Concept of Time & Calendar -1

Davood N. Rahni Prof.

"For in and out, above, about, & below, Tis nothing but a Magic Shadow-show, Playd in an Earth Box whose candle is the Sun, Round which we the phantom Figures come and go" (Quatrain by Omar Khayam, the 11th century Persian Poet, Mathematician, and Philosopher)

The YEAR 2000 CE is equivalent to: 2004 A.D. (actual birth of Jesus ~4 BCE) 5119 Mayan 5760 Jewish 6236 Egyptian 2544 Buddhist 1420 Moslem 1378 Persian (2708 Mede, 2578) 1716 Coptic 2749 Babylonian 2753 Old Roman (~4600)Chinese Dragon Year Bedes 5951 after Creation The Universe is believed to have been born 13.5 billion years ago The Earth is estimated to have been formed 4.5 billion years ago The earliest form of life on earth commenced over 2 billion years ago The current terrestrial species, including the mammals and hominids have only proliferated after the asteroid collision with Mexicos Yucatans peninsula of 65 million years ago, when more than 90% of the earlier species went extinct Prehistoric humans most likely developed a certain cognitive appreciation of the concept of time and frequency of seasons perhaps as early as several million years ago. It goes without saying, however, that a biological clock, a harmonic biorhythm

based on physiological and biochemical dynamics, equilibriums and needs must have existed in all flora and fauna throughout evolution as programmed by the mating, migrating and reproductive cycles and later the concept of birth and death, philosophy of life, and speculations on before-life and after-life quandaries. Based on our current anthropological, mythological and geo-archaeological understandings, we can only reflect on the past one hundred thousand years of human history. We should, nonetheless, accept the possibility that humanoids may have evolved to certain advanced cognitive consciousness throughout the past millions of years or so, and far earlier than the latest recent cycle of 50-100 thousand years. Artistic and aesthetic expressions such as the cave paintings of rhinos, bison, and horses created in south central Europe, of using black charcoal and red ocher (iron-ore mud) around 32,000 BCE preceded the regular recording of time; concurrently, humans in Africa, Australia and Asia used the same pigments to paint local animals. Coincidentally, the Greeks dyed their bodies dead with the same red blood looking dye when they fooled the Persian army to cross the Constantinoples channel to be defeated twenty five hundred years ago. Musical expression can be traced back to 100,000 years ago, based on a set of bird-bone flute found in Ireland. Although a new allotrope of carbon other than diamonds and graphite, named buckminsterfullerene, C60, was serendipitously discovered in the laboratory by the Nobel Laureate Richard Smalley in the 1980s, we would remain self-centered if we assume such compound is not hanging in the soot on the ceilings of pre-historic caves. One should also cite a 30,000 year-old bone found in France, which is covered with rounded engravings representing the moons two-and-a-half month cycle, i.e., a quarter, to half, to full, and to a quarter moon, presumably made by the Cro-Magnon species who occupied the area. Grapes was first crushed in the Middle East to make wine, where there is also evidence for a barley based beer brewery in todays Northwestern Iran nearly 10,000 years ago (1). The site for the earliest use of fire is now discovered in todays Israel to date back to nearly 800,000 years ago. Cognitive, instinctive, and intuitive evolution of mind as the pre-requisite toward the understanding, appreciation, control and mimicking of natural phenomena and periodic terrestrial seasonal changes were accomplished more distinctly by humans in contrast to the rest of the animal species, although many migratory species have followed a degree of the same repetitive harmony with nature. These included the appearance, disappearance and color variations of vegetation and animals, i.e., flora and fauna, climate, temperature and shadow patterns, animal migrations, and above all the movement of celestial objects, the moon, the sun and other stars in the deep blue sky. Serendipity played a crucial role in harnessing natural resources by humans. The concept was further strengthened by extraterrestrial and celestial observations, namely those of the heavens and heavenly bodies and epitomized by the repetitive pattern variations in shape, brightness and locations associated with the two main celestial bodies, the Sun and the Moon, as well as certain bright stars. One could retroactively infer the emergence of lunar calendars

