Obaba Museum

When did we have year 0?

Scientists claim the earth is a few million years but we just seem to be in the two thousandth year. How is that?

Before we understand the years let’s first study the Calendar. The calendar is gotten from the latin word Kalends which also evolved from Calere which literally means to call out, said when they call out a new moon.

In one of the previous posts on the month, we said it was started to keep tracks of seasons for agriculture, this was also why the calendar was formed.

There have been various calendars throughout history and we have about five being used presently in the world with the Gregorian calendar being the most used. Some calendars are based on Lunar cycles while some on Solar cycles, some of the previously used calendars are;

• Sumerian Calendar; the earliest known calendar yet. It’s month had 29 or 30 days depending on whether the first day had a full moon.
• Egyptian calendar; it had 12 months and 5 extra days at the end of the year.
• Roman calendar; This was developed by the Roman Romulus It had ten months with 354 days and they all add even numbers of days
• Chinese Lunar Calendar; This calendar was based on the Zodiac signs and Astrology
• Mayan Calendar
• Babylonian Calendar; It had a 13th month every two to three years to balance back the seasons. This was one of the foundations of our present Gregorian calendar
• Greek Calendar; The Greeks used multiple calendars at a time, they were Lunisolar, Metonic and Councilier. Each was based on the cycle of the moon and stars as well as Solar Equinoxes.
• Hebrew Calendar: It is a Lunisolar calendar and is used to monitor Jewish festivities. It is still being used today for this festivals.
• Julian Calendar: This was a modification of the Roman calendar by Julius Caesar to cease corruption. Roman politicians were using the calendar deficiency to either extend it shorten days in a year to keep allies in office and keep enemies out.
• Ethiopian Calendar: It is a Solar Calendar and is still used by Ethiopia, this is the only country using it and is 7 years and 13 months behind the Gregorian calendar.
• Hijiri Calendar: Arabs and Muslims use it to track their holidays and rituals. It has no leap months or days.
• Persian Calendar: This calendar starts its year on the Verbal Equinox.
• Aztec Calendar: This calendar had 20 day months, 18-month years and 52 year centuries.
• The Gregorian Calendar: Thus was the final update of the Julian Calendar by Pope Gregory XIII. He did this so Easter could be celebrated on the right day every year. The Julian Calendar was off by 10 days.

It’s worth to note that the present calendar isn’t still an exact measure of our solar cycle. The exact solar and lunar cycle is in a previous post.

Now the Present Calendar wasn’t used in Europe and most of the world till 1752. Pope Gregory had proposed the use of this Calendar in 1582. We’ll call this the 1752 issue.

The 1752 Issue

Easter is usually celebrated on the Sunday after the first full moon of the Vernal/Spring Equinox. This date was off by 10 days on the Julian calendar. According to the council of Nicaea, the Vernal Equinox is March 21 although astronomically this date changes slightly each year. Using thus calculation Julian Calendar was off by 10 days so in 1582 Pope Gregory XIII made a changé in the Calendar by ordering that the next day after October 4th, 1582 should be October 15th 1582. Eleven days were removed from the calendar. He also changed the Leap year calculation.

The leap year calculation in the Julian calendar was every year divisible by 128. The Gregorian calendar made it any year divisible by 4. Both calendars had leap years every 4 years. Presently there is a 13 day difference between the Julian and Gregorian calendar and it is gradually increasing.

Little backstory, In Southern Europe that time, some countries( including England) had still not moved the start of the year to January 1, their year starts at March 25 and this was coinciding intentionally with Anunciation Day.

Between 1582 and 1752 two calendars were being used in Europe. Now this made it hard to track correspondence because you couldn’t tell if it was the Gregorian Calendar or Julian Calendar starting at January, or if it was the one starting at March.

During that period, there was a way of double dating some documents when it’s going between places and this helped to know the date equivalent in both places. An example is 18th March, 1598, it would be written as 18 March 1598/9, this means it is 1598 in the old calendar and 1599 in the new calendar.

However, not all documents have this double dating so it’s usually hard to know which of the calendars were being used.

Now, prior to the Calendar years, years were calculated based on a Ruler’s reign. E.g. the fifth year of Herod Antipas, the twentieth year of Caesar’s reign etc. This was mostly used by the Egyptians and Romans and worked because they had a record or history of their past rulers in order.

Currently, we have the B.C. or A.D. system which literally means Before Christ and Anno Domini (In the year of our Lord), and the C.E. system. which means Christian Era or Common Era.

This system was developed by Dionysius Exiguus. He used Christ’s birth as the metric and declared it year 1, stating that this is 753 years after Rome’s foundation was laid. His claim isn’t completely accurate but it was accepted. This Roman standard is what has been used ever since.

Apart from the Romans however, other civilizations had their own metric. We would be describing all with respect to the current system. The Ancient Greeks had 776 B.C. as their year 1 which was when the first Olympic games were held. Jewish Calendar had 3760 B.C. this is considered when the world was created. The Muslims use year 622 A.D. this way the year Prophet Muhammad migrated from Mecca to Medina.

Dionysius stated that there is no Year 0. So the metric for our present year system is 753 B.C. so while the A.D. represents every year after Christ’s birth, C.E. represents every year after his death?