Ipet-hemet (month)

Ipet-hemet called the Egyptian calendar the harvest period and the fourth month of the season Schemu . From the predynastic period to the end of the Middle Kingdom , Ipet-hemet represented the period from May 1st to May 30th as originally the twelfth month of the Sothis calendar .

background

mythology

The mythological background was formed by the hierarchy of deities from the 4th dynasty in the Old Kingdom , in which Re as the sun god took the top and first position and merged with other deities. With Re-Harachte , for example, Re is described as the sun god appearing in the east. It is the actual name of the god "Re of Heliopolis ".

In Thebes , Amun is documented as a local deity from the 11th Dynasty . In order to assert themselves against the strong worship of Re from the Old Kingdom, the priests Amun and Re combined to form the new name for God Amun-Re. Amun was known as the "Re whom one worships in Karnak ". In the New Kingdom he rose to become the main god as "the king of gods and lord of the thrones of both countries".

With the change to the sun god, which began in the Old Kingdom, the moon god Thoth moved to the second place and was given the names "Wesir des Re", "Scribe des Re" and "Child of Re". The Sothis calendar took into account the worship of the sun, which is why the first month of Wepet-renpet was also referred to as the "month of birth of Re-Harachte" or "month of birth of Re".

Associated with the beginning of the 19th dynasty , the old Seth cult was revived, in which Seth is regarded, among other things, as the “Companion of Horus ” and at the same time the old moon deity Thoth is the focus.

Change of calendar form

In the Ebers calendar around 1517 BC Ipet-hemet was on the second Schemu month and dated from May 15 to June 13 ( Elephantine ) and from May 20 to June 18 ( Memphis ).

Alan Gardiner as well as Richard Anthony Parker suspect that Ipet-hemet changed the year form in the course of calendar history. Ipet-hemet was postponed to the eleventh month at the latest in the New Kingdom . The name of the fourth Schemu month later changed accordingly to “ Re's birth month ”.

literature

Rolf Krauss : Sothis and moon data: studies on the astronomical and technical chronology of ancient Egypt , Gerstenberg, Hildesheim 1985, ISBN 3-8067-8086-X

Tycho Q. Mrsich: Questions about the ancient Egyptian law of the "isolation period" before the New Reich - a research report from the working group "Historiogenesis of legal norms" , Utz, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-89675-970-1

Richard Anthony Parker : The calendars of ancient Egypt , Chicago Press, Chicago 1950

Siegfried Schott : Ancient Egyptian Festival Dates , Publishing House of the Academy of Sciences and Literature, Mainz / Wiesbaden 1950

Individual evidence

↑ Cf. Tycho Q. Mrsich: Questions about the ancient Egyptian law of the "period of isolation" before the New Reich - a research report from the working group "Historiogenesis of legal norms" , Utz, Munich 2005, § 33.

[1] Cf. Tycho Q. Mrsich: Questions about the ancient Egyptian law of the "period of isolation" before the New Reich - a research report from the working group "Historiogenesis of legal norms" , Utz, Munich 2005, § 33.