The whole world lives a week in 7 days. You might think this is a mathematical calculation, but a week did not always consist of seven days. So, how did a week come to be recognized as seven days? Here are the details…
The Babylonians, who lived in modern-day Iraq, were astute observers and interpreters of the heavens. It is largely thanks to them that the week is seven days long.
They adopted the number seven because they observed seven celestial bodies – the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn – so this number had special significance for them.
Other civilizations chose other numbers – like the Egyptians with a 10-day week or the Romans with an 8-day week. The Babylonians divided a month into seven weeks to better follow the cycles of the Moon.
However, the Babylonians were such a dominant culture in the Near East, especially in the 6th and 7th centuries BC, that this and many other concepts of time – such as a 60-minute clock – were accepted.
The concept of a seven-day week also spread throughout the Near East. It was adopted by the Jews, who were captives of the Babylonians at the height of this civilization’s power. Other surrounding cultures, including the Persian empire and the Greeks, joined the seven-day week.
Centuries later, when Alexander the Great began to spread Greek culture throughout the Near East as far as India, the concept of the seven-day week also spread. Scholars believe that the seven-day week was introduced to China from India.
Finally, when the Romans began to conquer lands under the influence of Alexander the Great, they too eventually adopted the seven-day week. It was Emperor Constantine who decided that the seven-day week was the official Roman week and made Sunday a public holiday in 321 AD.
