World Renewal Day: The Origins of the Leap Year
Science & Reason: World Renewal Day: The Origins of the Leap Year
The Sun never sets, it is man who moves away from the light”
– Prophet Neb Naba Lamoussa Morodenibig
May the truth come forth into day!
If one honestly examines history as it is presented by the modern system, it will become obvious that the system has mastered the art of obscuring the origin of things. Special care is taken to diligently obfuscate the origin of notions and concepts, especially those that have been co-opted (plagiarized) by the modern system, which now seeks to claim them as their own. The notion of the leap year: the idea of adding one day every four years to keep the calendar in sync with the seasons, is one such example. There are modern scientific explanations for why we add an extra day each four years to keep track of “time”, but the concept of the leap year is one that predates modern science and even what you might call European culture.
The leap year is one we are mostly all familiar with in a practical sense, since the Gregorian calendar, presently used by most nations, uses this system. The year 2016 of the Gregorian calendar was a leap year: an additional day was added to the month of February to give the month a total of 29 days as opposed to its usual 28 days. This additional day also made the year 366 days long as opposed to the usual 365 days. So, why do we add an extra day to the year every four years and what are the origins of this “leap year”?
POLITICAL/RELIGIOUS ORIGINS OF LEAP YEAR
Europeans trace the origin of the leap year back to the introduction of the Julian calendar. Julius Caesar introduced the Julian calendar in 46 BC, two years after he had invaded the Nile Valley (Egypt). It was in Kemet, that Julius Caesar consulted with the scholar and astronomer Sosigenes to reform the old Roman Republican calendar which was plagued with inconsistencies and was out of sync with the seasons. The Roman Republican calendar consisted of 10 months and a total of 304 days, since winter was not counted. Instead of reforming the Roman Republican calendar, Sosigenes re-introduced with some modifications the ancient Egyptian solar calendar of 365 days.
At the suggestion of Sosigenes, he (Julius Caesar) adopted a modification of the 365-day Egyptian solar calendar but with an extra day every fourth year (leap year). (The idea was an old one, as a similar leap-day scheme had been tried in Egypt in the 3rd century bce by Ptolemy III Euergetes, but his subjects had refused to follow it.) 1
This quote is interesting in that it not only states that the Julian calendar is basically a modification of the Egyptian “solar” calendar (Kemetic Sidereal Calendar) but it also admits that the concept of the leap year is an old one that preceded the introduction of the Julian calendar. The quote also implies that the Egyptian “solar” calendar did not include a leap day (leap year) and seems to reference the Ptolemaic period when the Greeks controlled the Nile valley region of Kemet as the earliest occurrence of the leap year. According to the Kemetic temples, this is not true. Some may argue that is as far back as European history goes and the previous quote was based more on a lack of historical knowledge than on a desire to obscure the origins of the leap year. Well, it would seem some European scholars are well aware of the earlier origins of the leap year, as Homann states in his article Sirius & Precession of the Solstice.
Thus the wise Sosigenes, not just re-introduced the ancient Egyptian solar calendar with its well-known four-year leap day cycle, but also accounted for the secular error of one (leap) day every 128.18 solar years. 2
Here we see it being acknowledged that the Kemetic sidereal calendar had a well-known four-year leap day cycle.
It is important to note that the Julian calendar is a modification of this Egyptian “solar” calendar (Kemetic sidereal calendar) since, the Gregorian calendar, the one we presently use, is essentially the same as the Julian calendar except for some minor modifications. We would probably still be using the Julian calendar if it wasn’t for the fact that the Roman Catholic Church noticed that their Easter celebrations were drifting away from the spring equinox. It was at the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE that the rules for the celebration of Easter were laid out. Easter Sunday was to be the first Sunday following the fourteen days after the spring equinox. The problem was rooted in the fact that in 325 CE, the spring equinox occurred around March 21 but in subsequent years it was noticed that the spring equinox had started to drift away from that date. This was an astronomical problem and so even though they noticed this phenomenon the Catholic Church and the rest of Europe did not understand the reason why it was happening and they lacked the knowledge of how to correct it. It wasn’t until 1582 (over a millennium later), that the Gregorian calendar was introduced to resolve this issue and by then, the Julian calendar was off (from the vernal equinox being on March 21) by 10 days. The Gregorian Calendar Reform consisted of the following:
• Ten days were omitted from the calendar: to ensure that the spring equinox would fall on March 21. It was decreed that the day following (Thursday) October 4, 1582 (which is October 5, 1582, in the old calendar) would thenceforth be known as (Friday) October 15, 1582.
