The paper examines the calendar and astronomical representations of the Kyrgyz-Cossacks, Uzbeks, and mountain Tajiks, which indicate the use of the lunisolar calendar, in which the duration of the month was measured by observing the Moon's conjunctions with the Pleiades. It is shown that this calendar was in no way inferior to the lunisolar calendar, although it was just as inconvenient for farmers, since the beginning of the year in it fell on different dates of the solar calendar. Based on the fact that the mountaineers of the Pamirs have the worst preserved lunar-stellar calendar, it is suggested that it was originally invented by nomadic pastoralists.

Keywords: Central Asia, lunar calendar, lunisolar calendar, Moon, Pleiades, Scorpio, Kyrgyz-Cossacks, Uzbeks, mountain Tajiks.

NOTES ON THE QUESTION OF ACCOUNT OF TIME IN CENTRAL ASIA

Galina Yu. KOLGANOVA, Mikhail G. NICKIFOROV

The paper investigates the calendar and astronomical representations of Kirghiz-Cossacks, Uzbeks, and mountain Tajiks. All these people used the lunar-stellar calendar. This calendar calculates the duration of the month by observing conjunctions of the Moon with the Pleiades. The authors argue that the lunar-stellar calendar has the same precision as the lunar-solar calendar, although both calendars were uncomfortable to agriculturalists because the beginning of the year corresponded to the different dates of the solar calendar. Among all the mentioned peoples, the lunarstellar calendar worst of all has been preserved in the Pamir Mountains. Therefore it presumably was invented by nomadic pastoralists.

Keywords: Central Asia, the lunar calendar, the lunar-stellar calendar, the Moon, the Pleiades, the Scorpio, Kirghiz-cossacks, Uzbeks, mountain Tajiks.

In the pre-Islamic period in Central Asia, and in particular in the territory of Khorezm and Sogd, there was a solar calendar. In this calendar, the year consisted of 12 months

Galina KOLGANOVA-Researcher at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences; e-mail: kolganova_gy@mail.ru;

Mikhail G. NIKIFOROV-Candidate of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Research Associate of the P. K. Sternberg State Astronomical Institute, Lomonosov Moscow State University, e-mail: followup@mail.ru;

Galina Yu. KOLGANOVA - Research Fellow, Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, kolganova_gy@mail.ru.

Mikhail G. NICKIFOROV - PhD, Research Fellow, Sternberg Astronomical Institute, Lomonosov Moscow State University, followup@mail.ru.

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30 days each and 5 additional epagomain days, which resulted in 365 days. Since the total length of the year was 0.2422 days shorter than the tropical year, an error accumulated over time, which was periodically corrected (Biruni, 1957, p. 19, 20; Boyce, 1988, p. 87, 151).

After the penetration of Islam into the territory of Central Asia, the lunar calendar with a monthly duration of 29.53 days was used there. The beginning of a new month was determined by neomenia, the first appearance of the crescent moon after the new moon (Tsybulsky, 1982, pp. 58-66). It is known that the carriers of the solar calendar were Zoroastrians, and the carriers of the lunar calendar were Muslims, but even before the advent of Zoroastrianism, there were other religions that could use this or that calendar. One type of calendar could be used by farmers, the other-by nomadic pastoralists.

Less well-known and studied information about the existence of the lunisolar calendar, in which the duration of the month is 27 days. This paper is devoted to its research.

LUNAR CALENDAR OF THE KYRGYZ COSSACKS

The Russian ethnographer B. A. Kuftin gave the most complete description of the calendar and astronomical representations of the Kirghiz Cossacks. Judging by the way B. A. Kuftin presented and analyzed the material he collected, it can be assumed that the author has very good knowledge in the field of astronomy, which increases the value of his information.

According to B. A. Kuftin, the Kirghiz Cossacks 1 used the lunar calendar, which was based on sidereal (star)calendar a month with a duration of 27 days. As a star marker, relative to which the Moon's revolutions were counted, the Pleiades were taken.

