Question: Measurement Of Age

Throughout time people have used a widely ranging set of measurements of spatial dimensions. Sometimes it would even change when a king died, and a new kind took the throne. Spatial measurements have always been far from standardized. Even today, where folks all across the west have to understand 2 separate measurement systems ("standard" and "metric").

But time....time has always been somewhat standardized. The year has become the global standard for measuring age. Nevermind that a "year" is not a constant basis of measurement. THe point is, we all speak the same language.

Or, so I presume. So my questions on this are:

- are there currently other systems of measuring age of people (not quantum events) besides years? I am sure some religions have exotic measurements...but they aren't used practically in most cases by their believers (such as Hindu and its ages)
- Besides lunar based calendars, were there other measurements of time in practical use in the past?
- When did the solar year start to become the standard across civilizations?


I tried a few search terms in Google and am not finding much in the way of answers to my questions. And I KNOW that there are ATSers that have answers to some pretty strange questions.

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

I seem to recall that we have Sumer to thank for our current measurement of time. Basically all of western time. Let me look real quick.

I know native Americans went by moons. Or at least that's what they do in the movies...

Meso Americans had a very complex calendar I don't understand.

A very ancient bone from Germany iirc demonstrates cro magnum man using moon cycles to gauge time. Presumably to track game herds.

Not sure how china kept track of time.

I think they established that the Indus Valley civilization had a very comprehensive measurement system that is still used today in India with money in some places. Not sure about time.

I don;t have time to link it, but if you google the calendar round for the Maya it has two sets of elapsed time, one is the period of earths orbit around the sun and another is 9 months, the gestation of the human fetus in the womb.

Gotta go…

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

nukedog is correct. The Sumerians had a sexagesimal (Base-60) mathematical system which was used by the Babylonian Astronomers who calculated a 360 day year consisting of 12 months of 30 days each. If I'm not mistaken the ancient Chinese were using a 366 day calendar with 12 or 13 months even before then.

In either case, it started with astronomical observations but the Greek astronomers studied the Babylonians and so I'd assume that in Western civilization, the origins lie with the Babylonians.

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

Solve this one and we may have an answer or possible explanation why "so and so" are described to have lived a bazillion years in the Bible and the earliest Sumerian, Egyptian, Hindu texts etc.

Lost in ancient translation/conversion once upon a time?

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

Good and interesting thought's about the nature of time and its possible spacial variance and possible differential flow rate given localized gravity and other influences.

The only other way is the human spleen, after death it is possible to open it up and measure a line in the spleen that grows through our lives, it may be affected by metabololic function and is not as accurate as a tree ring count but it gives a very good soft tissue indicator of a bodys age.

Up here, time is different. We have the four seasons, winter, spring, fall, and winter. We do get a month or so of nice spring and fall though. I had hopes of global warming coming to the rescue but I must have not prayed enough.

Time is immaterial. When you are young, a day seems like a long time and a year is a real long time. When you get older, time flies faster than a 727. So time is relevant to our perception. It is not reality by any means.

Knowing when to plant is not the reason that time was created. Time is something that man created, it is nothing more than a way of using numbers to keep track of things. It is necessary in modern society to judge the time we spend at a job but it is more important what you accomplish in that time than the time spent doing it in reality.

Anyone could figure out how much food we need to store for survival without time. Anyone could look at the height of the sun to judge the time of the year to plant and could see the time to harvest by looking at the plants. So why would we need time to figure these things? If the time of year to plant was the reason, then the artifacts around the world would have been adjusted to account for the time to plant, not to a time that does not match planting time.

There is another reason, but I do not know it yet. There is some reason for knowing when the equinoxes are, we just haven't opened our minds and the real reason has been long forgotten. I think that the reason is to identify an event to happen in the future. A very important event that we are supposed to prepare for. Yet, the reason is lost, so is the preparation for the event.

a reply to: theantediluvian

24 hours in a day. 60 minutes in an hour. 60 seconds in a minute. It's sexidecimal. Thank Enlil. Or whatever the Sumer worshipped for the stars.

If I get a chance later I'm going to demonstrate how the IVC system of measurement is still in use today in some parts of India with currency. It's actually fascinating because it demonstrates continuity with a forgotten (at least to westerners) culture.

a reply to: rickymouse

If you were around to see it back in the day the night sky was amazing. It's no wonder so many people worshipped it and sought their answers from the stars. The next logical step is tracking them and segmenting their movement into units of time.

