Named after Janus, the god of time, transitions, and beginnings, January was an invention of the ancient Romans. Here's the story of the month's wild ride
In the dark days of winter, a new year begins. But January wasn't always the start of the new year. At the dawn of modern calendar-keeping, the winter months went unnamed in the calendars that gave rise to today’s most popular system of marking time.
the phases of the moon. Ancient Egyptians looked to the sun. And the Chinese combined both methods into a lunisolar calendar that’s still used today. The first month of the new year is named for Janus, the Roman god of beginnings and transitions. Janus is typically depicted as having two faces, such as on this metal Roman coin dating between 753 B.C. and A.D. 476.As Romans' scientific knowledge and social structures changed over time, so did their calendar. The Romans tweaked their official calendar several times from the republic’s founding in 509 B.C. until its dissolution in 27 B.C.
The initial calendar included six 30-day months and four 31-day months. The first four months were named for gods like Juno ; the last six were consecutively numbered in Latin, giving rise to month names such as September . When the harvest ended, so did the calendar; the winter months were simply unnamed.The 10-month calendar didn't last long, though. In the seventh century B.C., around the reign of Rome's second king, Numa Pompilius, the calendar received a lunar makeover.
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