"The further count of months is determined by the moon, since the Kyrgyz apparently no longer mark any constellations. In fact, the moon does not serve to accurately locate the points of the solar or thermal year, but only to establish the number of monthly periods. This takes into account not only the usually observed phase change of the moon in a 29-day period, but, very curiously, the sidereal month, due to observations of phenomena accompanying the movement of the moon among the stars of the night sky. This movement in the direction opposite to the daily motion of the moon takes place in the period of 27 days and 8 hours, i.e. exactly 13 times a year" [Kuftin, 1916, p. 129].

"During the time when the Urkur [Pleiades] is visible, the Kirghiz count 11 togus: ber [first] togus, ike [second] togus, ush [third] togus, etc., and finally unber [eleventh] togus, each after 27 days. Depending on this, the Kyrgyz regulate and determine the number of months in the year" [ibid., p. 131].

Thus, B. A. Kuftin claimed that the Kyrgyz count 11 togus - observed connections of the Moon and the Pleiades, which can be registered visually. Two more togus occur during the Schilde period - the 40-day period of invisibility of the Pleiades, so a total of 13 togus are obtained, forming 13 sidereal months [ibid., p. 132]. Further, the author cited the evidence of other researchers describing the existence of a 13-month lunar calendar among the peoples of Siberia [ibid., p. 133].

According to B. A. Kuftin, the Kyrgyz calendar is lunar-stellar, since the counting of months was determined not relative to the Sun (neomenia), but according to observations of connections with the Pleiades. Moreover, the beginning of a new calendar year was counted from the first morning visibility (or heliacal sunrise) of the Pleiades.

1 In pre-revolutionary Russia, Kazakhs were called Kirghiz or Kirghiz-Kaisaks.

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"Castren shows that Kyrgyz and Yakuts, like the Tungus, start their year in May. Schifner says the same thing about this, pointing out that some peoples of Siberia have a custom of counting the beginning of the new year as the month of the appearance of Urkur [the Pleiades], and the second month as the appearance of Orion. Is it possible to assume the same about the Kirghiz Cossacks?" [ibid., pp. 134-135] 2.

The concept of the lunisolar calendar, which is based on the sidereal month, is quite simple. For the beginning of the year, you can take the first morning visibility of the Pleiades, and then count down the sidereal lunar months by connecting them with the Moon until at the end of the year the Pleiades are again hidden in the rays of the Sun. The beginning of the first morning visibility of the Pleiades opens a new calendar year, the duration of which varies slightly from the date of their heliacal sunrise. The period of invisibility of the Pleiades is about 40 days, depending on the extinction coefficient, which characterizes the transparency of the atmosphere.

It is easy to calculate that the Pleiades are visible for 365-40=325 days, during which 325/27.32 = 11.89 = 11 togus can be observed, which corresponds to 300.5 days. The remaining time interval of 365-300. 5 = 64.5 days cannot be marked with observed toguses due to the invisibility of the Pleiades. Two unobservable togus can be attributed to this period.

The idea of using the Pleiades as a reference point is confirmed by independent ethnographic data of V. P. Nalivkin, reprinted in the work of M. S. Andreev. The following text fragment is a translation from Uzbek and was written down by V. P. Nalivkin from the words of a local resident from Tashkent, an Uzbek by nationality.

"In the old life of Central Asia, the ancient account of the Pleiades was of great importance. All life was based on this ancient account - a special "farmer's account" and "cattle breeder's account".

In the evening, if you leave the house and look at the sky in the direction of the East, you will see the constellation "Hurkar" - the Pleiades. The property of these Pleiades is that at the end of the month of Saur, they stop appearing in the sky and go to the ground, and after 4 days they appear again. This day is considered the beginning of the month of Saraton... Starting from the first day of Saraton, the weather is very hot for forty days, and this period is called "summer chill"...

After late autumn arrives, it is called the constellation of the Pleiades. - auth. he reaches such a position that one day at dawn he comes to the very place of sunset. At this time, the Uzbek people say that "tuksan" has come. The meaning of this expression is that winter lasts 90 days or 3 months, and that the beginning of this tuksan has come, in other words, winter has begun... "[Andreev, 1958, pp. 172-173].

