Julian period

▪ chronology

      chronological system now used chiefly by astronomers and based on the consecutive numbering of days from Jan. 1, 4713 BC. Not to be confused with the Julian calendar, the Julian period was proposed by the scholar Joseph Justus Scaliger (Scaliger, Joseph Justus) in 1583 and named by him for his father, Julius Caesar Scaliger. Joseph Scaliger proposed a period of 7,980 years of numbered days to be used in determining time elapsed between various historical events otherwise recorded only in different chronologies, eras, or calendars. The length of 7,980 years was chosen as the product of 28 times 19 times 15; these, respectively, are the numbers of years in the so-called solar cycle of the Julian calendar in which dates recur on the same days of the week; the lunar or Metonic cycle, after which the phases of the Moon recur on a particular day in the solar year, or year of the seasons; and the cycle of indiction, originally a schedule of periodic taxes or government requisitions in ancient Rome. The epoch, or starting point, of 4713 BC was chosen as the nearest past year in which the three cycles began together.

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