What are calendar calendars. chronology in different countries. Calendars of the countries of the world. French revolutionary calendar

We all count the days, some until the holidays, some until the weekend, and also until the anniversary or some other important date. We owe the ability to count years, months and even days to the creators of calendars. And each of us dreams of forever capturing the happiest day or the dearest face of a child, so that when you look at the photo, you know on which day, year and month this event occurred. How many calendars have been created in the history of the earth? It is unlikely that even the greatest scientists will dare to give an answer to this question with absolute accuracy. Only one thing can be said with certainty, that every people that has ever lived on our planet had their own calendars that helped them keep track of time, and the design of calendars, their form and methods of calculating time were very different from each other.

"Calendar" is translated from Latin as a debt book. Its name is associated with the fact that in ancient Rome, debtors were required to pay interest to the borrower on the day - calends, which fell on the first days of the month. Initially, the calculation of long periods of time was based on the movement of large celestial bodies - the Sun and the Moon, on the basis of which lunar and solar calendars were created. Today, the calendar is a periodical publication that contains a strict sequence for days, weeks and months, and it also necessarily highlights holidays of a different nature.

Where did the first calendar originate?

The first calendar was created in ancient Egypt. It was based on the regular floods of the Nile River, which occurred at regular intervals. The creation of the calendar was due to the fact that the floods of the Nile ruined the crop if it was not harvested on time. In addition, during the flood, the rivers brought a huge amount of fertile soil. And in order for the crop not to die and to be planted and harvested on time, the ancients developed a calendar based on the cyclical flood of the Nile.

Each nation had its own ways of dating important historical events. For example, some peoples tried to keep the chronology from the creation of the world. In addition, each of the ever-existing religions had its own calendar.

Julian and Gregorian calendars

The transfer from one calendar to another was associated with a number of inconveniences, which is primarily due to the different lengths of the year, since in each calendar system the calendar year began on different days and even months.

The countdown of the year starting from January 1 was introduced in 45 BC in Rome by the great Julius Caesar, over time the calendar was named after its creator - Julian. Thanks to the Julian calendar, the average length of an ordinary year was 365 days, and every fourth year was considered a leap year and its duration was 366 days. The modern Gregorian calendar appeared thanks to Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 on October 15th. The Gregorian calendar was introduced to replace the current Julian calendar and was called the new style calendar.

Mayan calendar

However, perhaps the most mysterious calendar in the whole world is considered to be the ancient Mayan calendar. The Mayan calendar was created in Central America by the Mayan civilization in the pre-Columbian period. It was also used successfully by some other Central American peoples, such as the ancient Aztecs or the Teltecs. The main feature and mystery of this calendar is that its last date was December 21, 2012.

vikram samvat

Vikram-samvat or samvat calendar is considered to be another world-famous calendar. This calendar was once common in India. Its main feature is that in it the duration of the solar day is related to the duration of the lunar months. On the basis of vikram-samvat, the Neapolitan calendar was later created.

Has a very long history. He is a representative of the lunisolar calendar. As in all calendars of this type, the length of its months is alternately 29 and 30 days, every three years a 13th month is added to the Jewish calendar. This month is called Veadar; it is customary to insert it before the month of Nisan every 3rd, 6th, 8th, 11th, 14th, 17th and 19th years of the 19-year cycle. Nisan is the first month of the Jewish calendar, and the years are counted from the seventh month, called Tishri. Due to the periodic intercalation of the month Veadara, the spring equinox always falls on a lunation in the month of Nisan.

In the Hebrew calendar, there is an ordinary year, containing 12 months, and an embolismic year, the number of months in which is 13. In the embolismic year, out of the 30 days of the month of Veadara inserted before Nisan, one day is attributed to the sixth month of Adar (usually it contains 29 days), and the remaining 29 days make up the month of Veadar. In general, the Jewish calendar is a very complex calendar, like all lunisolar calendars.

Muslim calendar. Initially, the Arabs used a lunisolar calendar, which resembled the Jewish calendar. It is believed that the errors of the old calendar forced the prophet Muhammad to abandon the extra months and introduce the lunar calendar, the first year of which was 622. The year in this calendar consists of 12 months, alternately containing 29 or 30 days. The average length of the year in this calendar is 354.37 days. It is impossible to add an additional 13th month to these 12 months or an additional day to individual months to match the length of the solar year, with the exception of one extra day in leap lunar years, then the number of days increases from 354 to 355 in order for the new moon to be closer to the first day of the month. It is customary to add this extra day to the last month of the year and then the number of days in it is 30. All lunar calendars have two periods: a period of 8 years is called the “Turkish cycle”, a period of 30 years is called the “Arabic cycle”. Some countries of the East - Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, simultaneously use calendars built on both cycles. It is impossible to add an additional 13th month to these 12 months or an additional day to individual months to coordinate with the length of the solar year, with the exception of one additional day in leap lunar years, when the number of days is increased from 354 to 355 so that the new moon is located close to the first day of the month. This extra day is included in the last month of the year and then the number of days in it is 30.

In the Muslim calendar, with time, the beginning of the year moves all the time. Therefore, in the lunar calendar there are no seasons and no division of months into summer, winter, autumn and spring, due to the fact that they all fall at different times of the year. There are special tables for converting Muslim chronology systems into European ones.

Egyptian calendar. The Egyptian calendar was originally lunar. However, since the whole life of the Egyptians was closely connected with the annual floods of the Nile, they created a different calendar, focusing on the appearance of the star Saturn (it appeared regularly during the summer solstice, and soon the Nile flooded). The Egyptian solar year contained 12 months of 30 days each, and at the end of the last month there were five additional days, so that the total was 365 days. However, over time it turned out that the calendar year was a quarter of a day shorter than the solar year, and over time the calendar diverged more and more from the seasons. Observing more closely the risings of Sirius, the Egyptians came to the conclusion that 1461 Egyptian years of 365 days is equal to 1460 solar years of 365.25 days. The mistake had to be corrected. However, the Egyptian priests for a long time prevented any change in the calendar. And only in 238 BC. Ptolemy III issued a decree adding one day to every fourth year, i.e. introduced a leap year. Thus, the modern solar calendar was born.

