BCE and CE notations
Printed From: History Community ~ All Empires
Category: Regional History or Period History
Forum Name: Ancient Mediterranean and Europe
Forum Discription: Greece, Macedon, Rome and other cultures such as Celtic and Germanic tribes
URL: http://www.allempires.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=16197
Printed Date: 10-May-2024 at 07:12
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Topic: BCE and CE notations
Posted By: M. Nachiappan
Subject: BCE and CE notations
Date Posted: 14-Nov-2006 at 03:01
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The Christian historians used to use A.D (Anno Domini = in the year of our Lord) and B. C = Before Christ. But, slowly, there have been many doubts raised about the historicity of Christ etc.,
So now, the historians have decided to use notations CE = Curent Era and BCE = Before Current Era to denote the years mentioned for the events discussed in historical topics.
Perhaps, they wanted to "secularise" history in that way!
In history, dates are mentioned by "relative dating" methods, rarely in "absolute dating methods". That is why, there has been chronological problems among the ancient cicilizations, when comparing with each other.
Many times, historians, because of their biase, prejudice and idelogy, tried to interpret historical events and attempt to fix dates for such events. Therefore, scientific methodology is required in attempting to fix dates and interpret historical processes.
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Replies:
Posted By: Omar al Hashim
Date Posted: 14-Nov-2006 at 05:01
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BCE and CE as I understand refer to (Before) Christian Era, not Common Era. Personally I prefer Christian Era, because it is the christian calender that we are using. Since this is a topic that also relates to all history and not just South Asia, it is also moved to General History. ------------- |
Posted By: gcle2003
Date Posted: 14-Nov-2006 at 06:12
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Essentially the calendar we are using is a modified Roman one, not a Christian one.
There's more to a calendar than the year you start numbering from. The years themselves start on different days of the year, and have different lengths: therefore if they all started numbering from the same point in time, the actual year numbers would soon diverge.
The English Bill of Rights for instance was passed in 1688 C.E. (Church of England) and 1689 C.E. (Roman Catholic). ------------- |
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 14-Nov-2006 at 12:50
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I don't like the BCE/CE method. It is intended to be less eurocentric, but at the same time it states that the Christian caldendar is the 'common' one, which only makes it more Eurocentric. ------------- |
Posted By: Adalwolf
Date Posted: 14-Nov-2006 at 12:53
| Do dates with AD/BC and BCE/CE markings correspond to one another? |
Posted By: Ikki
Date Posted: 14-Nov-2006 at 12:56
 When we talk about christian era we know about we are talking about, this is specially useful in History, when we have several chronologies (for example, the history of the Islam is always writed in "common"?, common for the muslims, no, in muslim era, detailed different from christian era.One change that i admit is BP, before present (1950), a chronology usually applied to prehistory time because most of the datation are based on C-14. ------------- |
Posted By: Paul
Date Posted: 14-Nov-2006 at 16:16
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I prefer to use the archaeological ya (years ago) so something that happened in 8000bc would be wirtten 10,000ya. It's culture free... (as long as that culture isn't religious). ------------- Light blue touch paper and stand well back http://www.maquahuitl.co.uk - http://www.maquahuitl.co.uk http://www.toltecitztli.co.uk - http://www.toltecitztli.co.uk |
Posted By: Imperator Invictus
Date Posted: 14-Nov-2006 at 22:45
No, B.C.E. = Before Common Era, C.E. = Common Era.
Yep, they are identical. |
Posted By: M. Nachiappan
Date Posted: 14-Nov-2006 at 23:56
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1. Both Common Era" or "Current Era" are one and the same.
2. The BC/AD connote definitely Christian, which was used to show their superiority over others.
3. Here, the question is without knowing, responsible persons side track the issue.
4. That is why, I had to clarify.
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Posted By: JanusRook
Date Posted: 15-Nov-2006 at 00:39
As a side note, does anyone else hate it when people use 0 CE or 0 AD as a date? I mean come on years are ordinal not cardinal. ------------- Economic Communist, Political Progressive, Social Conservative. Unless otherwise noted source is wiki. |
Posted By: gcle2003
Date Posted: 16-Nov-2006 at 07:16
Depends which calendar you are using. They will vary between the Julian and Gregorian calendars; there's also an astronomical calendar (proleptic) that has a year zero between 1 BCE and 1 CE.
