circular form and was intended to represent the Eye of Shu, or the Eye of Ra, or the Eye of Horus. To this amulet the name of hypocephalus " was given by P. J. F. de Horrack in 1862. Several hypocephali are known, and copies of most of them have been published, e.g., by Birch (Proceedings Soc. Bibl. Arch., vols. VI and VII), by de Horrack (Rev. Arch., Paris, 1862; Études Arch., Leyden, 1885; and Proceedings Soc. Bibl. Arch., vol. VI), by Leemans ("Hypocéphale Égyptien" in the Actes of the Oriental Congress, Leyden, 1885), by Nash (Proceedings Soc. Bibl. Arch., vol. XIX), and by Budge (Catalogue of the Lady Meux Collection, Second ed., London, 1896). Hypocephali vary from 4 in. to 7 in. in diameter, and the texts are usually written in black ink on a yellow ground, e.g., B.M. Nos. 8445 a-f, but B.M. No. 8446 is written in yellow ink on a black ground. One example in bronze is known, viz., B.M. No. 37330; it was engraved for Tche-her, the son of Utchat Shu, , and was found at Abydos. Strangely enough, almost the earliest publication of a hypocephalus is that given in a work by Joseph Smith, Jr. (1805-1844), the founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, entitled A Pearl of Great Price, 1851, p. 7. The' remarks made there about it have no archaeological value.

The texts and Vignettes found on hypocephali are to all intents and purposes the same, though in some they are fuller than in others. The following is a description of the Meux Hypocephalus, which is one of the best of this class of amulet known. A line of text runs round the outer edge and reads: "I am Amen who is in the Shetat (Underworld). I am an honourable Spirit among the sailors of Rā. I come in and go out among the honourable ones. I am the Great Soul sparkling [in] his form. I come forth from the Tuat at his will. I come, I come forth from the Utchat (i.e., Eye of Ra). I come forth from the Ţuat with Rā, from the House of the Prince in Anu (Heliopolis). I am a Spirit-Soul, A hastening from the Ţuat. Give the things [needed] for his form! Give thou heaven to his soul, and the Underworld to his Sāḥ,

(Spirit-body?). I come forth from the Utchat." Vignettes. 1. A snake-god offering the Utchat,, to the god

Menu. 2. An Utchat-headed goddess with a lotus, W, and †. 우.

3. The Cow-goddess and the Four Sons of Horus, a lion and the ram of Åmen. 4. The Ogdoad of Amen, Rā,, and . Text. “O Amen, who hidest thyself, and concealest thy form, who illuminest the Two Lands (i.e., Egypt) with thy Form in the Tuat! He shall make my soul to live for ever." Vignettes.

1. The Boat of Ra, with Horus in the bows spearing a serpent in the water. 2. Harpokrates seated and holding a whip and lotus. 3. The Boat of the Moon. An Ape-god restoring to the Moon-god his Eye. The deceased Shainen, I, is working the boat. 4. A goddess falling prostrate and Vignettes. 1. A god with

two faces (like Janus), wearing

and holding a jackal sceptre,

, and . 2. Boat of Horus, Isis and Nephthys. 3. Boat of Khepera, with an Ape-god (Thoth) restoring his Eye. 4. The Boat of Horus-Sept (the Eastern Horus). 5. The god Amen, with four ram's heads; on each side the Ape of Thoth, with paws raised in adoration. Texts. 1. "O Bà (i.e., Soul), begetter of Forms, hiding thy body from thy children, destroy [every] obstacle to the light which can arise to the Two Utchats (i.e., the Sun and Moon), and to his soul and body, Mut provides plans (?). Let him put the fear of himself into his enemies. Let Shainen enter into the Ţuat of the gods, without repulse for ever and ever." 2. "O Ba, mighty one of terror, lord inspiring fear, greatly victorious one, who givest heat to the two august Utchats, whose Forms are august, to whom Mut has given his body, who hidest thy body in life! His Image becomes the emanation of the Lion, who is mightily victorious, and feeds the forms [of the dead]. Make to come forth and to go in the Osiris Shainen for ever."

TIME

THE hieroglyphic texts give the following divisions of time :ånt = the “twinkling of an eye,"

hat, a second,

(Сopt. orno), an hour,

○ hru (Copt. 2007), day, E,

abt (Copt. eoT), month, 'fo, fi, renpit

* O (Соpt. ролε), year. The day contained twenty-four hours, the calendar month thirty days, or three "weeks" of ten days (on) each, and the year twelve calendar months. The Set Period, , usually consisted of thirty years; the Ḥenuti Period,

O

of 120 years; a period of unlimited time

was called Heḥ, 88, and Tchet,, indicated Eternity.