Prehistoric Chinese calendar was lunar. Emperor Yao around 2357 BC, was dissatisfied with the existing lunar calendar, inconvenient for agriculture, and therefore ordered astronomers to determine the dates of the equinoxes and create a seasonal calendar convenient for agriculture. It was necessary to somehow coordinate the 354-day lunar calendar with the 365-day astronomical year. To resolve this situation, Chinese astronomers proposed to add 7 intercalary months every 19 years, following detailed instructions. As a result, although the solar and lunar years were basically consistent, there were still certain differences that were corrected as they reached a noticeable difference. However, the calendar was still imperfect: the years did not have the same duration, and the equinoxes fell on different dates. The year in the Chinese calendar consisted of 24 crescents. The cycle of the Chinese calendar is 60 years, and has several internal periods. Interestingly, each year of the Chinese calendar has a rather funny name, for example, “year of the cow”, “year of the tiger”, “hare”, “dragon”, etc. These years repeat with a period of 12 years. In 1911, the Gregorian calendar was officially adopted in the new Republic of China, and although the peasants continued to use the ancient lunar calendar, it was banned from 1930.

Mayan and Aztec calendars.

The ancient civilization of the Mayan tribe had a very perfect calendar containing 365 days, divided into 18 months of 20 days each, there were still 5 days that were not included in any month. There were 28 weeks in a year, each of which had 13 days; one day was too much. The Mayan calendar was much the same.

The calendar stone of the Aztecs, built on a basalt slab measuring 3.6 m, is very interesting. This stone was found in Mexico, a detachment of Cortes in 1519. In the center of the stone was depicted, surrounded by twenty days of the month, the Sun. Four large rectangles adjoined the sun, in which heads were depicted, symbolizing, apparently, the dates of the four previous world eras. The heads and symbols in the rectangles of the next circle indicate the 20 days of the month. The large triangular figures represent the rays of the sun, and the two fiery serpents at the base of the outer circle represent the heat of the heavens.

What is the year now? The question is not as simple as it might seem. Everything is relative. People have created calendars to measure the passage of time. But time is ephemeral, it cannot be caught, and the starting point cannot be marked. This is where the complexity begins. How to find a start? What to count on? And with what steps?

1. 2018 in Russia.
Most countries in the world follow the Gregorian calendar. Including Russia. It was introduced by Pope Gregory XIII to replace the Julian calendar. The difference between these two calendars today is 13 days, and it increases by 3 days every 400 years. This is why there is such a holiday as Old New Year: it is New Year according to the Julian calendar, and some countries still celebrate it.

The Gregorian calendar was introduced in 1582 in Catholic countries, and it gradually spread to other countries.

2. 2561 in Thailand.
In Thailand, 2018 will be the year 2561. Officially, Thailand lives according to the Buddhist lunar calendar, in which the chronology begins from the moment when the Buddha attained nirvana.

However, they also use the Gregorian calendar.

3. 2011 in Ethiopia.
The Ethiopian calendar is 8 years younger than the regular calendar. Moreover, it has 13 months in a year. 12 months have 30 days and the last one is very short, only 5 or 6 days depending on whether it is a leap year or not. In addition, their new day does not begin at midnight, but at dawn. The Ethiopian calendar is based on the ancient calendar of Alexandria.

4. 5778 in Israel.
The Jewish calendar is officially used in Israel along with the Gregorian. All Jewish holidays, days of remembrance and birthdays of relatives are celebrated in accordance with the first. Months begin with a new moon, and the first day of the year (Rosh Hashanah) can only be Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, or Saturday. Therefore, in order for all this to work, the previous year is extended by one day.

The Jewish calendar takes its chronology from the very first new moon, which took place on October 7, 3761 BC.

5. 1439 in Pakistan.
The Islamic calendar is used to determine the timing of religious holidays and as the official calendar in some Muslim countries. The chronology begins with the Hijra, the first Muslim emigration to Medina (622 AD).

The day here starts at sunset, not at midnight. The beginning of the month is the day when the crescent first appears after the new moon. The length of the year in the Islamic calendar is 10-11 days shorter than the solar year.

6. 1396 in Iran.
The Persian calendar, or solar Hijri calendar, is the official calendar in Iran and Afghanistan. This astronomical solar calendar was created by a group of astronomers including the famous poet Omar Khayyam.

The chronology starts with the Hijri just like the Islamic calendar, but it is also based on the solar year so the months stay in the same seasons. The week starts on Saturday and ends on Friday.

7. 1939 in India.
The unified national calendar of India was created not so long ago and introduced in 1957. It is based on calculations from the Saka era, an ancient chronology widely used in India and Cambodia.

In India, there are other calendars used by different peoples and tribes. Some begin the chronology with the death of Krishna (3102 B.C.); others date from Vikram's rise to power in 57; the third group, according to the Buddhist calendar, begins the chronology from the date of the death of Gautama Buddha (543 AD).

8. 30 year in Japan.
In Japan, there are 2 existing chronologies: one that begins with the birth of Christ and the traditional one. The latter is based on the years of the reign of Japanese emperors. Each emperor gives a name to his period: the motto of his reign.

Since 1989, there has been an "epoch of peace and tranquility", and the throne belongs to Emperor Akihito. The previous era - the Enlightened World - lasted 64 years. Most official documents use 2 dates: one according to the Gregorian calendar and one according to the current era in Japan.

9. 4716 in China.
The Chinese calendar is used in Cambodia, Mongolia, Vietnam and other Asian countries. The chronology begins with the date when Emperor Huangdi began his reign in 2637 BC.

The calendar is cyclical and is based on the astronomical cycles of Jupiter. Within 60 years, Jupiter circles the Sun 5 times, and these are the 5 elements of the Chinese calendar. One circle of Jupiter around the Sun takes 12 years, and these years get their names from animals. 2018 (Gregorian) will be the Year of the Dog.

10. 107 in North Korea.
The Juche calendar has been used in North Korea since July 8, 1997, along with the chronology of the birth of Christ. Countdown - 1912, the year of birth of Kim Il Sung, the founder of North Korea and the country's eternal president. His year of birth is year 1; There is no year 0 in this calendar.

When writing dates, both calendars are used. The Gregorian calendar year is written in parentheses next to the Juche year.

