Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Western Semitic Calendar


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   delete. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ( talk ) 00:38, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Western Semitic Calendar

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So far as I can discover, this is simply WP:OR and there is no recognised 'Western Semitic Calendar'. Ghits seem to come from this article (including its old spelling of 'calender'). dougweller (talk) 22:01, 7 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete per nom. 0 hits on gscholar, 112 on Google. carl bunderson (talk) (contributions) 22:07, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete: What is this "European Common Law" that doesn't have an article of its own or anything much in Google yet which changed in 1996 in some undefined way? Why does the concept of a year and a day require a special lunar calendar at all? Could this all be complete bollocks? Absent even the slightest indication to suggest otherwise, I think we can safely dispose of this as a hoax or a complete misunderstanding. --DanielRigal (talk) 22:11, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Before the Romans the English once used a lunarsolar calender. Many of the sentences in English law still refer to the term of a year and a day. There is a provision that if you injure a man and he lives for a year and a day then you aren't guilty of murder. Just such a case occured recently when one man struck another with his car and the victim lived for another 18 months. Because the English are influential their precedants and case law have become a part of the "European Common Law"


 * Delete I suspect a misunderstanding is more likely than a hoax, judging from the creator's comments at Talk:Babylonian calendar, but there does not appear to be any independent evidence that the term "Western Semitic Calendar" has been used for anything outside of this one article. Anaxial (talk) 22:22, 7 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep This is one of a category of calenders with 13 months and a year and a day.


 * "The Positivist calendar was a calendar reform proposal by Auguste Comte in 1849. After revising the earlier work of Marco Mastrofini, Comte's proposed calendar was a solar calendar which had 13 months of 28 days, and an additional festival day commemorating the dead, totalling 365 days."


 * "The International Fixed Calendar (also known as the International Perpetual calendar, the Cotsworth plan, the Eastman plan, the 13 Month calendar or the Equal Month calendar) is a proposal for calendar reform providing for a year of 13 months of 28 days each, with one day at the end of each year belonging to no month or week. Though it was never officially adopted in any country, it was the official calendar of the Eastman Kodak Company from 1928 to 1989.[1]...The calendar year has 13 months each with 28 days plus an extra day at the end of the year not belonging to any month. Each year coincides with the corresponding Gregorian year (and so is a solar calendar)."


 * "The Lunar_calendaris another Wikipedia site with essentially the same info. In England, a calendar of thirteen months of 28 days each, plus one extra day, known as 'a year and a day' was still in use up to Tudor times. This would be a hybrid calendar that had substituted regular weeks of seven days for actual quarter-lunations, so that one month had exactly four weeks, regardless of the actual moon phase. The 'lunar year' is here considered to have 364 days, resulting in a solar year of 'a year and a day'."

Rktect (talk) 12:47, 7 February 2009 (UTC)


 * You need to be able to prove that this particular calendar exists and that it is known by this name. If you can do that then it can probably be kept. --DanielRigal (talk) 22:52, 7 February 2009 (UTC)


 * [[Image:western semitic calender.jpg|thumb|400px|]] Its what is sometimes referred to as the Enoch calendar. Western Semitic refers to the area in which it was anciently used which includes, Egypt, Canaan, Ugarit and Crete. This disk from Ashurbanipals palace and the Phaistos Disk are what I originally had in mind. In the image below there are 14 castelated crenations around the edge, Months with four holes to peg weeks in a month. In the inner circle you have 52 holes to peg weeks in a year. A year and a day matches the solar cycle and a month and a day matches the lunar cycle.

American mathematical monthly Enoch calendar Enoch's age of 365 years in Genesis relates to the Egyptian Sothic Cycle of 1,461 years. Other scriptures such as Hebrews 11:5 in the New Testament also mention Enoch. Extra reading in some very old Jewish writings, namely the three books of Enoch, specify that Enoch assigned 364 days to the calendar year. The Enochian Calendar had 52 even weeks of seven days each, with one day remaining. Traditional Jewish use of the seven-day week is upheld by 52 even weeks. Seven Sabbatic years may have been included to follow the Jubilee pattern. Seven days and the composite seven years maintain the Sabbath order. The last day of the solar calendar year was set apart and added up over several years. The Enochian Sect was the group of followers that recognized this idea of cascaded time measurement. Putting this whole picture together, the ancients were using numerical matching of days versus years to measure the same thing, time. The Enochian Calendar closely resembles the ancient Egyptian Calendar. Essentially the lunarsolar calendars are the same as the one that was in use in the British Isles and still remains on the books. The article you were talking about deleting is used to illustrate the principle for a law review. Rktect (talk) 01:58, 8 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Comment: Nobody is disputing the existence of lunar calendars. The question is whether this is a separate calendar type to the Enoch calendar and whether it really is known as the "Western Semitic Calendar". This is what needs to be proved. Neither of the links above even mention the word "Semitic", so I am afraid that we are going to need something more substantial than this. --DanielRigal (talk) 02:06, 8 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Its a separate calender type in that its ancient. The term western semitic is a modern term for an area defined by language, ie; the region inhabited by speakers of western semitic languages. The links above refer to the modern calenders which appear to be an independent invention although the pre-roman usage that made its way into "European Common Law" isn't. What I have read about it suggests that it was supressed by the church as pagan and is thus now embraced by people interested in druids, wicca, and other "unreliable" albeit very artistic sources. Tracking it back to its uncluttered roots it comes from the Book of Enoch as a reference to a calender of 364 days. Modern semitic calenders remain lunar but not lunarsolar, although some of the holidays might be questionable.


