March 24, 1892] 



NAl^URE 



4S9 



into which one of the 360 priests poured w.iter from the 

 Nile daily. Krall adds : — ' 



"It is probable that the year of 360 days dates from 

 the time before the immigration into the Nile valley, 

 when the Egyptians were unguided by the regular recur- 

 rence of the Nile flood. In any case, this must soon have 

 convinced the priests that the 360-days year did not 

 agree with the facts. But it is well known to everybody 

 familiar with these things how long a period may be re- 

 quired before such determinations are practically realized, 

 especially with a people so conservative of ancient usages 

 as the Egyptians." 



Supposing the use of this 360-day year to have been 

 universal, it is perfectly certain that the Egyptians, now 

 in this part of the Nile valley, now in that, must have got 

 their calendar into the most hopeless confusion, compared 

 with which " the year of confusion " was mere child's-play, 

 and that the exact determination of the times of sowing, 

 reaping, &c., by means of such a calendar would have 

 been next to impossible. 



As each year dropped 5^ days, it is evident that in 



about seventy years (^ ' "-^ ) a cycle was accomplished, 

 V 525 / 



in which new year's day swept through all the months. 

 The same month (so far as its name was concerned) was 

 now in the inundation time, now in the sowing time, and 

 so on. Of fixed agricultural work for such months as 

 these there could be none. 



It must have been, then, that there were local attempts 

 to retain the coincidences between the beginning of 

 the year and the Nile flood and solstice ; intercalation of 

 days or even of months being introduced, now in one 

 place, now in another ; and these attempts, of course, 

 would make confusion worse confounded, as the months 

 might vary with the district, and not with the time of the 

 year. 



That this is what really happened is, no doubt, the 

 origin of the stringent oath required of the Pharaohs in 

 after times, to which I shail subsequently refer. 



This year of 360 days had naturally to give way, and it 

 ultimately did so in favour of one of 365. The precise 

 date of the change is not known, but it is referred to in 

 inscriptions of the time of Amenemha 1. {circ. 2400 B.C.). 

 This, of course, does not exclude the possibility, indeed 

 even the probability, that it was introduced much earlier. 

 The five days were added as epacts or epagomena ; the 

 original months were not altered, but a " little month " of 

 five days was interpolated at the end of the year between 

 Mesori of one year and Thoth of the next. 



When the year of 365 days was established, it was 

 evidently imagmed that finality had been reached ; and 

 mindful of the confusion which, as we have shown, must 

 have resulted from the attempt to keep up a year of 360 

 days by intercalations, each Egyptian king on his acces- 

 sion to the throne bound himself by oath before the priest 

 of Isis^ in the temple of Ptah at Memphis, not to mter- 

 calate either days or months, but to retain the year of 

 365 days as established by the Antiqui.'^ The text of the 

 Latin translation preserved by Nigidius Figulus, cannot 

 be accurately restored. Only thus much can be seen with 

 certainty. 



To retain this year of 365 days then became the first 

 law for the king, and indeed the Pharaohs thenceforth 

 throughout the whole course of Egyptian history adhered 

 to this year, in spite of their being subsequently con- 

 vinced, as we shall see, of its inadequacy for a long period. 

 It was a Macedonian king who later made an attempt 

 to replace it by a better one 



The years of 360 and 365 days to which we have so far 

 referred are termed in the inscriptions the " little " and 

 " great" years respectively. 



iM 



p. 20. 



, '■ Chronjlogie,' 



NO. T169, VOL. 45] 



How, then, was this 365-day year, which had been 

 introduced with such pomp and circumstance, regulated ? 

 This brings us to a new point. 



The Heliacal Rising of Siriiis. 



I have insisted upon the perfect regularity of the rise 

 of the Nile affording the ancient Egyptians, so soon as 

 this regularity had been established, a nearly perfect way 

 of determining the length of the year. 



It is also clear that so soon as the greatest northing and 

 southing of the sun rising or setting at the solstices had 

 been recognized, and that the intervals between them in 

 days had been counted, a still more accurate way would 

 be open to them, especially if, as I believe, the observations 

 of the solsticial risings or settings were made in temples 

 (or observatories) accurately oriented to the proper ampli- 

 tude. 



In this way, then, the great natural festival of the year 

 would be the nearly coincident commencement of the 

 inundation and the summer solstice. 



As I have said, the solstice might have, one may say 

 7nust have, occurred with greater regularity than the rise 

 of the river, so that as accuracy of definition became more 

 necessary the solstice would be preferred. The solstice was 

 common to all Egypt, the commencement of the inunda- 

 tion was later as the place of observation was nearer the 

 mouth of the river. 



Now it seems as if among all ancient peoples each 

 sunrise, each return of the sun— or of the sun-god— was 

 hailed, and most naturally, as a resurrection from the 

 sleep— the death— of night : with the returning sun, man 

 found himself again in full possession of his powers of 

 living, of doing, of enjoying. The sun-god had conquered 

 death, man was again alive. Light and warmth returned 

 with the dawn in those favoured eastern climes where 

 man then was, and the dawn itself was a sight, a sensation^ 

 in which everything conspired to suggest awe and grati- 

 tude, and to thrill the emotions of even uncivilized man. 



What wonder, then, that sunrise was the chief time of 

 prayer and thankfulness.' But prayer to the sun-god 

 meant, then, sacrifice, and here a practical detail comes 

 in, apparently a note of discord, but really the true germ 

 of our present knowledge of the starry heavens which 

 surround us. 



To make the sacrifice at the instant of sunrise, prepara- 

 tions had to be made, beasts had to be slaughtered, and 

 a ritual had to be followed ; this required time, and a 

 certain definite quantity of it ; to measure this, the only 

 means available then was to watch the rising of a star,, 

 the first glimmer of which past experience had shown 

 preceded sunrise by just that amount of time which the 

 ritual demanded for the various functions connected with 

 the sunrise sacrifice. 



This, perhaps, went on every morning, but beyond all 

 question the most solemn ceremonial of this nature in 

 the whole year was that which took place on New Year's 

 morning, or the great festival of the Nile-rising and 

 summer solstice, the ist of Thoth. 



How long these morning and special yearly cere- 

 monials went on before the dawn of history we, of 

 course, have no knowledge. Nor are the stars thus used 

 certainly known to us ; of course any star would do which 

 rose at the appropriate time before the sun itself, whether 

 the star was located either in the northern or southern 

 heavens. But in historic times there is no doubt what- 

 ever about the star so used. The warning-star watched 

 by the Egyptians at Thebes, certainly 3000 B.C., was 

 Sirius, the brightest of them all, and there is much 

 evidence that Sirius was not the star first used. 



" Besides the solstice and the beginning of the Nile 

 flood, there was an event in the sky which was too 

 striking not to excite the general attention of the Egyptian 

 priesthood. We also know from the newly-discovered 



