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Egyptian calendar

(Redirected from Egyptian civil calendar)

The ancient Egyptian calendar – a civil calendar – was a solar calendar with a 365-day year. The year consisted of three seasons of 120 days each, plus an intercalary month of five epagomenal days treated as outside of the year proper. Each season was divided into four months of 30 days. These twelve months were initially numbered within each season but came to also be known by the names of their principal festivals. Each month was divided into three 10-day periods known as decans or decades. It has been suggested that during the Nineteenth Dynasty and the Twentieth Dynasty the last two days of each decan were usually treated as a kind of weekend for the royal craftsmen, with royal artisans free from work.[2]

A section of the hieroglyphic calendar at the Kom Ombo Temple, displaying the transition from Month XII to Month I without mention of the five epagomenal days.
Astronomical ceiling from the Tomb of Senenmut (XVIII Dynasty, c. 1479–1458 BC), discovered in Thebes, Upper Egypt; facsimile preserved in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.[1]
The sky goddess Nut and human figures representing stars and constellations from the star chart in the tomb of Ramses VI.

Because this calendrical year was nearly a quarter of a day shorter than the solar year, the Egyptian calendar lost about one day every four years relative to the Gregorian calendar. It is therefore sometimes referred to as the wandering year (Latin: annus vagus), as its months rotated about one day through the solar year every four years. Ptolemy III's Canopus Decree attempted to correct this through the introduction of a sixth epagomenal day every four years but the proposal was resisted by the Egyptian priests and people and abandoned until the establishment of the Alexandrian or Coptic calendar by Augustus. The introduction of a leap day to the Egyptian calendar made it equivalent to the reformed Julian calendar, although by extension it continues to diverge from the Gregorian calendar at the turn of most centuries.

This civil calendar ran concurrently with an Egyptian lunar calendar which was used for some religious rituals and festivals. Some Egyptologists have described it as lunisolar, with an intercalary month supposedly added every two or three years to maintain its consistency with the solar year, but no evidence of such intercalation before the 4th century BC has yet been discovered.

History

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Prehistory

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Setting a calendar by the Nile flood would be about as vague a business as if we set our calendar by the return of the Spring violets.

—H.E. Winlock[3]

 
The Nile flood at Cairo c. 1830.

Current understanding of the earliest development of the Egyptian calendar remains speculative. A tablet from the reign of the First Dynasty pharaoh Djer (c. 3000 BC) was once thought to indicate that the Egyptians had already established a link between the heliacal rising of Sirius (Ancient Egyptian: Spdt or Sopdet, "Triangle"; ‹See Tfd›Greek: Σῶθις, Sôthis) and the beginning of their year, but more recent analysis has questioned whether the tablet's picture refers to Sirius at all.[4] Similarly, based on the Palermo Stone, Alexander Scharff proposed that the Old Kingdom observed a 320-day year, but his theory has not been widely accepted.[5] Some evidence suggests the early civil calendar had 360 days,[6] although it might merely reflect the unusual status of the five epagomenal days as days "added on" to the proper year.

With its interior effectively rainless for thousands of years,[7] ancient Egypt was "a gift of the river" Nile,[8] whose annual flooding organized the natural year into three broad natural seasons known to the Egyptians as:[9][10][11]

  1. Inundation or Flood (Ancient Egyptian: Ꜣḫt, sometimes anglicized as Akhet): roughly from September to January.
  2. Emergence or Winter (Prt, sometimes anglicized as Peret): roughly from January to May.
  3. Low Water or Harvest or Summer (Šmw, sometimes anglicized as Shemu): roughly from May to September.[9]

As early as the reign of Djer (c. 3000 BC, Dynasty I), yearly records were being kept of the flood's high-water mark.[12] Otto E. Neugebauer noted that a 365-day year can be established by averaging a few decades of accurate observations of the Nile flood without any need for astronomical observations,[13] although the great irregularity of the flood from year to year[a] and the difficulty of maintaining a sufficiently accurate Nilometer and record in prehistoric Egypt has caused other scholars to doubt that it formed the basis for the Egyptian calendar.[3][6][15]
Note that the names of the three natural seasons were incorporated into the Civil calendar year (see below), but as this calendar year is a wandering year, the seasons of this calendar slowly rotate through the natural solar year, meaning that Civil season Akhet/Inundation only occasionally coincided with the Nile inundation.

