On the Historical Antiquity of the People of Egypt, Their Vulgar Kalendar, and the Epoch of Its Introduction (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1863 Excerpt: ...it himself. Probably, therefore, he only meant to deny his doing so in contradiction with himself, and his nowhere making Manetho to reckon "according to fixed Alexandrian," i.e. according to solar years of 365J days. Yet he devotes the whole space pp. 470-482 of his " Chronology " to the latter proof as regards the period of the gods, and remarks, p. 474: " We find the sum to be 17,520 years or 12 Sotliic periods of 1,460 years, i.e. of solar years, as was to be expected would be the case for the reign of the Gods." Professor Lepsius, by assuming that Manetho adopts vague years since Menes, lowers the early epochs of Manetho's history, reokoned upwards from B.C. 340, its fixed terminus, by 355s = % years, 158 days, 6 hours, for the reign of Menes, and by 3905 = 2 years, 245 days, 18 hours, for that of the 10 Thinite Kings or the conclusion of the reign of the demi-gods. It would be about as rational to assume an annalist of our own time to reckon from the Creation to Pope Gregory XIII. in Gregorian or Astronomical years of 365 days, 5h. 48m. 47s. 8,091--t. C00595, and from Gregory XIII. downwards in Julian years of 365 days, 6 hours. Nor is this all. At p. 165, Professor Lepsius observes: "We have seen that, besides the civil year of 365 days, the Egyptian priests used in their chronological lists a fixed year of 365J days;" and p. 407: " Manetho.... the Egyptian priest and keeper of the records...., to whom the learning of the Egyptian priesthood was as a profession adhered in all his statements faithfully to the ancient sources." As to the third point denied by Professor Lepsius, the reader is referred to a subsequent note. All I have here still to remark is, that the author of the "Chronologie der i...