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1 PETROVA N.G. CALENDARS OF THE PEOPLES OF THE WORLD I know what a time is when I am not asked about it, and when they ask, the more I think, the more I am perplexed. Blessed Augustine The calendar is such a thing that neither logic nor astronomy can explain. E. Bickerman FOREWORD Time is a mystery that man has been trying to comprehend for thousands of years. Philosophers and astronomers, historians and poets have formulated dozens of definitions, comprehending the category of time. One of the ways to comprehend this secret is the creation of a time counting system, that is, a calendar. The calendar appears before us as a way of comprehending the structure of the world, understanding its cyclicity. Divine power creates a rational world, therefore, the periodicity of the change of seasons, months, day and night is also of divine origin. The origin of the calendar in ancient times was considered sacred. That is why the measurement of time, various calculations associated with calendars, among all peoples, were only practiced by priests or clergymen. Any arbitrary change in the calendar could lead to the destruction of the order of life. Wishing to see their calendar, and hence the whole course of life, in an orderly manner, many peoples made a conscious admission of inaccuracies in the calendar for the sake of the symmetry of its basic units found in antiquity and, most importantly, for the sake of preserving its immutability. “It was not the calendar that depended on time, but in a certain sense, time depended on it,” as A.N. Zelinsky.

2 PART I HISTORY OF THE CALENDAR Chapter 1 MYTHOLOGY OF THE CALENDAR In ancient times, before the emergence of civilizations, mythology was primarily a way of understanding the world and explaining its contradictions. “How and why did the world arise?”, “Who created it?”, “Why does the Sun shine during the day, and the Moon at night?”, “Why do the seasons change?” answers to these questions gave rise to a system of myths, which are commonly called cosmogonic, that is, revealing the essence of the structure of the universe. All of them are connected in one way or another with human attempts to explain the passage of time. The main "characters" of cosmogonic myths are darkness and light, chaos and order, planets (Moon, Sun, Earth, etc.), stars and constellations, and the plots of myths are built on the relationship of the main characters, their unity and struggle. And the change of day and night, the change of seasons, and much more were explained as a result of this struggle. Let us turn to some of the cosmogonic myths. SUMERIAN MYTHS The Sumerian tribes who settled in the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in the 3rd millennium BC left behind many texts written on clay tablets. Among them there are texts with a statement of myths. Heaven and earth, according to Sumerian ideas, were the main elements of the universe. The earth was in the form of a flat disk, and the sky was an empty space. Between them there was a third element, a kind of "lil", an analogue of the modern atmosphere, which could move and occupy space. The sun, moon, planets and stars, like the "lil", could move and, moreover, glow. Initially, there was only an ocean in which heaven and earth were not separated from each other, but then the "lile" separated them. After the separation of the flat earth from the vault of heaven, luminous bodies appeared: the Sun, the Moon, and others. Finally, plants, animals, and man appeared. The Sumerians considered the cause of world harmony and order to be the existence of deities, each of which is responsible for a certain element of the universe. Enlil

3 "lord of the air", "king of gods and people", An god of heaven, Ki the goddess of the Earth, Sin, or Nanna the god of the moon, his children: Utu the god of the Sun and Inanna the goddess of love and fertility, ruling the planet Venus. The beginning of the universe, according to myths, looked like this: the sky god An and the earth goddess Ki gave birth to the god of air Enlil. Enlil separated heaven from earth. Appearing rather passive in all myths, An goes upstairs. And Enlil marries his mother, after which plants, animals and people are born. As for the birth of the planets, the moon god Sin was conceived after Enlil possessed the beautiful girl Ninlil. The gods were angry with Enlil for this and drove him to the underworld. The devoted Nenlil follows him. However, the idea that their future son, the god of the moon, will be in the dungeon, instead of shining in the sky, encourages Enlil to perform a series of heroic deeds, as a result of which he, along with Nenlil, comes to light. In later myths, Enlil appears to be more of a good than evil god: taking pity on people, he gives them a day, helps the growth of plants on the earth, and teaches people about agriculture. Enlil instructs Enki, the god of wisdom, how to arrange the lives of people. Enki, leaving behind the general leadership, gives specific instructions to various gods. Thus, Enki instructs the sun god Utu to monitor observance of the boundaries "in the entire universe", he instructs other gods to teach people to build houses, brew beer, and weave. Only the militant goddess of love Inanna does not give any orders, which incurs her wrath. The Sumerian sun god Utu was called by the Akkadians Shamash, the moon god Nanna Sin, the goddess of love and fertility Inanna Ishtar. God Shamash occupied an exceptional position among the gods, since he was the supreme judge on earth and in heaven, predicted the future, instructed and protected people. “The mighty mountains are full of your radiance, your light fills all countries. You are mighty above the mountains, you contemplate the earth, you hover at the ends of the earth, in the middle of the sky. You rule over the inhabitants of the entire universe. You break the horn of him who plots evil; you imprison the unrighteous judge, you execute the one who takes bribes; to that

4 Whoever does not take bribes and cares for the oppressed, Shamash is merciful, and his days are prolonged. Oh, Shamash, a traveler full of fear comes running to you, a wandering merchant, a young merchant, a bearer of a purse of gold. Oh, Shamash, a fisherman with a net, a hunter, a butcher, a cattle driver prays to you, ”so it was said in a hymn dedicated to the god Shamash. However, with the rise of Babylon, the main role in the mythology of the Akkadians begins to play the supreme deity of this city, the god Marduk. According to Babylonian myths, the Earth is a round boat floating in the oceans, and the Sky is a dome covering the world. All celestial space is divided into three spheres: the upper sky belongs to Anu, the middle one to Marduk, and in the lower sky, which people see, there are stars. The moon god Sin hides in the upper sky on days when he is not visible from Earth, and the sun god Shamash hides at night. Every morning, Shamash removes the castle, opens the “mountain of sunrise”, which is located in the east of the firmament, and sets off on a journey across the sky. And in the evenings, after passing through the "mountain of sunset", he goes to sleep. All the stars in the sky have their own place, to which they are assigned, and on Earth they correspond to the earthly image. For example, each Babylonian city has its own constellation. Everything that exists on Earth: countries, rivers, temples are only reflections of the starry Sky. The Earth itself, like an inverted boat "ki", lies under the vault of heaven. To strengthen the Earth, they tied it to the Sky with ropes and strengthened it with pegs. Ropes we can see is the Milky Way 2. Mesopotamian (Greeks called Mesopotamia Mesopotamia Mesopotamia) culture became famous for the creation of astrology. A huge number of clay tablets with texts of predictions and forecasts were found in the library of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal. Full moons and new moons, solar and lunar eclipses, unusual cloud patterns, the movement of planets, mainly Venus, relative to fixed stars, thunder, earthquakes - all these phenomena find their interpretation in astrological forecasts and horoscopes. True, some rulers were sometimes very skeptical about predictions and did not trust astrologers, however, judging by individual records on the tablets, they always repented of their doubts: “This is what he [the text] tells about this eclipse that [happened in] the month of Nisan: “If the planet Jupiter is in the sky during an eclipse, it is favorable for the king, because some important person [at the court] will die instead of him,” but the king closed his ears and look, before a month had passed, the chief judge died » 3.

