73 CHAPTER 3 74 72 CHAPTER 3 THE E()PTIAN CA9ENDAR: KEEPIN( MADAT ON EARTH Juan Antonio Belmonte Summary. The ancient Egyptians had just one ca endar in operation0 the civi one0 during most of their history and before the overwhe ming inf uence of Fe enic cu ture. This ca endar may have been invented for a specific purpose in the first ha f of the third mi ennium ..C.0 when the previous oca Ci eEbased unar ca endars were rendered use ess0 as the resu t of the unification of the country and new socia 0 economic and administrative reLuirements. The civi ca endar a ways started at the feast of wpt rnpt in the first day of the first month of the Inundation season AI Axt 1). Its pecu iar ength of 362 days might have been estab ished from simp e astronomica Apresumab y so ar) observations. Lunar festiva s were articu ated within the framewor3 of the civi ca endar0 which had a we documented set of 12 month names from the beginning of the Cew Kingdom0 if not ear ier0 but in the Ramesside period or ater0 severa of these months a tered their names0 probab y for socia or re igious reasons. 3.1. Introduction E3a tly 0hen the se ond lunar year 0as introdu ed remains un ertain, but it 0as probably not too long after the divergen e bet0een the t0o forms of the year ( ivil and lunarI be ame apparent. A good guess might be to put it in the neighbourhood of 2O00 B.C. From that date the Egyptians had three calendar years , all of 0hi h ontinued in use to the very end of pagan Egypt. R.A. Par3er A1920): — The Calendars of An ient Egypt2. /ith the removal of the lunar alendar from all of these s enes, the importan e of the ivil alendar is stressed. At the risk of anti ipating myself, I do not see the lunar alendar playing an important role in Egypt outside of some feasts. It is my ontention that the Egyptian alendri system is simpler than usually maintained. W The impli ation for a omplete revision of Egyptian alendri s is evident. A. Spa inger A1992): — Month representations '0 CdE 70. The two contentions just cited were separated by a most ha f a century but they are Luite representative of the state of studies of the ancient Egyptian ca endar at the turn of the 20 th century. For a most 20 years0 Richard Par3er;s —Ca endars' reigned supreme in the view of most Egypto ogists as the ast word on Egyptian ca endrica matters. This was so despite of the fact that severa of the ideas and hypotheses expressed in that boo3 had scarce y been proven. Fence0 one freLuent y reads in various manua s0 either of Egypto ogy or of the Fistory of Astronomy and Archaeoastronomy0 that the Egyptians had three ca endars wor3ing at once0 with no attempt to enter into further discussion or to cha enge that supposition. This situation persisted unti the mid 1990s when0 after Par3er;s death0 severa scho ars decided to enter this s ippery fie d of research and started to produce new and interesting approaches to ancient materia 0 proposing new interpretations in severa 76 cases0 as we as pub ishing new materia 0 previous y un3nown or never discussed in a proper way. The names of severa of these scho ars shou d be mentioned in this context and the two ast decade contributions of Leo Iepuydt0 Ro f Krauss0 Christian LeitD0 U rich Luft and Anthony Spa inger have been pivota in the ast few years and wi be fundamenta to our discussion. Pe must a so ta3e into account the review vo umes by Marsha C agett and AnneESophie von .omhard. After detai ed examination of a high percentage of the bib iography generated in the ast decade Aand most of the re evant ear ier wor3s)0 my main conc usion is that the study of the ancient Egyptian ca endar suffers from what I wi ca the —Ebers syndrome'. I say this because I have found that the Ca endar written on the verso of the Ebers Medica Papyrus0 discovered in Thebes in 1862 and first pub ished a few years ater0 has contributed itt e0 if nothing0 to the so ution of any of the open Luestions on Egyptian ca endrics in the ast 120 years. It is important to notice that from the moment of its discovery to the present0 more than 40 papers have been pub ished on it A14 in the ast Luarter century a one)0 most of them presenting attempts at interpretation in open