The Season of the Inundation or Flood ( egy, Ꜣḫt) was the first season of the lunar and civil

Egyptian calendar The ancient Egyptian calendar – a civil calendar – was a solar calendar with a 365-day year. The year consisted of three seasons of 120 days each, plus an intercalary month of five epagomenal days treated as outside of the year proper. Eac ...

s. It fell after the

intercalary month Intercalation or embolism in timekeeping is the insertion of a leap day, week, or month into some calendar years to make the calendar follow the seasons or moon phases. Lunisolar calendars may require intercalations of both days and months. So ...

of Days over the Year ('). and before the

Season of the Emergence The Season of the Emergence ( egy, Prt) was the second season of the lunar and civil Egyptian calendars. It fell after the Season of the Inundation (') and before the Season of the Harvest ('). In the modern Coptic calendar, the season falls bet ...

('). In the modern

Coptic Calendar The Coptic calendar, also called the Alexandrian calendar, is a liturgical calendar used by the Coptic Orthodox Church and also used by the farming populace in Egypt. It was used for fiscal purposes in Egypt until the adoption of the Gregoria ...

, this season lasts from

Paoni 12 11 Paoni - Coptic calendar - 13 Paoni Fixed commemorations All fixed commemorations below are observed on 12 Paoni (19 June) by the Coptic Orthodox Church. Saints *Departure of Pope Justus of Alexandria (135 A.D.) *Departure of Pope Cyril II o ...

to Paopi 9.

Names

The pronunciation of the ancient Egyptian name for the Season of the Inundation is uncertain as the hieroglyphs do not record its vowels. It is conventionally transliterated Akhet. The name refers to the annual flooding of the Nile.

Lunar calendar

In the lunar calendar, the intercalary month was added as needed to maintain the

heliacal rising The heliacal rising ( ) or star rise of a star occurs annually, or the similar phenomenon of a planet, when it first becomes visible above the eastern horizon at dawn just before sunrise (thus becoming "the morning star") after a complete orbit of ...

of Sirius in the fourth month of the season of the Harvest. This meant that the Season of the Inundation usually lasted from September to January. Because the precise timing of the flood varied, the months of "Inundation" no longer precisely reflected the state of the river but the season was usually the time of the annual flooding.. This event was vital to the people because the waters left behind fertile silt and moisture, which were the source of the land's fertility.

Civil calendar

In the civil calendar, the lack of leap years into the Ptolemaic and Roman periods meant the season lost about one day every four years and was not stable relative to the solar year or Gregorian calendar.

Months

The Season of the Inundation was divided into four months. In the lunar calendar, each began on a dawn when the waning crescent moon was no longer visible. In the civil calendar, each consisted of exactly 30 days divided into three 10-day weeks known as decans. In ancient Egypt, these months were usually recorded by their number within the season: I, II, III, and IV ''Ꜣḫt''. They were also known by the names of their principal festivals, which came to be increasingly used after the Persian occupation. These then became the basis for the names of the months of the

Coptic calendar The Coptic calendar, also called the Alexandrian calendar, is a liturgical calendar used by the Coptic Orthodox Church and also used by the farming populace in Egypt. It was used for fiscal purposes in Egypt until the adoption of the Gregoria ...

Notes

References