(ii) In several inscriptions certain dates are given to the " manifestation of Sothis," assumed to mean the he-
liacal rising of Sirius, which, for 2000 years before our a;ra, for the latitude of Heliopolis, fell on the "idth of July. (Biot, indeed, Recherches des quelques dates abso- lues, etc., 1853, contends that the calculation must be made for the place at which the inscription is dated — each day of difference, of course, making a difference of four j'ears in the date B.C.) The dates of these " man- ifestations" are — (1) '• 1 Tybi of 1 1 Takelut H" (Brugsch) : the quaternion of years in which 1 Tybi would coincide with 20th Jidy is B.C. 845-42. (2) " 15 Thoth in a year, not named, of Rameses VI, at Thebes" (Biot, ut sup.; De Rouge, Memoire siir quelques phenomenes celestes^ etc., in lievue A rcheol. ix, 686). The date implied is 20th July, B.C. 1265-62 (Biot, Uth July, B.C. 1241-38). (3) " 1 Thoth in some year of Rameses HI at Thebes" (Biot and De Rouge, ut sup., from a festival-calendar). The date implied is, of course, B.C. 1325-22 (Biot, 14th July, B.C. 1301-1298). (4) "28 Epiphi in some year of Thothmes HI" (Biot, etc., from a festival-calendar at Elephantine). This implies B.C. 1477-74 (Biot, 12th July, B.C. 1445-42). The antiquity of this calendar is called in question by De Rouge {A then. Franguis, 1865), and by Dr. Brugsch, who says the style indicates the 19th dynasty. Mariette assigns it to Thothmes HI {Journal Asiatique, tom. xii, Aug., Sept., 1858). Lepsius, who in 1854 doubted {MonatshericJit of Berlin R. Acad.), now contends for its antiquity {KOnigshuch der Aeff. p. 164), having contrived to make it fit his chronology by assuming an error in the numeral of the month. (5) " 12 jMesori in 33 Thothmes IH" (:\Ir. S. Poole in Trans. R. S. Lit. V, 340). This implies B.C. 1421-18. These dates would make the interval from Rameses III to Takelut II 480 years, greatly in excess even of Ma- netho's numbers, and more so of Lepsius's arrangement, in which, from the 1st of Rameses HI to the 11th of Takelut II are little more than 400 years. Again, the interval of only 152 years, imphed in (3) and (4), is im- questionably too little : from the last year of Thothmes III to the first of Rameses HI, Lepsius reckons 296, Bun- son 225 years. Lastly, in (4) and (5) the dates imply an interval of 56 years, which is plainly absurd. The fact must be that these inscriptions are not rightly under- stood. M^e need to be informed what the Egyptians meant by the " manifestation of Sothis ;" what method they followed in assigning it to a particular day ; espe- cially when, as in Biot's three instances, the date occurs in a calendar, and is marked as a "festival," we ask, were these calendars calculated only for four years? when a new one was set up, were the astronomical no- tices duly corrected, or were they merely copied from the preceding calendar ?
(iii) "At Semneh in 2 Thothmes HI, one of the three feasts of the Commencement of the Seasons is noted on 21 Pharmuthi." Biot [ut sup.) supposes the vernal equi- nox to be meant, and assigns this to 6th April in the quaternion B.C. 1445-42 (as above), in which 6th April 7cas 21 Pharmuthi. But the vernal equinox is 7wt the commencement of one of the three seasons of the Egyp- tian year; these start either from the rising of Sirius, 20th July, or, more jirobably, from the summer solstice : as this, in the 14th century, usually fell on 6th July, the two other tetramenies or seasons would commence cir. 5th Nov. and 6th jNIarch. Now 6th March did coincide with 21 Pharmuthi in B.C. 1321-18, at which time it also occupied precisely the place which Mr. Stuart Poole assigns to " the great IJukh" ( Lcps., "the greater Heat"), just one zodiacal month before the little Rukh, or ver- nal equinox {Hoi-(e ^Eijypt. p. 15 sq.).
(iv). "On 1 Athyr of 11 Amenophis III the king ordered an immense basin to be dug, and on the 16th s. m. celebrated a great panegyr^' of -the waters" (Dr. Hincks, On the Ai/e of Ih/nasti/ XVIII, Trans. R. Irish A cad. vol. xxi, pt. i ; comp. j\Ir. S. Poole, Ti'ans. R. S. Lit. V. 340). If the waters were let in when the Nile had reached its highest point — which, as it is from 90 to 100 days after the summer solstice, in the 14th cen- tury would be at 4-14 Oct. — the month-date indicates
MANETHO
V03
MANETHO
one of the years B.C. 1369-2G. But if (which is certain- h' more likely ) the time chosen was some weeks earlier, the year indicated would be after B.C. 1300. So this and the preceding indication may agree, and so far there is some evidence for the supposition that the sothiac epochal year B.C. 1322 Ues in the reign of Thothmes III. (See Dr. Hincks, ut suj}., and in the Dublin Univ. Magazine, 1846, p. 187.)
(v) An astronomical representation on the ceiling of the Kameseum (the work of Rameses II) has been sup- posed to yield the year B.C. 1322 as its date (bishop Tomlinson, Trans. R. S. Lit. 1839 ; Sir G. Wilkinson, Manners and Customs, etc., 2d ser. p. 377); while Mr. Cullimore, from the same, gets B.C. 1138. The truth is, these astronomical configurations, in the present state of our knowledge, are an unsolved riddle. Lepsius's in- ferences {Chron. der Aefj.) from the same representa- tions in the reigns of Rameses IV and VI are little more than guesses, too vague and precarious to satisfy any man wlio knows what evidence means.