Classical writers say that the Egyptians during the Graeco-Roman

Period used the Phoenix Period and the Sothic Period; the former containing 500, or 540, or 1,000, or 7,006 years, and the latter 1,461 years. In inscriptions in which the writers pray that the king may live for a very long time the following expressions are met with :

THE oldest year in Egypt consisted of twelve months, each containing thirty days, in all 360 days; the Calendar of Lucky and Unlucky Days given on the reverse of British Museum Papyrus 10474 represents the primitive Egyptian year. Very early in the Dynastic Period the Egyptians found that their year was too short, and so they added five days to the 360 days. These five days were called "the days over the year," , and the birthdays of Osiris, Horus, Set, Isis, and Nephthys, respectively, were celebrated on them. This year is generally known as the vague or calendar year, and was shorter than the true solar year of 365 2422 mean days by nearly a quarter of a day. This being so the vague year would be every fourth year nearly one day shorter than the solar year, and would in time work backward through all the months of the year, and after some hundreds of years the summer festivals would have to be celebrated in the winter. But the Egyptians must have had some means of checking the course of the vague year as it moved backwards, and it is possible that the annual rise of the Nile and the Inundation were sufficient guides to them in their agricultural operations. Ptolemy III Euergetes I attempted to bring the vague year in line with the solar year by ordering the addition of a sixth epagomenal day to the year every fourth year. Many writers have tried to show that

1 See Devéria, Notation des centaines de mille et des millions, Paris, 1865; Brugsch, Thesaurus (Astronomische und Astrologische), p. 200 ff.

the Egyptians knew of and used the Sothic year, which began when the star Sept (i.e., Sothis, Sirius or the Dog-star) rose with the sun; this usually happened on July 19th or 20th. The Sothic year was a few minutes longer than the solar year, and the Sothic Period contained 1,460 Sothic years or 1,461 vague or Calendar In pre-dynastic times it is probable that the Egyptians only knew or recognized two seasons, summer and winter, which was the custom among many peoples in the Sûdân until comparatively recent times. But the dynastic Egyptians divided their year into three seasons, each containing four months: Akhet, Li i.e., the season of the sprouting, or bursting forth, of the crops, was the Egyptian Winter. Pert, i.e., the season for coming.

forth, or Summer, and Shemut,

period of the Inundation. In

the

i.e., the hot, watery texts the months of

each season are numbered from 1 to 4, thus the Annals of

year 32nd, month third of Shemut, day sixth

it is certain that the Egyptians gave a name to each month, and that each name connected its month with a certain festival. Some of these names can be traced through the Coptic names of the twelve Egyptian months, which are as follows:

The name eoort

month was Tekhi,

clearly

=

The four months of Shemut.

or Thoth. Another name for the \\, which is also a title of Thoth; &&0wp is or Hathor; and xo&&K represents UU,

Kaherka, which was the name of a festival.

An ostrakon

(B.M. 29560) transcribed by Erman (Aeg. Zeit., Bd. XXXIX,

p. 129) shows that п&&Пe is derived from

and xip or ip from

, Penapt,

PenpaMekhir, the month of the Mekhir festival, and ñåрë20τп from , Pen-Amenḥetep, meaning that

it was the month set apart for the festivals ordered by Åmenhetep III of the XVIIIth dynasty. The Copts reckon years by the Era of Diocletian, or the Era of the Martyrs, which began on the day equivalent to August 29th A.D. 284. The Coptic year consists of twelve months of thirty days each, with five additional days in a common year, to make up 365 days; an extra day is added every fourth year. The Julian Leap Years and the intercalary years of this Era fall together, and therefore the first day of Thoth always corresponds to August 29th. The Copts call the five (or six) additional days "the little month," П&от пкOYXI. Thus, though the Copts use forms of the ancient Egyptian names of the months for their months, they make their year begin on August 29th, though they make their New Year's Day to fall on September 10th or 11th. Some think that the days on which the months were to begin were fixed by the Romans at Alexandria about 30 B.C. If this be so, the explanation given by the Copts, that they decided to make August 29th the first day of their year from religious motives, must be regarded as a pious fiction which they promulgated about two and a half centuries later. One thing seems certain, viz., that their year does not begin when the ancient Egyptian year began. The Shemut season began with the rise of the Nile about June 15th, and ended with the final fall of the river about October 15th. The winter crops were sown and reaped in the season of Akhet, i.e., during our months of NovemberFebruary, and the summer crops were sown and reaped in the season of Pert, i.e., during the months of March-June. The modern Egyptians do the same at the present time (see Lane, Modern Egyptians, Vol. II, p. 27). Egyptologists say that Akhet began on July 19th or 20th, Pert on November 15th, and Shemut on March 16th, and if they are correct it can only be concluded that the ancient Egyptians, like the Copts, did not make their year begin with the beginning of the season following that of the Inundations, as we should expect.