#Lunisolar Calendar

[thorsvinur]

Resources for Those Wanting to Learn about Pre-Christian Time Reckoning in Northern Europe and its Application in Modern Heathen Traditions

Throughout the history of the modern Neo-Pagan movement, the calendar that has been used by most practitioners has been either the Wiccan Wheel of the Year or another calendar heavily influenced by it. The Wheel of the Year draws largely upon a mixture of Celtic (Gaelic) and Anglo-Saxon traditions, splitting the years into quarters with quarterly and cross-quarterly celebrations and beginning the year at the end of October with the originally Gaelic festival of Samhain.

The calendars that have come to be popular for the majority of the modern Heathenry movement have undoubtedly been based in this calendar, with the major changes being to the names of certain celebrations. On the calendar created by Stephen McNallen for the AFA, Lammas became Freyfaxi, Mabon became Winter Finding, Samhain became Winter Nights, etc. Other organizations such as Forn Sidr of America, The Ásatrú Community, etc. have created their own versions of the calendar as well, but at their roots they all exist essentially as a modification of the Wheel of the Year concept.

More (relatively) recent research and scholarship has brought a greater awareness of older time reckoning systems within Heathen circles as well as amongst history enthusiasts. Some of this has focused on the Old Icelandic calendar as well as the primstav tradition, and while both of these have validity to them the Old Icelandic calendar already had some changes to how it worked from the older system and the primstav used a standardized dating system based in the Julian calendar. Still, these are both useful tools in attempting to reconstruct the pre-Christian (or at least pre-Julian) calendar systems of the Germanic, and particularly Scandinavian, peoples of Northern Europe.

Why is this at all important in an age with the Gregorian calendar used most everywhere and especially for those outside of Scandinavia? Because for those trying the build an understanding of or relationship with these cultures, or even just more connected to the earth in general, the way they reckoned time helps to understand their relationship and connection to their environment, the flow of seasons, how they viewed the different parts of the year and adjusted their activities accordingly, etc. It helps to understand the "why" behind the ritual cycle, even in the names of the months themselves.

Below are a few of the primary resources that I have found helpful in learning about these topics, as well as a graphic representation that I have made based on my research so far to represent the reconstructed Old Norse lunisolar calendar. Note that I don't claim to be an expert on this topic, so I could certainly be wrong in some of the details, and some of the months also have multiple names from which I chose one to use. Also, there were multiple time reckoning systems in use during the period, including a week-counting system, so there can also be conflicting information depending on which is being considered.

Sources:

"Jul, disting och förkyrklig tidräkning: Kalendrar och kalendriska riter i det förkristna Norden" by Andreas Nordberg

- Available as a free PDF, the majority of this is written in Swedish, but it contains a fairly concise English summary at the end. It focuses primarily on Old Norse Jól (Yule) as well as the Dísaþing/Disting and Dísablót in Sweden, but it touches on other celebrations and uses these to establish the overall scheme of the lunisolar calendar system.

"The Festival Year: A Survey of the Annual Festival Cycle and Its Relation to the Heathen Lunisolar Calendar" by Josh Rood

-Also available as a free PDF, this paper expands upon Norberg's work as well as others' and goes through the overall festival year of the pre-Christian Scandinavians.

"The Lunisolar Calendar of the Germanic Peoples: Reconstruction of a bound moon calendar from ancient, medieval and early modern sources" by Andreas Zautner

-This book is sort of a dive into a number of different ancient to early modern calendar systems, but it uses all of these to reconstruct lunisolar time reckoning systems not only for Scandinavians, but for other Germanic peoples as well. It's a great read for those interested in pre-Julian time reckoning in Northern Europe as well as Medieval calendar systems in general.

"The Nordic Animist Year" by Rune Hjarnø Rasmussen

-Similarly to Zautner's book, Rasmussen draws upon a variety of Medieval calendar systems in his work, but his goal, rather than reconstructing an Old Norse calendar is to create a modern calendar based in animist traditions of Northern Europe. It undoubtedly uses the lunisolar system as a base and takes a lot from Old Norse sources, but it also incorporates later traditions which are based in animist knowledge and have value in establishing a system of seasonal animism.

And lastly, my Old Norse lunisolar calendar representation. Each month starts on a new moon, represented by a black dot, and the festivals are shown at the full moons, being white dots. You may notice the lack of Þorrablót and Miðsumar (Midsommar) on here. Regarding Þorrablót, I'm not as well researched on the origins of it and how widespread it may have been. For Miðsumar I have long refrained from including it due to the absolute lack of mentions in literary material from during or shortly after the period, but I have been pointed to some instances of it marked on primstavs as July 14th (Julian calendar), suggesting a possible lunisolar observance of it earlier similar to Jól's relationship to the winter solstice.

