Historical chronology, as you know, is divided into two periods. In the beginning there was a time that contemporaries call the stage BC. It ends with the onset of the first year. At this time, our era began, which continues to this day. And although today, when naming the year, people do not say "AD", nevertheless, it is implied.
First calendars
The process of human evolution created the need to streamline dates and times. An ancient farmer needed to know as accurately as possible at what time it was better to sow seeds, a nomadic livestock breeder - when to move to other territories in order to have time to provide his livestock with food.
So the very first calendars began to appear. And they were based on observations of celestial bodies and nature. Different nations also had different time calendars. For example, the Romans kept their reckoning from the day of the founding of Rome - from 753 BC, while the Egyptians - from the first moment of the reign of each of the dynasties of the pharaohs. Many religions also created their own calendars. For example, in Islam, a new era begins from the year when the Prophet Muhammad was born.
Julian and Gregorian calendars
In 45 BC Gaius Julius Caesar founded his calendar. In it, the year began on the first of January and lasted twelve months. This calendar was called Julian.
The one we use today was introduced in 1582 by Pope Gregory the Twelfth. He managed to eliminate some significant inaccuracies that had accumulated since the first Ecumenical Council. At that time they were as long as ten days. The difference between the Julian and Gregorian calendars increases by about a day every century, and today it is already thirteen days.
In history, reckoning always plays a big role. After all, it is important to imagine in what period of time a significant event in the life of mankind took place, whether it was the creation of the first tools of labor or the beginning of the Hundred Years War. They say history without dates is like math without numbers.
Religious form of reckoning
Since the beginning of our era is calculated from the year considered the date of the birth of Jesus, the corresponding record is often used in the religious version: from the birth of Christ and before it. There is still no completely accurate historical data on when life appeared on our planet. And only based on religious and historical artifacts, scientists can draw conclusions about when this or that event approximately occurred. In this case, the years BC are indicated in chronologically reverse order.
Zero Year
Mentioning the division betweentime before and after the Nativity of Christ is associated with the calculation in astronomical notation, made according to the numbers of integers on the coordinate axis. The zero year is not customary to use in either religious or secular notation. But it is very common in astronomical notation and in ISO 8601, an international standard issued by an organization such as the International Organization for Standardization. It describes the format of dates and times and provides guidance for their use in an international context.
Countdown
The concept of "BC" became widespread in the chronology after its use by the Venerable Bede, a Benedictine monk. He wrote about it in one of his treatises. And already starting from 731, the calculation of time was divided into two periods: before our era and after it. Gradually, almost all countries in Western Europe began to switch to this calendar. The most recent of these was Portugal. It happened on August 22, 1422. Until January 1, 1700, Russia used the chronological calculation of the Constantinople era. The Christian era "from the creation of the world" was taken as the starting point in it. By and large, many eras were based on the relationship between the “days of the creation of the world” and the entire duration of its existence. And Constantinople was created under Constantius, and the chronology for it was carried out from September 1, 5509 BC. However, since this emperor was not a "consistent Christian", his name, and at the same time the countdown compiled by him, are mentionedreluctantly.
Prehistoric and historical eras
History is prehistoric and historical eras. The first of them begins with the appearance of the first man, and ends when writing appeared. The prehistoric era is divided into several time periods. Their classification is based on archaeological finds. These materials, from which people made tools before our era, the period when they used them, formed the basis for recreating not only the time frame, but also the names of the stages of the prehistoric era.
The historical era consists of the periods of Antiquity and the Middle Ages, as well as the New and Modern times. In different countries, they came at different times, so scientists are not able to determine their exact time frame.
Beginning of our era
It is well known that the new era at the very beginning was not calculated by a continuous count of years, for example, starting from the first year and up to, say, the current one. Its chronology began much later, with the date of the Nativity of Christ. It is believed that it was first calculated by a Roman monk named Dionysius the Lesser in the sixth century, that is, more than five hundred years after the dated event. To get the result, Dionysius first counted the date of the Resurrection of Christ, based on church tradition that the Son of God was crucified at the thirty-first year of life.
The date of his Resurrection, according to the Roman monk, is the twenty-fifth of March 5539 according to the calendar "from Adam", and the year of the Nativity of Christ, therefore, was the 5508thByzantine era. It must be said that the calculations of Dionysius up to the fifteenth century raised doubts in the West. In Byzantium itself, they were never recognized as canonical.
