Lunar Calendars Research Articles

Toward a globally lunar calendar: a machine learning-driven approach for crescent moon visibility prediction

This paper presents a comprehensive approach to harmonizing lunar calendars across different global regions, addressing the long-standing challenge of variations in new crescent Moon sightings that mark the beginning of lunar months. We propose a machine learning (ML)-based framework to predict the visibility of the new crescent Moon, representing a significant advancement toward a globally unified lunar calendar. Our study utilized a dataset covering various countries globally, making it the first to analyze all 12 lunar months over a span of 13 years. We applied a wide array of ML algorithms and techniques. These techniques included feature selection, hyperparameter tuning, ensemble learning, and region-based clustering, all aimed at maximizing the model’s performance. The overall results reveal that the gradient boosting (GB) model surpasses all other models, achieving the highest F1 score of 0.882469 and an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.901009. However, with selected features identified through the ANOVA F-test and optimized parameters, the Extra Trees model exhibited the best performance with an F1 score of 0.887872, and an AUC of 0.906242. We expanded our analysis to explore ensemble models, aiming to understand how a combination of models might boost predictive accuracy. The Ensemble Model exhibited a slight improvement, with an F1 score of 0.888058 and an AUC of 0.907482. Additionally, the geographical segmentation of the dataset enhanced predictive performance in certain areas, such as Africa and Asia. In conclusion, ML techniques can provide efficient and reliable tool for predicting the new crescent Moon visibility that would support the decisions of marking the beginning of new lunar months.

Evaluating the Evidence for Lunar Calendars in Upper Palaeolithic Parietal Art

In this paper, we examine the lunar calendar interpretation to evaluate whether it is a viable explanation for the production of Upper Palaeolithic parietal art. We consider in detail the history of this approach, focusing on recently published variations on this interpretation. We then discuss the scientific method and whether these recent studies are designed to address the research questions necessary to test a lunar calendar hypothesis. More broadly, we explore challenges related to inferring meaning in art of the deep past, the use of secondary sources and selecting appropriate ethnographic analogies. Finally, we assess claims that the lunar calendar interpretation documents the world's oldest (proto)writing system. We conclude that the lunar calendar interpretation as currently construed suffers from multiple theoretical and methodological weaknesses preventing it from being a viable explanation for the production of Upper Palaeolithic art. We further find that claims following from this interpretation to have discovered the oldest known (proto)writing system are unsubstantiated.

Improving the Forecasting Accuracy Based on the Lunar Calendar in Modeling Rainfall Levels Using the Bi-LSTM Method through the Grid Search Approach.

Rainfall is one of the climatic factors that influence various human activities and affect decision making in daily life activities. High intensity of rainfall can turn into a threat and cause serious problems such as causing various natural disasters. Therefore, it is essential to conduct rainfall forecasting to anticipate and enable preventive actions and can be used as a decision consideration in increasing the productivity and mobility of human activities. The aim of this study is to compare rainfall accuracy between the Gregorian and the lunar calendars using the bidirectional long short-term memory (Bi-LSTM) machine learning model through the grid search approach. This method was used because it can capture patterns arising from the simultaneous effects of two asynchronous calendars, Gregorian and lunar, which were used in this study by finding the right parameters. Monthly rainfall data from Bogor City, Indonesia, were used from the period of 2001 to 2022. The results show that the MAPE of the lunar calendar is relatively smaller at 14.82% which indicates the better forecasting ability than the Gregorian calendar which is 35.12%.

A Statistical review of the dates and patterns of volcanic activity of Lewotolo Volcano, East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia

Lewotolo is a stratovolcano located on the Lembata Island, East Nusa Tenggara (Lesser Sunda Islands), Indonesia. The first geohistory of the Lewotolo volcanic eruption was recorded in 1660 (Volcanic Eruption Index (VEI) 3). Since November 11, 2020, Lewotolo has been included in the list of Indonesian volcanoes with the necessary precautions, comparable to the Anak Krakatau, Merapi, and Semeru volcanoes. We investigated Lewotolo volcanic activity by analyzing the height of the ash column data, maximum seismograph amplitude, and recorded seismic duration from November 29, 2020, to September 23, 2022, which are provided in magma.esdm.go.id. The results showed 191 records of eruption activity data, which formed three clusters for each variable using the Elbow Method in the Non-Hierarchical K-means clustering analysis. These data were plotted on the solar and Hijri lunar calendars. The data plot shows anomalies in the volcanic activity frequency and a significant pattern of activity at specific times. The data plot illustrates that the value of the activity frequency pattern tends to increase at Earth orbital events such as the December-January perihelion (up to 0.124) and June-July aphelion (up to 0.262) and at the new moon phases (up to 0.168). This phenomenon appears as solar and lunar tidal anomalies that commonly occur as gravitational sea tides. Along with the need for more comprehensive data, the results of this study may provide new perspectives for further research on the possible role of gravitational tide phenomena in volcanic activity, at least to explain the volcanic activity in Lewotolo.

