Thread by @laultimaetapa

New #society_thelaststage entry. Today we will see the Egyptian calendar. The original entry in the-final-stage.blogspot.com/2020/11/societ… (OPEN THREAD) 👇

Every civilization has had a way of counting the passage of time and measuring the seasons. In ancient Egypt it was no different and there are several elements that should be highlighted in terms of the calendar because they also help to understand other aspects of life 👇

and religion. This Egyptian calendar is known as the Sotiac calendar (after the star Sotis - Sirius).

Firstable, it must be established that the years were not measured following a fixed point and from there counting forward as we do with the birth of Christ or the Romans 👇

with the Ab urbe condita, but the years were counted since the king acceded to the throne. In this way, when a king began to reign it was the first year of such a king and when he died and was replaced by another that account was reset and we were back in the first year of the 👇

new king.

Before establishing a calendar, or considering the existence of one, a first need must arise: that of measuring and controlling the passage of the seasons or relevant events. In ancient Egypt there was no more relevant event than the rising of the Nile, on which 👇

the entire population depended, and could cause years of abundance or periods of famine depending on the flood during a year or period of years.

For this reason, mainly, there was a need to know when the next flood would occur and for this the inhabitants had to let 👇

several years go by to be able to realize through measurements of days or weeks, that the river overflowed every 365 days, plus or less. This must have been the first necessity that led the Egyptians to measure time and create a calendar. Knowing when the new flood would arrive👇

they could better prepare and divide the months in a way that is consistent with the activities that they could develop in them.

This theory was upheld for the first time by O. Neugebauer and supported by many scholars also relying on new evidence resulting from the 👇

collaboration of professors Belmonte and Krauss (Belmonte 2009 & 2012) who, carefully examining the years of reign that appear in the stone of Palermo, has been able to observe that, among the kings of Dynasty I, two of them reigned in the same year, counting the months of 👇

that year that correspond to each one of them. The first king figures who reigned for 6 months and 7 days of that year and the second did so for 4 months and 3 days. It is known that both shared the years because there is only one flood recorded for the respective periods of 👇

both kings during that year. If we add, we will see that we only obtain 10 months and 10 days, a very short space to consider both a lunar and a solar year, so the only possible explanation is that the time between two floods of the river was measured. 👇

The calendar used in Kemet is the first solar calendar in history. It was divided into twelve months of 30 days each organized into ten-day weeks. At the end of the last day of the last month of the year, five extra days were added (which rounded the total to 365 days)👇

dedicated to five gods. They are called today as epagomenal days, so called by the Greeks.

The way of structuring the year in periods of 365 is given not only by Ra (the sun) but also by Japi (the Nile River) since each year it grew and watered the lands around the same period👇

of time. The Egyptians themselves were aware that, even so, there was a difference of 6 hours a year in advance, they were already aware of it since Dynasty III when Injetep promulgated the first calendar reform. Not only this, but, despite everything, having 365-day years 👇

implied that every 4 years there was a delay of one day, a fact that had an impact on the fact that only after 1460 years the solar cycle would adjust again.

In this way, the year was divided into three seasons called Ajet or season of the Flood that developed between late 👇

summer and early autumn, Peret or planting season that developed between winter and early spring and Semu or collection that took place between late spring and early summer. Each season had a duration of 4 months, which in turn was divided into 12 weeks, each month had 3 weeks.👇

These weeks were not like ours but 10 days. This count of 10 was used since the beginning of the Old Kingdom and served to mark the labor rhythm of the inhabitants of the black land. 👇

The months did not have names like ours, but were numbered following their order within a season. Beginning in the Middle Kingdom, however, each month had its own name. To see a practical example, we found that any day could be the 5th of the second month of Ajet in the 👇

6th year of the reign of King x. The year in calendar terms, regardless of the count of the reign years, had its beginning at the summer solstice and the beginning of the floods.

Name of the months from the New Kingdom and later in the blog entry. 👇

An important piece of information to verify the knowledge they had in the Nile country of the passage of time and astronomy is found on the ceiling of Senemut's tomb in Deir el Bahari in which figures and specific data about lunar cycles appear. constellations and time segments👇

This astronomical ceiling has been much debated, it is still open to debate in several aspects that do not have a clear consensus as to what they show and how they do it, since it shows us a segmentation in 24 units (or hours), 12 of which would be nocturnal. 👇

We have seen where the need to measure time arises, or could arise, as well as how the seasons, weeks and years of reign were organized along with a few brief notes on the astronomical ceiling of Senemut's tomb, but what we cannot know with science It is certain whether these 👇

calendars, these calculations and theories, were applied to the ordinary inhabitants of the Nile Valley or were they administrative and religious tools that did little to affect regular workers, beyond organizing their work days in 10 weeks. days and regulate local and 👇

national holidays.

As always happens when we study the culture of ancient Egypt, what we find belongs to an administrative and religious elite, so it is very difficult to infer how it affected or how this was perceived by the population. 👇

Bibliography:

Castro Martín, Belén - A historical review of the egyptian calendars: The development of time measurement in ancient egypt from Nabta Playa to the Ptolemies

Llagostera Cuenca, Esteban - La medición del tiempo en la Antigüedad: el calendario egipcio y sus "heredero

Neugebauer, O - The Origin of the Egyptian Calendar

Vivas, Francisco - Algunas observaciones en torno al calendario del monumento de Senenmut y el posible objeto astronómico representado en su techo.

Wilson, Ja, Torner Fm - La cultura egipcia (1953)