time

Time

The gorean time system is a bit different then what earth uses but in ways similar. There is 12 months in the gorean year but only 25 days per month, weeks are divided into 5 days per week and 5 weeks per month, or that is in most cities, plus another week called a Passage Hand between each month and one more between each year so technically they end up with 365 days a year as well as Earth.

Time is measured a bit differently as well. Not by electricity as on Earth but by beautifully carved sundials, moondials, intricately designed waterclocks or oil clocks and sand glasses to mark the passing of time.

An interesting note, gorean time pieces or clock move in a counter clockwise direction where the Earth clocks move in a clockwise direction.

That night, when our repast had been finished, and a clothed, bangled slave woman, the property of Farouk, had rinsed our right hands with verminium water, poured over our hand, into a small, swallowbowl of beaten copper, I drew forth from my robes a small, flat, closed Gorean chronometer. It was squarish. I placed it in the hands of the boy, Achmed. He opened it. He observed the tiny hands, moving. There are twenty hours, or Ahn, in the Gorean day. The hands of the Gorean chronometers do not move as the hands of the clocks of the Earth. They turn in the opposite direction. In that sense, they move counterclockwise. This chronometer, tooled in Ar, was a fine one, sturdy, exact. It contained, too, a sweeping Ihn hand, with which the tiny Ihn could be measured. The boy watched the hands. Such instruments were rare in the Tahari region. He looked at me.

Tribesman of Gor page 61

"Chronometers exist on Gor, but they are rare and valuable. Marcus and I did not have any, of intent, at the time, among our belongings. They would not have seemed to fit in well with our guise as auxiliary guardsmen. In many cities, of course, including Ar, time tends to be kept publicly. Official clocks are adjusted, of course, according to the announcements of scribes, in virtue of various astronomical measurements, having to do with the movements of the sun and stars. The calendar, and adjustments in it, are also results of their researches, promulgated by civil authorities. The average Gorean has variety of simple devices at his disposal for making the passage of time. Typical among them are marked, or calibrated, candles, sun dials, sand glasses, clepsydras, and oil clocks."
Magicians of Gor, pg 358

**Time Equivalents**
ihn =	second (80 in an ehn or roughly a minute)
ehn =	minute (40 in an ahn or roughly hour)
ahn =	hour (20 in a day)
10th ahn =	noon
20th ahn =	midnight

**Calendar**
5 days in a week
5 weeks in a month (weeks are called hands)
12 months in a year
plus one extra week between each month (called Passage Hand)
an additional week that separates years (called Waiting Hand)

A nicely detailed Calendar

"There are twelve twenty-five day Gorean months, incidentally, in most of the calendars of the various cities. Each month, containing five five-day weeks is separated by a five-day period, called the Passage Hand, from every other month, there being one exception to this, which is that the last month of the year is separated from the first month of the year, which begins with the Vernal Equinox, not only by a Passage Hand, but by another five day period called the Waiting Hand."
Assassin of Gor, page 78

"Month names differ, unfortunately, from city to city, but, among the civilized cities, there are four months, associated with the equinoxes and solstices, and the great fairs at the Sadar, which do have common names, the months of En'Kara or En'Kara-Lar-Torvis; En'var or En'Var-Lar_Torvis; Se’Kara or Se’Kara-Lar-Torvis; and Se’Var or Se’Var-Lar-Torvis.”
Assassin of Gor pg 78-79

"It was past the fourteenth Gorean Ahn, or hour, the Gorean Day is divided into twenty Ahn, which are numbered consecutively, the tenth Ahn is noon, the twentieth, midnight. Each Ahn consists of 40 Ehn, or minutes, and each Ehn of eighty Ihn, or seconds."
Outlaw of Gor, page 26

There is also a system of latitude and longitude figured on the basis of the Gorean day, calculated in Ahn, twenty of which constitute a Gorean day, and Ehn and Ihn, which are subdivisions of the Ahn, or Gorean hour. Ta-Sardar-Var is a direction which appears on all Gorean maps; Ta-Sardar-Ki-Var, of course, never appears on a map, since it would be any direction which is not Ta-Sardar-Var. Accordingly, the main divisions of the map are Ta-Sardar-Var, and the other seven; taking the Sardar as our "north pole" the other directions, clockwise as Earth clocks move (Gorean clock hands move in the opposite direction)
Nomads of Gor (footnotes) pages 3-4

**Dates to Note**
Vernal Equinox	first day of the new year in most Gorean Cities
Month of the Vernal Equinox	En'Kara-Lar-Torvis (which means The First Turning of the Central Fire or also called En'Kara or The First Kara) first month of the year
Summer Solstice	En'Var-Lar-Toris (The First Resting of the Central Fire or En'Var) 4th month of the year
Month of the Autumn Equinox	Se'Kara-Lar-Torvis (Se'Kara, The Second Kara or The Second Turning) 7th month of the year
Winter Solstice	Se'Var-Lar-Toris (Second Resting of the Central Fire or Se'Var) 11th month of the year

Gorean Holidays, Events and Fairs

but on the Vernal Equinox, which marks the first day of the new year in most Gorean cities"
Assassin of Gor page 78

publically sold during the ninth passage hand, that preceding the winter solstice.
Assassin of Gor, page 192

"It was now the month of the vernal equinox on Gor, called En'Kara, or The First Kara. The full
expression is En'Kara-Lar-Torvis, which means, rather literally, The First Turning of the Central Fire. Lar-Torvis is a Gorean expression for the sun. More commonly, though never in the context of time, the sun is referred to as Tor-Tu-Gor, or Light Upon the Home Stone. The month of the autumnal equinox is called fully Se'Kara-Lar-Torvis, but usually simply, Se'Kara, The Second Kara, or The Second Turning. As might be expected, there are related expressions for the months of the solstices, En'Var- Lar-Torvis and Se'Var-Lar-Torvis, or, again rather literally, the First Resting and the Second Resting of the Central Fire. These, however, like the other expressions, usually occur in speech only as En'Var and Se'Var, or The First Resting and The Second Resting."
Outlaw of Gor, page 178

"He did so late in the spring, on the sixteenth day of the third month, that month which in Ar is called Camerius, in Ko-ro-ba Selnar."
Assassin of Gor pages 234-235

for the Wagon Peoples calculate the year from the Season of Snows to the Season of Snows; Turians, incidentally, figure the year from summer solstice to summer solstice; Goreans generally, on the other hand, figure the year from vernal equinox to vernal equinox."
Nomads of Gor, page 11

"Chronology…is the despair of scholars on Gor, for each city keeps track of time by virtue of its own Administrator Lists; for example, a year is referred to as the Second Year when so-and-so was Administrator of the city."
Outlaw of Gor Page 178

"There are, however, some factors which tend to reduce the hopelessness of the situation. One is the fairs at the Sardar Mountains, which occur four times a year and are numbered chronologically. The other is that sometimes cities are willing to add, in their records, beside their own dating, the dating of Ar, which is Gor’s greatest city. Chronology in Ar is figured…not from its Administrator Lists, but from its mythical founding by the first man on Gor, a hero whom the Priest-Kings are said to have formed from the mud of the earth and the blood of tarns. Time is reckoned ‘Contasta Ar’, or ‘from the founding of Ar’. The current year, according to the calendar of Ar…is 10,117."
Outlaw of Gor Page 179

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