Lunar calendar

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A modern lunar calendar for 2017

The Egyptians appear to have used a purely lunar calendar prior to the establishment of the solar civil calendar[16][17] in which each month began on the morning when the waning crescent moon could no longer be seen.[15] Until the closing of Egypt's polytheist temples under the Byzantines, the lunar calendar continued to be used as the liturgical year of various cults.[17] The lunar calendar divided the month into four weeks, reflecting each quarter of the lunar phases.[18] Because the exact time of morning considered to begin the Egyptian day remains uncertain[19] and there is no evidence that any method other than observation was used to determine the beginnings of the lunar months prior to the 4th century BC,[20] there is no sure way to reconstruct exact dates in the lunar calendar from its known dates.[19] The difference between beginning the day at the first light of dawn or at sunrise accounts for an 11–14 year shift in dated observations of the lunar cycle.[21] It remains unknown how the Egyptians dealt with obscurement by clouds when they occurred and the best current algorithms have been shown to differ from actual observation of the waning crescent moon in about one-in-five cases.[19]

Parker and others have argued for its development into an observational and then calculated lunisolar calendar[22] which used a 30 day intercalary month every two to three years to accommodate the lunar year's loss of about 11 days a year relative to the solar year and to maintain the placement of the heliacal rising of Sirius within its twelfth month.[16] No evidence for such a month, however, exists in the present historical record.[23]

N11
N14		 N35R8O6
Temple Month
Ꜣbd n ḥwt-nṯr[24]
in hieroglyphs

A second lunar calendar is attested by a demotic astronomical papyrus[25] dating to sometime after 144 AD which outlines a lunisolar calendar operating in accordance with the Egyptian civil calendar according to a 25 year cycle.[26] The calendar seems to show its month beginning with the first visibility of the waxing crescent moon, but Parker displayed an error in the cycle of about a day in 500 years,[27] using it to show the cycle was developed to correspond with the new moon around 357 BC.[28] This date places it prior to the Ptolemaic period and within the native Egyptian Dynasty XXX. Egypt's 1st Persian occupation, however, seems likely to have been its inspiration.[29] This lunisolar calendar's calculations apparently continued to be used without correction into the Roman period, even when they no longer precisely matched the observable lunar phases.[30]

The days of the lunar month — known to the Egyptians as a "temple month"[24] — were individually named and celebrated as stages in the life of the moon god, variously Thoth in the Middle Kingdom or Khonsu in the Ptolemaic era: "He ... is conceived ... on Psḏntyw; he is born on Ꜣbd; he grows old after Smdt".[31]

Days of the lunar month[31][b]
Day Name
Egyptian Meaning (if known)
1
N10G4W3
[c]		 Psḏtyw[d] Literal meaning unknown but possibly related to the Ennead; the day of the New Moon.
2
D1N11
N14
[e]		 Tp Ꜣbd
Ꜣbd		 "Beginning the Month" or "The Month"; the beginning of the Crescent Moon.
3
F31Q3
D21		 W3
 Mspr "Arrival"
4
O1
D21		 X1S29G17W3
 Prt Sm "The Going Forth of the Sm", a kind of priest
5
Aa1
X1		 D2
Z1		 R2W3
 I͗ḫt Ḥr Ḫꜣwt "Offerings upon the Altar"
6
S29T22N35
X1		 Z2
Z2		 W3
[f]		 Snt "The Sixth"
7
D46
N35		 M17X1W3
[g]		 Dnı͗t "Partial"; the first-quarter day.
8
D1 D12
W3
Tp Unknown
9
F19Q3
W3
[h]		 Kꜣp Unknown
10
S29M17I9
D52		 W3
 Sı͗f Unknown
11
F29N8Z2
W3
Stt Unknown
12
N31
D53		 N31
D53		 W3
 Unknown "Partial" the second-quarter day.
13
D12D12U1A59W3
[i]		 Mꜣꜣ Sṯy Unknown
14
S32G1Z7W3
 Sı͗ꜣw Unknown
15
D1N13
[j]		 Smdt
Tp Smdt		 Literal meaning uncertain; the day of the Full Moon.
16
F31Q3
D21		 Z1 Z1
W24		 W3
 Mspr Sn Nw
Ḥbs Tp[49]		 "Second Arrival"
"Covering the Head"
17
S32G1Z7W3
 Sı͗ꜣw Second Quarter Day
18
M17V28N12W3
[k]		 I͗ꜥḥ "Day of the Moon"
19
F21S43S43S43I9
W3
Sḏm Mdwf Unknown
20
U21
Q3		 W3
 Stp Unknown
21
Aa20D21
G43		 W3
[l]		 Ꜥprw Unknown
22
F22M44X1
W3
Pḥ Spdt Unknown
23
D46
N35		 M17X1
V11		 W3
 Dnı͗t "Partial"; the third-quarter day.
24
V31
N35		 V28G43N2W3
[m]		 Knḥw Unknown
25
F29N8Z2
W3
Stt Unknown
26
O1
D21		 X1
W3
Prt "The Going Forth"
27
G43N37D58W3
[n]		 Wšb Unknown
28
O23W24 X1
N1		 W3
 Ḥb Sd Nwt "The Jubilee of Nut"
29
P6A47W3
 Ꜥḥꜥ Unknown
30
O1
D21		 X1
D54		 O34
R12
X1 Z4		 W3
[o]		 Prt Mn "The Going Forth of Min"

Civil calendar

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Sirius (bottom) and Orion (right). Together, the three brightest stars of the northern winter sky—Sirius, Betelgeuse (orange star, upper right), and Procyon (upper left)—can also be understood as forming the Winter Triangle.
 
