Egyptian calendar
The Egyptian calendar arose at the beginning of the third millennium BC and is the first known solar calendar in history. It was in full use at the time of Shepseskaf, the pharaoh of the Fourth Dynasty. In the Pyramid Texts the 365 days of the Egyptian civil year are mentioned. It was divided into 12 months of 30 days each, organized into three periods of 10 days. At the end of the last month of each year, the five days (epagómenos) that were missing to complete the solar year were added, dedicated to various Egyptian gods.
The Egyptians were the first of all the men who discovered the year, and said that this was found from the stars.Heroscope Stories II-4
As the Egyptian civil calendar did not include the quarter day that the astronomical solar year has in excess, every four years it lost a day, so it became a "calendar wandering", where the events "periodic astronomically fixed" They wandered through the calendar months. The Canopus reform tried to solve this fact, but the opposition of the clergy of the different regions made said reform fail.
Introduction
Since the dawn of the Empire, Egyptian priests carefully recorded the water level, which they measured with nilometers. The moment of planting or harvesting depended on it, and after years of observations they discovered that every 365 days the cycle was repeated.
In the words of Herodotus: Egypt was a gift of the Nile. This comment is not a literary image, but a reality. The annual floods of the river caused by the African monsoon inundated the fields, covering the desert sands with fertile silt. The huge amounts of water discharged on the Ethiopian plateau in spring are carried north by the Blue Nile until it empties into the Mediterranean. And this year after year. The periodic variations in the flow of the Nile were decisive in the life of Egypt and made possible the existence of this dazzling civilization.
Calendars
In Egypt several calendars were used: the lunar, the solar (civil), and possibly a third secondary lunar calendar, to accurately calculate ephemeris.
The Egyptian astronomer priests discovered that lunar calendars were not practical for predicting the start of the Nile floods, calculating the seasons or counting long periods, and comparing them with a measurement referring to the apparent movement of the Sun and the stars, they preferred to use the solar calendar for civil uses, for the first time in history.
The Egyptians may have used a lunar calendar earlier, but when they discovered the discrepancy between the lunar calendar and the regular passing of the seasons, they probably switched to a seasonal calendar, basing its regular start on each annual flood of the Nile. The first flood according to the calendar was observed in the first capital of Egypt, Memphis, at the same time as the heliacal rising of the star Sotis (Sirius). The Egyptian year was divided into three agricultural seasons:
- Flood (summer and autumn)
t Ajet,
- Siembra (Winter and early spring)
prt Peret,
- Collection (ends of spring and early summer)
šmw Shemu.
The heliacal rising of Sotis occurred on the same day in the Egyptian civil calendar once every 1460 years (the period of this duration was called the sothic cycle). The difference between a seasonal year (solar year) and the civil year was therefore 365 days every 1460 years, or what is the same, 1 day every 4 years. Similarly, the Egyptians were able to calculate that 309 lunar months (lunations) almost equaled 9125 days, equivalent to 25 Egyptian years. These calculations were probably used in the construction of the secondary lunar calendar.
For most of Egyptian history, the months did not have individual names, but were instead numbered within each of the three agricultural seasons. Beginning in the Middle Kingdom, however, each month had its own name. These names eventually evolved into the names of the months in the New Kingdom, which in turn gave rise to the Hellenized names that were used in Claudius Ptolemy's chronology in his Almagest and by other ancient astronomers. Astronomers in the Middle Ages used the Egyptian calendar because of its mathematical regularity and the scientific authority of Ptolemy. Copernicus, for example, built his tables for the movement of the planets based on the measurement of time with the Egyptian year.
The convention among modern Egyptologists is to number the months consecutively using Roman numerals.
Name of the months
The Egyptian civil calendar had three seasons of four months of thirty days, plus five epagomenal days. Only from the New Kingdom will the months of the civil calendar have their own name. The name of the months suffered variations over time, as well as the exact date of the beginning of the year. The name given to each of the twelve months corresponds to the time of the New Kingdom.
