temples—of which the nature and relationship to the main (or‘civil’) Egyptian
calendar have also generated considerable debate. At the end of the chapter,
I shall reflect on the uniqueness of the (civil) Egyptian calendar in the context
of the Mediterranean and Near East, and why, in spite of its uniqueness, the
Egyptian calendar or its derivatives succeeded eventually in taking over nearly
the whole of the ancient world.
- THE CIVIL CALENDAR
The Egyptian 365-day calendar is known today as the‘civil’calendar, a term
first used by Censorinus in the third centuryCE(DeDieNatali18. 10). It
consisted very simply of afixed 365-day year, divided into twelve 30-day
months and ending withfive extra or‘epagomenal’days. This calendar was
thus nearly solar, but not quite: because there was no equivalent to the‘leap
year’of our modern, Gregorian calendar, the Egyptian calendar fell behind the
solar year at a rate of about one day every four years. The civil calendar
appears in virtually all dated documents and inscriptions in ancient Egypt,
whether in cultic or in more general contexts; this clearly was the dominant
calendar.
OriginsThe civil calendar was extremely ancient, as evidence goes back to the third
millenniumBCE; but its origins are shrouded in mystery. On the one hand, the
subdivision of its year into 30-day periods (‘months’) suggests that the calen-
dar may have been originally lunar, since periods of this length have
no inherent rationale in any other calendrical system. Moreover, the hiero-
glyph for‘month’(Abd) includes a crescent moon, which implies a lunar
connotation.^8 The civil, 30-day month calendar could thus have been the
simplification of an originally lunar calendar comprising 29- and 30-day
months; the addition offive epagomenal days would have represented an
attempt to bring this calendar in line, albeit approximately, with the solar year.
On the other hand, the Egyptian names of months suggest that this calendar
may have been originally seasonal. In the Egyptian calendar, indeed, the twelve
months of the year are grouped into three seasons and named after them; each
(^8) Clagett (1989–99) ii. 7; Depuydt (2009) 117 n. 2. The interpretation of this hieroglyph as a
crescent moon appears to be beyond dispute, even though it is depicted as pointing downwards
(i.e. its concavity faces downwards), whereas in reality a moon crescent is always either facing
upwards or slightly tilted sideways.
128 Calendars in Antiquity