Volume 1

A history of the pharaohs ... / by Arthur Weigall.

  • Arthur Weigall
Date:
[1925-]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A history of the pharaohs ... / by Arthur Weigall. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    SEASONAL TESTS OF THE DATES a time of year at which the weather in that district is at its best and coolest. 10. At the Hetnub quarries there is an inscription in the year of the jubilee of Meryre, about 2555 B.c. It is dated in the 1st month of the 1st season, which corresponds to April, the end of the quarrying season. 11. A Sinai inscription of the same reign is dated in about the 19th year, 4th month of 3rd season, day 6, which, according to me, is 2555 B.c., the time of year being early in March, in the cool season. An inscription at Hamma- mat of a year later gives a date a few days earlier. 12. In the Cairo Museum there is a table of offerings of a Superintendent of Scribes, named Sethu. It was found at Gizeh, and is numbered by Reisner G.4710. It dates from the Fourth Dynasty, about 2780 b.c. Cut into this offering- table is a small tank, having three steps around it. On the lowest step is written: “ Season of Shorn, height 22 cubits ” ; on the middle step : “ Season of Pero, height 23 cubits ” ; and on the top step : “ Season of Akhe, height 25 cubits.” It is obvious that these figures refer to the height of the water in the tank, consequent upon the state of the Nile ; and the table must have served as a petition, or a thankoffering, for the best possible river levels through¬ out the year. Shorn was then, evidently, the season of the lowest Nile, and Akhe the season of the highest Nile. In 2780 b.c. this was pretty nearly exactly so : Shorn then lasted from the end of January to the end of May, and Akhe from the end of May to the end of September. My date is thus confirmed. These twelve instances will show that the dates I have submitted in the foregoing pages are in perfect accord with the evidence; and I think, therefore, that the whole ques¬ tion of early Egyptian chronology back to the time of Menes may now be said to have been placed on a satis¬ factory, if not on an absolutely final, basis. The Earliest Dates in Egyptian History Let us now see whether we can carry Egyptian dates back farther than this; and for this purpose we must
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