How to breathe

For Marx, all forms of economics could be reduced to “an economics of time”. To restore a sustainable rhythm to our planet, our lifeways and economy, we need to decolonize time. The first part of this essay sketches a history of capitalism as robbery: ever tighter control of time yielding greater economic exploitation and inequality. The second part asks how we could reorganize and redistribute time. What can indigenous and egalitarian societies teach us today about the passage of time? What biological and cultural resources do we have for slowing down the rhythms of our economy and redistributing time? The evolution of women’s reproductive cycles and the lunar calendars shared by world religions give evidence for a deep time human lunar ecology.

One Country, Two Calendars: Lunar January Effect in China's A‐Share Stock Market

AbstractIn this paper, we examine the January effect in China's A‐share stock market from January 1995 to December 2019 using both the solar and lunar calendars. Consistent with the existing literature, we find the absence of a traditional January effect in the solar calendar; however, we observe a strong January effect in the lunar calendar. Moreover, the effect is much stronger in small firms. We demonstrate that the tax‐loss selling and window dressing hypotheses cannot explain the turn‐of‐the‐year effect in China. Instead, the turn‐of‐the‐year effect in trading volume and buy orders help to explain the strong lunar January effect. As a falsification test, we examine the B‐share market that is predominantly composed of foreign investors and find no evidence of the lunar January effect. Our results show that Chinese financial markets are more closely aligned with the traditional lunar calendar than the standard solar calendar.

A Pattern-Recognizer Artificial Neural Network for the Prediction of New Crescent Visibility in Iraq

Various theories have been proposed since in last century to predict the first sighting of a new crescent moon. None of them uses the concept of machine and deep learning to process, interpret and simulate patterns hidden in databases. Many of these theories use interpolation and extrapolation techniques to identify sighting regions through such data. In this study, a pattern recognizer artificial neural network was trained to distinguish between visibility regions. Essential parameters of crescent moon sighting were collected from moon sight datasets and used to build an intelligent system of pattern recognition to predict the crescent sight conditions. The proposed ANN learned the datasets with an accuracy of more than 72% in comparison to the actual observational results. ANN simulation gives a clear insight into three crescent moon visibility regions: invisible (I), probably visible (P), and certainly visible (V). The proposed ANN is suitable for building lunar calendars, so it was used to build a four-year calendar on the horizon of Baghdad. The built calendar was compared with the official Hijri calendar in Iraq.

Revisiting Indigenous Wisdom of Javanese Pranata mangsa. Comment on Zaki et al. Adaptation to Extreme Hydrological Events by Javanese Society through Local Knowledge. Sustainability 2020, 12, 10373

This comment is on a paper by Zaki et al., who examined whether an effective agricultural system can be attained through the local wisdom of Pranata mangsa and its relationship to contemporary efforts in climate change adaptation, as positing Pranata mangsa as a strategy for recovery from natural disasters. In particular, the paper addresses the site-selection methodology of the four sample cities selected in their study of severe hydrological events by assessing the local and scientific knowledge. Pranata mangsa (the arrangement of seasons) is a local knowledge based on a calendrical system utilized historically by Javanese peasant farmers in conducting their agricultural activities. This indigenous wisdom is also employed by traditional fishermen to guide them not only in capturing fish and other aquatic animals but also in predicting the type of seafood they might gather. Although native Javanese people possess and maintain their own calendrical system based on a combination of solar and lunar calendars, Pranata mangsa is solely based on the former and is verbally passed on from one generation to the next. The literature has confirmed that, by combining this local wisdom and scientific data, the Javanese community has a better resilience in adapting to extreme hydrological events that occur as a consequence of global warming and climate change.