A Middle Kingdom star chart
 
A hieroglyphic calendar at Elephantine.
Further information: Sothic cycle

The civil calendar was established at some early date in or before the Old Kingdom, with probable evidence of its use early in the reign of Shepseskaf (c. 2510 BC, Dynasty IV) and certain attestation during the reign of Neferirkare (mid-25th century BC, Dynasty V).[54] It was probably based upon astronomical observations of Sirius[15] whose reappearance in the sky closely corresponded to the average onset of the Nile flood through the 5th and 4th millennium BC.[14][p] A recent development is the discovery that the 30-day month of the Mesopotamian calendar dates as late as the Jemdet Nasr Period (late 4th-millennium BC),[56] a time Egyptian culture was borrowing various objects and cultural features from the Fertile Crescent, leaving open the possibility that the main features of the calendar were borrowed in one direction or the other as well.[57]

The civil year comprised exactly 365 days,[q] divided into 12 months of 30 days each and an intercalary month of five days,[59] which were celebrated as the birthdays of the gods Osiris, Horus, Set, Isis, and Nephthys.[60] The regular months were grouped into Egypt's three seasons,[59] which gave them their original names,[61] and divided into three 10-day periods known as decans or decades. In later sources, these were distinguished as "first", "middle", and "last".[62] It has been suggested that during the Nineteenth Dynasty and the Twentieth Dynasty the last two days of each decan were usually treated as a kind of weekend for the royal craftsmen, with royal artisans free from work.[63] Dates were typically expressed in a YMD format, with a pharaoh's regnal year followed by the month followed by the day of the month.[64] For example, the New Year occurred on I Akhet 1.

V30M4X1
Z2
Lord of Years
Nb Rnpt
in hieroglyphs

The importance of the calendar to Egyptian religion is reflected in the use of the title "Lord of Years" (Nb Rnpt)[65] for its various creator gods.[66] Time was also considered an integral aspect of Maat,[66] the cosmic order which opposed chaos, lies, and violence.

The civil calendar was apparently established in a year when Sirius rose on its New Year (I Akhet 1) but, because of its lack of leap years, it began to slowly cycle backwards through the solar year. Sirius itself, about 40° below the ecliptic, follows a Sothic year almost exactly matching that of the Sun, with its reappearance now occurring at the latitude of Cairo (ancient Heliopolis and Memphis) on 19 July (Julian), only two or three days later than its occurrence in early antiquity.[59][67]

Following Censorinus[68] and Meyer,[69] the standard understanding was that, four years from the calendar's inception, Sirius would have no longer reappeared on the Egyptian New Year but on the next day (I Akhet 2); four years later, it would have reappeared on the day after that; and so on through the entire calendar until its rise finally returned to I Akhet 1 1460 years after the calendar's inception,[68][r] an event known as "apocatastasis".[70] Owing to the event's extreme regularity, Egyptian recordings of the calendrical date of the rise of Sirius have been used by Egyptologists to fix its calendar and other events dated to it, at least to the level of the four-Egyptian-year periods which share the same date for Sirius's return, known as "tetraëterides" or "quadrennia".[70] For example, an account that Sothis rose on III Peret 1—the 181st day of the year—should show that somewhere 720, 721, 722, or 723 years have passed since the last apocatastasis.[68] Following such a scheme, the record of Sirius rising on II Shemu 1 in 239 BC implies apocatastases on 1319 and 2779 BC ±3 years.[21][s] Censorinus's placement of an apocatastasis on 21 July AD 139[t] permitted the calculation of its predecessors to 1322, 2782, and 4242 BC.[72][failed verification] The last is sometimes described as "the first exactly dated year in history"[73] but, since the calendar is attested before Dynasty XVIII and the last date is now known to far predate early Egyptian civilization, it is typically credited to Dynasty II around the middle date.[74][u]

Heliacal rising of Sirius at Heliopolis[v]
Year Date
Egyptian[77] Julian[78] Gregorian[79]
3500 BC III Peret 3 July 16 June 18
3000 BC III Shemu 8 July 16 June 22
2500 BC III Akhet 8 July 16 June 26
2000 BC III Peret 14 July 17 June 30
1500 BC III Shemu 19 July 17 July 4
1000 BC III Akhet 19 July 17 July 8
  500 BC III Peret 25 July 18 July 13
AD 1    III Shemu 30 July 18 July 16
AD 500 IV Akhet 2 July 20 July 22