5 EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY In the country that has preserved the only of the seven "wonders of the world", the symbol and embodiment of eternity of the pyramid, various, sometimes contradictory cosmogonic myths arose in different periods of history. The same heroes appeared in a variety of guises. For example, the goddess of the sky Nut was depicted in the form of a heavenly cow, whose body is covered with stars; sometimes in the form of a woman whose body is curved above the ground; sometimes in the guise of a pig, but as a protector and patroness of the dead with outstretched wings on sarcophagi. And in each of these forms, the Egyptians' idea of ​​the sky was embodied. In many myths, the world appears as born of a deity that has neither name nor image. The Egyptian priests called him "He who exists by himself", "The root cause of all life", "Father of fathers, mother of mothers". To make it easier for people to imagine the appearance of the gods, they could take the form of an animal or a bird. Falcon Horus (Horus), flying through the world space, gives birth to day and night, seasons. His left eye is the Moon, his right eye is the Sun. According to one of the myths, the most perfect image of the creator god Sun-Ra, or Amon-Ra, appeared from a lotus flower. And the light became after you (Amon-Ra) arose. You illuminated Egypt with your rays, When your disk shone. People began to see clearly when Your right eye flashed for the first time, Your left eye drove away the darkness of the night. According to other myths, the world was originally a chaos from which the gods of air and moisture emerged. From their marriage, the earth god Geb and the sky goddess Nut were born, from whose marriage, in turn, the stars were born. Mightier is thy heart, O great Nut, who has become the sky. You fill every place with your beauty. The whole earth lies before you, you have embraced it, you have surrounded the earth and all things.

6 with your own hands. Initially, Nut and Geb were merged into one. Nut gave birth to stars in the evenings, and swallowed them in the morning. This continued until Geb became angry with Nut, calling her a pig eating her piglets. The sun god Ra, seeing that heaven and earth no longer live in harmony, separated them. During the day, Nut is above the ground, and at night it sinks down. Egyptian myths about the creation of the world are closely related to the solar myths, reflecting the ideas of the Egyptians about the change of seasons. In Egypt, there are three seasons, which in ancient times were called "drought time", when sultry winds blow from the desert and all life stops; "high water" during this period, the Nile floods, and "time of shoots" is the time to harvest. In the hottest season, when the sun scorches mercilessly, this means, according to the Egyptians, that the sun god Ra is angry with people and punishes them for their sins. To fulfill his will, Ra sends the daughter of Hathor to the people in the form of a lioness. She pounces on people in the desert, tearing them to pieces and filling the sand with blood. In the myth about the punishment of people, Ra, having seen the execution of his order, asks the lioness-hathor to return. However, having tasted blood and felt power over people, the beast wants to destroy the entire human race. Terrified at the sight of the slaughter arranged by his daughter, Ra comes up with a trick: he orders the beer to be tinted with crushed red powder and Hathor to drink. Satisfied and drunk, Hathor leaves people alone. Since then, in order to protect themselves, people annually bring jugs of beer to the statue of the goddess. In the day boat Mandzhet he swims, illuminating the earth, and in the night boat Mesekset he moves along the underground Nile, illuminating the world of the dead. During the daytime voyage of the sun god Ra, his enemy, the huge serpent Apep, lies in wait for him. He tries to kill Ra by drinking the waters of the Nile. However, Ra and his retinue, fighting the serpent, invariably defeat him and force him to vomit the waters of the Nile back. The reasons for the change of day and night in one of the Egyptian myths are described as follows. When Ra grew old and decided to abdicate the throne, he called the god of wisdom Thoth to himself and commanded him to shine in the sky instead of himself. But Thoth refused to reign alone. Then Ra agreed to shine in the sky during the day, and gave the night time to Thoth: this is how the Moon appeared in the sky. Night comes to replace the day, because Thoth and Ra succeed each other on the throne. After the division of power, the silver boat of Thoth Luna transports the souls of the dead across

7 night sky to the underworld. "No god beats him, no carrier resists him on the way: he is the One." It is interesting that Thoth was not only the god of wisdom, the patron of knowledge, magic and sorcery, the god of the lunar disk in Egyptian mythology, but also the calculator of time. Often he was depicted with a palm branch in his hand, a symbol of dominion over time. The ibis was considered a sacred bird of the god Thoth, with the arrival of which the beginning of the Nile floods was associated. HINDU MYTHOLOGY Indian epic poems such as the Mahabharata and Ramayana and many others describe the birth of the god Brahma from a cosmic egg, who then creates the universe. The earth appears in the form of a flat disk, in the center of which the axis of the world Mount Meru passes. The sun, moon and stars revolve around the summit of Meru. Six heavens rise above the Earth in tiers. The highest and most beautiful is the world of Brahma. The heavens are inhabited by gods, holy sages, and beings of divine origin. Among the gods, you can meet the god of Heaven, he was called Dyaus, and his wife, the goddess of the Earth, Prithivi. Their son was the god of storms and rains, Indra, a fighter with the demon of drought, a monstrous snake, in the wombs of which captives languish: heavenly cows-clouds and heavenly waters. The thunder god Indra is also fighting with the sun god Surya, defeating him and taking the wheel from his chariot. The sun god Surya with burning hair, in a chariot drawn by seven blue horses, rushes across the sky, shines all over the world and watches everything that people do. He is the all-seeing eye of the gods, one of the main deities. Surya is born in the east, goes around the earth and sky during the day, pouring out light and warmth, expelling darkness, illness, and enemies. The evil demon Rahu pursues Surya, and one day, in anger, the Sun God threatens to incinerate the whole world with his burning rays. Confirmation of the significance of the position of the sun god in the hierarchy of gods can be seen, for example, in the number of main gods in Hindu mythology in a certain period: 12 gods personify the position of the sun in each of the 12 months of the year. Surya's wife is the goddess of dawn Ushas. Here appeared again its sparkling rays. She gets up, drives away the black shapeless night

