"
2. The Official Rites
SUCH, then, were the principal events of the farmer's calendar in
ancient Egypt, and such the simple religious rites by which he
celebrated them. But we have still to consider the Osirian festivals
of the official calendar, so far as these are described by Greek
writers or recorded on the monuments. In examining them it is
necessary to bear in mind that on account of the movable year of the
old Egyptian calendar the true or astronomical dates of the official
festivals must have varied from year to year, at least until the
adoption of the fixed Alexandrian year in 30 B.C. From that time
onward, apparently, the dates of the festivals were determined by
the new calendar, and so ceased to rotate throughout the length of
the solar year. At all events Plutarch, writing about the end of the
first century, implies that they were then fixed, not movable; for
though he does not mention the Alexandrian calendar, he clearly
dates the festivals by it. Moreover, the long festal calendar of
Esne, an important document of the Imperial age, is obviously based
on the fixed Alexandrian year; for it assigns the mark for New
Year's Day to the day which corresponds to the twenty-ninth of
August, which was the first day of the Alexandrian year, and its
references to the rising of the Nile, the position of the sun, and
the operations of agriculture are all in harmony with this
supposition.
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