On the demotic-hieratic horoscopes from Athribis

In a previous issue of this journal (53/1), M. Escolano-Poveda published four elaborate demotic-hieratic horoscopes from Athribis. Three of the texts are new (O.Athribis 17-36-5/1741), and the fourth is reedited (ANAsh.Mus.D.O. 633). The present paper engages with two features of these texts. The first concerns the synchronization of the lunar and civil calendars. The editor of the horoscopes claims that the year count as it appears in the Greek P.Ryl. IV 589 is the basis for the correlation between the two calendars in these texts, but this paper shows that the Athribis horoscopes follow the cycle according to the scheme found in P.Carlsberg 9. The second issue is the nature of eight entities listed after the four cardinal points. Escolano-Poveda interprets them as an idiosyncratic system of arranging the places (in Greek, typically τόποι) in the Dodecatropos. Several of the readings for the names of these eight entities, however, must be revised, which leads in turn to a reconsideration of the identification as places. They are better understood as astrological lots (in Greek, typically κλῆροι), and the system partially overlaps with the one known from the canonical Hellenistic astrologers.

Наступление нового года по народным календарям таджиков

The article is devoted to the issues of the traditional calendar of the Tajik people. The purpose of the article is to consider the traditional ways of determining the onset of seasons and months among mountain Tajiks based on the use of the method of theoretical analysis. It was revealed that the main ways to determine the onset of the new year were: calculation according to the Iranian solar calendar (the entry of the sun into the constellation Aries); calendar «the sun in man» (the arrival of the sun in the sign of the «heart»); observing the appearance of stars in a certain place; reaching the shade from the sun peaks, rocks and stones; sunrise or sunset behind the sign (behind peaks, rocks, cracks); the appearance of sunlight through cracks (windows, cracks, stones with holes); phenological or behavioral observations of animals, as well as the growth of spring plants and flowers (wagtails, storks, swallows, partridges, cats, beetles). In conclusion, it is concluded that in the past, in different mountainous regions, the Tajiks had their own calendars and calendars based on observations of the cycle of the Sun and Moon, planets and stars; on the perception of natural and man-made features – for example, the fall of shadows on objects at certain points, the migration of animals and birds, and the behavior of animals. Experience and observations were passed down from generation to generation, some natural patterns were discovered and various calendars were compiled. However, along with the introduction of the lunar and solar calendars, and later the Gregorian calendar, vernacular calendars survived until the mid-twentieth century, and some of them even survive to this day.

New books & media

How to Take Over the World: Practical Schemes and Scientific Solutions for the Aspiring SupervillainSection:ChooseTop of pageHow to Take Over the Worl... <<Ever Green: Saving Big Fo...A Brief History of Timeke...How to Take Over the World: Practical Schemes and Scientific Solutions for the Aspiring Supervillain, Ryan North, Riverhead Books, 2022, $28.00Have you ever watched a James Bond movie and thought, “Wow, I’d love to have a secret base like the ones those supervillains romp around in!” If so, How to Take Over the World by Ryan North, a comic-book writer, is the book for you. By outlining how one could theoretically carry out various schemes like cloning dinosaurs, controlling weather, destroying the internet, and becoming immortal (Spoiler alert: It’s not possible!), North cleverly presents readers with an introduction to subjects as varied as the chemical makeup of Earth’s core and the international treaties governing the use of Antarctica (the ideal location for a secret base). Fun, snarky illustrations by Carly Monardo round out the compelling package. —rdEver Green: Saving Big Forests to Save the PlanetSection:ChooseTop of pageHow to Take Over the Worl...Ever Green: Saving Big Fo... <<A Brief History of Timeke...Ever Green: Saving Big Forests to Save the Planet, John W. Reid and Thomas E. Lovejoy, W. W. Norton, 2022, $30.00Just five megaforests—“stunningly large, wooded territories”—remain on Earth, write John W. Reid and Thomas E. Lovejoy, a conservationist and a biologist, respectively. Yet those vast expanses continue to be threatened by human deforestation. In Ever Green, Reid and Lovejoy describe their extensive expeditions to all five megaforests, the forests’ vast biodiversity and geography, and the many researchers and Indigenous people who work and live in them. They focus on megaforests’ importance not just as Earth’s wildest, most biologically diverse lands but also as vital carbon sinks. Thus, Ever Green serves as a call to arms to modern society to better appreciate this natural resource, which is key to curtailing climate change and averting the social crises and ecological disasters that it will cause. —ccA Brief History of Timekeeping: The Science of Marking Time, from Stonehenge to Atomic ClocksSection:ChooseTop of pageHow to Take Over the Worl...Ever Green: Saving Big Fo...A Brief History of Timeke... <<A Brief History of Timekeeping: The Science of Marking Time, from Stonehenge to Atomic Clocks, Chad Orzel, BenBella Books, 2022, $16.95 (paper)How do we keep track of time? Why have societies invested so much effort into doing so? Those questions are the subject of A Brief History of Timekeeping by Chad Orzel, a professor of physics at Union College. Much of the focus is on the science of keeping time—from solar and lunar calendars to modern-day atomic clocks—but Orzel also considers the social context of keeping time. As he points out, politics, philosophy, and theology have been part of timekeeping since its beginnings. One cannot help but be amazed by some of the historical anecdotes Orzel relates, such as the remarkable reliability of the Gregorian calendar system, used by most of the world today. Developed in the late 1500s, the Gregorian year differs from the tropical year by only 26 seconds. Ultimately, Orzel notes, measuring time is a “signature preoccupation” of human society. —rd© 2022 American Institute of Physics.