before the solar and zodiacal ones, most probably in Mesopotamia. Human race has certainly come a long way from pre-history to the ultra accurate time monitoring with the Atomic Clock that operates based on the oscillation of cesium and is located in the U.S. Naval Observatory since 1972. A "cesium(-beam) atomic clock" (or "cesium-beam frequency standard") is a device that uses as a reference the exact frequency of the microwave spectral line emitted by atoms of the metallic element cesium, in particular its isotope of atomic weight 133 ("Cs-133"). The integral of frequency is time, so this frequency, 9,192,631,770 hertz (Hz = cycles/second), provides the fundamental unit of time, which may thus be measured by cesium clocks. So, human civilization was preceded for the most of the past millions o years by human evolution. Thereafter, the Sun was recognized to be the much more vital celestial object to which early humans depended on for both spiritual and material energy purposes. There may have as well been the recognition that the earth and the moon orbited around the sun. Zoroastrianism and Mithraism (Mitra means the sun-god or the god of love), perhaps the first monotheistic religions were preceded by a form of sun worshipping as far back as 5,000 BCE; thence, the reason for the sacredness of light and fire in these and many subsequent religions. Later, even the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) as well as many others placed their saints and religious icons superimposed to a sun, thus the halo aurora. Winter solstice was presumably among the earliest celebrations since it was a turning point for the shortest sun day to begin becoming longer. As such many peoples believed that due to their sins the sun was about to abandon them! In fact, Dies Natalis, i.e., December 25, the date when the Invincible Sun God (Sol Invinctus) was born, became the most sacred festival for Mithraism, Zoroastrianism, for the Egyptians in honor of Isis the mother of the Sun-God Horus, for Norse pagans who called it Yule (note the similarity to Yalda, the Persian or Syriac equivalent!) which celebrated Odin, the god of ecstasy, and, later for the Romans who held observances in honor of Saturn, the god of harvesting. Moreover, the Jewish month of Kisleve and the Feast of Dedication (Hanukkah, sometimes referred to as the Feast of Lights) has preceded the Christmas traditions. Illanut, a tree based Jewish celebration preceded the Hanukkah that had its roots in Persian way of life. In fact, the celebration of Winter Solstice on December 21 by the Babylonians, Persians, Romans, leading to its adoption by the Christians in the year 350 CE preceded the December 25 celebration (14). Ylada, a Syriac/Soryani word meaning birth is still celebrated on December 21 in most Middle Eastern and Southern former Russian Republics especially in Iran and Afghanistan. The ancient Roman festivals of Saturnia (God of Agriculture) and Sol Invicta (Sun God) are amongst the best known celebrations based on Winter Solstice in the Western World, again the precursors to todays Christmas. The date was adopted millennia later by the Christians to signify the birth of their Messiah, Jesus, even though there was some earlier historical evidence of placing the Jesuss birth in March (Josephous, Egypt 555 BCE). All the above said, notwithstanding, however, and based on archaeological evidence of Africa as the cradle of human race, one should hasten to cite the skeletal remains of Mother Lucy of 3.5 million years ago, in Ethiopian region of Hadar, as the common maternal ancestor all humans. Accordingly, it is natural to note there are much historical evidence and extrapolation back in time, although not universally accepted, that many of the biblical stories, discoveries, and

contributions to world civilizations have their roots deeply embedded on the African continent.