The peculiarity of the described stellar calendar is that observers recorded not one event of visibility of the Pleiades, but at least three: heliacal sunset, heliacal sunrise and cosmic sunset. It is possible that not all the information has been preserved to our time, and initially the calendar contained events that were counted from the acronic sunrise (the first evening visibility of the star). The advantage of such a calendar is that there is not one point of reference for events (for example, the heliacal sunrise of Sirius), but several.

In the case of using a lunisolar calendar, the idea of synchronization remains generally similar to the lunisolar calendar, although there are some inconveniences. The fact is that the simultaneous onset of the first morning visibility of the Pleiades and their connection with the Moon is an unlikely event. In any case, the first togus can occur either one day after the heliacal sunrise of the Pleiades, or a week later, two weeks later, or 26 days later. So if the duration is

The second issue of the journal "Ethnographic Review" for 1916 was published in 1918, so it is not clear what calendar B. A. Kuftin used in his reasoning. The dates of the Julian calendar, which was used in Russia before January 26, 1918, could be translated into dates of the Gregorian calendar.

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If the first month is counted from the beginning of visibility of the Pleiades to the first observed togus, then it can change quite strongly.

The heliacal visibility of the Pleiades occurs annually at the same time of the calendar year, and the conjunction of the Pleiades with the Moon occurs on different days. Therefore, if the goal of the calendar is a unified time account, then the last remark is not essential. If the calendar is intended to determine the time of agricultural work, then it is inconvenient, like any other lunar calendar.

B. A. Kuftin proposed the following version of the calendar reconstruction, in which the first summer months are marked not by the moon, but by stars.

Month 1. Heliacal Sunrise of the Pleiades (June 13) - heliacal sunrise of the Orion Belt (July 24). A 40-day heat wave period.

Month 2. Heliacal sunrise of the Orion Belt (July 24) - confident visibility of the Orion belt.

Month 3. Strong visibility of the Orion belt - heliacal sunrise of Sirius (August 10).

Month 4. Conjunction of the Moon and the Pleiades. [And so on until the end of the year].

The dates of heliacal sunrises were calculated by us using the star visibility model at dusk3, and probably B. A. Kuftin had very approximate estimates of the beginning of the onset of months. On the one hand, the duration of the first month was about 40 days, which coincides with the period of 40-day heat, so in this case we do not have any special questions. On the other hand, the concept of "confident visibility of the Orion belt" is very vague and allows for a relatively large spread of dates. The time interval from the beginning of the second month to the beginning of the third is only 17 days, which is not enough even for one month. That is, if the second and third months really had stellar markers, then not the ones suggested by B. A. Kuftin. Since the author claimed that the Kyrgyz people did not know any other stars, it turns out that there were probably no star markers that mark the months evenly over time.

Note that from a practical point of view, stellar markers could mark the time period from May 1 to June 12, when the Pleiades are hidden in the Sun's rays and their connection with the Moon cannot be observed. For this purpose, the heliacal approach of Sirius, which falls on May 20 and divides approximately equally the specified time interval, is suitable. Although the idea of using Sirius may seem interesting, we have no information that such a scheme was actually used.

RELICS OF THE SIDEREAL LUNAR CALENDAR AMONG THE UZBEKS

We have considered a variant of the lunar-stellar calendar, in which the moment of heliacal sunrise of the Pleiades is selected for the beginning of the year. Its disadvantage is that the duration of the first month is determined by the time interval between the beginning of morning visibility of the Pleiades and their first conjunction with the Moon. With this account rule, the duration of the first month will vary from 1 to 26 days, which is inconvenient in practice. You can consider a more convenient version of the calendar, in which we take the first conjunction of the Moon with the Pleiades after their heliacal sunrise as the beginning of the new year.

Information about a similar lunar calendar based on the Togus (Tokush) account or on the account of the Moon's conjunctions with the Pleiades is presented in the work of M. S. Andreev. It was written down in the words of a resident of Tashkent in 1927.

3 All sunrise dates were calculated using the twilight star visibility model, see [Belokrylov et al., 2013].

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"The most recent periods of late winter include the Sarig-sumalyak and besh-tokush periods. The latter occurs during the saryg-sumalyak period or immediately after it, ending it (I was not able to find out exactly).