Vivre dans deux temps

Cet article offre une première analyse des calendriers lunaires juifs publiés en Italie entre le xviiie siècle et le xxe siècle. Outils d’usage quotidien reliant le travail agricole à la vie communautaire, ainsi qu’instruments pour l’éducation religieuse et politique, ou encore pour la vulgarisation culturelle et scientifique, ces documents montrent toute la centralité de l’articulation des deux temps – temps juif et temps vulgaire – dans la vie sociale, économique, politique et culturelle des Juifs italiens. Les changements apportés dans l’organisation de ces calendriers au fil des siècles reflètent les différents temps et modalités du processus d’émancipation juive, un processus long et non linéaire, fait d’avancées et de retours en arrière. Cet article aborde ainsi les temps des Juifs lors des deux tournants de l’époque révolutionnaire et de l’Unité d’Italie.

The Codex Mexicanus: A Guide to Life in Late Sixteenth-Century New Spain by Lori Boornazian Diel

Reviewed by: The Codex Mexicanus: A Guide to Life in Late Sixteenth-Century New Spain by Lori Boornazian Diel Barbara E. Mundy Lori Boornazian Diel. The Codex Mexicanus: A Guide to Life in Late Sixteenth-Century New Spain. U of Texas P, 2018. 228 pp. What is time? Is time the possibility of all events? If so, what is the fate of human beings, a species both cursed and blessed with memory and imagination? Dividing time into past, present, and future is how many human societies have anchored themselves, as they manage and organize the temporal flow, tether memory to the past and assign imagination to the future. But what about the relationship between the past, present, and future? A corporeal existence ensures that we carry with us always and everywhere a very particular past, that of the origin and development of our individual body. Living inside of this personal time capsule offers almost nothing to help us with both the human collective in time nor to develop an understanding that time existed before our bodies and will extend beyond them. When Norbert Elias published Über die Zeit in 1984 (translated as An Essay on Time in 2007), he pointed to the importance of the calendar and the clock as the great organizing mechanisms of social time, means through which any human group could coordinate its activities, like planting and harvesting, to ensure its survival. The calendar does more: in extending a count back through time, it offers a means to connect the past to the present, and holds out, in its reliable repetition, a promise of the future. The calendar allows a structure for commemoration, so that the past is even more strongly anchored to the present. Moreover, solar and lunar calendars, perhaps the most common ones known today, are marked by naturalism. Like a photo-realist painting, whose authority derives from closely mimicking human visual experience, calendars take their power from their alignment to the perceived movement of the celestial bodies. They thus offer a way of naturalizing what could be the arbitrary nature of human event. Set into solar time, a birthday becomes anchored in time, consistently available for annual commemoration, offering the first point of a span of life dates, ready for historical reflection. In Mesoamerican societies, two calendars were used to record time, the solar-year calendar (xiuhpohualli) and the 260-day tonalpohualli. These were recorded pictographically in manuscripts, with the years of the xiuhpohualli forming the backbone of annals-style histories. The tonalpohualli was a sacred calendar, used to understand how the cycles of past time colored the present-day moment and what they augured for the future. Once ubiquitous, only eleven pre-Hispanic tonalpohualli survive today. But calendric manuscripts continued to be produced during the sixteenth century, and Lori Boornazian Diel's new book is a close study of one of these. Produced by indigenous scribes in Mexico City who still employed traditional pictography, the 102–page Codex Mexicanus is devoted mainly to a xiuhpohualli (18–87), recording events from the departure of the Mexica from the mythic homeland of Aztlan, through the events of the Conquest, [End Page 124] up to 1581, about the time that the manuscript was largely finished. It also includes two tonalpohualli (13–14; 89–102). Reflecting its post-Conquest moment, the Mexicanus contains not only these indigenous calendars but also includes a Christian perpetual (also called dominical) calendar, used to calculate when Sundays fell in any given year, as well as European-style charts, one lunar and two zodiac, one of the latter connecting the zodiac to parts and organs of a human body to create a "zodiac man." Unique to this manuscript is a double calendar wheel representing an attempt to synch the Christian perpetual calendar with the xiuhpohualli. A single alphabetic annotation noting the arrival of Augustinians to San Pablo, one of Mexico City's indigenous neighborhoods, suggests that this might have been the ambit of its creation. Given the plurality of the Mexicanus's content, which brings together various calendars but provides no overarching rationale for their union, scholars have tended to treat only its parts, like the xiuhpohualli that dominates...