The classic understanding of the Sothic cycle relies, however, on several potentially erroneous assumptions. Following Scaliger,[80] Censorinus's date is usually emended to 20 July[w] but ancient authorities give a variety of 'fixed' dates for the rise of Sirius.[x] His use of the year 139 seems questionable,[83] as 136 seems to have been the start of the tetraëteris[84] and the later date chosen to flatter the birthday of Censorinus's patron.[85] Perfect observation of Sirius's actual behavior during the cycle—including its minor shift relative to the solar year—would produce a period of 1457 years; observational difficulties produce a further margin of error of about two decades.[72] Although it is certain the Egyptian day began in the morning, another four years are shifted depending on whether the precise start occurred at the first light of dawn or at sunrise.[21] It has been noted that there is no recognition in surviving records that Sirius's minor irregularities sometimes produce a triëteris or penteteris (three- or five-year periods of agreement with an Egyptian date) rather than the usual four-year periods and, given that the expected discrepancy is no more than 8 years in 1460, the cycle may have been applied schematically[70][86] according to the civil years by Egyptians and the Julian year by the Greeks and Romans.[68] The occurrence of the apocatastasis in the 2nd millennium BC so close to the great political and sun-based religious reforms of Amenhotep IV/Akhenaton also leaves open the possibility that the cycle's strict application was occasionally subject to political interference.[87] The record and celebration of Sirius's rising would also vary by several days (equating to decades of the cycle) in eras when the official site of observation was moved from near Cairo.[y] The return of Sirius to the night sky varies by about a day per degree of latitude, causing it to be seen 8–10 days earlier at Aswan than at Alexandria,[89] a difference which causes Rolf Krauss to propose dating much of Egyptian history decades later than the present consensus.

Ptolemaic calendar

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Following Alexander the Great's conquest of the Persian Empire, the Macedonian Ptolemaic Dynasty came to power in Egypt, continuing to use its native calendars with Hellenized names. In 238 BC, Ptolemy III's Canopus Decree ordered that every 4th year should incorporate a sixth day in its intercalary month,[90] honoring him and his wife as gods equivalent to the children of Nut. The reform was resisted by the Egyptian priests and people and was abandoned.

Coptic calendar

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Main article: Coptic calendar

Egyptian scholars were involved with the establishment of Julius Caesar's reform of the Roman calendar, although the Roman priests initially misapplied its formula and—by counting inclusively—added leap days every three years instead of every four. The mistake was corrected by Augustus through omitting leap years for a number of cycles until AD 4. As the personal ruler of Egypt, he also imposed a reform of its calendar in 26 or 25 BC, possibly to correspond with the beginning of a new Callipic cycle, with the first leap day occurring on 6 Epag. in the year 22 BC. This "Alexandrian calendar" corresponds almost exactly to the Julian, causing 1 Thoth to remain at 29 August except during the year before a Julian leap year, when it occurs on 30 August instead. The calendars then resume their correspondence after 4 Phamenoth / 29 February of the next year.[91]

Months

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For much of Egyptian history, the months were not referred to by individual names, but were rather numbered within the three seasons.[61] As early as the Middle Kingdom, however, each month had its own name. These finally evolved into the New Kingdom months, which in turn gave rise to the Hellenized names that were used for chronology by Ptolemy in his Almagest and by others. Copernicus constructed his tables for the motion of the planets based on the Egyptian year because of its mathematical regularity. A convention of modern Egyptologists is to number the months consecutively using Roman numerals.

A persistent problem of Egyptology has been that the festivals which give their names to the months occur in the next month. Alan Gardiner proposed that an original calendar governed by the priests of Ra was supplanted by an improvement developed by the partisans of Thoth. Parker connected the discrepancy to his theories concerning the lunar calendar. Sethe, Weill, and Clagett proposed that the names expressed the idea that each month culminated in the festival beginning the next.[92]

