Mummy's Wrap

Early in the Old Kingdom, or perhaps even in the Pre-Dynastic period, the ancient Egyptians based their calendar off the lunar cycle. For the most part, this simple form of tracking time was quite adequate for any people’s needs (Strudwick, Helen; The Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt, pg. 446). The ancient Egyptians, however, quickly noticed that the lunar cycle spans twenty-nine and a half days, making one year have, not the regular twelve-moon cycle, but a thirteen-moon cycle. Furthermore, the ancient Egyptians wanted to base their new year off the annual inundation of the Nile floodwaters. This was difficult to predict when using the lunar calendar (http://www.ancientegyptonline.co.uk).

In their observations of the sky, the ancient Egyptian priests noticed the brightest star in the sky was Sopdet, or “One Who Is Sharp,” otherwise known as Sirius in the modern world. The priests noticed Sopdet disappeared beneath the horizon for seventy days. These seventy days became so important to the ancient Egyptians, the days were introduced in one of ancient Egypt’s most sacred and famous rituals: the ritual of mummification (http://www.egyptianmyths.net). The priests also noted that once Sopdet returned to the night sky, the Nile flood was soon to follow. Once this discovery was made, a change in how time was calculated took place. The new year began when Sopdet rose. This time period was broken into three seasons, each with four lunar months of thirty days. By these calculations, there were 120 days in one season and 360 days in one year (http://www.egyptmonth.com).

Realizing that this did not exactly coincide with the rise of Sopdet, the ancient Egyptians found that five days were remaining in the year. Instead of adding or subtracting days from each month, the ancient Egyptians simply added five to the end of their year. These five days were explained in their mythology (Studwick, Helen; The Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt, pg. 449).

The myth explaining the five extra days of each year began with the goddess Nut and her brother, the god Geb. Nut the sky goddess and Geb the god of the earth were considered passionate lovers, but were forbidden to join together as Nut was married to Ra, the sun god. During the day, the god of the air, Shu, separated Nut from Geb, but at night, Nut lay with Geb. Angered by this, Ra refused to let her bear her children on any day of the year as punishment. Desperate to bear her children, Nut went to Thoth, the scribe god and god of the moon, who stole light from the moon to create five new days to add to the end of the year. These days were not considered part of the calendar, so Nut was able to give birth to one child each of those five days: Osiris, Seth, Horus the Elder, Isis, and Nepthys (http://www.yourdiscovery.com). These five “non-days” were days of celebration for the ancient Egyptians (Studwick, Helen; The Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt, pg. 449).

As we know today, each year is 365 days and six hours. Without compensating for the six hours, the solar and civil calendars would coincide only once every 1,460 years. This discrepancy was rarely noticed by the ancient Egyptians as they never moved to correct it. However, during the reign of Ptolemy III (246-222 BC), an extra day was added to every four years, evening out the discrepancy and beginning the use of a “leap year” (Studwick, Helen; The Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt, pg. 449).

The five “non-days” come at the end of the year and correspond with five gods’ birthdays:

Osiris – 14 July; Horus the Elder – 15 July; Seth – 16 July; Isis – 17 July; Nephthys – 18 July

{Table recreated from Studwick, Helen; The Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt, pg. 448}

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That's a Wrap!

Tags: ancient calendar, ancient egyptian calendar, annual nile flood, calendar, geb, lunar calendar, nut, senenmut, sirius, solar calendar, sopdet

This entry was posted by Page Strong on Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010 at 14:34 and is filed under Ancient Egypt, Everyday Life, Science/Technology, Time. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.