Poole, Reginald S.: Horae Aegypticae: or, the chronology of ancient Egypt: discovered from astronomical and hieroglyphic records upon its monuments, including many dates found in coeval inscriptions from the period of the building of the Great Pyramid to the times of the Persians ; and illustrations of the history of the first nineteen dynasties, shewing the order of their succession, from the monuments (London, 1851)

Sect. VI.]

AND ITS DIVISION.

57

the Great Panegyrical Month. The nineteenth Decan,
counting Sothis as the first, is called " Smat, the star
of the Division of the G. P. M./'# in the sculptures
of the ceiling of the Rameseum of El-Kurneh; and,
being the nineteenth, it is 180°, or half a year, distant
from Sothis. It is evident, therefore, that the nine-
teenth Decan, reckoning Sothis as the first, in the
time of Rameses II. had a connection with the Division
of the G. P. M.; and from this remarkable fact we
cannot but infer that, in the time of that King, the
commencement of the Division of the G. P. M. was
sometimes marked by the rising of the nineteenth
Decan. Now, the Decan of the First Division of the
G. P. M. must have been the Decan of the G. P. M.,
that is, the Decan at, or about, the rising of which the
G. P. M. commenced. But the monuments clearly
show that the G. P. M. commenced in the time of
Rameses II. at, or about, the time of the rising of
Sothis. Therefore, the Division of the G. P. M. then
commenced sometimes at the rising of Sothis, and
sometimes at the rising of the nineteenth Decan.
From this we must infer its length to have been
half a year, or a year and a half, or some number
of whole years and a half, since we thus find that it
must have commenced alternately at opposite points
of the year; but I have previously shown that its
length did not exceed two years, and, therefore, it
could only have been half a year, or a year and a
half. That the latter is the true length is shown by
our finding records of the first year of a G. P. M.
and of a Division of the G. P. M. in the hieroglyphic
inscriptions; and besides this, all probability is in

* See Plate III., No. U