The Origins of the Seven Day Week

Why does our week have seven days?

Some sources:
Sources of the Seven-Day Week by Leland S. Copeland

Understanding Planets in Ancient Mesopotamia by Enn Kasak and Raul Veede

Teutonic Mythology, Volume 1 By Jacob Grimm

Chapters:
0:00 - intro
1:00 - sponsored segment
2:34 - video

Music:
Sneaky Snitch
The Snow Queen
The Forest Through the Trees
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

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[clawsoon]

As a math kid, my guess was always that 7 was special to the Babylonians because it was the smallest number that didn't fit nicely into their base-60 number system. It's the smallest prime that creates infinitely repeating decimals if you try to divide with it when you're using base-60.

[THEScottCampbell]

I would think that the seven day week predated Babylon by at least 1, 000 years from Sumer and Akkad.

[hubertk]

Latin and Germanic weekdays: Gods and Celestial bodies and stuff
Slavic weekdays:
Sunday - the one you don't work on
Monday - the one after Sunday
Tuesday - the second one (after Sunday)
Wednesday - the middle one
Thursday - the fourth one (after Sunday)
Friday - the fifth one (after Sunday)
Saturday - the sabbath

[thomaslyall]

The days of the week in Thai also use the "seven planets", making it relatively easy for me to name these "planets" once I had learned the days of the week.
Interestingly, modern Greek does NOT follow the norm. Sunday = kiriaki (primary), Monday= deftera (second), Tuesday = triti (third), Wednesday = tetarti (fourth), Thursday = pemti (fifth), but Friday (= paraskevi) and Saturday (= savato) depart from this numerical progression.

[dcmurray]

Don't wish to appear picky or anything, but at 8:58 you have spelled 'Thursday' wrong. It is missing an 's'. Yes, I know. I am too pedantic for my own good, but I do have Asperger's, so that's my excuse.

[hankwilliams]

Around 9:00 you have Thursday misspelt as Thurday.

[markjosephbacho]

🇵🇭The Philippines during the rise of Indic Kingdoms used the Saka calendar exported from India.

They were:

Sunday= Adityawara [Sun day]; Aditya/Ravi/Surya- [Sun] -wara [day of the week]

Monday= Somawara [Moon day/ lunes]; Soma/Chandra=Moon

Tuesday= Angarawara [Mars day/ martes]; Angara/Mangala=Mars

Wednesday= Budhawara [Mercury day/miercoles]; Budha=Mercury

Thursday= Brihaspatiwara [Jupiter/Jove day/jueves]; Brihaspati=Jupiter

Friday= Sukrawara [Venus day/viernes]; Sukra=Venus

Saturday= Sanaisc(h)awara [Saturn day]; Sani=Saturn

[MichaelJohnson-vieh]

I feel like too much time was spent explaining after Europe became christianized. After that it became pretty clear why we have seven days. I am definitely team planet. Nearly everyone saw the same number of planets and associated them with gods and then with days of the week. I wonder if there are other biological/physical reasons for defining a week. Perhaps menstruation occurs approximately every 4 weeks and if you are either trying to get pregnant or avoiding pregnancy it is important to know which 7 day part of your cycle you are in. For farming, it might make sense to record the good days to plant and harvest various kinds of produce. Animals grow quickly perhaps it takes 42 weeks for a new lamb to be good for breeding. People until recently have lived in rural areas and they gather periodically to take on supplies, to sell their wares, to woo, to worship, gather and hear news. It seems at least possible that humans have a preference in order to "stay in touch" have to have a connection with others at least every 7 days.

[dalelerette]

Interesting to note that Periodic Table seems to mirror our 7 Day Calendar, 7 Days, then the new day is the 8th Day, and it starts over again. Paradoxically, elements in the same group appeared after a fixed number of elements. Our 7 Day Calendar seems to Follow Mendeleev's Law of Octaves.

[allanrichardson]

Most of the Romance languages use the Roman names for the work week, but copy the Hebrew Bible in calling Saturday some derivative of Shabat, as Spanish Sábado (even when it isn’t “Gigante”), and copy the New Testament in calling Sunday the Lord’s Day (Spanish Domingo).

But Portuguese and Hebrew are exceptions: in both languages Monday through Friday are called “second day” through “sixth day, ” and Saturday is called “Sabbath day”. But Sunday is called “first day” in Hebrew, and “the Lord’s Day” In Portuguese, like the other Romance languages.

[georgemarcotte]

day is defined as the time it takes the sun to cross the prim meridian (local noon to local noon) the time for the earth to rotate is actually 23 hours 56 minutes

[reedy]

Why is there no mention of a woman's fertility cycle? I mean I think one of the earliest calendars ever discovered is 28 Markings on a piece of bone... The sky is amazing and I understand how important early astronomy was to our ancestors but, you know, half of our ancestors were women and the other half lived with women all day everyday... Why not that natural 28 day cycle (divisible by 7 and easily broken into 4 parts) mentioned as an influence?

[sergelevesque]

Great, this video comes to my YouTube recommendations just as my 4 year-old started asking why there are 7 days in a week! How on point! should I be really worried?

[politelyimpolite]

Is the 7 day week too entrenched to be ever changed globally?

[andrewelliott]

So that the Beatles could amuse with their song: "Eight Days a Week."

[kermitefrog]

With the Hebrew word for day it depends on the context. Just like in modern language one could use the expression, in the day of the Roman Empire would refer to more than a 24 hour period of time. The Creative days are vast epochs of time of millions of years rather that a literal 24 hour period of time. These Creative periods began some time after the Universe and earth were created. The creative days are a part of preparing the earth for the creation of humans.

[ahmed]

you said the tower was built circa 2600 BC, I think you meant 2060 BC, that’s when Gudea ruled Lagash.

[enjarichards]

I know I'm being picky on a point that is peripheral to the main subject, but a day is not one rotation of the Earth and a month is not one orbit of the Moon. As the Earth moves in it's orbit while these things are happening a day is actually 4 minutes longer than a rotation, and a month is two and a half days longer than an orbit.
Pedantry aside, an excellent documentary.

[robertholt]

Again another great video and I learned something new. I'm sure your channel will keep growing.

[johng.]

Why are there 12 months? There could be 13 months with 4 weeks each or 28 days each. Then 1 day leftover which could be a day not part of any month but a holiday by itself we could make it New Years day as just one day After Dec and Before January. The leap day would have to be added somewhere too. Maybe add it to New Years day so you'd get a double day for New Year's every 4 years. So each month would have the same number of days and weeks instead of 28, 29, 30, and 31 we have now.