rule proposed in the Ebers calendar, may thus have remained somewhat
ambiguous.^69
On this interpretation, the Ebers calendar provides a reasonable idea of how
an Egyptian lunar calendar could be synchronized with the seasons and, more
specifically, the rising of Sothis. However, it does not justify the identification
of the lunar calendar regulated by Sothis as‘old’(so Parker 1950), because as
we have seen above, the Ebers calendar is in fact the earliest source that
associates the rising of Sothis with the New Year. It must also be emphasized
that the‘old’Egyptian lunar calendar is only attested in a single piece of
evidence—indeed, a single sheet of papyrus—of which the meaning is by no
means explicit.^70 The historical context of this document is completely un-
known, which makes it impossible to evaluate its representativeness of how
the lunar calendar was generally reckoned in Egypt at the time: indeed, as
I have argued above, there may have been a variety of ways of reckoning the
lunar calendar at any one time in Egyptian history. It would thus be imprudent
to conclude that the Ebers calendar, even if correctly interpreted as a lunar,
represents the standard,‘old’lunar calendar of ancient Egypt (as Parker and
others since assumed).
The‘new’lunar calendar and the 25-year lunar cycle:
pap. Carlsberg 9 and related sourcesRichard Parker’s theory, to repeat, is that there were two lunar calendars in
ancient Egypt, an old and a new. The former was regulated by the rising of
(^69) For an alternative argument, but similarly assuming an ambiguous use of lunar month-
names (and in particular, an ambiguous numeration of these months), see Depuydt (1997) 37– 44
(distinct from his argument in 1996b, cited above, n. 66). Depuydt also argues that the reason
whywp-rnptappears infirst position in the Ebers calendar, whereas elsewhere it is the twelfth
month (see above, n. 32), is thatwp-rnptactually functioned as a‘straddle month’or‘zero
month’, straddling the heliacal rising of Sothis, which was regarded as the New Year day. He
draws an analogy from Servius (on Vergil,Georgics1. 43), according to whom the archaic Roman
calendar originally comprised only ten named months (‘December’means the tenth month),
whereas the last months of the year were unnamed, unnumbered, and treated only as additional
(on the historicity of this theory, however, see Ch. 4 n. 138; for a possible parallel in the
Trobriand islands, see previous n.). Another analogy may be drawn from Bede’s list of English
lunar months (De TemporumRationech. 15:Wallis 1999: 53–4), which seems to be missing one
month-name (with only eleven names in total). However, two of his month-names (Giuli in the
winter and Litha in the summer) seem to be used for two consecutive months, whilst a third
Litha is added when necessary for intercalation (and the year is then called Thrilithi); it is
debatable whether this apparent excess of months, arising from the excessive repetition of
month-names, is the reflection of a certainfluidity within the pre-Christian English calendar—
as Depuydt and I argue, in different ways, for the Ebers calendar—or rather of Bede’s possible
amalgamation of different English calendrical traditions.
(^70) For earlier evidence of a lunar calendar regulated by the rising of Sothis, though highly
contentious, see in summary Depuydt (2009) 133.
The Egyptian Calendar 149