CALENDAR OF ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATIONS FOUND IN
ROYAL TOMBS OF THE XXth DYNASTY
By P. Le Page Renouf
[Extracted from TSBA, 3, 400-21.]
Read 2nd June, 1874
The Astronomical Calendar of which a translation is here given was discovered in
1829 by Champollion in two of the royal tombs at Biban-el-moluk, near Thebes,
and was supposed by him to present a table of the constellations and their
influences for all the hours of each month in the year. The copy of the text,
which is given in the plates of Champollion's Monumens, is unfortunately
a mere chaos, made up out of two texts, identical indeed in many parts, but
different and even contradictory in others. Champollion had carefully noted the
discrepancies, which have been wholly disregarded by his editor. The only
trustworthy copies of the two texts are those contained in the Denkmaeler
of Dr. Lepsius (Abth. Ill, Bl. 227, 228 and 228 bis.).
The most elaborate comment on this Calendar is to be found in a dissertation of
the late eminent French astronomer, M. Biot, in the twenty-fourth volume of the
Memoires de l'Academie des Sciences. A French translation of the
Calendar, by M. Emmanuel de Rouge, is appended to M. Biot's dissertation. The
fundamental hypothesis of this dissertation is that the Calendar is a record,
for astrological purposes, of the risings of stars and constellations. This
hypothesis is entirely without foundation in the Egyptian text, which contains
no allusion whatever either to astrology or to risings of stars.
[p.401] M. Biot's mistake was suggested by the old
version of Champollion, "la constellation d'Orion (influe) sur le bras
gauche." Had not the unfortunate word influe been interpolated by the
translator, M. Biot could hardly have missed the sense of "Orion sur le bras
gauche," or "au milieu." The document simply records the star's position in the
sky.
The Calendar, which is unfortunately imperfect in many parts, consisted of
twenty-four columns, two being assigned to each month, or one to every fifteen
days. Each column contains thirteen entries, one for the beginning of the night,
and one for each of the twelve hours. Throughout the Calendar a star occurs in
one of seven positions, "the middle," the right eye, ear or shoulder, or the
left eye, ear or shoulder. The position is not merely described in words, but
graphically indicated. The perpendicular line passing through each of the
positions corresponds to the limb of a sitting figure, which is drawn underneath
the diagram, and represented as facing the spectator. The line of "the middle"
passes through its axis.
If the text were Greek instead of Egyptian, there never would have been a doubt
as to what was meant by a star being in "the middle." The verb [Greek], "to be
in the middle," when applied to sun, moon, or star, is equivalent to [Greek].
Agamemnon in the Iphigenia in Aulis asks,
[Greek]
A star is in the middle of its course or in mid-heaven at the moment of its transit or culmination. The technical expression for this in the Egyptian Calendar now before us is [glyphs] er ak, literally "in the middle."1 A synonymous expression [glyphs] amtu appears to be used in the same sense in another very curious document, which I shall speak about later on.
[p.402]
This explanation of the expression "the middle" is the key to
the whole Calendar. As the earth turns upon its axis in very nearly four minutes
less than twenty-four hours, a star which to-day culminates at six o'clock will
in fifteen days culminate very nearly at five, or it loses about an hour m
position every fifteen days. Accordingly in our Calendar the head of Sahu, for
instance, which culminates at the eleventh hour in the first column of the month
Thoth, does so at the tenth hour in the second column of the same month, and the
entries in each successive column imply the loss of an hour.