And also, nautical. If you were on the sea you were tracking stars and time.

a reply to: nukedog

Sea travel would necessitate knowing time. I think that knowing of the moon is a better way to predict this though, not really the position of the sun.

a reply to: rickymouse

Well that's true but knowing the planets or at least the constellations is going to give you a better compass I think

Sands of Time

Here is an article with some interesting info on the History of Time...nothing new to most but, an engaging read.
Teachers Guide

I would love to visit the Tower of the Winds in Athens!

a reply to: nukedog

Thought this was interesting. Imagine being the person having to "keep an eye" on the hourglass!

The hourglass uses the flow of sand to measure the flow of time. They were used in navigation. Ferdinand Magellan used 18 glasses on each ship for his circumnavigation of the globe (1522).

Laurence Bergreen, Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe

Wow op you have picked a subject that should have as many answers as seconds in a life time . Seems that there are too many variable issues that really don't mesh well with any one doctrine . If there is a record of past present and future time it has to be in the stars .The Mazzaroth en.wikipedia.org... may only be a starting point to such a complex subject and it is more of a story written in the skies .There are lots of items in the story and a few of them could actually require us to recalculate our totals to get to the here and now . Very good question though . best of luck in your search ....peace

The early cultures used the obvious repetitive things to measure time and be able to predict things important for survival like seasons, herd migrations etc. The most obvious would be the day (time between consecutive sunrises or sunsets), month (full moons) and years (summers). A more developed culture would have time for scholars to make detailed observations like recording the position of sunrises/sunsets on the horizon and thereby determining the number of days in a year, times of solstices and equinoxes and the like plus the invention of the sundial for dividing the period of daylight into units that became hours etc.

Now we've gone overboard with it and see a need to measure in microseconds and even higher precision units of time. A day is a day no matter what units you use to measure it. You can measure your lifetime in hours, days, years, moons, summers, whatever and it's all the same length of time regardless.

I guess the real reason I ask, as many of you mention, is that time seems to be almost a conjectural belief. I say that I am 42 years old. And, as a human, then do comparative analysis on this statistic. My understanding of the world, and the things I see/read is based on my own personal experience. If i am being honest, if someone were to convince me that they were truly ancient (200 years old for example) I can fathom how it might elicit a fight or flight response whereby I make tracks and get out of there.

Meanwhile, I am surrounded by belief that people lived to great ages in more ancient times.

It is really hard to put it in context.

To summarize it all: time is/has always been measured in relation to the sun and moon.

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

Don't believe everything the bible says. I never read the whole thing and even I know people attempt to translate the OT lifespans a new way every day. Bunch of malarkey.

Egypt had the same issue with their "kings list." The first three rulers had ridiculous lifespans. The Romans too. First seven lived way too long to add up. The problem is, nobody has really established things until it gets rolling. Just a bunch of heresy and people saying, "oh remember that guy three generations back? No? Oh well he was really real and kicked some but."

When we look back at history it's easy. When it was say, the medieval ages, 200 years ago might as well have been 2000 years ago for as much as you knew.

Think about this- the speed of light is the only constant.

Everything else fluctuates. Time speeds up and slows down.
The only way to to measure true and accurate time would to become
static in the universe. How could ever measure that you are at
a complete stop?

We are much older than we believe.

Remember when scientist said the universe expanded faster than time.
Some galaxies are 42 billion light years apart, with our current timeline
being 13 - 15 billion years .

Noodle be baked.

Hi OP, this is a good question;

Obviously the solar and lunar cycles had the most influence on tracking time. Then there are the seasons and flood cycles which farming absolutely lived by. Sumer lived with an irregular flood cycle, having to deal with both the Tigris and Euphrates, and Egypt had a consistent flood cycle from the Nile.

Egypt also developed a "cattle count," which became the basis of their economy and tracking time (it occurred every two years) - we have references to events taking place based on how many cattle counts have passed.

'Measurement of Age' could potentially mean distinguishing eras, by Kings or Dynasties or the ascendency or decline of a deity or precessional shift in constellations. To be honest, not all ancient civilizations were very good at keeping track of events in their own past. Sumer in particular separated its own history into epochs based on were the kingship lay - based on which city held it and whether the kingship was Sumerian, Akkadian, or foreign.

a reply to: rickymouse

The speed at which time seems to flow for an individual is predicated on how much time you have experienced.

As you noted as a kid a summer or a year seemed to last forever - that is because to your perception - it did.

You don't really remember anything until you are about 4 so when you are 8 a year makes up 1/4 of your life and 'lasts forever'

When you are 24 a year is 'felt' to last 1/20 or 5 times faster than when you were 8.

At 64 a year is only 1/60th of you life and 3 times faster than when you were a young man and 15 times faster than when you were 4 - time is really flying then.