used hy the Ancient Egyptians. 157 



a year, which, while it had no relation to the phases of the moon, would have 

 represented so inaccurately the course of the sun, that its commencement would 

 pass in thirty-five years from midwinter to midsummer, and in seventy would go 

 through the entire round of the seasons ? That such a year should have been 

 tolerated ybr centuries in any country, and more especially in Egypt, where the 

 striking annual phenomenon of the inundation must have attracted the attention 

 of every individual, is, in my judgment, a supposition which cannot be entertained 

 for a moment. It is alleged, however, by its advocates, that the testimony of 

 antiquity is in its favour. I readily admit that there has been a very general 

 consent among modern authors, as to the supposed fact of a year of 360 days 

 having been in use before the year of 365 days ; but I deny that any author, 

 who deserves to be called ancient, has given countenance to such an opinion. 

 Plutarch, indeed, records a fable, that " the Sun, having discovered the infidelity 

 of his wife Rhea, prevented her by a curse from bringing forth her offspring on 

 any of the 360 days of the year ; but that Hermes, playing at dice with the 

 Moon, won five additional days, on which Osiris and his brothers and sisters 

 were born." Such is the only ancient authority in existence for a year of 360 

 days having ever been in use ; and it is evident that this authority, by throwing 

 back the disuse of that year to the mythological epoch of the birth of Osiris, does 

 in fact negative the supposition that a year of 360 days was ever used in the 

 times of real history. There was, however, in the eighth century after the 

 Christian era, a monk of the name of Georgius, (usually called, for distinction, 

 Syncellus,) who compiled a Chronography, in which he has preserved some 

 valuable fragments of the works of ancient authors that are lost. This writer is 

 usually appealed to as an authority for the existence of a year of 360 days ; and 

 he certainly has asserted its existence ; but then he has not asserted it on the 

 authority of any more ancient writer, and this makes all the difference in the 

 world. If a statement to this effect had occurred in a quotation made by 

 Georgius from Manetho, or any ancient author that he named, that statement 

 would have weight, arising from the antiquity or character of that author. In 

 the present instance, however, the statement is that of Georgius himself; it is 

 the mere expression of the opinion of a writer of uncommonly weak judgment, 

 who lived so late as the eighth century ; and it is consequently altogether worth- 

 less. I insist the more on this point, because I have seen this statement of 