contradiction with one another. I first demonstrated this in an artic e pub ished in 2003 devoted to some open Luestions of Egyptian ca endrics. In that paper0 I decided to ris3 proposing a wor3ing hypothesis0 reconsidering the situation by eva uating the idea of what might have happened if the Ebers Medica Papyrus had never been discovered or if its Ca endar had never been written by the ancient Egyptians on the verso of the papyrus. I 3new that this was a revo utionary and haDardous approach since the Ebers Ca endar was the first in a series of important documenta discoveries associated with Egyptian ca endrics and chrono ogy0 and had hence a ways been one of the pivota aspects of every discussion on the subject. Fowever0 it was my contention that by ignoring it0 the discussion of Egyptian ca endrics becomes much unexpected y simp ified0 and that severa apparent prob ems may easi y find a fair y reasonab e so ution. This chapter is an updated0 simp ified and i ustrated version of that wor3. 3.2. Calendar or calendarsE Fow many ca endars were simu taneous y in operation in ancient Egypt? This is the basic Luestion to be answered. Pithout finding a reasonab e so ution for this0 it wou d be impossib e to go any further in the ana ysis and so ve other important prob ems and Luestions. It is my intention to show that throughout Egyptian history0 from the very creation of the civi ca endar to the Roman conLuest0 the Egyptians had on y one ca endar0 the civi one0 despite the fact that some of their feasts cou d be estab ished according to the moon and that under Persian and Macedonian ru e A6 th to 1 st centuries ..C.)0 the unar ca endars of these peop es might have produced a certain inf uence in oca ca endrics and wou d a so have been used to date documents or monumenta inscriptions in Aramaic or Oree30 respective y. The civi ca endar of ancient Egypt consisted of 12 months of 30 days each0 grouped into three seasons0 which from the very beginning received the names of Axt Atrans ated as Inundation in Oree3 texts)0 prt Atrans ated as Pinter) and Smw Atrans ated as Summer). Each of the months was divided into three decades A mdw ) of 10 days. This 12 month year amounted to a tota of 360 days. Corma y0 a civi date is expressed by a number for the regna year Aeach reign represented a new era in ancient Egypt)0 fo owed by a set comprising a Roman numera for the ordina month within a season Asimi ar to the actua Egyptian stro3es for the numbers)0 then the season proper and fina y the day 77 of the month. One examp e is III Axt 260 which reads as the 26 th day of the 3 rd month of the Inundation. Fowever0 ater on0 we wi argue0 fo owing Oriffith0 that we shou d probab y read 26 th of Hwt-Hr AFathor or Athyr in Oree3 papyri)0 exact y as we write 29/02/2008 but we read 29 th of February of 2008. Figure 3.1. Images of the twin goddesses Ma;at and Renpet together in a beautifu y carved re ief of the temp e of Seti I in Abydos. The Egyptian 3ings swore at the moment of their accession not to a ter the year A rnpt ) as one of their duties to 3eep mAat on Earth. Photograph by ,.A. .e monte. 78 To the end of this year of 360 days0 five extra days 3nown as the —Five above the Year' A 5 Hryw rnpt ) or epagomena s0 were added throughout most of Egyptian history0 a though there is some evidence that they might have been p aced at the beginning in ear ier times. Fowever0 this discussion is probab y nonsense since0 as Spa inger has engthi y argued0 they were considered as outside of the year and were not ta3en into account at a on most occasions. Furthermore0 these five days were reported to have a nefarious character0 despite the fact that0 than3s to the god Thoth who managed to get those extra days0 the —.irth of the Oods' Athese were Osiris0 Forus the E der0 Seth0 Isis and Cephthys) too3 p ace during them. Pith the epagomena s0 the civi year comp eted 362 days0 a number very c ose to the ength of the tropica year Athe seasona year) which in 3000 ..C. asted for some 362.2422 days. ConseLuent y0 the civi ca endar has freLuent y been Luoted as the Egyptian —so ar' ca endar0 which0 to a first approximation and in one generation A22 years) wou d be a very appropriate term.