scholars—^22 is misleading.It suggests that the calendar is a toolthat society
utilizes as if it were somehow externalto it, whereas in fact (asIhave argued
above) the calendar is an intrinsic, constitutive part of society and culture, and
its relation to other elements of society and culture is complex, reciprocal, and
in any event far more than merely instrumentalor functional.
Functionalist assumptions haveled to implausible theories about the origins
of ancient calendars: for example, it has often been claimed that ancient Egypt
developed a fixed, schematic calendar—in contrast to all other ancient
societies—because of its unique administrative needs. Besides the fact that
other ancient states had arguably equally complex administrative and bureau-
cratic needs, yet stillmaintainedflexiblelunar calendars (e.g. the neo-Assyrian
kingdom), the Egyptian civilcalendar had functionaldisadvantages that are
often overlooked, and that cast doubt on the assumption that it was the
administration of Egypt that necessitated the use of afixed calendar of this
kind.InCh. 3,Ishallargue that the Egyptian calendar should rather be
explained in relation to the distinctive features of ancient Egyptian religion
and ideology, which the calendar did not functionally serve, but rather of
which it formed a constitutive part.
This culturally context-bound interpretation of the Egyptian calendar may
be associated with another theoreticalapproach known as culturalrelativism,
whichIwould argue must also be used with caution.Its use is justified atfirst
sight in the case of Egypt, of which the calendar, atleast untilthe mid-first
millenniumBCE, was unique in the ancient world and arguably specificto
Egyptian culture.However, the rapid spread of this same calendar (or its
derivatives) in subsequent centuries across the whole of the ancient world
raises questions about its specificity to any singleculturalmilieu.In general,
most of the calendars that willbe studied in this work were based on objective
astronomicalphenomena (especially the new moon) and/or annualseasons of
which the perception and conceptualization transcended, to a certain extent,
socialand culturaldifferences. This explains why calendars were so easily
shared, assimilated, and adopted from one culture to the next: thus after
Alexander’s conquest the Macedonian and Babylonian calendars, bothlunar,
seem to have effortlessly merged. Rather than stressing culturaldiversity and
particularism, which others have chosen to focus on,^23 this work islargely
about culturalexchange and culturalcohesion within the ancient worldasa
whole.^24
(^22) e.g.Parker ( 195 0) 5 3:‘instrument for the measurement of time’.
(^23) e.g. Samuel( 1 972): see below, end ofCh. 1.
(^24) Another false theory that has gained much acceptance in modern scholarship, especiallyin
the context of the Jewish calendar, is the claim (self-styled, rightly or wrongly,Durkheimian),
that the calendar was so essentialto socialcohesion that diversity of calendars within any given
society unavoidablyled to socialdivision and schism.Ishallnot elaborate on this theory here, as
it willbe given fulltreatment inCh. 7.
Introduction 19