~ January As We Know It, ~
~ Is Not ~
~ The First Month Of The Year! ~

When learning your mathematics in school, you were taught about octagon, pentagon, decagon, etc. If you drop the "gon" (from the Greek adjective gonia meaning an angle), you have the number of angles in the shape;

• Octa (from the Greek prefix okto meaning eight),
• Penta (from the Greek prefix pente meaning five),
• Deca (from the Greek prefix decka meaning ten).

The name for the month of September comes from the Latin word septem meaning seven and November comes from the Latin word novem meaning nine.. The question is, "Why are September through December recognized as the 9^th through 12^th month, when their names mean seven through ten?"

If you look at the signs of the zodiac, you will also notice that March is where the zodiac calendar begins. Aries starts the calendar in March and Pisces is where it ends. But notice, the zodiac signs don't start at the beginning of the month! They all start around the 20^th to 22^nd of the month. Why not at the beginning of the month to correspond with the Gregorian calendar?

The vernal equinox which occurs on March 21^st and September 22^nd, day and night are equal. During the writing of the Old Testament, the calendar consisted of twelve months. The Hebrew calendar which is still in existence today, shows the first month associated with the zodiac sign Aries and passover falls fifteen days into the month, which on the Gregorian calendar occurs in April, the fourth month. The date of March 21^st on the Gregorian calendar, was the beginning of the new year Nisan 1^st, during the Old Testament. The last month was named Adar. (Esther 3:7)

In Anthony T Browder's book, Nile Valley Contributions To Civilization, it says that the astronomers of Kemet were the first to develop a solar calendar which divided the year into 365 days, consisting of 12 months of 30 days each. Five additional days were added to the end of the year, which corresponded to the birth of five Gods. The year was subsequently divided into three seasons of four months duration, which were called the inundation, the cultivation and the harvest. Successive civilizations found it difficult to maintain these complex time-keeping systems and created their own.

As stated in Charles S Finch III's book, The Star Of Deep Beginnings, a physicist and historian of science, John Pappademos, compiled a list of astronomic contributions from the ancient Egyptians. A partial list includes;

• Identifying and naming 43 stellar constellations,
• Writing astronomy texts;
  • the disposition of fixed stars & stellar phenomena,
  • the disposition of the sun, moon, and five planets, and other astronomy text information,
• First proof that the angular diameters of the sun and moon are unequal.

The Kemetic calendar, which was introduced approximately 6,235 years ago, no later than 4,241BC was based upon a year of exactly 365.2422 days. The actual tropical year, measures from solstice to solstice, 365.242392 days long. Not bad for a society that didn't have the technology of today!

Sosigenes, an Alexandrian astronomer and ethnic Egyptian, reformed the calendar on behalf of Julius Caesar and is the true author of the "Julian" calendar.

In Browder's book, Nile Valley Contributions To Civilization, it also states that in 46BCE, at the invitation of Julius Caesar, Cleopatra VII visited Rome and was accompanied by their son Caesarion, her brother Ptolemy XIV and numerous servants and scientists. The astronomers corroborated and made recommendations for the improvement of the Roman calendar. A new calendar was then developed which consisted of 365^1/4 days. The year was divided into 12 months of 30 and 31 days, with the exception of February, which had 29 days and 30 days every four years. The beginning of the new year was also moved from March to January.

In honor of the new Julian calendar, the Romans renamed a month July after Julius Caesar. When he died in 44BCE, Augustus Caesar became emperor. A month was changed to honor the new Caesar (renamed August). A day was removed from February and added to the new month so that Augustus Caesar's month would be as long as the one honoring Julius.

The Julian calendar stayed in use 1,500 years which caused a shift in the dating of the seasons. Roman Pope Gregory XIII introduced a new calendar in 1582ACE. This calendar was supposed to be based on the year that Jesus Christ was born (even though the actual date is unknown). Scientists have been able to use astronomy to go back in time to discover that the planet Saturn was probably what the three wise men were viewing during their travels to visit the new born son. That took place in the year 6BC.

Summary:

We have learned a lot through our educational system, but there are times when we have to research information for ourselves. Throughout man's history, there has been an excessive amount of information that was changed for different reasons.

Man's acquisition of skills and knowledge throughout the millenniums was vast, but somewhere in time, man regressed. Man has been gazing at the stars for several millennium and logging the results with great accuracy. He also developed skills in the areas of mathematics, anatomy, physics, psychology, and naturally writing, etc. With all the research that I have done, it seems that during the time of the Kemetic society and further back, there was harmony in respect to learning.

The Kemetic society began a downfall when other cultures became involved in the processes used to learn and discover. A lot of the information was already in place and the other cultures gained access to that information. The Kemetic societies knew that it took long periods of time to develop accurate skills and knowledge, but the other cultures felt as though there was a faster way of doing things with the little bit of information that they had received. The information given wasn't enough to formulate a conclusion, but they did anyway.

The individuals of the Kemetic society studied their whole life time, not just a few months or years in a Kemetic class room as the other cultures had done. If there was something that they didn't understand, they would spend generations searching for the answer, whereas other cultures would just change things to suite their purpose. A perfect example of change occurred with the acceptance of the educational information that was returned to the Greek culture. As stated above, the prefixes and suffixes used in describing shapes are listed in the dictionaries as having a Greek or Latin origin. What happened to the Hebrew terminology where it originated?

The calendar that was being used in the land of Kemet was considered too complex for the Roman culture, so they changed everything. They had to get the assistance of the Kemetic society to correct their system because it was inaccurate, and they still didn't make use of all the information that was available to them. It wasn't until 1582ACE when Pope Gregory XIII introduced a new calendar that corrected the problem of the seasons matching up with the vernal equinox, which was falling on March 11^th instead of March 21^st, as it should.

In the land of Kemet, if something was found to be incorrect and broke the harmony of all that had been learned, it was redefined to bring the harmony back in alignment with everything else. Patchwork was not considered harmonious living. Changing the calendar can be considered patchwork. The signs of the zodiac and the names used for September through December are evidence of that.

When will mankind learn that patience is a virtue? Don't try to re-invent the wheel. Get all the facts before drawing a conclusion. When all else fails, follow instructions. If it ain't broke don't fix it. I guess that is why history repeats itself and mankind doesn't learn from his mistakes.

This is just one area of history in which man has manipulated true knowledge and made an attempt to re-invent the wheel. In the USA, we celebrate a holiday that represents mans shortcomings just like those of the Greeks and Romans with their calendars. I'm talking about Columbus Day. The Kemetic societies knew for centuries that the earth was round and they had already visited the Americas. Once again, the other cultures didn't get all the facts before drawing their conclusion. So, in 1492 the European cultures discovered that the Kemetic society (once again), was correct with their knowledge and understanding. What else was changed on the calendar?

Click on Quest #3 below!

If you would like to know more about Pope Gregory XIII and others that made changes to the calendar, I suggest you visit the Catholic Encyclopedia. There is a lot of information in the encyclopedia that will probably be of interest to you.

If you are interested in learning more about the Kemetic society, I suggest you visit The Ancient Nile Webring.

Recommended Reading: Egyptian Origin of Christianity

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