From the interviewee about this, Yusuf apparently learned correctly what "besh-tokush" means. "Tokush" means connecting the new moon on its way to the Pleiades. There are five such compounds forming calendar signs in a year: on the 9th day of the lunar month (tokus or togush), on the eighth (sakiz tokush), on the seventh, fifth and third. When the last union takes place (uch tokush), the barley ripens.

According to Yusuf, today "besh tokush" is still 18 days away. A characteristic feature of this period is that at this time sprouts appear on trees, poplars release leaves, and the steppe is covered with grass. This period marks the complete end of cold weather and the onset of summer" [Andreev, 1958, pp. 174-175].

This entry was made on March 15, 1927, which allows us to check how accurate the estimate of the time of the onset of Besh-tokush of the informant M. S. Andreev - old Yusuf is. In addition, we can reconstruct for 1927 the time of occurrence of each tokush during the year and make an assessment of how this system can work as a whole. The calculation results are shown in Table 1.

Table 1

N

New Moon

Neomenia

Connection

Phase

Day

Age

Tokush

1

04.01 02:27

05.01 18:20

13.01 18:40

0.80

9

10.4 M

8

2

02.02 15:54

03.02 18:40

09.02 19:00

0.56

7

7.8 M

9

3

04.03 01:24

05.03 19:40

08.03 22:30

0.31

4

5.6 M

10

4

02.04 10:24

03.04 20:25

05.04 20:30

0.16

3

3.9 M

11

5

01.05 18:40

02.05 20:30

02.05 20:30

0.02

1

1.2 M

12

6

01.05 18:40

02.05 20:30

30.05 05:50

0.01

29

29.6 S

13

7

31.05 03:05

01.06 21:30

26.06 05:30

0.16

25

26 S

1

8

29.06 12:32

30.06 21:20

24.07 05:30

0.25

24

24.6 S

2

9

28.07 23:36

30.07 20:45

20.08 01:40

0.50

20

22.1 S

3

10

27.08 12:45

28.08 20:20

15.09 23:40

0.76

18

19.6 S

4

11

26.09 04:10

27.09 19:20

13.10 21:30

0.89

17

18.0 S

5

12

25.10 21:40

26.10 18:40

08.11 07:00

0.99

14

15.7 S

6

13

24.11 16:09

25.11 18:00

07.12 18:00

0.98

12

13.4 M

7

Here is an explanation of the contents of the columns in the table. "New moon" - the date of the new moon. "Neomenia" - the date of neomenia, i.e. the moment when the crescent moon is first visible, which corresponds to the first day of the month. "Conjunction" - the moment of the Moon's smallest apparent approach to the Pleiades in Tashkent in a given month. "Phase" - the phase of the Moon at the moment of conjunction, which characterizes the illumination of the lunar disk by the Sun. The zero phase corresponds to the moment of the new moon, and the single phase corresponds to the full moon, when the lunar disk is fully illuminated. "Day" - the day of the lunar month, the number of days counted from neomenia to conjunction with the Pleiades. "Age" - the number of days that elapsed from the moment of the new moon to the connection. The letters " M " / " S " indicate a young (growing) or old (waning) moon. "Tokush" - the conditional number of tokush (togus) in the year. The count is conducted from the first conjunction of the Moon with the Pleiades after their heliacal sunrise according to the calendar model of B. A. Kuftin.

Yusuf estimated that on March 15, 1927, Besh Tokush was about 18 days away. Adding 18 days to March 15, we get the date of April 2, which corresponds to the new moon in our table. Neomenia, or the 1st day of the lunar month, occurred on April 3, and April 5 was the conjunction of the Moon and the Pleiades, which corresponds to the 3rd day of the lunar month.

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Figure 1. Calendar year

It should be noted that, although Yusuf made a mistake by 3 days, his estimate is quite accurate if the error value is correlated with the length of the time interval for which the forecast was made. Although in fact tokush occurred not on the 18th, but on the 21st day, only a knowledgeable person can give an estimate with such an error.

In the above quote, M. S. Andreev reports that the connections of the Moon and the Pleiades on the 9th, 8th, 7th, 5th and 3rd days of the month were considered significant tokushs. But the synodic month consists of 29 days, and tokush only 13 in a year. This means that in a randomly selected year, not every one of the five specified days may have a significant conjunction of the Moon with the Pleiades. According to our calculations, April 5, 1927 was not besh-tokush (the fifth tokush), but ouch-tokush (the third tokush). In 1927, there were no fifth and seventh tokushas at all.

