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THE UNIVERSAL CALENDAR
I45
time the accrued error would be far too great for a precise calendar.
Over a period of only 45,000 years the difference between
the French and the American data would amount to as many as
years, and the same happens when we try to calculate the posi-
3
tions of these planets at that time. If I ask my French astronomers
where the positions of the five exterior planets were in the
year 3144 B.C. and if a conjunction took place, the answer will be,
"No, there was no conjunction at this date according to the calculations
of Urbain Leverrier and Gaillot.'' But my American colleagues
will confirm a conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in that
year and another one of Uranus and Neptune 30 degrees further
on the ecliptic. I would like to know who is right.
Still,
establishment of a universal calendar would be possible
if we used only the six planets closest to the sun, whose revolutions
and times of conjunctions have been recorded and are
known precisely. These movements have been recalculated recently
for the past 4,500 years by two American astronomers,
William Stahlman and Owen Gingerich using a modem computer.
Their book gives the longitudes of these planets for every
10 days throughout this period, and it is easy to find the exact
dates of all conjunctions of Jupiter and Saturn, the most regular
among our planets. With this regularity in mind, it is not surprising
for us to discover that several calendars before the Christian
era were apparently based on these regular conjunctions of
Jupiter and Saturn.
The Byzantine calendar starts on September 14, 5509 B.C. The
Hebrew time reckoning begins on September 9, 3761 B.C. Both
these years had a conjunction for Jupiter and Saturn. The same
characteristic can be shown for the start year of the ancient
Hindu time-counting, if it was the year 3104 B.C.
I have not checked all other calendars for this characteristic,
but if we add to the above three, the Julian, Scandinavian, and
Mayan calendars, we already have six that seem to have started
in a year when there was a conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn.
The Julian and Scandinavian calendars started in 4713 B.C. and
the last cycle of the Mayan calendar began in 3144 B.C. This looks
like more than a simple coincidence. The only calendar that escapes
this rule of Jupiter and Saturn is the Egyptian calendar
previously mentioned in this book as being based on the star