Time and Babylon (1 of 2)

In Mesopotamia, a region long settled by other peoples, the Babylonians had to establish their dominance. By adopting various myths from the Sumerians, and then amending them, they created a sense of the long view of time. Into this invention of time stretching into the infinite past, the Babylonians inserted themselves, thereby breaking the timeline into two parts: before and after their arrival. They grafted the legacy of the Sumerians to themselves. Moreover, possessing a concrete sense of time, the Babylonians then subdivided it in a number of ways, each division of time serving a religious or imperial need. They bifurcated time into two distinct parts – one: circular and repeating, the other: an arrow into the future. These two splits of time complemented each other in the Babylonian mind.

 Every New Year which began at the Spring Equinox, the Creation Myth (Enuma Elish) was read. This myth begins with the original creation of the world by Tiamat, the God of Chaos, and Apsu, the God of Waters. Later Enlil, a God from the succeeding generation becomes the “Father of the Gods.” Eventually, He cedes his powers to Anu, from yet a newer generation of Gods, who seeks to overthrow the original Gods. After Apsu is killed, Tiamat wages war on the newer Gods. In desperation, Enlil goes to Marduk, the principal deity of Babylon, for help. On condition that He is made the Ruler of the Gods, Marduk agrees. After killing Tiamat, Marduk remakes the world from her body.

This creation story cements Babylon’s place in Mesopotamian history. After ages of rule by other peoples and their Gods, Mesopotamia is then recreated by the Babylonians. Generations of Gods follow each other ending with Marduk. Thus, Babylon becomes the terminus point for the timeless past, and the future that is now Babylon. The ritual of reading the Creation Myth every New Year was the intersection of circle with arrow time, and also the combination of both.

 In its various forms, the Gilgamesh Epic highlights the nexus of time and immortality. Within this epic is the story of a Great Deluge. Like the Creation Story, the time in the Great Flood is broken into two halves, the world before Babylon and after. According to this myth, the list of Kings before the Flood numbered ten. After the Flood, the Kings reigned from the City of Kish (in Sumer), with reigns consisting of 300 years to 1,200 years. In this story, comes a sense of a long past, a rupture, and then the start of a new age. Because Kish had great symbolic significance, the myth allows Babylon to become the heir to the ancient civilization of Sumer. The story gives to the people of Babylonia, the sense of a great destiny. Babylon is the New World remade from the older world. Once more, time in Babylonian perception was broken, and then welded together again.

 The Gilgamesh Epic, itself, focuses on the questions of death and immortality. After his friend, Enkidu dies, Gilgamesh comes to dislike death. Resolving to end death for all, he searches for the key of immortality. During his adventures, various Gods tell him to enjoy life and accept death gracefully. Through a series of mishaps, Gilgamesh is denied immortality for himself and his people. However, he realizes that his city will exist long after his death. His immortality would come from his legacy, which is his city. Babylonians saw this in terms of themselves as the legacy of Sumer. Again it was presented as endless time that was disrupted.

Time and Babylon (2 of 2)

 In Babylon, the year was divided into two halves – summer and winter, in explicit circle time. In the myth of Ishtar’s Descent Into the Underworld, winter comes about when Ishtar sends her husband Tammuz to take her place in the Land of the Dead. In desperation, Tammuz then seeks help from his sister, Gestinana. After much negotiation with the Gods of the Underworld, both siblings decide to take each other’s place for six months at a time.

Ishtar’s husband, Tammuz was the God of Crops and Flocks. The Babylonians saw Him as the life blood of the land and the sheep. When He went into the Underworld, winter came. At that time his sister, Gestinana reemerged, and presided over the autumn harvest and wine making. She became the Goddess of Wine and Grapes.

 At the Spring Equinox, the Babylonians started their New Year. To commemorate this, the King would enact a sacred marriage with the temple priestess of Ishtar. Their mating was to reaffirm the marriage of Ishtar, the Goddess of Fertility, with her husband, Tammuz. These marriage rites was to ensure that the King was accepted as one of the Gods, and blessed by Ishtar, who also blessed the crops. This was circle time, repeated every year at the same day.

