4th century imperial bath complex inaugurated in Egypt's Alexandria

By Nevine El-Aref , Saturday 1 Apr 2017

Egyptian Minister of Antiquities Khaled El-Enany and members of parliment inaugurated Alexandria's cistern and imperial bathing complex area in the Kom El-Dikka archaeological site.

The area had been undergoing excavation and restoration since 1960 by an Egyptian-Polish mission from Warsaw University.

Mahmoud Afifi, head of the ministry's Ancient Egyptian Antiquities Department, said that the newly inaugurated area will be included within the Kom Al-Dikka tourist path, which includes the Roman amphitheater, the bird villa and residential houses from the Hellenistic period until the Islamic era.

El-Enany describes the bathing complex as "one of the finest edifices of its time," and that the bathing halls had welcomed hundreds of bathers at a time.

The complex also includes palestrae for physical exercises, colonnade passages and amenities such as public latrines.

Water was supplied to the complex using huge cisterns and heated by a complex system of furnaces and pipes.

The minister and the parlimentary delegates also paid a visit to the planned Mosaic museum in downtown Alexandria to inspect the ongoing work and address any obstacles to its completion.

During the tour, Mohamed Abdelmaguid, director-general of the Underwater Archaeological Department, introduced a three-phase plan to develop the Qayet Bey Citadel and its surroundings.

Abdelmaguid also reviewed a plan for the construction of the first underwater museum beneath the city's eastern harbour, which once was the ancient Alexandria royal area.

Abdelmaguid suggests the building of an underwater park to promote diving as well as the establishment of a training centre for underwater archaeology.

Source: http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/9/41/262047/Heritage/GrecoRoman/th-century-imperial-bath-complex-inaugurated-in-Eg.aspx

Museum Pieces - Sunk Relief Representation of Ptolemy II

Sunk Relief Representation of Ptolemy II

Although the Ptolemaic Period ushered in a long period of foreign rule, the Macedonian kings of that dynasty did not interfere with the Egyptian artistic traditions of the preceding three milennia. Ptolemy II Philadelphos, like his father Ptolemy I Soter, the founder of the dynasty, continued the practice of building and decorating temples in traditional Egyptian fashion.

While this is not to say that the Macedonian rulers did not have Greek artists portray them according to Greek artistic conventions, here the Greek ruler is shown in a purely Egyptian guise, wearing the traditional nemes-headdress of the pharaoh. The style of the relief, including the deeply cut navel, the horizontal treatment of the torso muscles, the "golf ball" chin, and the upturned smile, is common in representations from Dynasties XXIX and XXX (circa 399–342 B.C.) and was readily adopted by the Ptolemies into their iconographic program. Visible behind the king is the figure of a goddess in another scene.

Medium: Granite

Place Made: Behbeit el Higra, Egypt

Dates: 285 or 282-246 B.C.E.

Period: Ptolemaic Period

Dimensions: 27 3/16 x 23 5/8 x 2 3/8 in. (69 x 60 x 6 cm) (show scale)

Accession Number: 72.127

Credit Line: Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund

Rights Statement: Creative Commons-BY

Berenice II and the Golden Age of Ptolemaic Egypt - A Bryn Mawr Classical Review

Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2014.03.12

Dee L. Clayman, Berenice II and the Golden Age of Ptolemaic Egypt. Women in antiquity.   Oxford; New York:  Oxford University Press, 2014.  Pp. xii, 270.  ISBN 9780195370898

Reviewed by Elizabeth D. Carney, Clemson University

During the peak of Alexandrian literary culture, Ptolemaic poets and intellectuals celebrated the life and virtues of Berenice II, daughter of Magas, king of Cyrene and wife of the third Ptolemy, Euergetes. Nonetheless, dynastic violence, not the glamour and renown generated by supportive poets, characterized the beginning and end of her life. Magas had arranged for her to marry the future Ptolemy III, but after Magas’ death, Berenice’s mother instead compelled her to marry Demetrius the Fair. Young Berenice killed the bridegroom her mother had chosen (she supposedly had found him in bed with her mother) and then took herself off to Alexandria to marry her father’s preferred groom, by now Ptolemy III. Berenice had six children by Ptolemy III, but soon after her husband’s death, Berenice’s son Ptolemy IV arranged his mother’s murder.

