Dates In History

[Mrs.Sippy]

We use AD and BC when referring to a year either before or after the birth of Christ but what did they use before he was born?

[jake-the-peg]

It depends on the culture and where you were.

The Jewish calender I'd say in that part of the world

It's 5773 now by that

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_calendar

[jno]

the Mayan long count began about 3000 BC and is still going, though one cycle of it ends in a couple of days

[Hopkirk]

You are so behind the times.

You should now be saying CE and BCE

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/8787311/BBC-drops-Anno-Domini-and-Before-Christ-to-avoid-offending-non-Christians.html

At least that is until the Department for Useless Changes comes up with the next idea.

[jno]

Hopkirk, you can go on saying "2012 in the Year of Our Lord" if you wish.

[bert_h]

The Romans counted their years from the foundation of Rome in what to us is now 753 BC, calling them AUC = "ab urbe condita". So Julius Caesar landed in Britain in the year 698 AUC.

[FredPuli43]

Christianity advanced fastest when the Roman Empire took it up, so "we" were using AUC (ab urbe condita; 'from the founding of the City (of Rome)) in Western Europe until then. That date was the traditional date of the founding, what we later called 753 BC.

[Old_Geezer]

I have always thought they missed a trick with CE and BCE. Since the terms have changed there was no imperative to keep them the same as BC and AD. We could have added the missing year zero simply by pushing the BC ones drop a year.

[FredPuli43]

Can't see that BCE is much of an improvement on BC. Before what era? Oh yes, the Christian one. Well, that failing to mention Christ and using Christian makes all the difference. It also assumes that the 'era' was Christian. "Before the modern era" would have served as as neutral a version as any.

And why is BC in English but AD in Latin?.

[Old_Geezer]

Maybe because BC isn't English.

[Mosaic]

OG -'before Christ?'
Have I misunderstood for all these years?

[FredPuli43]

If BC is Latin then what Latin word is the B ?If not Latin or English,what language is it?

[Wharton]

AD could mean 'after death', which puts everything 33 years out?

[Old_Geezer]

You may be right. I am not a Latin scholar, having never been taught it, but I'm certain I was told a Latin phrase with the same initials in my childhood. Now forced to try to look it up I'm finding nothing, which is very perplexing. I should have made a note and kept it at the time :-(

I guess it just became changed over the years. Maybe it stands for Before Christo/Christum/Whatever ;-)

[jno]

I think AC used to be ante Christum or something. It's still avant Christ in French, isn't it?

[atalanta]

The Romans used to refer to years by the names of the two consuls who were in office in each year. They kept lists of which men served as consuls. Romans were very confusing about dates - they used the terms "Ides", "Nones" and "Kalends", and counted the days backwards and inclusively before each of those days of the months. And if they used weeks at all, they were weeks of eight days, not seven.
In most other cultures, people referred to years as the "fifteenth . . (or whatever ).. of the reign of pharaoh X or king Y or emperor Z"
So you can imagine what a headache dates must be for historians of ancient times.

[heathfield]

Many archeological and geological references these days don't use CE or BCE. Instead they use BP, standing for "Before Present". This term isn't used for specific dates, but tends to be used when referring to, e.g., "Radio-carbon dating revealed the remains to be from 15,000 to 17,000 BP."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Before_Present

[boxtops]

that makes sense, Heathfield, so it's so many thousand years ago, rather than 2000 BC which means we have to add 2000 + 2012 to find out the timescale.

[chakka35]

What 'missing year', Old Geezer? I know of none.