The calendar account was invented by mankind for the convenience and ease of the change of natural cycles of nature. All civilizations that arose before our era had their own way of counting this. The reckoning in ancient Egypt arose about five thousand years ago; the whole economic and productive life of the Egyptians was based on it.
Egyptian lunar calendar
This civilization, which arose on a narrow plot of land irrigated by the Nile. It was he who provided all the needs of the population, so his spills had to be treated with great attention. The Egyptians, like the vast majority of the world's population, initially used the lunar calendar. To set the dates of the festivities, a chronological system was needed. In Egypt, according to the assumption of a number of scientists, it arose in the middle of the first millennium BC. Along with the religious calendar, there was a civil one, which was elaborated in detail. The Egyptians had a 25-year cycle in use, and the number of months was 309. However, the fact that the lunar calendar is astronomically rather inaccurate is well known, and therefore was not at all suitable for calculating the beginning of agricultural work. The system of chronology in ancient Egypt, based on the lunar phases, did not last long
Create a solar calendar
Therefore, the ancient Egyptian priests were preoccupied with the problem of creating a new, accurate calendar. Fortunately, the level of their knowledge already allowed us to make accurate calculations and associate them with a map of the starry sky. According to the famous English Egyptologist James Bristed, the solar calendar appeared in this country several hundred years before the appearance of the Hyksos, but they made an attempt to reform it. These types of calendars use the tropical year as a basis , and specifically the stages of the change of seasons, while the phases of the moon are not taken into account. It was ancient Egypt that became the birthplace of the solar calendar. Many priests were well versed in the stars, the time of their appearance, and they also noticed a close connection of celestial bodies with natural phenomena. In particular, they were interested in the spills of the Nile. The waters of this river overflowed from July to November, they flooded the entire valley, and when the Nile entered its channel again, it was time for sowing. After 3-4 months, it was possible to harvest, and in March, a sizzling dry wind blew from the Sahara, which destroyed all life. Therefore, the system of chronology had to be accurate.
The principles of the construction of the ancient Egyptian calendar
The whole year consisted of three seasons: flood (akhet), i.e. Nile spill time, channel or exit (flow), i.e. the time when the river returned to its original form again, and the shallowing (neck), i.e. time of lowest water level in the river. For many years, the inhabitants of Egypt built a complex system of dams, canals, and reservoirs. It was always necessary to maintain it in proper form, and for this it was necessary to find out the algorithm of life of the main waterway of the country. Here the knowledge of the priests came in handy. They began to correlate the spills of the Nile with a map of the starry sky and revealed an important pattern. The flood came immediately after the summer solstice, another important fact was that in the early morning hours a bright star appears in the sky, which is visible even with the naked eye. It is not always visible, and the priests determined that it appears with a frequency of 70 days. These two discoveries made it possible to create a new reckoning in ancient Egypt.
The cycle based on the heavenly luminary
And if the definition of the solstice required special instruments, then the appearance of Sirius marked a new cycle. Sirius or Sotis, as they called him in this country, and became the source of the calendar. Based on heliac, i.e. periodic sunrises of this star began a new agricultural year in this country. Its duration was determined first at 360, and then at 365 days. Egyptian calculus did not know leap years, and such a concept was necessary for accurate calculation of astronomical time. Therefore, in the calendar of the Egyptians every four years, the rise of Sotis was 1 day late. The year was divided into 12 months, each of which was 30 days. The week was divided into 10 days, the day totaled 10 hours. The ancient Egyptians had 100 minutes in an hour, and 100 seconds in a minute. Thus, 360 days were obtained. The remaining five days were not attached to any of the months. They were celebrated at the end of the last month as the birthdays of Osiris, Horus, Seth, Isis, Nephthys.
The wandering calendar and the first attempt to reform it
Residents of the fertile Nile Valley were satisfied that holidays fell on different days over time. They smoothly crossed and according to the idea of devout inhabitants, thus consecrated all year. The Egyptian year, it turns out, was a wandering one, but the pharaohs did not even try to change this, on the contrary, each of them brought a solemn promise not to encroach on the duration of the year on the calendar. As mentioned above, the Hyksos rulers of ancient Egypt tried to change, this caused a dull murmur of the population, but under the onslaught of force, the inhabitants obeyed. However, after their expulsion, the calendar was completely restored and all the innovations of the Hyksos were eliminated. Days, months and years are indicated by numbers. This was due to the fact that the reckoning in Ancient Egypt did not know a fixed era, the years were counted from the moment the next reign of the next pharaoh began. But the rule of the beginning of the new year has always been in force, it fell on August 29 according to the modern calendar.
Name of calendar periods
Despite the fact that the months were most often indicated by numbers, each had its own name. They were dedicated to any deities. The beginning of the year was preceded by the month of Thoth, so named after the moon god, then the month of Faofi followed, followed by Atir in honor of the goddess Hathor, Hoyak contacted the Pharaonic dynasties, Tibi in honor of the god Khnum, Mehir dedicated to the formidable god Mont, Famenot was associated with Amenophis, Farmuti dedicated to the goddess Ermuti, Pakhon in honor of the god Hons, Payney is named after the Nile Valley, Epifi and Mesori is dedicated to the appearance of the Sun. The remaining five days added to the calendar later became known as the Greek word epagomens, i.e. supernatural days. The lag in the calendar could be solved by inserting one day every four years, but the pharaohs stubbornly ignored this fact. Most likely, this is due to religious beliefs, so the Hyksos-reformed system of chronology in ancient Egypt did not take root.
The second attempt to change the chronology in ancient Egypt
Attempts to change the calendar were made not only by nomadic Hyksos tribes. However, this was done much later, already in the era of the Hellenistic Ptolemaic dynasty. The third pharaoh from the descendants of the associate of Alexander the Great tried to change the reckoning in ancient Egypt. In particular, this is described in the Canopas Decree. In 1866, a stone slab was discovered during excavations, on which the Egyptian and Greek languages wrote the order of the pharaoh Everget to make changes to the calendar. So in it a leap year appeared, which was supposed to solve the problem of astronomical lag. Although this innovation was not settled in the country, a mistake was made there initially, instead of adding 1 day every four years, this was done every three years. This affected accuracy, and the error was noticed only after 48 years.
Alexandria calendar
The decree of the pharaoh prescribing the introduction of a leap year was never brought to life. If this did happen, then the year would be 365.25 days and as close as possible to astronomical indicators. The third attempt to change the reckoning in ancient Egypt was already made by the Romans. Having conquered this country, they almost immediately carried out a calendar reform. So, every four years the necessary one day appeared, but they changed the ordinal sequence of the change of leap years than was accepted in Rome itself. The Alexandrian calendar coexisted with the Julian calendar in parallel for more than 1,500 years.
The system of chronology in ancient Egypt as the most simple and convenient
The system of chronology in ancient Egypt knew many different ways of counting years. However, the most popular was the solar calendar. According to Herodotus, it was the simplest and most convenient calendar in the ancient world. The lag that was observed in him did not complicate the life of the Egyptians. Perhaps if there was a real need for this, then this day would most likely have appeared on the calendar, on the basis of long observations, the priests were convinced that 365.25 days also did not correspond to the period between the two floods of the Nile. They determined that once every 130 years, a spill relative to the rise of Sotis occurs a day earlier, so they may have neglected astronomical accuracy for the sake of convenience and simplicity. Be that as it may, Egypt’s ancient reckoning laid down the standards for calendars and became the basis for further improvement of the solar calendar.