modified and with a Zoroastrian nomenclature, to Cappadocia, Armenia, as
well as to some most unlikely regions deep into Central Asia.
2 THE PTOLEMAIC EMPIREAfter the end of the Achaemenid Empire, the Egyptian calendar began to
spread in the eastern sector of the Mediterranean basin. This was the direct
result of the expansionist policy of the Ptolemaic kingdom, newly established
in the late fourth centuryBCE.^80 It was not thefirst time in history that Egypt
had been active in the east of the Mediterranean. In the New Kingdom period,
Egypt had held Cyprus and parts of the Levant from the reign of Tutmoses III
(c.fifteenth centuryBCE) to that of Ramses III (twelfth centuryBCE;Kuhrt 1995:
i. 317–29). Parts of the Levant came back under Egyptian control in the late
seventh century BCE, during the interregnum between the decline of the
Assyrian Empire and the rise of the neo-Babylonian. Cyprus was occupied
again by Egypt in the short interregnum between the end of the Babylonian
Empire and the Achaemenid conquest in 525BCE(ibid. ii. 662). There is no
good evidence, however, that the Egyptian calendar was exported to these
regions in any of these earlier periods.^81
The Egyptian calendar is known to have spread under the Ptolemies to
Libya Cyrenaica and Cyprus, as we shall presently see. These areas were held
as provinces from almost the beginning of Ptolemy I Soter’s rule, around 320
BCE. It seems that the Egyptian civil calendar, alongside the Ptolemaic Mace-
donian calendar also attested in these provinces, was used there as the official
calendar of the Ptolemaic kingdom.^82
The Egyptian calendar sporadically appears also in other possessions of the
Ptolemaic kingdom, but there its acceptance and use as the official calendar is
more doubtful. A list of Egyptian months is found in a third-centuryBCE
inscription from the island of Samos,^83 which was under Ptolemaic control
between about 280 and 190BCE; but we know from other sources that a local
calendar was used at Samos, for official and all other purposes, throughout the
(^80) On the Ptolemaic Empire, see Bagnall (1976); but he ignores, in this early work, the
calendrical implications of Ptolemaic expansionism.
(^81) Lachish bowl 3 (Tufnell 1958: 132–3,c.13th c.BCE) contains Egyptian dates. But as this bowl
is written in Egyptian hieratic, it only proves Egyptian presence in Lachish in this period, not that
the Egyptian calendar was adopted by the local population.
(^82) The calendars of Ascalon, Gaza, and Arabia, although structurally similar to the Egyptian
calendar, were not instituted in the Ptolemaic period but rather under the Romans: see Ch. 5.
(^83) Hallof (2000) no. 218. The 3rd-c.BCEdating remains conjectural. Bickerman’s comment
(1968: 39) on this inscription is incorrect.
TheRise of the Fixed Calendars 191