Dee Clayman has created the first lengthy study of Berenice’s career and place in literature. Clayman’s background and scholarship has been, primarily, in Hellenistic poetry so, not surprisingly, this study’s strength lies in analysis of the many texts that mention or allude to Berenice, though Clayman also deals with Berenice’s actions and policies, to the degree that the poor and largely absent narrative sources permit.

The introduction provides a brief sketch of Berenice’s life, her role in contemporary poetry (particularly Callimachus’ “Lock of Berenice”), overviews of relevant historical and literary sources, a discussion of Ptolemaic image-making (Clayman does not want to characterize it as “propaganda”), the methodology of her approach, and a note on conventions about dating, spelling, and naming employed in her monograph.

Lost Tombs - In search of history's greatest rulers

By JARRETT A. LOBELL and ERIC A. POWELL
Tuesday, July 16, 2013

The improbable discovery last year of Richard III’s skeleton under a parking lot in Leicester, England, is a reminder that while some burials of great historical figures are lost to posterity, careful archaeological sleuthing could still bring them to light. The debate over where to rebury the notorious English king illustrates how important finding the physical remains of these lost rulers can be. And study of Richard III’s remains promises to add to our understanding of both the man himself and the time he lived in. Finding a ruler’s lost tomb may be the most romantic discovery possible in archaeology, but it can also be an opportunity to create a richer picture of ancient life.

Here are the stories behind the lost final resting places of seven great royal figures, which, if found, could give us exciting insights into our collective past.

Nefertiti, Great Royal Wife and Queen of Egypt

Ruled ca. 1348-1330 B.C.

In the 1880s, residents living near the ancient Egyptian city of Amarna discovered a large multichambered rock-cut tomb. It was one of many such tombs at Amarna, but its impressive size distinguished it from the others. Unfortunately, the tomb, called Amarna 26, has been badly damaged by looters, weather, and time, and many of the most significant artifacts were removed at some point, either in antiquity or more recently. Relatively little of the tomb’s fragile decoration is intact. Nevertheless, enough inscribed artifacts do survive—including more than 200 shabti figurines, an alabaster chest, and two large granite sarcophagi—that archaeologists are reasonably certain the tomb, also called the Royal Tomb, belonged to the 18th Dynasty pharaoh Akhenaten and his daughter Meketaten.

The Ancient Library of Alexandria

The West’s most important repository of learning

by J. Harold Ellens   •  05/01/2013


In March of 415 C.E., on a sunny day in the holy season of Lent, Cyril of Alexandria, the most powerful Christian theologian in the world, murdered Hypatia, the most famous Greco-Roman philosopher of the time. Hypatia was slaughtered like an animal in the church of Caesarion, formerly a sanctuary of emperor worship.1 Cyril may not have been among the gang that pulled Hypatia from her chariot, tearing off her clothes and slashing her with shards of broken tiles, but her murder was surely done under his authority and with his approval.

Cyril (c. 375–444) was the archbishop of Alexandria, the dominant cultural and religious center of the Mediterranean world of the fifth century C.E.2 He replaced his uncle Theophilus in that lofty office in 412 and became both famous and infamous for his leadership in support of what would become known as Orthodox Christianity after the Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon (451), when basic Christian doctrine was solidly established for all time.

Cyril’s fame arose mainly from his assaults on other church leaders, and his methods were often brutal and dishonest. He hated Nestorius, bishop of Constantinople, for example, because Nestorius thought Christ’s divine and human aspects were distinct from one another, whereas Cyril emphasized their unity. At the Council of Ephesus in 431, Cyril arranged for a vote condemning Nestorius to take place before Nestorius’s supporters—the bishops from the eastern churches—had time to arrive. Nor was Cyril above abusing his opponents by staging marches and inciting riots. It was such a mob, led by one of Cyril’s followers, Peter the Reader, that butchered the last great Neoplatonic philosopher, Hypatia.

Alexandria, Egypt's 'Pearl of the Mediterranean'

by Rick Steves

Most tourists in Egypt visit only Cairo and Luxor. Few visit Alexandria, just a three-hour drive away -- the country's second city, and one of the great cities of the Mediterranean. Egypt's historical capital for almost a millennium, today the "Pearl of the Mediterranean" is a favorite summer getaway for locals who appreciate its cosmopolitan flavor and cooler climate. It's like Cairo in its mega-millions intensity, but cleaner and quieter, and facing the Mediterranean instead of the Nile.