With the introduction of the "Alexandrian Calendar" by Caesar Augustus in 26-25 B.C. C., the sixth of the epagómenos days was definitively included for the first time in the year 22 a. C. The adoption of this measure almost stopped the shifting of the first day of the year, Thoth 1, with respect to the seasons, leaving it on August 29 of the Julian calendar except in the Julian year before the leap, when the Epagomen's sixth day of the year occupied the Julian day of August 29, displacing the first of Thoth to August 30.
| No. | Station name | Jeoglyphic | Egyptian name | Name copto | Greek name | Arab name | Current date | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| I | First of all Ajet |
| Dyehuty | Tot | Tot | Tut | 29 August - 27 September | ||||
| II | Second Ajet |
| Pa-en-Ipat | Paope | Paofi | Babah | 28 September - 27 October | ||||
| III | Third Ajet |
| Hut-Hor | Hator | Athyr | Hatur | 28 October - 27 November | ||||
| IV | Fourth Ajet |
| Ka-Hor-Ka | Koiahk | Shiak | Kiyahk | 28 November - 26 December | ||||
| V | First of all Peret |
| Ta-Aabet | Tobe | Tybi | Tubah | 27 December - 25 January | ||||
| VI | Second Peret |
| Pa-en-Mejer | Meshir | Meshir | Amshir | 26 January - 24 February | ||||
| VII | Third Peret |
| Pa-en-Amon-Hetep | Paremhotep | Famenat | Baramhat | 25 February - 26 March | ||||
| VIII | Fourth Peret |
| Pa-en-Renenutet | Parmoude | Farmuti | Baramudah | 27 March - 25 April | ||||
| IX | First of all Shemu |
| Pa-en-Jonsu | Pashons | Pajon | Bashans | 26 April - 25 May | ||||
| X | Second Shemu |
| Pa-en-Enet | Paone | Payni | Ba'unah | 26 May - 24 June | ||||
| XI | Third Shemu |
| Apep | Epep | Epiphy | Abib | 25 June - 24 July | ||||
| XII | Fourth Shemu |
| Mesut-Ra | Mesore | Mesore | Misra | 25 July - 23 August |
- More than five days Heru-Renpet (“those who are above the year”, or epatagonal days), from 24 to 28 August. They were also known as Mesut-Necheru (“of the birth of the gods”), for the birth of five Egyptian deities was celebrated in them: Osiris, Horus, Seth, Isis and Neftis. Later, in the Coptic language, they were called Piabot Nkoyxi (“small month”).
The beginning of the Egyptian calendar
The gap between the civil calendar and the tropical year has been precisely the basis for determining the moment in which the civil calendar was adopted, taking as a premise that its beginning had to be done in a year in which the first day of the year coincided with the flood. As it is a year of 365 days, the lag is ¼ each day, and therefore the coincidence between the civil year and the heliacal rise of Sirius would occur every 1460 years (this is 365 times 4, which is known as cycle sothic). Since we know from Censorinus, a Latin writer of the third century, that I Akhet 1 coincided with the rising of this star in AD 139. C., consecutively subtracting 1460 years we can know that this fact also took place in 1322 a. C., in 2782 a. C. and in 4242 a. C. Most of the authors consider a date close to 2800 a more probable. C., although a tablet found by Petrie from the reign of Djer (c.a. 3000 BC) could indicate that the coincidence between the rise of the star and the flood was already known at that time. On this tablet, the goddess Sedepet can be seen as a cow with a plant between its horns, which would represent the year. Most authors think that the date of 4242 B.C. C. is unacceptable, and it is known with certainty that the system of epagomenal days was already in use before the IV dynasty, which again invites us to think of a date close to 2800 BC. c.
