Mike Andrews, age 10, of Omaho, Neb., for his queston:
Who invented the days of the week?
For countless ages early man was a wanderer over the earth. He was a hunter, following herds of animals for his food. The herds moved with the changing seasons,, wherever the pasture was best. And man noticed the seasons and the passing years. In time he settled down to be a farmer and a shepherd. He had time to watch the night sky and ha saw that the heavens provided him with a calendar to mark the months, the seasons and the years.
The stars provide a calendar for the seasons. Bright Sirius and. the constellation Orion appear at night to adorn the winter sky. The straggly constellation Scorpio appears only on summer nights. Each season has its own pattern of stars in the night sky. And the parade of stars repeats itself once each year. So wherever man settled ho soon learned to count time in yours.
He noticed that the moon also provided a timepiece. It goes through its four phases once in 27 and a third days. The moon, however, confused many of the ancient peoples. They could not fit the lunar month into a neat pattern of days and years, In fact, our own calendar months do not agree with the lunar month,
Not all ancient peoples thought of dividing months into weeks. The early Romans, for instance, simply divided each month into a certain number of days. The Romans, of course, were empire builders. They conquered other peoples and imposed their laws and customs. They also learned from other peoples. They learned some people divided the months into seven‑day weeks. And the Romans adopted the week as their own.
They named Sunday for the sun and Monday for the moon. The other five days were named for the gods of the five known planets. They were Mars the god of war, Mercury the god. of medicine, Jupiter the king of the gods, Venus goddess of love and Saturn, the deposed king of the ancient gods.
The Angle Saxon peoples of Europe liked the Roman plan of seven days in a week. But they did not like the Roman gods or their names. So they renamed the days of the week to honor their own ancient gods, In Anglo Saxon, Sunday and Monday remained sacred to the sun and the moon. They had no god similar to old. Saturn so Saturday remained the same.
Mars, however, was thrown out to honor Tiu, the Norse god of war. His day became Tuesday. Mercury was thrown out to honor Woden, king of the Norse gods. His day is Wednesday. Jupiter was replaced with Thor, Norse god of thunder. His day is Thursday.
The Romans had made one day sacred to a goddess, Venus the goddess of love. The Norsemen, too, had a goddess of love. Shy was Frigga, wife of Woden the king. Her day is Friday. So the names for our days of the week came partly from the Romans and partly from the Anglo Saxon peoples of Europe, who took them from the Norse.