be examined in some detail here and in the next section of this chapter.Written
on the verso of a long medical papyrus, it contains a total of thirteen lines in
hieratic script of which thefirst, an indented header, gives the year as‘9th of
Amenhotep’. The remaining twelve lines specify certain dates in the order
month or feast name, month number, season,‘day 9’,and‘rising of Sothis’:The season and month number in the second column represent, as usual, a
date in the Egyptian civil calendar. In l. 2, the rising of Sothis appears to be
dated to III Shemu day 9, which would suit the late sixteenth centuryBCE;
this has been used as prime evidence for the regnal dates of Amenhotep I
(Amenophis), and more generally, for establishing an absolute chronology of
the New Kingdom dynasties. But problematic are the other month-names,
listed in thefirst column (at the beginning of each line). The namewp-rnpt
appears in some sources as the twelfth month of the year,^31 not the eleventh
(which III Shemu is in the civil calendar); it cannot be interpreted, therefore, as
another name of III Shemu. It seems most likely that the column beginning
withwp-rnptrelates to a different calendar.
It must be emphasized, from the outset, that the identity of this other
calendar remains completely unknowable—even though two theories have
been in circulation for more than a century. Thefirst, which will be considered
here, is that thefirst column refers to a Sothic calendar. The second, that it
refers to a lunar calendar, will be considered later.Whilst I am inclined to
favour the latter, both interpretations remain completely speculative.
The theory of a Sothic calendar is based on the assumption thatwp-rnpt
refers not to the twelfth month (as attested in some sources, mentionedYear 9 of King Amenhotep Eternal
wp-rnpt III Shemu day 9 rising of Sothis
th
%y IV ^30 day 9
mnh
%t I Akhet day 9
h:wt h:r II day 9
kAh:rkA III day 9
šf bdt IV day 9
rkh:(wr) I Peret day 9
rkh:(nd
s) II day 9
rnwtt III day 9
h
%nsw IV day 9
h
%ntj h
t I Shemu day 9
jpt h:mt II day 9 (^30) The bullet point, as in the original document, represents a‘ditto’sign (referring to the term
above in the same column). For a full text and discussion of the Ebers calendar, see Depuydt
(1996b), (2008); the text is also available in translation in Clagett (1989–99) ii. 215.
(^31) Thus on the ceiling of Senmut’s tomb (c.1473BCE): Clagett (1989–99) ii. 229, but see below,
n. 109.
134 Calendars in Antiquity