hence it has been entirely swept away. The square fort of brickwork
at Daphnae (q.v.) was built by Psammetichus I. Of
Apries (Haa-ab-ra, Hophra) an obelisk and two monolith shrines
are the principal remains. Of Amasis (Aahmes) II. five great
shrines are known; but the other kings of this age have only
left minor works. The Persians kept up Egyptian monuments.
Darius I. quarried largely, and left a series of great granite
decrees along his Suez canal; he also built the great temple in
the oasis of Kharga.
The XXXth Dynasty renewed the period of great temples.
Nekhtharheb built the temple of Behbēt, now a ruinous heap
of immense blocks of granite. Beside other temples, now
destroyed, he set up the great west pylon of Karnak, and the
pylon at Kharga. Nekhtnebf built the Hathor temple and
great pylon at Philae, and the east pylon of Karnak, beside
temples elsewhere, now vanished. Religious building was
continued under the Ptolemies and Romans; and though the
royal impulse may not have been strong, yet the wealth of the
land under good government supplied means for many places
to rebuild their old shrines magnificently. In the Fayum the
capital was dedicated to Queen Arsinoe, and doubtless Ptolemy
rebuilt the temple, now destroyed. At Sharona are remains of
a temple of Ptolemy I. Dendera is one of the most complete
temples, giving a noble idea of the appearance of such work
anciently. The body of the temple is of Ptolemy XIII., and
was carved as late as the XVIth (Caesarion), and the great
portico was in building from Augustus to Nero. At Coptos was
a screen of the temple of Ptolemy I. (now at Oxford), and a
chapel still remains of Ptolemy XIII. Karnak was largely
decorated; a granite cella was built under Philip Arrhidaeus,
covered with elaborate carving; a great pylon was added to
the temple of Khonsu by Ptolemy III.; the inner pylon of
the Ammon-temple was carved by Ptolemy VI. and IX.; and
granite doorways were added to the temples of Month and Mūt
by Ptolemy II. At Luxor the entire cella was rebuilt by
Alexander. At Medīnet Habū the temple of Tethmosis III. had
a doorway built by Ptolemy X., and a forecourt by Antoninus.
The smaller temple was built under Ptolemy X. and the
emperors. South of Medīnet Habū a small temple was built
by Hadrian and Antoninus. At Esna the great temple was
rebuilt and inscribed during a couple of centuries from Titus
to Decius. At El Kab the temple dates from Ptolemy IX. and
X. The great temple of Edfū, which has its enclosure walls and
pylon complete, and is the most perfect example remaining, was
gradually built during a century and a half from Ptolemy III.
to XI. The monuments of Philae begin with the wall of Nekhtnebf.
Ptolemy II. began the great temple, and the temple of
Arhesnofer (Arsenuphis) is due to Ptolemy IV., that of Asclepius
to Ptolemy V., that of Hathor to Ptolemy VI., and the great
colonnades belong to Ptolemy XIII. and Augustus. The
beautiful little riverside temple, called the “kiosk,” was built
by Augustus and inscribed by Trajan; and the latest building
was the arch of Diocletian.
Farther south, in Nubia, the temples of Dabōd and Dakka
were built by the Ethiopian Ergamenes, contemporary of
Ptolemy IV.; and the temple of Dendūr is of Augustus. The
latest building of the temple style is the White Monastery near
Suhag. The external form is that of a great temple, with
windows added along the top; while internally it was a Christian
church. The modern dwellings in it have now been cleared out,
and the interior admirably preserved and cleaned by a native
Syrian architect.
Beside the great monuments, which we have now noticed,
the historical material is found on several other classes of remains.
These are: (1) The royal tombs, which in the Vth, VIth,
XVIIIth, XIXth and XXth Dynasties are fully inscribed;
but as the texts are always religious and not historical, they are
less important than many other remains. (2) The royal coffins
and wrappings, which give information by the added graffiti
recording their removals; (3) Royal tablets, which are of the
highest value for history, as they often describe or imply historical
events; (4) Private tombs and tablets, which are in many cases
biographical. (5) Papyri concerning daily affairs which throw
light on history; or which give historic detail, as the great
papyrus of Rameses III., and the trials under Rameses X.
(6) The added inscriptions on buildings by later restorers, and
alterations of names for misappropriation. (7) The statues
which give the royal portraits, and sometimes historical facts.
(8) The ostraca, or rough notes of work accounts, and plans
drawn on pieces of limestone or pottery. (9) The scarabs
bearing kings’ names, which under the Hyksos and in some other
dark periods, are our main source of information. (10) The
miscellaneous small remains of toilet objects, ornaments, weapons,
&c., many of which bear royal names.
Every object and monument with a royal name will be found
catalogued under each reign in Petrie’s History of Egypt, 3 vols.,
the last editions of each being the fullest.
(W. M. F. P.)
F. Chronology.—1. Technical.—The standard year of the Ancient
Egyptians consisted of twelve months of thirty days[1] each, with
five epagomenal days, in all 365 days. It was thus an effective
compromise between the solar year and the lunar month, and
contrasts very favourably with the intricate and clumsy years
of other ancient systems. The leap-year of the Julian and
Gregorian calendars confers the immense benefit of a fixed
correspondence to the seasons which the Egyptian year did not
possess, but the uniform length of the Egyptian months is
enviable even now. The months were grouped under three
seasons of four months each, and were known respectively as
the first, second, third and fourth month
,
,
,
of
(ỉ’ḫ·t) “inundation” or “verdure,”
pr·t (pro) “seed-time,” “winter,” and
šmw (shôm) “harvest,” “summer,”
the
“five (days) over the year”
being outside these seasons and the year itself,
according to the Egyptian expression, and counted either at
the beginning or at the end of the year. Ultimately the
Egyptians gave names to the months taken from festivals
celebrated in them, in order as follows:—Thoth, Paophi, Athyr,
Choiak, Tōbi, Mechīr, Phamenōth, Pharmūthi, Pachons, Payni,
Epiphi, Mesore, the epagomenal days being then called “the
short year.” In Egypt the agricultural seasons depend more
immediately on the Nile than on the solar movements; the first
day of the first month of inundation, i.e. nominally the beginning
of the rise of the Nile, was the beginning of the year, and as the
Nile commences to rise very regularly at about the date of the
annual heliacal rising of the conspicuous dog-star Sothis (Sirius)
(which itself follows extremely closely the slow retrogression
of the Julian year), the primitive astronomers found in the
heliacal rising of Sothis as observed at Memphis (on July 19
Julian) a very correct and useful starting-point for the seasonal
year. But the year of 365 days lost one day in four years of the
Sothic or Julian year, so that in 121 Egyptian years New Year’s
day fell a whole month too early according to the seasons, and
in 1461 years a whole year was lost. This “Sothic period”
or era of 1460 years, during which the Egyptian New
Year’s day travelled all round the Sothic year, is recorded by
Greek and Roman writers at least as early as the 1st century
B.C. The epagomenal days appear on a monument of the Vth
Dynasty and in the very ancient Pyramid texts. They were
considered unlucky, and perhaps this accounts for the curious
fact that, although they are named in journals and in festival
lists, &c., where precise dating was needed, no known
monument or legal document is dated in them. It is, however,
quite possible that by the side of the year of 365 days a shorter
year of 360 was employed for some purposes. Lunar months
↑Ten-day periods as subdivisions of the month can be traced
as far back as the Middle Kingdom. The day consisted of twenty-four
hours, twelve of day (counted from sunrise to sunset) and twelve
of night; it began at sunrise.
