The Calendar Takes Shape in Mesopotamia
Overview
The calendar used today in the West has its roots in the system developed by the astronomers of Mesopotamia—and particularly the Mesopotamian civilization of Babylonia—during the period from the third to first millennium before the Christian era. Other civilizations created their own calendars with varying degrees of accuracy, but it is from Mesopotamia that the concept of the year, month, and day each gained their most consistent and lasting definition. A fourth means of marking time, the week, may also be traced (if perhaps indirectly) to Babylonia.
Background
Practically from the beginning of recorded time, men recognized that a year lasts about 360 days, a number still reflected in the use of a 360° circle among mathematicians and astronomers today. This may also have influenced the Babylonian adaptation of a sexagesimal, or base-60, number system (as opposed to the base-10 system used by Westerners today) in c. 2700 B.C.
The figure of 360 represented a mean, or close to one, between the length of the lunar and solar calendars. As its name implies, a lunar calendar is based on the Moon's revolutions around Earth, of which there are 12 during a solar year.
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