85. It is very easy to jump to conclusions, but I think we should keep in mind that from November 6 (310) to January 20 (365 + 20 = 385) there are 75 days and in order for Mars to then return from his peculiar retrograde movement we could expect 2 * 75 = 150 days could be necessary spent in waiting, before Mars would keep on showing the day positions in their proper order again: January 20 (385) + 75 = 460 = 365 + 95 (April 5). ... In China, every year about the beginning of April, certain officials called Sz'hüen used of old to go about the country armed with wooden clappers. Their business was to summon the people and command them to put out every fire. This was the beginning of the season called Han-shih-tsieh, or 'eating of cold food'. For three days all household fires remained extinct as a preparation for the solemn renewal of the fire, which took place on the fifth or sixth day after the winter solstice [Sic!]. The ceremony was performed with great pomp by the same officials who procured the new fire from heaven by reflecting the sun's rays either from a metal mirror or from a crystal on dry moss. Fire thus obtained is called by the Chinese heavenly fire and its use is enjoined in sacrifices: whereas fire elicited by the friction of wood is termed by them earthly fire, and its use is prescribed for cooking and other domestic purposes ...
South of the equator, on Easter Island, the idea of a return for the Sun at Antares was presumably a cultural memory transmitted from the Golden Age of the Bull, 64 precessional days earlier, when the southern spring equinox had coincided with the conjunction between Sun and Antares.
Nowadays, it was known from observations that the Sun would reach Antares in November 25, which was 329 - 180 = 149 days after heliacal Mebsuta:
If north of the equator the summer half of the year was beginning on April 14, ... In north Asia the common mode of reckoning is in half-year, which are not to be regarded as such but form each one separately the highest unit of time: our informants term them 'winter year' and 'summer year'. Among the Tunguses the former comprises 6½ months, the latter 5, but the year is said to have 13 months; in Kamchatka each contains six months, the winter year beginning in November, the summer year in May; the Gilyaks on the other hand give five months to summer and seven to winter. The Yeneseisk Ostiaks reckon and name only the seven winter months, and not the summer months. This mode of reckoning seems to be a peculiarity of the far north: the Icelanders reckoned in misseri, half-years, not in whole years, and the rune-staves divide the year into a summer and a winter half, beginning on April 14 and October 14 respectively. But in Germany too, when it was desired to denote the whole year, the combined phrase 'winter and summer' was employed, or else equivalent concrete expressions such as 'in bareness and in leaf', 'in straw and in grass' ... then the summer half of the year south of the equator ought to begin around October 14 (104 + 183 = 287). We can guess that 287 (October 14) - 237 = 50 might have been alluding to 104 (April 14) - 50 = 54 (February 23): ... The leap day was introduced as part of the Julian reform. The day following the Terminalia (February 23) was doubled, forming the 'bis sextum - literally 'double sixth', since February 24 was 'the sixth day before the Kalends of March' using Roman inclusive counting (March 1 was the 'first day'). Although exceptions exist, the first day of the bis sextum (February 24) was usually regarded as the intercalated or 'bissextile' day since the third century. February 29 came to be regarded as the leap day when the Roman system of numbering days was replaced by sequential numbering in the late Middle Ages ... And then we will remember that the right ascension day for Algenib in Perseus was visible together with both Mars and Uranus in the evening of July 14, precisely a quarter (91 = 195 - 104) after April 14 (104):
And precisely a month later, in the evening of August 14 (226 = 195 + 31) both Mars and Jupiter would be at right ascension line *75, i.e. the same measure as that between November 6 (310) and January 20 (365 + 20 = 385).
|