history
Meeting the New Year with Resolution
By Mik
e Geo r ge
Mike George is our regular contributor on wildlife and the countryside in France. He is a geologist and naturalist, living in the Jurassic area of the Charente
HAVE YOU MADE YOUR NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS YET? EVEN THOUGH THE PAST COUPLE OF YEARS HAVE BEEN STRANGE TO SAY THE LEAST, IT'S LIKELY YOU'VE ALREADY THOUGHT ABOUT WHAT THEY BE
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any people make them each year, but the folks that enjoy compiling statistics tell us that, of the 45% who make them, only 8% have any success at keeping them long-term – most never make it beyond January 1st. What is New Year anyway? Mankind is ruled by a consciousness of the passage of time. However, this perception has two basic perceptions: the cycle of time, where observable phenomena travel in circles, like the seasons; and the arrow of time, which runs in a straight line where things get older, and “Change and decay in all around I see”. The latter could be said to start at birth, but the former, being a cycle, has no beginning and no observable end. The year is a cycle, so “starting” a year is a purely arbitrary matter.
productive agriculture, linked their New Year to the appearance in the night sky of the star we now call Sirius, which coincided (by chance) with the usual date of inundation. This occurred in mid-July. In modern times, the major civilization using a lunar fix for their New Year is China. How did the rest of us end up with January 1st? The first people to set up scientific bases for time were the Babylonians, who lived in Mesopotamia. About 1700 BC, Babylon rose from a tiny, insignificant town-state to dominate (briefly) the Middle East under its astonishingly enlightened ruler Hammurabi. He ruled for about 40 years, and after his death Babylon sank into insignificance for some centuries, to reemerge about the time the Israeli nation was fighting for survival, which is why we know a fair bit about them from the Old Testament. His enlightened reign allowed science to enjoy an early flourishing.
Most civilizations have set the “start” of the year at a point when agriculture for that year could begin. This was spring, and guessing when spring starts is, as we all know, not easy. Because Mankind is partial to predictable events, many years The Babylonians had a began at the first system of calculation based It is part of Mankind’s makefull moon after on the number 60. This is up to involve himself in his the spring why they had 60 seconds in equinox. A world, and thus a new a minute, 60 minutes in an competent beginning requires some sort hour, 24 hours in a day and astronomer 360 days in a year (well, of commitment. could decide they couldn’t get everything when the day right!). So the basis for time-division was and night were the same length, or on set, and apart from the length of the year, which day the points at which the sun nothing needed changing. It was the crossed the horizon at dawn and at sunset length of the year that caused the were exactly opposite each other (which real problem. comes to the same thing). Everybody can Enter Julius Caesar. He was determined to recognise a full moon! (If this sounds tackle the problem, and sort it out once familiar, that is because it is how the date and for all instead of leaving everybody to for Easter is decided, and that is done make their own adjustments. He because it is linked to the Jewish Passover, assembled some top astronomers and which is fixed in the same way.) Other mathematicians and they made the civilizations did it differently; the Ancient necessary calculations, and decided that Egyptians, who relied on the annual the year needed to be 365¼ days long, flooding of the Nile for the start of their
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managed by having a year 366 days long every fourth year. The shortcomings of this system didn’t show up for some centuries. A date for starting the year needed fixing, especially as the Lunar calendar had been superseded. Julius Caesar was a great fan of the god Janus. This god had two faces, so looked before and behind - very symbolic of the start of the year. Also he was a god of warfare. When Rome was at peace, the gates to the Temple of Janus in Rome were kept closed, but when Rome declared war on somebody, the gates were opened and stayed open until the war ended. Under Julius Caesar, the temple gates were open most of the time, which was how Julius liked it! So he decided that the year would begin on the first day of the month of Janus (Januarius), and since he was Julius Caesar, it did! And still does. There were adjustments needed to get time exactly right, but they took many centuries to complete and there were a lot of civil problems to solve. One day I may tell you that story. But what about the Resolutions? I hoped you had forgotten them! It is part of Mankind’s make-up to involve himself in his world, and thus a new beginning requires some sort of commitment. If you think I am sneering at my own generation, I must point out that, as far as we know, our friends the Ancient Babylonians, some 4000 years ago, were the first to make a big thing of resolutions at the New Year. They used the “Moon and Equinox” technique to fix the start of the year, but when they did start it, they made a practice of vowing to pay all their debts and return anything they had borrowed to its rightful owner. Thus they hoped to gain the favour of their chief god (Marduk). If they did all they had promised, their crops would grow and they themselves would prosper. If they did not fulfil their vow,
