Rest Days; A Sociological Study 95 



than a 9-day, or an 8-day, or even a 7-day week. The Peruvian 

 cycle, already noticed, formed merely a division of the primi- 

 tive 30-day lunar month (supra). The decades of the ancient 

 Egyptians, ^^ being divisions of the conventional 30-day month, 

 must have run periodically from month to month, save as inter- 

 rupted by the five epagomenal days required to make up the 

 solar year. They were known as the decade of the beginning 

 (hati), that of the middle (abi), and that of the end (pahn), 

 a characterization which may have once had reference to three 

 lunar phases. But since these names were in use as early as the 

 Xth dynasty, inquiry into their origin becomes a matter of specu- 

 lation. On the other hand, the Greek decades,^^ betray in their 

 names, fj.r}v la-Tafxevo-; (waxing), fjieawv (central), and </>^tVwv (wan- 

 ing), an association with the moon. The days of the last 

 decade were usually counted backwards ; in " hollow " months, 

 the day corresponding to the 29th of " full " months was omitted, 

 so that the decade really contained only nine days. At Athens 

 the last day of the third decade was styled 2vr; xal via. (" old 

 and new moon"), as being the day which belonged half to one 

 (theoretical) month of 29^/^ days, and half to the next. No 

 clearer illustration could be afforded of lunar weeks adjusted 

 to the lunar month.*" 



The evidence for the existence of 9-day cycles is very obscure. 

 Some negroes of the Guinea coast are said to employ them.*^ 



^ C. R. Lepsius, Die Chronologie der Aegypter, Berlin, 1849, i. 22, 132 

 sqq.; Foucart, "Calendar (Egyptian)," in Hastings, Encyclopaedia of Reli- 

 gion and Ethics, iii. 92, 105. 



^A. Mommsen, Chronologie, Untersuchiingcn iiber das Kalenderwesen 

 der Griechen, Leipzig, 1883, pp. 43 sqq.; Unger, in Iwan von Aliiller's 

 Handbtich der klassischcn Altertuniszvisscnschaft, i. 563 sq. 



^ It has been already noticed (supra) that the early Greeks recog- 

 nized a twofold division of the month which was marked by the day of 

 full moon — Sixofirivia. — on the 15th day. Popular custom continued to ob- 

 serve the 15th as full moon day, although after the introduction of the 

 sequence of 29 and 30 days, the day of full moon in " hollow " months fell 

 on the 14th day except when an extra day was intercalated every ^2 or 33 

 months (Unger, op. cit., 563). 



" H. Schurtz, Urgeschichie der Kultur, Leipzig, 1900, p. 633. 



95 



