THE EGYPTIAN YEAR AND THE NILE.
Our researches so far leave no doubt upon the question that a large
part of the astronomical activity of the earliest Egyptians had
reference to observations connected especially with New Year's Day.
It has been made abundantly clear, too, that in very early times the
Egyptians had a solar year commencing at the Summer Solstice, and that
this solstice was then, and is now, coincident with the arrival of the
Nile flood at Heliopolis and Memphis, the most important centres of
northern Egyptian life during the early dynasties.
In the dawn of civilisation it was not at all a matter of course that
the sun should be taken as the measurer of time, as it is now with
us; and in this connection it is worth while to note how very diverse
the treatment of this subject was among the early peoples. Thus, for
instance, it was different in Egypt from what it was in Chaldæa and
Babylonia, and later among the Jews. In the Egyptian inscriptions we
find references to the moon, but they prove that she occupied quite
a subordinate position to the sun, at least in the later times.
The week of seven days was utterly unknown amongst the Egyptians.
Everything that can be brought forward in its favour belongs to the
latest periods. The passage quoted by Lepsius from the Book of the Dead
proves nothing, since, according to Krall, an error has crept into his
translation. In Babylonia it would seem that the moon was worshipped
as well as the sun; and it was thus naturally used for measuring time;
and, so far as months were concerned, this, of course, was quite
right. In Babylonia, too, where much desert travel had to be undertaken
at night, the movements of the moon would be naturally watched with
great care.
An interesting point connected with this is that, among these ancient
peoples, the celestial bodies which gave them the unit period of
time by which they reckoned were practically looked upon in the same
category. Thus, for instance, in Egypt the sun being used, the unit
of time was a year; but in Babylonia the unit of time was a month,
for the reason that the standard of time was the moon. Hence, when
periods of time were in question, it was quite easy for one nation
to conceive that the period of time used in another was a year when
really it was a month, and _vice versâ_. It has been suggested that the
years of Methuselah and other persons who are stated to have lived a
considerable number of years were not solar years but lunar years--that
is, properly, lunar months This is reasonable, since, if we divide the
numbers by twelve, we find that they come out very much the same length
as lives are in the present day, and there is no reason why this should
not be so.
There seems little doubt that the country in which the sun was
definitely accepted as the most accurate measurer of time was Egypt.
Rā, the sun, was the chief god of ancient Egypt. He was worshipped
throughout the various nomes. Even the oldest texts (_cf._ that of
Menkaurā in the British Museum) tell of the brilliant course of Rā
across the celestial vault and his daily struggle with darkness.
"The Egyptians," says Ranke in the first chapter of his "Universal
History," which is devoted to Egypt, "have determined the motion of
the sun as seen on earth, and according to this the year was divided,
in comparison with Babylon, in a scientific and practically useful
way, so that Julius Cæsar adopted the calendar from the Egyptians and
introduced it into the Roman Empire. The other nations followed suit,
and since then it has been in general use for seventeen centuries. The
calendar may be considered as the noblest relic of the most ancient
times which has influenced the world."
[Illustration: THE ANNUAL RISE AND FALL OF THE NILE. (_From Horner._)]
Wherever the ancient Egyptians came from--whether from a region where
the moon was the time-measurer or not--so soon as they settled in
the valley where the Nile then, as now, like a pendulum slowly beat
the years by its annual inundation at the Summer Solstice, the solar
basis of their calendar was settled. Hence it was Nature, the Nile--on
the regulation of which depended the welfare of the country--which
facilitated the establishment of the Egyptian year. Solstice and
Nile-flood are the turning-points of the old Egyptian year.
That Egypt is the gift of the Nile is a remark we owe to the Father
of History, who referred not only to the fertilising influence of
the stream, but to the fact that the presence of the Nile, and its
phenomena, are the conditions upon which the habitability of Egypt
altogether depends. That the Egyptian year and that part of Egyptian
archæology and myth which chiefly interests astronomers are also the
gift of the Nile, is equally true.
