Time
Remember my previous blog post? I explained my plan this year and bring up the topic where some said time is a social construct, or.. is it?
Last Saturday I randomly flipped the Qur’an. As I read through the translations, there’s a verse that struck me
God decrees that there are twelve months- ordained in God’s Book on the Day when He created the heavens and earth… (9:36)
I was fascinated by that “twelve months” word. Scientists believe from 3100 BC Sumerians already made some sort of lunar calendar that has 12 months in a year. In 2510 BC Egyptians also create a calendar by observing the moon and Sirius star, and they decided to use 12 months. Qur’an, which I stated above, also mentions that God decree to use 12 monthly cycles. It was so cool that these long civilizations were using both religious and scientific meanings to agree upon time standards.
But not all people agree about this 12 Cycle. Well.. some civilizations have it strangely different. 13 months in a year for Babylonians and Ethiopians. 10 months in a year for Romans.
Do you know that our current calendar is based on the Roman calendar? But why then now we have 12 months instead of 10 months?
Previously Roman calendar has these months: Martius, Aprilis, Maius, Juniius, Quintilis, Sextilis, September, October, November, and December. These cycles are always confusing. 61 and quarter days were always ignored and resulting in a gap in the winter season. After much confusion later, thankfully they back to cycles of the moon and then they made the months to be 12 by adding January and February.
The original Fifth and Six months were renamed July (from Julius Caesar) and August (successor of Caesar). These months have 31 days to reflect the importance of Julius and Augustus Caesar. But, it was still confusing, as the calendar was used for political purposes. The politician would purposefully extend or shorten the days to keep allies and enemies.
Imagine when you have so much power and prolong the month to prank and delay your enemy's birthday.
Time, when created from the social construct, was a hot mess. Why didn’t people just agree with science and religious texts in the first place? If we think about it, it’s not only “time”, so many things also have their own standards. Temperatures, weight, length, and many more. Maybe even standardizations themselves differ from community to community. Standards are sets of beliefs.
