Planetos Timekeeping

[namesarehard]

Okay, first of all I'm sure George is just keeping a day exactly the same as a day on earth for the sake of sanity. And they probably divide it into 24 hours though they don't have clockwork so it's probably vague.

Now we know they use years and moons. I know this was discussed before. A moon on earth, as apposed to a calendar month, is around 28 days. But somebody posted that a moon is exactly 30 days and a year is 12 moons. That makes a 360 day year. That's not a big deal, just means a 73 year old is only 72 by earth standards.

I also kind of wonder why they even measure years. There was a quote from George, something about how years are not about seasons, of course technically they're not but that's the only reason early people started counting years. Back then a person might say they had "seen 20 summers" or something of the sort. Then eventually scholars started observing solstices and noticed that it's 365 1/4 days between them but since the seasons are chaotic on planetos I assume the solstices are as well. I remember somebody saying it's autumn, the days are getting shorter.

Anybody remember any mention of weeks? weeks on earth are 1/4 of a lunar cycle so seven days. If they have seven day weeks that may be due to the worship of the seven.

[hnv]

good questions. beyond the fact that I assume GRRM simply didn't take into account the sociology of temporal concepts:

- a moon year is more than 12 months, Jewish lunar calendar has 12 months but every 7 years you have a leap year with 13 months to even it out. 

- measurement of years could be crucial for social institutions like marriage and coming of age. Where the seasons follow no exact pattern, you can say a man comes of age after 2 summer or 1  winter, it could create absurd consequences.

Also the maesters measure shdows to determine the seasons, shadows have a lot to do with the position of the sun that changes through out the year, so it could be crucial to the measurement of seasons. 

- no mention of a week, it seems the time unit that follows the day is the fortnight. it of course begs the question of the "day off", does Westros has the equivalent of a friday\saturday\sunday sabbatical days? 

[Karneol]

On 6/22/2019 at 4:01 AM, namesarehard said:

I remember somebody saying it's autumn, the days are getting shorter.

This referers to daylight not to how long a day is

 

[Seaserpent]

On 6/22/2019 at 4:01 AM, namesarehard said:

Okay, first of all I'm sure George is just keeping a day exactly the same as a day on earth for the sake of sanity. And they probably divide it into 24 hours though they don't have clockwork so it's probably vague.

Now we know they use years and moons. I know this was discussed before. A moon on earth, as apposed to a calendar month, is around 28 days. But somebody posted that a moon is exactly 30 days and a year is 12 moons. That makes a 360 day year. That's not a big deal, just means a 73 year old is only 72 by earth standards.

I also kind of wonder why they even measure years. There was a quote from George, something about how years are not about seasons, of course technically they're not but that's the only reason early people started counting years. Back then a person might say they had "seen 20 summers" or something of the sort. Then eventually scholars started observing solstices and noticed that it's 365 1/4 days between them but since the seasons are chaotic on planetos I assume the solstices are as well. I remember somebody saying it's autumn, the days are getting shorter.

Anybody remember any mention of weeks? weeks on earth are 1/4 of a lunar cycle so seven days. If they have seven day weeks that may be due to the worship of the seven.

In the books they talk about hour of some animal for example "hour of the bat or the owl". I think thats a nature thing and came into modern world by the old gods and the children. I suppose that its every day the on the same hour. So maybe owl in the summer is at 00.00 and in spring it on 21.00. So i think there is a possibility that the hours are not always on the same earth-times, but appears just every day on a time during the day. 

[namesarehard]

15 hours ago, hnv said:

good questions. beyond the fact that I assume GRRM simply didn't take into account the sociology of temporal concepts:

- a moon year is more than 12 months, Jewish lunar calendar has 12 months but every 7 years you have a leap year with 13 months to even it out. 

- measurement of years could be crucial for social institutions like marriage and coming of age. Where the seasons follow no exact pattern, you can say a man comes of age after 2 summer or 1  winter, it could create absurd consequences.

I don't know how a Jewish calendar works but From full moon to full moon is about 28 days so there are 13 moons in a year. Probably a couple of hours different, I don't know.

 

As for social institutions, they could just use moons, since they're stable.

15 hours ago, hnv said:

- no mention of a week, it seems the time unit that follows the day is the fortnight. it of course begs the question of the "day off", does Westros has the equivalent of a friday\saturday\sunday sabbatical days? 

Oh yeah, they mention fortnights. I doubt they have any official days off. Most people probably work every day. They take leisure whenever they can get it.

10 hours ago, Karneol said:

This referers to daylight not to how long a day is

I know. The amount of daylight indicates the seasons.

9 hours ago, Seaserpent said:

In the books they talk about hour of some animal for example "hour of the bat or the owl". I think thats a nature thing and came into modern world by the old gods and the children. I suppose that its every day the on the same hour. So maybe owl in the summer is at 00.00 and in spring it on 21.00. So i think there is a possibility that the hours are not always on the same earth-times, but appears just every day on a time during the day. 