Alexandria, founded in 331 B.C. by Alexander the Great, is a fabled place. Queen Cleopatra ruled from here, back when the city was, along with Rome, one of two in the ancient world with a million people. Back then, it rivaled Rome as a cultural and intellectual capital. Alexandria's awe-inspiring lighthouse (or Pharos) -- one of the seven wonders of the ancient world -- marked its harbor, and its legendary library was the world's largest. No ship could dock here without giving up its books to be copied for this, the ultimate repository of knowledge. Tragically for all of civilization, the library burned (likely around 48 B.C.), and today only its legend -- and a fragment of a single scroll (now kept in Vienna) -- survives.

History has been harsh: No trace of Alexander's day survives, Cleopatra's city is now under the sea, the library is long gone, and the lighthouse has tumbled (the only surviving image of it is engraved on a coin). Of its ancient wonders, only a hint of Alexandria's street plan, a few archaeological digs, and the towering Pompey's Pillar survive today.

The nearly 90-foot-tall Pompey's Pillar, carved out of a single mighty piece of granite, was shipped 500 miles from Aswan down the Nile to this spot 1,700 years ago. It stands like an exclamation mark, reminding all who visit that today's city sits upon what was a mighty urban center of a million ancient Egyptians.

Collection of Graeco-Roman tombs uncovered in Alexandria

By chance, a Graeco-Roman cemetery has been discovered in Al-Qabari district in Alexandria

by Nevine El-Aref , Thursday 14 Feb 2013


During routine archaeological survey at an area known as the "27 Bridge" in Al-Qabari district, one of Alexandria’s most densely populated slum areas, archaeologists stumbled upon a collection of Graeco-Roman tombs.
Each tomb is a two-storey building with a burial chamber on its first floor. The tombs are semi-immersed in subterranean water but are well preserved and still bear engravings.

Mohamed Abdel Meguid, head of Alexandria's Antiquities Department, explained that the tombs are part of a larger cemetery known as the “Necropolis” (or City of the Dead) as described by Greek historian Strabo when he visited Egypt in 30BC. According to Strabo, the cemetery included a network of tombs containing more than 80 inscriptions, while each tomb yielded information about burial rituals of the Hellenic period.

The newly discovered collection of tombs, Abdel Meguid pointed out, is a part of the western side of the cemetery that was dedicated to the public and not to royals or nobles. The tombs are empty of funerary collections or mummies, corpses, skeletons or even pottery.

“This is a very important discovery that adds more to the archaeological map of Alexandria,” Minister of State for Antiquities Mohamed Ibrahim said, adding that the discovery would allow scientists to decipher more about the history of ancient Alexandria and would also add another tourist destination to the city.

Ibrahim said that this and similar excavations were conducted as part of archaeological inspections routinely carried out at the request of constructors who purchased the land. According to Egyptian law, every piece of land should be subject to archaeological inspection before it can be claimed as a free zone for construction.

The area was previously subject to archaeological survey in 1998 when Alexandria governorate decided to build Al-Qabari Bridge over Abdel-Qader Hamza Street in the district.

Excavation at the time uncovered more than 37 tombs, among which a very distinguished tomb bearing a coffin in the shape of a bed, commonly known as the wedding bed. On top of it was a red sheet and two pillows.

Source: http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/9/41/64798/Heritage/GrecoRoman/Collection-of-GraecoRoman-tombs-uncovered-in-Alexa.aspx

Ancient Egypt City Aligned With Sun on King's Birthday

by Stephanie Pappas

The Egyptian city of Alexandria, home to one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, may have been built to align with the rising sun on the day of Alexander the Great's birth, a new study finds.

The Macedonian king, who commanded an empire that stretched from Greece to Egypt to the Indus River in what is now India, founded the city of Alexandria in 331 B.C. The town would later become hugely prosperous, home to Cleopatra, the magnificent Royal Library of Alexandria and the 450-foot-tall (140 meters) Lighthouse of Alexandria, one of the wonders of the ancient world. Today, more than 4 million people live in modern Alexandria.

Ancient Alexandria was planned around a main east-west thoroughfare called Canopic Road, said Giulio Magli, an archaeoastronomer at the Politecnico of Milan. A study of the ancient route reveals it is not laid out according to topography; for example, it doesn't run quite parallel to the coastline. But on the birthday of Alexander the Great, the rising sun of the fourth century rose "in almost perfect alignment with the road," Magli said.