Carl Jung, the famous Swiss psychiatrist who left Ziegmund Frieuds camp, has elaborately presented the influence of Mithraism on Christianity in his writing, Symbols of Transformation (15). Zoroastrians feel obliged to continuously keep a sacred fire alive in their temples ever since. In fact, light manifested itself as an aura halo, an important religious symbol in almost all religions thereafter. Iranian Mazdakism and Manichaeism religions that were based on pictorial conceptualization and spatial visualization, utilized the power of light, fire and energy immensely. Before the agricultural era ten thousand years ago in Mesopotamia when herding and cropping and thus landlord-ship emerged, humans were gatherers and hunters, migrating randomly from one place to the other in search of food and shelter. Based on memories, they cognitively and intuitively concluded that they only needed to identify and migrate between two regions, warm and cold, so as to increase their chances of survival and sustenance. Undoubtedly, this was one of the earliest points that are so pivotal to the establishment of the systematic method of keeping track of time known as CALENDAR. This tracking of time is observed in the behavior of many migratory species, specially birds and mammals as well. Upon careful observation of various natural phenomena, humans must have first considered many of the more dramatic ones as supernatural or as signs of gods wrath or pleasure, and BCE stands for Before Common Era, CE stands for Common Era, using 1 A.D. as a reference. thereby worshipped many objects such as the Sun and the Moon. Catastrophic disasters, namely giant floods, earthquakes and asteroid strikes were deemed as apocalyptic Armageddon ending an ear of injustice and inequity, and the rebirth of a just world by return of a messiah. Understanding the behavior of fire, and harnessing its properties for the benefit of mankind must have indeed been preceded by the sight of lightning striking trees and prairies. Observation of directions and length associated with shadows of natural and man-made objects provided an effective means of keeping track of daily time and seasonal variations (precursors to sundials). Such frequencies were in unison with the built in biological clock in humans and other species. If a tree feels naturally compelled to throw its pollen/seeds in the air in early spring breeze, it aspires to contribute to sustain its gene pools, whether we acknowledge it or not. By the same token, if a sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka) has the annual migratory urge to swim all the way back from the Pacific Ocean, through Columbia River and upstream into these specific calm fresh water estuaries to spawn, who are we not to believe that they also possess an appreciation of the concept of time and thus optimal timing!

Before I delve further into the presentation of this prose, let me reaffirm my life-long commitment to universal HUMAN globalism, although I may at times resort to a Persian/Iranian lens in order to utter my perspectives as they are anchored on my heritage. The internal struggle in humans manifested itself in creating and visualizing mythological dual gods and images for every scenario: gods of day vs. night, death vs. life, light vs. dark, thunder vs. serenity, good vs. bad, heaven vs. hell, and later God vs. Satan or the devil (in Zoroastrianism Ahurra Mazda vs. Ahriman). The need for having a calendar became even more important after people settled in small agricultural and herd based communities, and had to keep track of their important events and rituals in their lives. As a matter of fact, one may conclude that planting and harvesting became the two earliest cyclical focal points in time. Zoroastrians believed in the sacredness of the four elements of life: fire, earth, water and air. So, they never buried the dead nor did they cremate their dead, as they thought that would contaminate these sacred elements; instead, they would leave the dead atop a mountain to be consumed by vultures and other birds of prey and for the bones to drop down the dry well (Dakhmeh). Again, recognizing the green warming season vs. the dry chilling season, early humans learned to plant crops at certain periods in order to optimize the growth output, the former also coincided with the birthing period of many domesticated and wild animals around them. In other words, the importance of the spring season as the period during which birth and rebirth (survival) of vegetation and animals is at a maximum (presumably for evolutionary reasons) was recognized, and most probably celebrated. That by itself provides the strongest evidence of the vernal equinox, now March 21, as the commencement of a New Year in subsequent calendars that were developed in the Mesopotamian region, Iran and beyond. Once again, this might have as well been up to a million years ago; nonetheless, we have no record of it, only circumstantial evidence and speculative extrapolation back in time. Calendars developed by the various peoples of Mesopotamia, as far back as 6000 years, are among the first calendars known to-date. The eighth century British Bede in his book History, computed the day of the creation to be March 18, 3952 B.C.E., another indication of the importance of the beginning of spring! In fact, spring vernal equinox as late as the eighteenth century, was the first day of European Common New Year. Have you ever wondered why the current so called western months of September (7), October (8), November (9), December (10) necessitates January to be the 11th and February as the 12th, and thus March the first month of the New Year?! The term, Kalends as the precursor to the word calendar for tracking time, is Latin meaning the beginning of the month. Professor W. Sayce in an 1874 article in Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archaeology writes, The standard astrological work of the Babylonians and Assyrians was one consisting of seventy tablets, drawn up for the Library of Sargon, the King of Agane, in the 16th century BCE. This date is, however, revised to date back to 3800 BCE. The Accadian calendar was arranged to suit the order of the zodiacal signs. Nisan, the first month, answered to the first zodiacal sign. From as far back as 4698 BCE, when the sun entered the first point of Aries at the vernal equinox in the time of Hiparkhus and before then,

