How Did They Keep Track of Dates Before Christ?

Soundgarden

Banned
Something I'm just wondering. We all know that anytime before Jesus was born was listed as B.C. and anytime after that is A.D. which goes forward. Before Christ was born however, how did they keep track of these things. I really would like to know, thanks.
 

The Ubbergeek

More or less the same way for Ancient Rome I think - before the total conversion to Christianism, I think the years where calculated around a date traditionally taken for the founding of the City.... or maybe something like the end of the Kings's rule. They used another 0 Point simply.

Of note, the current Jewish calender used in relgious computing of holidays (I think) is set that we are like, 5000something after Creation, by example.
 

Lalli

People had different track of dates. For example Romans started their chronology from foundation of Rome.
 

Codae

While the Romans did maintain the a.u.c. system, it wasn't as big a deal as we (practitioners of a universalist numerical system) like to think. In practice, years would usually be identified by the names of the consuls holding office then.

In general, dating from the start of the current ruler's reign was pretty popular. Sometimes a longer era was used, such as the eras announced by Diocletian and Seleucus the Great.
 

democracy101

This should help.

In general, it depended on the region. For example, Hindus and Jews kept track from when they believed that the earth was created, while Buddhists started from around when Siddhartha Gautama achieved nirvana, and Islam started from the hijra. Meanwhile, the Greeks kept track from when the Olympic Games were first established, and the Romans based on the foundation of Rome. The states in East Asia generally kept track of dates based on reign names, in which each ruler was assigned a title with a number that indicated how long he had been in power. There was also an alternate system based on the sexagenary cycle, in which the years repeated every 12 x 5, or 60 years. Meanwhile, the Mayans based it on several cycles that they predicted had been repeating, and was going to repeat in the future.
 

Mongo

Codae said:
In general, dating from the start of the current ruler's reign was pretty popular. Sometimes a longer era was used, such as the eras announced by Diocletian and Seleucus the Great.
Click to expand...

This is still used in Japan, where 2012 is called Heisei 24 (H24) for the 24th year of the Heisei emperor (AKA emperor Akihito).

This dating system caused me problems earlier this month, when I was trying to locate a Japanese patent application filed in 1991, but which was actually listed as being filed in H03.
 

Roger II

Dating by officeholders(the consul in Roman dating mentioned above, limmu-lists in Assyria) was also popular), with regnal years used for historical purposes.
 
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