Neugebauer described the ancient Egyptian civil calendar as “the only intelligent calendar which ever existed in human history.” His statement can be appreciated by tracing the ancient Egyptians’ gradually developing sense of time from an initial awareness of the day to the full realization that the year had a constant length of 365 days. The introduction of the civil calendar, based on solar years as opposed to lunar years, resulted in the development of our present‐day Gregorian calendar.
Humans first became conscious of the existence of the day through the regular reappearance of the sun after its disappearance the evening before. Observing the regular change of one crescent moon to the next, they became aware of the longer time unit of the month. The practical demands of temple administration led them to develop their ability to count and calculate and they realized that one lunar month was made up of 29 or 30 days.
With the advent of the agricultural civilization in the Nile...
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References
Belmonte, Juan Antonio. The Ramesside Star Clocks and the Ancient Egyptian Constellations. Calendars, Symbols, and Orientations: Legacies of Astronomy and Culture. Uppsala, Sweden: Universitetstryckeriet, 2003. 57–65.
Neugebauer, O. The Exact Sciences in Antiquity. 2nd ed. New York: Dover, 1969.
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Rose, Lynn E. Sun, Moon, and Sothis: A Study of Calendars and Calendar Reforms in Ancient Egypt. Deerfield Beach, FL: KRONOS, 1999.
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Ragai, J., Young, G.D. (2008). Calendars in Egypt. In: Selin, H. (eds) Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-4425-0_8484
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