Time can be measured in days,
months, years. The ultimate time measures are fractions of days.
The number 10 is based on counting ones fingers
The numbers 28 - 30 are probably based on estimates of the moon cycle;
360 on the length of the year and approximately twelve moon cycles, i.e.
months. Some peoples of very early times
used 366 as the number of sunrises in a year and therefore using a circle as a representation
of a year dived the circle into 366 parts.
Distance is easily measured with a
stick or rod; the most portable distance measuring device is a length of some
flexible material like a length of vine, twine, rope, or chain, etc.
The
easiest and most portable length
measuring standards relate to body parts, the hand, foot, arm, etc.
Ancient
Astronomical Measuring Devices: Vertical Rod or gnomon, properly ls a set of
steps or stair.
CYCLES:
The best representation of a cycle is a circle. Of the many cycles we
experience are: the day, month and year. Some number of these forms a person's
life. Life itself follows a cyclic pattern and becomes what tends to be called
a life cycle usually now measured in number of years. This number seems to be
increasing if you live in a well run contemporary society, and are lucky. I am
an octogenarian which signifies at least 80 complete years. A short time in
relation to recorded history, and very short in terms of the postulated age of
the earth, universe etc, however relatively long in terms of the ages of my
male ancestors.
Why 360 degrees
in a circle?
My speculation is that in the distant past people noticed that the yearly cycle
repeated itself and became curious as to how many days formed the year. One
recorded each day with some kind of marker. You could do it as a line or some
other way of arranging the markers. When a new year was detected, i.e. the
cycle started over again a logical approach would be to start at the beginning
and repeat the cycle. The easiest figure to follow for this is circular. A good
approximation of the length of the year is 360 days and the ideal pattern for
keeping track of the progress of the year is a circle. In the book 'Uriel's
Machine' it is mentioned that the year was for a while thought to consist of
368 nights so 368 days was used. It takes on a few years to find out that 366
days and nights is a better approximation. Since 366 is an awkward number, one
can imagine simplifying things by using 360 with and error term of 5, or 6.
Many world calendar advocates still think in terms of a 360 day year with five
world days added to make it nearly correct. If the extra day is added every
fourth year we arrive at the current calendar. The leap years are used to correct
the cycle time for y area to what it really is, rather than the number 365.
It is easier to
count lunar cycles and to count the days in a month.
Importance of
Quarter points of Year
Repeated observation of the yearly cycle will reveal that there are four
special times: shortest day, days when there is equal daylight and dark and
longest day. Depending on your thinking one of them can be chosen as the
beginning of a new year. At present we use the period with the shortest day. We
don't use the shortest day because of calendar errors in the past. Similarly
Easter is related to the transition from when there is more dark than daylight
hours to when the light begins to exceed the dark. This has been used in the
past as the time of the New Year. It is approximately when the plants begin to
grow again and a time for planting
End to date: 070512, ams