For that matter there's be nothing to stop you taking, say, Khayyam's Perisan calendar, and dating the years from 1 CE. Because of the difference in the allocation of leap years, by now the difference from Julian or Gregorian would be considerable.
But how would you define the allocation of leap years? Or intercalendary months if you want to go that route? 13,000 ya lunar would only be 12,000 ya solar (approximately).
Personally, as a fan of Khayyam, I wouldn't mind using his calendar and taking 1961 CE as the start year - first man in space. But it would mean re-learning an awful lot of dates.
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Posted By: gcle2003
Date Posted: 16-Nov-2006 at 08:22
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For the record there's a very useful book by E.J.Bickerman Chronology of the Ancient World. It concentrates on Greece and Rome, but includes the Middle Eastern and Egyptian cultures and has a load of tables including king-lists of pretty well all the major ancient Middle Eastern and European kingdoms and empires. It also has a lot of material on the various calendars in use in those areas, including the very accurate Egyptian year, based on observation of the star Sirius.
It's listed at Amazon but only from third-party sellers.
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Posted By: M. Nachiappan
Date Posted: 24-Nov-2006 at 15:12
| YBP notation has been there already. |
Posted By: Ikki
Date Posted: 24-Nov-2006 at 15:16
Man, is Christian because count (try to count, better) the time since Jesus, if you don't want that chronology don't take it, like the arabs count their years since the Hégira to present day. ------------- |
Posted By: M. Nachiappan
Date Posted: 24-Nov-2006 at 15:20
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I am happy to note that gcle2003 has been "a fan of Omar Khayyam". Incidentally, my friend Mr. K. V. Ramakrishna Rao had an opportunity to visit Iran to attend the 900th Anniversary of Hakim Omar Khayyam and International Colloquim held at Nishapouri from 17-19, 2000, as he was invited by the organizers. He presented a paper, "DEcodng and Deciphering of Rubait of Omar Khayyam": comparing Siddhas and Sufis. Coming to chronology, you have made an interesting point about Egyptian calendar - It also has a lot of material on the various calendars in use in those areas, including the very accurate Egyptian year, based on observation of the star Sirius.
Would you please elaborate, as such methodology must have been based on astronomical basis (by the observation of ancient astronomers without telescope and all) and not with C-14, TL etc.
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Posted By: M. Nachiappan
Date Posted: 24-Nov-2006 at 15:26
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Mr. Ikki, if every religious group does like that (preferably, after becoming domination or otherwise), there would be so many eras and notations.
That is why epigraphists, historians and others have a difficulty, if an inscription records a date "in the regnal year of...." without refering to an era. Even if an era is mentioned, it is not accepted by the "religious minded" scholars and researchers as such era mentioned might be based on scriptures, which are considered religious.
The Kali Era (BKE and KE) in India is an example, though, it is still used by crores of people for day to day activities, as Iranians use "Khayyamic".
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Posted By: Ikki
Date Posted: 24-Nov-2006 at 15:38
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If you want a neutral chronology, make a new chronology like the french of the revolution times made, but i think that try to take the BC era, change the name of the era, and negate the nature of that era can be named at least historical rob, with negative consecuences for both europeans and non europeans. True about that differents eras can be confuse, generally we only use one translating the others to this; but in certain examples as i said before, is better to do like many books about the islamic civilizations that have both, the islamic and the christian time and i see it very useful for the historical investigation. ------------- |
Posted By: gcle2003
Date Posted: 25-Nov-2006 at 02:29
In clear sky conditions, such as those in Egypt, Sirius is easily visible with the naked eye. In fact it is the brightest star in the sky.