Months
Egyptological English[64] Egyptian Greek[93] Coptic
Seasonal[64] Middle Kingdom New Kingdom
I I Akhet
Thoth		 1st Month of Flood
1 Ꜣḫt		 Tḫy Ḏḥwtyt Θωθ Thōth Ⲑⲱⲟⲩⲧ Tôut
II II Akhet
Phaophi		 2nd Month of Flood
2 Ꜣḫt		 Mnht PꜢ n-ip.t Φαωφί[z] Phaōphí Ⲡⲁⲱⲡⲉ Baôba
III III Akhet
Athyr		 3rd Month of Flood
3 Ꜣḫt		 Ḥwt-ḥwr Ḥwt-ḥwr Ἀθύρ Athúr Ϩⲁⲑⲱⲣ Hatûr
IV IV Akhet
Choiak		 4th Month of Flood
4 Ꜣḫt		 KꜢ-ḥr-KꜢ KꜢ-ḥr-KꜢ Χοιάκ[aa] Khoiák Ⲕⲟⲓⲁⲕ
Ⲕⲓⲁϩⲕ		 Koiak
Kiahk
V I Peret
Tybi		 1st Month of Growth
1 Prt		 Sf-Bdt TꜢ-ꜥb Τυβί[ab] Tubí Ⲧⲱⲃⲓ Tôbi
VI II Peret
Mechir		 2nd Month of Growth
2 Prt		 Rḫ Wr Mḫyr Μεχίρ[ac] Mekhír Ⲙⲉϣⲓⲣ Meshir
VII III Peret
Phamenoth		 3rd Month of Growth
3 Prt		 Rḫ Nds PꜢ n-imn-ḥtp.w Φαμενώθ Phamenṓth Ⲡⲁⲣⲉⲙϩⲁⲧ Baramhat
VIII IV Peret
Pharmuthi		 4th Month of Growth
4 Prt		 Rnwt PꜢ n-rnn.t Φαρμουθί[ad] Pharmouthí Ⲡⲁⲣⲙⲟⲩⲧⲉ Barmoda
IX I Shemu
Pachons		 1st Month of Low Water
1 Šmw		 Ḫnsw PꜢ n-ḫns.w Παχών Pakhṓn Ⲡⲁϣⲟⲛⲥ Bashons
X II Shemu
Payni		 2nd Month of Low Water
2 Šmw		 Hnt-htj PꜢ n-in.t Παϋνί[ae] Paüní Ⲡⲁⲱⲛⲓ Baôni
XI III Shemu
Epiphi		 3rd Month of Low Water
3 Šmw		 Ipt-hmt Ipip Ἐπιφί[af] Epiphí Ⲉⲡⲓⲡ Apip
XII IV Shemu
Mesore		 4th Month of Low Water
4 Šmw		 Opening of the Year
Wp Rnpt		 Birth of the Sun
Mswt Rꜥ		 Μεσορή Mesorḗ Ⲙⲉⲥⲱⲣⲓ Masôri
— Intercalary Month
Epagomenal Days		 — Those upon the Year
Hryw Rnpt		 ἐπαγόμεναι epagómenai Ⲡⲓⲕⲟⲩϫⲓ ⲛ̀ⲁⲃⲟⲧ Bikudji en abod

Lucky and unlucky days

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Calendars that have survived from ancient Egypt often characterise the days as either lucky or unlucky. Of the calendars recovered, the Cairo calendar is one of the best examples. Discovered in modern-day Thebes, it dates from the Ramesside Period and acts as a guide to which days were considered lucky or unlucky. Other complete calendars include Papyrus Sallier IV,[95] and the Calendar of Lucky and Unlucky Days (on the back of the Teaching of Amenemope).[96] The earliest calendars appear in the Middle Kingdom, but they do not become codified until the New Kingdom. It is unknown how staunchly these calendars were adhered to, as there are no references to decisions being made based on their horoscopes. Nevertheless, the different copies of the calendars are remarkably consistent with each other, with only 9.2% of the determinations of adversity or fortuitousness being due to a defined textual reason.[97]

Scientific Basis

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The Calendars of Lucky and Unlucky Days seem to be based on scientific observation as well as myths. Periodicity has been established between phases of the moon as well as the brightening and dimming of the three-star system Algol as visible from earth.[98]

Predictions

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The calendars could also be used to predict someone's future depending on the day they were born. This could also be used to predict when or how they would die. For example, people born on the tenth day of the fourth month of Akhet were predicted to die of old age.[99]

Epagomenal days

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The epagomenal days were added to the original 360 day calendar in order to synchronise the calendar with the approximate length of the solar year. Mythologically, these days allowed for the births of five children of Geb and Nut to occur and were considered to be particularly dangerous. In particular, the day Seth was supposed to be born was considered particularly evil.[100]

Legacy

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An 11th-century Coptic calendrical icon displaying two months of saints, by John Tokhabi.
Main articles: Coptic calendar and Ethiopian calendar

The reformed Egyptian calendar continues to be used in Egypt as the Coptic calendar of the Egyptian Church and by the Egyptian populace at large, particularly the fellah, to calculate the agricultural seasons. It differs only in its era, which is dated from the ascension of the Roman emperor Diocletian. Contemporary Egyptian farmers, like their ancient predecessors, divide the year into three seasons: winter, summer, and inundation.

The Ethiopian calendar is based on this reformed calendar but uses Amharic names for its months and uses a different era. The French Republican Calendar was similar, but began its year at the autumnal equinox. British orrery maker John Gleave represented the Egyptian calendar in a reconstruction of the Antikythera mechanism.

