis, as I shall demonstrate in my next messages.
> > -
> > Regards Franz Gnaedinger
> > -
> >
> > > 'My' Mesopotamian calendar would have been taken over
> > > by early dynastic Egypt, where the cycle of 64 moons
> > > or lunations that equal 63 months or 1890 days would
> > > have been linked with the Horus Eye.
> > >
> > > Horus was the Celestial Falcon. His one eye was the
> > > sun, his other eye was the moon. Seth destroyed the
> > > moon eye, whereupon wise Thoth restored it. However,
> > > a small part was missing, and that small part seems
> > > to be a duration, namely the gap between moon and
> > > month: one 64th of 30 days. One moon is obtained by
> > > multiplying a month by the series of the Horus Eye:
> > > 30 days x '2 '4 '8 '16 '32 '64 yield 29 '2 '32 days
> > > or 29 days 12 hours 45 minutes (modern value 29 days
> > > 12 hours 44 minutes 2.9 seconds, mistake only 57.1
> > > seconds, less than one minute).
> > >
> > > The same calendar would have been used in early
> > > China: a month of 30 days, a year of 12 months plus
> > > 5 and occasionally 6 days, 64 moons equal 63 months.
> > > Interestingly, Yangshao in the province of Henan has
> > > about the same geographical latitude as the region
> > > of Tell Arpachiyah in Mesopotamia.
> > >
> > > Sumerian/Akkadian lapis lazuli came from Afghanistan.
> > > Neolithic dwellers lived along former rivers in the
> > > Takla Makan, Xinjiang province. A 5000-year-old stone
> > > knive with seven holes representing the Big Dipper
> > > has been found in the Qinghai province. There may well
> > > have been a way from Mesopotamia via Afghanistan, the
> > > Takla Makam and the Qinghai province to the provinces
> > > of Shaanxi, Shanxi and Henan on the middle course of
> > > the Yellow River, homeland of the neolithic Yangshao
> > > culture. Evidence for the use of my calendar in early
> > > China is provided by Yangshao ceramics, and by ceramic
> > > objects from Banshan in the province of Gansu.
> > >
> > > Later on, 'my' calendar would have been modified under
> > > the legendary first king Fuh-hi: new zodiac 28 mansions,
> > > long week 1 5 1 5 1 or 13 days, year 28 long weeks plus
> > > 1 and occasionally 2 days, 81 lunations equal 184 long
> > > weeks or 2392 days; alternative week 7 days, month 28
> > > days, year 13 months plus 1 and occasionally 2 days,
> > > 12 lunations equal 135 alternative weeks or 945 days.
> > >
> > > (The numbers of both calendars can be derived from
> > > the mystic symbol ho-t'u in the I-king or I-Ching.)
> > > -
> > > Regards Franz Gnaedinger www.seshat.ch
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