Ten years later Mariette, probably influenced by ChampollionFigeac's scheme, assigned the date of B.C. 5004 to the Ist dynasty,1 and in 1878 Wilkinson proposed B.C. 2320,2 but the idea uppermost in the mind of the latter was to make Egyptian chronology harmonize with that given by Archbishop Ussher to ancient nations printed in our English Bibles at that period. Brugsch, adopting as a general principle that 100 years should be allowed for every three consecutive reigns, suggested B.C. 4400 as the date for the Ist dynasty, and B.C. 1700 for that of the XVIIIth. Many felt that Brugsch's dates were reasonable and probable, and accepted them provisionally, feeling sure that the last words on Egyptian chronology had not been spoken. The above facts show clearly the difficulty of the subject. The differences in the results obtained by different scholars were due in the first place to the fact that they had no common reliable data on which to base their enquiries, and in the second to the failure of the Egyptians to keep records that were historical or chronological in our sense of the word. A general idea of the probable length of the period of dynastic civilization can be obtained from the monuments, but the data do not exist from which to make a detailed scheme of chronology.

Some of the modern writers on the subject, more notably Meyer, think that a system which is approximately correct can be evolved by assuming that the ancient Egyptians were acquainted with and made use of the Sothic Period. The oldest year known in Egypt consisted of 12 months, each containing 30 days, and its use for magical purposes survived until the beginning of the New Kingdom. The Egyptians found out at a very early period that the true year contained more than 360 days, and in the Pyramid Text of Pepi II reference is made to the gods who were born (i.e., their birthdays took place) on the five days that the Egyptians added to the year.4 The year of 360 days was divided into three seasons, each containing four months, which were called Akhet, Pert and Shemu. According to Meyer, Akhet began on July 19th, Pert on November 16th, and Shemu on March 16th and ended on July 13th. Then followed the epagomenal days, or five days added to the year. This may be called the vague or wandering year, for as the year of 365 days was shorter than the true year by nearly a quarter of a day, it would work backward through all the months of the year until the first day of the wandering year would coincide with the first day of the solar year. The Egyptians must have found out this fact at a very early period, and have realized that when a sufficient number of vague

1 Notice des Principaux Monuments, Paris, 1869, p. 15.

2 Ancient Egyptians, ed. Birch, 1878, Vol. I, p. 28 ff.

4

3 Egypt under the Pharaohs, ed. 1880, PP. 341-346.

Vol. II, p. 472).

f

Pepi II, 1. 754 (ed. Sethe,

years had passed the midwinter festivals would be celebrated in the height of summer. The Annual Inundation of the Nile controlled their agricultural operations, and so for all practical purposes the vague year was sufficient. It has been assumed that at one period unknown the Egyptians decided to make their year begin about the time of the Inundation, and that at another unknown. period they declared its first day to be that on which the star Sept, (Sothis, Sirius or the Dog-star), rose heliacally, i.e., with

Δ

*

the sun. The interval between one rising of Sirius and the next would be a solar year and would contain nearly 365 days, i.e., would be nearly a quarter of a day longer than the vague year. Supposing that the first day of the vague year and the first day of the solar year fell on the same day, 1,461 vague years or 1,460 solar years must pass before the same thing could happen again. Now Censorinus, a Roman grammarian, wrote a work entitled De Die Natali about A.D. 238, and dedicated it to his patron, Quintus Caerellius, as a birthday gift. In this he discusses (xviii, 10) the Egyptian year, which, he says, is reckoned from the first day of the month of Thoth, and he says that the first day of the year in which he was writing was the first day of the month of Thoth, and was the equivalent of the VIIth day of the Kalends of July, or June 25th. He adds that this was also the case 100 years before (A.D. 139), when the equivalent of the first day of Thoth was the XIIth day of the Kalends of August, or July 21st, on which day the Dog-star Sirius is wont to rise. This statement is taken to mean that a Sothic Period ended on July 21st (July 20th according to Meyer), and therefore the one before that ended in B.C. 1321-20, and the one before that in B.C. 2781-80, and the one before that in B.C. 4238-37. And, because there are three2 instances in the texts in which the date of the rising of Sirius is expressed in terms of the vague year, Meyer and others have assumed that the Egyptians were acquainted with and used the Sothic Period. But there is no evidence that they did. The whole Sothic Period theory rests on the words of Censorinus and on the assumption of Meyer, which is based on them. Nowhere in the hieroglyphic texts is there any mention of such a period. And with the annual Inundation to guide the Egyptians in their

1 The modern editions of his work by O. Jahn and F. Hultsch are very handy, but Lindenbrog's edition, issued in 1614, with commentary, is still a very valuable book.

