The calendar we use in modern times is based on the cycles of the Sun and Moon,
our calendar is divided by 12 months with either 30 or 31 days
and the outlier of February with 28 days which make up a total of 365 days,
unless of course its a leap year with 29 days in February making a leap year 366 days.
This all sounds very straight forward.. but, what probably many of you watching this didnt know
is that the origins of the calender stem all the way back from ancient Egypt.
So I decided to look into ancient inventions, today will be one of the
first, youve already probably already seen my air-conditioning video which
was actually the first but now Im turning it into a playlist and we are going to look into
ancient inventions that we probably use in modern times or a version that we use in modern times,
ancient Egyptians really invented a lot of stuff so they will be featured a lot in this playlist.
Im Kayleigh and lets jump right in.
Many people think that the calendar that we use today stems from ancient Rome,
which the current version that we use, known as the Gregorian calendar does,
but the basics of it were already invented and used in ancient Egypt for a few thousand years.
The first calendar used by the Ancient Egyptians was a Lunar
based calendar in combination with the seasonal appearance of the Star Sirius,
this corresponded closely to the true solar year, although it was 12 minutes shorter.
Eventually over the centuries difficulties arose because the solar and lunar year are
quite incompatible, so they invented a schematic civil year to fix their issue.
The calendar that eventually was used in ancient Egypt is known as the civil calendar
which is seen as a LuniSolar Calendar,
meaning it was based on the observation of the lunar cycle in relation to the solar year.
This Calendar has been known to have been in use as early as
the Reign of Pharaoh Djer during the 1st Dynasty around 3000 BCE.
Yearly records were being kept about the annual Nile river floods high-water mark
in combination with the astrological knowledge that was in use as early as
5000 BCE at the Nabta Playa stone circles.
I will be creating a deep dive about the Nabta Playa Basin in the Nubian Desert in the future.
The ancient Egyptian civil calendar was divided by
12 months of 30 days and 5 extra days at the end making the year 365 days long.
Their year did not have 4 seasons with a duration of 3 months like we have
in modern times but their year was divided into 3 seasons that had a duration of 4 months.
The 3 seasons are known as;
Inundation this was when the Nile overflowed onto the Agricultural land.
Going Forth this was the time of planting when the Nile river returned to its bed.
Deficiency this was the time of the harvest and when the Nile river was at its lowest point.
The months were simple numbered according to their seasons,
for instance February would have been known as the Second Month of Inundation. As the first
day of Inundation was the first day of the New year in the first Month of the new year.
Another fascinating thing the Egyptians did that other civilizations at the time did
not do was start their day at sunrise after the moon disappeared just before dawn.
The other civilizations at the time started their days at sunset
as the sun disappeared under the horizon.
The civil Calendar was no longer connected to the lunar calendar although the citizens of
ancient Egypt and their religious activities still were in line with the Lunar calendar.
Over time this became an issue as the differences between the 2 became obvious
and started to become a problem.
To give an example, every 4 years the lunar calendar would fall behind the civil calendar
by 1 day, and it would then take 1460 years before the 2 calendars would align again.
This 1460 year time period is known as a Sothic Cycle.
This is quite the issue.. So the ancient Egyptians created yet another calendar to counteract this.
This newly invented Calendar is known as the second Lunar Calendar, this worked nearly the
same as the original lunar calendar besides the fact that if the first day of the lunar year came
before the first day of the civil year they agreed to add a month to the second lunar calendar.
Later on they added a 25 year cycle to this calendar as well.
Meaning the ancient Egyptians lived with 3 calendars used for a different purpose.
The Original Lunar calendar used for Agriculture, the Civil Calendar used for the administration and
government related tasks and a second Lunar calendar that was established based upon
the civil calendar instead of the sightings of Sirius with the original lunar calendar.
And of course the ancient Egyptians didnt have the modern knowledge of
the leap day that is needed every 4 years to keep the dates in relation
to the sun completely exact like we do in modern times.
It wasnt until Pope Gregory XIII added a minor modification to the Julian Calendar
invented by the Romans to adjust for the drift in the tropical or otherwise known solar year.
Therefore the calendar spaces in leap years to make an average year 365.2425 days long,
but the tropical years will be 365.2422 days long to be exact.
There is a rule for leap years implemented by the pope that goes as follows;
Every year that is exactly divisible by four is a leap year, except for years that are exactly
divisible by 100, but these centurial years are leap years if they are exactly divisible by 400.
For example, the years 1700, 1800, and 1900 are not leap years, but the years 1600 and 2000 are.
To think that thousands of years ago the basis of our modern calendar were
invented by the ancient Egyptians, they were such incredibly knowledgeable people.
I keep being in awe about their civilization and to me they
truly are the greatest civilization that has ever roamed this planet.
If you enjoyed this video about ancient inventions please let me know,
we could look into a lot more of them in the future, like for instance
the origins of the clock which besides the sundials used at Sumer in ancient times was
also an invention by the Ancient Egyptians as they had created a Water Clock.
If you would like me to research that and create a video about it
please let me know in the comments down below.
But now is the time when most people click off because this is the end of the video,
although if you do click away you are missing out on some bloopers or jokes I always leave
in the end for the people who like it, you can just skip to it if you are intrigued.
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As always thank you for watching
and Ill see you in the next one, now cue to me messing up or being an idiot
