In the Dark, Before Time Began Online Quiz

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. Although we don't know how they classified years, the Roman Kingdom calendar consisted of 10 months, from Martius to Decembrius, with an unassigned 51 days of winter. After changing each month to either 29 or 31 days (as odd numbers were lucky), King Numa Pompilius created two new months with the extra 57 days - Ianuarius and Februarius. Aside from a 12 month calendar, what long-term effect on the modern calendar do we know this left?

Answer: February has 28 days

Ianuarius (or January) was given a lucky 29 days, while poor February was left with an unlucky 28, considered a purification month before the new year began. At that point in history, March 1 always began the year, and although at some point before the Julian calendar became commonplace the year did officially begin on January 1, historians cannot confirm that Numa Pompilius initiated it.

Since the year had 355 days, the Romans had to occasionally include a leap month. Known as Mensis Intercalaris, Mercedonius, or Mercedinus, when it was enacted it came after the first 23 days of February (making it a lucky month) and inserted 22 extra days into the calendar as well as adding on the last 5 days of February to make it a 27-day month. The Pontifex Maximus (high priest of Rome) determined when the month would be included, which usually ended up being every other year. Since it added up to more than 365 days per year on average, this was not always the case.

2. The Roman Republic did not refer to years as simple numbers like the modern world. Instead, they referred to a year as the year of the two consuls of Rome during that period. Knowing this, the Republic would have referred to 46 BCE, the year before the Julian calendar was introduced, as what?

Answer: The year of the consulship of Gaius Julius Caesar and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus

Years were in no way constant during the Roman Republic, as the beginning of the year shifted to at least eight different dates, March 15, the first of Quintilis and Sextilis (later July and August, after Julius and Augustus Caesar), and for around the last 100 years of the Republic on January 1.

There is a notion that Romans used a yearly numbering system called "ab urbe condita" (AUC), or "from the founding of the City." However, it was mostly used by historians much later on to give a sense of Roman history.

3. Instead of the Christian "anno domini" (AD), the Islamic world uses "anno hegirae" (AH), dating back to the Hijra, when Muhammad and his followers migrated from Mecca to Medina in 622 CE. Prior to this, there was no year numbering system, but rather years were named based on the most significant event that happened that year. In 570 CE, surely the most significant event was the birth of Muhammad (although some say he was born in 571), but they did not know that at the time. Instead, Abraha of Yemen attacked Mecca using war elephants, but the animals would not go inside the city. Because of this, what was the year forever known as?

Answer: The Year of the Elephant

Although 622 CE is considered the first year of the Islamic calendar, the calendar did not go into effect until 639 CE. After Muhammad's death in 632 CE, debates began over when the calendar should start - Muhammad's birth, the year of the Hijra, or Muhammad's death. During this 17-year gap, however, years were still being named as based on the previous system.

Therefore, the previous name of 622 CE (or 1 AH) was called "The Permission to Travel." 623 CE (2 AH), in which Muhammad carried out actions against the Quraysh in Mecca and the Banu Salim tribe, was known as "The Year of the Command to Fight." Following the integration of the new Islamic calendar, this naming system was abandoned.

4. The Bulgars, a nomadic people originally from central Asia before settling in the area of modern Bulgaria, developed their calendar based on a 12-year cycle, each named after an animal. During the cycle, the animals were all either male or female, and the cycle itself was named after one of five natural elements, resulting in a 60-year cycle. Although there are differences, what calendar system is this most similar to?

Answer: Chinese calendar

The Bulgar calendar used basically the same animals as the Chinese calendar - eight were exactly the same (Ox, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Monkey, Rooster, and Dog), three were very similar (Mouse to the Chinese Rat; Ram to the Chinese Sheep; and Boar to the Chinese Pig), and one was somewhat different ("Bars" to the Chinese Tiger). Other subtle differences were also present: the Year of the Monkey came before the Year of the Ram, which reverses the order found in the Chinese calendar (just those two years, as the other 10 years are in the same order); the Bulgar cycle starts at the Year of the Swine while the Chinese calendar starts with the Year of the Rat; and the Bulgar New Year's Day always begins the day after the winter solstice, while the Chinese New Year will change.

Additionally, whereas the Bulgar calendar switches male to female animals between years, the Chinese animals are always static - the mouse, dragon, tiger, horse, dog, and monkey are always male while the cow, hen, rabbit, snake, sheep, and pig are always female. Also, while the five elements used to create the 60-year cycle were the same, the Bulgars used a different order (water, fire, earth, tree, and metal) than the Chinese (tree, fire, earth, metal, water). Finally, the Chinese use a leap month to correct their calendars, while the Bulgars used leap days at specific intervals (the first, fourth, and twelfth years of the 12-year cycle; once per 20,160-year period; another leap day per 80,640-year period; yet another leap day per 10,080,000-year period; and a leap day taken away every 1,680 years).

5. For almost the last half of its existence, the Byzantine Empire numbered their own years using the "anno mundi" system, meaning "in the year of the world", which dated back to the supposed creation of Earth using Biblical references. It dated the founding of Rome in 4755 AM and the fall of Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire in 6961 AM. What date did it use for 1 AM?

Answer: September 1, 5509 BCE

The first difficulty in deciding how to determine when the world began according to the Bible is choosing which version of the Bible to use. For the most part, the Greek Septuagint gives a date of roughly 5500 BCE, while the Masoretic text dates it at around 4000 BCE. Most of those attempting to use the anno mundi system focused on the older of the two, and some of the earlier calculations placed creation at 5530 years before Christ (around 5537-5532 BCE). Clement of Alexandria determined in AD 412 (5920 AM) that the world had been created on March 25, 5493 BCE.

