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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At the time of Marco Polo people did not even agree on how many days a week should have. People are alive today who did not follow the 7 day week when they went to school. During what is commonly known as the dark ages the Catholic church were the ones studying astronomy in Europe and therefore made all the calendars. They made sure the 7 day week became universal and that the days of the week was the same everywhere. Then as European empires colonised the rest of the world they introduced the same calendar everywhere.
But the world were not as disconnected during the time of Marco Polo as you might think. He is said to be the first European to reach China, although this is not true. He was just the first to write extensively about it. Marco Polo was an ambasador from Venice to Constantinople who was invited by the Ottomans on a diplomatic expedition that ended him in China. It is possible that some of the same diplomats that he met in Venice on their way on expeditions further west were part of the same expedition Marco Polo was on to China. And they might have taken lots of these types of expeditions through their careers. The diplomatic expeditions and relations were also mostly to help keep up trade between these nations. Which meant that for each diplomat that traveled between these countries hundreds of traders took the same trip bringing wares. People traveled all over the world, they just did not bother to synchronise their calendars.
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