Another way to determine this beginning, making again the same starting assumption, is to go to the astronomical documentary records. We know from the records that in the 9th year of Amenhotep I the delay was 308 days (Ebers Papyrus), and that in the 7th of Sesostris III it was 225 days, which leads us to the fact that the calendar must have been in use for 1,232 and 900 years respectively (multiplying the delay by 4). Knowing that the reigns of both monarchs began in 1558 B.C. C. and 1888 a. C., a date is again obtained that is around 2800 a. c.
We owe this calculation to Theon of Alexandria, who did it in the IV century B.C. C., and it is the one that is still used today. It's actually quite inaccurate. On the one hand, due to the precession of the equinoxes, the Sothic year is slightly greater than the tropical year, around 365,256 days, therefore advancing one day every 129 years. On the other hand, as we know, the tropical year measures something less than 365 ¼ days. In other words, for the calendar year and the tropics to coincide, 1507 years must actually pass, but at that time the heliacal rising of Sirius would have already been almost 12 days earlier. Even so, the date of the beginning of the third millennium seems so far the most probable given the documentary record. Although part of the tradition, the Egyptians attributed the invention of the calendar to Imhotep, Djóser's minister, which again would place us at the beginning of the third millennium. The interpretation of a tablet found by Petrie from the time of Pharaoh Djer (c. 3000 BC) remains in doubt, in which he could indicate that the correspondence between the heliacal rise of Sirius and the annual flood was already known at that time; and the petroglyph found at Hierakonpolis by Radwan and Mills that could have been used to calibrate an astronomical year.
Start of each year
Initially the heliacal rise of Sirius coincided with the summer solstice and the beginning of the floods. Sirius shining fleetingly, before dawn, preceding the sunrise and the river overflowing, restoring life to the parched land, they had to be a manifestation of divine influence, impossible to ignore in a civilization like the Egyptian.
Length of the year
The first consequence was that the Egyptian year began on that day, but in addition, from the observations of the star they came to a new discovery: every four years the departure from Sirius was delayed by one day, which implied that the year was from 365.25 days. This additional quarter day was not taken into account for civil uses, for no reason; it was reserved for the religious and political elite, until the Canopus Reform, so that the calendar went back one day every four years; at the end of 1460 years it had fallen a full year behind the seasons, and a new cycle began, the sothic cycle.
Canopus Reformation
Egyptian astronomers knew that the year lasted 365 days, but they did not consider that it lasted a few extra hours, which did not complete a day. As these hours were not counted, they accumulated and the Egyptian civil calendar moved days backwards with respect to the astronomical calendar, this displacement is called time lag. One consequence of this gap was that the festivals of one season were celebrated in a different one, thus the summer ones were celebrated in winter every 730 years. Another consequence was that the celebration of the heliacal rise of Sirius occurred on a different day every four years.
In the year 238 B.C. C. met in Canopus, in the temple of the gods Evergetas, the heads of the priests-sages, called hierogramatas "sacred scholars" and other ancient Egyptian religious leaders to reform the calendar.
The objective of this reform was to find a way for the date 1 Thoth to coincide with the day of the heliacal dawn of Sirius, and for the planet Venus, associated with Isis, the goddess whose day was held at the beginning of the calendar year, he maintained his position.
Based on their research, they concluded that a year lasted 365 days and 6 additional hours. The solution to the lag was simple: every four years one more day would be added, after the epagómenos, and that fourth year would have 366 days. The additional day was consecrated to the Evergetas.
But mistrust among the priests of the different regions caused the reform to fail.
Dating dates
The Egyptians normally used the following criteria to describe dates:
- the years were often counted from the coming to the throne of the reigning Pharaoh;
- wrote the symbol corresponding to the year, month, station or day, accompanied by the cardinal number, in that order;
- and added the epithets and titles of the reigning Pharaoh.
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| 22nd, second month peret, day 23, under the majesty of the king of Upper and Lower Egypt Menjeperra (Tutmosis III). |
They could also date by referring to relevant events, such as the festival of Amun at Karnak.