The entries, however, do not by any means always place a star in the same
position which it held in the previous column. The head of Sahu, which was in
the middle in the second column of Thoth, is on the right eye on the 1 Paopi at
the ninth hour, on the left eye on the 16 Paopi at the eighth hour, and again in
the middle both on the first and the sixteenth of Athyr, at the seventh and
sixth hours respectively. The head of the Two Stars is in the middle at the
twelfth hour on the first night of Paophi, on the right shoulder at the eleventh
hour on the sixteenth night of Paophi, and in the middle once more at the tenth
horn of the first Athyr. The conclusion which I draw from these facts is that
"right eye," "left shoulder," and the like, signify certain relative short
distances from the meridian; "left eye" being nearer to the meridian than "left
ear," and this again less distant from the meridian than "left shoulder." Even
this extreme distance from the meridian must have been short, for a star which
is said to culminate at the twelfth hour on the first night of a month, and two
hours later on the thirty-first night, cannot possibly be many degrees distant
from the meridian at the eleventh hour of the sixteenth night. This is true,
even upon the supposition that the hours of the Calendar may vary in length
according to the season.2 It
must, moreover, be remembered that in the climate of Thebes the difference
between the lengths of [p.403] days and nights is
not so great as in northern climates, and that the difference between the
twelfth parts of the longest and of the shortest night in that latitude does not
amount to many minutes.
The whole Calendar then, in my opinion, records nothing but real or approximate
transits of stars. Once in the course of every fifteen nights, the observer
appears to have noted down, at each successive hour, the name of the principal
star which was either actually upon the meridian or close to it. We do not know
how he determined his meridian, what instrument he used, or by what contrivance
he limited the field of his observation. But he seems to have noted the passage
of stars over seven different vertical lines. If a star were crossing the first
line, beginning from the east, it was noted down as being on the left shoulder;
if it were on the fourth line which represented the meridian, it was put down as
in the middle; if on the fifth, it was "on the right eye," and so on.
This general view of the document is open to no serious objection that I am
aware of. There are, however, difficulties to be encountered as soon as we
endeavour to understand all the details. Part of these difficulties arise from
the state of the text. We are not in possession of the original, or even of a
copy intended for general perusal. Our copies were made inside tombs, and were
never intended to be seen by mortal eye after the tomb was once closed. The
Egyptian texts, which were made under these conditions, are always grossly
inaccurate. The inaccuracy often arises from the ignorance or carelessness of
the artist: but it is as often occasioned by the text being made subordinate to
decorative effect. The two texts we possess betray the most shocking confusion
between the Egyptian signs for "right" and "left." This is perhaps the less to
be wondered at when we sometimes find two such exceedingly intelligent and
accurate scholars as Champollion and Lepsius at variance on this very point in
their copies of the same text. The graphic indication of the position of stars
is absolutely worthless in the tomb of Rameses IX; in the tomb of Rameses VI
some portions of this part of the work are [p.404]
carefully done, others most negligently. Some of the entries are manifestly made
at the wrong hour. At the beginning of the first night of Pachons, for instance,
Menat is said to be on the "left ear," whereas two hours later it appears on the
"right eye." The correct entry at the beginning of the night would be Many
Stars. Menat is also a manifest error at the beginning of the sixteenth night of
Pharmuthi.
If the artist ever discovered his mistake he made no
erasures: the only approach to a correction which he made was as follows:—at the
fifth hour of the night of Epiphi, having placed a star on the right eye instead
of in the middle, as his text says, he subsequently added a second star in the
middle line without effacing the first. At the sixth hour of the sixteenth
Phamenoth, Menat is said. to be "in the left middle." The artist, after having
written "in the middle," discovered that he should have said "on the left ear";
but instead of effacing "middle" and substituting "ear," he left the word he had
written and added the adjective "left," which in Egyptian always follows the
noun. At the seventh hour of the sixteenth Payni the artist has skipped a line,
and put down the star belonging to the eighth hour, and the only compensation
for this blunder is the insertion at the eighth hour of the entry which ought to
have been made at the seventh. "Il a sacrifie," as M. Biot says of the artist of
Rameses IX, "le sens du document, qui apparemment ne lui importait guere, a la
symetrie du dessin."
For a vast number of errors like these the original Calendar is not to be held
responsible. But even this document no doubt may have contained very serious
errors. It suggests many questions, which we have unfortunately no means of
answering. Is it the work of one man or of several? Are all the entries made
from direct observation, or have some of them been deduced from observations
already made? Were all the observations corresponding to the entries of each
column made on the same night? How was the time for each observation determined?
