used by the Ancient Egyptians. 155 



a supposed fixed year are easily discoverable ; and of this kind is the epoch, of 

 which I speak in this proposition. We know that the inundation commenced 

 about the summer solstice. In order, then, to discover the years in which the 

 required coincidence took place, we have only to ascertain the years in which the 

 summer solstice fell on the 241st day of the Egyptian year. Perfect accuracy 

 is, of course, not to be expected. The solstice would, in fact, occur on this day 

 for four successive years, and the fluctuations in the seasons arising from meteoro- 

 logical causes, as well as the difficulty of making an exact observation of the first 

 rise of the Nile, would leave room for an error of perhaps twenty years on either 

 side of the year determined by calculation. I mean to say that in any of these 

 forty years the seasons of the wandering year could not be observed to differ 

 from those seasons of which they bore the names. 



Now, I find by calculation, that on the 241st day of the Egyptian year, 

 which commenced on the 30th October, 272 B. C, that is to say, on the 27th 

 June, 271 B. C, the solstice occurred shortly after the Egyptian noon. We may 

 then reckon from 291 B. C. to 251 B. C. to be a period of apparent coincidence 

 between the seasons of the wandering year and those seasons of the true year 

 after which they were called ; and the epoch of coincidence, as observed by the 

 Egyptians, must have fallen between these extremes, though it would not ne- 

 cessarily fall in the middle year 271, which is pointed out by astronomical cal- 

 culation. Going back through all the seasons, I find again that on the 241st 

 day of the Egyptian wandering year, proleptic or actual, which would or did 

 begin on the 11th November, 1780 B. C, that is, on the 9th July, 1779 B. C. 

 the solstice occurred about Egyptian noon. This gives fdr the period of appa- 

 rent coincidence 1800 B. C. to 1760 B. C. ; and I am justified in saying, that 

 within these limits a remarkable chronological epoch must have occurred. 



II. Thus far, as I have already intimated, I have advanced nothing but what 

 will be generally admitted by those who have given their attention to hierogly- 

 phical discoveries. I now, however, bring forward a proposition, in maintaining 

 which I believe I stand alone, namely, that up to this chronological epoch, which 

 I have last mentioned, the Egyptians used a year, of which the average length 

 was that of the tropical one, its commencement being marked by a phenomenon, 

 depending on the sun's annual revolution. 



It is, in the first place, manifest, that the hieroglyphical notation of the 



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