Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 7.djvu/753

CIIKOXOLOGk .j renderings are undoubted; the first, which is that of Dr Brugscli, is not certain. If, however, it was so, we should have a difficulty in deciding to exactly which four months each season applied. It may be remarked that, according to the Copts, there are four months from the supposed beginning of the rise of the Nile, a few days before the summer solstice, to the end of the inundation. If this were the ancient reckoning, and the rendering "inundation" be correct, "winter" would be the cold season, and "summer" would correspond to spring and early summer. In support of this hypothesis it may bo observed that the so-called heliacal rising ol So this on the 20th of July marked the beginning of the Egyptian year, although in the year commonly in use this phenomenon passed through all the seasons, and further that in the earliest times of Egyptian history this phenomenon occurred about the time of the su~inmer solstice, and the conventional beginning of the rise of the Kile, the three phenomena probably marking the beginning of the first season when the calendar was instituted 1 (cf. on the seasons, Brugsch, Materiaux, 34 scqq.). The common year of the ancient Egyptians is that which has been called the Vague Year, because on account of its length of 365 days it fell short of a tropical or a sidereal year, and thus passed through all the seasons. That this year was that in which the inscriptions are usually dated before the introduction of the Alex andrian year under Augustus appears from the Decree of Canopus (Hierog. 1. 18, Greek 1. 36, 37). The Egyptians also used a fixed year dated from the so-called heliacal rising of Sothis, July 20. It contained 365 days, and was adjusted by the addition of another day for every four years. It is uncertain Low far back this year was in use. The Calendar of Medeenet Ilaboo, of the time of Ramses III., begins with the rising of Sothis, or, if we accept DrBrugsch s explanation, with its festival (Materiaux, p. 84). Perhaps at the time of this monument the phenomenon fell on the 1st Thoth of the vague year, or within the month ; or if. the festival be intended, it may be used as a conventional indica tion of New Year s day in a typical form (Ibid. p. 84, 85). In the Roman period, after the Alexandrian year had come into use, there are double dates in the Alexandrian and Sothiac calendars, but the common Egyptian notation of the months does not appear to have been usually applied to the Sothiac year. An exception is noticed by Dr Brugscli (Ibid. p. 93), and another instance in which the mouth-name Tybi appears to be used for the Sothiac calendar, while an Alexandrian name is employed for the corresponding month of the Alexandrian calendar (Ibid. p. 92, 17. See on the whole subject, Brugsch, Mattriaux). The inconvenience of the vague year in relation to the festivals, on account of their connection with natural phenomena, led Ptolemy 1 1 1. Euergetes to reform the calendar by intercalating a day after every fourth year before the year next following (Decree of Canopus, Hierog. 1. 22, Greek 1. 43-45). Obviously this arrest of the common year was more convenient than the change to a fixed year already in use beginning at a different season. This new style was abandoned and the old resumed, but how soon we do not know. Under Augustus a fixed year, called the Alexandrian, beginning on the 29-30th August of the Julian year, superseded the vague year. According to Lepsius, the Era of Augustus at Alexandria d.ited B.C. 30, but the first year of the new calendar, prolepti- c.illy, B.C. 26, when the 1st Thoth vague corresponded to 30th August of the proleptiij year of Augustus. The new reckoning, however, in his opinion could not have been introduced before B.C. 8, and was probably introduced A.D. 5. (See Lepsius, Uebrr ciniye Ecriihrungspunkte dcr Aegyptischen, Gncchiscken, und lo- mischcn Chronologic, Berl. Alcad., 1859). Although it is quite possible that Augustus adopted a proleptic synchronism of the Egyptian and Roman years for the official Egyptian year, thus dating back his reform, yet it is more probable that there was some special reason for choosing the particular Egyptian year selected, which, moreover, was not the first of the Era of Augustus. Bnigsch has put forward a theory, which is the more remarkable in its bearing on this question as it is of wholly independent origin. He has shown reasons for supposing that a year beginning on the 25 -29th August was in use in Egypt from the time of Dynasty VI. It must be admitted that many of his correspondences are of the Roman period, and therefore probably refer to the Alexandrian year; but others cannot be so explained, and it seems probable that the year which under Augustus superseded the vague year was already in use long before (Materiaux, p. 17 scq.). The Alexandrian year superseded the vague year, and has remained in use to our times, never having been wholly supplanted by the lunar year of the Arabs; but it has now given way to the Gregorian calendar. At the time of Dynasty XII. the Egyptians used four years. These Dr Brugsch holds to be the vague year, a solar year, a lunar year, and a lunar year with an intercalation (Hist., 2nd ed. 93-99). The second of these years no doubt was the Sothiac, the 1 If the agreement of the sidereal and tropical phenomena marked the