Posted by COJ on March 14, 1999 at 03:51:17 {MWU4XIuTGLAZk}:
March 14, 1999
THE 511 BC DATE, THE DATUM LINE, AND THE METON CYCLE
Hi Gary,
There has been little time for taking a closer
look into your latest posts, but today I have
read your responses to my post of March 11,
where
I criticized your 511 BC alternatives
for lines 3 and 14 of VAT 4956.
I find no reason to change anything in my
criticism. I did not mix up �511 with �510,
nor did I use the wrong time of the day, as
you first thought before
you checked it out.
And you evidently agree with me now that
April 29, 511 BC was the wrong date for
Nisan 9. The right day must have been April
30, as the new moon, and therefore the 1st
of Nisan, appeared in the
evening of
April 22, at the earliest.
After sunset on April 30, 511 BC, the moon
was about 6 deg. (c. 3 cubits) in front of
Beta Virginis, to be compared with the
"1 cubit" mentioned in the text. Applied
to Nisan 8
(error for 9), 568 BC after sunset,
it was only c. 3.5 degrees�-c. 1.7 cubits�-
in front of Beta Virginis, thus much closer
to the "1 cubit" of the text.
THE �"9TH OF NISAN" ERROR:
That Nisan 9 is a copying error for Nisan
8 is confirmed by the text itself. A day
number is not repeated when more than
one observation is recorded for the same
day. But this is exactly what occurs here!
The entry for the 9th is followed by a new
entry,
which oddly enough is also dated
to the 9th:
Line 3:
"Night of the 9th (error for: 8th),
beginning of the night, the moon
stood 1 cubit in front of Beta
Virginis. The 9th, the sun in the
west (was surrounded) by a
halo".
The second "9th" is clearly meant to be a
new date, in harmony with the practice
followed elsewhere in this and in other
texts. This shows that the first "9th" is
an error, evidently for �8th�, as every
translator
of the text has noticed, and
which is also in agreement with the
observation on Nisan 8 (April 29), 568 BC,
after sunset.
Thus there is no need for your alternative
April 30, 511 BC date.
THE JUNE 24, 511 BC DATE IS
IMPOSSIBLE:
Your alternative date for Simanu (Sivan) 5 of
line 14--June 24th, 511 BC--is as impossible as
was your April 29, 511 BC date for line 3. As
I pointed out in my criticism, the new moon
of the 1st of Simanu
in 511 BC appeared in the
evening of May 22, at the earliest. (It should
be noticed that in this period the 1st of each
month was determined by direct observation
of the new moon. As is shown by the tens of
thousands of
dated contracts from the Neo-
Babylonian and early Persian eras, the regular
Meton cycle pattern was not introduced until
in the latter part of the reign of Darius I, or
in about 500 BC).
If the 1st of Simanu (Sivan) fell
on the 22nd
of May, 511 BC, the 5th of Simanu began in the
evening of May 26, as I pointed out. As you
attempt to date the month of Sivan one month
later, you should start with the next new moon,
which appeared in the
evening of June 21, at
the earliest. If this was the 1st of Simanu,
the 5th of Simanu cannot be dated earlier than
the 25th of June. Your June 24th, 511 BC date,
therefore, is an impossible alternative.
THE DATE LINE
PROBLEM:
As I said, it doesn�t help you to move to
Honolulu. None of your alternative dates fit
for that horizon. Your explanation that the
April 30 date changes to April 29 when you
cross the international date line does
not
hold water.
When it was 18.00 a�clock on April 30, 511
BC in Babylon, it was 13.5 hours earlier
in Honolulu, thus 04.30 a.m. on April 30,
not on April 29. You have to move westward
to go to Honolulu, and you don�t
cross the
date line, which is west of Honolulu. If
you move eastward from Babylon, the time
will be later. April 30 at 18.00 in Babylon
will be 23.00 in Manila, and farther east it
will turn to May 1st. But when you
pass the
date line you will be back again to April
30, and at Honolulu it will still be 04.30
on April 30. The eastern time distance
from Babylon to Honolulu is 10.5 hours,
but as you know this is not the direction
the sun moves across the sky, from our
earth-bound viewpoint, at least.
I agree with you that this is complicated
and often seems confusing, and that�s why
you got the date wrong.
THE METON CYCLE:
You seem to
think that, as 235 lunar months
correspond to 19 solar years, the lunar
positions are exactly repeated every 19
years, and thus also after 3x19=57 years
(the distance between 568 BC and 511 BC).
However, the Meton cycle
is not exactly
19 solar years. This is easy to check:
A lunar month is (on the average)
29.53059 days. Thus:
235 x 29.53059 = 6939.6886 days.
A solar year is 365.2422 days. Thus:
19 x 365.2422 = 6939.6018 days.
After
19 years, then, there is a difference
between the Meton cycle and the solar
year of 0.6886-0.6018 = 0.0868 days, or
a little more than 2 hours. After 57 years
this difference has increased to over 6
hours. And, as you
point out, the moon
moves over 3 cubits in 12 hours, which
means that lunar positions will not be quite
the same after 57 years. And when it comes
to lunar eclipses the problem will be much
bigger, as the Metonic cycle
has not very
much to do with eclipses.
Carl