Lunar calendar

A lunar calendar is a calendar based on the monthly cycles of the Moon's phases (synodic months,
lunations), in contrast to solar calendars, whose annual cycles are based on the solar year. The
most widely observed purely lunar calendar is the Islamic calendar.[a] A purely lunar calendar is
distinguished from a lunisolar calendar, whose lunar months are brought into alignment with the
solar year through some process of intercalation – such as by insertion of a leap month. The details
of when months begin vary from calendar to calendar, with some using new, full, or crescent moons
and others employing detailed calculations.

Since each lunation is approximately 291⁄2 days,[1] it is common for the months of a lunar calendar
to alternate between 29 and 30 days. Since the period of 12 such lunations, a lunar year, is
354 days, 8 hours, 48 minutes, 34 seconds (354.36707 days),[1] purely lunar calendars are 11 to 12
days shorter than the solar year. In purely lunar calendars, which do not make use of intercalation,
the lunar months cycle through all the seasons of a solar year over the course of a 33–34 lunar-year
cycle (see, e.g., list of Islamic years).

History

A lunisolar calendar was found at Warren Field in Scotland and has been dated to c. 8000 BC, during
the Mesolithic period.[2][3] Some scholars argue for lunar calendars still earlier—Rappenglück in the
marks on a c. 17,000 year-old cave painting at Lascaux and Marshack in the marks on a
c. 27,000 year-old bone baton—but their findings remain controversial.[4][5] Scholars have argued
that ancient hunters conducted regular astronomical observations of the Moon back in the Upper
Palaeolithic.[6] Samuel L. Macey dates the earliest uses of the Moon as a time-measuring device
back to 28,000–30,000 years ago.[7]

Start of the lunar month

Lunar and lunisolar calendars differ as to which day is the first day of the month. Some are based on
the first sighting of the lunar crescent, such as the Hijri calendar observed by most of Islam.
Alternatively, in some lunisolar calendars, such as the Hebrew calendar and Chinese calendar, the
first day of a month is the day when an astronomical new moon occurs in a particular time zone. In
others, such as some Hindu calendars, each month begins on the day after the full moon.
Length of the lunar month

The length of each lunar cycle varies slightly from the average value. In addition, observations are
subject to uncertainty and weather conditions. Thus, to minimise uncertainty, there have been
attempts to create fixed arithmetical rules to determine the start of each calendar month. The best
known of these is the Tabular Islamic calendar: in brief, it has a 30-year cycle with 11 leap years of
355 days and 19 years of 354 days. In the long term, it is accurate to one day in about 2,500 solar
years or 2,570 lunar years. It also deviates from observation by up to about one or two days in the
short term. The algorithm was introduced by Muslim astronomers in the 8th century to predict the
approximate date of the first crescent moon, which is used to determine the first day of each month
in the Islamic lunar calendar.[8]

List of lunar calendars

Lunar Hijri calendar[b]

Javanese calendar

Lunisolar calendars

Most calendars referred to as "lunar" calendars are in fact lunisolar calendars. Their months are
based on observations of the lunar cycle, with periodic intercalation being used to restore them into
general agreement with the solar year. The solar "civic calendar" that was used in ancient Egypt
showed traces of its origin in the earlier lunar calendar, which continued to be used alongside it for
religious and agricultural purposes. Present-day lunisolar calendars include the Chinese, Korean,
Vietnamese, Hindu, Hebrew and Thai calendars.

The most common form of intercalation is to add an additional month every second or third year.
Some lunisolar calendars are also calibrated by annual natural events which are affected by lunar
cycles as well as the solar cycle. An example of this is the lunisolar calendar of the Banks Islands,
which includes three months in which the edible palolo worms mass on the beaches. These events
occur at the last quarter of the lunar month, as the reproductive cycle of the palolos is synchronized
with the moon.[9]

See also

List of calendars
 Lunar phase
Solar System portal
Epact

Paschal Full Moon

Notes

a. Iran operates Solar Hijri calendar, which is purely solar.

b. Calendar used by the large majority of Muslims outside Iran

References

1. P. Kenneth Seidelmann, ed. (1992). Explanatory Supplement to the Astronomical Almanac (http
s://archive.org/details/131123ExplanatorySupplementAstronomicalAlmanac/page/n302/mod
e/1up) . p. 577. "For convenience, it is common to speak of a lunar year of twelve synodic
months, or 354.36707 days." (which gives a mean synodic month as 29.53059 days or 29 days
12 hours 44 minutes and 3 seconds)

2. Nancy Owano, Scotland lunar-calendar find sparks Stone Age rethink, Phys.org, 27 July 2013 (htt
p://phys.org/news/2013-07-scotland-lunar-calendar-stone-age-rethink.html) Archived (http
s://web.archive.org/web/20130809125949/http://phys.org/news/2013-07-scotland-lunar-cale
ndar-stone-age-rethink.html) 9 August 2013 at the Wayback Machine

3. Gaffney, V.; et al. (2013). "Time and a Place: A luni-solar 'time-reckoner' from 8th millennium BC
Scotland" (http://intarch.ac.uk/journal/issue34/gaffney_index.html) . Internet Archaeology
(34). doi:10.11141/ia.34.1 (https://doi.org/10.11141%2Fia.34.1) . Archived (https://web.archi
ve.org/web/20130718145814/http://intarch.ac.uk/journal/issue34/gaffney_index.html) from
the original on 18 July 2013. Retrieved 16 July 2013. "In doing so the monument anticipates
problems associated with simple lunar calendars by providing an annual astronomic correction
in order to maintain the link between the passage of time indicated by the Moon, the
asynchronous solar year, and the associated seasons."

4. James Elkins, Our beautiful, dry, and distant texts (https://books.google.com/books?id=5Ku6YdW

5. "Oldest lunar calendar identified" (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/975360.stm) .

7. Macey, Samuel L. (1994). Encyclopedia of Time (https://books.google.com/books?id=F7wNQk

8. van Gent, R. H. (October 2023). "The Arithmetical or Tabular Islamic Calendar" (https://webspa
ce.science.uu.nl/~gent0113/islam/islam_tabcal.htm) . Mathematical Institute, Utrecht
University. Retrieved 4 January 2024.

9. R.H.Codrington. The Melanesians: Their anthropology and folklore (1891) Oxford, Clarendon
Press

External links