The heliacal rising of Sirius and other stars at the time of the
commencement of the inundation each year; all the myths which grew out
of the various symbols of the stars so used; are so many evidences of
the large share the river, with its various water-levels at different
times, had in the national life. It was, in fact, the true and unique
basis of the national life.
In this the Nile had a compeer or even compeers. What the Nile was to
Egypt the Euphrates and Tigris were to a large region of Western Asia,
where also we find the annual flood a source of fertility, a spectacle
which inspired poets, and an event with which astronomers largely
occupied themselves.
What more natural than that Euphrates, Tigris, and Nile were looked
upon as deities; that the gods of the Nile valley on the one hand, and
of the region watered by the Euphrates and Tigris, on the other, were
gods to swear by; that they were worshipped in order that their benign
influences might be secured, and that they had their local shrines and
special cults?
The god sacred to the Euphrates and Tigris was called Ea.
[Illustration: HĀPI, THE GOD OF THE NILE.]
The god sacred to the Nile was called Hāpi. The name is the same
as that of the bull Apis, the worship of which was attributed to
Mena.[64] Certainly Mena, Mini, or Menes, as he is variously called,
was fully justified in founding the cult of the river-god, for he first
among men appears to have had just ideas of irrigation, and I have
heard the distinguished officers who have lately been responsible for
the irrigation system of to-day speaking with admiration of the ideas
and works of Mena. Whether the Tigris had a Mena in an equally early
time is a point on which history is silent; but, according to the
accounts of travellers, the Tigris in flood is even more majestic than
the Nile, and yet the latter river in flood is a sight to see--a whole
fertile plain turned, as it were, into an arm of the sea, with here
and there an island, which, on inspection, turns out to be a village,
the mud houses of which too often are undermined by the lapping of the
waves in the strong north wind.
There is no doubt that the dates of the rise of these rivers not only
influenced the national life, but even the religions of the dwellers on
their banks. The Euphrates and Tigris rise at the Spring Equinox--the
religion was equinoxial, the temples were directed to the east. The
Nile rises at a solstice--the religion was solstitial and the solar
temples were directed no longer to the east. To the Egyptians the
coming of the river to the parched land was as the sunrise chasing the
darkness of the night; the sun-god of day conquering the star-gods
of night; or again the victorious king of the land slaughtering his
enemies.
Egypt, in the words of Amru, first appears like a dusty plain, then as
a fresh sea, and finally as a bed of flowers.
It might be imagined at first sight that as the year was thus
determined, so to speak, by natural local causes, the divisions or
seasons would be the same as those which Nature has given _us_. This
is not so. The river and land conditions are so widely different.
By no one, perhaps, have the actual facts been so truly and poetically
described as by Osborn, who thus pictures the low Nile[65]:--
"The Nile has shrunk within its banks until its stream is contracted
to half its ordinary dimensions, and its turbid, slimy, stagnant
waters scarcely seem to flow in any direction. Broad flats or steep
banks of black, sun-baked Nile mud, form both the shores of the river.
All beyond them is sand and sterility; for the hamseen, or sand-wind
of fifty days' duration, has scarcely yet ceased to blow. The trunks
and branches of trees may be seen here and there through the dusty,
hazy, burning atmosphere, but so entirely are their leaves coated with
dust that at a distance they are not distinguishable from the desert
sand that surrounds them. It is only by the most painful and laborious
operation of watering that any tint approximating to greenness can be
preserved at this season even in the pleasure-gardens of the Pacha.
The first symptom of the termination of this most terrible season is
the rising of the north wind (the Etesian wind of the Greeks), blowing
briskly, often fiercely, during the whole of the day. The foliage of
the groves that cover Lower Egypt is soon disencumbered by it of the
dust, and resumes its verdure. The fierce fervours of the sun, then
at its highest ascension, are also most seasonably mitigated by the
same powerful agency, which prevails for this and the three following
months throughout the entire land of Egypt."
Then comes the inundation:--
"Perhaps there is not in Nature a more exhilarating sight, or one
more strongly exciting to confidence in God, than the rise of the
Nile. Day by day and night by night, its turbid tide sweeps onward
majestically over the parched sands of the waste, howling wilderness.
Almost hourly, as we slowly ascended it before the Etesian wind, we
heard the thundering fall of some mud-bank, and saw, by the rush of
all animated Nature to the spot, that the Nile had overleapt another
obstruction, and that its bounding waters were diffusing life and joy
through another desert. There are few impressions I ever received
upon the remembrance of which I dwell with more pleasure than that
of seeing the first burst of the Nile into one of the great channels
of its annual overflow. All Nature shouts for joy. The men, the
children, the buffaloes, gambol in its refreshing waters, the broad
waves sparkle with shoals of fish, and fowl of every wing flutter over
them in clouds. Nor is this jubilee of Nature confined to the higher
orders of creation. The moment the sand becomes moistened by the
approach of the fertilising waters, it is literally alive with insects
innumerable. It is impossible to stand by the side of one of these
noble streams, to see it every moment sweeping away some obstruction
to its majestic course, and widening as it flows, without feeling the
heart to expand with love and joy and confidence in the great Author
of this annual miracle of mercy."
[Illustration: DIFFERENT FORMS OF THOTH.]
After the flood comes the sowing time. The effects of the inundation,
as Osborn shows in another place,
"exhibit themselves in a scene of fertility and beauty such as will
scarcely be found in another country at any season of the year. The
vivid green of the springing corn, the groves of pomegranate-trees
ablaze with the rich scarlet of their blossoms, the fresh breeze laden
with the perfumes of gardens of roses and orange thickets, every
tree and every shrub covered with sweet-scented flowers. These are
a few of the natural beauties that welcome the stranger to the land
of Ham. There is considerable sameness in them, it is true, for he
would observe little variety in the trees and plants, whether he first
entered Egypt by the gardens of Alexandria or the plain of Assouan.
Yet is it the same everywhere, only because it would be impossible to
make any addition to the sweetness of the odours, the brilliancy of
the colours, or the exquisite beauty of the many forms of vegetable
life, in the midst of which he wanders. It is monotonous, but it is
the monotony of Paradise."
The flood reaches Cairo on a day closely approximating to that of the
Summer Solstice. It attains its greatest height, and begins to decline
near the Autumnal Equinox. By the Winter Solstice the Nile has again
subsided within its banks and resumed its blue colour. Seed-time has
occurred in this interval.
Beginning with the inundation (Summer Solstice) we have--
(1) The season or _tetramene_ of the inundation, July-October.
(2) " " " sowing, November-February.
(3) " " " harvest, March-June.
From the earliest times the year was divided into twelve months, as
follows, the leading month being dedicated to the God of Wisdom, Thoth
(Tehuti):--
{Thoth End of June (Gregorian).
Inundation {Phaophi " July.
{Athyr " August.
{Choiak " September.
{Tybi " October.
Seed-time {Menchir " November.
{Phamenoth " December.
{Pharmouthi " January.
{Pachons " February.
Harvest {Payni " March.
{Epiphi " April.
{Mesori " May.
The terms for the seasons and months are found even on the building
material of the largest pyramid of Dashûr, and in the oldest records we
already find calendar indications. On the steles of the Mastăbas, in
which the deceased prays Anubis for a good sepulture, we find a list of
the festal days on which sacrifices are to be offered for the dead.
A modern calendar (given both by Brugsch and De Rougé) is, doubtless, a
survival from old Egyptian times. It is good for the neighbourhood of
Cairo, and the relation of the important days of the inundation to the
solstice, in that part of the river, is as follows:--
Night of the drop 11 Payni
15 " Summer solstice.
Beginning of the inundation 18 " 3 days after.
Assembly at the nilometer 25 " 10 "
Proclamation of the inundation 26 " 11 "
Marriage of the Nile 18 Mesori 63 "
The Nile ceases to rise 16 Thoth 96 "
Opening of the dams 17 " 97 "
End of the greater inundation 7 Phaophi 117 "
In order to show how the astronomy of the ancient Egyptians--to deal
specially with them--was to a large extent concerned with the annual
flood and all that depended upon that flood; and how the first tropical
year used on this planet, so far as we know, was established, it is
important to study the actual facts of the rise somewhat closely, not
only for Egypt generally, but for several points in the line, some
thousand miles in extent, along which in the earliest times cities and
shrines were dotted here and there.
