Monday, May 29, 2023

120 - Lunar Calendar

【太陰暦、taiin-reki】

An ancient alternative calendar whose origins trace back to Sumer, Mesopotamia.

It converted a year into 12 months with 354 days, and a month into 29 or 30 days, according to the lunar, or moon, cycle.


However, this calendar system caused a discrepancy between the calendar and the actual seasons, so around 4245 B.C., a lunar-solar calendar was established, incorporating the "solar calendar", which converted the year into 365 days based on the solar cycle, which was said to have been used in ancient Egypt.

Based on the lunar calendar, another calendar was established with 7 intercalary months every 19 years for the sake of adjustment, said to have been created in ancient Babylonia.


This lunisolar calendar was employed for the old Japanese lunar calendar, Jewish calendar, Greek calendar, and Chinese calendar.

However, as is well known, the solar calendar is currently used in most parts of the world.

The Islamic Hijri calendar system is the only current calendar that uses the lunisolar calendar as its official calendar.

The fact that the solar calendar has months of approximately 30 days is thought to be a remnant of the lunar calendar.

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