These are but specimens of important questions which naturally arise from the
inspection of the Calendar, and on which it is impossible even to hazard a
guess.
[p.405]
This is, however, the proper place to mention another interesting document, to which I have already alluded. There is in the British Museum a calcareous stone, No. 5635, upon which a note in hieratic character gives the names of certain persons who observed the transit of the Star of the Waters from the fifth Phamenoth till the seventh Payni of some year of an unknown king. There are thirteen entries altogether, and all in the following form:—3
[glyphs]
Abt 3 pirt 13 an ursu Ken seh en ma, amtu, "on the
13th Phamenoth—by the observation of Ken—the Star of the Waters in the middle."
The observations recorded were made on the 5th, 6th, and 13th Phamenotli, the
7th, 9th, and 13th Pharmuthi, the 16th and 23rd Pachons, the 5th, 16th, and 21st
Payni, and the 4th and 7th Epiphi. The names of the observers are Nebnefer,
Pennub, Ken, Penamen, Nechtu, Het, Mes, Nebsemennu, Panebtma. No indication is
given of the hours at which the observations were made, or of the name of the
reigning king.
The names of the constellations and stars mentioned in our Calendar are as
follow:—
1. Necht, with his feathers, top of sceptre, neck, back, knee and footstool.
2. Arit.
3. The Goose, with its head and rump.
4. The Chu.
5. Sarit,
6. Sahu.
7. Sept (Sothis) and its train.
8. The Two Stars.
9. The Stars of the Water.
10. The Lion, with its head and tail.
11. The Many Stars.
[p.406]
12. The Lute Bearer.
13. Menat, with his scouts and followers.
14. The Hippopotamus, with its two feet, leg, pizzle, thigh, breast, tongue, and feathers.
Some of these constellations must have been of enormous
extent. The entries for the whole of the first night of Epiphi are confined to
stars belonging to the Hippopotamus and Necht. The head and rump of the Goose
culminated at an hour's distance from each other, and Sahu and the Lion have
also two entries each in the nights when they are mentioned.
The Egyptian constellations of the northern sky, the Thigh (Great Bear) and the
Leg (corresponding, I believe, to Cassiopeia) do not appear at all in this
Calendar, which probably contains only stars more closely approaching the
equator. Two of them are known to us independently of this Calendar; Sahu is
Orion and Sothis is Sirius.
From the acknowledged identity of Sothis and Sirius I endeavoured, some years
back, first of all to ascertain the date at which the Calendar was drawn up,
and, secondly, to identify a certain number of the asterisms which it contains.
The method which I adopted was this: "Whatever may have been the length of the
Egyptian hours of the night, the sixth hour undoubtedly corresponds to midnight.
Now Sothis, that is Sirius, is said by the Calendar to be 'in the middle' at the
sixth hour in the first column of the month Choiak, the fourth Egyptian month.
The question, therefore, arises—in what year did Sirius culminate at midnight at
Thebes within the first fifteen days of the Egyptian month Choiak?4
Through the very great kindness of the Astronomer Royal and of his First
Assistant, Mr. Stone, to whom I am also indebted for a table of the approximate
Right Ascensions of certain stars which I had specified, I am able to say this
transit took place about the year 1450 before Christ. This inference of date, as
the Astronomer Royal remarks, is necessarily a very vague one but from
[p.407] the whole nature of the case a vague date
is all that can be asked for. It is sufficient for us to know that the Calendar
records observations of the fifteenth century before Christ, or thereabouts. It
does not at all follow that the tomb of Rameses VI is of the same antiquity. The
very same Calendar was found in the more recent tomb of Rameses IX, and it may
have been inscribed on much earlier tombs. The decorators of those magnificent
chambers did not think it necessary to alter the document in consequence of the
changing positions of the heavenly bodies."5
Many successive editions of a popular work like Keith on The use of the
Globes, reproduce in like manner, without the least alteration, the same
"Table of the culminating of the Zodiacal Constellations on the first day of
every month, and the Semi-diurnal Arc in London."
The approximate date of the Calendar being known, the next question is, what
remarkable stars at that date culminated at the intervals before and after
Sirius, which are assigned by the Calendar to its asterisms? And finding, for
instance, that in 1450 B.C. the approximate Right Ascension of a Arietis
was 23h 5m, whilst that of Sirius was 4h 11m (the difference therefore being 5h
6m), I have no hesitation in identifying a Arietis with the Goose's head.
In the same manner I identify Arit as probably β
Andromedae, the Chu (a group of stars) with the Pleiads, Sarit with a
Tauri (Aldebaran), the Lion with part of our own constellation of the same name,
the Many Stars with part of the Coma Berenices, the Lute Bearer
with a Virginis: a Bootis and a Scorpionis are probably
parts of the Constellation Menat. Castor and Pollux, which at the present day
come to the meridian about three-quarters of an hour after Sirius, seem at first
sight to claim identity with the Two Stars, but their position in the sky
with reference to Sirius was quite different at the time of our Calendar to what
it is at present.
It is not necessary to give the process by which each of these results has been
attained. If the method I have indicated be the right one, the results can
easily be verified [p.408] and corrected, if
necessary, by any one who is familiar with astronomical science.
I have only to add that the translation of the Calendar is made from the text of
the Tomb at Biban-el-molnk, numbered IX in the Denkmaeler of Dr. Lepsius.
The first columns of Thoth and Phamenoth, which fail in this text, are supplied
from the text of Tomb VI. The latter text contains only the months of Thoth,
Paopi, Athyr, Payni, and portions of Epiphi and Phamenoth. The month of Mesori
is destroyed in both tombs. Each text has very serious defects peculiar to it,
but some defects are common to both, and show that the Calendar was already
corrupt at the date of the earlier tomb. The star Sarit, for instance, is
confounded in certain columns with the star Arit, which culminates four hours
earlier.
See pages:
409,
410,
411,
412,
413,
414,
415,
416,
417,
418,
419,
420
[p.421]
In the discussion which followed the reading of this paper, it was suggested by the Rev. Basil Cooper that the Calendar represented not the vague Egyptian year of 365 days, but a fixed one of the same length as our astronomical year. Into this question I do not wish to enter, but it is well to observe that the hypothesis of a fixed year does not affect the essential points on which I wish to insist.
1. The true philological meaning of the Calendar remains undisturbed.
2. The asterisms are identified by their relative positions in the sky, as indicated by the time of their culmination before or after Sirius and each other in the year 1450 B.C. For this identification the map of the sky in 1450 B.C. is sufficiently correct as regards any year within the millennium (2000-1000 B.C.) to which the royal tombs undoubtedly belong.
NOTES
1 This explanation, which I first published
in the Chronicle, January 25, 1868, was promptly recognised by M. Chabas
as the true one. It has also been adopted by Dr. Brugsch in his Dictionary,
and has not been controverted by any Egyptologist.
2 To this clement of uncertainty we must add the doubt whether
the actual hours of the night were marked out to the observer by any instrument
of precision.
3 Dr. Birch first called attention to this stone in the
Zeitschrift f. Egypt. Sprache, 1868, p. 11. His transcription, however, of
the passage here quoted omits the important sign m, which gives to the group
[glyphs] amtu the sense of "in the middle." Cf. my paper on the Egyptian
prepositions, Trans. Soc. Bib. Arch. II, 301.
4 "Les dates de jours et d'heures," says M. Biot, "ne peuveut
etre rigoureusement applicables qua une scale des nuits comprises dans la
quinzieme designee, sans que le tableau nous apprenne quelle est cette nuit la."
5 Chronicle, Vol. II, p. 82.