Living the Lunar Calendar
Bible Lands Museum Jerusalem presents
Living the Lunar Calendar: Time, Text and Tradition
30th January-1st February 2010
Living the Lunar Calendar: Time, Text and Tradition
The Bible Lands Museum Jerusalem, January 30th February 1st, 2010
Tu B'Shvat 5770
First Conference Announcement
The Bible Lands Museum Jerusalem, in collaboration with the CAENO Foundation; Department of Bible, University of Haifa; The Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature, The Mandel Institute of Jewish Studies, The Faculty of Humanities, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Haifa Forum for the History of Science; and Qumran National Park Israel Nature and Parks Authority are pleased to announce a conference entitled Living the Lunar Calendar: Time, Text and Tradition".
The conference will be held at the Bible Lands Museum Jerusalem and Qumran, site of the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Call for Papers
The Living the Lunar Calendar Conference held under the full moon of the Jewish festival of the New Year for Trees will investigate the place of calendar reckoning in human society and culture. Focusing on the Moon as a marker of the passage of time, the conference will address a wide variety of issues regarding the application of astronomical and calendrical rules to everyday life, and beyond to the shaping of cultural identity.
The lunar calendar with its irregular pattern of 29/30 day months, requiring an uneven number of months to match the passage of an annual solar/stellar cycle brings with it a measure of uncertainty. It can be observed that the Moon is at one and the same time both constant and unpredictable, leading civilizations to adopt divergent modes of reflection on the stable and unstable components of their existence in time. With the Moon, time does not only exist in nature, but needs to be regulated by man. Human measures of day, month, and year, must live with these uncertainties. In cultures that use the lunar calendar, one must find answers to such mundane questions as: When does the month, the year, begin? How are salaries and interest to be calculated over months of uneven length and years of unequal months? Is the date in one city the same in all cities?
More generally, cultures had to account for the apparent anomaly in nature, defining just how much human involvement is required in fixing the central concepts of time. This ideological dilemma joined forces with the political and societal conflicts in antiquity, both within the great empires as well as smaller ethnic and cultural entities. The calendar thus participated significantly in the formation of civilization and identity.
We will gather at the Bible Lands Museum Jerusalem (BLMJ) and the site of Qumran on the shores of the Dead Sea, to address these types of issues in sessions covering the cuneiform Ancient Near East, Egypt, Ancient Israel, The Greco-Roman World, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, the Far East, Africa, and Mesoamerica. Central focus will be given to the ancient world, but with an open eye towards later periods. Papers are invited by scholars on the following general topics:Everyday Life in Lunar Regulated Societies Calendrical Principles, especially in regard to harmonizing the Lunar Calendar with other systems such as the Egyptian civil calendar, the Julian Calendar, the Jewish sectarian system of 364 day years. Cultural Statements about the Moon, the Sun, the Stars and the concept of Time. Anthropological, Sociological, and Philosophical trajectories of the above. Submission of papers are invited by the Academic Organizing Committee:
Jonathan Ben-Dov (Haifa University), Wayne Horowitz (The Hebrew University), John Steele (Brown University), Filip Vukosavovi (BLMJ), and should consist of a title and abstract of no more than 200 words.
Presentations will be between 25-45 minutes including time for questions, and are to be delivered in English. Papers from the conference will be published in electronic form. The deadline for submissions is 31st July, 2009.
The conference will be held under the auspices of the Bible Lands Museum Jerusalem and The CAENO Foundation, and will include three days of sessions and events at the Museum, with an afternoon and evening at Qumran. Technical details will be provided at a later date. For further information and submission of abstracts, please contact: curatorial@blmj.org.
Theme
The Living the Lunar Calendar Conference held under the full moon of the Jewish festival of the New Year for Trees will investigate the place of calendar reckoning in human society and culture. Focusing on the Moon as a marker of the passage of time, the conference will address a wide variety of issues regarding the application of astronomical and calendrical rules to everyday life, and beyond to the shaping of cultural identity.
The lunar calendar with its irregular pattern of 29/30 day months, requiring an uneven number of months to match the passage of an annual solar/stellar cycle brings with it a measure of uncertainty. It can be observed that the Moon is at one and the same time both constant and unpredictable, leading civilizations to adopt divergent modes of reflection on the stable and unstable components of their existence in time. With the Moon, time does not only exist in nature, but needs to be regulated by man. Human measures of day, month, and year, must live with these uncertainties. In cultures that use the lunar calendar, one must find answers to such mundane questions as: When does the month, the year, begin? How are salaries and interest to be calculated over months of uneven length and years of unequal months? Is the date in one city the same in all cities?
More generally, cultures had to account for the apparent anomaly in nature, defining just how much human involvement is required in fixing the central concepts of time. This ideological dilemma joined forces with the political and societal conflicts in antiquity, both within the great empires as well as smaller ethnic and cultural entities. The calendar thus participated significantly in the formation of civilization and identity.