New Year was observed by the Accadians based on zodiacal observations. Nisan was the first month of the year. The earliest evidence support the fact that the first Accadian calendar had originated when the winter solstice, perhaps the time of throwing agriculture seeds for subsequent year, and not the vernal equinox coincided with the suns entry into the constellation Aries, dating back to 6000BCE, but was later moved to Nisan, the first month of spring. The Accadian months were: Nisannu (Barzig-gar in Accadian), Airu, Simjannu, Duzu, Abu, Ululu, Tischritu, Arah-samna, Kislimu, Tebitu, Sabatu, Adaru (2). Barzig-gar in early Pahlavi and perhaps in Proto-Indo-European languages meant the season for seeding. In fact, in Persian, the word Barz refers to crop seeds, and Gar is a subjective suffix referring to ones profession similar to -smith in English. The word Barzgar is still used in Iran and the surrounding countries referring to a farmer who spreads and cultivates crop seeds. In the northern valley of Karkas (Vulture) Mountain (altitude: 4200 meters) located in Natanz, a provincial town between Kashan and Esphahan in Iran, there is a fertile oasis village called Barz. It is located in the vicinity of Abyaneh, another antique village (registered by UNESCO as a historical community), where the inhabitants still speak a middle Pahlavi dialect, and where the religion was Zoroastrian until presumably as recently as 16th century in the Safavid era. In fact, the Zoroastrian temple and the mosque co-exist side by side today. Professor M. Hommel of the University of Oxford in the 1899 March number of the Proceedings of Biblical Archaeology calls attention in his Assyriological Notes to the name Assara Mazas appearing among the Assyrian Gods; its similarity with the Persian God Ahura Mazda is hard to miss. The older Persian word in the Kassitic Surias, sun, later became Ahura and Hvarya. In Sanskrit, Asura and suria are of the highest importance for the history of Aryan languages. In the same Kassitic period, between 1700 and 1200 BCE, the Assyrians most likely borrowed the Iranian god Assara-Mazas. Asura in the Vedic literature means Spirit, the wise. Sources and Further Readings (1) National Geographic, Global Culture, Vol. 196 No. 2, August 1999. (2) Ancient Calendars and Constellations, by Emmeline M. Plunket, Published by John Murphy 1903 London (3) Handy-Book of Rules and Tables for verifying dates with the Christian Ear, John. J. Bond, Russell & Russell, New York 1966. (4) Praise, Frank, the Book of Calendar, Published by Facts on File 1982, New York. (5) Torpe, B. the Homilies of the Angelo-Saxon Church, 2Vols, pp 98, London 1844. (6) Amir Moez, Yassaman The magic of NuRuz, Indian Journal of Folk-lore, January 1992. (7) Grimal, Pierre, Larousse World Mythology 55-70 (New York, G.P. Putnum 1963. (8) When The New Year Came in March, by Dorothea Stilman, published by E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., New York 1944. ( 9) The book of Calendars Frank Praise, ed., Published by Facts on File, Inc. 1982.

(10) http://www.earthsite.org (11) New Year in Greece, VIKTIS, Vol. 56, No. 6, page 9, 1996. (12) New Year CelebrationsPast & Present, VILTIS, Vol. 55, No. 5, page 5, 1995 (13) The Poem, as inscribed atop the UN Headquarters entrance in Geneva, by the 13th Century Persian Poet, Sadi (14) Yalda Festival, Massoume, http://www.payvand.com/ny/yalda.html, December 1999. (15) Borrowed Ideas: Persian roots of Christian traditions, Ramona Shahshaani, December 1999 http://www.iranian.com/History/1999/December/New Year/index.html (16) Calendar, David Ewing Duncan, 1998, Avon Books, Inc. (17) The Oxford Companion to the Year, B. Blackburn & L. Holford-Strevens, 1999, Oxford Press. (18) An earlier excerpt version of this article has been published in Vol. 4, No. 16th issue (Winter 1999), Persian Magazine (www.mirassiran.com)