Tradition, Innovations and Historical Events in the Early 20th Century Chinese Calendars from the Russian Collections

The paper discusses two types of Chinese calendars – a traditional agricultural calendar “nongli” which existed in China since the 9th century and a Westernized “yuefenpai” calendar that emerged in Shanghai in the late 19th century and flourished until the 30-40s of the 20th century. Apart from the lunar and solar calendars and a table of 24 seasons woodblock “nongli” calendar featured a Stove God Zao-wang alone or with a spouse surrounded by a suite, fortune bringing deities and auspicious symbols, Stove God was believed to ascend to heaven and report good and bad deeds of the family members to the Jade Emperor. New standards of “peoples`” art in PRC borrowed the aesthetics of the traditional woodblock popular prints by proclaiming “new nianhua” as a new tool of propaganda and criticizing “yuefenpai”.“Yuefenpai” differed from “nongli” by modern technology of production and acting as an advertisement, yet early pieces of Shanghai calendars either feature auspicious characters and motifs or introduce current political events, such as accession of the Pu Yi emperor on the throne in 1908 (reigned in 1908–1912). These calendars were seen to be a cheap and easily available media suitable for informing population about news and innovations. The paper attempts to revisit previously established interpretations of some “yuefenpai” calendars. The research is based unpublished pieces from the collections of the State Hermitage, the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography, academic library of the St.-Petersburg State University, the State Museum of the History of Religion mostly acquired by V.M. Alekseev (1881–1951) during his stays to China.

Sharia and Moon Sighting and Calculation examining moon sighting Controversy in Nigeria

One of the t important issue Muslims face which needs to be addressed scholarly and juristically is the issue of whether the start and end of the lunar months through Astronomical Calculations is valid in Islamic Jurisprudence, or is physical moon sighting the only valid opinion. Scholars on the two sides of the divide present arguments and support their views by citing the same sources. In Nigeria moon sighting has been a serious problem for many years. The Islamic calendar is lunar. Lunar calendars follow the phases of the moon, beginning with the crescent moon and ending with the conjunction of the moon. The foundation of legal ruling in Islam is the Qur’an and the Sunnah. It is in the absence of decisively authentic and unequivocal texts that, scholars may resort to ijtihad. There are several positions on moon sighting. The most prominent are regional sighting, physical sighting globally, Mecca time-point for reference and Astronomical Calculation. The popular view among Muslim jurists is actual sighting of the crescent. The paper therefore concludes that all the aforementioned trends, are acceptable. Eid al-adha is independent of Arafah because both are observed on different days, therefore the observance of eid al-adha on Arafah day in any part of the world is allowed and acceptable However, the evidence compels Muslims to follow the opinion of the majority of Muslims in any country. The paper therefore, recommended the establishment of a Federal Ministry of Islamic Affairs to be in charge of moon sighting and Eids.

A new notational artifact from the Upper Paleolithic? Technological and traceological analysis of a pebble decorated with notches found on Monte Alto (Velletri, Italy)

A retoucher-hammerstone decorated with incised notches on its sides was found on the ground on Monte Alto, in the Alban Hills, just south of Rome. Macroscopic and microscopic (optical microscopy and SEM) analyses have made it possible to reconstruct the types and chronology of human intervention on the pebble, while a morphological, stylistic and micromorphological study of the notches revealed that they were made over time using more than one kind of cutting edge, possibly at the end of the Pleistocene. The definition of notational artifact could therefore apply to this object, making it one of the few known cases of the kind in the world prehistoric record. Moreover, it displays all the features theorized in literature for the validation of lunar calendars. This could have significant implications for the reconstruction of the cognitive and mathematical ability of Homo sapiens in prehistoric times.

