still begins at midnight by the clock. The archaeology of our everyday life leads us all over the world. The 365 days of our year acknowledge our debt to ancient Egyptian priests, while the names of months—January, February, March—and of the days of our seven-day week—Saturday, Sunday, Monday—remain our tie to the early Hebrews and to Greek and Roman astrologers. When we mark each hour of our 24-hour day, and designate the minutes after the hour, we are living, as a historian of ancient science reminds us, by “the results of a Hellenistic modification of an Egyptian practice combined with
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