the ancient egyptian time & the calendar of komombo

The ancient Egyptians used two different calendars. One was the agricultural calendar. The other was a man-made administrative calendar.
The agricultural year was based on the observation of the stars. Every year, the star 'Sopdet' appeared at dawn in the middle of July, signalling the new year and the start of the flood season.
The administrative calendar was a fixed calendar. The ancient Egyptians created this calendar by observing the movement of groups of stars called 'decans'.
Every ten days, a new decan appeared on the horizon. There were 36 decans in a year, making 360 days per year. Then, the ancient Egyptians added on five days at the end of the year as the birthdays of the gods Osiris, Isis, Nephthys, Seth and Horus.
Since a year is actually about 365.25 days, this calendar was just a little bit off every year. The ancient Egyptians knew the calendar was not accurate, and that every year the problem was getting worse. However, it was a fixed calendar, (one that had even been carved onto the walls of temples), and it was not easy to change.









However, over many hundreds of years, the calendar was so far off that the summer and winter months were reversed. This calendar had to be adjusted many times throughout ancient Egyptian history to keep it accurate.This carving is among the most famous carvings that are found at the temple of komombow.
It was made by the ancient Egyptians around 2000 years ago. It represents the annual diary or the agenda for use of priests and priestesses of Komombow, in order to organize the service and the rituals of the local feminine goddesses; the use of it is so limited to this temple.

The carving in komombo temple is divided into three panels ,the first describes the date and the month, the second details the type of service presented, while the third is about the local gods consorts .It is read from the right counts "day which is a sun disc ,23rd ,10 is like an inverted U letter till 28th then 29th is different as 9 is a sun disc with a dash in it's center while 30th day is given a determinative character in the form of an animal tail to the emphasize the end of the month". Then starts over again reporting a new month which the third one of the flood season which is four month in total, reads the 3rd month flood, 1st day then the counting go in a normal order as you can follow it.



Comments