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 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 to

Paopi 9 Paopi 8 - Coptic Calendar - Paopi 10 The ninth day of the Coptic month of Paopi, the second month of the Coptic year. On a common year, this day corresponds to October 6, of the Julian Calendar, and October 19, of the Gregorian Calendar T ...

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 The flooding of the Nile has been an important natural cycle in Egypt since ancient times. It is celebrated by Egyptians as an annual holiday for two weeks starting August 15, known as ''Wafaa El-Nil''. It is also celebrated in the Coptic Church ...

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 ...

Sirius Sirius is the list of brightest stars, brightest star in the night sky. Its name is derived from the Ancient Greek language, Greek word , or , meaning 'glowing' or 'scorching'. The star is designated α Canis Majoris, Latinisation ...

in the fourth month of the

season of the Harvest The Season of the Harvest or Low Water was the third and final season of the lunar and civil Egyptian calendars. It fell after the Season of the Emergence (') and before the spiritually dangerous intercalary month ('), after which the New Year's ...

. 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 Silt is granular material of a size between sand and clay and composed mostly of broken grains of quartz. Silt may occur as a soil (often mixed with sand or clay) or as sediment mixed in suspension with water. Silt usually has a floury feel when ...

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 Ptolemaic is the adjective formed from the name Ptolemy, and may refer to: Pertaining to the Ptolemaic dynasty * Ptolemaic dynasty, the Macedonian Greek dynasty that ruled Egypt founded in 305 BC by Ptolemy I Soter * Ptolemaic Kingdom Pertaining ...

and Roman periods meant the season lost about one day every four years and was not stable relative to the

solar year A tropical year or solar year (or tropical period) is the time that the Sun takes to return to the same position in the sky of a celestial body of the Solar System such as the Earth, completing a full cycle of seasons; for example, the time fro ...

Gregorian calendar The Gregorian calendar is the calendar used in most parts of the world. It was introduced in October 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII as a modification of, and replacement for, the Julian calendar. The principal change was to space leap years dif ...

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 The decans (; Egyptian ''bꜣktw'' or ''baktiu'', "hoseconnected with work") are 36 groups of stars (small constellations) used in the ancient Egyptian astronomy to conveniently divide the 360 degree ecliptic into 36 parts of 10 degrees each, bo ...

. 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