hemerology

plural hemerologies

1. countableuncountableThe study of calendars, especially with a view to identifying propitious days.

   Hemerology, (Greek) a Calender, or Book, wherein are regiſtred the paſſages of every day.

   [1658, Edward Phillips, compiler, “Hemerology”, in The New World of English Words: Or, A General Dictionary: […], London: […] E. Tyler, for Nath[aniel] Brook […], →OCLC

   4 more examples

   It is not necessary to an intelligent comprehension of the Gospels, as they have been handed down to us, that they should possess an exact hemerology.

   book review

   1870 April 1, “The Gospels Consolidated; with a copious Index. S. Bagster and Sons. 1869. [book review]”, in Henry Allon, Henry Robert Reynolds, editors, The British Quarterly Review, volume LI, number CII, London: Hodder and Stoughton, Paternoster Row, →OCLC, page 538

   For these reasons perhaps unsurprisingly the Babylonian Almanach was the most popular hemerology, enjoying a widespread currency from around the middle of the second millennium BC down well into Late Babylonian times.

   1998, Sergio Ribichini, Magic in the Ancient Near East (Studi epigrafici e linguistici sul Vicino Oriente antico; 15), Verona: Essedue edizioni, →ISBN, page 60

   In our context, the chapter on hemerology (including astrology) is of primary interest. Hemerology, the method for determining favorable and unfavorable days, has a long history in ancient China.

   2008, Johannes Thomann, “Square Horoscope Diagrams in Middle Eastern Astrology and Chinese Cosmological Diagrams: Were these Designs Transmitted through the Silk Road?”, in Philippe Forêt, Andreas Kaplony, editors, The Journey of Maps and Images on the Silk Road (Brill's Inner Asian Library; 21), Leiden; Boston, Mass.: Brill, →ISBN, →ISSN, page 111

   The final section of the text […] contains a mock hemerology, in which the dietary prescriptions typical of hemerologies are ridiculed with coarse humor: thus, the dish recommended for the month of Šabāṭu is cedar wood filled with "donkey's buttock, dog's excrement, and bluebotle's excrement." In this case the text clearly parodies hemerologies, one of the most popular genres throughout cuneiform culture.

   2017, Enrique Jiménez, “The Place of Disputation Poems within Babylonian Literature”, in The Babylonian Disputation Poems: With Editions of the Series of the Poplar, Palm and Vine, the Series of the Spides, and the Story of the Poor, Forlorn Wren (Culture and History of the Ancient Near East; 87), Leiden: E. J. Brill, →ISBN, page 103