For part of the year of course it is not visible because it is too close to the sun. However it first visibly rises after its hidden period (its 'heliacal rising') just before the summer solstice, and marks accurately - if coincidentally - the beginning of the annual Nile floods.
From the Egyptian point of view this was a much more important event than the spring equinox, which most cultures have seen as the start of the New Year. ------------- |
Posted By: M. Nachiappan
Date Posted: 04-Dec-2006 at 01:42
| So datings made on suuch helical risings, Nile floodings etc., have been used to date Egyptian chronology? |
Posted By: Jams
Date Posted: 04-Dec-2006 at 14:09
The problem with that is, that it's not an exact point in time. With distant timeframes, like the example you posted, it may work, but with more exact dates it become problematic. ------------- |
Posted By: Mordoth
Date Posted: 04-Dec-2006 at 15:11
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For the objectivity of history to be protected ; BCE : Before COMMON Era
AD : Anno Domini
As far as , i know . ------------- If Electricity Comes from Electrons ; does Morality come from Morons :| |
Posted By: M. Nachiappan
Date Posted: 05-Dec-2006 at 02:19
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Mr. Mordoth, you are mixing both.
I do not know why the confusion?
CE = COMMON ERA and BCE = BEFORE COMMON ERA.
Here, no religion is involved, as claimed by the historians.
You mention about the protection of "objectivity of history"! What is it? Would you please elaborate it?
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Posted By: M. Nachiappan
Date Posted: 05-Dec-2006 at 02:32
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JamaRook noted, "As a side note, does anyone else hate it when people use 0 CE or 0 AD as a date? I mean come on years are ordinal not cardinal.
The Christians, when devised, manipulated and introduced chritiian era, thery could not mention "Zero year", as they did not know it.
Ask Dionysius Exigus, a monk from Scythia, around 6th century reportedly invented!
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Posted By: gcle2003
Date Posted: 05-Dec-2006 at 03:04
I believe so. But when you count the New Year as starting isn'l all that important to long-term chronology like that involved in Egyptian history. What is more important is that the Egyptian year count is very accurately aligned with the solar year. A hundred years Egyptian is, if anything, more accurate than a Gregorian or Khayyam hundred years, let alone any of the earlier calendars, or the lunar ones. ------------- |
Posted By: Achilles
Date Posted: 05-Dec-2006 at 18:24
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Personaly I like the old A.U.C. method. (After the founding of Rome)
------------- Der Erste hat den Tod, Der Zweite hat die Not, Der Dritte erst hat Brot. Fur immer frei und ungeteilt -always free and undivided- |
Posted By: M. Nachiappan
Date Posted: 05-Dec-2006 at 22:10
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Request to gcle2003: The point is if the Egyptians had reportedly recorded the helical risings, folooding of Nile etc., and the dating of Egyptian events are done adopting astronomical methods, that aspect has to be verified. How the astronomical datings have beenb accepted by the archaeologistrs correlating?
These points are to be clarified in the case of Egyptian chronology.
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Posted By: M. Nachiappan
Date Posted: 05-Dec-2006 at 22:13
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Is it not Romo-centric?
When I mentioned about a book, "Hindu America" as a reference in pre-Columbian forum, a member alarmed to express about, "Hindu0-centric".
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Posted By: JanusRook
Date Posted: 05-Dec-2006 at 23:21
(>.>)....... Mordoth, that's not objective. Anno Domini is latin for "In the Year of Our Lord." So it is even more religious than "Before Christ." Creating an objective timeframe is like creating an objective Prime Meridian, it just can't be done. ------------- Economic Communist, Political Progressive, Social Conservative. Unless otherwise noted source is wiki. |
Posted By: Eondt
Date Posted: 06-Dec-2006 at 00:43
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History isn't objective. We can strive towards objective history but a there will always be a measure of subjectivity contained within writings. It's human nature.
If you want to strive towards "more" objective historical writings then I put forward that there is bigger obstacles to cross than the renaming of timeframe references.
