I was wondering if someone could point me to a good website that deals
with the subjects of astrology, clocks and calendars from the point of
view of antropology. I am curious as to how the number 12 became so
important, as in twelve hours in a day and twelve months in a year. I
suppose the latter is just the way it is, as a month was originally
meant to correspond to one lunar cycle. The Chinese also have a 60
year cycle represented by the five elements (earth, fire, air, water
and metal) and twelve animals.

More intriguing is the similarity between Western and Chinese
astrology. If we look at
http://www.chinesefortunecalendar.com/FAQ.htm we see that farmers in
China used to use a solar calendar much like our own in which each
month was identified with one of the twelve animals. This system
almost exactly matches Western astrology except that the months in
Western astrology are exactly off by 15 degrees of the sun's
longitude.

A couple of websites mention ancient Chinese calendars, namely
http://webexhibits.org/calendars/calendar-chinese.html and
http://www.chinesefortunecalendar.com/OracleBone.htm It is claimed at
the latter site that these ancient calendars represent some of the
oldest known Chinese writings and that the Chinese therefore "knew
about [astrology] before the invention of Chinese characters". That
sounds like a fairly audacious claim to me. It makes me wonder if the
similarity between Western and Chinese astrology is no coincidence,
that the practice of astrology is old enough for there to have been
influence back and forth. On the other hand, it is perhaps natural to
look up at the night sky and wonder if the stars and planets can
affect people's lives on Earth so perhaps people in different parts of
the world came up with the idea of astrology independently. If the
idea of astrology is older than written language then there would seem
to be little way of knowing one way or the other.

I do find it odd though that both Westerners and Chinese people
believed in the existance five elements (with people in the West
believing that the fifth element was what the heavens were made of).
This is something that seems to scream at me "This is not a
coincidence!" but, again, I guess there's no way to know for sure.
When I read about the ancient Chinese celebrating their new year not
by the lunar calendar but by the solar calendar and begining their
year with the winter solstice (see
http://www.clearharmony.net/articles/200301/9991.html ), however, I am
impressed by the fact that the winter solstice is only three days away
from December 25th, ie Christmas Day, which itself was originally a
pagan holiday celebrated everywhere from Scandinavia to Babylon (see
http://www.holidays.net/christmas/story.htm ).

Again, I suppose it is only natural for people to celebrate when
ancient astronomers told them the sun was coming back and that spring
and summer would return in the new year. I wonder how old these
customs are though. Did Cro Magnon man think in terms of twelve
months a year? Could he keep track of when their children were born
without the use of a written langauge to help him keep records? When
did people start using astrology to make predictions about people's
lives? Was he smart enough to notice that the sun started to come
back at the same time every year (according to a solar calendar)?

I just did a web search that indicates that this might indeed have
been the case. The website
http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s200504.htm claims that a
site in France has the world's "oldest lunar calendar" dating back
"15,000 years ago". Of course, when I read the article all they have
are "13 dots and an empty square" (see also
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/975360.stm ) but I guess in
absence of written language I can't complain. Another site (
http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa070701a.htm ) claims that
"scratched lines and gouged holes in sticks and bones" are in fact
indications that people kept track of days as far back as 20 000 years
ago.

It seems that the ancient Babylonians and Egyptians as well as modern
Hebrews, Indians and Moslems all use lunar calendars (see
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Lab/7671/misc.htm ), not just
the Chinese. Perhaps it is natural for people to define a year as
twelve or thirteen months as apposed to a solar cycle.

I also asked in the first paragraph about clocks. It occurs to me
that if you draw a circle and draw a diameter through the circle and
then fill the circle with six equilateral triangles then you can draw
another diameter at ninety degrees to the first, repeat the process
and thus easily form twelve segments of thirty degrees each. Five
thousand years ago, the Sumerians in the Tigris-Euphrates valley used
a clock with a 12 hour day of 30 minutes each such that the day was
360 minutes long. It sounds to me like they were using a circle to
represent a day such that each degree was one minute. Did the
Sumerians know about geometry then? What about the Chinese? How did
they independently come to divide the day into twelve hours? And if
"Sumerian culture was lost without passing on its knowledge" as the
site http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa071401a.htm claims
then how is it that we today divide a day into 24 hours of 60 minutes
each which only differs from the Sumerian clock by factors of two???

It would seem that I have already found the sites I asked for in the
first paragraph but my web "research" has, as usual, only made me more
confused than ever.

Oh, by the way, happy new year this coming Thursday, depending upon
what calendar you are using. :D

Martin... has a week's holiday coming up. Na na na na na! :D