See also

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Notes

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  1. ^ In the 30 years prior to the completion of the Aswan Low Dam in 1902, the period between Egypt's "annual" floods varied from 335 to 415 days,[3] with the first rise starting as early as 15 April and as late as 23 June.[14]
  2. ^ For further variations, see Brugsch.[32]
  3. ^ Variant representations of the day of the new moon include
    N10
    N35    		 G4W3
    ,
    N10
    N35    		 W3
    ,[33]
    N9G4W3
    ,[34]
    N9
    N35    		 G4W3
    N5
    ,
    N9
    N35    		 G4X4
    ,
    N9
    N35    		 W3
    ,
    N9
    N35    		 W3
    N5
    ,
    N9
    N35    		 X1G4W3
    ,
    N9
    N35    		 X1
    Z4    		 G4W3
    N5
    ,
    N9
    N35    		 X1
    Z5    		 W3
    N5
    ,[35]
    Q3
    O34    		 D46
    N35    		 N10
    ,[36]
    D1
    Z1    		 N11
    N14    		 W3
    , and
    D1
    Z1    		 M6X1
    Z1
    ;[37]
    D12 X1
    N35    		 G4W3
    ,[38] and
    Z2
    Z2
    Z2    		 W3
    N35
    in the Middle Kingdom; and
    Z2
    Z2
    Z2    		 W24
    X1    		 G4W3
    N5
    in later inscriptions.[39]
  4. ^ In later sources, Psḏntyw.[33]
  5. ^ Variant representations of the day of the first crescent moon include
    N11
    N14
    ,
    N11
    N14    		 D46
    W3
    ,[33]
    D1
    Z1    		 N11
    N14    		 W3
    ,[37]
    D1N11N5
     (properly N11A with the moon turned 90° clockwise),[40] and
    D1
    Q3    		 M17M17M17G1D46
    X1    		 N5Z1
    Z1
    Z1
    .[41]
  6. ^ Variant representations of the 6th day of the lunar month include
    Z2
    Z2    		 N35
    X1    		 W3
    ,[38]
    S29T22N35
    X1    		 Z2
    Z2    		 X2 W22
    X6
    ,
    S29T22N35
    X1    		 Z2
    Z2    		 X2 W22
    Z8
    ,[42]
    T22N35
    X1    		 X2 W22
    X4    		 Z1
    Z1
    Z1
    ,[43]
    Z2
    Z2
    N35    		 X1
    W3
    ,
    Z2
    Z2
    N35
    X1    		 W4
    , and
    Z1Z1Z1Z1Z1Z1N35
    X1    		 W4
    .[44]
  7. ^ Variant representations of the 1st-quarter day include
    D46
    N35    		 M17X1
    V11    		 W3
    N5
    and
    D46
    N35    		 M17X1W3
    N5
    .[45]
  8. ^ Properly, the first sign is not an animal jawbone
    F19
    but the rarer, similar-looking figure of a lion's forepaw
    F118B
    .[33]
  9. ^ Properly, the two circles
    D12
     are shrunk and placed within the curve of the sickle
    U1
    , forming
    U43
    .[46] The male figure should be man sowing seeds
    A60
    , which includes a curve of dots coming from the man's hand.[47]
  10. ^ Variant representations of the day of the full moon include
    N13X1
    W3
    ,
    N13V20
    Z1 Z1 Z1 Z1 Z1    		 N35
    X1    		 W3
    ,[33]
    D1N13W3
    ,
    D1N33
    V20    		 Z1
    Z9
    , [40]
    N13
    , and
    N13N35
    X1    		 W3
    .[48]
  11. ^ Properly, N12\t1 or N12A, with the crescent moon
    N12
     turned 90° clockwise.
  12. ^ Variant representations of the 21st day of the lunar month include
    Aa20D21G43W3
     and
    Aa20D21
    W3
    .[50]
  13. ^ Variant representations of the 24th day of the lunar month include
    V31
    N35    		 V28G43N2
    .[51]
  14. ^ Variant representations of the 27th day of the lunar month include
    Z7D310W3
    .[52] D310 is a foot
    D58
     crossed by a variant of pool
    N37
     with 2[53] or 3[52] diagonal strokes across it.
  15. ^ Properly, the loaf
    X1
     and diagonal strokes
    Z4
