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The months of the year were designated by two systems. In the first system, which is the earlier and which continued to be used alongside the later system, the months were designated by numbers within the three seasons (Table 9.10). |
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Later, the festivals celebrated within the months came to be used as a sort of shorthand method for designating the months and eventually came to be used as the names for the months. By the time of the New Kingdom, the months were sometimes referred to by names. |
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A further subdivision of the month was made into what is called "decades". The Egyptians distinguished 36 stars or constellations that rose during the hours of the night and extended this notion of "decans" to divide the year into 36 parts, each of 10 days. Thus each month was divided into three parts, called decades, which are intermediate in size between day and month and are analogous to the unit of week in that sense. The Egyptians did not use these units in the counting sense of a calendar unit, however. |
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| Table 9.10 The Egyptian civil calendar. | | Number | Season | Month | Month Name | Deity | Type | | 1 | Akhet | I | Thoth | Tekhi | Goddess | | 2 | Akhet | II | Phaophi | Ptah-aneb-res-f | God | | 3 | Akhet | III | Athyr | Het-hert | Goddess | | 4 | Akhet | IV | Choiak | Sekhet | Goddess | | 5 | Peret | I | Tybi | Amsu | God | | 6 | Peret | II | Mechir | Rekeh-ur | God | | 7 | Peret | III | Phamenoth | Rekeh-netches | God | | 8 | Peret | IV | Pharmuthi | Rennutet | Goddess | | 9 | Shemu | I | Pachons | Khensu | God | | 10 | Shemu | II | Payni | Khenthi | God | | 11 | Shemu | III | Epiphi | Apt | Goddess | | 12 | Shemu | IV | Mesore | Heru-khuti | God |
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