8 so it is said of her in one of the hymns. The birth of the moon in some myths is associated with the drink of the gods, which gave immortality and strength for the deeds of soma. When the gods drink the drink, it becomes less, and you have to wait until the sun fills the cup again. Subsequently, the moon god himself was called Soma. In Indian mythology, the moon god was considered the patron of the stars, sacrifices and priests. One of the Indian poems tells how the son of Brahma marries Soma 27 of his daughters, who personify the constellations of the lunar zodiac. The god of the moon was also the patron of vegetation: at night, plants feed on moisture and therefore their growth occurs. Together with Indra, Varuna appears as the main god. He paves the way for the streams of water, shelters the Ocean, fills the sea with water, watches over the course of the rivers, and also guards truth and justice. This is the king of gods and people, the organizer of the entire universe. Varuna established the sequence of the seasons, the change of months, gave movement to the Sun, Moon and stars. He has a thousand eyes, and the Sun is one of them. At the command of Varuna, day follows night. A year in Hindu mythology is the time of maturation from an egg floating in the waters of the ocean, the god Brahma. Brahma is born from an egg and creates the world 5. CHINESE MYTHOLOGY According to ancient Chinese myths, chaos reigned in the world for a long time, and nothing could be distinguished. But over time, Light and Darkness stood out from the chaos, from which the Earth and Sky were formed. Then Pangu's first man appeared. He was huge and lived a very long time. When Pangu opened his eyes, day came, and when he closed his eyes, night came. Wind, rain, thunder and lightning were born from his breath. After Pangu's death, nature and people were formed from various parts of his body: his arms, legs and torso turned into the four cardinal directions and the five main mountains, blood turned into rivers, muscles into the earth's soil, hair into trees and grass. Simple stones and metals were formed from his teeth and bones, precious stones from his brain. The change of day and night in later times was explained by the myth of the ten suns. Each of the suns alternately travels from east to west. While one sun is on its way, the other nine wait their turn at the edge of the sky, so people

9 always see only one sun. But once the order was violated: all ten luminaries appeared in the sky at the same time during the day and at the same time went beyond the horizon in the evening. A drought set in on the earth, people were dying from the heat. Then Hou Yi, the most skilful archer, took a longbow and shot until only one sun remained in the sky. The goddess of the moon in ancient Chinese mythology was Chang-e, the wife of the skilled shooter Yi. Since then, she has been living there alone. According to other myths, a three-legged toad or a white hare live on the moon, pushing the potion of immortality in a mortar. In Chinese mythology, there was a special deity, the lord of time, Tai-Sui. It corresponded to the planet Jupiter, which the Chinese called "ruler of time", since the period of Jupiter's revolution around the Sun is almost 12 years (11.9). Tai Sui appears as a formidable commander who rules over the months, seasons, and days. Before the start of any work, sacrifices were made to him. However, it was believed that the stubborn desire to gain his favor, as well as the complete unwillingness to reckon with him, equally lead people to misfortune. Often the god of time can be seen depicted with an ax and a goblet, or a spear and a bell, trapping the souls of people 6. GREEK MYTHOLOGY The earliest Greek myths described the birth of the gods and all living beings in the flow of the Ocean, washing the whole world. The black-winged goddess Night, having reciprocated the Wind, gave birth to a silver egg in the womb of Darkness. Hatched from this egg, the god of love Eros set the universe in motion. He created the earth, sky, sun and moon. Night made a triad together with Order and Justice. This is how the world was created. The appearance of Eros before the other gods meant that without him no one could be born. Later, the Greeks represented him as a headstrong boy, fluttering on golden wings and having no respect for either the age or the position of any of the people and gods. According to another version, the silver egg of the Night is the moon. The god of love Eros (or Phanet) is the sun and symbol of light. His four heads, appearing as separate deities,

10 symbolized the four seasons: Zeus (ram) Spring, Helios (lion) Summer, Hades (snake) Winter, Dionysus (bull) New Year. In the Olympic period of mythology, the origin of the world was explained as follows: Chaos arose from Darkness, Night, Day, Erebus (underground darkness) and Air appeared from the union of Darkness and Chaos. Night and Erebus gave birth to Fate, Old Age, Death, Murder, Voluptuousness, Sleep, Dreams, Quarrel, Sorrow, Annoyance, as well as the goddess of justice Nemesis, Joy, Friendship, Compassion. From the union of Air and Day, the goddess of the earth Gaia, Sky, Sea appeared. Air and Gaia, in turn, gave birth to Fear, Tiresome Labor, Fury, Enmity, Deception, Oaths, Blinding of the soul, Intemperance, Arguments, Oblivion, Sorrows, Pride, Battles, the Ocean, the underworld Tartarus, as well as the titans and goddesses of vengeance Eriny with snakes in the hair. The God of all things (sometimes the Greeks called him Nature) then separated the earth from the sky, put the universe in order, singled out a hot, cold and temperate climate on earth, created mountains and valleys, grasses and trees. Above the earth, he established a rotating firmament and strewn it with stars, settled five planets, the sun and the moon in the sky. Seas and rivers he inhabited with fish, forests with animals. He also created man. Gaia land and sky Uranus initially gave birth only to monsters: hundred-armed giants and one-eyed cyclops. Therefore, Uranus cast all his children into Tartarus. But the titans he later spawned rebelled and, with the blessing of mother earth, decided to take revenge on their father: the youngest of the titans Kron castrated Uranus and freed his brothers from the dungeon. Later, Cronus became among the Greeks the "father of time" with his inexorable sickle. According to the prediction of the dying Uranus, one of the sons of Kron in the future was also to overthrow his father. Fearing the prediction of Uranus, Cronus ate his children, born of Rhea. Desperate Rhea hid the third child of Zeus, born to her, and instead gave Kron a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes. Having guessed about the deception, Kron began to pursue Zeus, and he had to turn into a snake, and turn his nannies into bears. So the constellations Serpent and Ursa appeared in the sky. Zeus is the god of thunder, rain, and only he is subject to lightning. With it, he punishes the gods and people when he makes his judgment. Zeus drew the path for all the heavenly bodies. From Zeus, the goddess of order Themis gave birth to the Seasons. She, according to the Greeks, divided the thirteen-month year into two seasons, winter and summer. personification