 In contrast, the Fall Harvest was the beginning of the Royal Year. At this time, the King offered First Fruits for the blessings of the Gods for him and his city. Afterwards, he would begin a project such as building a temple. Counting regnal years in Babylon started with the harvest, and was often named for the King’s latest project. The passage of time was demarked by the reigns of kings and their deeds. Again the Babylonian sense of time was divided into two parts, one for the Gods and the other for the kings. Regnal time was inserted as an arrow to the future into the circle time of the harvests.

In their daily lives, the Babylonians were very conscious of the passage of time. They measured days, months, and years (with a nineteen month calendar to tract solar and lunar eclipses). They used artificial time to track governmental and commercial activity for regnal years and fiscal years. Against this backdrop of dividing time into smaller units came the sense of timelessness that rose from living in Mesopotamia. Being conscious of being a part of a succession of kingdoms in the region, the Babylonians both merged their myths with the Sumerians, and divided them into two parts, before Babylon, and after.  Time for the Babylonians was to split into two parts, one an arrow pointing towards the future, whilst the other a circle that returned back to Babylon.

Works Used.
“Ancient Mesopotamian Gods and Goddesses.” U.K. Higher Education Project. 2011. Web. http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/amgg/index.html.
 Aveni, Anthony, “People and the Sky.” Thames and Hudson: New York. 2009. Print.
 Cicero, Sandra, “A Guide to the Babylonian Tarot.” Llewellyn: Woodbury, MN, 2006. Print.
 King, L.W., “Babylonian Religion and Mythology.” Wisdom Library. 1903. Web. http://www.wisdomlib.org/mesopotamian/book/babylonian-religion-and-mythology/d/doc7086.html
 Siren, Christopher, “The Assyro-Babylonian Mythology FAQ.” 2003. Web. http://home.comcast.net/~chris.s/assyrbabyl-faq.html.
“Sumerian Mythology FAQ.” 2000. Web. http://home.comcast.net/~chris.s/sumer-faq.html
 Smitha, Frank, “Civilization in Mesopotamia.” Macrohistory and World Time Line. 2014. Web. http://www.fsmitha.com/h1/ch01.htm .

Archeoastronomy: Sundials

As societies became more complex, people had to organize their timekeeping into smaller increments, especially during the daylight hours. Whether they had to establish a meeting time for a council session or a starting time for a religious ritual, people needed to devise a way to coordinate their time. Beyond “morning”, “noon,” and “evening,” they needed a finer division of time such as “hours.”

 Sundials were invented to solve this problem. Because they measure small intervals of time using cosmic activity, sundials were considered to be one of the earliest scientific instruments. The Egyptians were the first people recorded in the West to use the sundial. Their sundial consisted of the gnomon (a crossbar) and a flat base divided into six “hours.” In the morning, the gnomon faced east, and the afternoon west. The shadow cast by the gnomon on the base determined the hour.

 Using their knowledge of geometry, the Greeks refined the sun dial of the Egyptians. They invented the hemicyclium (hemispherium), which is a block of stone with a hemisphere cut into it. The gnomon was placed on top. The half-sphere created a circular arc that determined time more accurately. The hemicyclium resembled a hollowed out bowl with a stick on top.

 Sundials used in Europe were adapted from the Greeks and the Egyptians. These instruments featured twelve “hour” days and nights. However, the Norse and Saxons based theirs on the ebb and flow of tides. They marked two high and two low tides, which were further divided into halves and quarters for a total of sixteen “hours.”

One major problem with ancient sundials is that they measured “unequal” (“temporary”) “hours.” Summer, which has longer days, produces longer “hours,” than winter. Moreover, the further north (or south) from the Equator, the location of the sundial is, the more pronounced the difference between summer and winter “hours” are.

