Time

Abstract

Abstract Among the novel practices of early urban culture in Italy were new ways of organizing time. These moves in temporality underpinned new forms of historical practice. This chapter looks at how conceptions of time shift from ancestral or genealogical schema to more collective and calendrically arranged schema within the framework of early urban culture. An anxiety with marking the passage of time is seen in early urban rituals, particularly in nail-driving rituals attested at Rome, Pyrgi, and Marzabotto, as well as elsewhere. The major part of the chapter catalogues evidence for calendrical time in Rome and in Italic inscriptions in Etruscan, Oscan, Umbrian, and in one case Phoenician. Almost all extant early inscriptions from Italy of substantial length relate to calendrical time in some way. This reveals an abundant interest in the calendar, pointing to a nexus among urbanization, historical culture, early writing, and a particular interest in time arranged according to planetary movements.