NATURE 



593 



THURSDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1903. 



ANCIENT CALENDARS. 

 Aticient Calendars and Constellations. By the Hon. 

 Emmeline M. Plunket. Pp. xvi + 263. (London : 

 Murray, 1903.) Price 95. net. 



THIS fascinating work consists of a series -of re- 

 prints, arranged in logical order, of papers con- 

 tributed at different times, chiefly to the Proceedings 

 of the Society of Biblical Archaeology. Altogether 

 they give us an able summary of what is now known 

 respecting the ancient calendars of the Babylonians, 

 Egyptians, Indians, and Chinese, and a very interest- 

 ing discussion of the vexed question of the origin of 

 the ancient (especially the zodiacal) constellations, on 

 which subject the author has succeeded in throwing 

 fresh light, her conclusions being corroborated by 

 approaching the question of precessional change from 

 different points of view. 



The first chapter is on the calendar of the 

 Accadians, who possessed the country watered by the 

 Euphrates and Tigris before the Semitic conquest. 

 Now this calendar was sidereal, not tropical like 

 ours; it was founded, that is to say, on the 

 positions of the sun amongst the zodiacal con- 

 -tcilations, not those with respect to the equinoxes. 

 \! though the importance to us in these climates of 

 asonal changes leads us to make our calendar con- 

 firm in length to the tropical year, as it is called, yet 

 reminiscences of the old usage remain. Thus in the 

 " Nautical Almanac " the sun is said to enter Aries 

 at the time of the vernal equinox, though he is really 

 then situated in the constellation Pisces ; and this 

 having excited the surprise of some people who in 

 these days dabble in astronomical questions without 

 having studied them, the superintendent has, be- 

 i^^inning with this year, tried to help them by inserting 

 " sun enters sign Aries." But as it has generally been 

 erroneously su^ioosed that most of the ancient calendars 

 began the year with the vernal equinox or thereabouts 

 (in this way the old Kbman usage made March the 

 first month in the year, whence we still have September 

 M December nominally the seventh to the tenth 

 nonths), the conclusion was drawn that the zodiacal 

 instellations were formed into a series to mark the 

 ilfferent times of the year at an epoch when the sun 

 A as really entenng Aries at the vernal equinox, which 

 A ould be about three thousand years ago. 



The Accadian calendar, however, it is now known, 

 \ ent back ages before that, and Miss Plunket puts 

 >>nh the very probable theory that the true date of 

 its commencement and of the twelve Mazzaroth (if we 

 may use the Hebrew term for the zodiacal signs) was 

 about B.C. 6000. That the initial sign was from the 

 first the Ram (of the eminence of which we have so 

 many indications in Egyptian antiquities) there seems 

 no reason to doubt, but our author suggests that the 

 year was made to begin, as we begin it now, about 

 the time, not of the vernal equinox, but of the winter 

 -olstice. Eight thousand years amount to about a 

 third part of the annus magnus, during which a whole 

 round of precessional change is effected, and the sun 

 NO. 1773, VOL. 68] 



eight thousand years ago would be at the beginning 

 of Aries about the time of the winter solstice. This 

 suggestion seems to be a key which unlocks the door 

 to the explanation of many difficulties. 



But we must pass on, for our hope is that nearly 

 all our readers will study this volume for themselves. 

 The second chapter is devoted to the constellation Aries 

 and the importance attributed to it in ancient caleridars. 

 It is true that the surpassing importance to the 

 Egyptians of the rising of the Nile, which takes place 

 about the time of the summer solstice, led them 

 in early times to transfer the beginning of the year to 

 that season. But every student of Egyptian antiqui- 

 ties is constantly reminded of the prominence assigned 

 on the monuments to the ram, or rather the head of 

 the ram, which marks the position of the two 

 brightest stars in the constellation. Other indicatio.is 

 are pointed out from the orientation of the Egyptian 

 temples of the importance attached to the stars of 

 Aries. How this was carried afterwards into Greece 

 is explained in the last chapter of Sir Norman 

 Lockyer's " Dawn of Astronomy," and we may direct 

 attention to two interesting articles by the same writer 

 in Nature for January 16 and May 29, 1902, on '* The 

 Farmers' Years," in which it is shown that not merely 

 temples, but dolmens and cromlechs, were oriented to 

 the sun when half-way between the solstices and 

 equinoxes. Miss Plunket says : — 



" As we further study the records of antiquity, 

 now within our reach, it will, I believe, become evident 

 that not only the Egyptians, but also all the great 

 civilised nations of the East had traditions of a year 

 beginning when the sun and moon entered the con- 

 stellation Aries — such a year as that in use amongst 

 the Babylonians during their long existence as a 

 nation, and such as that which is used by the Hindus 

 in India to this present day "- (p. 41). 



The ancient Median calendar is next dealt with. Its 

 starting-point seems to have been about b.c. 3000, when 

 the sun was in Taurus at the vernal equinox. The 

 adoption of this by the conquering Assyrians was 

 probably the cause of their fondness for Tauric 

 symbolism and our present familiarity with the 

 Assyrian bull. Miss Plunket thinks that they also 

 adopted in part the religion they found there, on the 

 same principle that induced Sargon, after he had re- 

 peopled the conquered kingdom of Samaria, to send 

 one of the former priests to teach the new inhabitants 

 " the manner of the God of the land " (2 Kings, xvii. 

 26). She contends that Assur, the name of the great 

 god of the Assyrians, is, in fact, a modification of the 

 Aryan word Asura. Several other points are elucidated 

 in the Median calendar, and the cause of the promin- 

 ence given to some ultra-zodiacal stars, particularly 

 Altair or o Aquilae. 



We now pass on to the Indian and Chinese calendars. 

 When Sir WiUiam Jones opened out such a flood of 

 light upon ancient Indian lore, there were many 

 scholars who refused to accept the antiquity of the 

 astronomy of the Brahmins, and would have it that 

 they derived their calendar from the Greeks after the 

 conquests of .Alexander the Great. But since that time 

 the spade has effected as great a revolution in archae- 

 ology as the spectroscope has subsequently done in 

 astronomy. When Sir George Cornewall Lewis pub- 



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