November io, 1892] 



NATURE 



33 



foreign to our subject. I shall be able to show, however, 



that this is not so. 



Imprimis we must remember that it is a question of 

 Silsilis, where we know both from tradition and geo- 

 logical evidence, in ancient times the first cataract was 

 encountered. The phrase " The Nile emerges from its 

 fountains" would be much more applicable to Silsilis, 

 the seat of a cataract than as it is at present. We do not 

 know when the river made its way through this impedi- 

 ment, but we do know that after it took place and the 

 Nile stream was cleared as far as the cataract that 

 still remains at Elephantine, a Nilometer was erected 

 there, and that during the whole of later Egyptian history 

 at all events the time of the rise of the river has been 

 carefully recorded both there and at Rhoda. 



From this it is fair to infer that in those more ancient 

 times the same thing took place at Silsilis ; if this were so 

 the reason of the record of the coming of the inundation at 

 Silsilis is not far to seek, and hence the suggestion lies 

 on the surface that the records in question may state the 

 date of the arrival in relation to Memphis time. 



So far in my inquiries I have not been able to find a 

 complete discussion of the influence upon local calendars, 

 in different parts of the Nile valley, of the variations of the 

 phenomena upon which the Egyptians depended for the 

 marking of New Year's day. 



If the solstice had been taken alone, the dateof it would 

 have been the same for all parts of the valley ; but cer- 

 tainly the solstice was not taken alone, and for the 

 obvious reason that they wanted something to warn 

 them of the Nile rise, and in the lower reaches of the 

 river the rise precedes the solstice. 



Nor was the heliacal rising of Sirius taken alone. 



As we have seen, according to Biot the heliacal rising 

 of Sirius at the solstice took place on July 20 (JuHan) 

 in the year 3285 B.C. ; and according to Oppolzer, it 

 took plnce on July 18 (Julian) in the year 3000 ±B.c. 



But this is too general a statement, and it must be 

 modified here. There was a difference of 7 days in the 

 date of the heliacal rising, according to the latitude, from 

 southern Elephantine and Phite, where the heliacal rising 

 at the solstice was noted first, to northern Bubastis. 

 There was a difference of four days between Memphis 

 and Thebes, so that the connection between the heliacal 

 rising and the solstice depended simply upon the latitude 

 of the place. The further south, the earlier the coin- 

 cidence occurred. 



Here we have an astronomical reason for the variation 

 in the date of New Year's day. 



But it was chiefly a question of the arrival of the Nile 

 flood, and the date of the commencement of the Nile 

 flood was by no means common to all parts of Egypt ! 



I cannot find any statement of the dates of the arrival 

 of any one Nile flood at places between Elephantine and 

 Caiio. Dr. Wallis Budge ' states: "The indications of 

 the rise of the river may be seen at the cataracts as early 

 as the end of May." 



Now if we take the ist cataract to be here meant, and 

 deal with May 31 ; since the average day of arrival of the 

 inundation at Cairo is 3 days after the solstice — that 

 is June 20 (Greg.) — we have 24 days for the flood-travel for 

 the 600 miles between Elephantine and Cairo, four-fifths 

 of a month elapsing between the times at which the Green 

 Nile colours the pool at Syene below the Cataracts, and 

 the river at Memphis ; so that the further south, the 

 earlier the flood was noted. This gives us about a mile 

 an hour. This certainly seems too slow. 



But if we assume 16 days, this would give us about 

 15 days between Silsilis and Cairo, and 12 days between 

 Thebes and Cairo, taking Cairo to represent the ancient 

 Memphis. Now this represented a difference in the new 

 year's days of different places, compared to which our 



' "The Nile," p. 46 



NO. 1202, VOL. 47] 



modem difTerences of local time sink into insignificance, 

 for they only touch hours of the day ; and the reason that 

 I have referred to them here is to point out that if the 

 assumption made is anything like accurate, if, for in- 

 stance, in Pepi's time a Nile rise were observed at 

 Silsilis, there might easily be a difference of 15 days 

 between the rise of the Nile at Silsilis and the Memphic 

 istofThoth. If both at Silsilis and Memphis the Nile 

 rise marked ist Thoth, the day of the rise at Memphis 

 would correspond to 15th Thoth at Silsilis, so that 

 a king reaching Silsilis with Memphis local time, would 

 be struck with this difference, and anxious to record it, 

 may not this then have been the important datum re- 

 corded in the sacred books? If so, it would not touch 

 the question of the fixed or vague year at all. 



Let it, then, be for the present conceded that there 

 was a vague year, and that at least some of the inscrip- 

 tions which suggest the use of only a fixed year in these 

 early times may be explained in another way. I do 

 not say the above explanation is the correct one, for the 

 assumption of 16 days may be wrong, even if difference 

 in the dates of the heliacal rising at the two places be 

 taken into account. 



The dates we have found — trying to take the very 

 simplest way of writing a calendar in pre-temple times, 

 and using the calendar inscriptions in the most natural 

 way— are for the coincidence of the heliacal rising of 

 Sirius at, or near, the solstice — 



270 B.C. 



1728 B.C. 

 3192 B.C. 

 Now here we meet with a difficulty which, if it cannot 

 be explained, evidently proves that the Egyptians did not 



Fio. 6.— Julian dates of the ist of Thoth (vague) from 23 a.d. to 240 a.d. 



construct and use their calendar in the way we have 

 supposed. 



We have it on the authority of Censorinus that a Sothic 

 period was completed in 139 A.D., and that there was then 

 a vague year in partial use. It is here that the work of 

 Oppolzer is of such high value to us. He discussed all 

 the statements made by Censorinus, and comes to the 

 conclusion that his account is to be depended upon. It 