This raises the following question: how accurate is Yusuf's information in principle? On the one hand, his information looks plausible: first comes besh-tokush and it becomes warm, leaves appear on the trees, and the steppe is covered with greenery. This time corresponds to the beginning of April. Then comes uch-tokush, in which barley ripens. Here, probably, we are talking about winter barley, which ripens in late May-early June. The time interval between these events is about two sidereal months. On the other hand, besh-tokush and uch-tokush, i.e. the conjunction of the Moon with the Pleiades, on the 5th and 3rd days of the lunar month, do not take place every year, and the dates of the conjunctions themselves fall on different days of the solar (for example, Gregorian) calendar from year to year.

To simulate the principle of operation of the lunisolar calendar, we calculated the dates of the observed Moon-Pleiades conjunctions that occurred after the heliacal sunrise of the Pleiades in the period from 1920 to 1950. Having determined 31 reference points for the beginning of the year, we subtracted neighboring dates from each other, resulting in a duration of 30 calendar years. When comparing, keep in mind that the Gregorian year begins on January 1, and the lunisolar year with a reference point in the Pleiades can begin from June 14 to July 12.

For example, in 1920, the first conjunction of the Moon with the Pleiades [after their heliacal sunrise] occurred on June 18, and in 1921 - on July 7, which means that the duration of this lunisolar (calculated from the Pleiades) year is 384 days. The calculation results are shown in Figure 1.

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It follows from the figure that the duration of the year can be 354-355 days, which corresponds to 13 sidereal lunar months, or 383-384 days, which correspond to 14 sidereal months. The difference of one day in both cases is explained by the fact that each neomenia occurs under slightly different conditions (phase, elongation, and latitude), and the age of the Moon (the number of days that have passed since the new moon) can range from 1.0 to 2.0 days.

In total, the 30-year period considered from June 18, 1920 to June 16, 1950 includes 19 "short" years consisting of 13 months, and 11 "long" years of 14 months each. However, unlike lunisolar calendars, we do not regulate intercalation cycles and the order of "short" and "long" years.

In a similar way, you can simulate real-world observations where, as a rule, there are gaps due to weather conditions. In a real situation, the very moment when the Pleiades and the Moon joined could be invisible, and the Moon was discovered n days later, after favorable weather was established. In this case, you can start counting down the new year from the moment when the moon is visible. Then the duration of the outgoing year will increase by n days, and the duration of the coming year will decrease by the same number of days, but no calendar failures will occur.

SCORPIO, OR "STAR OF TROUBLE", AMONG MOUNTAIN TAJIKS

Describing the rituals and customs of the Tajiks, I. Mukhiddinov mentioned the importance of the constellation of Scorpio - Sitorai Akrab, Sitorai nahs, or "stars of trouble"in their daily life. This star gives people trouble, and therefore you have to monitor its location.

"Two weeks before the New Year, the peasants asked the caliph to determine the exact time of the celebration of Nowruz and the day of the first plowing, as well as the location of the constellation Scorpio... Constellation rests only on Saturdays and keeps track of who is doing what. Because of its gossip, stars, angels and people quarrel among themselves, and it watches these quarrels from afar and rejoices. Therefore, other stars in the sky and angels remain in their place on Saturday, do not move, so as not to fall into the eyes of Scorpio. Therefore, on Saturday they do not start wedding celebrations, women do not wash their hair, do not start cutting clothes, etc." [Mukhiddinov, 1975, p. 93].

At first glance, this information has nothing to do with any astronomical traditions or ideas, with the exception of the name "Scorpio constellation" or "star of trouble". The quote attributes to Scorpio all sorts of negative actions of a social nature, i.e. Scorpio is "humanized". In addition, the description of the appearance or disappearance of any real star or constellation must somehow correspond to the movement of the celestial body. However, the author writes:

"According to popular belief, the constellation of Scorpio moves so that at different times of the day it is in different places in the sky, and when it is not visible there, it is considered to be "in the ground". For example, on the first day of the New Year, it can be in any part of the village - on the north, south, west or east" [ibid.].

