CELTIC CALENDAR

To the Celts, time was circular rather than linear. This is reflected in their commencing each day, and each festival, at dusk rather than dawn, a custom comparable with that of the Jewish Sabbath. It is also reflected in their year beginning with the festival of Samhain on 31 October, when nature appears to be dying down. Tellingly, the first month of the Celtic year is Samonios, ‘Seed Fall’: in other words, from death and darkness springs life and light. 

The earliest-known Celtic calendar is the Coligny calendar, now in the Palais des Arts, Lyon. It dates probably from the 1st century BCE, and is made up of bronze fragments, once a single huge plate. It is inscribed with Latin characters, but in Gaulish. It begins each month with the full moon, and covers a 30-year cycle comprising five cycles of 62 lunar months, and one of 61. It divides each month into fortnights rather than weeks, with days designated - from observation - as MAT (good) or ANM (not good). Each year is divided into thirteen months.

The lunar months given on the Coligny calendar are as follows. The translations are based on those of Caitlin Matthews:

 

The Coligny calendar achieves a complex synchronization of the solar and lunar months. Whether it does this for philosophical or practical reasons, it points to considerable sophistication.