History BC
From the seventh to the third millennium BC, the planet was in the Neolithic era - the period of transition from the appropriating form of economy, namely hunting and gathering, to the productive one - agriculture and cattle breeding. At this time, weaving, grinding stone tools and pottery appeared.
The end of the fourth - the beginning of the first millennium BC: the Bronze Age reigns on the planet. Metal and bronze weapons are spreading, nomadic pastoralists appear. The Bronze Age was replaced by the Iron Age. At that time, the first and second dynasties ruled in Egypt, uniting the country into a single centralized state.
In 2850-2450 B. C. e. the economic rise of the Sumerian civilization began. From 2800 to 1100, the Aegean or Ancient Greek culture rises. Almost at the same time, the Indus civilization was born in the Indus Valley, the highest flowering of the kingdom of Troy was observed.
About 1190 B. C. e. the powerful Hittite state collapsed. After almost four decades, the Elamite king captured Babylonia, and his power flourished.
In 1126-1105 BC. e. came the reign of the Babylonian sovereign Nebuchadnezzar. In 331, the first state was formed in the Caucasus. In 327 BC. e. was held by the Indian company of Alexander the Great. During this period, a lot of events took place, including the uprisingslaves in Sicily, the Allied War, the Mithridatic Wars, the campaign of Mark Anthony against the Parthians, the reign of Emperor Augustus.
And finally, between the eighth and fourth years BC, Christ was born.
New chronology
Different nations have always had different concepts of chronology. Each state solved this problem independently, while being guided by both religious and political motives. And only by the nineteenth century did all Christian states establish a single point of reference, which is still used today under the name "our era." The ancient Mayan calendar, the Byzantine era, the Hebrew chronology, the Chinese - they all had their own date of creation of the world.
For example, the Japanese calendar began in 660 BC and was updated after each emperor's death. The Buddhist era will soon enter the year 2484 and the Hindi calendar will enter the year 2080. The Aztecs updated their chronology once every 1454, after the death and rebirth of the Sun. Therefore, if their civilization had not died, for them today it would be only 546 AD…
Ancient map of the world
Before our era, travelers were also interested in the world and made drawings of their routes. They transferred them to tree bark, sand or papyrus. The first map of the world appeared many millennia before the new era. It was the rock paintings that became one of the first images. While people were scouting the Earth, they became especially interested in the ancient maps of the past.epochs. Some of them represent our planet as a huge island washed by the ocean, on others you can already see the outlines of the continents.
Babylon Map
The very first map created before our era was a small clay tablet found in Mesopotamia. It dates from the end of the eighth - the beginning of the seventh centuries BC and is the only one that has come down to us from the Babylonians. The land on it is surrounded by seas called "s alt water". Behind the water - triangles, obviously denoting the mountains of distant lands.
This map shows the state of Urartu (modern Armenia), Assyria (Iraq), Elam (Iran) and Babylon itself, in the middle of which flows the Euphrates.
Map of Eratosthenes
Even the ancient Greeks represented the Earth as a sphere and very elegantly argued this. Pythagoras, for example, said that everything is harmonious in nature, and the most perfect form in it is a ball in the form of which our planet exists. The first map drawn from this image of the Earth belongs to Eratosthenes. He lived in the third century BC in Cyrene. It is believed that this scientist, who headed the Library of Alexandria, coined the term "geography". It was he who, for the first time before our era, drew the world into parallels and meridians and called them "going side by side" or "noon" lines. The world of Eratosthenes was one island, which was washed by the North from above and the Atlantic Ocean from below. It was divided into Europe, Ariana and Arabia, India and Scythia. In the south was Taproban - the current Ceylon.
At the same timeIt seemed to Eratosthenes that "antipodes" live on the other hemisphere, which cannot be reached. After all, people then, including the ancient Greeks, thought that it was so hot near the equator that the sea boils there, and all living things burn out. On the contrary, it is very cold at the poles, and not a single person survives there.
Ptolemy's Map
For several centuries, another map of the world was considered the main one. It was compiled by the ancient Greek scholar Claudius Ptolemy. Created around one hundred and fifty years BC, it was part of the eight-volume "Guide to Geography".
According to Ptolemy, Asia occupied the space from the North Pole to the very equator, displacing the Pacific Ocean, while Africa smoothly flowed into terra incognita, occupying the entire South Pole. To the north of Scythia was the mythical Hyperborea, and nothing was said about America or Australia. It was thanks to this map that Columbus began to get to India, while sailing west. And even after the discovery of America, they continued to use the map from Ptolemy for some time.