The data reported in the first sentence fully corresponds to the visibility conditions of a real object: the star rises, reaches the meridian, and then sets, hiding under the ground. The content of the second sentence, which states that the star can be located in any part of the village, does not allow us to correlate it with an astronomical object. Similarly, a real star or constellation cannot rotate along with all the other constellations five days a week, but not ascend

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on Saturdays. It would be reasonable to assume that the " star of trouble "is a personification of some" evil forces", and the identification with Scorpio is made to give more fear.

At the same time, in the context of Scorpio, I. Mukhiddinov described other celestial objects known to mountain Tajiks. Thus, Scorpio was contrasted with the" benevolent " North Star (sitorai qutb), located in the north. There are seven stars orbiting the North Star counterclockwise: Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn. Here we have a clear picture of the world, which corresponds to what you can observe with your own eyes.

The information collected by I. Mukhiddinov does not allow us to clearly establish whether the Scorpion (or "star of trouble") is related to a real celestial object or whether it should be attributed to mythological entities.

STARS OF SATTARA SEGIZ AMONG KYRGYZ COSSACKS

Describing the astronomical ideas of the Kirghiz Cossacks, B. A. Kuftin mentioned the so-called wandering stars, which the Kirghiz People distinguished from the planets.

"At the same time, the Kyrgyz people have developed special ideas about wandering stars due to their observations of planets. These include the "Sattars of Segiz jolduz", which Kyrgyz Ablaikhanov of the Semirechensk region told me about. These stars go around the Earth from east to south and west; they appear again in the east, making a revolution in 9 days. At the same time, they remain visible for 8 days (segiz), disappear on the ninth day, and reappear on the tenth - only three times during the month. Budagov and Vamberi also spoke about these stars under the name "Sekis jolduz"and give the same beliefs about them."

"Among the stars of Sattara segiz, there is one that brings misfortune, this is the star Omur zaya - "loss of life": whoever sees it, he will not escape death. Vamberi calls this star Zejan jolduz, the scorpion star; if it meets a caravan or an army, some calamity will happen to them, and when it appears on the tenth day, the backs of riding horses are covered with sores. In Persia, this star is called Gezdum or Akreb. This also includes a star known in Central Asia, Kervan-kush - "the destroyer of caravans" ... " [Kuftin, 1916, pp. 138-139].

The above information allows us to draw some conclusions. First, Sattary Segiz is not a real astronomical object in our understanding, although it has some of its attributes. The so-called wandering stars rotate, like all "ordinary" celestial bodies, from east to west and have a certain period of rotation.

Secondly, it is possible to draw a parallel between the Sattary segiz of the Kyrgyz and the Scorpion of the mountain Tajiks, which follows at least from the comparison of their names, which are given by I. Mukhiddinov, B. A. Kuftin and A. Vamberi. In addition, the "star of trouble" by I. Mukhiddinov and the "loss of life" star by B. A. Kuftin have a similar "principle of operation". The first star should be avoided for 6 days, but on the seventh day (Saturday) it causes maximum inconvenience, not allowing you to carry out agricultural work. The second star is safe for 9 days, but causes fatal damage on the tenth day, when a new rotation cycle begins.

B. A. Kuftin suggested that the legend of Sattary Segiz may be an echo of the use of the 9-day week in the pre-Islamic period. Unlike the Muslim month, the Kyrgyz month was not synodic, but sidereal and consisted of 27 days. In this case, the week did not consist of 7, but of 9 days, so one month contained 3 weeks. The result is the following picture. On the 1st day of the month, the Sattars of Segiz rise, on the 8th they set, on the 9th they are invisible, and on the 10th with the beginning of a new week, their next sunrise occurs [Kuftin, 1916, p.140]. B. A. Kuftin also referred to the Khan of Khiva Abdul Gazi, who in his essay

page 13
"Family Tree of the Turkic peoples" mentioned the custom of "leading every business to the number 9".

