Calendars in Buddhist countries such as Cambodia also divide months into
two parts of 14-15 days each--the waxing of the moon, and the waning of
the moon--for purposes of deciding when holy days (tngay sil) fall in the
month. The week per se was superimposed much later.
--Raven
On Mon, 28 Jun 1999, Alain wrote:
> A 09:36 99-06-28 -0700, Peter_Constable@sil.org a écrit :
> >
> >
> >I always thought that a week was 7 days because that was the duration of
> each of
> >4 phases of the moon.
>
> [Alain] Right, but dividing into 4 was arbitrary and is a Jewish tradition
> that the Christians and the Muslims inherited. 28 days is less arbitrary.
> It's the full moon cycle.
>
> The Aztecs divided the year in 18 months of 20 days, and one malefic month
> of 5 days. Odd but true. For them the most important cycle was the sun's.
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