The results, he added, could help researchers in the hunt for the elusive tomb of Alexander. Ancient texts hold that the king's body was placed in a gold casket in a gold sarcophagus, later replaced with glass. The tomb, located somewhere in Alexandria, has been lost for nearly 2,000 years.

Ancient pots found in Alexandria development dig

A collection of authentic clay pots has been found in Alexandria during development work near the Greco-Roman Museum


by Nevine El-Aref , Thursday 5 Apr 2012

The Ministry of State for Antiquities (MSA) has called on Alexandria governorate and all relevant authorities to stop immediately digging works in the vicinity of the Greco-Roman Museum. A collection of authentic pots have been uncovered during digging linked to an Alexandria governorate development project. The area is located midway between the museum and the governorate building.

MSA Minister Mohamed Ibrahim, in an attempt to protect the area from further interference, authorised the MSA inspectorate to file a police report in Alexandria to halt all digging works. An archaeological team is to be formed to inspect the area and recover all artefacts found.

Hypatia of Alexandria

To conclude this "Alexandria" week and the International Women's Day read the following article about Hypatia of Alexandria:

"Life is an unfoldment, and the further we travel, the more truth we comprehend. To understand the things that are at our door is the best preparation for understanding those that lie beyond."

Hypatia

In the four hundred and fifteenth year of the Common Era, in the city of Alexandria, a tragedy occurred that, according to those who write history, was so insignificant it has barely rated a mention in even the most extensive of historical records. However, this event was not only tragic for the individuals involved, but has had far-reaching consequences for anyone who has ever valued the importance of intellectual freedom and scientific enquiry.

Hypatia of Alexandria, a mathematician, was dragged from her carriage and savagely murdered by a Christian mob in 415CE. She is perhaps better remembered for how she died rather than the way in which she lived. However, Hypatia lived an extraordinary life as the pre-eminent mathematician, philosopher, astronomer and astrologer of her time.

It is not surprising that we have very little knowledge of Hypatia's life. Even in the early fifth century, Christian historians had achieved predominance and it is unlikely that they would have wanted to consign knowledge of this tragedy to history. She was a strong supporter of free enquiry and her murder is believed by many to symbolise the end of an era of intellectual freedom. Margaret Wertheim, in her excellent book 'Pythagoras' Trousers' states, "The great era of Greek mathematical science, which began with the birth of a man, finished with the death of a woman."

Hypatia was born at a time when attitudes to women were deeply influenced by the misogyny of Aristotelian philosophy. Although Plato, and Pythagoras before him, had believed in the intellectual equality of women and both philosophers had encouraged full education of women, Aristotle felt that they did not have the intellectual capabilities of their male counterparts. It was due to the good fortune of having an enlightened father that Hypatia was able to rise above this misogyny and become one of the most educated and influential people of her time.

Alexandria and Egypt

Alexandria, the brilliant Greek city state known as "The Bride of the Mediterranean", wore its distinctly Egyptian flavour with pride, and it was more pharaonic than previously supposed. Salvaged sphinxes, statues, papyrus columns and blocks of stone inscribed with the names of pharaohs attest to this. The sea bed in the Great (Eastern) harbour is carpeted with such works -- some usurped from earlier structures and transported to adorn the Ptolemaic city.

Ptolemy I, the general who inherited Egypt, took immediate steps to accommodate the local population. On the spacious summit of a high rock in Alexandria (where the so-called Pompey's Pillar stands today) he constructed the Serapeum, a temple to house the god Osir-Apis (Serapis in Greek), a hybrid god is attributed to two sources: an Egyptian familiar with local tradition, and a priestly family acquainted with Greek rituals.

Rhakotis (Re-kadit), the site chosen by Alexander for his new capital, was neither a sparsely populated settlement of nomads and their cattle as often described, nor "the wretched fishing village" described by Idris Bell in his Egypt from Alexander the Great to the Arab Conquest. Its strategic suitability as a harbour was recognised as far back as Egypt's 18th Dynasty (c. 1567 BC) when an Egyptian community was settled there. It grew over a period of two centuries, and by the reign of Ramesses II had a large enough population for him to build a temple in honour of Osiris.

During the Saite Period in the sixth century BC, an Egyptian garrison was stationed at Rhakotis. The local population further expanded and the temple was enlarged. By the reign of Nektanebo II, the last Egyptian pharaoh before the Greek conquest, it was so important a community that plans were made (which did not materialise) to develop a royal necropolis for pharaonic burials.