[talesofedo]

Edo period egoyomi (picture calendar) for Keio 4 (1868), showing the sho-no-tsuki (small or short months) as women and the dai-no-tsuki (large or long months) as men.

Edo Period Calendars

Disclaimer: The following information is from the National Diet Library, I didn't write this. I am sharing it for reference, both for myself and those of you who might be interested. Some slight editing for paragraphs.

...

Background / History

Japan's first calendar came from China via Korea. In the middle of the 6th century, the Yamato Imperial Court, which ruled Japan at the time, invited a priest from a country called Paekche (Kudara in Japanese), in what is now Korea, to learn from him how to draw up a calendar, as well as astronomy and geography.

Reportedly, Japan organized its first calendar in the 12th year of Suiko (604).

Back then, all matters relating to the calendar were determined by the Imperial Court. Under the Ritsuryosei system of centralized administration under the Ritsuryo legal code of the Taika Reformation, the Onmyoryo of Nakatsukasasho was in charge of the task.

An Onmyoryo was a government office that had jurisdiction over calendar preparation, astronomy, divination, etc. It was a time when calendars and divination were inseparable.

From the end of 10th century, the task of preparing the calendar was handed down in the Kamo family, while astronomy passed through generations of the Abe family, its patriarch being Abe Seimei (921-1005), noted as an Onmyo-shi, or specialist in the realm of calendars and divination.

The calendar used then was called "Tai-in-taiyo-reki," a lunisolar calendar, or "Onmyo-reki."

Each month was adjusted to the cycle of moon's waxing and waning. Since the moon orbits the earth in about 29.5 days, adjustment was required and this was done by making months with either 30 days or 29 days, the former, "dai-no-tsuki (long month)," the latter, "sho-no-tsuki (short month)."

Aside from the moon's orbit round the earth, the earth orbits the sun in 365.25 days, which, as we all know, causes the seasonal changes. Thus, merely repeating long and short months gradually produced a discrepancy between the actual season and the calendar. To compensate for this, a month called "uru-zuki," or intercalary month, was inserted every few years to produce a year with 13 months, with the order of longer and shorter months changing year by year.

Unlike our contemporary calendar in which there is no change in the order of months, back then the fixing of a calendar was deemed so important that it was placed under the control of the imperial court and, in the later Edo period, under the superimposed military shogunate.

The calendar established by Onmyo-ryo was called "Guchu-reki," one in which various words indicating seasons, annual events and daily good omens were written in Chinese characters and called "reki-chu (calendar notes)." The Guchu-reki derives its name from the fact that the notes were written in detail.

This Guchu-reki, which was in service until the Edo period, was used particularly by noblemen in ancient and medieval times, individuals based their everyday activities on the calendar. They often wrote a personal diary in the blank spaces or on the back of their personal calendar. These entries remain left valuable historical records of the era.

With the spread of kana, Japan's phonetic alphabet, "Kana-goyomi," a simplified edition of Guchu-reki written in kana, appeared. In the middle of the 14th century calendars started to be printed and soon reached a broader range of users.

As the Edo period wore on and knowledge of astronomy grew more sophisticated, the discrepancy between the calendar and actual astronomical events, such as eclipses of the sun and moon, became an issue, there arose a movement within the shogunate to amend the calendar.

Prior to then, the calendar was made each year based on the Senmyo-reki brought from China in the 4th year of Jogan (862), but as the same method had been used for more than eight centuries, it was deemed consistent with the situation prevailing at the time.

In the 2nd year of Jokyo (1685), a method of making the calendar was devised by Shibukawa Harumi, marking the first attempt by a Japanese, with the amended version known as the Jokyo calendar.

Later in the Edo period, the calendar was revised several times, the results respectively called the Horeki (1755), Kansei (1798) and Tenpo (1844) calendars.

Through these amendments, a more accurate lunisolar calendar was devised incorporating Occidental astronomy. Calendar calculation was made by the "Tenmongata" (officer in charge of astronomy) in the Edo shogunate, with notes added by the Kotokui family, descendants of the Kamo family, after which calendars were issued by publishers in various regions.

Calendars at first were exclusively for the use of the imperial court and noblemen, but after the dawn of printed calendars, more and more people came to use them.

Farmers and merchants found them essential to know the seasons and events. In particular, when using lunisolar calendars in which the order of long and short months changed year after year, learning them proved indispensable for merchants who made collections or payments at the end of each month.

