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POLYPHASIC SLEEP
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It wasn’t only the heavens that dictated the structure of the week.
Seven days is a convenient interval for a market cycle, a chance for
farmers and merchants to come together and exchange goods. The
choice of seven days wasn’t universal: some African tribes kept a
ve-day market cycle; for the Inca of South America it was eight
days; it was ten for the ancient Chinese. Postrevolutionary France
tried to establish a ten-day week in 1792, without success. The
Romans had an eight-day market cycle in place when, in A.D. 321,
the emperor Constantine established Sunday as the rst day of an
ocial seven-day week. (
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