I’ve always wondered why our week is 7 days long - an uneven number. Wouldn’t it be easier to have a week that was either 6 or 8 days? I know that it originates from the Bible, but it just seems that having an even number of days would be more streamlined. We could still rest on the last day!
What kind of chaos would it cause if our weeks were shortened or lengthened by one day?
We have three “real” units of time recognizable to sufficiently observant ancients–the day, the month, and the year. A week is an odd number of days, but it is an even division (4) of the lunar month, which is roughly 28 days.
I thought it had something to do with the seven “planets” known to ancient astronomers.
I always assumed it had something to do with the creation story in the Bible where God created certain things on certain days and then rested on the 7th.
I’m sure that order is backwards–the creation story was written to be 7 days because that was a week. (The “Gudea” mentioned in that link was alive in the 2100s BC)
I wonder if it’s also inspired by the fact that the phases of the moon fit fairly naturally into quarters… full moon, half full waning, new moon, half full waxing. The time between each of the above is approximately 1 week.
You need an odd number of days in the week in order to have a legit Hump Day.
And, the week was invented in a part of the world with camels, so it checks out!