March equinox equinox. This is most notable at the more extreme latitudes, where the Sun may be seen to travel sideways considerably during the dawn and evening, drawing out the transition from day to night. At the north and south poles, the Sun appears to move steadily around the horizon, and just above the horizon, neither rising nor setting apart from a slight change in declination of about 0.39° per day as the equinox passes. The Babylonian calendar began with the first full moon after the vernal equinox, the day after the Sumerian goddess Inanna's return from the underworld (later known as
The Reckoning of Time hour. The smallest increment of time is the atom. Here, Bede gives an exhaustive overview of the date of the Earth's creation, the months, the weeks and the Moon. He argues that the first day did not, as it was generally believed, take place at the time of an equinox. According to the religious accounts of God's creation of the universe, light was created on the first day. It wasn't until the fourth day, however, that God created the stars and therefore there was no measurement of hours. Much of this section is devoted to the Moon. Bede goes into