• The rule for leap years was changed. In the Julian calendar a year is a leap year if it is divisible by 4. In the Gregorian calendar a year is a leap year if either (i) it is divisible by 4 but not by 100 or (ii) it is divisible by 400. In other words, a year which is divisible by 4 is a leap year unless it is divisible by 100 but not by 400 (in which case it is not a leap year). Thus the years 1600 and 2000 are leap years, but 1700, 1800, 1900 and 2100 are not.
• New rules for the determination of the date of Easter were adopted.
• The position of the extra day in a leap year was moved from the day before February 25th to the day following February 28th.
So really, the only difference between the Julian calendar and the Gregorian calendar is a difference in the rules for the leap year.
The Gregorian calendar differs from the Julian only in that no century year is a leap year unless it is exactly divisible by 400 (e.g., 1600, 2000).3
These rules result in three less leap days being added per 400 years with the Gregorian calendar versus the Julian calendar. The fact that the Gregorian calendar has been able to stay relatively consistent with the seasons since it has been adapted shows that the concept of the leap year is not trivial but central to us keeping track of time in this so called modern age.
MODERN SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATION OF THE LEAP YEAR
Today we are told in school that it takes 365 days and 6 hours for Earth to make one complete revolution in its orbit around the Sun and so we add an extra day every four years to give us an average year of 365.25 days. This is the basic contemporary scientific explanation usually given for why we have a leap year. If one examines this explanation carefully you will see that this is just a case of modern science trying to bring the proof to validate a concept that had preceded it by centuries. In fact, it wasn’t until the 1950’s that there were clocks and methods of time measurement accurate enough for modern science to determine precisely the duration of the tropical year. The tropical year they define as the period during which Earth makes a complete 360 degree revolution in its orbit around the Sun with respect to the position of the vernal equinox.
KEMETIC ORIGINS OF THE LEAP YEAR
Based on Kemetic traditions, the notion of the four- year leap day cycle (leap year), in actuality, is as old as the Kemetic sidereal calendar which is over 113,000 years old. The Kemetic sidereal calendar is based on the heliacal rising of the Septet star (Sirius) and the notion of the four-year leap day cycle came about due to the cycle of this star. The instructional page of the Kemetic Sidereal Calendar explains it as follows:
All calculations of the calendar are based on the Heliacal rising of the Sirius Star. The Sidereal Calendar is therefore astronomically based, and as a result, entirely scientific. The Heliacal rising of the Sirius star occurs every 1461 years. The day beginning the Great Year is the first day of Tehuti when the Sun eclipses the Sirius Star. This great cycle is divided into 1460 smaller seasonal cycles. Our Ancestors were well aware of the fact that after 4 seasonal years of 365 days Sirius rises on the second day of the year, after 8 years on the third day of the year, after 12 years on the fourth day and so on. The intervals are compensated for by adding one day to every four years of 365 days. So, the seasonal year is made of 12 months of 30 days plus a thirteenth month of five days which becomes six days every four years. And this system will be self-repetitive after a new Heliacal rising.
In the Kemetic sidereal calendar this additional day of the leap year is added to the 13th month, NWT every four years, giving the month a total of 6 days instead of its usual 5 days. Traditionally, this added day was celebrated as World Renewal Day. Here is how the Kemetic Sidereal Calendar describes World Renewal Day:
This day is added to the end of the seasonal year every fourth year in order to reconcile the declination of Earth’s positioning in reference to the Sun and Sirius Star. This additional 24 hour period allows us on Earth to once again observe a perfect astronomical cycle.
In the time of the Pharaohs, World Renewal Day was also the day when the ruling Pharaoh had to display the strength necessary to continue to reign for another term (until the next World Renewal Day). This is the origin of the notion of the modern 4 year political term in office. World Renewal day has a long history as a day of great traditional significance to Kemetic people. As the oldest surviving culture on the Earth, it is important for us as Kemetic people to write our own history. We cannot continue to let younger, less advanced cultures mis-write history and then be disgruntled or upset about how it is presented. This article is a part of writing our own history but you the reader can also play a part in this effort. According to the Kemetic sidereal calendar this is the year 416, and it is a “leap year”.