Читать книгу Primitive Time-reckoning. A study in the origins and first development of the art of counting time among the primitive and early culture peoples онлайн

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The year is for us a numerical quantity of 365 or 366 days. But we speak of the year in two senses, first as the calendar year beginning on New Year’s Day, and secondly as the current year, a period of the same number of days beginning at one chosen day, as for instance in giving a person’s age. The word ‘year’ may however also represent the highest chronological unit even independently of the seasons, as in the case of the Egyptian shifting year of exactly 365 days, and the Islamite lunar year of 354. These however are exceptional cases. At the basis lies the natural year conditioned by the course of the sun and by the natural phases dependent thereon, which penetrate closely into the life of man. This connexion has necessitated the agreement of the numerical year with the sun, whence arises a situation very inconvenient for reckoning, namely that years of a varying number of days have to be accepted, since the natural year does not contain a whole number of days.