It can be assumed that the Tajik star of Scorpio is the Kyrgyz Sattary segiz, brought to the seven-day Muslim week. An argument in favor of this assumption can serve as the information of I. Mukhiddinov:

"According to our informants, the constellation of Scorpio is "in the ground" for three days every month (they do not follow each other in a row). These days are "bad days"... These days are always odd, for example, the ninth, nineteenth and twenty-ninth days of the month" [Mukhiddinov, 1975, p. 94].

On the one hand, the author wrote that Scorpio is "in the ground" every Saturday, and on the other hand, he claimed that there are three such days in the month. As a result, whichever month we take, synodic or sidereal, the average duration between sunrises will be 29.53:3 = 9.84 or 27.32:9 = 9.11 days. No less interesting are the dates given by I. Mukhiddinov as an example. Ordinal numbers of bad days within a month confirm that their distribution is approximately uniform. Probably, such a distribution of days is obtained as a result of calculation based on knowledge of the orbital period.

But that's not all. Using the data of I. Mukhiddinov, it can be confirmed that the Tajik star of Scorpio in former times had a nine-day period of rotation.

"In the Bartanga Valley, in the Ravmed gorge (in the Ravmed village), the location of the Scorpion-Shukri yalduz-was represented as follows. On the first, eleventh, and twenty-first days of the month, the constellation was in the east. On the second, twelfth, and twenty-second days of the month, it was located between east and north; on the third, thirteenth, and twenty-third days of the month, the constellation was located in the north... On the eighth, eighteenth, and twenty-eighth day of the month, it was located between the south and the east. On the ninth, nineteenth, and twenty-ninth days, the constellation was underground (i.e., under the globe). On the tenth, twentieth, and thirtieth days of the month, it was located at the zenith above a person's head" [Mukhiddinov, 1986, pp. 71-72].

In this information, you should pay attention to several details. First, the average length of a month for Tajiks is 30 days, and each month contains three rotations of the Scorpio star. In other words, the duration of one orbital period is 10, not 7 days, and it is no longer possible to link bad days to Saturdays.

Secondly, if we assume that initially the Tajiks had a 27-day month with a 9-day week, then after the advent of Muslim culture, the length of the month was reduced to 30 days. It is likely that the theory of Scorpio moving to the 8 cardinal directions and entering the earth on the 9th day existed before Islam, and the "Muslim correction" consisted in adding one day when Scorpio is at the zenith. In this scheme, the zenith was obtained as a contrast to the position of Scorpio under the ground. Thus, if you remove the three days when Scorpio is at its zenith from the 30-day count, you get a 27-day cycle, the duration of which corresponds to the sidereal lunar month.

Finally, let us draw attention to another parallel between the Tajik Scorpion and the Sattara segiz among the Kyrgyz Cossacks. Sattary Segiz was called the "caravan destroyer" because there was a legend that her sunrise was confused with the sunrise of Venus. According to the last quote, the orbital cycle (1st, 11th, and 21st days of the month) started from the east, and according to the above quote from B. A. Kuftin [Kuftin 1916, pp. 138-139], the Sattars of segiz caused harm when they first appeared after leaving the earth.

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The result is the following picture. Once in the Central Asian region there was a legend about the "star of trouble", which was known by various names to the Persians, Kazakhs (Kyrgyz-Cossacks) and Tajiks. The information about the Scorpion star that has survived to this day among the Tajiks turns out to be a transformation of earlier ideas. It is most likely that the concept of the Scorpio star came to the Tajiks "from the steppe", after which it was transformed into the astral cult of Scorpio and adapted to Muslim ideas. In the course of the transformations, the original image of the" star of trouble " with its astronomical attributes was lost.

The legendary "star of trouble" was assigned a certain rotation period, which, according to B. A. Kuftin, was equal to 9 days. It is possible that in the territory of Sogd and the Southern Aral Sea region, the cycle of 9 days in the pre-Muslim period was a week, but we have no independent ethnographic evidence for this, except for the hypothesis of B. A. Kuftin. An indirect confirmation of the existence of a 9-day week can be considered the presence of a 27-day month, which contains exactly 3 weeks of 9 days.

