Page "Almanac" Paragraph 12

The precursor to the almanac was the Greek astronomical and meteorological calendar, the parapegma, an inscribed stone on which the days of the month were indicated by movable pegs inserted into bored holes.

According to Diogenes Laërtius, Parapegma was the title of a book by Democritus.

Ptolemy, the Alexandrian astronomer ( 2nd century ) wrote a treatise, Phaseis —" phases of fixed stars and collection of weather-changes " is the translation of its full title — the core of which is a parapegma, a list of dates of seasonally regular weather changes, first appearances and last appearances of stars or constellations at sunrise or sunset, and solar events such as solstices, all organized according to the solar year.

With the astronomical computations were expected weather phenomena, composed as a digest of observations made by various authorities of the past.

Parapegmata had been composed for centuries.

Similar treatises called Zij were later composed in medieval Islamic astronomy.