     are shrunk and fit under the two sides of the standard
    R12
    .
  16. ^ Other possibilities for the original basis of the calendar include comparison of a detailed record of lunar dates against the rising of Sirius over a 40 year span, discounted by Neugebauer as likely to produce a calendar more accurate than the actual one;[13] his own theory (discussed above) that the timing of successive floods were averaged over a few decades;[13] and the theory that the position of the solar rising was recorded over a number of years, permitting comparison of the timing of the solstices over the years. A predynastic petroglyph discovered by the University of South Carolina's expedition at Nekhen in 1986 may preserve such a record, if it had been moved about 10° from its original position prior to discovery.[55]
  17. ^ It has been argued that the Ebers Papyrus shows a fixed calendar incorporating leap years, but this is no longer believed.[58]
  18. ^ 1460 Julian years (exactly) or Gregorian years (roughly) in modern calculations, equivalent to 1461 Egyptian civil years, but apparently reckoned as 1460 civil years (1459 Julian years) by the ancient Egyptians themselves.[68]
  19. ^ Per O'Mara, actually ±16 years when including the other factors affecting the calculated Sothic year.[21]
  20. ^ Using Roman dating, he said of the relevant New Year that "when the emperor Antoninus Pius was consul of Rome for a second time with Bruttius Praesens this same day coincided with the 13th day before the calends of August" (Latin: cum... imperatore quinque hoc anno fuit Antonino Pio II Bruttio Praesente Romae consulibus idem dies fuerit ante diem XII kal. Aug.).[71]
  21. ^ Meyer himself accepted the earliest date,[74] though before the Middle Chronology was shown to be more likely than the short or long chronologies of the Middle East. Parker argued for its introduction ahead of apocatastasis on the middle date based on his understanding of its development from a Sothic-based lunar calendar. He placed its introduction within the range c. 2937 – c. 2821 BC, noting it was more likely in the Dynasty II part of the range.[75][76]
  22. ^ Specifically, the calculations are for 30° N with no adjustment for clouds and an averaged amount of aerosols for the region. In practice, clouds or other obscurement and observational error may have shifted any of these calculated values by a few days.[72]
  23. ^ Latin: ...ante diem XIII kal. Aug....[81]
  24. ^ Most ancient sources place the heliacal rising of Sirius on 19 July, but Dositheus, probable source of the date of the 239 BC rising, elsewhere places it on 18 July,[21] as do Hephaistion of Thebes,[82] Salmasius, Zoroaster, Palladius, and Aëtius. Solinus placed it on the 20th; Meton and the unemended text of Censorinus's book on the 21st; and Ptolemy on the day after that.[21]
  25. ^ This seems to be the case, for example, with astronomical records of the XVIII Dynasty and its successors, including the Ebers Papyrus, which seem to have been made at Thebes rather than Heliopolis.[88]
  26. ^ Reconstructed Egyptian accentuation Phaôphi (Φαῶφι).[94]
  27. ^ Reconstructed Egyptian accentuation Khoíak (Χοίακ).[94]
  28. ^ Reconstructed Egyptian accentuation Tûbi (Τῦβι).[94]
  29. ^ Reconstructed Egyptian accentuation Mekheír (Μεχείρ).[94]
  30. ^ Reconstructed Egyptian accentuation Pharmoûthi (Φαρμοῦθι).[94]
  31. ^ Reconstructed Egyptian accentuation Paü̂ni (Παῧνι).[94]
  32. ^ Reconstructed Egyptian accentuation Epeíph (Ἐπείφ).[94]