Predicting spawning date of nyale worms (Eunicidae, Polychaeta) in the southern coast of Lombok Island, Indonesia

Abstract. Bachtiar I, Bachtiar NT. 2019. Predicting spawning date of nyale worms (Eunicidae, Polychaeta) in the southern coast of Lombok Island, Indonesia. Biodiversitas 20: 971-977. Spawning of marine nyale worms has been an important component of Sasak tradition of Bau Nyale (fishing nyale) for centuries and a tourism icon of the District of Lombok Tengah since the 1990s. Nyale is a mixture of epitokies of 3-5 species of Polychaeta worms (mostly Palola spp.) for reproduction. At present, prediction of spawning date of the nyale worms is carried out traditionally that might not satisfy demand of tourism market. The present study is to develop a scientific-based method for predicting date of nyale worms spawning or nyale swarming. Since available data are scarce, development of the method of data collection mainly uses analogy from polychaetes and other invertebrate reproduction patterns and any available information from traditional customs. Three hypotheses were developed to generate prediction for 100 years, from 2000 to 2100, and then these prediction dates were verified using available data before 2018. In the past 9 years, there are two mismatches between scientific and traditional predictions, i.e., 2015 and 2017 spawnings, in favor of the new prediction method. The new scientific prediction method provides more objective and accurate date of nyale worm spawning than the traditional method. The present prediction also shows that split spawning dates, February and March, do not come to pass every year, as traditional nyale fishers generally believe them. It is also found that nyale worms are consistently using international lunar calendar for its spawning date, instead of local and national lunar calendars. This study provided the first scientific nyale swarming prediction in Lombok to complement existing traditional prediction. The prediction is very useful to promote the biggest annual traditional festival in Lombok for international visitors.&#x0D;

Design and Architecture of a Location and Time-based Mobile-Learning System: A Case-Study for Interactive Islamic Content

This paper describes a software design, architecture and process of a novel mobile-learning (m-Learning) approach based on smart-phone devices for retrieving relevant content in real-time based on the user’s-location and the current-time and presenting the content to the user in a manner that support portable learning on-the-move. Mobile-learning using Islamic content is used as a case-study of the proposed system, which can easily be adapted for other learning-content. The proposed system is highly interactive and frequently purges the host-device for details of the current user-location and current-time (e.g. the time, day and month in the solar and the lunar calendars) before such details are used to retrieve the most relevant content. In this study, Quranic-verses, corresponding interpretations (Tafseer) and Hadith (Prophetic words or actions) relates to the online content being fetched in this application. For example, a user may be performing some travel/pilgrimage during Ramadan, in which the relevant content/teachings (based on the user’s location and the current time) are presented to the user in a timely manner in order to learn the rituals of that day or location. The information fetched is then presented and displayed in an interactive user-friendly manner. A summary and comparative analysis of some related applications is presented, showing the limitations of other m-Learning applications and demonstrating the new contribution of our architecture design. Finally, the described system allows authorized scholars to upload and report Islamic-decrees made in real-time based on findings/experience at a particular time and/or location-of-interest (e.g. the new rulings/decrees are then published online in real-time). It is anticipated that millions of end-users shall benefit from the proposed system through the benefits of fast, highly-accessible, user-friendly and relevant information retrieved online in real-time. Advantageously, the potential application and large impact of the proposed m-Learning approach for use with other learning-content/courses is notable.

Лунный и православный календари якутов

Лунный и православный календари якутов

Archaeoastronomy and Calendar Cities

The use of astronomy for collective purposes, both religious and political, is apparent in the earliest astronomical records, from the evidence for Palaeolithic lunar calendars to megalithic monuments and Mesopotamian celestial-omen reports. This paper will consider the application of the heavens to the organisation of the ‘Cosmic State’, the human polity modelled on the assumption of a close relationship between society on the one hand and planetary and stellar patterns on the other. I will also examine the foundation of Baghdad within the tradition of celestial town planning and argue that the city may be seen as a ‘talisman’, designed to connect heaven to Earth and ensure peace, stability and political success by harmonising time and space.