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Posted By: gcle2003
Date Posted: 06-Dec-2006 at 00:56
Against what? Even the years of accession of the latter-day pharaohs of the 26th - 30th dynasties are conjectural. If you have an inscription that such and such happened on the 1st day of Thoth in the seventh year of the Pharoah Sesotris (if it gives the pharoah, which it may not), then how do you compare it with anything else? Some of the Egyptian king lists correlate with the Persian or Babylonian lists at some points and thence to Roman records, but they only give vague indications. When, for instance, you can't date Hammurabi reliably to within a couple of hundred years, it doesn't make much difference whether you're working with years based on the rising of Sirius or the vernal equinox, or whenever.
Again, correlating what with what?
How? ------------- |
Posted By: M. Nachiappan
Date Posted: 06-Dec-2006 at 03:10
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You yourself say that, "Even the years of accession of the latter-day pharaohs of the 26th - 30th dynasties are conjecture", how then the dating of Egyptian dynasties are dated back to c.3000 BCE. This, I am asking how, if it is not done based on helical rising, NIle flooding etc.
The Egyptian dynasties have been dated astronomically. So, how such datings have been correlated with other methods of dating?
You accept that,"Some of the Egyptian king lists correlate with the Persian or Babylonian lists at some points and thence to Roman records, but they only give vague indications", but those correlatioons are accepted historically or not?
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Posted By: gcle2003
Date Posted: 07-Dec-2006 at 04:44
Mostly it's done by comparing Egyptian archaeological records with records from the other contemporary civilisations. Plus guesswork and intelligent interpolation, helped nowadays by things like carbon dating. Where eclipses and other notable astronomic events are mentioned - which isn't often - it's possible to back-calculate when they must have occurred in our year count. Since the records from other civilisations are just as sporadic and hazy as the Egyptian ones, the results are never all that accurate. We have, for instance, pretty good records of the years when specific Roman consuls held office, but at best they go back to around 500 BCE, and it's rare until much later that there are Egyptian record indicating that such and such happened 'in the year of the second consulate of X'. You seem to be wanting to say that such and such happened in such and such year on such and such a day in our calendar. In early Egyptian history you can't do that.
Not accurately they haven't.
Approximately. That's the point. ------------- |
Posted By: The_Jackal_God
Date Posted: 13-Dec-2006 at 15:41
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'If you want to strive towards "more" objective historical writings
then I put forward that there is bigger obstacles to cross than the
renaming of timeframe references."
in fact, this attempt to rename involves as much subjectivism as that it seeks to remove. if you read the talk page on the wikipedia entry for Jesus, there is a monumental debate on this. |
Posted By: rider
Date Posted: 15-Dec-2006 at 09:52
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I read that the BCE is Before Christ's Era (or something very alike) and CE is Common Era...
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Posted By: JanusRook
Date Posted: 15-Dec-2006 at 14:25
Okay, everyone it's not as complicated as your making it out to be. (I'm not just singling you out rider.) BCE: Before Common Era CE: Common Era This nomenclature was created to overlap and replace the previous Christian and Western biased historical time references. Which were: BC: Before Christ AD: Anno Domini (Latin for 'In the Year of Our Lord') or to translate even further, this was the year that scholar's believed that Jesus Christ was born. Thus 1 A.D. meant the 'year Christ was born'. The year before that was 1 B.C. and the year after it was 2 A.D. It is an Ordinal system, basically meaning there is no year zero since 1 A.D. means the first A.D. Personally I think that if we want to create a non-biased way to record time, we should just set 1 CE to be the year 2001, the year of the millenium to make conversion from AD to CE easy enough. ------------- Economic Communist, Political Progressive, Social Conservative. Unless otherwise noted source is wiki. |
Posted By: rider
Date Posted: 17-Dec-2006 at 09:24
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It would still be difficult... we would live in 5 CE (for these few days) and then we would use some old history books that tell us of 1980 CE.,.. I imagine how confusing that could be:D ------------- |
Posted By: JanusRook
Date Posted: 17-Dec-2006 at 14:54
