and Fifth Dynasties (normally dated to the third quarter of the third millenni-
umBCE) indicate, on the accession of a new king, that the year (from New Year
to New Year) that he shared with his predecessor amounted to twelve months
andfive days.^13 Although the length of these months is not specified, the
addition offive days is characteristic of the civil calendar and cannot be
explained as relating to any other calendrical system. More evidence from
the Fifth Dynasty is the testament of the priest Nekonkh, wherefive epago-
menal days appear to be positioned at the beginning of the year.^14 A little later
in the third millennium, inscriptions on Pepi II’s pyramid (Sixth Dynasty)
refer to the birth of the gods during thefive epagomenal days, which again are
specific to the civil calendar.^15
The common scholarly view is that the civil calendar was instituted even
earlier, around 2780 BCE. This precise date is based on an astronomical
argument which I shall now explain, but which on balance, as we shall see,
is unconvincing. It is based on the assumption that the New Year was
originally set to coincide with an astronomical event that recurs on an annual
basis, the heliacal rising of Sothis. Sothis (the Greek derivation of Egyptian
spdt) is a very bright star known today as Sirius; its heliacal rising is when it
appears for thefirst time, following a long period of invisibility, on the eastern
horizon shortly before sunrise. A number of ancient Egyptian sources estab-
lish a connection between the New Year and the heliacal rising of Sothis (more
on this below). However, as mentioned above, the Egyptian civil year fell
behind the solar year—and thus behind the rise of Sothis—by about one day
every four years, which means that the coincidence of the civil New Year with
the heliacal rising of Sothis could never be maintained (the New Year returned
to its original position in relation to Sothis only after a cycle of 1461 Egyptian
civil years).^16 Nevertheless, the traditional association of the New Year with
the rising of Sothis suggests that the New Year of the civil calendar wasmeant
to coincide with this astronomical event, and that it did so when the calendar
was originally instituted. Prior to the third quarter of the third millenniumBCE,
when we know the civil calendar was already in place (see above), the civil
New Year and the heliacal rising of Sothis would have coincided in the four-
year period of 2781 to 2778BCE; it is then, therefore, that the civil calendar was
supposedly instituted.^17
(^13) So for the accession of Neferirkare (Fifth Dynasty), and possibly for that of Shepsekaf
(Fourth Dynasty; based on a conjectural but plausible reading): ibid. i. 86–7, 92–3, 107, ii. 28–9.
This is assuming that the royal annals are reliable records, not later reconstructions.
(^14) Ibid. ii. 170–2, 183;Weill (1926) 63.
(^15) Clagett (1989–99) ii. 28–9; further evidence is adduced, but in my view not as convincing.
(^16) Because 1461 Egyptian civil years equal exactly 1460 Julian years, as noted e.g. by
Censorinus, 17 DeDieNatali18. 10.
Clagett (1989–99) ii. 31–33, rightly stressing that this theory remains conjectural.
130 Calendars in Antiquity