Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale <al-Qāhira> [Hrsg.]; Mission Archéologique Française <al-Qāhira> [Hrsg.]: Recueil de travaux relatifs à la philologie et à l'archéologie égyptiennes et assyriennes: pour servir de bullletin à la Mission Française du Caire (31.1909)

XXXVI. Das erste k^i ist Demonstrativum, das zweite Copula. Ganz âhnlich heisst
in demot. Papyrus British Muséum 1202, 5 (der Acker), « welcher oben beschrie-
ben ist » nt hrj p > ï.

XXXVII. r hr-t und r hr-w (Z. 14) stehen hier fur epo une! epooir. Damit bestàtigt
sich die Vermutung von Griffith (Stories, S. 82), dass epoi, epon, etc., gelegent-
lich mit r hr geschrieben werden.

XXXVIII. Ergânzt nach demot. Papyrus Strassburg 43.

1S THE ^/\* A HEL1AGAL RISING

13 y

G. Legge

The absolute dating of the reigns of the Egyptian kings of the Olcl Empire has
always been a battle-ground for conflicting opinions, and the foundation of the united
monarchy under Menés was flxed by the earlier Egyptologists at widely-difïering dates,
ranging from the 5869 B. C. of Champollion-Figeac down to the 3892 B. C. of Lepsius1.
Hence the appearance in 1904 of Prof. Eduard Meyer's very able and clear paper on
Âgyptische Chronologie was hailed by many as a révélation, and it has even been
asserted that the dates of the Meyerian chronology bave been "astronomically fixed"
— a claim which has not, so far as I know, been made by its autkor2. If the figures
given at the end of this paper be correct, it would seen to follow that astronomy gives
no support to Prof. Meyer's conclusions.

Prof. Meyer's argument seems to be as follows :— The Egyptian common year
consisted — as we see from the calendar of the Ebers Papyrus — of 12 months of
30 days apiece. As this plainly dicl not coincide with the solar year, 5 additional or
epagomenal days were added some time before the Pyramid Texts!, in which they
are unmistakably alluded to. But this did not completely remedy the defect. The
earth moves round the Sun — in pre-Copernican times it would have been said that
the Sun moved round the earth — not in 365 days, but in 365 days and a quarter.
Hence the Egyptian common year, even with the 5 epagomenal days added, was one

1. I lake thèse figures from the very useful table given by Dr. Wallis Budge in his recently published
Bool; qf Kings (1908), vol. 1, pp. LIV-LV.

2. Prof. Breasted in his Ancient Records of Egypt (1906), vol. I, pp. 25-47, adopts Prof. Meyer's conclusions
in toto, and speaks [ool. cit., p. 48) of the date of the Twelfth Dynasty as being confirmed "beyonda doubt";
while in his sinaller History of the Ancient Egyptians (1908), p. 419, he refers to the date of 4241 B. C, for
the introduction of the calendar as being "astronomically flxed". Prof. Pétrie also seems to have been con-
vinced by Prof. Meyer's arguments, for, while in his Scason in E'gi/pt (1888) he seems to be doubtful about the
so-called Sothic cycle, and suggests that the heliacal rising of Sirius can only be determined by direct obser-
vation, in his Ra*earclies in Sinai .(1906), pp. 163-175, he appears to accept Prof. Meyer's dates for the com-
mencement of the same cycle, and implies that no différence of opinion on the subject is worth notice.
Prof. Pelrie's own mistakes on the subject are shown by Prof. Burrows in Discooeries in Crète (1907), p. 69, n. 1.

3. Maspiîuo, Pyramides de Saqqartxk (1894), p. 394, 1. 754.