From: hathaway@stsci.edu
Subject: Days of the Week, revisited 
Organization: Space Telescope Science Institute
Distribution: na
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 21:30:07 GMT

The applicability of this posting to sci.astro is related to the use 
of the planets for time-keeping (one of astronomy's uncontested practical 
uses in this real world).  The cross-post to sci.skeptic is to troll 
for flaws - of which I have _no_ doubt some will find. 


Several months ago there was a discussion of the origins and naming of 
the seven days of the week.  Recently I picked up a book that had some 
interesting ideas on this.  One was how we got the sequence we now use.  
See if any of this makes sense.  

(This was _not_ the reference posted by S. McCluskey in September titled 
_The Seven Day Circle_; I haven't found that one yet - maybe it is similar???) 
The following is all liberally paraphrased from: 
_Seven Days from Sunday_ by Tom Galt, 1956, Thomas Y. Crowell Company, N.Y. 


The author claims the Babylonian astrologers (that word again!) took 
the seven then-known-moving-celestial-objects, (which 'wandered' = 'planets') 
and to make their gig more impressive to the (paying) public, they assigned 
each planet to one of the 24 hours of a day.  (Where the word 'hour' came from 
is a whole 'nother trip - ask if you're interested.)  As an aside, the use of 
24 supposedly developed from the convenient three watches sailors (and others) 
used to break up both the daylight and nighttimes.  Well three per was too 
coarse a breakdown for businessmen to make appointments, etc, so they got 
divided twice, giving 12 per light, 12 per night equals 24 per day.  Then the 
order came from the relative speeds of these puppies.  That is, the slowest 
to quickest:   Saturn Jupiter Mars Sun Venus Mercury Moon 

Since the Sun was most important, they started their counting with him. 
(With the day starting at sunset), each hour had a 'ruler', from whose 
supposed 'influences', they could cast their lucrative fortunes for the rubes. 
Sufficiently complex to wow the crowds, and associative enough to con the 
royalty out of a few coins, but not too difficult to deal with. 

After seven hours, the cycle would repeat, as so: 

 7 p.m. 02 a.m. 09 a.m. Sun   
 8 p.m. 03 a.m. 10 a.m. Venus 
 9 p.m. 04 a.m. 11 a.m. Mercury 
10 p.m. 05 a.m. 12 noon Moon 
11 p.m. 06 a.m.  1 p.m. Saturn 
12 mid  07 a.m.  2 p.m. Jupiter 
01 a.m. 08 a.m.  3 p.m. Mars 
                 4 p.m. Sun 
                 5 p.m. Venus 
                 6 p.m. Mercury 

Well, as we see, 3 X 7 = 21, leaving those 3 more hours left over to repeat.  
So then the next day would start with the next on the list, in this case, 

 7 p.m. 02 a.m. 09 a.m. Moon 
 8 p.m. 03 a.m. 10 a.m. Saturn 
 9 p.m. 04 a.m. 11 a.m. Jupiter 
10 p.m. 05 a.m. 12 noon Mars 
11 p.m. 06 a.m.  1 p.m. Sun 
12 mid  07 a.m.  2 p.m. Venus 
01 a.m. 08 a.m.  3 p.m. Mercury 
                 4 p.m. Moon 
                 5 p.m. Saturn 
                 6 p.m. Jupiter 

Next day would start with Mars, and so on.  After seven days, Sol would return 
to the top. 

This book then claimed that these dudes used the first hour's 'ruler' as the 
name of that day.  As a little reflection will show (write out all 168 hours 
of the week if need be), the first hour of each day (and thereby the name of 
the day itself) will then be: 

nth day  Planet  English   Babylon  Teuton       French 

1st day  Sun     Sunday    Shamash  Sunnundag    Dimanche (Lord's Day) 
2nd day  Moon    Monday    Sin      Monandag     Lundi 
3rd day  Mars    Tuesday   Nergal   Tiesdag      Mardi 
4th day  Jupiter Wednesday Nebo     Wodenesdag   Mercredi 
5th day  Mercury Thursday  Marduk   Thorsdag     Jeudi  
6th day  Venus   Friday    Ishtar   Frigadag     Vendredi 
7th day  Saturn  Saturday  Ninurta  Saeternesdag Samedi (from Latin Sambati 
                                                         - Sabbath) 

Whether this is just a weird coincidence created post event or is a 
legitimate explanation of the development of the order - well I'll 
leave that for you all to fight over.  I just thought it was worth 
sharing.  

Now this ordering system was kept private by the astrologers, so as to 
keep their monopoly, but as the knowledge spread to the west with invasions 
and so on, there came a means for it to spread throughout the world. 

The book goes on to explain that the Mithraists of Rome were astrologically 
quite superstitious so they swallowed the Babylonian scam wholesale and since 
Roman soldiers were mostly of this cult (No Women Allowed!!!), the use 
spread throughout the Empire.  Later when the Christians out-hustled even 
the warriors and spread into other parts of the world, they preferred to 
number the days of the week, rather than push these pagan characters, so some 
other lands use numbers rather than old gods in their language for the days. 
As (according to this book), both the Hebrews and Christians thought this 
polytheism and astrology was superstitious claptrap, nowhere in the 
Bible are these names of the week used, only numbers.  

Any reflections from the astrology bashers on the irony of perpetuating 
an astrological system in our day-to-day calendar?  Have we a close 
connection with other worlds?  Any TGIFers out there?   :-)   

Wm. Hathaway 
Balto MD 


--
Anne Fearnley                                     Dept de math. et de stat.
fearnley@ere.umontreal.ca                         Universite de Montreal
                                                  Montreal, QC
Newsgroups: alt.mythology