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Seasons also play a role. 7 day weeks can be neatly broken up into 4 13-week seasons (roughly, you end up with an extra day and a quarter to contend with). Bet
by wbsss4412 5y ago
Seasons also play a role. 7 day weeks can be neatly broken up into 4 13-week seasons (roughly, you end up with an extra day and a quarter to contend with).
Between lunar phases and seasons, it’s a fairly natural choice for people living outside of the tropics.
Edit: to add, for pre modern people, tracking seasons was obviously very important and worth counting systematically. Simply counting lunar phases isn’t reliable given that a lunar year is only ~354 days.
- mannykannot 5y agoSeasons are definitely more important than the lunar cycle, but forcing them into four equal intervals seems rather procrustean - and there are many parts of the world where doing so does not reflect the realities of the climate.
- wbsss4412 5y agoWell yes, but not every part of the world had a 7 day calendar either. That universality came with colonialism.
- mannykannot 5y agoFair enough, but is there any evidence that the seasons influenced the selection of a seven-day week in those areas where it was adopted freely?
- wbsss4412 5y agoTo be totally transparent, I do not have any evidence at hand to speak to that thesis.