Because of this, various types of calendars were devised and used.

Edo period egoyomi (picture calendar) for Tenmei 7 (1787), showing the sho-no-tsuki (small or short months) as women's parts and the dai-no-tsuki (large or long months) as men's parts in kabuki, beginning with the first month at top right.

According to the lunisolar calendar, there were long months with 30 days and short ones with 29 and their arrangement changed year by year. So knowing the arrangement of long and short months, with the inclusion of an intercalary month from time to time, was very important for the people who lived in those times.

Merchants, who made it a rule to effect payments or collections at the end of each month, would make signs to show a long or short month and erect them up in their shops according to the month in order to avoid mistakes.

While the calendar spread, the Daisho-reki calendar, which showed only the order of the long and short months, appeared during the Edo period (1603-1867). In those days it was called simply "Daisho". But instead of merely showing the length of month, it incorporated such devices as indicating long and short months with the use of pictures and sentences.

Various kinds of Daisho, including those using auspicious illustrations like the animal of the year and scenes from popular Kabuki plays, were produced and many were traded at "Daisho" New Year gatherings, while others were used for gifts. This custom began at the end of 17th century and was most popular in the latter half of the 18th century, in the Edo period.

Many noted artists produced Daisho illustrations. Later, in the Meiji era, when the solar calendar was officially adopted, Daisho calendars fell into disuse and were no longer produced.

[not-your-asian-fantasy]

Lunar New Year marks the first new moon of the lunisolar calendar. The holiday is known by different names in different countries. For example, in China it is called Chūn Jié, in Vietnam it is Tết, in Korea it is Seollal and in Tibet it is Losar, just to list some of them. Feel free to mention others in the comments.

To call to it Lunar New Year means it’s inclusive to all who celebrate, as opposed to using the blanket term Chinese New Year. To use the latter implies that the holiday is exclusive to China and the Chinese people.

By casually calling this day “Chinese New Year,” we are forgetting the many other East and Southeast Asian cultures that celebrate the beginning of the lunar calendar. The erasure of those other Asian cultures who celebrate this holiday is important to consider.

It’s indicative of the much repeated pattern of a diverse and multicultural society trying to group seemingly similar cultures together. This speaks to the ways in which Asian people and our culture are often treated as a monolith and experience many generalisations and ste reotypes. I think it’s important for us to be recognised for our differences rather than being endlessly grouped together under the umbrella of “Asians” or “Chinese.”

To this end, I personally feel Lunar New Year is the most inclusive phrase to use (unless you’re certain of one’s cultural background and may therefore decide to be more specific). I still have my moments where I have to correct myself and refer to it as Lunar New Year. Language is important. Making this small change and correcting ourselves is a small step in helping to make people feel included, seen and respected.

Source

Alyssa Ho Writings linktree

[sag-dab-sar]

"Thus, the Mesopotamian year was, in effect, a solar year squeezed into a lunar strait-jacket."

—The Cultic Calendars of the Ancient Near East by Cohen page 4

Lunisolar calendars in a nutshell.

[supercantaloupe]

hi :) tonight is a full moon and its really pretty. uhhhhh tonight i have been listening to prelude to ecstasy by the last dinner party (the album) ummmm i recently watched Logan (2017) a movie about wolverine xman when he's old and sad and it was quite good and very sad. how are you? ❤️

i have a headache and had to record a bullshit group presentation on zoom that will probably have to get recorded again tomorrow cause it didn't save lol! i should be in bed rn but instead i watched the gastronauts premiere. as a lifelong iron chef fan it comes close to scratching the same itch

[inspofromancientworld]

Ancient Babylonian Calendar

By Lamassu Design Gurdjieff (talk) - Image by Author, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6632777

Calendars are complex structures that help humans know when to do things ranging from ceremony to planting crops. There are theories that the moon was the first calendar, with its predictable changes night after night, then the solstices and equinoxes would have added a regularity to the cycle of the year. The problem comes in that the solar and lunar calendars don't align with each other. A lunar month has about 29.53 days. A solar year is 365.26 days long. These numbers don't evenly go into each other, with each solar year having 12.37 lunar months in it. This leaves about 10.64 days every year that the lunar calendar drifts away from the solar calendar. The phases of the moon (first quarter, full, last quarter, new) are approximately 7.28 days apart and the days of those phases were considered as 'unfavorable' for things like eating of cooked meat or baked bread by the king or priests and doctors working, which gave rise to our modern weeks. With the desire to keep the equinoxes and solstices happening in the same months, it becomes necessary to add an additional month in periodically. Initially, this was done at the ruler's or priest's decree, then a pattern was noticed, leading to lunisolar calendars with a periodicity of either eight (octaeteris) or nineteen years (Metonic cycle).

