The Sun Raising

As with so many things passed down to us from antiquity, religion is the reason the calendar week starts (for many of us) on Sunday. The first day of the week (for most), Sunday has been set aside as the “day of the sun” since ancient Egyptian times in honor of the sun-god, beginning with  Ra . The Egyptians passed their idea of a 7-day week onto the Romans, who also started their week with the Sun’s day, dies solis.  When translated into early German, the first day was called  sunnon-dagaz,  which made its way into Middle English as  sone(n)day . For some in the Christian tradition, the first day of the week is named in accordance with the creation tale in the first book of the Bible, Genesis, where one of the first things God did was say “ let there be light, and there was light .” Not every culture has Sunday as its first day, and notable exceptions are found in the Slavic languages, where Sunday is the last day of the week and is not named in hono...