DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9804#0249
SOTHIC DATES 223
true seasonal June, and not in the middle of it. At such
periods, Meyer argues, the idea of fixing the Calendar by
its rising would never have occurred to people, as it did
not coincide with the beginning of the inundation.
So far, so good ; but can we go further ? Granting
that a document tells us that a certain event happened
on the first of Thoth of the first year of Senusert III. or
Amenhotep L, have we any clue to follow ? It is here
that the very imperfections of the Egyptian calendar
come unexpectedly to our aid. If we knew that some-
thing happened on the first of August of the first year of
Edward I. of England or Philippe III. of France, it would
not give us much additional information to hear that it was
a summer day. But in Egypt the first of Thoth can only
be a summer day on a comparatively small number of
the 1460 years through which it revolves in its cycle.
Such double dating by the general season of the year
has already been used in this connection. There is in
particular a picturesque document in which Harurre, a
royal envoy of Xllth Dynasty days,1 tells us that it
was in the seventh and ninth months that he went to
work at the turquoise mines at Sinai, and survived " the
evil summer season," when " the mountains brand the
skin."
Sometimes, however, we can get nearer to the true
date still. If we are told that Sothis rose on a given
day of a given month of a given calendar year, we can
fix the exact point of the Sothic cycle that the calendar
year has reached. If we heard, for instance, that in a
given calendar year Sothis rose on the first of Thoth,
the year meant would be either 1321 or 2781 or one or
1 Breasted, A.R. vol. i. p. 321, No. 735, says that this is " un-
questionably Middle Kingdom, and may provisionally be placed
in the reign of Amencnihat III." Has Petrie, Sinai, p. 170, fresh
evidence when he assigns it without doubt to that reign, and,
indeed, treats it as one of the corroborative proofs of the correct-
ness of the .Berlin Sothic arguments ?
true seasonal June, and not in the middle of it. At such
periods, Meyer argues, the idea of fixing the Calendar by
its rising would never have occurred to people, as it did
not coincide with the beginning of the inundation.
So far, so good ; but can we go further ? Granting
that a document tells us that a certain event happened
on the first of Thoth of the first year of Senusert III. or
Amenhotep L, have we any clue to follow ? It is here
that the very imperfections of the Egyptian calendar
come unexpectedly to our aid. If we knew that some-
thing happened on the first of August of the first year of
Edward I. of England or Philippe III. of France, it would
not give us much additional information to hear that it was
a summer day. But in Egypt the first of Thoth can only
be a summer day on a comparatively small number of
the 1460 years through which it revolves in its cycle.
Such double dating by the general season of the year
has already been used in this connection. There is in
particular a picturesque document in which Harurre, a
royal envoy of Xllth Dynasty days,1 tells us that it
was in the seventh and ninth months that he went to
work at the turquoise mines at Sinai, and survived " the
evil summer season," when " the mountains brand the
skin."
Sometimes, however, we can get nearer to the true
date still. If we are told that Sothis rose on a given
day of a given month of a given calendar year, we can
fix the exact point of the Sothic cycle that the calendar
year has reached. If we heard, for instance, that in a
given calendar year Sothis rose on the first of Thoth,
the year meant would be either 1321 or 2781 or one or
1 Breasted, A.R. vol. i. p. 321, No. 735, says that this is " un-
questionably Middle Kingdom, and may provisionally be placed
in the reign of Amencnihat III." Has Petrie, Sinai, p. 170, fresh
evidence when he assigns it without doubt to that reign, and,
indeed, treats it as one of the corroborative proofs of the correct-
ness of the .Berlin Sothic arguments ?