CHAPTER XXIV.

THE YEARS OF 360 AND 365 DAYS.

Whether the Egyptians brought their year with them or invented it in the Nile valley, there is a belief that it at first consisted of 360 days only, that is, 5¼ days too little.

It is more likely that they brought the lunar month with them, taking it roughly as 30 days (30 × 12 = 360), than that they began with such an erroneous notion of the true length of the solar year, seeing that in Egypt, above all countries in the world, owing to the regularity of the inundation, the true length could have been so easily determined, so soon as that regularity was recognised. We must not in these questions forget to put ourselves in the place of these pioneers of astronomy and civilisation; if we do this, we shall soon see how many difficulties were involved in determining the true length of such a cycle as a year, when not only modern appliances, but all just ideas too, were of necessity lacking.

Since 360 days do not represent the true length of the year, it is clear that any nation which uses such a year as that will find the seasons and festivals sweeping through the year. Further, such a year is absolutely useless for the agriculturist, or the gardener, because after a time the same month, to say nothing of the same day of the month, will not mean reaping-time, will not mean sowing-time, or anything else.

Still, it is right that I should state that all authorities are not agreed as to the use of this year of 360 days; at all events, during the times within our ken. Maspero[68] states:--

"Des observations nouvelles, faites sur le cours du soleil, décidèrent les astronomes à intercaler chaque année, après le douzième mois, et avant le premier jour de l'année suivante, cinq jours complémentaires, qu'on nomma _les cinq jours en sus de l'année_ ou jours _epagomènes_ (_epacts_). L'époque de ce changement était si ancienne que nous ne saurions lui assigner aucune date, et que les Egyptiens eux-mêmes l'avaient reportée jusque dans les temps mythiques antérieurs à l'avènement de Mini."

Ideler[69] is of the same opinion as Maspero:--

"I do not hesitate ... to declare that the existence of such a time cycle--used without reference to the course of the sun or moon simply for the sake of simple figures--is extremely doubtful to me."

Krall remarks (p. 17):--

"It is probable that the year of 360 days dates from the time before the immigration into the Nile valley, when the Egyptians were unguided by the regular recurrence of the Nile flood. In any case, this must soon have convinced the priests that the 360-days year did not agree with the facts. But it is well known to everybody familiar with these things how long a period may be required before such determinations are practically realised, especially with a people so conservative of ancient usages as the Egyptians."

And on this ground, apparently, he joins issue with the authorities already quoted:--

"The Egyptian monuments have contradicted Ideler in this respect. The trilingual inscription of Tanis testifies expressly that it has only 'later become usual to add the five epagomenes;' that, therefore, the year originally had 360 days, which were divided into twelve months of thirty days each."

Krall also argues that the expressions great and little year and their hieroglyphics referred to the rears of 365 and 360 days respectively, and adds:--

"If we inquire into the time at which the epagomenes were introduced, we can only fix approximate dates. If the calendars of the Mastabas, complete as they are, do not mention the epagomenes, whereas inscriptions of the period of the Amenamhāts refer to them, this can only be due to the circumstance that the epagomenes were only introduced in the meantime, but probably nearer the upper than the lower limit.... For the sake of completeness, we may mention that, according to Censorinus, the five epagomenes were introduced by the King Arminon.... Louth conjectures that Arminon is identical with Amenamhāt I., under whom the epagomenes are first met with. But since, between Nitokris and Amenamhāt I., there is a period of 500 years void of records, and the name Arminon has nothing to do with Amenamhāt, we can hardly share this view."

However this knotty point may subsequently be settled by Egyptologists, from the astronomers point of view the words of Ideler[70]--"Had ignorance lead to the establishment of a year of 360 days, yet experience would have led to its rejection in a few years"--will carry conviction with them. Indeed, one may ask whether it is not possible that the use of the 360-day year, and the complications which it involved, may have had something to do with the foundation of the solar temples.

Let us attempt to put ourselves, in imagination, in the place of the ancient Egyptians after the use of this 360-day year had been continued for any length of time. It is perfectly certain that now in this part of the Nile valley, now in that, everybody, from Pharaoh to fellah, must have got his calendar into the most hopeless confusion, compared with which "the year of confusion" was mere child's-play, and that the exact determination of the times, either of state functions or sowing, reaping, or the like, by means of such a calendar would have been next to impossible.

