Egyptian Old Kingdom Calendar

[dragonsteeth]

It is claimed there are references, in Old Kingdom Egyptian texts, to five special or additional days 'over the year' which are said to undermine Velokovskian type claims that such epagomenal days only came to be adopted at a later date closer to the reign of King Numa of Rome around 720 BCE. But the 5 additional days mentioned for the Old Kingdom circa 2,500 BCE can't have been a reference to epagomenal days as that would have required the use of a 360 day Decan calendar which wasn't recorded in Egypt until much later during the Middle Kingdom.

It is generally agreed that five epagomenal days 'above the year' were meant to bridge the gap between the 360 day year (or 360 day calendar of 36 Decans) to harmonise it with our 365 day Solar year. If Decans had not been introduced at the time of the Old Kingdom their five additional days must have related to something entirely different?

It was only in the Middle Kingdom that images of the 360 day style star charts started to appear on the inside of their coffin lids. This is close to the time circa 2,150 when records for a 360 day year also began to be inscribed on clay tablets from Ur III in Babylonia.

The five extra epagomenal days would only have been required in the Old Kingdom if both a 360 day calendar and a 365 day solar year were in use. Today the difference between the solar year and the 12 lunar month lunar 'year' is about 11 days so unless this gap has changed this can not account for the special Old Kingdom five days either. Biblical records suggest a 360 day year at the time of the Deluge but a 360 day Solar year on its own can not explain away the Old Kingdom 5 extra days either. (The 360 day year recorded in Genesis was probably a much later addition for the Bible account of the Flood)

Unless evidence can be found that a 360 day calendar with 36 Decans had already been established at the time of the Old Kingdom the 5 additional days referred to in their ancient texts must have related to something entirely different to the five epagomenal days adopted much later and used by the Egyptians and used in Mesopotamia and Persia in the 1st Millennium BCE.