I take it then history books in europe have used CE (Common Era) for a while now? Here in America only the most recent history books attempt to use CE as a reference, still to this day most textbooks use AD and BC notation. So I guess it would be easier for Americans to make my suggested transition rather than europeans, or am I still mistaken? Anyway rider, come on it's easy, 1980 would be 21 BCE with my new reference.  ------------- Economic Communist, Political Progressive, Social Conservative. Unless otherwise noted source is wiki. |
Posted By: M. Nachiappan
Date Posted: 26-Dec-2006 at 05:10
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The dates mentioned (as we see in the history books), are in Christian angle. Before the medieval period, the documents do not show date specifically in Christian era. In fact, when calendar reformation was going on another confusion was made by mentioning the dates in OS and NS, the two dates of birth are given to Newton. |
Posted By: Reginmund
Date Posted: 26-Dec-2006 at 10:08
I am with Ikki here, to create another system of chronology for no other reason than having one that can't be related to Christianity seems both unnecessary, as the one we have works well, and complicating, as we would still be forced to relate to the old system for many decades still. Even worse, it is rather historyless IMO. I am, and many of us are, European or European-Americans, and even if we are not Christian our background and historical identity has been heavily influenced by Christianity, most of us still are, and I have no need, in fact I blankly refuse to downplay this part of my cultural heritage. ------------- |
Posted By: Chilbudios
Date Posted: 26-Dec-2006 at 14:29
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Though suggested, it wasn't perhaps drawn more clearly: BCE and CE mean the same thing as BC and AD, the only thing changed are the acronyms. I for one prefer the Christ refering ones - like BC and AD or like a.C(hr). and p.C(hr) - for the sake of preserving the meaning (I find no real use to hide it behind another(!) arbitrary convention - a "common era"), the computations of a Christian monk. In a similar manner we have AUC dates, H dates, etc.. There's no fuss about them being Rome-centric or Islamo-centric (they surely are), there are just other ways to divide eras. And certainly there's no universal moment of time of same value for the entire humankind, so no matter what time division we will use it will be something-centric. We just have to live with that.
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Posted By: King John
Date Posted: 26-Dec-2006 at 16:56
| Given my interests in Medieval History I prefer the A.D. dating. Although this is inherantly eurocentric I find that since the documents of the time date themselves using the phrase "in the year of our lord" it is easier to use the the latin abbreviation of this phrase "A.D." I also prefer it because in Medieval Europe this dating is how the people that I study conceived their world to be dated. To place a 20th or 21st Century view on medieval dating is simply not right no matter what the intentions. The truth is BCE and CE datings are anachronistic esp. in when talking of the Medieval world. |
Posted By: Chilbudios
Date Posted: 26-Dec-2006 at 17:10
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Posted By: King John
Date Posted: 26-Dec-2006 at 17:24
| I am aware of this however my interests are in Western Europe specifically England I appologize for failing to mention this. but you are right and it is also true that the Jewish calender is documented in the same way. |
Posted By: K. V. Ramakrishna Rao
Date Posted: 11-Jan-2007 at 08:50
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It has been mentioned above that, "the creation of the world (according to Bible chronology, 1 AD = 5509 since the creation of the world)" But, it was James Usher, who declared that the world was created by Jehova on October 23rd morning 9.30 AM in 4004 BCE.
How then, the 1AD = 5509 comes?
What is its significance? ------------- History is not what was written or is written, but it is actually what had happened in the past. |
Posted By: Decebal
Date Posted: 11-Jan-2007 at 09:11
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The Jews and the Christians use a different date for the creation of the world. Indeed, the Christians use the date that Usher calculated, but the jews use the date of 5509 BC. Actually, I think that there's a few other chronologies besides these two, based on the Bible. ------------- What is history but a fable agreed upon? Napoleon Bonaparte Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth.- Mohandas Gandhi 
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Posted By: K. V. Ramakrishna Rao
Date Posted: 12-Jan-2007 at 21:45
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Mr. Decebal, give references specifically.