Time out of mind the fluctuations in the height of the river have
been carefully recorded at different points along the river. In the
"Description de l'Égypte" we find a full description of the so-called
nilometer at Aswân (First Cataract), which dates from a remote period,
perhaps as early as the fifth dynasty.
In Ebers' delightful book on Egypt space is given to the description of
the much more modern one located at Rôda.
The nilometer, or "mikyās," on the island of Rôda, now visible, is
stated to have replaced one which was brought thither from Memphis at
some unrecorded date. Makrīzī in 1417, according to Ebers, saw the
remains of the older nilometer.
The present mikyās is within a covered vault or chamber, the roof
being supported on simple wooden pillars. In a quadrangular tank
in communication with the river by a canal is an octagon pillar on
which the Arabic measurements are inscribed. These consist of the pic
(variously called ell or cubit) = 0·54 metre, which is divided into
twenty-four kirats. In consequence of the rise of the river bed in
relatively recent times, the nilometer is submerged at high Nile to a
depth of two cubits.
[Illustration: SCALE OF THE NILOMETER AT RÔDA.]
The rise of the Nile can now be carefully studied, as gauges are
distributed along the river. We have the Aswân gauge from 1869, the
Armant gauge from 1887, the Suhag gauge from 1889, and the Asyût gauge
from 1892. The distances of these gauges from Aswân are as follows:--
Kilometres.
Aswân 0
Armant 200
Suhag 447
Asyût 550
Rôda 941
The Rôda gauge is not to be depended on, as the movements of the
barrage regulation destroy its value as a record. The heights of these
gauges above mean sea-level are as follows:--
Metres.
Aswân 84·158
Armant 69·535
Suhag 56·00
Asyût 53·10
Rôda 13·14
[Illustration: THE ISLAND OF RÔDA.]
Great vagueness arises in there being no very obvious distinction
between the gauge readings reached in summer and that from which the
rise is continuous. There are apparently rainfalls in the end of spring
of sufficient power to raise the Nile visibly in summer, just as muddy
rises have been seen in winter to pass down the valley, leaving a muddy
mark on the rocks at Aswân and Manfalūt. Independently of the actual
gauge-reading of the rise, there are facts about it which strike every
beholder. At the commencement of the rise we have the _green water_.
This occurs in June, but varies in date as much as the top of the flood
varies.
From the fact that modern observations show that the very beginning of
the rise, and the first flush, second flush and final retirement vary,
it seems evident that the ancient Egyptians could not have had any
fixed zero-gauge or time for the real physical fact of the rise, but
must have deduced from a series of observations either a mean period of
commencement, or a mean arrival of the red water, or a mean rising up
to a certain gauge.
First, to deal with the green water. Generally when the rise of an
inch or two is reported from the nilometer at Rôda, the waters lose
the little of clearness and freshness they still possessed. The green
colour is the slimy, lustreless hue of brackish water within the
tropics, and no filter that has yet been discovered can render such
water clear. The colour is really due to algæ.
Happily, the continuance of this state of the water seldom exceeds
three or four days. The sufferings of those who are compelled to drink
it in this state, from vesical disease, even in this short interval,
are very severe. The inhabitants of the cities generally provide
against it by Nile water stored in reservoirs and tanks.
Colonel Ross, R.E., noticed in 1887 and in 1890, when, owing to the
slow retreat of the Nile, the irrigation officers had to hold back many
basins in the Gîzeh province, and also in 1888 when the water remained
long stagnant, that the basin water got green--showed the algæ and
smelt marshy--just as the June green water does.