11 of these two seasons appear Tallo, the deity of flowering, and Karpo, the deity of ripe fruit. 7. The division of the year into seasons also explains the myth of Kore, the daughter of the fertility goddess Demeter. Collecting wild flowers, Kore was kidnapped by Hades, the god of the underworld and the brother of Zeus, and took him to the underworld. In vain she searched for her daughter Demeter, without touching food and drink. When she found out where her daughter was, she refused to return to Olympus and threatened that from now on all the trees on earth would cease to bear fruit, and the grasses would grow. Zeus, seeing that the tribe of people could die out, decided to reconcile Demeter and Hades. An agreement was reached between them: from now on, Kora will spend three months with Hades and become the queen of the underworld, Persephone, and the remaining nine months she can live with her mother Demeter. Therefore, in the winter three months of the year it rains, cold winds blow, and all vegetation dies. In mythology, the Greeks also reflected the idea of ​​​​the periods of human history. The first generation of people lived without worries, did not know sorrows and could not work, because fruits grew in abundance on trees, and milk and honey dripped directly into their mouths. People had fun, laughed and were not afraid of death. They worshiped the god Kron. The Greeks called this time the Golden Age. The period of bliss and abundance was replaced by the Silver Age, in which people lived up to a hundred years and still could not work, but they themselves had already deteriorated thoroughly: they were quarrelsome and ignorant, did not worship the gods and did not make sacrifices to them, for which they were destroyed by Zeus. The people of the Copper Age were distinguished by rudeness, cruelty, they loved to fight with copper weapons, their food was bread and meat. They all died. The fourth generation of people also lived in the Copper Age, but descended from gods and mortals and therefore was distinguished by nobility and kindness. Among them, the most famous heroes are the Argonauts, Hercules and others. The current generation of people of the Iron Age, fierce and unfair, vicious and deceitful, not showing proper respect for their parents. IRANIAN MYTHOLOGY

12 The basis of Iranian mythology is the doctrine of the division of the world into two spheres, in which the forces of good and evil, light and darkness, generated by two spirits-creators, operate. The struggle of these two forces permeates the cosmic, earthly and spiritual life of people. According to the myths of the Iranians, the world appears divided into seven regions, or circles of karshvars. People live in the central, largest circle. In its middle is the high mountain Hara, around which the sun revolves. In the half where the sun resides, people see light, and when the sun passes into the other half, darkness sets in. The change of the seasons and the whole order established in the world exist thanks to the law called Rta (its other name is Asha). This law also governs human actions. If people make prayers and sacrifices, the good deeds of the Mouth are strengthened. Where evil deeds are done and vice reigns, the antipode of Asha Drug (or Drukh) operates. On the top of Mount Khara live the gods of heaven and earth Asman and Zam, the gods of the sun and moon Hvar and Makh, the deities of the wind Vata and Vayu. Vata was the deity of the wind that brings rain, and Vayu was the merciful deity, "the soul of the gods." A mythical river flows from a huge mountain, flowing into the great sea of ​​Vourukash, from which clouds are filled with water, raining over the earth. In order for this to happen, the star deity Sirius Tishtryi approaches the sea every year on a white stallion. There, a drought demon awaits him on a black stallion, with whom they enter into a duel. If Tishtriyi wins, he throws himself into the sea, and the waves of the mare produce water in abundance, and Vata delivers water to the clouds. With the advent of Zoroastrianism, Ahura Mazda became the god of goodness, light, life and truth. He is constantly fighting on earth and in heaven with the spirit of evil and destruction, darkness and death of Anghro-Manyu. When the struggle ends with the victory of the omnipotent god of light, the kingdom of prosperity and goodness will come, evil will perish forever, and the sun will shine forever. The Mayan manuscripts served as a kind of reference book for the priests who supervised the economic cycle of work and followed the ritual of numerous festivities. The climate of Central America allows you to harvest maize as the main

13 Mayan cultures several times a year. However, tropical soils quickly lose their fertility, and farmers have to develop new areas, clearing them of forests. The long absence of rain, the sudden transition from drought to hurricane rain, hail all this created difficulties in the life of the Maya and required them to be observant, and then create a very accurate calendar. The main deities of the Maya were associated with the much-needed rain for the harvest. There are many deities of rain: their names, iconography have changed many times. The personification of the cloudy sky, foreshadowing rain, was considered the Cloud Monster "monster Kavak" a creature with features of a reptile and a jaguar. The patron god of the first day of the rainy season, as well as the owner of the reservoirs, the god of the sky was the "Heavenly Lizard", "a mighty and good ruler", "the lord of the world" Itzamna. From its open mouth, streams of rain fell on the ground. He was depicted with a beard and a tuft of hair on his head, his forelimbs could look like hands, paws or deer hooves. According to some myths, the goddess of the rainbow, Ish Chel, was considered the wife of Itzamna. Both of them made up a pair of god-creators. The Jaguar became the god-defender of the fields, from whose head maize grows. The jaguar is known in manuscripts under the names “Big Predator”, “Father Jaguar”, “Biter”, “Big Paw”, etc. The most common image among hieroglyphs: the god Jaguar sits in the mouth-cave of the Cloud Monster, over which it rains from the clouds. The Maya also traditionally associated snakes, especially boas, with the water element. The four mythical "Great Serpents" live on the four cardinal points and send rain to the fields. The Maya usually depicted the celestial sphere as a Cloud Serpent, the rattle on the tail of which produced celestial thunder, and rain streams fell from the serpent's mouth to the earth. Many gods and rulers of cities were depicted emerging from the mouth of the Cloud Serpent. Itzamna acts as the patron of priests and therefore he does not engage in agriculture. The main farmer among the gods, "bringing rain", "long-awaited" was the god Kash-ish with a long nose-cloud bent at the top. The four “colored” incarnations of this god symbolized the four cardinal directions. Terrible enemies of farmers, capable of destroying the crop, drought, sun, hurricane. A whole group of gods personified these disasters. A pair of gods with the same name (Sak Soot) were the gods of a thunderstorm without rain "Deceptive Ratchet", "threatening death." On the head of the goddess Sak Soot, a snake was depicted curled up and, apparently, not loving moisture, and the god Sak Soot captured Kash-ish and did not allow it to rain.