2 The first is found in the Ebers Papyrus, and is to the effect that the New Year Festival was celebrated on the 9th day of the 11th month of the 9th year of Amen-hetep I, which fell on one of the four years B.C. 1550-49 to 1547-46, according to Meyer. From the second (Brugsch, Thesaurus, p. 363a) Meyer deduces that Thothmes III reigned from May 3rd, B.C. 1501, to March 17th, 1447, and from the third he concludes that the 7th year of Usertsen III fell in the period B.C. 1882-81, 1879-78, and the first in the period B.C. 1888-87 to 1885-84 (see his Nachträge zu Aegyptischen Chronologie, Berlin, 1908, p. 18).

agricultural affairs such a period would be wholly unnecessary. Mr. Cecil Torr has discussed the difficulties that are in the way of accepting it from the point of view of the mathematician,1 and as far as I know his objections to the acceptance of Meyer's datings have not been satisfactorily disposed of. Some Egyptologists have accepted Meyer's theories, but many reject them. And even among those who accept his calculations there are some who disagree with his theory that the Dynastic Period of Egyptian History lasted for less than three Sothic Periods, and that the Calendar was introduced into Egypt B.C. 4241. Thus Petrie says that this date must be pushed back a whole Sothic Period of 1,460 years, the effect of which would be to make Usertsen III to reign about B.C. 3300. Brugsch, whose knowledge of the texts was unsurpassed, and who had thoroughly sifted all the mathematical and astronomical evidence that had been brought forward by Riehl and Mahler, says that in the second century of our Era the reckoning by vague years with the Sothic years in the background first acquired an importance that they had certainly never possessed at a remote period of antiquity. And quoting with approval Krall's remarks in his Stud. zur Gesch. d. alt. Aeg. I, he goes on to say that both the Sothic Period and the Phoenix Period were a discovery of the second century that followed the celebration of the recovery from illness of the Emperor Antoninus Pius on July 20th, A.D. 139, in which year the fixed and the movable first day of Thoth fell on the same day. To the chronographers of that period who occupied themselves with the works of Manetho on the History of Egypt, the Sothic Period appeared to offer the most suitable assistance in fixing the great intervals of time of a defective Era by means of easily calculated figures.3 The truth is that Brugsch distrusted the results obtained by the astronomers and mathematicians because of the variations in the results obtained by the different authorities from the same data.a So many dates, which were declared by their advocates to have been" ascertained astronomically" and to be "absolutely certain," have been proved by facts to be wholly wrong, that we are bound to conclude that mathematicians, like archaeologists, sometimes make mistakes.

Brugsch was well acquainted with all that could be said in favour of the Sothic Period, and, as he was convinced that the use of the

1 Memphis and Mycenae, p. 57.

2 Researches in Sinai, London, 1906, Chap. XII; Historical Studies, p. 10 ff. * Den damaligen Chronographen, welches ich mit dem manethonischen Werke über die Geschichte Aegyptens beschäftigten, erschien die Sothisperiode als das geeignetste Hülfsmittel, die grossen Zeitabschnitte einer mangelden Aera durch leicht berechenbare Zahlen zu fixiren. Die Aegyptologie, Leipzig, 1891, p. 357; and see Brugsch, Thesaurus, p. 203.