The hour of the bat, apparently some time during deep night to early morning
The hour of the eel, coming just after the hour of the bat
The hour of ghosts, coming just after the hour of the eel 
The hour of the owl, coming a few hours after the hour of the bat, still before dawn
The hour of the wolf, "the blackest part of night", coming after the hour of the owl; not to be confused with the period of a few days, called Hour of the Wolf, immediately after the civil war called the Dance of the Dragons
The hour of the nightingale, coming after the hour of the wolf

Things like that have been used in the real world too.

 

[Seaserpent]

4 hours ago, namesarehard said:

I don't know how a Jewish calendar works but From full moon to full moon is about 28 days so there are 13 moons in a year. Probably a couple of hours different, I don't know.

 

As for social institutions, they could just use moons, since they're stable.

Oh yeah, they mention fortnights. I doubt they have any official days off. Most people probably work every day. They take leisure whenever they can get it.

I know. The amount of daylight indicates the seasons.

The hour of the bat, apparently some time during deep night to early morning
The hour of the eel, coming just after the hour of the bat
The hour of ghosts, coming just after the hour of the eel 
The hour of the owl, coming a few hours after the hour of the bat, still before dawn
The hour of the wolf, "the blackest part of night", coming after the hour of the owl; not to be confused with the period of a few days, called Hour of the Wolf, immediately after the civil war called the Dance of the Dragons
The hour of the nightingale, coming after the hour of the wolf

Things like that have been used in the real world too.

 

True but thats the only time schedule in hours in the books were we know of. so my best guess is that there are no 24 hour count schedule, but only the nature one.

[Lady Dacey]

I always find weird when someone in the books say they did a cetain thing for x hours. I mean, HOW WOULD THEH KNOW? Do they have sun watches?? I don't think so.

[Lady Dacey]

https://asearchoficeandfire.com/?q="three+hours"&scope[]=agot&scope[]=adwd&scope[]=acok&scope[]=asos&scope[]=affc

https://asearchoficeandfire.com/?q="two+hours"&scope[]=agot&scope[]=adwd&scope[]=acok&scope[]=asos&scope[]=affc

https://asearchoficeandfire.com/?q="four+hours"&scope[]=agot&scope[]=adwd&scope[]=acok&scope[]=asos&scope[]=affc

https://asearchoficeandfire.com/?q="five+hours"&scope[]=agot&scope[]=adwd&scope[]=acok&scope[]=asos&scope[]=affc

https://asearchoficeandfire.com/?q=minutes&scope[]=agot&scope[]=adwd&scope[]=acok&scope[]=asos&scope[]=affc

they are keeping track of time. I don't know how they do it, but they do.

[Sigella]

They have time, if they can measure the length of days they can tell time after that. Used to be people told the hour by the sun in our world too. People of Oldtown can tell the time from the Hightower`s shadow so they can too.

Melisandre says "The sand is running through the glass more quickly now, and man's hour on earth is almost done." So there should be hourglasses and thus a way of measuring time beyond the suns position or a moving shadow anyway.

Also they have  a tonne of "fortnights" (first new english word I learned from reading this series) and "seconds" too if you believe Ned.

[Lady Dacey]

14 hours ago, Sigella said:

Melisandre says "The sand is running through the glass more quickly now, and man's hour on earth is almost done." So there should be hourglasses and thus a way of measuring time beyond the suns position or a moving shadow anyway.

True!

[The Hoare]

On 6/29/2019 at 12:00 AM, Lady Dacey said:

I always find weird when someone in the books say they did a cetain thing for x hours. I mean, HOW WOULD THEH KNOW? Do they have sun watches?? I don't think so.

It's not really that weird, clocks aren't really a recent invention. Perhaps they use sundials or water clocks.

[Nittanian]

Quote

"How long have you been tending me?" Dunk flexed the fingers of his sword hand. All of them still seemed to work. Only my head's hurt, and Ser Arlan used to say I never used that anyway.

"Four hours, by the sundial."

Four hours was not so bad. He had once heard tale of a knight struck so hard that he slept for forty years, and woke to find himself old and withered. (TMK)

 

[Rhaenys_Targaryen]

On 6/22/2019 at 4:01 AM, namesarehard said:

Anybody remember any mention of weeks? weeks on earth are 1/4 of a lunar cycle so seven days. If they have seven day weeks that may be due to the worship of the seven.

 

On 6/23/2019 at 2:01 PM, hnv said:

no mention of a week, it seems the time unit that follows the day is the fortnight. it of course begs the question of the "day off", does Westros has the equivalent of a friday\saturday\sunday sabbatical days? 

Weeks are mentioned in AGOT prologue

 

Have you drawn any watches this past week, Will?"