An Ancient Forerunner
The runic inscriptions of the Franks Casket (7th century) seem to constitute a lunisolar calendar. While the number of runes can be seen as a 10 year solar calendar (10 for eternal), their runic value stands for the lunar counterpart. Both calendars seem to be “synchronized” by a Latin fragment which is inserted into the Anglo-Saxon text. It consists of 20 letters (12 uncials, 2 half uncials, 6 runes), thus creating a sequence of ordinary years of 12 months and embolismic years of 13 months. If we figure the value of this text by the position of the characters according to the fuþorc we count 238. A Metonic cycle of 19 years counts 235 lunations; in this particular case the rune master needed 3 more lunations to take his protégé from death in Midwinter to life - here a pagan resurrection into Valhalla - at Easter.
Read more about this topic: Runic Calendar
Famous quotes containing the word ancient:
“In my Pantheon, Pan still reigns in his pristine glory, with his ruddy face, his flowing beard, and his shaggy body, his pipe and his crook, his nymph Echo, and his chosen daughter Iambe; for the great god Pan is not dead, as was rumored. No god ever dies. Perhaps of all the gods of New England and of ancient Greece, I am most constant at his shrine.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)