Day of the Thought Market

Day of the Thought Market, 12th of Childwinter, 525 M.E. (Helios): Today marks the second Helios (last of the six days of the week) of this year, the 525th year of the Modern Era. In the timeframe of the New Revised Universal Solar Calendar, the Modern Era began at the end of the Middle Ages and the previous Common Era began at the start of the so-called Axial Age, or what is generally considered 500 B.C. The Common Era, "common" because it marks the rise and prominence of Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, and other religions, lasted until the end of the Middle Ages, or the year 1500. The current Modern Era began 525 years ago, or in 1500 A.D.

One of the many accepted peculiarities of the conventional calendar is that the years before 1 A.D. are counted backward, while the years afterwards are counted forward. That is, 500 B.C. occurred earlier that 100 B.C., but 500 A.D. occurred later than 100 A.D. How absurd! How confusing! 

In the NRUSC, the year 500 B.C. is considered Year One of the Common Era, or 1 C.E., and years are counted forward to 2000 C.E., or what's commonly called "1500 A.D."  The years prior to 1 C.E. (500 B.C.) are considered the Vedic Era and date back to 1500 B.C., so that Year One of the Vedic Era (1 V.E.)  is 1500 B.C., and 500 B.C. is the year 1000 V.E.  

Before the year 1 V.E. is the pre-Vedic Era and I used to think that due to the scarcity of historical documentation, those years could be discussed simply as years before the present without reference to an  Era, e.g., "1975 B.C." could just be called "4,000 years ago." But it's not like there wasn't history 4,000 years ago - the pharaoh Senusret I launched a military campaign against Lower Nubia that year and Erishum I became the thirty-third ruler of Assyria.    

The oldest known calendars date back to 3100 B.C. in Mesopotamia and  around 3000 B.C. in Egypt. I suppose if we have to fix a start date to the pre-Vedic Era, it could be 3000 B.C. (instead of 3100 BC to keep it simple), so the pre-Vedic period from 3000-1500 B.C. can be called the "First Era." 

To summarize:

First Era: 1 F.E. to 1500 F.E. (3000 B.C. - 1500 B.C.)

Vedic Era: 1 V.E. to 1000 V.E. (1500 B.C. - 500 B.C.)

Common Era: 1 C.E. to 2000 C.E. (500 B.C. - 1500 A.D.)

Modern Era: 1 M.E. to present (1500 A.D - present)  

Anything before that, well, you're on your own, man. Good luck.  

Sorry. I was going to discuss other stuff today - the cold weather here in the South, my alternating walking/sitting practice, music, games, or maybe politics ("Orange Man bad!") but my attention got sidetracked by the dateline to this post. Old men are easily distracted. 

Today is the Day of the Thought Market.