488 



NA TURE 



[March 24, 1892 



A study of the Egyptian monuments has shown most 

 conclusively that towards the end of the ancient empire 

 the Egyptians possessed a year as accurate for calendar 

 purposes as our own, and that they had been led up to 

 the knowledge of its true length by successive steps. 



As we shall show further on, this earliest of all years 

 that we know of in history began at the summer solstice. 

 Since one of the oldest temples at Thebes is oriented to 

 sunset at the summer solstice, we should be not at all 

 surprised if investigation shows that when that temple 

 was built, more than 3000 years B.C., the Egyptian year 

 really began in what we should call our summer. We 

 have ample evidence of this. And I think there is little 

 doubt also that when Stonehenge was built it certainly 

 was built by people who began their year with the summer 

 solstice, which is the time of the year in which in many 

 countries it is the habit still to light fires upon hills and 

 so on. If we look up the records of the peoples that 

 lived, say, during the 1000 years preceding the birth of 

 Christ, we find that the different races began their year 

 at different times, and even that the same race at different 

 times began their year differently ; the choice lay among 

 the equinoxes and the solstices. 



Wherever the ancient Egyptians came from, whether 



Beginning with the inundation (summer solstice) we 

 have — 



(i) The season or tetramenc of the inundation, 



(2) ,, ,, ,, sowing, 



(3) jj >> ,, harvest. 



From the earliest times the year was divided into 

 twelve months, as follows : — 



Inundation 



Seed time 



Harvest 



rThoth ... 

 J Phaophi ... 

 ■■ I Athyr 

 tChoiak ... 

 [Tybi ... 

 I Menchir... 



\Phamenoth 

 Pharmouthi 

 rPachons .. 

 ( Payni 

 ■■ 1 Epiphi ... 

 V.Mesori ... 



End of June (Gregorian;. 



• „ July. 



,, August. 



,, September. 



,, October. 



,, November. 



,, December. 



,, January. 



,, February. 



,, March. 



,, April. 



,, May. 



Now whether the Egyptians brought their year with 

 them or invented it in the Nile valley, there is a belief 

 that it at first consisted of 360 days only, that is s\ days 

 too little. It is more likely that they brought the lunar 



Curve of the Surface of the Nile in 1846 



0-50 raetre= 18' 686 Engli»h inches. 7'20 metres=23i feet. 



Fig. I. — The annual rise and fall of the Nile fiom Horner), 



from a region where the moon was the time-measurer of 

 not, so soon as they settled in the valley where the Nile 

 then as now like a pendulum slowly beat the years by its 

 annual overflows at the summer solstice, the solar basis 

 of their calendar was settled. 



We can well understand, therefore, since the whole life of 

 the country depends upon the river, and all the energies 

 of the inhabitants are connected with the work to be 

 done during its rise and fall, that the moment of the com- 

 mencement of the inundation, about the time of the 

 summer solstice, should be chosen as the beginning of 

 the year. Hence the perpetual reference to Solstice and 

 Nile flood in the Egyptian annals. 



It might be imagined at first sight that, as the year was 

 thus determined, so to speak, by natural local causes, the 

 divisions or seasons would be the same as those which 

 Nature has given us. This is not so. Egypt is too near 

 the tropics, and the local conditions are too different from 

 our own, to permit of the application of our seasonal 

 divisions of the year. 



As Egypt, in the description quoted by Krall, " first 

 appears like a dusty plain, then as a fresh-water sea, and 

 finally as a bed of flowers," so the year is divided into 

 three seasons instead of four. 



NO. 1 169, VOL. 45] 



month with them, taking it roughly as 30 days (30X 12 = 

 360), than that they began with such an erroneous notion 

 of the true length of the solar year, seeing that in Egypt, 

 above all countries in the world, owing to the regularity of 

 the inundation, the true length could have been so easily 

 determined, so soon as that regularity was recognized. 

 We must not in these questions forget to put ourselves in 

 the place of these pioneers of astronomy and civilization : 

 if we do this, we shall soon see how many difficulties 

 were involved in determining the true length of such a 

 cycle as a year, when not only modern appliances, but all 

 just ideas too, were of necessity lacking. 



Still it is right that I should state that all authorities 

 are not agreed as to the use of this year of 360 days. 

 Ideler^ considers it very doubtful. Krall,'^ however, urges 

 that a certain inscription (the trilingual inscription of 

 Tanis) expressly refers to it. 



He adds to this some evidence, which he considers 

 confirmatory, from religious usages. Thus at Philoe, in 

 the temple of Osiris, there were 360 bowls for sacrifice, 

 which were filled daily with milk by a specific i rotation 

 of priests. At Acanthus there was a perforated cask 



' Chronologic," i. p. 70. 



' Studien zur Geschichte des alte 



Aegypten, 



