228 



NATURE 



[January 5, 1893 



,,.>-^ '' The Teaching of Botany. 



I DO not think there is at present any book in English giving 

 practical instructions for experiments in Physiological Botany. 

 There is, however, an excellent book of this kind in German, 

 Dr. W. Detmer's " Das pflanzen-physiologische Praktikum," 

 published by Gustav Fischer, Jena, 1888. This, no doubt, con- 

 tains all that your correspondent "A. H. " (Nature, ante, 

 p. 151) requires, though it is perhaps somewhat more advanced 

 than is necessary for school teaching. D. H. Scott. 



Old Palace, Richmond, Surrey. 



THE ORIGIN OF THE YEAR> 

 IV. 

 'T'HE reformation of the Egyptian calendar, to be 

 ■■■ gathered, as I suggested in my last article, from 

 the decree of Tanis, is not, however, the point to which 

 reference is generally made in connection with the 

 decree. The attempt recorded by it to get rid of the 

 vague year is generally dwelt on. 



Although the system of reckoning which was based on 

 the vague year had advantages with which it has not been 

 sufficiently credited, undoubtedly it had its drawbacks. 



The tetramenes, with their special symbolism of flood, 

 seed, and harvest time, had apparently all meant each in 

 turn ; however, the meanings of the signs were changed, the 

 " winter season " occurred in this way in the height of sum- 

 mer, the "so wing time" when the whole land was inundated, 

 and there was no land to plant, and so on. Each festival, 

 too, swept through the year. Still, it is quite certain that 

 information was given by the priests each year in advance, 

 so that agriculture did not suffer ; for if this had not been 

 done, the system, instead of dying hard, as it did, would 

 have been abolished thousands of years before. 



Before I proceed to state shortly what happened with 

 regard to the fi.xing of the year, it will be convenient here 

 to state a suggestion that has occurred to me, on astro- 

 nomical grounds, with regard to the initial change of 



gn- 



It IS to be noted that in the old tables of the months, in- 

 stead of Sirius leading the year, we have Te^i with the two 

 eathers of Amen. In later times this is changed to Sirius. 



I believe it is generally acknowledged that the month 

 tables at the Ramesseum is the oldest one we have ; 

 there is a variant at Edfu. They both run as follows,' 

 and no doubt they had their origin when a ist Thoth 

 coincided with an heliacal rising and Nile flood. 



I am informed that Te^i, in the above month-list, has 

 some relation to Thoth. In the early month-list the 

 goddess is represented with the two feathers of Amen, 

 and in this early stage I fancy we can recognize her as 



' Continued from p. 35. 

 NO. 1210, VOL. 47] 



Amen-t ; but in later copies of the table the symbol is 

 changed to that of Sirius. This, then, looks like a 

 change of cult depending upon the introduction of a new 

 star— that is, a star indicating by its heliacal rising the 

 Nile rise after the one first used had become useless for 

 such a purpose. 



I have said that the Ramesseum month list is probably 

 the oldest one we have. It is considered by some to 

 date only from Ramses II., and to indicate a fixed year ; 

 such, however, is not Krall's opinion. » He writes :— 



" The latest investigations of Dumichen show that the 

 calendar of Medinet-Abu is only a copy of the original 

 composedunder Ramses 1 1, about 120 years before. . . . 



" But the true original of the calendar of Medinet-Abu 

 does not even date from the time of Ramses II. It is 

 known to every Egyptologist how little the time of the 

 Ramessids produced what was trulv origmal, how much 

 just this time restricted itself to a reproduction of the 

 traditions of previous generations. In the calendar of 

 Medinet-Abu we have (p. 48) not a fixed year instituted 

 under Ramses II., but the normal year of the old tin e, the 

 vague year, as it was, to use Dschewhari's words quoted 

 above (p. 852), in the first year of its institution, the year 

 as It was before the Egyptians had made two unwelcome 

 observations: First, that the year of 365 days did not 

 correspond to the reality, but shifted by one da> in four 

 years with regard to the seasons ; secondly— which of 

 course took a much longer time— that the nsing of Sirius 

 ceased to coincide with the beginning of the Nile flood. 



"We are led to the same conclusion by a considera- 

 tion of the festivalsgiven in the calendar of Medinet-Abu. 

 They are almost without exception the festivals which 

 we have found in our previous investigation of the 

 calendars of Esne and Edfu to be attached to the same 

 days. We. know already the Uaya festival of the 17th 

 and 1 8th Thoth, the festival of Hermes of the 19th 

 Thoth, the great feast of Amen beginning on the 19th 

 Paophi, the Osiris festivals of the last decade of Choiak, 

 and that of the coronation of Horn: on the istT>bi. 



" Festivals somehow differing from the ancient tradi- 

 tions, and general usage are unknown in the calendar of 

 Medinet-Abu, and it is just such festivals which have 

 enabled us to trace fixed years in the calendars of Edfu 

 and Esne. 



"We are as little justified in considering the mytho- 

 logico-astronomical representations and inscriptions on 

 the graves of the time of the Ramessids as founded on a 

 fixed year, as we can do this in the case of the Medinet- 

 Abu calendar. In this the astronomical element of the 

 calendar is quite overgrown by the mythological. Not 

 only was the daily and yearly course of the sun a most 

 important event for the Egyptian astronomer, but the 

 priest also had in his sacred books many mythological 

 records concerning the god Ra, which had to be taken 

 into account in these representations. The mythological 

 ideas dated from the oldest periods of Egyptian history ; 

 we shall, therefore, be obliged for their explanation not 

 to remain in the 13th or 14th century before Christ, 

 but to ascend into previous centuries; / should think 

 about the middle of the fourth millennium before Christ, 

 that is the time at which the true original of the Medinet- 

 Abu calendar was framed. Further we must in these 

 mythological and astronomical representations not over- 

 look the fact that we cannot expect them to show 

 mathematical accuracy — that, on the contrary, if that is 

 a consideration, we must proceed with the greatest 

 caution. We know now how inexact were the representa- 

 tions and texts of tombs, especially where the Egyptian 

 artist could suppose that no human eye would inspect his 

 work ; we also know how often representations stop short 

 for want of room, and how much the contents were 

 mutilated for the sake of symmetry." 



' op. cit. p. 48. 