Conference Program
Saturday 30th January
* Evening welcome, registration, lectures and gallery tour of the Bible Lands Museum Jerusalem
Sunday 31st January
* Lectures dedicated to Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Early Judaism.
* Guided tour to Qumran, including buses to and from Jerusalem, entrance fees to the site, a selection of guided tours led by some of the foremost experienced guides, a guided viewing of the night sky, packed lunch, dinner and a lecture.
Monday 1st February
* Sessions entitled Classics and the Ancient Mediterranean, Judaism, Christianity, the Americas, the Far East and Beyond.
The conference will be conducted in English.
The lectures are to be given by some of the major international scholars in the field. Confirmed participants include
Jonathan Ben-Dov (Haifa University)
Wayne Horowitz (Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
Stanislaw Iwaniszewski (National Institute of Anthropology and History, Mexico)
Shalom Paul (Hebrew University of Jerusalem and The Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature)
Lawrence Schiffman (New York University)
John Steele (Brown University)
Sacha Stern (University College London)
Registration and Payment
The fees for conference, including the tour are as follows:
549 NIS ($137)
499 NIS ($125) (Museum members, students and senior citizens)
The fee includes a fully guided tour to Qumran on the Sunday: transport to and from Jerusalem/Qumran, admission to Qumran and a guided tour of the site, followed by dinner in the evening. The fee also includes admission to the Bible Lands Museum Jerusalem, lectures, coffee breaks, a reception on Saturday evening, a packed lunch on the Sunday and a buffet lunch on the Monday.
It is possible to attend the lectures only on Saturday evening, Sunday morning and all day Monday. This fee includes admission to the Bible Lands Museum Jerusalem, lectures, coffee breaks, a reception on Saturday evening and a buffet lunch on the Monday. It does not include the tour to Qumran. The cost for this option is:
250 NIS ($63)
200 NIS ($50) (Museum members, students and senior citizens)
Payment information
| Please make checks or money orders payable to: | Bible Lands Museum Jerusalem |
| Remit payment to: | Bible Lands Museum Jerusalem P.O.B. 4670, Jerusalem 91046, Israel |
| Or, payments may be made via bank transfer: | Bible Lands Museum Jerusalem Account No.: 180580 Sort Code: 11-067 Israel Discount Bank, LTD. 220 Jaffa Street, Jerusalem 94383, Israel |
| SWIFT/IBAN |
IDBLILIT067JLM180580 |
|
Payment may also be made by credit card. If you choose this payment method, please ensure that you quote credit card no., full name of card holder and expiry date of card. |
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| Registration will take place at the Bible Lands Museum on Saturday 30th January 2010 from 19.00-20.00 hours and on Sunday 31st January from 08.30-09.00 hours. |
Location
The Bible Lands Museum Jerusalem houses one of the world s most exceptional collections of artefacts from the Ancient Near East illustrating the civilizations of the biblical period, including Mesopotamia, Egypt, Phoenicia, Greece and Rome. The museum is situated on Museum Row, 25 Granot Street, and is close to the Givat Ram campus of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, The Israel Museum and the Bloomfield Science Museum. It is served by the 9, 17, 24 and 99 bus routes. The museum is accessible to the disabled.
Arrival from Abroad
Ben-Gurion International Airport is approximately 50 km (31 miles) west of Jerusalem. Depending on the time of day, it is a 40-55 minute journey between the airport and Jerusalem. The airport lies on Route no.1 which links Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem.
Public Transport
Buses operated by the Egged Co-operative run to Jerusalem Central Bus Station. They depart from the main terminal (terminal 3) on the second level next to gates 21and 23. Please check the Egged website for bus times www.egged.co.il/Eng
Taxis to all destinations are located on ground floor level and reached by exiting the arrivals hall. A taxi rank and dispatcher s station will assist you in locating a taxi. In addition Nesher Tours runs a shared taxi service (sherut) based on a fixed rate per passenger between the airport and your hotel in Jerusalem. The shared taxi departure point is also located on the ground floor by exiting the arrivals hall.
Accommodation
The Bible Lands Museum Jerusalem has the following special rates at the Belgium House, the faculty club and guest house of the Givat Ram campus of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Single room with private bathroom facilities- $72 per night
Double room with private bathroom facilities - $88 per night
Rates include buffet breakfast. If you would like us to book you a room at this facility, please contact us. If you would like alternative recommendations for accommodation, we shall be happy to assist. However, reservations for alternative accommodation should be made by participants directly with the hotel and not via the museum.
Contact Details and Further information
Bible Lands Museum Jerusalem
POB 4670
Jerusalem 91046
Israel
Tel: 972-(0)2-561 1066
Fax: 972-(0)2-563 8228
Museum website: www.blmj.org
Conference website:
To request a registration form please contact the conference administrator, Carolyn Budow Ben-David at curatorial@blmj.org
*All programs subject to change