In AD 988 (6496 AM), the new calendar became the official dating system for the Byzantine Empire and Russia. After the Byzantines were overthrown in 1453, Russia kept using the Byzantine calendar until 1700.

6. The Coligny calendar has only two known sources, found on tablets in France, and appears to show nearly the entire Gaulish calendar. Although he was there roughly 200 years before the tablets were determined to have been made, Julius Caesar reported on the Gaulish calendar during his military service there, and stated that days were divided into halves. What did he note was peculiar about this division?

Answer: Night was considered to start the day, followed by the light half of the day

The Coligny calendar, as with most lunar calendars, was not as accurate as the Julian calendar going into place in the Roman Empire at roughly the same time (the Coligny calendar was determined to be from around the 2nd century AD). It followed a basic 12-month year, except that it added a leap month every 2.5 years in order to make up for the day lost every 2 months (a lunar month being just over 29.5 days).

The cycle was fairly accurate over a 30-year period, when skipping one leap month put the calendar to accurate within roughly one month per 300 years.

7. After the Julian calendar was found to be faulty, countries began to slowly adopt the Gregorian calendar beginning in the 16th century. In 1700, Sweden decided to gradually scale back to the Gregorian calendar by skipping leap days over the next 40 years, taking off the extra 10 days added by the Julian calendar. In what year did they finally decide to stop using this unique calendar?

Answer: 1712, as it was deemed a failure

In retrospect, Sweden's plan to gradually acclimate itself from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar does not seem like a bad plan. Whereas most countries adopting the new calendar did so in one giant leap of skipping multiple days to become immediately compliant with the new calendar.

In 1700, the plan was initiated, but the Great Northern War kept further changes from taking place for some reason. By 1711, King Charles XII decided the plan was a failure and chose to return to the Julian calendar the following year. Since they had already skipped a leap day, the Swedish February in 1712 consisted of 30 days, an extreme rarity in European calendars.

In 1753, Sweden finally adopted the Gregorian calendar by skipping from February 17 to March 1.

8. The Icelandic calendar held its own unique intricacies, the most noticeable of which was the separation of the 12 months into separate categories of winter and summer months. These groupings were named Skammdegi (winter) and N�ttleysi (summer) - but what do they really mean?

Answer: Short days and nightless days

Put Skammdegi and N�ttleysi into a translator, and they will come out as literally "winter darkness" and "night solvent," but those are not their intended meanings. Skammdegi consists of days from roughly mid-October to mid-April, and contains months with quite inauspicious meanings, such as M�rsugur (fat sucking month) and �orri (frozen snow month). Meanwhile, N�ttleysi takes up the rest of the year and contains S�lm�nu�ur (sun month) and Heyannir (hay business month).

One other odd note is that months in this calendar did not start on a fixed date. Instead of focusing on retaining specific dates at which months would begin, they would instead start on the same weekday every year - ex. �orri would always begin on a Friday, G�a on a Sunday.

9. The ancient Egyptians used two different calendars. The civil calendar was simply 365 days, with no leap days or months added on at any point, while they also followed the Sothic year, which compensated for the year being longer than 365 days. The Sothic year matched the rising of a certain star, seen as the representation of the god Sopdet, which coincided with the start of the Nile flooding season. What star, the brightest in the sky other than the Sun, was this?

Answer: Sirius

The 365-day Egyptian calendar consisted of 12 months of 30 days and 5 extra days added to the end of the calendar. Meanwhile, the Sothic (the Latinized version of the Greek name for Sirius) year followed Sirius very closely, because Egyptians noticed very early on that the rising of the star coincided with the beginning of the flooding season (called Akhet) of the Nile.

The civil calendar therefore did not match certain dates with cosmic events, and only matched the beginning of the year with the Sothic year every 1,460 Julian/Gregorian years.

This became known as the "Sothic cycle," where both Egyptian calendars would begin with the rise of Sothis.

10. Still being used in parts of Central America, the Mayan calendar caused quite a stir in 2012, with some believing it called for the end of the world. In fact, December 21, 2012, was simply the end of the 13th "baktun," part of a (mostly) base-20 counting system, in which it is the fifth unit. How long is one baktun?

Answer: 394 years

The Long Count calendar was used by many pre-Columbian American societies, but the Mayan calendar is easily the most famous. In the calendar, one day is a "k'in," and 20 k'ins make up a winal. Eighteen winals make a tun, in the only derivation from the base-20 system, in order to make 360 days. From there, 20 tuns make one katun; 20 katuns make up one baktun; 20 baktuns make one piktun (7,885 years); 20 piktuns make one kalabtun (157,704 years); 20 kalabtuns make one kinchiltun (3,154,071 years); and 20 kinchiltuns make one alautun (63,081,429 years).

In Mayan terms, December 21, 2012 was really not all that different from September 18, 1618 - the end of the 12th baktun - or June 15, 1224 - the end of the 11th baktun. We will finally reach the first piktun (20 baktuns) on October 13, 4772.

Source: Author illiniman14

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor bloomsby before going online.
Any errors found in FunTrivia content are routinely corrected through our feedback system.

In the Dark, Before Time Began Quiz

Albert Einstein once said, "The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once." This is how we've kept track of time throughout the centuries.

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