When Dinocrates, an experienced Greek city planner from Rhodes, designed Alexandria on the rectangular blueprint of Hellenic cities, Rhakotis was automatically absorbed within the city limits. Today's districts of Mina Al-Bassal, Kom Al-Shufaga and Kermous are built on its ruins.

Underwater archaeology is a relatively new field of specialisation and one that is reaping remarkable rewards. Using modern equipment to map objects on the sea bed, a joint European-Egyptian mission under the directorship of Jean-Yves Empereur (renowned scholar and director of research at the National Centre for Scientific Research, and of the Centre for Alexandrine Studies), was launched in 1997 to save the submerged remains of the port and palace area of Alexandria. Among the mass of stone objects that litter the sea bed is a part of a monolith, believed to be of Ptolemy I, that might be one of a pair of statues that stood at the entrance to the harbour -- which confirms that the city was more integrated with pharaonic tradition than previously supposed.

Source: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2012/1087/he2.htm

Alexander and his Macedonian heirs

He stayed only a few years in Egypt yet Alexander left a lasting legacy. Jill Kamil looks into recent research

Macedonian conquest of Egypt, its consequences and its reflection in literature and art were the subject of an international workshop at the University of Warsaw towards the end of 2011. Its aim was to explore the means by which Alexander's successors, the Ptolemies -- who successfully ruled Egypt for three centuries and made it once more a brilliant kingdom -- systematically elevated and propagated Alexander's memory by identifying themselves with the deceased hero and reusing his visual and literary heritage.

The colourful personality of Alexander the Great has been memorialised in fiction, films and biographies. His death and multiple burials have long held fascination. Indeed, the search for his tomb continues. Seeking clues from material remains, today's scholars continue to unravel the compelling mysteries that surround his brief stay in Egypt.

Alexander, son of Philip II of Macedonia, had already made himself master of the disunited Greek world when, after defeating the Persians in the Levant, he marched on Egypt. The country was then under Persian rule and the Egyptians in a state of revolt against their overlords. It was not without enthusiasm, therefore, that they joined Alexander's march towards their capital Memphis where the Persian garrison was quickly discharged

The local population forthwith called down blessing on Alexander as their liberator, and their welcome was genuine. Egyptians and Greeks not only shared a common enemy but a common culture. From the sixth century BC Greek traders and sailors had established colonies in Egypt, in the Delta, the Fayoum, Middle and Upper Egypt. Many Greeks had married Egyptians and had chosen either Egyptian or Greek names for their children. They shared the same gods (calling them either by their Egyptian or Greek names), and honoured the living pharaoh who was regarded as a god. What the Egyptians may have failed to realise, however, was that Alexander planned to join Egypt to his already widely extended empire, and that his arrival was to prove the beginning of the end of its identity as an independent nation.

From Ptolemaic and Roman rule to the Arab Conquest (332 BC - 646 AD)

Ptolemaic Egypt began when a follower of Alexander the Great Ptolemy I Soter declared himself Pharaoh of Egypt in 305 BC and ended with the death of Queen Cleopatra VII and the Roman conquest in 30 BC. The Ptolemaic Kingdom was a powerful Hellenistic state, extending from southern Syria in the east, to Cyrene to the west, and south to the frontier with Nubia. Alexandria became the capital city and a center of Greek culture and trade.

To gain recognition by the native Egyptian populace, they referred to themselves as successors to the Pharaohs. The later Ptolemies took on Egyptian traditions, had themselves portrayed on public monuments in Egyptian style and dress, and participated in Egyptian religious life. Hellenistic culture continued to thrive in Egypt well after the Muslim conquest.

Eventually the Ptolemies faced rebellions of native Egyptians often caused by an unwanted regime and were involved in foreign and civil wars that led to the decline of the kingdom and its annexation by Rome.
       

Cleopatra: A Life, by Stacy Schiff

"It has always been preferable to attribute a woman's success to her beauty rather to her brains, to reduce her to the sum of her sex life"

By Gamal Nkrumah

Stacy Schiff

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize

Alexandria lets you indulge in its collective allegories and epics. From one particular historical point of view the legends are intact. From another no less academic viewpoint everything is unraveling -- from Rome to Tarsus, and Saint Mark could be turning in his grave. A heroic queen can become a coward and a saucy but stern blue-blood, a seductress. The story of the city lingers long at this historical juncture as the author takes up the narration, and in her version of Alexandria, Cleopatra's first encounter with Ceasar isn't so seamless. She isn't even one of his fans. As for Mark Anthony, he is an object of devotion, even prodigious desire.

