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?

ceived as the herald of a new agricultural cycle (see above). Second, in the Illahun papyri, a set of lunar months seems to be counted from the rising of Sirius.'* The same seems to be the case in the Ebers calendar. If there was a lunar system that could begin with the rising of Sirius, then why in origin not also the civil calendar? The connection between the origin of the calendar and Imhotep is even more tenuous. Three relevant sources are as follows. First, there is the well-known tradition according to which the accomplishments of a physician and architect Imhotep were remembered in later times as a watershed in Egyptian civilization. This Imhotep was associated with the Greek god of medicine, Asclepius. Second, the name Imhotep is inscribed next to that of a king ntrh on a statue base discovered in 1926 inside the Step Pyramid complex.'

9 One of his titles appears to be supervisor of sculpting. Third, Manetho connects advances, not only in medicine and the invention of building with hewn stone, but also in the art of writing, to a king who is called, depending on who is quoting Manetho, Tosorthros or Sesorthos and who is also called Asclepius.

20 An emendation to one text equates Asclepius with Immouthes and associates the advances to this individual who lived in the reign of Tosorthros. On the basis of these facts, equations have been postulated. The first equation is ntrh (contemporary monuments) = dsr (king-lists) = Tosorthros or Sesorthos (Manetho). The king whose Horus name is ntrh and who presumably had the Step Pyramid built is now as a rule identified with a king whose name is written in later sources. This name is usually transcribed dsr. The builder of the Step Pyramid is therefore now commonly referred to as Djoser. Djoser in turn has been equated with Manetho's Tosorthros or Sesorthos, the second king of the Third Dynasty. The second equation is that of the Imhotep of the statue base and the Imhotep of later tradition. 3. Theory of the "Sliding" Calendar In a recent article and book, von Bomhard

21 writes about the Egyptian calendar in an informed manner. But I see a problem with the logic of the main the18 For details, see L. Depuydt, Sothic Chronology and the Old Kingdom, JARCE 37 (2000), pp. 181-82. " Kahl - Kloth - Zimmermann, op. cit. (note 12), pp. 70-71. M W. G. Waddell, Manetho. The Loeb Classical Library 350, Cambridge 1940, pp. 40-45. :l A.-S. von Bomhard, 77«' Egyptian Calendar: A Work for Eternity-, London 1999; von Bomhard, op. cit. (note 22), pp. 14-26.