Rest Days; A Sociological Study i 5 1 



The other lucky and unhicky days of the ancient Egyptians have 

 been made familiar to us by the fortunate discovery of a calendar, 

 a Nineteenth Dynasty papyrus, giving a list of such days for sev- 

 eral months in the year. This is the Sallier Papyrus IV.^' It 



days — Fencardin (Meissner, in Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenldndi- 

 sclieii GescUschaft, 1896, 1. 296). By some scholars the Persian festival 

 has been derived from the Babylonian New Year's festival of Zakmuk 

 which is traced back to the time of Gudea in the third millenium B.C. {cf. 

 Frazer, TJie Golden BougJi^ iii. 151 sqq.). This hypothesis has not won 

 wide acceptance (cf. Lang's acute discussion, Magic and Religion, London, 

 iQOr, pp. 141 sqq.) ; and, in fact, requires us to assume the existence of the 

 five epagomenal days among the Babylonians at a very remote period. In 

 Babylonia, however, the year was always a hmar year, adjusted to the 

 tropical year only by the use of intercalary months (supra). The festival 

 of Zakmuk, it should be noted, occupied not five but at least eleven days. 

 In view of these considerations the suggestion may be pertinent that 

 whatever resemblance existed between the Sacaea and the festival of 

 Zakmuk is explained by both being held at specially critical seasons, the 

 end of the old year or the beginning of the new year. 



Among the early Celts, as well as among other Indo-European peoples, 

 there are found traces of twelve intercalary days or " nights," added to 

 the lunar year of 354 days, in the effort to accommodate it to the tropic or 

 seasonal year. In modern Brittany these are called gourdcziou or " sup- 

 plementary days." Popular superstition also describes them as " evil days," 

 and further considers each one as prognosticating the character or quality 

 of a month in the coming year. See J. Loth, " Les douze jours supple- 

 mentaires, gourdeziou, des Bretons, des Germains, et des Hindous," Revue 

 ccltique, 1903, xxiv. 310 sqq. In Brahmanic literature the twelve days are 

 referred to as "an image of the coming year" (O. Schrader, Reallexikon 

 der indogermanischen Altertumskiinde, Strasshurg, 1901, p. 191). 



'' The text was published in Select Papyri of the British Museum, i. pis. 

 144-68 and was translated by Chabas, Le calendrier des jours fastes et 

 nefastcs de I'annee egyptienne, Chalons, 1870 {Oeuvres divcrses, v. 126- 

 235). Bohn {Der Sabbat im Alten Testament, pp. 57 sqq.) gives a revised 

 and corrected version of some of the leading passages and classifies the 

 contents of the calendar under such headings as prohibitions of eating, 

 drinking and bathing, prohibitions of work, prohibitions of going out or 

 of travelling, directions regarding fire and light, sexual intercourse, loud 

 talking, music, and so on. Such an arrangement illustrates clearly the 

 nature of the taboos observed. See further on this important calendar, 

 JMaspero, Etudes egyptiennes, Paris, 1886, i. 28 sqq.; idem, Neiu Light on 

 Ancient Egypt ^ London, 1909, pp. 128-36; Wiedemann, op. cit., 263 sqq.; 



