Answers to Odd Questions 1

Question: Why are the months divided into 7 days and how long has this been accepted?

The notion that there is seven day week lies with the the notion that each month has 28 days. This was understood by the Egyptians, Babylonians, Assyrians, and most, if not all, of the Ancient Empires. The 28 day month is relient on the phases of the moon, which has 4 distinct phases. The devision of the month into 4 parts made it easy for people to tell what time of the month it is in an age before calendars and clocks. 28 divided by 4 is 7, and hence the week has 7 days. The mathematics of this have been known for thousands of years, and the system did not change until the time of Julius Ceaser when he revolutionised the calendar.

The seven days of the week gain their current names from celestial bodies and Roman Gods, the exceptions being English (which has been bastardised by the Vikings, in this case) and German. In Italian, a close relation to Latin, the names are as follows:
Lunedi - Luna (The Moon)
Martedi - Mars
Mecolerdi - Mercury
Giovidi - Jupiter
Venedi - Venus
Sabatto - The Sabbath (Jews were plentiful in the Roman world).
Domenica - The Day of the Lord (Christian Lord).

This is in contrast to the English names:
Monday - The Moon
Tuesday - Tiw
Wednesday - Woden
Thursday - Thor
Friday - Frig
Saturday - Saturn
Sunday - The Sun

The English names have been affected by Norse Mythology while the Roman influence maintained Saturday and Sunday. Before Christianity in Rome the Seventh day was also named after the Sun. Constantine had it changed at the time of his Conversion.

The 28 days to a month was changed in the time of Julius Ceaser. Up until this time in Rome an extra month had to be added every so often in order to keep the months accurate. Julius added days to all the months bar Febuary (which was the end of the year) to a total of 29 extra days. He did this instead of adding an extra month in order that there would be 3 months to a season and 6 months to half a year. 13 is such an icky number.