Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 5.djvu/731

Rh Armenian years elapsed by 365; add the number of days from the commencement of the current year to the given date; subtract 176 from the sum, and the remainder will be the number of days from the 1st of January 553 to the given date. This number of days being reduced to Julian years, add the result to 552, and the sum gives the day in the Julian year, or old style. In the ecclesiastical reckoning the year begins on the 11th of August. To reduce a date expressed in this reckoning to the Julian date, add 551 years, and the days elapsed from the 1st of January to the 10th of August, both inclusive, of the year 552,—that is to say (since 552 is a leap year), 223 days. In leap years, one day must be subtracted if the date falls between the 1st of March and 10th of August. The following are the Armenian ecclesiastical months with their correspondence with those of the Julian calendar:—

To complete the year, five complementary days are added in common years, and six in leap years.

The Mahometan Era, or Era of the Hegira.

The era in use among the Turks, Arabs, and other Mahometan nations is that of the Hegira or Hejra, the flight of the prophet from Mecca to Medina, 622 Its commencement, however, does not, as is sometimes stated, coincide with the very day of the flight, but precedes it by sixty-eight days. The prophet, after leaving Mecca, to escape the pursuit of his enemies, the Koreishites, hid himself with his friend Abubekr in a cave near Mecca, and there lay for three days. The departure from the cave and setting out on the way to Medina is assigned to the ninth day of the third month, Rabia I.—corresponding to the 22d of September of the year 622 The era begins from the first day of the month of Moharram preceding the flight, or first day of that Arabian year, which coincides with Friday, July 16, 622 It is necessary to remember that by astronomers and by some historians the era is assigned to the preceding day, July 15. It is stated by D'Herbelot that the era of the Hegira was instituted by Omar, the second caliph, in imitation of the Christian era of the martyrs. (For details of the Mahometan year, names and length of months, and for the method of reduction of Mahometan dates to Christian, see . ).

Era of Yezdegird, or Persian or Gelalæan Era.

This era commences with the elevation of Yezdegird III. to the throne of Persia, on the 16th of June in the year of our era 632. Till the year 1079 the Persian year resembled that of the ancient Egyptians, consisting of 365 days without intercalation; but at that time the Persian calendar was reformed by Gelal-ed-din Malek Shah, sultan of Khorasau, and a method of intercalation adopted which, though less convenient, is considerably more accurate than the Julian. The intercalary period is 33 years,—one day being added to the common year seven times successively at the end of four years, and the eighth intercalation being deferred till the end of the fifth year (see . ). This era was at one period universally adopted in Persia, and it still continues to be followed by the Parsees of India. The months consist of thirty days each, and each day is distinguished by a different name. According to Alfergani, the names of the Persian months are as follows:—

The five additional days (in intercalary years six) are named Musteraca. As it does not appear that the above-mentioned rule of intercalation was ever regularly followed, it is impossible to assign exactly the days on which the different years begin. In some provinces of India the Parsees begin the year with September, in others they begin it with October. We have stated that the era began with the 16th June 632. But the vague year, which was followed till 1079, anticipated the Julian year by one day every four years. In 447 years the anticipation would amount to about 112 days, and the beginning of the year would in consequence be thrown back to near the beginning of the Julian year 632. To the year of the Persian era, therefore, add 631, and the sum will be the year of our era in which the Persian year begins.

Chinese Chronology.

From the time of the, upwards of , the  had two different s,—a civil , which was regulated by the , and an  , which was. The civil consisted in general of twelve s or s, but occasionally a thirteenth was added, in order to preserve its correspondence with the. Even at that early period the or   consisted of 365$1⁄4$ days, like our ; and it was arranged in the same manner, a  being  every fourth. According to the Gaubil, the  divided the  into 100 ke, each ke into 100 minutes, and each minute into 100 seconds. This practice continued to prevail till the 17th century, when, at the instance of the,  of the , they adopted the an method of dividing the  into twenty-four s, each  into sixty s, and each  into sixty s. The civil  commences at  and ends at the  following. Since the accession of the s of the, , the civil  of the  has begun with the first  of that  in the course of which the  enters into the sign of the  which corresponds with our sign. From the same period also, they have employed, in the adjustment of their and  s, a period of nineteen s, twelve of which are common, containing twelve s each, and the remaining seven, containing thirteen s. It is not, however, precisely known how they distributed their s of thirty and twenty-nine s, or, as they termed them, great and small moons. This, with other matters appertaining to the, was probably left to be regulated from time to time by the. The divide the  of a  of the  with regard to the  into twelve equal portions, each corresponding to thirty s, ten s, thirty s. Each of these periods, which is denominated a tsëĕ, is subdivided into two equal portions called chung-ki and tsie-ki, the chung-ki denoting the first half of the tsëĕ, and the tsie-ki the latter half. Though the tsëĕ are thus strictly portions of, yet, what is remarkable, though not peculiar to , they give their name to the  s, each  or  having the 