'Anno Mundi' ('AM', "in the year of the
world") refers to a
Calendar era counting from the
creation of the world. An example is the
Hebrew calendar which considers creation to have taken place in the year
3760 BC. This is based upon the
Seder Olam Rabbah of Rabbi
Yose Ben Halafta in the second century CE. The year 2007
CE, before
Rosh Hashanah, is 5767 AM in the Hebrew calendar.
AM was also used by early Christian chronographers. The medieval historian
Bede dated creation to
18 March 3952 BCE. The Irish
Annals of the Four Masters gives the year
5194 BC.
The
Aetos Kosmou is the corresponding concept in the
Byzantine calendar, which dates creation to
1 September,
5509 BC.
James Ussher (1654) dated creation to
23 October,
4004 BC.
Related to this is the
Anno Lucis of
Freemasonry, which adds 4000 years to the AD date; and the
Julian day number, counting the days that have elapsed since noon
Greenwich Mean Time (UT or TT) on Monday,
January 1,
4713 BC.
The date inferred from the Roman
Martyrology[ Christus Rex.] is
25 March,
5199 BC, which is close to the date of the Irish annals mentioned above.
References
See also
★
Dating creation