14 Lady of the North Wind and Goddess of Storms Chak Keith: Wearing a patterned skirt and a feather-trimmed cloak, this goddess appears, holding a vessel from which cold water pours over the fields. She blows on the god of corn with an icy wind, and he falls dead. The Great Chak Kit is the only female character in the pantheon of major Maya gods. Once upon a time, the main patroness of the harvest and fertility among the Mayans was the goddess of the moon, depicted against the background of the lunar disk with a bare chest and in a military helmet. Her throne stands in a cave, which is surrounded by plant shoots, and rain clouds float above it. The symbolic image of 12 lunar months, six drops on the helmet of the goddess and six drops on her skirt, adorns the outfit of the Great Goddess of the Moon. Among many Indian tribes, the goddess of the moon was considered the patroness of women and women's needlework, the goddess of fertility, sea tides and lakes, as well as the goddess of bodily love, impurity and debauchery. The god of thunderstorm Tosh was considered the companion of the goddess of the Moon and the enemy of abundance. On the head of the warrior god is a hat with feathers of the Heavenly Owl, the mistress of the sky of showers. Next to him was a captive of the bound corn god. Later, with the transition of the Maya from the lunar calendar to the solar one, the Moon transformed into the image of the destroyer of the harvest. Her place as the mistress of lakes and wells, the patroness of women was taken by the virgin goddess Sak Ch up. The patroness of childbearing, medicine and weaving is in Mayan mythology Ish Chel, the goddess of the rainbow. The Mayan God of the Sun appears in two guises: as the owner of the warm summer "Good Sun", "Sun-eyed lord", and as the god of drought "Scorching forests" and "Bringing disasters". He was depicted with a mask of a parrot on his head "The Sun with a Beak", which glows with "multi-colored fiery rays, like the feathers of a guacamayo." The Sun God needs to constantly make sacrifices: feed him so that he can make his way through the sky. In the northern regions, the god of drought and death was considered not the sun, but the Lord of Skulls Um Tzek. He was depicted in the form of a half-skeleton with a necklace of death from jade rings and bore the title "Threaten of death." The picture of the world order in Maya mythology appears in the image of the world tree of ceiba. From a cave filled with water, a mythical tree grows, depicted as a snake standing on its tail. The two parts of the cosmos (heaven and underworld) make up the top and bottom of the tree. The cave is the root of the sky. Once, according to myths, the earth and the underworld were one with the sky, but the sky collapsed and separated from the earth. Now the underworld, earth and sky represent the three floors of the universe. IN

In the future, they will change places, but for now, in the Mayan world tree, the roots are at the top, that is, the tree appears upside down. The earth is suspended from the sky, and the sky is supported by four pillar trees: red in the east, white in the north, black in the west, yellow in the south. Cloud serpents coil around the branches of the tree. At the same time, the tree appears as a symbol of life and abundance. People came out of its roots, according to it the souls of the dead go to the underworld. Fruits and shoots of edible plants grow on the branches of the tree, there is water in the trunk and under the roots, when people cut down a tree, its chips turn into fish. The idea of ​​renewal of life is also present in the world tree: people cut down a tree, but it grows again. Both the world tree and the people themselves were created in a cave. Numerous transformations take place on the tree. Heroes that fall on the branches of a tree or its roots turn into animals or birds. Animals, on the contrary, in the cave take the form of people. The whole night world is a cave, the animal deities of the planets, the rainbow is a celestial river, the rope in the daytime sky, the Milky Way is a night river, the essence of the umbilical cord of the world. According to one of the myths, when there was no sun, dwarf people built pyramids in the dark. At that time, a rope was tied in the sky, stretching from west to east, an “umbilical cord”, in which blood flowed. People moved along the rope, and food was delivered to the palaces of the rulers. When the sun came out, the rope broke and blood flowed out of it. Thus ended the era of dwarf people. 9. SLAVIC MYTHOLOGY The cosmogonic myths of the Slavs are connected primarily with the image of the world tree, which, however, also existed in the mythology of other peoples. The roots of the tree personify the image of the earth, the top of the tree the image of the sky. Three parts of the tree are associated with various animals and birds: branches, the top is the habitat of the falcon, nightingale, mythical birds, as well as the sun and moon; the middle part of the tree, its trunk belong to deer, cows, horses, bees; roots to snakes, beavers, sometimes a bear. The image of a tree symbolized the system of three worlds: heaven, earth and underworld; life and death: dry and green wood; the person himself (in embroidery, a woman in labor was depicted as a sprouted tree).

16 Many myths tell about the conclusion of an alliance between heaven and earth in the spring with the help of birds and other characters. Often Spring appears as an independent character, whose appearance is associated with the funeral of Winter, the unlocking of heat, marriage with the forces of fertility Yarila, Kostroma, etc. The sun was embodied in Slavic mythology in several characters: this is Svarog, the god of fire and the father of the sun, and Dazhdbog (" God forbid") the god of heat and sunlight, God the giver of blessings, and Khors the sun shone like a light. Often the latter appeared in the form of a fiery wheel on top of the world tree or loaf-sun. Researchers of mythology believe that the name of the god Khors is preserved in the ritual vocabulary in the words “khorovod”, circular dance, “horoshil” round cake, etc. 10. The image of the sun is also associated with the god of fire, rain and thunder in Slavic mythology, Perun. Thunderer Perun rides on the chariot of the sun, harnessed by horses, across the sky. With the adoption of Christianity, the image of the Thunderer merged with Elijah the Prophet. The Moon appears in myths as the Moon entering into union with the Sun. Among the mythological characters personifying the change of day and night, such Slavic deities as Zorya or Mertsana, Zarnitsa, whose appearance in August testified to a ripening harvest, are known; Sventovit, whose horse is white during the day and splashed with mud at night. The four heads of the idol of this god point to the four cardinal directions. The annual circle of the sun and the change of seasons in the mythology of the Slavs are associated with such characters as Kolyada and Kupalo. Kolyada, a symbol of the birth of a new, young sun, escaping from the captivity of a gloomy and cold Winter, marked the turn of winter to summer, which falls at the end of December. The day of the summer solstice (end of June) was presented as the meeting of the Sun with its spouse, the Month, and was celebrated with the Kupala holiday. The sun in the form of a wheel was rolled down from the mountain, which meant the turn of summer to winter, and the Kupala doll was burned at the stake (bathed in fire). At the end of the holiday, all its participants bathed in rivers and lakes in order to remove all sorts of illnesses and damage from themselves. Chapter 2 CALENDAR BASICS UNITS OF TIME

17 Days People learned to count time in ancient times. The very first units of time measurement were days and months, since a person could observe the sunrise and sunset, the new moon and the full moon. In Russian, the word "day" comes from the verb "stuck", which means to compose, connect. Day and night, light and dark time “stuck together”, that is, they united into one. Many peoples divided the day into two parts: daytime and nighttime, but they counted time in different ways. So, the Babylonians and Persians began the day at sunrise, the Jews, the ancient Greeks and Romans, the Gauls, the Germans from sunset, the Arabs from noon. The Zoroastrians, who considered the calculation of time by the moon false, argued that the day is the period of time between sunrises. In Rome, there were dies civilis "civil day" and "naturalis dies" "natural day". Both started at midnight. The Romans divided the day into guards or shifts. The Babylonians, the Old Testament, and Homer distinguished three watchmen by day and three watchmen by night; the Greeks and Romans later adopted the Egyptian four-watch system, which was also widely adopted in civilian life to designate parts of the night. Four guards passed during the night, four during the day, each lasting 3 hours. In Jerusalem, under the Romans, the hours of the night were also distinguished by the crowing of a cock. The division of the day into hours was first noted in Egypt and Babylonia. An hour in ancient times was, however, not 1/24 of the full (astronomical) day, as it is now, but 1/12 of the actual time from sunrise to sunset or from sunset before sunrise. The length of the hour, of course, fluctuated depending on the latitude and time of year. During the day, the clock was counted from sunrise, at night from the onset of darkness. Thus, the 7th hour roughly corresponded to our noon (or midnight) and marked the end of working hours, as the saying testifies, “six hours are most suitable for work, and those four that follow them, if expressed in letters, say to people: live!” (The Greeks used the letters of the alphabet as numbers, so 7, 8, 9 and 10 ZHOI "Live!"). For night ceremonies in temples, Egyptian priests already around 1800 BC. used the so-called star hours (the hour was recognized by the appearance of a certain star in the corresponding decade of the month). There were two systems

