Celtic calendar
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The term Celtic calendar is used to refer to a variety of calendars used by Celtic-speaking peoples at different times in history.
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[edit] Continental Celtic Calendar
The Gaulish Coligny calendar is possibly the oldest Celtic solar/lunar ritual calendar. It was discovered in Coligny, France, and is now on display in the Palais des Arts Gallo-Roman museum, Lyon. It dates from the 1st century BCE, when the Roman Empire imposed use of the Julian Calendar in Roman Gaul. The calendar is made up of bronze fragments, in a single huge plate. It is inscribed Gaulish with Latin characters and uses roman numerals.
The Coligny Calendar is an attempt to reconcile both the cycles of the moon and sun (as is our modern Gregorian calendar.) However, the Coligny calendar considers the phases of the moon to be important, and each month always begins with the same moon phase. The calendar uses a mathematical arrangement to keep a normal 12 month calendar in sync with the moon and keeps the whole system in sync by adding an extra month every 2 1/2 years. The Coligny calendar registers a five-year cycle of 62 lunar months, divided into a "bright" and a "dark" fortnight (or half a moon cycle) each. The months were possibly taken to begin at full moon, and a 13th intercalary month was added every two and a half years to align the lunations with the solar year.
The astronomical format of the calendar year that the Coligny calendar represents may well be far older, as calendars are usually even more conservative than rites and cults. The date of its inception is unknown, but correspondences of Insular Celtic and Continental Celtic calendars suggest that some early form may date to Proto-Celtic times, roughly 800 BC. The Coligny calendar achieves a complex synchronization of the solar and lunar months. Whether it does this for philosophical or practical reasons, it points to considerable degree of sophistication.
[edit] Mediaeval Irish, Scottish and Welsh Calendars
Among the Insular Celts, the year was divided into a light half and a dark half. As the day was seen as beginning at sunset, so the year was seen as beginning with the arrival of the darkness, at Samhain, the first of November. The light half of the year started at Beltane, the first of May.
Julius Ceasar said in his Gallic Wars: "[the Celts] keep birthdays and the beginnings of months and years in such an order that the day follows the night." Although Caesar says "at night" he specifically does not say "sunset" so we do not know how much the Gauls' differed from our own method of counting from midnights. Longer periods were reckoned in nights, as in the surviving term "fortnight."
[edit] "Celtic New Year" questioned
The popular literature over the last century or so has given birth to the near universal assumption that Samhain was the "Celtic New Year". A number of sources including both the work of scholarly historians and Neopagan writers have begun to place this assertion under the microscope. In his study of the folk calendar of the British Isles Stations of the Sun (Oxford University Press, 1996), historian Ronald Hutton writes that there are no references earlier than the 18th century in either church or civic records which attest to this usage. Although it may be generally correct to refer to Samhain as "Summer's End", this point of descent into the year's darkness may need better proof for us to cite this "end" as also being a "beginning". On the other hand, there are examples of the western world, including late Celtia, as having begun their calendars either at the end of December, or around March 25th, at various periods back through and before Medieval times.[citation needed] Whether on not the ancient Celts saw Samhain as the beginning of the year, or just one turning point among others in the cycle of the seasons, Samhain is still largely regarded as the Celtic New Year in the living Celtic cultures, both in the Celtic Nations and the diaspora. For instance the contemporary calendars produced by the Celtic League begin and end at Samhain.[1]
[edit] Pre-Celtic, Neolithic "Calendars"
Ancient Neolithic stone monuments aligned to the summer and winter solstices, the equinoxes and lunar phenomena can be found across Europe and the Celtic Nations, with particular concentrations in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. The most famous of these is Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain, Maeshowe in Orkney, Passage tombs, like the Knowth site in Ireland, and Newgrange in Ireland's Boyne Valley. While these sites are often connected with the Celts in popular imagination, in actuality all or most of these sites are of pre-Celtic origins.
[edit] Neopagan calendars
In some Neopagan religions, a Celtic calendar based on that of Mediaeval Ireland, or other ancient Celtic cultures, is observed for purposes of ritual. This does not necessarily indicate that a Celtic language is used for ritual. Adherents of reconstructionst traditions may celebrate the the four Gaelic festivals of Samhain, Imbolc, Beltane and Lughnassadh. Eclectic Neopagans often combined the Gaelic fire festivals with the solstices and equinoxes to produce the modern Neopagan Wheel of the Year. Some eclectic Neopagans are also influenced by Robert Graves's fictional "Celtic Astrology", which has no foundation in historical calendars or actual ancient Celtic astrology.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
[edit] References
- Brennan, Martin, 1994. The Stones of Time: Calendars, Sundials, and Stone Chambers of Ancient Ireland. Rochester, Vermont: Inner Traditions
- Brunaux, Jean-Louis, 1986 Les Gaulois: Sanctuaires et Rites Paris: Editions Errance
- Duval, Paul-Marie, et Pinault, Georges [eds] Receuil des Inscriptions Gauloises (R.I.G.), Vol. 3: The calendars of Coligny (73 fragments) and Villards d'Heria (8 fragments)
