Hedvig Győry: Mélanges offerts a Edith Varga „Le lotus qui sort de terre” (Bulletin du Musée Hongrois des Beaux-Arts Supplément 1. Budapest, 2001)
LEO DEPUYDT: What Is Certain about the Origin of the Egyptian Civil Calendar?
No question dominated the earlier discussion on the length of Egyptian history more than the following: Was Egyptian history two or three Sothic cycles long? In an oft quoted statement, the Roman author Censorinus (third century A.D.) transmits that, in 139 A.D., the rising of Sirius fell on the Egyptian new year. The rising of Sirius is its first visibility early in the morning after a period of invisibility lasting about two months. Obviously, because the rising occurs about every 365 L A days and the Egyptian civil year has only 365 days (see above), the rising moves forward in the Egyptian year at a rate of about VA day per year or 1 day (% x 4) in 4 years. The rising will therefore move forward 365 days or a full year and return to new year after about 1460 years (365 x 4). Such a return occurred in 139 A.D. The 1460-year period is called the Sothic cycle, after Sothis, the Greek form of spdt, which is Egyptian for Sirius. Several Latin and Greek sources about Egypt mention the Sothic cycle. The cycle was therefore already well-known to modern historians even before the decipherment of the hieroglyphic script. Classical writers speculated about earlier coincidences of the rising with new year, that is, before the one of 139 A.D. Many modern historians naturally assumed that the civil calendar was instituted at such a coincidence, even though there is no evidence for this assumption. But which coincidence then? 1322 B.C. was too late. No one thought that all of Egyptian history could fall after that date. The only two attractive options were 2782 B.C. and 4242 B.C. In the 1930s and 1940s, three unsubstantiated assumptions were common: (1) that there were full Sothic cycles before 139 A.D.; (2) that the Egyptian civil calendar began with a coincidence of new year and the rising of Sirius; and (3) that Egyptian history began around the time that the civil calendar was instituted. It should also be noted that there is no necessary connection between these assumptions and the dating of the beginning of Egyptian history. 1.3. The Two Anchors for Determining the Approximate Length of Egyptian History: Radio Carbon Dating and Assyrian Chronicles No consensus existed about the length of Egyptian history in the 1930s and 1940s. But some momentum towards accepting a beginning around 3000 B.C. could already be observed. Then, in the 1940s and 1950s, two new types of evidence fully emerged and finally anchored Egyptian history roughly but securely on the line of time. Neither anchor involves any assumptions about Sothic cycles. The two anchors are radio carbon dating and Assyrian chronica
