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Platinum asked in Social ScienceAnthropology · 8 years ago

How come there is 7 days in a week in all civilization?

In Indian, European, Chinese, Egyptian - all civilization a week consists of 7 days. Even days are also identical (almost). How come it has happened ? Was it like this forever or sometime in history days were aligned to have uniformity all over the world ?

Update:

Thanks to all for the answers.

If Indian culture never had weeks then how come RAVIBAR, SOMEBAR etc come into existance !

Update 2:

Thanks to all for the answers.

If Indian culture never had weeks then how come RAVIBAR, SOMEBAR etc come into existance !

4 Answers

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  • lwhhow
    Lv 7
    8 years ago
    Favorite Answer

    The 7 day 'week' originated in the ancient Near East in Sumer and Babylonia among the 1st/ earliest civilizations so being 1st it had a big influence. It spread to all the Mideast, central Asia, North Africa, Europe. The Babylonians really spread it a lot because they were so big into astronomy/ astrology they knew well of the 28 day month (the time it takes the moon to revolve around the earth), and that 12 such cycles made '1 year' (the time it takes the earth to go around the sun). It seemed good to them to divide each month into smaller units....28 is divisible by 7 =4....It's also divisible by 4=6...or 8=3....We could have had 6 day weeks or 3 day weeks...But they thought 4, 7 day weeks per month best.

    Ancient China and the Far East had for the longest time 10 day weeks as they had calculated the lunar month at 30 days...so 3 weeks per month. But finally gave up and joined everyone else in the 7 day week.

  • ?
    Lv 7
    8 years ago

    Barely 200 years ago the French created the French Republican Calendar with ten days in the week.

  • Lester
    Lv 6
    8 years ago

    The Indian calendar never had a week. We used to follow PAKSHA - a fortnight. Shukla Paksha starts from the next day of Amavasya till Poornima and then till Amavasya it is Krishna Paksha.

  • Nick T
    Lv 7
    8 years ago

    weeks of between four and ten days have been used historically in various places.

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