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Season of the Emergence

The Season of the Emergence (Ancient Egyptian: Prt) was the second season of the lunar and civil Egyptian calendars. It fell after the Season of the Inundation (Ꜣḫt) and before the Season of the Harvest (Šmw).[1] In the Coptic and Egyptian calendars this season begins at the start of the month of Tobi (about 9 January), continues through the months of Meshir and Paremhat, before concluding at the end of Parmouti (about 8 May).[3][4][5]: 453 

Names

The pronunciation of the Ancient Egyptian name for the Season of the Emergence is uncertain as the hieroglyphs do not record its vowels. It is conventionally transliterated Peret[6][2] or Proyet.[citation needed] The name refers to the emergence of the fertile land beside the Nile from its annual flood and to the growth of vegetation and crops over the following season.

It is also known as Winter.[2]

Lunar calendar

In the lunar calendar, the intercalary month was added as needed to maintain the heliacal rising of Sirius in the fourth month of the Season of the Harvest. This meant that the Season of the Emergence usually lasted from January to May.[7] Because the precise timing of the flood varied, the months of "Emergence" no longer precisely reflected the state of the river but the season was usually the time for the planting and growth of Egyptian grain.

Civil calendar

In the civil calendar, the lack of leap years into the Ptolemaic and Roman periods meant the season lost about one day every four years and was not stable relative to the solar year or Gregorian calendar.

Months

The Season of the Emergence was divided into four months. In the lunar calendar, each began on a dawn when the waning crescent moon was no longer visible. In the civil calendar, each consisted of exactly 30 days[8] divided into three 10-day weeks known as decans.

In ancient Egypt, these months were usually recorded by their number within the season: I, II, III, and IV Prt. They were also known by the names of their principal festivals, which came to be increasingly used after the Persian occupation. These then became the basis for the names of the months of the Coptic calendar.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Alternative representations of the Season of Emergence include , , , and [2] and and .[citation needed]

References

  1. ^ a b Clagett, Marshall (1995), Ancient Egyptian Science: A Source Book, Vol. II: Calendars, Clocks, and Astronomy, Memoirs of the APS, No. 214, Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, p. 5, ISBN 9780871692146.
  2. ^ a b c Vygus, Mark (2015), Middle Egyptian Dictionary (PDF).
  3. ^ Clagett (1995), p. 14–15.
  4. ^ Tetley, M. Christine (2014), The Reconstructed Chronology of the Egyptian Kings (PDF), vol. 1, Whangarei, New Zealand: Barry W. Tetley, p. 39, ISBN 978-0-473-29338-3, retrieved 26 September 2023
  5. ^ Winlock, Herbert Eustis (1940), "The Origin of the Ancient Egyptian Calendar", Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, No. 83, New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, pp. 447–464
  6. ^ Strudwick, Nigel C. (2005), Texts from the Pyramid Age, p. 103.
  7. ^ Silverman, David P. (1997), Ancient Egypt, London: Duncan Baird Publishers, p. 93.
  8. ^ Allen, James P. (2000), Middle Egyptian: An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 103–106.