Nile River: The Compass of Egyptian Society

Egyptian society has been around this world for a while and they have managed to make the best of it. This society is rich in culture, heritage and inventions, we go from the creators of the sundials (Barnett, 1999, P.16) to the masterminds of the great pyramids of Egypt, all these cool fun facts point to this well-rounded nation. From timekeeping of a sundial, the Egyptian created a more formal way to keep track of their days, months and year by tailoring a calendar to their customs hence, the Egyptian calendar. The Egyptian calendar has been around for a good while, it was invented around 4231 B. C (Winlock, 1940, P. 448) this community placed their way of living around the Nile river which dictated their daily life, the Nile river was a compass to how their year was divided.

The river was divided into three seasons: flood season, spring season, and low harvest season, these seasons were a key factor on how the Egyptians adjusted their calendar (Winlock, 1940). This calendar was extremely valuable to them because it reflected their religious way of life along their festivities and cultural rituals. At first their calendar was based on the moon (lunar cycle) and later on they moved to a solar calendar which went in hand in hand with the three seasons of the Nile river (Rymer, 2019). The solar calendar remained as the official calendar because it was very consistent on their days and it kept them on the right time, it was consistent enough that it was used until the middle ages (Rymer 2019). The structure of the Egyptian calendar was quite different than many normal calendars. The backbone of the calendar consisted of the three seasons from the Nile river, each week consisted of ten days and a month had three weeks this was called decades or decans (Rymer 2019).

This totaled to a 30-day month. Each season was of 4 long months, this came out to be 360 days so what happened to the other 5 days? Their calendar was 360 days, but they added 5 extra days so they can have 5 sacred days to themselves, this allowed them to worship their god. Sirius played a huge role in this heritage. What is Sirius? Sirius is the brightest star and it stands out from all the other stars in the sky. Sirius played a vital role in the Egyptian community because it served as multiple purposes: they worshiped the star as a god and they used it as an indicator that told when the Nile was on its way into flooding season (. July 19th is when the Egyptian had their new year’s, and it was when the brightest star (Sirius) reappeared on the eastern horizon, this also worked as a watchman towards the summer solstice (“A Luminous Star Important to Ancient Egypt”).

I believe that Sirius was a vital point in Egyptian culture because it was the foundation of their religion. Sirius was not only embedded in their calendar, but it was engraved as a god that kept the spiritual body alive. Akhet was another name for flood season, this was the first season of the Egyptian year and within this time period you had your first 4 months: Tekh, Menhet, Hwt-Hrw and Ka-Hr-Ka. After those 4 long month you had Proyet (spring season) and with this you had: Redh Wer, Redh Neds, and Renwet.

The last season was called Shomu, (low harvest season) this season dragged Hnsw,Hnt-Htj, Ipt-Hmt and Wep-Renpet. There really isn’t any proof who came about this calendar, in fact people say it was created 432 B. C. (There isn’t concrete evidence on the Egyptian calendar, hence there isn’t someone who made it therefore we don’t have someone who controlled the calendar, but we do find a person who alters it and made it better. Julius Caesar helped make the Egyptian calendar better, he added a leap- year every four years (although originally there wasn’t a leap year. This is to my understanding) (Rymer, 2019) and fixed some smaller details concerning the calendar. The progression of the Egyptian calendar was quite amazing, first started with a lunar based calendar this was to really just to keep track of the Nile river and its seasons. Here in the first step of the Egyptian calendar we see how Sirius, the sun, and even the Nile have impacted the peoples. We see how the believe of the star Sirius is essential to their culture not only culture but their identity as a whole. I had the privilege to travel to Egypt and eat next to the Nile river, and if honest with you… the river was pretty disgusting. It was dirty, shallow and it even smelled bad. So why was it so important ancient Egyptians?

If we were to look at Egypt back around 5,000 years ago we would see that their land was basically all desert, geographically speaking they had very poor land. But! The Nile river allowed them to have fertile soil. See the river provided rich soil for them to grow crops and make their goods, the Nile River became so symbolic to the ancient Egyptians that it became a symbol for life. Ancient Egyptian grasped their identity on these things and having a way to keep this tracked in order for them to grow as a community was very important. This is why the Egyptian calendar was such a critical thing back in the day.

As I’m writing this paper I am in awe because ancient Egyptian were extremely smart. You can see how their religion ties in with their culture and it proof to us that they did everything in a smart way. I’ll give you another example of how smart the Egyptians were. I went to go visit the 3 pyramids in Cairo and we learned that they did not use any type of glue to stick together the blocks for the pyramids. They had to make them so smooth that when it was placed on top of the other one it wouldn’t move. Now that I researched about this calendar and I was able to travel back to Egypt in my head I feel like I know so much and I feel as if every part of the puzzle is in.