What calendars were used all over the world before the Gregorian calendar appeared?

Calendar is an important tool for human beings to calculate time and plan their lives. There are many unique calendars and chronologies in the world, from which we can feel the great differences between civilizations.

The origin of calendar

In the eyes of the ancients, the sun and the moon were the brightest and most regular celestial bodies in the sky. Under the guidance of the sun and the moon, people have the concept of date and time.

Because there is an included angle of about 23 26' between the equator of the earth and the ecliptic (the track of the sun -n as seen from the earth). In an N, because the earth revolves around the sun, the direct point of the sun will always move slowly between the tropic of cancer, resulting in fluctuations in the length of day and night and the cycle of the four seasons. The ancients realized this periodic phenomenon and produced the concept of "N". The days when the sun shines directly on the Tropic of Cancer and the equator are called vernal equinox, autumnal equinox, summer solstice and winter solstice (collectively referred to as vernal equinox and autumnal equinox). Calendars based on this are called solar calendars or solar calendars.

The moon is full of rain and sunshine. As the moon moves around the earth, the angle at which the sun shines on the moon changes. On the earth, every 29.5 days, that is, a lunar cycle, we can witness a complete moon phase change. A calendar based on the change of moon phases is called lunar calendar, or lunar calendar. In order to give consideration to the relationship between the earth, the moon and the sun, to coordinate the moon phase with the changes of the four seasons, and to integrate the lunar calendar with the solar calendar, a yin-yang calendar was created. Most calendars in the world fall into one of these three categories.

Relationship between Wallenfield Pit and Moon Phase

Research shows that about 654.38+00,000 years ago, our ancestors began to consciously put stones on the ground to mark the changes in the sky, or to record the passage of time by depicting symbols. At the Wurdi Youang site in Australia, a series of regularly placed stones were found. Scholars believe that these stones can reflect the rising and falling points of the sun at different times in Ann. In Warenfield, Scotland, archaeologists discovered the 12 pit about 10000 years ago. These pits can reflect the change of the moon phase and are considered as a primitive calendar.

From 5000 to 4000 BC, this clay pot was unearthed in Vukovar, Croatia. The squares on the clay pot represent the seasons and weeks, and hieroglyphics represent celestial bodies such as Orion belt, sun and moon. This is considered to be the earliest calendar in Europe. Ancestors mainly determined the passage of time according to the changes of the three stars in Orion belt.

The change of sunlight shapes the four seasons and also affects the growth cycle of crops. With the development of agriculture, people gradually realize the importance of accurate calendar. At the same time, the appearance of characters enables people to record astronomical phenomena in detail and make calendars. Around 3000-2000 BC, around the same time that characters were born, ancient civilizations around the world developed the earliest written calendar. After thousands of years of development, different calendar traditions have also formed in various places.

Chinese calendar

Legend has it that the ancient Yellow Emperor created the calendar. At the latest in Shang Dynasty, China had detailed astronomical records and calendars. In addition to guiding agricultural production, many religious festivals in ancient China must be formulated according to the astronomical phenomena, and imperial astronomers must constantly observe the astronomical phenomena to revise calendars and arrange festivals.

Since Shang Dynasty at the latest, people in China have used the lunar calendar, which integrates the laws of the sun and the moon. This is the lunar calendar today. The length of a lunar month is based on the first lunar month. In order to conform to the revolution of the earth and the changes of the four seasons, it is necessary to insert leap months every few n to make adjustments. From Oracle Bone Inscriptions, we know that merchants divide n into 65438+ February, leap year 65438+ March, big month with 30 days and small month with 29 days, which is very close to today's lunar calendar.

Different from today, the ancients in China initially determined the four seasons by the appearance of stars at dusk. In Yao Dian of Shangshu, birds, fire, sky and long night are the twilight stars of midsummer, midsummer, midsummer and midwinter. During the Spring and Autumn Period, the ancients invented earth rules to observe the shadow of the sun and determine the winter solstice and summer solstice. At that time, the lunar calendar was very developed, and people adopted the leap adjustment cycle of 19n, which was earlier than the meton cycle in ancient Greece, and was more than 100 n. In the Spring and Autumn Period, people have known the existence of two vernal equinoxes (vernal equinox, autumnal equinox, summer solstice and winter solstice). In the Qin and Han dynasties, other solar terms were gradually determined, that is, the famous twenty-four solar terms.