why the B.C. ?

originally posted by: fotsyfots
How were dates recorded before there was a B.C. I guess is what my question boils down to ?
Flame away if you must

This being your real question, the answer is that all cultures had their own way of measuring dates, often in terms of the reigns of kings.
"Chronology" is the task of gathering these different systems together and correlating them with each other and with the later records, in order to be able to "translate" them into B.C. dates.

So if Assyrian history records an invasion of Egypt, and Egyptian history records being invaded by Assyria, that gives historians a way of correlating the Egyptian and Assyrian dating systems. If we know from the accumulation of records that this happened X number of years before Caesar was assassinated, then that makes it possible to establish a B.C. date for the invasion- and also B.C. dates for other events in both Assyrian and Egyptian history. This is a fictional example, but it illustrates how the process has worked.

This process still leaves room for lots af argument, especially in the field of Egyptian history.

a reply to: DISRAELI

Egyptians considered south to be "up."
Clearly they were wrong.

originally posted by: Phage
Sort of like why north is "up."

I find that idea particularly irritating when it clashes with the realities of geography.
In recent years, there was a travelogue on TV about someone's journey "down the Rhine". In fact he was travelling from the mouth as far as Switzerland, which is certainly southwards, but "upriver" to anyone who moves about in the physical world.

a reply to: Phage
See my previous reply. Evidently they were thinking in terms of "upriver".

Also I've noticed a traditional tendency for people to describe a location away from their present location as "up". For example Londoners talk about "up north", and northerners talk about "going up to London".
Howewver, this does get reversed- traditonally, a student expelled from Oxford University was "sent down".

a reply to: DISRAELI

Here we do mauka/makai. Toward the mountains or toward the ocean. Works well on an island. I know where north is but I can get confused if I don't know where the ocean is.

But it accentuates the point that as a wider "audience" is involved, a more universal standard becomes necessary.

It's a point of reference. Like it or not, that's the way it is.

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: DISRAELI

Egyptians considered south to be "up."
Clearly they were wrong.

Must have been during Pole Flip.

a reply to: ViXxeN

The only difference between the two would be that they removed God from the name.

originally posted by: Sookiechacha

originally posted by: PhilbertDezineck
a reply to: ViXxeN
What caused the change from Before to the now common era?

Caesar happened. BC and BCE era should really be referring to the Caesarian era...not Before Christ or Common Era. But, I digress.

Nope. Caesar is 100 years before that, or ~50 if you use his death. So that is most certainly not what happened.

a reply to: OccamsRazor04

It's influence in inextricable.

The Julian calendar is important to historians because it was used worldwide for over 16 centuries, and in various parts of the world for another three centuries after that. And it's important to genealogists because it was used to record events in many countries as recently as the early 1900s. For these reasons, it's necessary to understand the Julian calendar and to know when and how the conversion to our current Gregorian calendar was done.

Julius's calendar is as follows:

Ianuarius -- 31 days
Februarius -- 29 days (30 days in leap year)
Martius -- 31 days
Aprilis -- 30 days
Maius -- 31 days
Iunius -- 30 days
Quintilis -- 31 days
Sextilis -- 30 days
September -- 31 days
October -- 30 days
November -- 31 days
December -- 30 days

Calendar of Julius Caesar

stevemorse.org...

a reply to: Sookiechacha

And none of that backs up what you said in your earlier post, so I have no idea why you posted it.

a reply to: OccamsRazor04

Sorry that it's so hard for you to follow conversations.

Caesar did happen, and the Cesarean era saw the development of the Julian Calendar, that was used for over 1600 centuries, and on which the Gregorian Calendar is truly based.

a reply to: Sookiechacha

That could all be true, and it has nothing to do with BC and AD being chosen because of Cesar.

The Julian Calendar is merely a revision of the Roman Calendar that came before it .. so in the end you are just wrong on every front.

a reply to: OccamsRazor04

I never said that it did. Try reading, instead of reading into.

originally posted by: PhilbertDezineck
a reply to: ViXxeN
What caused the change from Before to the now common era?



Caesar happened. BC and BCE era should really be referring to the Caesarian era...not Before Christ or Common Era. But, I digress.

I made no claims. I quipped an opinion, that BC should stand for before Caesar, in my opinion, not before the common era and certainly not before Christ, since Jesus was supposedly born around 6AD anyway, and since the Gregorian Calendar was based on the Julian Calendar.

(...really, you don't want to get me started on the whole Julius Caesar vs Jesus Christ thing...
If that is what you're hoping for)

a reply to: Sookiechacha

In the English language your post is stating a fact. You are welcome to your opinion.

a reply to: OccamsRazor04

Caesar happened. That's a fact. Julius Caesar's Julian calendar is the basis of the Gregorian Calendar, which wasn't even developed until the late 1600's. That's a fact. The idea that BCE should stand for before Caesar or before the the Caesarean era, instead of before Christ is an opinion.

a reply to: Sookiechacha

What you think they should have based it on is opinion. What they did base it on is fact.

a reply to: fotsyfots

The old calendars had an"i" before number,which suddenly became a 1,way to add a 1000 yrs to history? very confusing if you use actual facts there is much more to real history we haven't scratched surface

a reply to: OccamsRazor04

WoW. It took you a long time to grok that! Congratulations!

In fact the BC, before Christ, was very controversial as a global standard, especially among predominately non-Christian countries, like China. That's why it was changed to BCE, before the common ere.

All this AD, BC, BCE.

AC/DC

Was better..