About this episode

The episode discusses various non-Roman calendars and how different civilizations conceptualize and measure time.

Synopsis When is Hanukkah this year? When is Lupercalia, or Easter, or Midsummer’s Eve? When is your birthday? Figuring out when big events happen is incredibly important, and humans have been doing it for a long time. But while we can see some similarities in the process of calendar evolution, many civilizations had very different ways of conceptualizing and measuring time. Join Em and Dr. Jesse for a discussion of non-Roman calendars! Notes 0/ Check out the Nerd and Tie podcast network ! Official announcement here . 1/ A lot of Mayans live in Yucatán in Mexico. Between 1847–1933, the Mayan fought a long and bloody war against the government of Mexico, and for a while controlled an independent state. Eventually they won the right to break up some of the haciendas, making it a fairly successful indigenous land movement. Now in Yucatán, a lot of the land is collectively owned/managed by the Maya. 2/ St Patrick will be coming up in the future! His episode has been recorded. 3/ Sir Capricorn’s name turns out to be Sesame. He is amazing! 4/ Gobekli Tepe (settled roughly 9500 BCE) 5/ Wurdi Youang (Australia) 6/ Warren Field (Scotland) 7/ Hawaii 8/ Yoruba calendar 9/…

People in this episode

Host: Em

Guest: Dr. Jesse

Topics covered

• calendar systems
• time measurement
• ancient civilizations
• Mayan culture
• historical events
• cultural practices

Keywords

• calendars
• Mayan calendar
• Lupercalia
• Easter
• time measurement
• ancient civilizations
• historical events

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Metropolitan Museum of Art

Books & works: The 360-Day Year in Mesopotamia, MUL.APIN, Ancient Egyptian calendar, Mayan calendar

Places: Yucatán, Mexico, Australia, Scotland, Hawaii

More episodes of Ask a Medievalist

• Episode 99: Respect My Authority · January 20, 2026 · 1h 25m
• Episode 98: In Rome for the Calends · January 5, 2026 · 1h 13m
• Episode 96: Pope Joan · October 26, 2025 · 1h 16m
• Episode 95: Sur le Pontife d’Avignon · August 24, 2025 · 1h 13m
• Episode 94: Popes and Antipopes · June 26, 2025 · 1h 14m
• Episode 93: Take Me Down to Vatican City · June 11, 2025 · 1h 15m

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