 In the 1300s, Abu’l-Hasan (Ibn al-Shatir), an Arab Muslim astronomer and religious timekeeper, invented “equal” (“equinoctial”) “hours” based on trigonometry. He reasoned that a gnomon parallel to the Earth’s axis (i.e. polar axis) would produce “equal hours.” “Equal hours” are measured from the passing of the low meridian (12 Midnight) until the next low meridian, and then divided into twenty-four hours. Once sundials were adjusted to the latitude of where they were, they kept accurate time. People, then, used sundials to set mechanical clocks.

 Sundials are divided into two groups – Altitude and Azimuth. The Altitude sundials determine time by the sun’s altitude. These Altitude sundials were either aligned with either the sun or the cardinal directions. Azimuth sundials determine the time from the “hour angle of the sun.” (Azimuth refers to direction of the sun’s angle.) These sundials are oriented by a compass.

 Example of an Altitude sundial is the pole (pillar) dial, which is a pole with a gnomon at the top. Meanwhile Azimuth sundials are often found in gardens. These are the tilted horizontal ones with the gnomon inclined at the latitude of the garden.

 As society became more complex, instruments to tract time in finer increments were invented. Though seemingly simple, sundials are actually intricate devices for keeping time. Because of their importance, people, over the centuries, worked to improve sundials. In fact, sundials were still being used in the 19th Century to set mechanical clocks.

 Works Used:
 Ling Liew Huay and Yee, Lim Siew, “The Mathematics of Sundials,” National University of Singapore, 2001, http://www.math.nus.edu.sg/aslaksen/projects/sundials/
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 Marie, Niclas, “When Time Began: The History and Science of Sundials,” TimeCenter, 2014, https://www.timecenter.com/articles/when-time-began-the-history-and-science-of-sundials/ .

 Nordoff, Helena, “Fun in the Sun: A Sundial Tutorial,” 21 August, 2003, http://www.qwerty.co.za/sundials/index.html.

 “Unit 6: Sundials,” Polaris Project, Iowa State University, 2001, http://www.polaris.iastate.edu/NorthStar/Unit6/unit6_intro.htm.
 Ward, John and Margaret Folkard, “Sundials Part 2: Definitions and Basic Types,” Royal New Zealand Institute of Horticulture, 1997, http://www.rnzih.org.nz/pages/sundial2.htm.

Archeoastronomy: Inca Calendar

Though not a prehistoric society, the Inca Empire employed similar timekeeping methods and reasons for keeping a calendar. They established their calendar to maintain the welfare of their people. Furthermore, the Incas used their calendar to bind everyone together in their empire, by coordinating religious and agricultural activities from Cuzco, their capital. To keep social order, the Incas divided their cities into four quarters, with each quarter split into radical sections from a common center. The lines, called ceques, had sacred sites (huacas) along them to determine where the sun would be on a given day. Families were assigned to maintain the local huaca, to keep a sacred landscape for timekeeping.

One example of how the Incas kept time was detailed by the Spanish. They reported that overlooking Cuzco, in the northwest was a high mound called Cerro Picchu. On this hill were four marked pillars. When the sun went past the first pillar, it was time for farmers in the higher altitudes to prepare their fields. When the sun entered the two middle pillars, planting began in Cuzco. When the sun hit the middle of these two pillars, planting began in the valleys.

 The Incas also used the dark nebula constellations of the Milky Way to tell time. When the constellation Tinamou appeared, they knew to watch their crops since the tinamous (birds resembling a partridges) would come. When Toad appeared, the Incas held their religious rituals for rain, because toads brought the rainy season.