References

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Citations

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  1. ^ Full version at Met Museum
  2. ^ "Telling Time in Ancient Egypt". www.metmuseum.org. Retrieved 2022-05-27.
  3. ^ a b c Winlock (1940), p. 450.
  4. ^ Clagett (1995), pp. 10–11.
  5. ^ Winlock (1940).
  6. ^ a b Tetley (2014), p. 40.
  7. ^ Winlock (1940), p. 452.
  8. ^ Herodotus (1890), Macaulay (ed.), Histories, London: Macmillan, Book II, §5.
  9. ^ a b Tetley (2014), p. 39.
  10. ^ Winlock (1940), p. 453.
  11. ^ Clagett (1995), p. 4–5.
  12. ^ Clagett (1995), p. 33.
  13. ^ a b c Neugebauer (1939).
  14. ^ a b Parker (1950), p. 32.
  15. ^ a b c Parker (1950), p. 23.
  16. ^ a b Parker (1950), pp. 30–32.
  17. ^ a b Høyrup, p. 13.
  18. ^ Clagett (1995), p. 3–4.
  19. ^ a b c Schaefer (2000), p. 153–154.
  20. ^ Parker (1950), p. 29.
  21. ^ a b c d e f O'Mara (2003), p. 18.
  22. ^ Parker (1950), pp. 13–29.
  23. ^ Tetley (2014), p. 153.
  24. ^ a b Parker (1950), p. 17.
  25. ^ "Papyrus Carlsberg 9". The Papyrus Carlsberg Collection. Copenhagen, DK: University of Copenhagen. Retrieved 11 February 2017.
  26. ^ Parker (1950), pp. 13–23.
  27. ^ Clagett (1995), p. 25.
  28. ^ Clagett (1995), p. 26.
  29. ^ Høyrup, p. 14.
  30. ^ Parker (1950), p. 27.
  31. ^ a b Parker (1950), pp. 11–12.
  32. ^ Brugsch, Heinrich (1883). Thesaurus Inscriptionum Aegyptiacarum. Leipzig, DE. pp. 46–48.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link).
  33. ^ a b c d e Parker (1950), p. 11.
  34. ^ Vygus (2015), p. 1231.
  35. ^ Vygus (2015), p. 1232.
  36. ^ Vygus (2015), p. 1668.
  37. ^ a b Vygus (2015), p. 33.
  38. ^ a b Parker (1950), p. 12.
  39. ^ Parker (1950), p. 13.
  40. ^ a b Vygus (2015), p. 27.
  41. ^ Vygus (2015), p. 28.
  42. ^ Vygus (2015), p. 1885.
  43. ^ Vygus (2015), p. 1997.
  44. ^ Vygus (2015), p. 2464.
  45. ^ Vygus (2015), p. 277.
  46. ^ Everson (1999), p. 57.
  47. ^ Everson (1999), p. 5.
  48. ^ Vygus (2015), p. 1235.
  49. ^ Parker (1950), p. 18.
  50. ^ Vygus (2015), p. 917.
  51. ^ Vygus (2015), p. 2294.
  52. ^ a b Vygus (2015), p. 2472.
  53. ^ Everson (1999), p. 25.
  54. ^ Clagett (1995), p. 28.
  55. ^ Clagett (1995), p. 37.
  56. ^ Englund, Robert K. (1988), "Administrative Timekeeping in Ancient Mesopotamia", Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, No. 31, pp. 121–185.
  57. ^ Høyrup, pp. 12–13.
  58. ^ Clagett (1995), p. 6.
  59. ^ a b c Parker (1950), p. 7.
  60. ^ Spalinger (1995), p. 33.
  61. ^ a b Parker (1950), pp. 43–5.
  62. ^ Clagett (1995), p. 4.
  63. ^ Jauhiainen (2009), p. 39.
  64. ^ a b c Clagett (1995), p. 5.
  65. ^ Budge, Ernest Alfred Wallis (1911), A Hieroglyphic Vocabulary to the Theban Recension of the Book of the Dead, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, & Co., p. 201, ISBN 9780486144924.
  66. ^ a b Clagett (1995), p. 1.
  67. ^ Lacroix, Jean-Pierre (1997), "Heliacal rising of Sirius in Thebes", Thebes: A Reflection of the Sky on the Pharaoh's Earth.
  68. ^ a b c d e O'Mara (2003), p. 17.
  69. ^ Clagett (1995), p. 29.
  70. ^ a b c Gautschy, Rita (2012), The Star Sirius in Ancient Egypt and Babylonia.
  71. ^ Censorinus (1867), De Die Natali (in Latin), Lipsia, Teubner, Ch. XXI, §10, translated into English by William Maude in 1900.
  72. ^ a b c Schaefer (2000), p. 151.
  73. ^ Grun, Bernard (1975), "4241 BC", The Timetables of History, 3rd ed., Thames & Hudson.
  74. ^ a b Clagett (1995), p. 31.
  75. ^ Parker (1950), p. 53.
  76. ^ Clagett (1995), p. 36–7.
  77. ^ Van Gent, Robert Harry (2016), "Calendar Date Module", Ancient Luni-Solar and Planetary Ephemerides, Utrecht: University of Utrecht.
  78. ^ Schaefer (2000), p. 150.
  79. ^ Walker, John (2015), "Calendar Converter", Fourmilab.
  80. ^ Scaliger, Joseph Justus (1583), Opus Novum de Emendatione Temporum, p. 138. (in Latin)
  81. ^ Grafton & al. (1985), p. 455.
  82. ^ Luft (2006), p. 314.
  83. ^ O'Mara (2003), p. 25.
  84. ^ Luft (2006), p. 312.
  85. ^ Forisek (2003), p. 12.
  86. ^ Clagett (1995), p. 30.
  87. ^ Schaefer (2000), p. 152–3.
  88. ^ "Ancient Egyptian Civil Calendar", Biblical Archaeology, La Via.
  89. ^ Tetley (2014), p. 43.
  90. ^ A Chronological Survey of Precisely Dated Demotic and Abnormal Hieratic Sources
  91. ^ Alexandrian reform of the Egyptian calendar
  92. ^ Clagett (1995), p. 14–15.
  93. ^ Montanari, F. (1995), Vocabolario della Lingua Greca. (in Italian)
  94. ^ a b c d e f g Pestman, P.W. (1990), The New Papyrological Primer.
  95. ^ "papyrus; calendar". The British Museum.
  96. ^ "papyrus". The British Museum.
  97. ^ Leaning, Elizabeth (2022). Searching the Years: Religion and Superstition in ancient Egypt as Seen Through Horoscopes (Thesis). ResearchSpace@Auckland. p. 20. hdl:2292/64494.
  98. ^ Porceddu, Sebastian; Jetsu, Lauri; Markkanen, Tapio; Toivari-Viitala, Jaana (2008). "Evidence of Periodicity in Ancient Egyptian Calendars of Lucky and Unlucky Days". Cambridge Archaeological Journal. 18 (3): 327–339. Bibcode:2008CArcJ..18..327P. doi:10.1017/S0959774308000395.
  99. ^ Gahlin, Lucia (2014). Egypt Gods, myths and religion. Hermes House. pp. 216–217. ISBN 978-0-85723-123-9.
  100. ^ Riggs, Christina (2020). Ancient Egyptian magic a hands-on guide. Thames & Hudson. p. 167. ISBN 978-0-500-05212-9.

Bibliography

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