374 THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS. CHAP. XIII. 



was no longer used : but as the real year merely 

 contains 365 days 5 hours 48 minutes 45^ seconds, 

 this year of 365^ days exceeds the true Solar year 

 by upwards of 11 minutes, amounting to a day 

 in about 131 years; and as the Copts have never 

 corrected the year, the 1st of Thoth, at the pre- 

 sent time*, falls on the 10th of September; on 

 which day they celebrate a festival, and bathe in 

 the waters of the rising Nile. 



" The first correction for this excess of the Julian 

 year, was made in Europe by Pope Gregory XIIL, 

 in 1582, (a correction which was adopted in Eng- 

 land in 1752,) and is called the New Style, as that 

 of the Copts and Greeks, the Old. 



" To satisfy the reader that the ancient Egyptians 

 had two years, I shall first call his attention to the 

 origin and derivation of the expression, ' Sothic 

 period,' which I before mentioned : Secondly, to 

 the authority of ancient writers. 



" HorapoUo expressly tells us, the Egyptian So- 

 thic year was called the squared year, from the in- 

 tercalation of the quarter day, or one day every 

 fourth year, and was distinguished in hieroglyphic 



\i 



writing by a square H h . Diodorust says they 



make their months of 30 days, and add 5 days and 

 a fourth to the 12th months ; but does not allow 

 it to have been a Roman innovation t : and Ma- 



* This was written in 1828. 



f Diodor. i. 50. He visited Egypt in the reign of Ptolemy Neus 

 Dionysus, i. 44-. 



J Strabo also mentions it as an Egyptian custom, when he says, (lib. 



