I.

Egyptian intro
A. Interesting Introduction
1. I bet most of you probably think that you know everything about
the Egyptian race. Well, I think you don’t!
B. In this paper, I will cover a question I asked earlier. It was, “What did the
Egyptians have that we know about and/or use today?”
C. So, now that you know what I will be covering, lets get started!

II. Calendars
A. Calendar Introduction
1. Some people know that the Egyptians had calendars in their day.
 - Calendar -

The Ancient Egyptians used three different kinds of calendar systems: the 'agricultural'
calendar for day-to-day use, an astronomical calendar and a moon-calendar for certain
rituals and events.

With the 'agricultural' calendar, the year was divided in 3 seasons of 4 months: akhet
(inundation), peret ("the coming forth of the land out of the inundation") and shemu
("harvesting"). Each month counted 30 days, which means that the year had a total
number of 360 days. To these were added 5 "epagomenal" days, which were considered
as the birthdays of Osiris, Horus, Seth, Isis and Nephthys.
The months were named as follows (the pronunciation of these names has been based on
Coptic) :

• Akhet I = Thot, named after the god Thot

• Akhet II = Paopi
• Akhet III = Athor, named after the goddess Hathor
• Akhet IV = Khoiak
• Peret I = Tobi
• Peret II = Mekhir
• Peret III = Pnamenoth
• Peret IV = Pharmuthi
• Shemu I = Pakhons, named after the god Khonsu
• Shemu II = Paoni
• Shemu III = Epep
• Shemu IV = Mesore, "the birth of Re"

Many temples would keep a calendar with a list of rituals and festivals to be held at
specific dates. In the temple of Esna, for instance, this list was inscribed on the many
columns of the pronaos of the temple. In the temple of Horus at Edfu, the month of
Khoiak was especially rich in festivals.

With 365 days per year, this calendar would slowly veer away from the true year: every 4
years, the "agricultural" calendar would advance 1 day. After some time, the
"inundation"-season would no longer coincide with the real inundation. Every 1460
years, the "agricultural" calendar would coincide with the true year for 4 years.
To deal with this discrepancy, the Ancient Egyptians used an astronomical way of
measuring time: they observed the rising of the star Sirius along with the sun, which
always coincided with the beginning of the inundation. Knowing at what "agricultural"
date this event occurred, has allowed us to have a fairly exact means of calculating dates
according to our own calendar system.

Certain rituals, especially those involving Osiris and the lunar deity Khonsu, had to be
performed at given times and during specific lunar phases. To calculate when such rituals
needed to be performed, the Ancient Egyptian priests kept a calendar of lunar phases,
according to which a month coincided with one lunar cycle. Each day was either named
after a lunar phase or after a ritual.
Senet is an Egyptian race game and may be the ancestor of our
modern backgammon. We know of this game through ancient Egyption
boards that have survived to this day. More than 40 have been
discovered, some in very good condition with pawns, sticks or
knucklebones still intact. The oldest known representation of Senet is
in a painting from the tomb of Hesy (Third Dynasty circa 2686-2613
BCE).

The game board is composed of 30 squares: 3 rows of 10 squares

each. If we number each square, the board can be represented like
this:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11
21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
The path of the pawns probably followed a reversed S across the
board.
Squares 26 to 30 have symbols on them. We will represent them in
order by X, O, III, II and I. It seems that the square with an X, carrying
the sign nfr, was beneficial, whereas the one with an O, associated
with water, had a negative meaning. Square 15, also called the "square
of Rebirth," might have been the starting square.
Other elements found with the gameboards were pawns. The Hesy
painting shows a game with seven pawns for each player. Then, some
time after 1600 - 1500 BCE, the players were represented with seven
or five pawns. Some games have even been found with ten pawns per
player.
The movement of pawns was probably decided by the throw of four,
two-sided sticks (as depicted in the Hesy painting) or, later,
knucklebones might have been used to determine the moves.
What was the function of Senet? A game or something more? In his
book, Lhôte notices that the first pictures show two human players
whereas later the human player is depicted alone with an invisible
opponent. It appears that Senet began as a simple game and later
acquired a symbolic, ritual function.
Of course, the original rules of Senet are not known. No record of the
rules on papyrus or tomb wall has ever been discovered. It is very
difficult to reconstruct the game through the pieces and the tomb
images.