 * In using the title "Western Semitic" to refer to the use of lunarsolar calendars in an area of use rather than any one particular calendar I'm assuming familarity with the term West Semitic as in "West Semitic languages", "The West Semitic languages are a proposed major sub-grouping of Semitic languages. One widely accepted analysis, supported by semiticists like Robert Hetzron and John Huehnergard, divides the Semitic language family into two branches: Eastern and Western. The former consists of the extinct Eblaite and Akkadian languages, the latter of the majority of Semitic languages. It consists of the clearly defined sub-groups: Ethiopic, South Arabian, Arabic and Northwest Semitic (this including Hebrew, Aramaic and Ugaritic)." Would more references to that usage help?Rktect (talk) 02:30, 8 February 2009 (UTC)


 * The term "Western Semitic" is not problematic in itself. The question is whether it should be part of the name of this type of calendar. What we need to know is what other people call this calendar. If they call it the "Western Semitic Calendar" then that is fine. If they call it something else then the article has the wrong name. That would be easy enough to remedy. However, if it turns out that this is just the same calendar as the Enoch calendar then there is no reason to have two articles on the same subject. It seems that this is the case. --DanielRigal (talk) 02:57, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Its a grouping of ancient lunarsolar calenders which would include the Enoch calender, the Calandar of Ashurbanipal, the Phaistos Disk Calender and the concept of which traces are found in many other calendars I don't have enough references on to cite (the above referenced Egyptian usage is not mentioned in Gardiner for example) If I think of it the way I do categories of architecture, its like the difference between Greek revival and Italianate. Both are houses but there is a different approach to its plan, proportion, and style. Defining it as any bronze age lunarsolar calendar in the ANE that sets up a system of repeated periods that can be made to agree with the period of an astronomical object by adding a day would be the most general way I can think of to phrase it. That would include the Antikara mechanism and other methods of timekeeping I expect. Its best visual definition is probably the Ashurbanipal Calendar. The Phaistos Disk calender has 13 months on one side, broken up into all of the factors of 364, and one month on the other side broken up into weeks and epagonominal days. I think there is a section now unicoded to discuss it because its got so many additional periods. The essence of the system is 13 months of 28 days = 364 days to which you add a long day to equate it to a solar year. obviously that can be tweaked to make the day sidereal or solar. A month is 28 days or four weeks to which a day is added to match the moons cycle in the same fashion as a day is added to match the son's cycle. The Egyptians had something similar but different in that they had a calender of 360 days to which they added 5 epagonominal days.Rktect (talk) 13:32, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I think you're missing the point. In which book, journal, or other reliable source is the term "Western Semitic Calendar" used to refer to this type of calendar? Anaxial (talk) 13:46, 8 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete The other calendars mentioned are sourced, this has none and appears full of original research about common law, the Phaistos disk, and playing cards. Edward321 (talk) 00:32, 8 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete - per above, especially the points about original research. As a side note to DanielRigal, I think the 1996 date refers to this: Law Reform (Year and a Day Rule) Act 1996.  ClovisPt (talk) 00:50, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I am sure that you are right but as the act is an amendment only to English Common Law it in no way supports the concept of a European Common Law. That said, I am amused by the idea that laws passed in the UK Parliament could bind the whole of Europe. If that were the case, I am sure that many of my countrymen would be far more enthusiastic about the EU. ;-) --DanielRigal (talk) 01:20, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete. It is unclear to me what this article is talking about. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 08:11, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete - Unable to fix usage of term "in the wild" through Google. Only results are the article itself and from websites incorporating WP content. --Cybercobra (talk) 10:27, 8 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete -- Personal hypothetical speculation departing from the Enoch calendar and a Mesopotamian (i.e. Eastern Semitic) depiction of a city or fortress with thirteen towers on its walls to derive an unsupported conclusion.  The most common calendar among speakers of western Semitic languages was actually lunisolar, and the expression "a year and a day" seems to come from European folklore.   AnonMoos (talk) 14:49, 8 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete as WP:CB, basically. SamuelTheGhost (talk) 16:08, 8 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete — Rktect invented the term Western Semitic Calendar as it does not appear in the literature. A year and a day is a term from criminal and property law for a period of time longer than a Julian or Gregorian calendar year—it is unrelated to 13x28 calendars. All 13x28 calendars are modern inventions. Even the idea that ancient Celts, Druids, and medieval English used a 13x28 calendar was fabricated by Robert Graves in The White Goddess (1948)—see Celtic tree calendar in Jones' Celtic Encyclopedia. The calendars in the books of Enoch and Jubilees and used by the Essenes are not 13x28 calendars. They had eight 30-day months and four 31-day months totalling 364 days to which an extra day was NOT added. — Joe Kress (talk) 19:50, 8 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete. Complete nonsense. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:50, 9 February 2009 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.