Article ID: CBB054855267

The Bear And The Year: On The Origin Of The Finnish Late Iron Age Folk Calendar And Its Connection To The Bear Cult (2016)

unapi

The role of the bear as a calendric deity among the Finnic and Finno-Ugric peoples echoes it general importance in all aspects of the northern cultures. The Finnic peoples divided their year into four parts by two Bear Days in January and July, and the Summer and Winter Nights between those. In the earliest wooden folk calendars in Finland that can be traced to the 13th century, those calendric marker days had already been fixed into the Julian year, but in earlier times, they would have been determined by a lunisolar or lunar calendar. The calendric system of the late Iron Age Finns and other Finnic peoples was lunisolar with intercalation, and its structure and main marker days indicate that it had several layers of different age: the „Bear Year" seasonal division, the idea of the eight-divided solar year -probably of Indo-European origin-, and a basic lunisolar intercalation calendar with twelve or thirteen months. The Finnish celestial lore related to the bear can also be connected to the seasonal positions of the Big Dipper asterism. While the seasonal calendric significance of the bear in Eurasian cultures is probably very ancient, possibly even Paleolithic, the connection of the Finnic Bear Year seasonal division and lunisolar calendars can be traced at least to the late Neolithic period.

...More
Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB054855267/

Similar Citations

Article César Esteban; Daniel Iborra Pellín; (2016)
Temples Of Astarte Across The Mediterranean (/isis/citation/CBB858090060/)

Article Ridderstad, Marianna; (2014)
The Great Oak: An Annual Calendric and Agricultural Fertility Myth of the Baltic Finns (/isis/citation/CBB743149463/)

Article S. Draxler; M. E. Lippitsch; (2016)
Astronomy In The Medieval Liber Floridus (/isis/citation/CBB397973726/)

Article Aditya Kolachana; Clemency Montelle; Jambugahapitiye Dhammaloka; Keshav Melnad; K Mahesh; Pravesh Vyas; K Ramasubramanian; Ms Sriram; Venketeswara Pai; (2018)
The Candrārkī of Dinakara: A Text Related to Solar and Lunar Tables (/isis/citation/CBB998090341/)

Article Bernard R. Goldstein; José Chabás; (2017)
The Astronomical Tables of Moses Farissol Botarel (/isis/citation/CBB503259499/)

Book Samos, Aristarco de; Commandino, Federico; Massa Esteve, María Rosa; (2007)
Sobre los tamaños y las distancias del sol y la luna (/isis/citation/CBB000930384/)

Article Silva, Fabio; Pimenta, Fernando; (2012)
The Crossover of the Sun and the Moon (/isis/citation/CBB001232488/)

Article J. McKim Malville; (2016)
Animism, Reciprocity And Entanglement (/isis/citation/CBB445937670/)

Article Ruby Ann B. Dela Cruz; Wayne Orchiston; Rose Ann B. Bautista; Princess B. Tucio; Jesus Rodrigo F. Torres; Ryan Manuel D. Guido; (2022)
Mabel Cook Cole's Philippine Folk Tales: an ethnoastronomical analysis (/isis/citation/CBB502441072/)

Article Berggren, J. L.; Sidoli, Nathan; (2007)
Aristarchus's On the Sizes and Distances of the Sun and the Moon: Greek and Arabic Texts (/isis/citation/CBB000771559/)

Book Chambers, John; Mitton, Jacqueline; (2014)
From Dust to Life: The Origin and Evolution of Our Solar System (/isis/citation/CBB001422209/)

Article David Juste; (2023)
The Alfonsine Tables mentioned in 1304 (/isis/citation/CBB714367666/)

Article Swerdlow, Noel M.; (1999)
Regiomontanus's concentric-sphere models for the sun and moon (/isis/citation/CBB000081256/)

Article Kremer, Richard L.; (2003)
Wenzel Faber's Table for Finding True Syzygy (/isis/citation/CBB000470461/)

Article Douglas Scott; (2016)
The Solar Lunar Orientations of the Orkney-Cromarty and Clava Cairns (/isis/citation/CBB787754900/)

Article Lionel Sims; Xabi Otero; (2016)
Praileaitz I: A Magdalenian Lunar-Solar Cave At 15,500 Bp In The Basque Country (/isis/citation/CBB560159056/)

Authors & Contributors
Rose Ann B. Bautista
Kolachana, Aditya
Ryan Manuel D. Guido
Vyas, Pravesh
Sims, Lionel
Gullberg, Steven
Concepts
Sun
Moon
Astronomy
Solar system; planets
Archaeoastronomy
Calendars
Time Periods
Ancient
Medieval
Bronze age
Neolithic period
Iron age
Prehistory
Places
Greece
Middle and Near East
Thailand
Myanmar (Burma)
Mediterranean region
Spain
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment