DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.548#0204
ANASTASI IV. 201
lume will shew that the general plan of the politico-
funereal Anastasi III. comprised notices of a local
festival, of a deceased hero, and of a contem-
porary monarch. In like manner here, we have
already opened with the festival; we are now just
arrived at the hero; and the allusions to poli-
tics are abundantly scattered throughout. The de-
ceased is not named; but I should judge, that he
was very likely a son of Siptah, smitten by the
angel of God, on the night after the 30th of Pa-
chons, B.C. 1291. At any rate, he was probably
some one who died just about that time; for the
interval is seventy-four days. The new moon, I
have already shewn, was born on the evening of
the 26th of the civil vague Pachons; which Miss
Corbaux supposes to have been identical with the
tenth of the Ecclesiastical fixed Abib. The passage
of the Red Sea took place on the moon's eleventh
day; the destruction of the first-born must have
been on the fourth, which was therefore the morn-
ing of the first of Paoni. Add seventy-four days, and
we get the fifteenth Mesore, the very date of this
papyrus. Seventy-two days was the usual interval
between death and burial. We do not know that
this song was sung on the very day of the burial.
The Ap feast may have been waited for, two days
afterwards. The Jews too, probably, began their
four days' feast not at the actual lunation, but on
the evening when the moon was first visible. This
would require longer days journeys to reach the
ford by the eleventh day of the moon, but would
bring the death of the first-born two days later.
lume will shew that the general plan of the politico-
funereal Anastasi III. comprised notices of a local
festival, of a deceased hero, and of a contem-
porary monarch. In like manner here, we have
already opened with the festival; we are now just
arrived at the hero; and the allusions to poli-
tics are abundantly scattered throughout. The de-
ceased is not named; but I should judge, that he
was very likely a son of Siptah, smitten by the
angel of God, on the night after the 30th of Pa-
chons, B.C. 1291. At any rate, he was probably
some one who died just about that time; for the
interval is seventy-four days. The new moon, I
have already shewn, was born on the evening of
the 26th of the civil vague Pachons; which Miss
Corbaux supposes to have been identical with the
tenth of the Ecclesiastical fixed Abib. The passage
of the Red Sea took place on the moon's eleventh
day; the destruction of the first-born must have
been on the fourth, which was therefore the morn-
ing of the first of Paoni. Add seventy-four days, and
we get the fifteenth Mesore, the very date of this
papyrus. Seventy-two days was the usual interval
between death and burial. We do not know that
this song was sung on the very day of the burial.
The Ap feast may have been waited for, two days
afterwards. The Jews too, probably, began their
four days' feast not at the actual lunation, but on
the evening when the moon was first visible. This
would require longer days journeys to reach the
ford by the eleventh day of the moon, but would
bring the death of the first-born two days later.