What you have mentioned appears to be not tallying with any of the dates:
Alexandrian era - 29-08-5502 BCE
Constantinoplr era - 01-09-5508 BCE
Era of Antioch - 01-09-5492 BCE
Julian era - 01-04-4714 BCE
Jewish era - 07-10-376 BCE
All are astronomicall derived with variance and adjusted without mentioning the sources. However, claiming all as "historical eras and dates".
So, it was Ussher who had chosen an assumed date of 4004 BCE and Joseph Scaliger wortked out backwards to get the so called "Historical chronology" of "world history".
So where that 1 AD = 5509 comes? Note you have added BC now with 5509! ------------- History is not what was written or is written, but it is actually what had happened in the past. |
Posted By: gcle2003
Date Posted: 14-Jan-2007 at 08:00
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1 Tishri 1 - the very first Jewish New Year's Day - was on October 5 3761 BC by the Gregorian calendar. That would be some 5768 Gregorian Years ago.
Today in the Jewish calendar (assuming my data are correct - they usually work OK) is 25 Tevet 5767
So in your Jewish date you left out the '1' at the end, and it looks to me like you're two days out in the day. (Though it may have something to do with the Jewish day starting at sunset, not midnight, and with location in the world.) The date I give is for sunset in Jerusalem at the beginning of 1 Tishri 1. Also the actual new moon was in the night of 5-6 October.
(There was a new moon on September 7 that year, but presumably it didn't happen in Jewish history.)
I don't know where the 5509 comes from but it's remarkably close to the Greek. ------------- |
Posted By: K. V. Ramakrishna Rao
Date Posted: 14-Jan-2007 at 08:23
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Thank you for your clarification.
Let Decebal explain from where he got that 5509.
Coming to the Jewish era / chronology, was it calculated astronomicall or otherwise?
Incidentally, India / Hindu year for 2007 is 5189 with the Kali era starting from 3102 BCE.
Anyway, discussion has been initiated for the usage of BCE and CE notation instead of BC and AD.
------------- History is not what was written or is written, but it is actually what had happened in the past. |
Posted By: gcle2003
Date Posted: 15-Jan-2007 at 05:09
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I'm not sure what you mean by 'calculated astronomically'. The Jewish calendar is a lunisolar one that tries to take account of both the lunar months and the solar year and it does so by observing the moon and sun.
So a new month starts with each new moon, but since an average year has 12.4 'moons' a month has to be added occasionally to bring dates back into harmony with the seasons. The fundamental Jewish position is that Passover has to take place in the spring, and 'in the spring' originally was not calculated astronomically, but by observing the state of vegetation at the time. If it wasn't particularly 'spring-like' another month was added by the Sanhedrin to put the situation back in balance.
Since Hellenistic times though the rule for inserting an extra month is based on astronomical calculations, following a 19-year cycle.
So when you back-project the current calendar to the beginning, like I did, you can't really claim it as accurate, since you can't really know, prior to the Hellenistic period, which years had an extra month inserted.
PS: the current Indian civil year is 1928 though, isn't it? I've forgotten what the start of that system is reckoned from. ------------- |
Posted By: K. V. Ramakrishna Rao
Date Posted: 15-Jan-2007 at 20:46
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Eras were started long back by Kings and personalities or astronomers either based on astronomical observation of planetary conjunction coinciding with a certain event or working backwards to that past event. The conjunctions of planets occur periodically and a group of astronomers of a culture or country recorded it and had tables for a long period, they could correct and update as we do today. Thus, the astronomical event of 3102 BCE has been an astronomically observed one coinciding with several events and it is considered as the start of Kali-era/yuga. But other eras are invented or introduced and then worked backwards to coincide or match with past events as “history”. Coming to 1928, it is Saka-era calculation reported to have started in 78 CE and thus, 1928 + 78 = 2006 is equivalent year in CE, just like 2006 + 3102 = 5108 KE. ------------- History is not what was written or is written, but it is actually what had happened in the past. |