152 Hiitton Webster 



purports to have been written by a contemporary of Ramses 11 

 and to be based on the works of certain former seers. To the 

 injunctions it contains we may reasonably ascribe a high antiquity. 

 This interesting production of ancient though misdirected learning 

 divides the hours between the rising and setting of the sun into 

 three seasons of four, each of which is ruled by its particular 

 influence. Most often their character was the same in all three 

 seasons. Thus the fifth of the month Paophi is described as 

 " inauspicious, inauspicious, inauspicious. In no wise go out of 

 thy house on this day ; approach not a woman." The preceding 

 day, the fourth Paophi, is, however, characterized as "inauspi- 

 cious, auspicious, auspicious," i. e., varying in influence.^^ Thus 

 it would seem that a single day might have both a favorable and 

 an unfavorable character— a refinement of ingenious superstition 

 which finds a parallel in the Babylonian calendars. The month 

 Thot was particularly unfavorable for labor. On the twentieth 

 of that month no work was done, no oxen killed, no stranger 

 received. On the twenty-second no fish were to be eaten, no oil 

 lamp lighted. On the twenty-third no incense was to be put on 

 the fire, no large cattle, goats or ducks to be killed. For the 

 twenty-sixth the injunction is, " do absolutely nothing on this 

 day." Similar advice is given on several days of the month 

 Paophi, and more than thirty times in the remainder of the Sallier 

 calendar.^" 



The remarkably close analogies presented by many of these 

 injunctions to the taboos of primitive peoples, make it highly 

 probable that the calendar represents the systematization of far 

 more ancient regulations for seasons of abstinence. Doubtless 

 many changes in the shape both of additions and corruptions 

 crept in; the calendar itself presents evidence that the Egyptians 

 had begun to rationalize their taboos. Thus the scribe after 



E. A. W. Budge, Egyptian Magic^ Lond., igor, pp. 22^sqq.; Foucart, op. cit., 

 iii. 100 sq. The latter holds that the popular character of the collection has 

 been exaggerated, a view to which comparative studies lend little support. 



"Wiedemann, op. cit., 263. Cf. Maspero, Romans ct poesies au Papyrus 

 Harris, no. 5, pp. 38 sq. 



"Maspero, Dawn of Civilization,^ New York, 1897, p. 211 ?t.\ 



152 