institution cf the year, a very rainote d-ite would be needed, but we cannot tell how nearly a<-< nvijte the earliest observations were, nor do we know where they were made, anil this in the cass of the rising of Sothis is an additional element of unceituinty. EGYPT 729 beginning of which had an original connection with the summer solstice, and the duration of which was probably the Egyptian measure of a solar year. The lunar years would seem to be true lunar years, if we are to accept il. Gensler s theory that the Egyp tians had discovered a method of adjusting their solar calendar with a lunar year by the intercalation of a month eleven times in thirty years (Id. 73). That the Egyptians at a later time used four years is evident from the Calendar of Isne, in which three beginnings are mentioned, that which stands at the head of the document and is of the Sothiac year, a beginning of the "year of the ancients 1 on the 9th of Thoth, and another New Year s day on the 26th of Payni (Brugsch, Materiaux, 19-22). This calendar is attributed by Lepsius to the reign of Claudius, but Brugscli can only decide that it is of the Roman period (Id. 88, cf. 22). If it is much later than the time fixed by Lepsius, the second commencement may be of the vague year, which began July 28 in A.n. 101-104. It is not probable that it is earlier than the introduction of the Alexandrian year, which, however, is unnoticed. Thus at least four years were probably in use in Egypt under the Romans. No Era has been found in the Egyptian inscriptions. They always, if they date at all, date by the year of the reigning sovereign. There is but one instance of a reckoning of the nature of an era. It is the statement of the interval between two distant reigns in the stele in which, under Ramses II., an interval of four hundred years after a Shepherd king is mentioned, or more strictly, following the analogy of ordinary dates, the 400th year of the earlier king, as though he were still living. This, however, is not a strictly Egyptian document (Records of the Past, iv. 36). Similarly the coins of the Ptolemies, except one class, present no era ; even those, bearing the name of Ptolemy Soter, struck in Palestine and Phoenicia under Ptolemy Philadelphia and Ptolemy Euergetes, are dated by the regnal years of the kings who struck them. Thcie are indeed coins dated by an era, probably struck at some town of Phoenicia, but these follow a foreign usage which otherwise is not found in the foreign coinage of the Ptolemies. It is therefore not surprising that the Egyptian cycles mentioned by ancient writers are not traceable on the monuments. One of these, the Sothiac Cycle, consisting of 1460 Sothiac and 1461 vague years, or the period in which the vague year passed through one Sothiac year, was probably used by the astronomers, but we have no indication of its having been known earlier than the first century B.C., when Geminus writes that the Egyptian festivals pass through the whole year in 1460 years (Isag., c. 6, Petav., Uranolorjium, 33). Censorinus fixes the beginning of a Sothiac cycle in A.D. 139 (c. 21), in the third vague year or second Alexandrian of the reign of Antoninus Pius. Curiously the Alexandrian coin commemorating in a symbolic manner this event is of the sixth year of this emperor. Theon, writing during the cycle beginning A.D. 139, speaks of the previous period as the Era of Menophres (ap. Biot, Rcch. sur plus. p. de I astr., p.181 seq., BOSseq.; Sur laptriodn Sotk. 18, 1-2$ scqq.) It is therefore generally supposed that a cycle beginning B.C. 1322 com menced in the reign of a Menptah, usually identified with the king of that name of Dynasty XIX. This is possible but not certain. Other cycles rest on less distinct evidence, and for the present we must be content to accept Brugscli s cautious judg ment on the whole subject. 2 The historical chronology of ancient Egypt if less obscure than the technical is even fuller of difficulty. Our chief authorities are (1) the Egyptian historian Manetho, who gave a list of thirty dynasties, and the length of each, with in some cases the duration of the individual reigns, (2) the similar list of the Turin Papyrus of Kings, and (3) various data of the monuments. Manetho s list is unhappily in a very corrupt condition. It appears, however, that his method is generally not strictly chronological. As far as we know, he makes up the sum of each dynasty, except Dynasty XII., of the individual reigns, where these are stated, taking no account of the overlapping of some of them. He seems to have given larger sums in three great groups. These again are made up of the sums of dynasties, and if any were in part or wholly contemporary, they are treated as successive. According to Syncellus, he stated the duration of the dynasties to be 3555 years. If this number, which suspiciously enough is given apart from the dynastic list, came down correctly to the Byzantine chronographer, many hundred years must be cut oft" from the totals of the dynasties as they now stand for contemporary dynasties or kings. The Turin Papyrus is unfortunately in a far worse state than Manetho s list, but it is valuable as confirming and correcting it. The system of reckoning seems, however, to have been more strictly chronological than Manetho s usual method. The various data of the monuments are as

yet of little value beyond affording evidence that Manetho s numbers