See Nicklin's valuable and instructive paper on this point in the Classical Review, Vol. XIV, 1900, p. 148.

vague year by the Egyptians was inseparable from the knowledge of a fixed solar year, he made no attempt to make use of it in his scheme of chronology. Had he thought that it was known to the Egyptians he would certainly have discussed it when he dealt in his Aegyptologie (p. 353) with the effort made to reform the Calendar by Euergetes I, B.C. 238. In fixing the dates of the dynasties he, like Lepsius, though in a lesser degree, was influenced by Manetho's King List and, judging by archaeological evidence, he made the intervals between the VIth and XIIth and between the XIIth and the XVIIIth dynasties too long. The dates that he and others have assigned to the Ist dynasty depend upon the numbers of the years that they have assigned to these two intervals. But these dates-Lepsius B.C. 3892, Bunsen B.C. 3623, Lieblein B.C. 3893, Brugsch B.C. 4455 or B.C. 4400, Meyer B.C. 3315, Breasted B.C. 3400, Hall B.C. 3500-are only INDEXES to the opinions of those who propose them, and it is quite possible that every one of them is wrong in point of actual fact. The material for fixing with certainty the date of the Ist dynasty does not exist at present. But the dates proposed are valuable, for they show that each scholar, with the exception of Brugsch, believes that the civilization that we know from the monuments existed in Egypt under the first king of the Ist dynasty must be placed somewhere in the fourth millennium B.C. Similarly, the dates proposed for the XIIth dynasty-Lepsius B.C. 2380, Bunsen B.C. 2755, Lieblein B.C. 2268, Brugsch B.C. 2466, Hall B.C. 2212 (?), Meyer and Breasted B.C. 2000-show that all these scholars place the civilization that flourished under the XIIth dynasty in the third millennium B.C., and the greater number of them in the second half of it. But the material for fixing the date of the first year of the reign of Amenemḥat I, the first king of the dynasty, does not exist.

The length of the period of the rule of the Hyksos, which came between the XIIth and XVIIIth dynasties, is still a vexed question, but when we come to the XVIIIth dynasty itself the chronology has surer foundations, and dates can be fixed with a considerable degree of certainty. This fact we owe chiefly to the information derived from the Tall al-'Amârnah Tablets. From one of these we learn that Ashur-uballit, King of Assyria, corresponded with Amenḥetep III and Amenḥetep IV, Kings of Egypt. The Assyriologists, who have abundant chronological and historical material on which to base their statements, say that Ashur-uballit reigned from B.C. 13701340.2 According to this Amenḥetep III and Amenḥetep IV must have reigned in the first half of the XIVth century B.C. Hall gives the date of the accession of Amenḥetep IV as circa B.C. 1380.3 The

1 Cambridge Ancient History, Vol. I, p. 173.

2 See the comparative list of Egyptian, Babylonian, Assyrian, Hittite and Mitannian kings in Hall, History of the Near East, p. 262.

3 Cambridge Ancient History, Vol. I,

p. 173.

B

dates of the reigns of Thothmes III and Аāḥmes I have been fixed by him at B.C. 1501 and B.C. 1580 respectively; and thus trustworthy chronology begins in Egypt with the XVIIIth dynasty. It is a remarkable fact that long before astronomical dates and Babylonian and Assyrian synchronisms were known Lepsius had assigned B.C. 1591 as the date for the beginning of the XVIIIth dynasty, Bunsen B.C. 1625, and Lieblein B.C. 1490; and for the end of the dynasty Brugsch had set down B.C. 1400. These scholars derived their conclusions from the archaeological evidence of the monuments, which they used to control the statements of Manetho. This is no place to describe their treatment of the intervals between the VIth and XIIth and XIIth and XVIIIth dynasties, which the reader will find fully discussed in Hall's Ancient History of the Near East, VIth edition, 1924. Some of his conclusions will not be universally accepted, but being both an archaeologist and a trained historian he is able to classify and arrange the various kinds of evidence that have to be considered, and to estimate the full value of each and its bearing upon the period that he is treating. His decisions on chronology are not those of a mere excavator or a student of Egyptology from books, but those of a man who has lived for many years with the great collections of Egyptian antiquities in the British Museum, and whose duties have made it necessary for him to handle them daily. His principal dates are as follows: