MARC Record from harvard_bibliographic_metadata

LEADER: 03518cam a22003854a 4500
001 013340264-9
005 20130905121028.0
008 120319s2012 enk b 001 0 eng
010 $a 2012009575
020 $a9780199589449 (hardback)
020 $a0199589445 (hardback)
035 0 $aocn781432295
040 $aDLC$cDLC$dDLC
042 $apcc
043 $amm-----$aaw-----
050 00 $aCE21$b.S74 2012
082 00 $a529/.309394$223
100 1 $aStern, Sacha.
245 10 $aCalendars in antiquity :$bempires, states, and societies /$cSacha Stern.
260 $aOxford [England] ;$aNew York :$bOxford University Press,$c2012.
300 $avi, 457 p. ;$c24 cm.
504 $aIncludes bibliographical references (p, [431]-453) and index.
505 0 $apt. I: From city states to great empires : the rise of the fixed calendars. Calendars of ancient Greece -- The Babylonian calendar -- The Egyptian calendar -- The rise of the fixed calendars : Persian, Ptolemaic, and Julian calendars -- pt. II: The empires challenged and dissolved : calendar diversity and fragmentation. Fragmentation : Babylonion and Julian calendars in the Near East, third century BCE-seventh century CE -- Dissidence and subversion : Gallic, Jewish, and other lunar calendars in the Roman empire -- Sectarianism and heresy : from Qumran calendars to Christian Easter controversies -- Conclusion.
520 $a"Calendars were at the heart of ancient culture and society, and were far more than just technical, time-keeping devices. Calendars in Antiquity offers a comprehensive study of the calendars of ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, Persia, Greece, Rome, Gaul, and all other parts of the Mediterranean and the Near East, from the origins up to and including Jewish and Christian calendars in late Antiquity. In this volume, Stern sheds light on the political context in which ancient calendars were designed and managed. Set and controlled by political rulers, calendars served as expressions of political power, as mechanisms of social control, and sometimes as assertions of political independence, or even of sub-culture and dissidence. While ancient calendars varied widely, they all shared a common history, evolving on the whole from flexible, lunar calendars to fixed, solar schemes. The Egyptian calendar played an important role in this process, leading most notably to the institution of the Julian calendar in Rome, the forerunner of our modern Gregorian calendar. Stern argues that this common, evolutionary trajectory was not the result of scientific or technical progress. It was rather the result of major political and social changes that transformed the ancient world, with the formation of the great Near Eastern empires and then the Hellenistic and Roman Empires from the first millennium BC to late Antiquity. The institution of standard, fixed calendars served the administrative needs of these great empires but also contributed to their cultural cohesion"--$cPublisher's website.
650 0 $aCalendar$zMediterranean Region$xHistory$yTo 1500.
650 0 $aCalendar$zMiddle East$xHistory$yTo 1500.
650 0 $aCalendar$zMediterranean Region$xPolitical asepcts.
650 0 $aCalendar$zMiddle East$xPolitical aspects.
651 0 $aMediterranean Region$xHistory$yTo 476.
651 0 $aMiddle East$xHistory$yTo 622.
650 0 $aCalendar$xPolitical aspects$zMediterranean Region.
650 0 $aCalendar$xPolitical aspects$zMiddle East.
899 $a415_565478
988 $a20120830
906 $0DLC