Obaba Museum

Seven days in a week,
365 days in a year,
Monday, Mardi, Mercredi, Jeudi, Vendredi, Saturday, Sunday. 

Don’t worry, I didn’t mix up the names from my language classes. On the contrary I like uniformity – seems ironic right? Hold on, you’ll find out why I used the French equivalent of these days soon.

Why do we have seven days in a week and 365 days in a year? We have the various mythologies to thank for this. This would be equivalent to the Christian accounts of creation.

Ancient people studied the skies a lot and believed in Seven heavenly/celestial bodies. Yeah seven, that perfect number. These bodies were the Sun, moon, Mercury, Venus, Saturn, Mars, and Jupiter. This were all that were visible to the naked eyes then. The days of the week were named after these celestial bodies. I know we don’t have mercury day or Venus day, we have the Norse to thank for that, you’ll realize why I said so.

Did you know that Romans originally had Eight day weeks. This was changed by Roman Emperor Constantine who established the seven day week in the Roman calendar and designated Sunday as the first day of the week.

So how were these days now numbered and which day started the week? The method used for this was assigning a celestial name to an hour till the hours in the day were exhausted. Whatever celestial body started a particular day that would be the name of the day.

This was how it worked;

• 1st hour – Saturn
• 2nd hour – Jupiter
• 3rd hour – Mars
• 4th hour – Sun
• 5th hour – Venus
• 6th hour – Mercury
• 7th hour – Moon

This was done all the way to the 24th hour. A new celestial body started the first hour of each day till all seven were exhausted. On our list for example, the next day would start with the Sun as that would be the 25th count and the 1st hour of the new day. And starting from the Sun, the next would be Moon, then mars etc. Just count 24 and restart the new day at 1.

Teaser: Which people worshipped this particular celestial bodies?

So each celestial body received a day which is still used today.

• Sunday – Sun’s day
• Monday – Moon’s day
• Tuesday – Tiw’s day (Tiwesdaeg)
• Wednesday – Wooden’s day
• Thursday – Thor’s day
• Friday – Friya’s day
• Saturday – Saturn’s day

What happened to Mars, Venus, Jupiter and Mercury? They were influenced by and changed to the Norse equivalent of those gods/celestial bodies. French and Spanish are languages with the original ones in their language. It’s worth to note that Saturday (Samedi) and Sunday (Dimanche) in french literally mean Sabbath day for the former and Day of the Lord for the latter.

So our present weekdays are a mixture of cultures.

What is the origin of the word ‘Week’?

Why does the week start on Sunday? We have the answer up the page. But it’s worth noting that Egyptians started their week on Saturday, the Jews made it their Sabbath when they left Egypt. Christianity moved the Sabbath day from Saturday to Sunday and hence the start or end of the week. Whichever way

Why weekends? Six day work-weeks were the norm until the 20th century when overworked men started clamouring for more rest days. This was eventually sealed after the great depression and we now have five working days (four in some organizations).

Why do we have 365 days in a year? We’ll have to leave that questions till the next article.

Thanks for reading through, let’s know what you think in the comments. Which of these facts came as a surprise?