As each year dropped 5¼ days, it is evident that in about seventy years (365·25∕5·25) a cycle was accomplished, in which New Year's Day swept through all the months. The same month (so far as its name was concerned) was now in the inundation time, now in the sowing time, and so on. Of fixed agricultural work for such months as these there could be none.

It must have been, then, that there were local attempts to retain the coincidences between the true and the calendar year--intercalation of days or even of months being introduced, now in one place, now in another; and these attempts, of course, would make confusion worse confounded, as the months might vary with the district, and not with the time of year.

That this is what really happened is, no doubt, the origin of the stringent oath required of the Pharaohs in after times, to which I shall subsequently refer.

To acknowledge that the calendar year was wrong implied that they knew the length of the true one. How had they found it out? I think there can be no question that this knowledge had come to them by observations either of the solstices or the equinoxes. It is true they had the inundation; but, as we have seen, the rise is not absolutely regular, and the inundation takes many days to travel from Philæ to Cairo (Memphis). If, then, the inundation had fixed the beginning of the year, each nome would have its special New Year's Day, and this would never have been tolerated by a settled government embracing the whole Nile valley, especially as each king's reign was supposed to commence on New Year's Day.

It seems, then, that the solstitial temples and the pyramids were, if not actually requisite for settling the matter, at all events all that was necessary, if they existed.

But now comes in a most interesting and important point. If observations of the sun at solstice or equinox had been alone made use of, the true length of the year would have been determined in a few years. But the next scene in Egyptian history shows us that the true length of the year was not determined, but only an approximation to it.

How was this? The astronomical answer is very simple.

I have already referred to the common practice of all ancient peoples that we know of to make sacrifices at dawn, and have shown how, in order to do this, they took their time from a star rising before the sun. An observation of the so-called "heliacal rising" of a star--if the star were properly chosen--would give them the interval necessary for their preparations before the sun itself appeared; and, as the highest festival of all was that of New Year's Day, it was especially important that the work should be well done then.

Now, if the stars had no precessional movement, the sun and stars, after each interval of a true year, would be in exactly the same position; but in consequence of the stars having the precessional movement to which I have before referred, the star so observed and the sun will _not_ be in exactly the same position after the interval of a true year. On this account, then, the difference of time between the heliacal risings will not represent the length of a true year. But, further, the heliacal rising of the star will not take place on the same day for the whole of Egypt, the difference between Thebes and Memphis, depending upon their latitudes, amounting to about four days; and, further still, the almost constant mists in the mornings in the Nile valley prevent accurate observations of the moment of rising.

Still, as a matter of fact, the Egyptians defined their new year by the rising of a star, and the length of it by the interval separating two heliacal risings. Such a year could not be accurate; and again, as a matter of fact, their correction was not accurate, for the year was defined now as consisting of 365 days. It seems clear from this that the correction was made before the solar temples were in use.

In any case the year of 360 days had naturally to give way, and it ultimately did so, in favour of one of 365. The precise date of the change is, as we have seen, not known.[71] The five days were added as epacts or epagomena; the original months were not altered, but a "little month" of five days was interpolated at the end of the year between Mesori of one year and Thoth of the next, as already stated.

When the year of 365 days was established, it was evidently imagined that finality had been reached; and, mindful of the confusion which, as we have shown, must have resulted from the attempt to keep up a year of 300 days by intercalations, each Egyptian king, on his accession to the throne, bound himself by oath before the priest of Isis, in the temple of Ptah at Memphis, not to intercalate either days or months, but to retain the year of 365 days as established by the Antiqui.[72] The text of the Latin translation preserved by Nigidius Figulus cannot be accurately restored; only thus much can be seen with certainty.

To retain this year of 365 days, then, became the first law for the king, and, indeed, the Pharaohs thenceforth throughout the whole course of Egyptian history adhered to it, in spite of their being subsequently convinced, as we shall see, of its inadequacy. It was a Macedonian king who later made an attempt to replace it by a better one.

We may reckon upon the conservatism of the priests of the temples retaining the tradition of the old rejected year in every case. Thus even at Philæ in late times, in the temple of Osiris, there were 360 bowls for sacrifice, which were filled daily with milk by a specified rotation of priests. At Acanthus there was a perforated cask into which one of the 360 priests poured water from the Nile daily.

Indeed, these temple ceremonials are an evidence of their antiquity, and the further we put back the change from the 360 to 365 days, the greater the antiquity we must assign to them, and therefore to the temples themselves.