How did the days of the week sync across the world?

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Pre-industrial cultures I’m pretty sure had days of the week, but did everyone have a 7-day week?

E.g. in 1290 did Marco Polo leave Italy on a Tuesday, and arrive in China on a Friday (according to him), but the Chinese understood it to be their “Monday” when he arrived.

Do we have any historical sources that give an idea of how/why this happened?

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3 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Whilst they may not have had a seven day week almost all cultures had a 28 day month. The moon’s phases are pretty hard to ignore when you’re trying to make sense of when things happen. The seven day week is a simple division of that, representing new to half, half to full, full to half, and half to new sequentially.

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