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Welcome to the year !What year is it? Well, it all depends on when you CHOOSE to start counting from. In the west we use the Gregorian, or Christian calendar. Named after Pope Gregory XIII and instituted in 1582 AD, it begins with what church scholars believed was the start of the "Christian" era. Other major dating systems are the Chinese, Jewish and Islamic calendars, all with different starting points. Ethnic and religious groups tend to begin their own particular year count in honour of one or another secular or religious figure. This, perhaps deliberately, dismisses the importance of what has gone before and blurs our sense of history. Wouldn't it be far better then to start the year count from the earliest known, reliably recorded date? According to current theory, that point occurs with the start of the ancient Egyptian solar calendar. The Egyptologist J.H. Breasted calculated that the ancient Egyptians made the switch from their older lunar calendar, to a better solar calendar, in the year 4236 BCE. If we take this point as the start of RECORDED HISTORY (ie. the first accurately fixed known date), then what we currently think of as the year 2000, would become the year 6236! Enter a 'Christian' year in the box below (the year you were born maybe) and click the button to see the corresponding year of Recorded History (based on the Egyptian solar calendar). The matching 'Chinese' and 'Jewish' years as also listed for comparison.
A 'Recorded History' based year count gives us all a much better perspective on how long humanity has really been chasing its tail. |
WHAT YEAR IS IT?
or email me at: paule24@hotmail.com
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