 In addition, the Incas constructed a lunar calendar to track their rituals. To keep this calendar in sync with the solar calendar, they tracked the sightings of the Pleiades. The first month began at the summer solstice, and featured the Great Feast of the Sun (Capac Inti-Rami). The following month was one of penance and fasting. In the third month, farmers harvested root crops and conducted ceremonies for growing corn. In the fourth month, farmers focused on their ripening crops. The fifth month honored the Inca Emperor at the Feast of the Incas. In the sixth month, the Incas harvested corn and gave thanks to their Gods. The seventh month was for the Inti-Raimi festival, when everyone had to go to Cuzco. The eighth month featured rituals for irrigation and water. In the ninth month, the Incas tilled their fields and sacrificed to all of their Gods for a successful growing season. The tenth month featured the Feast of the Moon. During this time, Cuzco was purified. The eleventh month was the dry season, when the Incas had ceremonies for rain. The last month was the Festival of the Dead.

 My theory of why the Incas developed their solar-lunar calendar was to ensure social order and the welfare of their people. Living in the mountains, the Incas had to pay close attention to their environment to stay alive. To feed and clothe their people, the Inca Empire structured their ritual activities around the growing and harvest seasons. Moreover, these religious rituals not only honored their Gods, but also focused on keeping the empire intact. Since the official timekeeping was done at Cuzco, everyone was conscious of the Empire in their lives.
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Works Used:

Aveni, Anthony, “People and the Sky,” Thames & Hudson: N.Y, 2008.
Gazzo, Bridget and Sarah Cahalan, “The Ancient Future: Mesoamerican and Andean Timekeeping,” Dumbarton Oaks, 2014, http://www.doaks.org/library-archives/library/library-exhibitions/the-ancient-future-mesoamerican-and-andean-timekeeping, .
Jrcalhou, “The Inca Calendar,” WolfWikis NCSU, 2008, http://wikis.lib.ncsu.edu/index.php/The_Inca_Calendar, .
---, “Inca Calendar,” Peru Travel Diary, 2009, http://www.machupicchu-inca.com/inca-calendar.html, .
Magli, Giulio, “Mysteries and Discoveries of Archaeoastronomy,” Copernicus Books: N.Y., 2009.

Archeoastronomy: Ancient Timekeeping

Timekeeping in prehistoric times focused on survival. To stay alive, well-fed and safe, people had to make sense of the various periodic clues in their environment. They developed calendars to time their activities to what was happening in their environment. From watching the seasons of the sun and the phases of the moon, people constructed a map of the cycles of nature. Other people used the changing stars of the night sky as well. For example, peoples of Australia watched for Arcturus, the star, to rise in the northeast sky, so that they could gather the wood-ant larva for food. Meanwhile, the !Kung of the arid Kalahari watched for the star Capella to rise in the evening sky for the advent of the rainy season.

 Calendars enabled people to focus on what they need to do to survive. In northern Maine, my family timed various chores by the calendar. March was sugaring season, when the stronger sun caused the sap to rise in trees. In April, people prepared for the ice to break on the Kennebec River to ship their lumber downstream. (This practice ended in the mid-1970s.) Then in June, berry picking season began for making jams and jellies for the coming winter. June was strawberries, July raspberries, August blueberries, and finally September blackberries. Then in September, we laid in logs for the woodstoves for heat during the winter.

Another part of human survival was conducting religious rites to ensure good relations with the Other Worldly Powers since the Gods were essential to their well-being. Calendars were used to keep these rites in sync with nature. For example, the Romans held Liberalia near the spring equinox to celebrate Liber, who governed plant fertility. When the pastures became green in April, the Romans asked the Pales to protect their livestock. The festival of Parilia (in honor of the Pales) was held to cleanse sheep before sending them out to graze.  During the dry hot days of August, the Volcanalia was held to pray to Vulcan, the God of Fire, to be merciful and quiet.
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Works Used:
Adkins, Lesley and Roy Adkins, “Dictionary of Roman Religion,” Oxford University Press: N.Y., 1996.
Aveni, Anthony, “People and the Sky,” Thames & Hudson: N.Y, 2008.
Magli, Giulio, “Mysteries and Discoveries of Archaeoastronomy,” Copernicus Books: N.Y., 2009.