The Babylonian calendar is one of the oldest lunisolar calendars that we know about that reconciled the solar and lunar cycles as well as other astronomical events. While we have definitive evidence of the calendar being in use shows up about 4000 BCE under the Sumerians, initially, the month was set by observation with the month beginning at the very first sighting of the crescent moon after the new moon, but gradually, patterns were recognized and the beginning of the month was calculated. There is debate when the calendar shifted from observation to calculation, with the standard wisdon saying this happened that calculation could not have happened prior to Thales of Miletus, a Greek mathematician and astronomer who lived around 624-546 BCE, and that the Metonic cycle (which is based on 235 lunar months in 19 solar years) was calculated around 432 BCE by Meton of Athens, a Greek astronomer. The octaeteris is a period of eight years after which the lunar phase will be within a day or two of the same day. It also the period of time after which the Moon and Venus will reach the same positions and phases in the night sky. We're not sure who calculated that cycle, but it is the calendar encoded into the Antikythera mechanism, the oldest known analogue computer know. There is some evidence, however, that the Babylonians could have calculated a month and year and when additional months were necessary to keep solar events in the 'correct' month of the year more than a thousand years prior, most likely based on the octaeteris cycle.

By British Museum - British Museumhttps://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/image/152339001, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=90184887

The Enūma Anu Enlil 𒌓𒀭𒈾𒀭𒂗𒆤𒇲 (which means 'when [the gods] Anu and Enlil […]') was written in the Old Babylonian period, approximately 1950-1595 BCE and revised afterwards through the Kassite period (1595-1157 BCE) gave signs and omens based on astronomical events, including eclipses and other irregular but reliable events in the night sky, down to when exactly in the night the beginning of the crescent of the moon begins to show. Another document, MUL.APIN 𒀯𒀳 (named after 'The Plough' constellation, in the modern constellations of Cassiopeia, Andromeda, and Triangulum), which dates to about 686 BCE, though was probably composed much earlier, around 1000 BCE. It is a catalog of stars, constellations, rising and setting dates of constellations through the year and what path the moon takes. It is the earliest known catalog of the stars as well as how the Babylonian calendar was set up. The months, however, were somewhat idealized, in that a month was 30 ideal days and a year was 360 ideal days, or 12 ideal months. With these ideal divisions, it allows the astronomers to calculate what constellation the sun was in on the 15th of the month (the full moon) so they could calculate when an addition month was needed in the year to keep the actual and ideal years as aligned as closely as possible, lending credence to the idea that the Babylonians did this by calculation rather than observation prior to the Greek mathematicians.

By Thiagobf - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=45649439 Blue line: Earths orbit Grey line: Moon orbit Green line: Line of nodes Yellow line: Line to perigee Red lines: Velocity vectors Middle: (Camera follows Earth keeping Sun always behind it.) Demonstrates how the inclination of the moon's orbit precludes eclipses most of the time, leading to distinct eclipse seasons. Bottom left: (Camera follows Earth keeping its initial orientation, "Sun passes Earth" once per year .) Shows that the periodicity and recurrence of eclipses is governed by the Saros cycle, a period of approximately 6,585.3 days (18 years 11 days 8 hours). It was known to the Chaldeans as a period when lunar eclipses seem to repeat themselves, but the cycle is applicable to solar eclipses as well. Bottom right: View from the top shows how the moon orbital elements (argument of perigee PE and longitude of ascending node AN) change with time, returning to a similar configuration after one saros. One saros period after an eclipse, the Sun, Earth, and Moon return to approximately the same relative geometry, a near straight line, and a nearly identical eclipse will occur, in what is referred to as an eclipse cycle. (description from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saros_(astronomy)#/media/File:Saros15122015.gif

Babylonians also were able to calculate the cycle of lunar eclipses, which occur about every 5-6 months in an 18 year cycle of magnitude and duration (there are 38 eclipses in 18 years, and 33 of these are 6 months apart). Lunar eclipses are visible anywhere on the earth that it is night, making them more 'important' to the Babylonians, and their prediction would allow for preparation for those rituals. The distribution of five month time periods follows a pattern of 8 six month eclipses, a five month, follows by 7 six month, then 8, then 7, then 8 and then the pattern begins again (8 - 7 - 8 - 7 - 8). The Babylonians were definitely aware of this as early as 575 BCE and there appears to be document recording the lunar eclipse of 6 February 747 BCE noting this pattern. This is called the Saros cycle and is the basis by which we predict eclipses to this day, though our numbers have gotten more exact with our improved time keeping methods. We even number the Saros cycles to a lunar eclipse dated 23 February 1994 BCE.

