Chronology in Ancient Egypt. What was the system of chronology in ancient Egypt?

A calendar account was invented by mankind for the convenience and facilitation of a change in natural cycles. All civilizations that arose before our era had their own way of counting. The chronology in ancient Egypt arose about five thousand years ago, on which the entire economic and productive life of the Egyptians was based.

The Lunar Calendar of the Egyptians

This civilization, which arose on a narrow stretch 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, originally used the lunar calendar. To set the dates for the festivities, a chronology system was needed. In Egypt, it was assumed by a number of scientists to have arisen in the middle of the first millennium BC. Along with the religious calendar there was also a civil one, which was elaborated in detail. The Egyptians had a 25-year cycle in progress, and the number of months was 309. However, it is well known that the lunar calendar is astronomically rather inaccurate, so it was not at all suitable for counting 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 attended to the problem of creating a new, accurate calendar. Fortunately, that the level of their knowledge already allowed you 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 advent of the Hyksos, but they made an attempt to reform it. Such types of calendars use as basis tropical year, and specifically the stages of the change of seasons, while not taking into account the phase change of the moon. 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 also they noticed the close connection of the heavenly bodies with natural phenomena. In particular, they were interested in the floods of the Nile. The waters of this river came from the coast in the period from July to November, they flooded the entire valley, and when the Nile again entered its channel, it was time to sow. After 3-4 months, it was possible to harvest, and in March from the Sahara blew dry withering wind, which destroyed all life. Therefore, the chronology had to be accurate.

Principles of the construction of the ancient Egyptian calendar

The whole year consisted of three seasons: flooding (ahet), i.e. The time of the Nile flood, the riverbed or the outlet (transat), i.e. Time when the river again returned to its original form, and shallowing (shemu), i.e. The time of the lowest water level in the river. For many years, Egyptians built a complex system of dams, canals, reservoirs. It should always be maintained in the proper form, and for this it was necessary to learn the algorithm of life of the main water artery of the country. That's where the knowledge of the priests came in handy. They began to correlate the floods of the Nile with a map of the starry sky and revealed an important regularity. Flooding immediately followed the summer solstice, another important fact was that in the pre-dawn hours a bright star appears in the sky, which can be seen even with the naked eye. It is not always visible, and the priests determined that it appears with a periodicity of 70 days. These two discoveries made it possible to create a new chronology in ancient Egypt.

Cycle based on the heavenly body

And if the definition of the solstice required special instruments, then the appearance of Sirius signified a new cycle. Sirius or Sotis, as he was called in this country, and became the source of the calendar. Based on heliacetic, i.e. Periodical revivals of this star began a new agricultural year in this country. Its duration was determined first in 360, and then in 365 days. The chronology in Egypt did not know leap years, and such a concept was necessary for an accurate calculation of astronomical time. Therefore, in the calendar of the Egyptians every four years the sunrise of Sotis was late for 1 day. The year was divided into 12 months, each of which was 30 days. The week was divided into 10 days, the day counted 10 hours. In an hour, the ancient Egyptians had 100 minutes, and in a minute 100 seconds. Thus, it turned out 360 days. 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.

A wandering calendar and the first attempt to reform it

The inhabitants of the fertile valley of the Nile were satisfied that the holidays with the passage of time fell on different days. They smoothly passed and on presentation of devout people, thus, they consecrated the whole year. The Egyptian year, it turns out, was wandering, but the pharaohs did not even try to change it, on the contrary, each of them brought a solemn promise not to encroach on the duration of the year on the calendar. As already mentioned above, the Hyksos rulers of ancient Egypt tried to change, this caused a deafening murmur of the population, but under the onslaught of strength the inhabitants submitted. However, after their expulsion, the calendar was completely restored and all the innovations of the Hyksos were eliminated. Days, months and years were indicated by numbers. This was due to the fact that the chronology in ancient Egypt did not know the fixed era, the account of the years was conducted from the moment of the beginning of the reign of the next pharaoh. But the rule of the beginning of the new year always worked, it fell on August 29 according to the modern calendar.

Name of calendar periods

Despite the fact that the months most often denoted by numbers, each had its own name. They were dedicated to some deities. Preceded by the beginning of the year, the month Toth, named after the god of the moon, followed by the month of Faofi, followed by Atir in honor of the goddess Hathor, Hoyak contacted the Pharaoh dynasties, Tibi in honor of the god Khnum, Mehir dedicated to the formidable god Monte, Famenot associated with Amenophis, Farmuti Dedicated to the goddess Ermuti, Pahon in honor of the god Hons, Piney is named so in honor of the valley of the Nile, Epiphy 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 epagomenas, ie. Extra-long days. Lagging 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, therefore 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 the nomadic tribes of the Hyksos. However, this was done much later, already in the era of the Hellenistic Ptolemaic dynasty. The third pharaoh from the descendants of the companion Alexander the Great tried to change the chronology in ancient Egypt. In particular, this is described in the "Decree of Canons". In 1866, a stone slab was found on the excavations, in which the command of Pharaoh Everget to write changes to the calendar was written in Egyptian and Greek. So in it there was a leap year which should solve a problem of astronomical backlog. Although this innovation was not settled in the country, there was initially a mistake, instead of adding 1 day every four years, it was done every three years. This affected the accuracy, and the error was noticed only after 48 years.

Alexandria Calendar

The decree of the pharaoh, which prescribes the introduction of a leap year, was never put into practice. 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 chronology in ancient Egypt was already undertaken by the Romans. Having won this country, they almost immediately conducted a calendar reform. So, every four years the necessary one day appeared, but they changed the ordinal queue of leap years, rather than it was accepted in Rome itself. The Alexandria calendar coexisted with Julian in parallel for more than 1500 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 the 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 backlog, which was observed in it, did not complicate the life of the Egyptians at all. Perhaps if there was a real need for this, then this day would most likely appear in the calendar, on the basis of long observations the priests were convinced that 365.25 days also does not correspond to the period between the two Nile floods. They determined that once in 130 years the spill of Sotis's sunrise occurred a day earlier, therefore, perhaps they neglected astronomical accuracy for the sake of convenience and simplicity. Whatever it was, the ancient chronology of Egypt laid down standards for the compilation of calendars and became the basis for further improvement of the solar calendar.