…it’s a really interesting question, the answer to which is guaranteed to raise a disbelieving response from almost every quarter!

The truth is that no-one knows for sure…

…but the seven day week is very old, very widespread and only poorly related to other astronomical periods, such as the year or month.

The Biblical account of creation probably did influence the choice of a seven day week amongst the Ancient Hebrews, but there are other theories that have been suggested to explain its widespread occurrence.

The most coherent starts with the observation that in several cultures the original names for the days of the week always occur in the same order and were related to the seven parts of the solar system that can be seen with the naked eye. In more modern times, some of these have been changed, for example to Norse gods in English (Woden / Wednesday; Thor / Thursday; Freya / Friday), but the underlying structure is retained:

Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, Sun (the visible solar system)

Luna Mars Mercurius Jupiter Venus Saturnus Sol (the equivalent Roman Deities)

Lundi Mardi Mercredi Jeudi Vendredi Samedi Dimanche (French)

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday (English)

Locations which appear to have a very ancient seven day week include Babylon, Egypt and several others. Of course, once influential cultures started using this system, its spread was inevitable and today the seven day week is universal, although others have been suggested (and even tried!) from time to time. The naming system is not universal: some cultures have used names simply related to the number of the day in the week, for example Russian and Swahili, but there are Asiatic languages (for example, Hindi, Japanese, and Korean) that have a similar relationship between the week days and the solar system.

Why are the ’solar system’ names of the week in their particular order?

People in ancient times generally believed the Earth to be at the centre of everything and ordered the visible solar system according to their apparent distance from Earth:

Saturn (most distant), Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon (closest).

Very many ancient cultures believed these astronomical bodies to influence activities on Earth and several assigned them to the hours of the day…

Day 1: Hour 1=Saturn, Hour 2=Jupiter, 3=Mars, 4=Sun, 5=Venus, 6=Mercury, 7=Moon, 8=Saturn, 9=Jupiter, etc….. 23=Jupiter, 24=Mars

Then next day continued the sequence…

Day 2: Hour 1=Sun, 2=Venus, etc….. 23=Venus, 24=Mercury

and so on….

Day 3; 1=Moon, 2=Saturn, etc.

The days of the week were named according to the first hour of each day, which gives precisely the order of the day names we use today:

Saturn, Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus

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