Hence it has been argued that, as the Nile water in the bed of the
stream--even in very slow-flowing back-waters--does not become green,
the greenness must be produced by an almost absolute stagnation of the
water. We know of great marshes up above Gondokoro, and hence it is
thought that the green water of summer, which comes on suddenly, is
this marsh-water being pushed out by the new water from behind, and
that is why it heralds the rise. No one has so far minutely observed
the gradual intrusion of the green water.
The rise of the river proceeds rapidly, and the water gradually becomes
more turbid. Ten or twelve days, however, elapse before the development
of the last and most extraordinary of all the appearances of the Nile,
thus described by Mr. Osborn[66]:--
"It was at the end of--to my own sensations--a long and very sultry
night, that I raised myself from the sofa upon which I had in vain
been endeavouring to sleep, on the deck of a Nile boat that lay
becalmed off Benisoueff, a town of Middle Egypt. The sun was just
showing the upper limb of his disc over the eastern mountains. I
was surprised to see that when his rays fell upon the water a deep
ruddy reflection was given back. The depth of the tint increased
continually as a larger portion of his light fell upon the water, and
before he had entirely cleared the top of the hill it presented the
perfect appearance of a river of blood. Suspecting some delusion, I
rose up hastily, and, looking over the side of the boat, saw there
the confirmation of my first impression. The entire body of the water
was opaque and of a deep red colour, bearing a closer resemblance
to blood than to any other natural production to which it could be
compared. I now perceived that during the night the river had visibly
risen several inches. While I was gazing at this great sight the
Arabs came round me to explain that it was the Red Nile. The redness
and opacity of the water, in this extraordinary condition of the
river, are subject to constant variations. On some days, when the
rise of the river has not exceeded an inch or two, its waters return
to a state of semi-transparency, though during the entire period of
the high Nile they never lose the deep red tinge which cannot be
separated from them. It is not, however, like the green admixture,
at all deleterious; the Nile water is never more wholesome or more
deliciously refreshing than during the overflow. There are other days
when the rise of the river is much more rapid, and then the quantity
of mud that is suspended in the water exceeds, in Upper Egypt, that
which I have seen in any other river. On more than one occasion I
could perceive that it visibly interfered with the flow of the stream.
A glassful of it in this state was allowed to remain still for a short
time. The upper portion of it was perfectly opaque and the colour
of blood. A sediment of black mud occupied about one-quarter of the
glass. A considerable portion of this is deposited before the river
reaches Middle and Lower Egypt. I never observed the Nile water in
this condition there, and indeed no consecutive observations exist
of the reddening of the water. It is quite clear that the reddening
cannot come from the White Nile, but must be the first floods of the
Blue Nile and Bahral Azral coming down."
One of the most important matters for the purposes of our present
inquiry is connected with the influence upon local calendars, in
different parts of the Nile valley, of the variations of the phenomena
upon which the Egyptians depended for the marking of New Year's Day.
If the _solstice_ had been taken alone, the date of it would have been
the same for all parts of the valley; but certainly the solstice was
not taken alone, and for the obvious reason, that they wanted something
to warn them of the Nile rise, and in the lower reaches of the river
the rise precedes the solstice. Nor was the heliacal rising of Sirius,
of which more presently, taken alone.
But it was chiefly a question of the arrival of the Nile flood, and the
date of the commencement of the Nile flood was by no means common to
all parts of Egypt.
Now it is to be gathered from the modern gauges that it takes the flood
some time, as we can easily imagine, to pass down the 600 miles between
Elephantine and Cairo.
In the early flood, rising from, say, one cubit Aswân to six cubits,
where there are many dry sandbanks, and the spreading out of the river
is considerable, and there is an absence of overlapping flushes from
behind, the rate goes up to fifteen days, and the _earliest_ indication
of the rise may take longer still, but this is very difficult to
observe.
The rate in Hood is 1¾ days from Wādy Halfa to Aswân, and six days
from Aswân to Rôda (941 kilometres). In very high Niles this is perhaps
accelerated to five days.
There is, therefore, a very great difference in time and rate between
Green and Red Nile.
The rise is 45 ft. at Aswân, 38 at Thebes, and 25 at Cairo.