18 divisions of the day: into 12 equal parts, as the Babylonian priests did, and into 24 parts, as the Egyptian priests did. Later, astronomers adopted the Egyptian division of the calendar day, but, following the Babylonian counting system, they divided the Egyptian hour into 60 equal parts. Medieval astronomers used the same system, and we still divide an hour into 60 minutes. Nevertheless, an hour of variable duration continued to be used in everyday life, and in some areas of the Mediterranean it was preserved as early as the 19th century. However, in astronomy, two types of day are distinguished: stellar and solar. Watching the starry sky at night, you can see that the stars, like other heavenly bodies, rise in the east, rise higher and higher and, having reached their highest height, that is, their upper culmination, continue to move west and fall below the horizon. The next night, the stars repeat their path again. The length of time between the two upper climaxes of a star is called a sidereal day. This period is 23 hours 56 minutes 4 seconds and remains unchanged. A sidereal day is divided into 24 sidereal hours, an hour into 60 sidereal minutes, and a minute into 60 sidereal seconds. Sidereal time is used in astronomy to determine which parts of the starry sky will be visible at a particular time of the year or day in a certain area. However, in everyday life, which is associated with the movement of the sun, we do not use sidereal, but solar days. The inconvenience of using sidereal days is that the same sidereal hour during the year falls on different times of the solar day, which are almost four minutes longer than sidereal days. But even with the use of solar days, there is a certain difficulty. The solar day begins at midnight, but its duration from midnight to midnight is not the same at different times of the year: the solar day is longer in winter and shorter in summer. The longest solar day (December 23) is longer than the shortest (September 16) by 51 seconds. This phenomenon of unevenness is explained by the fact that the trajectory of the Earth around the Sun is not a circle, but an ellipse. No wonder the Parisian watchmakers chose the motto for their guild coat of arms the words: "The sun shows time deceptively."

19 Solar days, the duration of which is associated with the movement of the true Sun, are called true solar days. Of course, it is inconvenient to use such a unit of measurement. Therefore, for the unit of time in all watches: wrist, tower and others, as well as in calendars, it is customary to take the conventional unit of the so-called average solar day, the duration of which does not change during the year and is 24 hours. Whatever unit of time we take: sidereal, true or mean solar days, but at different points on the globe, on different meridians, it will be different. At the end of the 19th century, Canadian scientist S. Fleshing proposed dividing the Earth's surface into 24 time zones. The time inside the time zone for all its points was considered to be the same. The initial or zero meridian, from which the standard time begins, was agreed to be the meridian passing through the Greenwich Observatory in the suburbs of London. The mean solar time of the Greenwich meridian is called universal or world time. Time in time zones located to the east of the Greenwich meridian increases by an hour, to the west it decreases. At the same time, at the end of the 19th century, a date line was established. It starts at the North Pole at meridian 180 and, passing through the Bering Strait and the Pacific Ocean, reaches the South Pole. On the territory of our country, the "border of days" coincides with the state border separating Chukotka from Alaska. From this line, a new day begins on the entire planet. The inhabitants of the Chukchi village of Uelen are the first to meet him on Earth. And the day ends in Wales in Alaska. The clocks of Wales and Whalen show the same time, but with a difference of one day. If you swim across the Bering Strait from west to east, then you can get into yesterday, and if from east to west, then into tomorrow. Some researchers of the calendar believe that, apparently, it is no coincidence that in many languages ​​the words "month", "measure" and "Moon" have a common root, for example in Latin: "mensis" (month) and "mensura" (measure), in Greek "mene" (moon) and "men" (month), English "moon" (moon) and "month" (month).

20 As you know, the Moon does not have its own glow, but only reflects sunlight. The Moon, during its revolution around the Earth, is illuminated by the Sun unevenly. Therefore, an observer from the Earth either sees it fully illuminated, such a phase of the moon is called the full moon, or does not see it at all; in this case, they speak of the birth of a new moon of the new moon. Following the new moon, the phase of the first quarter of the moon, the full moon, the phase of the last quarter of the moon and the new moon successively replace each other. The time interval between two identical phases of the moon, for example, from the new moon to the new moon, is called the synodic month (from the Latin "sindos" "connection", "rapprochement"). Initially, its length was determined at 30 days, and the duration of each phase was approximately 7 days. Currently, the synodic month is taken equal to 29 days 12 hours 44 minutes 2.8 seconds of mean solar time. However, you can see the moment of the birth of a new moon only during solar eclipses, which, as you know, do not occur often. Therefore, the beginning of the month was considered to be the appearance of the lunar crescent after the new moon. Such a moment in astronomy is called neomenia, which in Greek means "the birth of a new moon." Between the expected new moon and the actual appearance of the new moon in the sky, 12 days pass. The length of time between the new moon and neomenia depends on various factors: the latitude and longitude of the place where the observer is located, local atmospheric conditions, etc. Therefore, the actual duration of the synodic month fluctuates relative to the length of its average value (29.5 days). Change of seasons. Tropical year Even in ancient times, man observed the change of seasons, explaining the origin of such a phenomenon in various mythological plots. In Greek mythology, for example, this is a story about the abduction of the daughter of the goddess of agriculture Demeter, the young Persephone, by Hades, the gloomy ruler of the underworld. In the Egyptian myth of the annually resurrecting and dying again Osiris, the god of fertility and at the same time the underworld. What does the change of seasons really mean? The fact that our planet makes a rotational movement, we judge by the apparent movement of the firmament and what is on it: the stars, the Sun, the Moon. Astronomers call the apparent path of the Sun's motion among the stars the ecliptic. Plane

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