First principe: Egyptians never used , as us , an area system ( like x years before or after the birth of the Christ ) For exemple we are in the year 1999 after the Birthday of Jesus Christ , more called christian area . The date calculated by monk Denys the latest who lived in Rome in the VI th century is the year 753 from foundation of Rome . ( in fact he made born Jesus Christ 5 years earlier , in year 754 instead of 749 ! in consequence we were in 2004 . Don't worry about this point , I think that year 753 is the real start point of our christian area , deconnected from the birth day of the Christ . )
Others areas could be found ; for exemple concerning Christian in Egypte or Coptes they used Martyrs ' s area , which starded in 284 of our area . We could find , too , following areas :
For their dates . Each Pharaoh started his reign with the year 1 . His succesor , after x year of reign of his predecessor , sarted , also , his own reign with the year 1 .
Exemple of datation : " year 1 of the King of High and Lower Egypt " , from Rethorique text on the Campaign
of Sethy Ist , wall from the Hypsotyle hall in Karnak, exterior, east part, land of Pakanaan .
An area , unless , is known ; this area could concern the area of Menophrès . The author of this area is : Theon of Alexandry .
As compared to this alexandria period , well known now , we obtained a date : 1322-1317 before the Christ .
Some authors have neared the name of menophrès of that Menpehtyré ,
name of coronation of Ramses I .see : Nouvelle Clio page 496 .
Netherleess , we could find some information on period of many years , over one reign , into the famous papyrus Canon Royal of Turin we could read in colomn IV , lignes 16 to 17 :
[ Total of kings beginning with ] Menes , their kingship , their years , their erased .....
lign wich continue in column V according to :
. . . 9 months , 16 days , eresed 6 years .
and continue in column VI line 17 :
. . . total . . . 955 years and 10 days .
Manifestly we have, there , a comput of years since Menes until the end of the VIth dynasty .
Egyptian calendar , was for a great part of the very long history of pharaonic Egypt ( more than 3000 yers ) , a solar calendar of 365 days . It's the one we , at the present time , we usually use . Don't forget julien calenda was setting in Alexandria under the orders of Jules Cesar , by Sosigene in year 708 of the foundation of Rome , so in 46 B . C . This Julien calendar was perfomed better around 1572 , in France , into gregorien calendar , the one we use actuelly .
We owe , too , to Egyptians , the system based on 2 time of 12 hours for a day . The sexagesimal system had a babylonian origin .
Egyptian calendar , in the begining of the History , was a solar calendar of 365 days . Egyptians had
used , also , a lunar calendar just before history ; and they keep it only for some religious fetivals .
The first day of the year begun with the over flow of the River Nile .
for this period at the begining of june . They , also , observed an astromomic phenomeme concomitant with
this event : the heliathic rising of Sirius ( Sôthis ) , that it means the star Sirius appears in the
horizon , the morning , in the same time with the sun rising .
Egyptian calendar was counpond of 12 months of 30 days , grouped in en 3 seasons ; to which they added 5 more days : the epagomenes . Each week of 10 days correspond to a decan ; and for the whole years we obtain 36 decans .
Seasons of 4 months :
The 5 epagomenes days :
If you wish to have a look on this calender ! , in hieroglyphes , of course . It was a global represenation , as we could find in some specific egyptologist books .
Egyptians had keep this calendar for to date events of all their 3000 years of history . This calendar was called mobile calendar , in french "calendrier vague" ; if you know that the solar year equal more than 365,25 days ; each 4 years ( 0.25days time 4 ) this calendar lossed one day . After 1460 years the first day of the year and the heliatic sunrise of sothis are in phase again . One date , well known by Historians , is those from the text of a medical papyrus (Ebers papyrus) . We can read in it , that fact that the heliatic rising of Sirius began in the year 9 , the 9th day of the third month of chemou season , under the King Amenhotep Ist . According to the place of observation ( Thebes or Memphis ) we obtain 2 dates : 1546 or 1526 B.C . This is the base of calcul for the begining of the XVIIIth dynasty . One other point of vue of dates is , for the end of this dynasty , the building of the temple Houtbenben in Tell-el-Amarna which give us the date of 20 february 1351 B.C. in our gregorian calendar ; this date could correspond to the 13th day of the 4th month of peret in the year 5 of the King Akhenaton . So I can reconstitute for this epoch an egyptian calendar . (RefRéf: Nouvelle Clio page 430 )One another more ancient date , allows u to surround dates of the Middle Kingdom . The date of day 16 of the 4th month of peret , in the year 7 of Senouseret ( Sesostris of Greeks ) allows us to attribute the date of 1872 B.C .
1294 B.C .
Probably the right date was : the 24th day of the 4th month of the season of Chemou . Wich could correspond to our second half month of july .
Date for Ramsès II event , could be : the 27th day of the 3rd month of the season of Chemou . Which this date could correspond to the begeening of our june .
For other authors, the dates proposed :
In the actual state of our knowledge , and according mumerous questions asked to me on the mail I thing a pesonnal point of vue
will be welcome .
Many Sites on egyptain chronology exist , but , I prefer to join in this present site devoted to the study of Sethy Ist
a personnal chronology .
Here after , a list of main sites are listed :
* Guardian's Ancient Egyptian Kinglist
* Also , Egyptian Kings on the Site Egypt Home Page , a very complete study .
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About egyptian chronolgy
Pages on chronology to surf !
To be continued......
Last update : 27 february 1999