A Hearth Library collection
Keeping Time
How people named the months and days, fixed the year and kept a diary
Calendars are agreements about time, and people have argued over them for more than two thousand years. Farmers' days and months, the reform of Julius Caesar, the Maya count of days, the switch to the Gregorian calendar in Britain, Japan and Russia, and the French Republic's new months, in the words of the people who made them. With diaries dated day by day, and how people counted on knotted cords and their fingers. A companion to the Keeping Time games on Hearth Games.
Teach this collection
Classroom units on Hearth Learning. Each asks one big question and gathers its sources, teacher notes, a worksheet for each source and a download for your LMS.
- Unit 1Naming the monthsWhy are the months and days called what they are, and who decided?2 sources
- Unit 2Fixing the yearHow did people make the calendar keep in step with the seasons?2 sources
- Unit 3Living by the calendarHow did the calendar shape people's work and daily lives?2 sources
Games
- Knot Count Read and tie numbers in khipu knots.
Sources
Dialogue
Where the months got their names
Macrobius, early fifth century CE; the dialogue is set in the 380s, Rome
LatinChecked
Calendars and keeping timeWords and namesGreek and Roman gods
Manual
What to do on the farm each month
Tusser, 1580 edition; first printed, as a hundred points, in 1557, Cattiwade, Suffolk
Early Modern EnglishChecked
Food, farming and hungerCalendars and keeping timePoetry
Treatise
How the Romans fixed the year
Censorinus, 238 CE, Rome
LatinChecked
Calendars and keeping timeWords and namesGreek and Roman gods
Diary
A diary for every day of the year
Pepys, January 1660 to June 1669, written day by day, London
Early Modern EnglishChecked
Calendars and keeping timeFood, farming and hungerWork and wages
No sources match all of these filters.