Related papers: A concise review of the Iranian calendar
The official Iranian calendar is a solar one that in both the length and the first day of its year is based not on convention, but on two natural (i.e. astronomical) factors: a) the moment of coincidence of the centre of the Sun and the…
This article provides information about the factors that necessitated the need to adjust the calendar during the time of Umar Khayyam, the method of choosing the beginning of the year, and the length of the months. It also attempts to…
We compute the mean interval between successive returns of the apparent geocentric solar longitude $\lambda$ to a fixed value $L \in \{0^\circ, 45^\circ, 90^\circ, \ldots, 315^\circ\}$, averaged over a multi-millennium window; this gives…
The family of Tibetan lunisolar calendars operates on a shared arithmetic axiom (67 lunar months = 65 solar months) that provides a rigid structure but causes observable seasonal drift. This study deconstructs the calendar through a…
In order to study the relation between the components of atmospheric circulation and summer precipitation over the Iranian plateau, daily rainfall data of synoptic stations of Iran were obtained from IRIMO for the period 1970 to 2003.…
A simple closed-form expression for the number of days between the winter solstice and the latest sunrise is derived. Formulas for the summer solstice and the sunset are derived as well. These approximate formulas make it easy to see the…
We report the empirical detection of a multi-planet quasi-commensurability in the Solar System and identify an anomalous exclusion that may bear on the dynamical history of Uranus. An exhaustive search identifies T* = 420,403 days (approx.…
The paper reassesses the largely neglected contribution of Avicenna (Ibn Sina, 980-1037) to medieval Tajik-Persian astronomy. Drawing on published primary and secondary sources, it reconstructs the main directions of his scientific activity…
For many decades scholars converse how to correctly include the Old Babylonian Empire into the absolute timeline of history. A cuneiform text from the series Enuma Anu Enlil (EAE #20) reports on the destruction of Babylon after a lunar and…
This work deals with the comparison of different parameters (French/IMCCE and US/JPL ephemerides) used to calculate the extension of the umbral shadow and the location of the centre line in the total solar eclipse that took place on March,…
Mathematical and astronomical achievements of the Islamic World during its golden era are briefly exposed. Thie article is based on the invited talk delivered remotely at the ICRANet-Isfahan Astronomical meeting, November 2-5, 2021, which,…
Astronomical observations were used as a marker for time and the Calendar from ancient times. A more subtle calibration of epochs is thrown up by an observation of the position of the solstices and equinoxes, because these points shift in…
The search of a rational explanation of eclipses pervades the beginnings of philosophical and scientific thought. Within this intellectual frame, the knowledge of the "saros cycle" (a cycle of 18 years, 10 or 11 days and 1/3 of a day that…
The recently shown two premises (Gurzadyan 2000), i.e. the absence of 56/64 year Venus cycle constraints, at the importance of the 8-year cycle in the Venus Tablet, stimulated new studies on the Chronology of the Ancient Near East (2nd…
Humans like to party, and New Year celebrations are a great way to do that. However New Years celebrations that rely on an orbital year don't line up with those that use a Lunar Calendar, as there are currently 12.368 synodic months…
The Maya were known for their astronomical proficiency. This is demonstrated in the Mayan codices where ritual practices were related to astronomical events/predictions. Whereas Mayan mathematics were based on a vigesimal system, they used…
The Ancient Egyptians wrote Calendars of Lucky and Unlucky Days that assigned astronomically influenced prognoses for each day of the year. The best preserved of these calendars is the Cairo Calendar (hereafter CC) dated to 1244--1163 B.C.…
We outline the priority of high quality data of astronomical content as our strategy for the analysis of the ancient astronomical records in the search of the absolute chronology of the Near East in II millennium BC. The correspondingly…
This paper examines whether major political institutional disruptions produce temporary shocks or structural breaks in long-term development. Using the 1979 Iranian Revolution as a natural experiment, we apply the synthetic control method…
Ancient mesoamerican cultures built a short ritual 260 day calendar and used it for daily routinary life. Using simple arithmetic calculations it is first shown that by forcing the introduction of the the fundamental number 13 to calculate…