Interestingly, that site (which I think I’ve looked at before) says that there is no good answer at all to the reason behind the seven days in a week, and it says that the planets-assigned-to-hours explanation of their names may be just a coincidence!
…and as somebody else else (Jommo Mojo) has pointed out, the Moon seen against the stars is more like 28 days.
Curious…any evidence to back this up? It seems more likely that the first calendars were developed to support agriculture and/or religion (e.g., Stonehenge, Newgrange, etc.). The night sky offers a reliable way to track time from year to year…thus, the lunar cycle probably developing into the calendrical months (plus the ancient Babylonian(?) belief that 12 was another magical number). Menstrual cycles are approximately the same time period (no pun intended) as the lunar cycle (Cecil talks about this) but I have a hard time seeing a calendar built on that to support a society given that the women would not be 'n-sync.
And when was this?
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*Originally posted by CalMeacham *
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But I thought you were talking about the moon phases there, which are not sidereal.
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*Originally posted by Phobos *
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Probably sometime before they changed the name to the “menstrual” cycle, since that is named after the moon apparently.
I intended to preview, but I didn’t. I apologize.