I was listening to a book, and the 'empire' in it changes the record of years to something based off the age of the empire. I have seen this in many stories, and it makes sense that kingdoms would alter their record of year off of things like the age of their rule.
I don't know, but the way we talk about China, makes me think that they did this, but I don't actually know (Ming, Qing, Yuan Dynasties).
Is there any actual evidence that religions/kingdoms changed the record of year keeping (set it back to 0). I only know of AD/BC (CE/BCE), but in ACTUAL BC times, and I even assume a decent way into AD. They didn't use those time stamps, so what did they use?
Year of Zeus? Post-Greecian Era?
I would also be curious in reading more about this, so what exactly is this called? What motivations records of study there are in this field?
Thanks in advance
Well, just to give an example:
In dynastic China, dates were often based off of what was called the "reign period" of a ruler. For instance, a Chinese historian might start off an anecdote by saying, "In the eighth year of the Kaiyuan period of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang." Before the Ming Dynasty, an emperor might have multiple reign periods during their rule, but this was standardized to just one reign name per ruler during the Ming.
The usages of time measurement can be a very interesting thing. I don't really know of any scholars who specifically work on that, but one of my favorite scholars who works on the topic of time is Jacques Le Goff. He typically analyzes the cultural and social influences on how we think about time.