* * *

On the territory of Kazakhstan (Semirechye), Uzbekistan (in Tashkent) and Tajikistan (in the Pamirs), traces of the use of the lunisolar calendar were found, in which the duration of the month was measured by observing the Moon's conjunctions with the Pleiades. Our estimates show that this calendar was in no way inferior to similar lunisolar calendars, although it was just as inconvenient for the farmer, since the beginning of the year in it fell on different dates of the solar calendar.

It is known that the lunisolar calendar was used in Mesopotamia, where agricultural culture was developed. However, it is generally accepted that in agriculture, numerous lists of star rises were used as markers, which made it possible to determine the dates of the solar year [Van der Vanden, 1991, pp. 73-79] .4 For this reason, it can be assumed that the considered lunar-stellar calendar was originally invented by nomadic pastoralists. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that the Pamir highlanders have the worst preserved calendar. First, the Pleiades month count recorded by B. A. Kuftin for the Kirghiz-Cossacks and M. S. Andreev for the Uzbeks did not exist in the Pamirs. Secondly, the idea of a 9-day week in the Pamirs was transformed into a 7-day week associated with the mystical Scorpio.

4 It is worth noting, however, the persistent negative associations associated with the constellation Scorpio, known from numerous predictions and observations of Mesopotamian astrologers. So, if on a certain day and month an eclipse of the Moon occurs in Scorpio, "pregnant women will miscarry their intrauterine babies"; if at the first appearance the Moon is surrounded by a Scorpion like a halo, " lions and wolves will rage..."; if the Scorpion stands in the middle of the Moon, "a flood will come and wash away the dams"; if it on the right horn of the Moon - "locusts will attack and devour the country", if on the left-in addition to locusts devouring the country, also "the king of Akkad and the king (Amurru) will be hostile to each other..."; if Venus enters Scorpio, " there will be famine in the country, if in the east, it is bad for Elam if in the west, it is bad for Akkad... "[Kurtik, 2007, pp. 169-170]. This is not to say that positive omens are completely absent, but they are an order of magnitude less [ibid., p. 167]. It should also be noted that the deity of the constellation Scorpio, according to cuneiform sources, was associated with the underworld Ishkhara, who was also considered the mother of the Seven Gods [ibid., p. 232], with which the Pleiades were identified. Since the Kassite period, the symbol of the goddess has been the scorpion , a favorite figure in the Babylonian kudurru (Seidl, 1968).

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list of literature

Andreev M. S. Tajiks of the Khuf Valley (Upper Reaches Of the Amu Darya). Issue II. Trudy. T. LXI. Stalinabad: Publishing House of the Academy of Sciences of the Tajik SSR, 1958.

Biruni Abu Reyhan. Monuments of past generations / Translated and edited by M. A. Salye / / Selected Works, Vol. I. Tashkent: Fan, 1957.

Belokryl'ov R. O., Belokryl'ov S. V., Nikiforov M. G. Model ' twilight visibility of stars / / Istoriko-astronomicheskie issledovaniya, vol. 37, Moscow, 2013.

Boyce M. Zoroastrians. Customs and Beliefs, Moscow: Nauka Publ., 1988.

Van der Vanden B. Awakening Science II. The birth of astronomy. Moscow: Nauka Publ., 1991.

Kurtik G. E. Starry sky of ancient Mesopotamia: Sumero-Akkadian names of constellations and other luminaries. St. Petersburg: Alethea, 2007.

Kuftin B. A. Calendar and primitive astronomy of the Kyrgyz-Cossack people // Ethnographic review. 1916. N 3-4.

Muhiddinov I. Agriculture of the Pamir Tajiks Vakhan and Ishkashim in the XIX-early XX centuries (historical and ethnographic essay). Moscow: Nauka, Main Editorial Office of Eastern Literature, 1975.

Mukhiddinov I. Rituals and customs of Pripamir peoples associated with the cycle of agricultural work // Ancient rites, beliefs and cults of the peoples of Central Asia, Moscow: Nauka Publ., 1986.

Tsybulsky V. V. Kalendari i khronologiya stran mira [Calendars and chronology of countries of the world]. Moscow: Prosveshchenie, 1982.

Seidl U. Die babylonischen Kudurru-Reliefs // Baghdader Mitteilungen. Deutsches Archaologisches Institut. 1968. Bd. 4.

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