There is sometimes a 'message in a bottle' allure about political personalities that elude their proper place in history. Cleopatra was born in 69 BC, the second of three daughters was the celebrated and legendary last queen of Egypt. She is remembered to this day as an illustrious temptress of mighty Roman men of war. Cleopatra VII's sisters -- the elder Berenice and the younger Arsinoe -- were two such no less wily women who somehow eluded their proper place in history. Why this is so is left, I suppose, to the reader's conjecture. However, questions of historical relevance must be addressed.

As a pretender to the Ptolomaic throne in the absence of her father in Rome, the elder sister was executed upon Auletes' triumphal return. His fame as a fabulously wealthy Ptolomy did not however ensure a proper place for him in history. He was after all, Auletes the Piper. He was "the pharaoh who piped his way while Egypt collapsed."

Yet it was his dutiful daughter who presided over the Ptolemaic dynasty's ruin. A feat that ironically assured that she acquired a proper place in history. Cleopatra VII ingratiated herself with her father, playing the devoted daughter and winning his affections. She was the apple of Auletes' eye.

Alexandria: The Ptolemaic Dynasty

Ptolemy I Soter

The achievements of the Greeks in the ancient world, by no means few, may have reached their peak in the city of Alexandria. No less a ruler than its namesake, Alexander III of Macedonia (Alexander the Great), Alexandria dominated the eastern Mediterranean world culturally, politically, and economically for more than nine hundred years, the latter three hundred of which it competed with even the eastern capital of the Byzantine Empire, the famous Constantinople. Few cities in the world can claim success of this magnitude for close to millenium, and even fewer still flourish to this day. Part of the reason for Alexandria's success was its location, both geographically as well as politically. Situated on the coast of the Mediterranean, it was the true bridge between Europe and Africa while still being a world all to itself. It was largely separate from the political upheavals of the Hellenistic kingdoms, and then later shaded by the Pax Romanum, as well as being quite far from the chaos of the barbarian invasions that contributed to the fall of the Roman Empire. Freed from many of the fetters that chafed against its peers, and enriched by both maritime trade and its Greek intellectual tradition, Alexandria soon earned the title "Queen of the Mediterranean."

Part of Alexandria's power and majesty came from its status as the new capital of Egypt. In 320 BC it replaced Memphis as the seat of rulership for the Ptolemaic dynasty and it remained so throughout the Byzantine period. The rest was largely due to its monopoly on the papyrus industry for the entire Mediterranean world, as well as its hold on the manufacture and export of medicines, perfumes, jewelry, and art. Additionally, many materials and goods prized by the ancient world from the east came into Alexandria and were exported from there.

Ancient Egypt: The Father Of Time

Part I: The Origin Of The Modern Calendar

By Alistair Boddy-Evans, About.com Guide

Source: http://africanhistory.about.com/od/egyptology/a/EgyptFatherOfTime.htm

The way in which we divide the day into hours and minutes, as well as the structure and length of the yearly calendar, owes much to pioneering developments in ancient Egypt.

Since Egyptian life and agriculture depended upon the annual flooding of the Nile, it was important to determine when such floods would begin. The early Egyptians noted that the beginning of akhet (inundation) occurred at the helical rising of a star they called Serpet (Sirius). It has been calculated that this sidereal year was only 12 minutes longer than the mean tropical year which influenced the flooding, and this produced a difference of only 25 days over the whole of Ancient Egypt's recorded history!

Ancient Egypt was run according to three different calendars. The first was a lunar calendar based on 12 lunar months, each of which began on the first day in which the old moon crescent was no longer visible in the East at dawn. (This is most unusual since other civilizations of that era are known to have started months with the first siting of the new crescent!) A thirteenth month was intercalated to maintain a link to the helical rising of Serpet. This calendar was used for religious festivals.

The second calendar, used for administrative purposes, was based on the observation that there was usually 365 days between the helical rising of Serpet. This civil calendar was split into twelve months of 30 days with an additional five epagomenal days attached at the end of the year. These additional five days were considered to be unlucky. Although there is no firm archaeological evidence, a detailed back calculation suggests that the Egyptian civil calendar dates back to c. 2900 BCE.

This 365 day calendar is also known as a wandering calendar, from the Latin name annus vagus since it slowly gets out of synchronization with the solar year. (Other wandering calendars include the Islamic year.)