History, origin and nomenclature of seven days of the week. Image Courtesy – FlipHTML5
Let us describe the history, origin, and nomenclature of the seven days of the week –
Ancient Babylonians were accredited to divide the year into 52 weeks of seven days. Historical evidence proclaims in 4000 BCE when in the Persian Gulf Babylonian civilization flourished; the Babylonians tried hard to understand the celestial figures, above their head minutely without any telescopic view.
Accordingly, Babylonian people organized their life into this system of 7 days, aligned to the seven celestial bodies they use to see in their sky. This kind of primitive ideology was sustained till 1500 AD. The discovery of Nicholaus Copernicus changed this scenario when it was established that ‘Earth is not at the center of the universe’. The Babylonians fixed up one day of the week as a rest day which remains as Sunday to date in modern civilization.
The nomenclature given to the seven days of the celestial planets which were in turn named after corresponding deities begins either with Sunday or Monday. Seven days of a week was adopted from the Hebrew calendar which gradually replaces the Roman Nundinal cycle. In the aforesaid system, Sunday remained the first day of a week considered Lord’s Day whereas the Jewish ‘Sabbath’ is listed as the seventh.
Read: What do Palindromic Number and Ambigram mean?
Emperor Constantine, the Roman Emperor implemented the ‘7 days a week’ in CE 321 taking into consideration ”Days of Sun” (Dies Solis) as a Legal Holiday of the week. According to the ISO 8601 (International Standard Organisation), Monday is treated as the first day of the week.
Monday was changed from ‘dies Lunae’ to ‘Monandaeg‘ as the Latin word luna was swapped out for the old English word for moon or mona. Mars represents law & justice and ‘Try’ was better known as ‘Tiu’ which led to the name
‘Tiwesdaeg‘ in turn to Tuesday. Planet Mercury was related to Odin the creator of the universe, God of war & poetry was also known as ‘Wodan’. In old English ‘Wodnesdaeg‘ literally known as Wodan’s day is today’s Wednesday. Thursday became from ‘dies Jovies‘, named for Jove ( also known as Jupiter), the Roman equivalent to Greek Head Honcho Zeus. Friday became from ‘dies Veneris’ named for Venus. The Roman version of Aphrodite, Goddess of love. ‘Kronos’, was termed for Saturday, son of the creator of the universe. Saturday was derived from the Latin word ‘dies Saturni’.
The ancient Hindus didn’t use ‘Days of the week’ on regular basis. The main reason behind this was the Hindu calendar before 1100 AD used ‘Madhyama'( mean times) which can shift days from one month to another month. With regard to the Indian Hindu year, a unique number 2520 has the characteristics and dominance of time which was discovered by the great mathematician & Nobel laureate Srinivasa Ramanujam. The coefficient of the number 2520 is as follows:
Week (7)
Days of the month (30)
Months of the year (12)
Sources of the text:
1. Ancient History Encyclopedia
2. Encyclopedia Britanica
3. Encyclopedia Mythica, Origin of the names of the days
