Page:The chronology of ancient nations (IA chronologyofanci00biru).djvu/35

solar year the length of ⁠365+1/4⁠ days and ⁠1/5⁠ hour), had summed up to one day; then they added the complete month to the year in each 116th year. This was done for a reason which I shall explain hereafter.

The example of the Persians was followed by the ancient inhabitants of Khwârizm and Sogdiana, and by all who had the same religion as the Persians, who were subject to them, and were considered as their kinsmen, during the time when their empire flourished.

I have heard that the Pêshdâdian kings of the Persians, those who ruled over the entire world, reckoned the year as 360 days, and each month as 30 days, without any addition and subtraction; that they intercalated one month in every sixth year, which they called "intercalary month," and two months in every 120th year; the one on account of the five days (the Epagomenæ), the other on account of the quarter of a day; that they held this year in high honour, and called it the "blessed year," and that in it they occupied themselves with the affairs of divine worship and matters of public interest.

The character of the system of the ancient Egyptians, according to what the Almagest relates regarding the years on which its own system of computation was based, and of the systems of the Persians in Islâm, and the people of Khwârizm and Sogdiana, is their aversion to the fractions, i.e. the ⁠1/4⁠ day and what follows it, and their neglecting them altogether.

The Luni-Solar Year.—The Hebrews, Jews, and all the Israelites, the Sâbians, and Ḥarrânians, used an intermediate system. They derived their year from the revolution of the sun, and its months from the revolution of the moon—with this view, that their feast and fast days might be regulated by lunar computation, and at the same time keep their places within the year. Therefore they intercalated 7 months in 19 lunar years, as I shall explain hereafter in the derivation of their cycles and the different kinds of their years.

The Christians agreed with them in the mode of the computation of their fasting and of some of their festivals, the cardinal point in all this being the Passover of the Jews; but they differed from them in the use of the months, wherein they followed the system of the Greeks and Syrians.

In a similar way the heathen Arabs proceeded, observing the difference between their year and the solar year, which is 10 days ⁠21+1/5⁠ hours, to speak roughly, and adding it to the year as one month as soon as it completed the number of days of a month. They, however, reckoned this difference as 10 days and 20 hours. This business was administered by the Nasa'a (the intercalators) of the tribe of Kinâna, known as the Ḳalâmis, a plural form of Ḳalammas, which signifies a full-flowing sea. These were 'Abû Thumâma and his ancestors: