Re: [tied] Ancient Egyptian calendar problems

In the interests of accuracy, Ramadhan, which lasts some 28/29 days cannot
occur twice in a solar year.
It's the feast of Eid al-Fitr, the celebration that marks the end of the
fasting month, which _will_ (it's not happened yet) occur twice in 2000,
early last January and again around Christmas time.
Here in Malaysia, the sighting of the new moon is made from Singapore, and
in Brunei they do it for themselves. Since it's often cloudy, this can
result in a day's (no longer) delay, and in fact last Eid started a day
later in Brunei than in Malaysia.
Cheers
Dennis

----- Original Message -----
From: petegray <petegray@...>
To: <cybalist@egroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, 29 August, 2000 1:51 AM
Subject: Re: [tied] Ancient Egyptian calendar problems


>
> They Egyptians had a very good calendar by the Roman period, and the
problem
> of "wandering" had been solved - Julius Caesar pinched the idea of leap
> years from it.
>
> I don't believe it is the case that "all cultures" had solved this
problem,
> or even that they knew the year was 365 and a bit days long. The Roman
> calendar was two months short at one stage, and was six months out when
> Julius Caesar revised it. The priests used to insert an entire month when
> they deemed it right - which meant when they liked whoever was in power.
> The classical Greeks likewise had not solved the problem of how long the
> year is, though later Greek science was able to establish a whole bunch of
> stuff (such as precession of the equinoxes) better than astronomers in the
> 1800's.
>
> The modern Islamic claendar is strictly lunar, which means it does not
> pretend to follow the sun or the seasons. It is 11 days shorter than the
> solar calendar, so Ramadan moves forward 11 days each year.
Interestingly,
> the year 200 had Ramadan twice, once very early in January, the other very
> late in December. The month changes only when the new moon can actually
be
> seen at Mecca, so dating in advance is never quite certain.
>
> The modern Hebrew and Sikh and Hindu calendars are a compromise, with
> certain festivals or events fixed within a range (a bit like Easter is in
> the Christian religious calendar), so that Autumn festivals occur in
Autumn
> and so on.
>
> Hope that helps
> Peter
>
>
>
>
>