By Susanne M Hoffmann - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=109209823

While we cannot know for sure exactly how people kept track of time prior to settled agriculture, we do know that once settled, study of the night sky and the timing of equinoxes and solstices were of great import, not just for keeping track of the cycles of sowing and harvesting of crops, but also for rituals, for protecting against bad omens, and even for planned days of rest. Even something as complex as the pattern of eclipses can be puzzled out over the course of many years and continue to affect the word, thousands of years later.

Resources

Standard Babylonian (Nippur-Babylonian) Calendar

Counting Days in Ancient Babylon: Eclipses, Omens, and Calendrics during the Old Babylonian Period (1750-1600 BCE)

[uwmspeccoll]

Year of the Rabbit

The past few Lunar New Years we have featured paper-cut designs from our copy of Paper-Cuts in China. This year is the Year of the Rabbit in the Chinese zodiac calendar, so we present this bright-eyed paper-cut bunny from Paper-Cuts in China, which features paper cuts of the 12 signs of the Chinese zodiac as well as birds and plants. Lunar New Year falls on the new moon in late January or early February and is based on the Chinese lunisolar calendar. 

This book, for which we have not identified the year or publisher, has text in both Chinese and English. It notes that in 2002, “China’s paper-cut was listed as a ‘world cultural heritage’ by UNESCO.” The commentary to the paper-cut rabbit says:

The persons born in the year of the rabbit . . . are careful and tender, and are good at expressing sympathy for others. Having gift in languages and being sharp in eloquence, so they are popular with others. . . . They are sociable, polite, friendly, having plentiful topics, and presenting a good appearance, but dislike arguing with others. They possess a mild temperament which can convert enemies into friends . . . It is easy to produce small misunderstandings, for they are fragile in affection.

View other paper cuts from this collection.

View posts from Lunar New Years past.

[discountalien-pancake]

The amount of absolutely batshit comments i have seen on Lunar New Year posts claiming it is a Chinese Invention and therefore must be called Chinese New Year is absolutely fucking bonkers. Anyway, happy year of the cat!

[coquelicoq]

i'm so thrown by the dates of easter and pesach this year. i keep seeing easter coming up on the calendar (march 31st) and being like ahhh but i haven't sent pesach cards yet!!! and then i look at my calendar of jewish holidays which keeps telling me it's not until april 22nd. so i just looked up what the deal is and it's because of the leap month!!! i forgot about that guy. but now that you say it, duh. yay leap month 🥰

[treeprince]

the problem with making commitments at the start of a new year on the western calendar is that its january and the vitamin D deficiency hasnt even begun to start chewing us down yet

[thorsvinur]

Happy winter solstice!

In modern times, many people who celebrate Yule begin doing so today, and though it appears that this was not the case during the Early Medieval period it still served an important function and may well have had some lesser celebrations and observances around it.

The Old Norse calendar system was lunisolar, meaning that it reckoned time using both lunar and solar cycles. While the months went from new moon to new moon, and later full moon to full moon on the Old Icelandic calendar, the solstices were used to keep everything in check. Since there are not quite 365 days in the 12 lunar month period that was used, it creates a cycle where the months could continuously move backwards relative to the seasons. The Islamic calendar, for instance, does this, which is why Ramadan can occur in the summer as well as the winter.

With the Old Norse calendar there was an incentive to keep the seasons and months more tightly bound, largely due to the single and in many places short harvest period. In this case, how close the new moon which began Jólmánuðr (Yule Month) was to the winter solstice would determine if an extra month would be added during the following summer. If this new moon occurred within 11 days of the solstice, the extra month would be added after the summer solstice. In this way, the winter solstice was the anchor of the entire year.

This year, Jólmánuðr begins a mere two days after the winter solstice, and as a result this coming summer will see an extra month added by the lunisolar reckoning!

For more information on this, check out Andreas Nordberg's "Jul, disting och förkyrklig tideräkning" and Rune Hjarnø Rasmussen's "The Nordic Animist Year".

[zmaragdos]

back on my bullshit

(drinking green tea by the liter)

[jlbugesq]

[rose-of-the-valley]

Happy QiXi/Chilseok everyone!!

[waitinqroom]

2024 year of the dragon my ASS

[sunnyapollonjabrigidotter]

I think id need calendar stickers, lol.. & detachable kind, cs im messy af... ⏳️🪻☀️