One of them is a bronze belt used by the ancient Armenian priests dating back to 2000-1000 B.C. This belt contains ornaments of the sun, moon, animals, different geometrical shapes and points. "A study of the belt of the calendars of neighboring countries of those days and of old Armenian manuscripts show that the belt served as a calendar, and that the lunar-solar calendar was used in ancient Armenia," according to Dr. B.E. Toumanyan.
The study shows that ancient Armenian priests divided the year into twelve lunar months, where the beginning of each month was announced by the Armenian priests. To make sure that the beginning of the year would coincide with the day of the vernal equinox, Armenian priests sometimes would add an additional month. Furthermore, in ancient Armenia, a year consisted of three seasons, four months each, while each week consisted of seven days, as was also the common practice was in Babylon.
Later on, in 460 B.C., Armenians adopted the solar calendar, where the year consisted of twelve months that were thirty days each, and an additional month of five days. As such, according to Dr. Toumanyan "the error amounted to one day every four years, or one year in every 1460 years. It was named 'leap-year' and was not taken into account." Some ancient manuscripts found at the Matenadaran (museum of ancient Armenian art and manuscripts) indicate the cycle of 1461 years to have been called as the 'Armenian Cycle.'
The Armenians of antiquity had a practice of naming months of the year and days of the week. Accordingly, the names of the months were the following: navasard, hori, sahmi, tre, kaghots, orats, mehekan, areg, ahekan, mareri, margats, hrotits and avelyats, where Navasard stood for January. The thirty days of the month were named after certain venerated pagan gods of Armenia: areg, hrant, aram, margar, ahrank, mazdek, astghik, mihr, dzonaber, mourts, yerazkan, ani, parkhar, vanat, aramazd, mani, assak, massis, anahit, aragats, grgour, kordouin, tsemak, loussnak, tsron, npat, vahagn, sein, varaz and gulsheravar.
After accepting Christianity as a state religion, according to Dr. Toumanyan, " ... The Armenians began to make use of seven-day week. Like the Jewish calendar, the names of the week-days designated their numerical order; miashabti, erkoushabti, erekshabti, chorekshabti, hingshabti, vetsshabti and shabat, where 'shabat' means-day of rest, while 'miashabti' meant the first day following the day of rest, erkushabti is the second day following the day of rest and so on."
Some time later, the Armenian Christian church renamed 'vetsshabti' as 'ourbat,' where 'ourbat' meant 'to get ready for the rest day.' At a later date, the Christian church of Armenia declared the first day of the week as 'kiraki' or the 'lord’s day' and ,as such, 'kiraki' became the rest day.
Source: The History of Armenian Astronomy by Dr. B. E. Toumanyan, published in 1985 by the Yerevan State University press.