From the data obtained at the gauges named, which have been kindly
forwarded to me by Mr. Garstin, the Under Secretary of State of the
Public Works Department of Egypt, I have ascertained that the average
time taken by the first indication of the flood to travel between
Thebes and Memphis is now about nine days.
It must be remembered, however, that the river-bed is now higher than
formerly; the land around Thebes, according to Budge, has been raised
about nine feet in the last 1,700 years.
If, therefore, at each great city, such as Thebes and Heliopolis, New
Year's Day depended absolutely on the arrival of the inundation, not
only would the day have been uncertain, but the difference of time
in the arrival of the Hood at various places along the river would
represent a difference in the New Year's Days of those places, compared
to which our modern differences of local time sink into insignificance,
for they only touch hours of the day.
The great difficulty experienced in understanding the statements
generally made concerning the Nile-rise is due to the fact that the
maximum flood is, as a rule, registered in Cairo upwards of forty days
after the maximum at Aswân.
For the following account of how this is brought about I am indebted to
the kindness of Colonel Ross, R.E.:--
"The behaviour of the flood at the Aswân gauge is as follows: Between
August 20 and 30 a good average gauge of 16 cubits is often reached,
and between August 27 and September 3 there is often a drop of about
30 centimetres. The August rise is supposed to be mostly due to the
Blue Nile and Atbara River. Between September 1 and 8 the irrigation
officers generally look for a maximum flood-gauge of the year at
Aswân. This is supposed to be the first flush of the White Nile. In
the middle of September there are generally two small flushes, but the
last twenty days of September are generally distinctly lower than that
of the first week. The final flush of the Nile is seldom later than
the 21st to 25th September.
"All this water does not merely go down the Nile; it floods the
different basins. The opening of these basins begins from the south
to the north. This operation is generally performed between the 29th
September and the 22nd October. The great Central Egypt basins are
not connected with the Nile for purposes of discharge into the river
between Asyût and near Wasta, or a distance of 395-90 kilometres = 305
kil.
"The country in the middle or Central Egypt is broad, and thus there
is an enormous quantity of water poured out of these basins into the
lower reaches of the river about the 20th October, which seriously
raises the Nile at Cairo, and in a good average year will bring the
Cairo gauge (at Rôda) up to the maximum of the year on or about
October 22, and hence it is that the guide-books say the Nile is at
its highest in the end of October.
"A gauge of 16½ cubits at Aswân while the basins are being filled
does not give more than 21 cubits at Rôda (Cairo), but, as the basins
with a 16½ gauge will fill by the 10th September, it follows that
a 16½ to 16 cubit gauge at Aswân will not give a constant Cairo
gauge, as the great mass of water passes by the basins and reaches
Cairo. Hence we have frequently the paradox of a steady or falling
gauge at Aswân showing a steady rise at Cairo.
"If the gauge at Aswân keeps above 16 cubits to near the end of
September, the basin-emptying is much retarded, as the emptying at
each successive basin fills the Nile above the 16 cubit level; _hence
the lower halves of the basins do not flow off_, and thus, when the
great Middle Egypt basins are discharged, they do not raise the Nile
so much as they do when the last half of September Nile is below 16 at
Aswân.
"In years like 1887 and 1892, which differ from each other only in
date of maximum gauge at Aswân, the river, having filled the basins in
fifteen to twenty days instead of in twenty-five to thirty days, comes
down to Cairo in so largely increased a volume that a really dangerous
gauge of 25 cubits at Cairo is maintained for over a fortnight (the
average October gauge in Cairo is about 23 cubits), and from September
10 to October 25 the river remains from 24 cubits to 25½ cubits,
and the Middle Egypt basins discharge so slowly that the opening day
is hardly traceable on the Cairo gauge.
"In the 1878 flood, which was the most disastrous flood possible, the
river rose in the most abnormal fashion, and on October 3 attained 18
cubits at Aswân. This breached the Delta, and in addition so delayed
the Upper Egypt basins emptying, from the reason before given, that the
wheat was sown too late, and got badly scorched by the hot winds of
March and April."[67]