The Fascinating History of Calendars

Through a captivating investigation that combines archaeology, astronomy and anthropology, this mini book reveals how humanity learned to count the days and organize time. From marks carved 12 000 years ago at Göbekli Tepe to the smart calendars that synchronize our modern lives, calendars reflect the values of each civilization. You will discover how the Egyptians based their year on the flooding of the Nile, why the Babylonians introduced the seven day week, how the Maya combined several sacred cycles and what motivated the Gregorian reform.
A world tour of the Jewish, Islamic, Chinese, Indian, Ethiopian and Persian calendars highlights the diversity of conceptions of time. The book also presents reform projects such as the Republican calendar, the Holocene era or the World Calendar, and traces the evolution of digital calendars up to artificial intelligence. With a clear style rich in examples, The Fascinating History of Calendars shows that measuring time is a deeply cultural gesture.
This book in the SAVOIR EN BREF collection from Five Minutes is indispensable for anyone wishing to understand the origin of the dates that punctuate our lives. At the end of your reading you will look at your agenda with new eyes and perceive behind each day the shadow of millennia of human inventions. Immerse yourself in this story and share it around you !