Resumo de The Book Of The Year: A Brief History Of Our Seasonal Holidays

This concise yet thorough history explains the ancient traditions celebrated throughout the modern solar year.Anthony Aveni, college professor of Anthropology and Astronomy, begins with an over view of various ancient agragarian calendars which were eventually adapted and are now followed by most of western civilization. Naturally, the book of the year has 12 chapters.In ancient times, the year was divided according to the four seasons: winter (shorter days); spring (planting time); summer (longer days) and fall (harvesting time). Season is Greek for ?due time? as in the cyclical changes that naturally occur in due time. The earth takes 365 days and 6 hours to complete a rotation around the sun (a solar year). The moon takes 29 days and 12 hours to make a complete rotation around the earth (a lunar month). The number of lunar months within a solar year is not even. Various societies made up the difference with festivals and celebrations in order to round out the cycle.For the most part, ancient societies paid equal attention to the summer and winter solstices (longest day or night depending on which side of the equator) and the spring and fall equinoxes (equal day and night; day getting longer or shorter). The ancient Roman calendar consisted of an eight day week and a ten month year (March, April, May, June, Quintilis, Sextilis, September, October, November and December) of about 304 days. The beginning of the year was set to coincide with the start of planting season during March. January (named for Janus, Roman God of Beginnings) and February (named for the Goddess of Purification) were eventually added to the Roman calendar after astronomers realized that the official year was out of synch with the actual seasons. Eventually, the fifth and sixth months were renamed in honor of Julio and Augustus Caesar. Various festivals set aside to celebrate the renewal of the earth (Mother?s Day), the potency of the sun (Father?s Day), the fertility of the earth and the birth of the sun were considered outside of time. The annual celebration of the spring equinox was named after Easter, an ancient goddess of the dawn. The May day celebration was actually occurred closer to the summer solstice than the Midsummer festival which was traditionally held during August. The ancient Celtic term for ritual to mark the end of summer was Samhain. The celebration of the harvest survives as Thanksgiving. The winter solstice ritual termed Saturnalia (named for Saturn, god of sowing) lasted for twelve days. But that is another abstract!

Resumos Relacionados