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?
every four years. It seems as if complexity is generated artificially for the mere purpose of being rejected again. There are also mathematical problems. Letronne is cited 22 with approval for observing the following "astounding symmetry" between two "periods." In the "small" period, 4 years of 365 days equal 1460 days. In the "large" period, 4 times 365 years equals 1460 years. First of all, apples are compared with oranges. The "4 years" are Egyptian years of 365 days. The "365 years" are "Sirius years" of 365 L A days. Be this as it may, like Letronne, von Bomhard is intrigued by the recurrence of the number 365 on the level of both days and years. She therefore supports Letronne's "subtle intuition" that the two periods are "inseparable" and belong to a system "planned all at the once" (auf einen Schlag konzipiert) by ancient calendar-makers. The problem with this view is that mathematical relations between numbers cannot be "planned" by calendar-makers. They just exist. The difference between the year of 365 days and the year of 365% is a given. It is not a choice. The other numerical relations just follow by the invariable laws of algebra from the difference of % days between the two. For example, 1460 years of 365 %4 days are the same in length as 1461 Egyptian years of 365 days (1460 x 365% - 1461 x 365 = 533265). After four years, the difference between the civil year of 365 days and von Bomhard's "Sirius year" of 365% days adds up to one day (4 x 365 = 1460; 4 x 365 % = 1461). The recurrence of the integers 4, 365, 1460, and 1461 in all this is perhaps notable. But that does not mean that it could have been "planned." Thus, 2520 can be divided by every number from 1 to 10. But 2519 cannot be divided by any of them. That does not mean that someone "planned" it that way. The conspicuous recurrence of the numbers is directly related to the two facts that (1) the key number is % (that is, the difference in days between the two year types) and that (2) the inverse of %, namely 4(4 x % = 1), is an integer. Therefore, on the one hand, 365 days is to be divided by 4 to establish in which "large" period the differences add up to a whole year. On the other hand, % has to be multiplied by its inverse, 4, to establish in which "small" period the differences add up to a whole day. Because the inverse of % is an integer, namely 4, that "small" period consists felicitously of a number of full " A.-S. von Bomhard. Ägyptische Zeitmessung: Die Theorie des gleitenden Kalenders, ZÀS 127 (2000), pp. 19-20, note 27.
