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 English translation is the work of Mr. F. J. Fielden, English Lector in the University of Lund, who has also read the proof-sheets. I am greatly obliged to him for his conscientious performance of a lengthy and by no means easy task.

Lund, May 1920.

Martin P. Nilsson.

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The ancient civilised peoples appear in history with a fully-developed system of time-reckoning—the Egyptians with the shifting year of 365 days, which comes as nearly as possible to the actual length of the year, counting only whole days and neglecting the additional fraction; the Babylonians and the Greeks with the lunisolar, varying between twelve and thirteen months and arranged by the Greeks from the earliest known period of history in the cycle of the Oktaeteris. It has always been clear that these systems of time-reckoning represent the final stage of a lengthy previous development, but as to the nature of this development the most daring hypotheses have been advanced. Thus, for example, eminent philologists and chronologists have believed the assertion of Censorinus, Ch. 18, and have supposed that the Oktaeteris was preceded by a Tetraeteris, even by a Dieteris. It may indeed at once be asserted that such a hypothesis lacks intrinsic probability. To account for the early development hard facts are needed, and unfortunately these, especially in the case of the Greeks, are extremely few. Where they are required they must be sought elsewhere.