In his History of Egypt, Vol. II, p. 32, Professor W. M. Flinders Petrie sets out what purports to be a list of reported Feast-dates connected with divers Sothic-Risings as recorded by priests apparently flourishing in that comparatively recent age when KHEM of the ancient ROMIU, after a period of influences originating from Mykenæ, had become transmuted into Hellenized EGYPT. In this list we do not get the original reports, perhaps not even the actual Egyptian records-only an attempted reproduction of them. In certain respects (e.g., where the list departs unwittingly from what may not unreasonably be deemed a scientific arrangement), it is a very muddled performance, being obviously the work of some one who had failed to realize the fact that the original reports were constructed on a definite basic plan. One hesitates to think that the Egyptian priests, from whose archives the notes appear to have been extracted, were equally undiscerning.

To speak plainly, however, this archæological curiosityquite apart from its own imperfections-has completely baffled everybody. To this day no one has been able to make head or tail of it; no one can see any good-any possibilities-in it. One thing alone is recognised. Sothic Risings, it is repeatedly urged, are annual occurrences, though of course, after a long

but definite interval, some particular Rising marks the end of one Sothic-Cycle and the beginning of another, and may therefore be described as epochal. But the Risings, the Feasts for which have been reported in this extraordinary manner, come under neither of these two heads! Hence the pathetic plaint on every side that, from this mysterious list, it is impossible to discover on what principle, if any, the reporting priests selected these particular calendrical data-the 7th, the 14th, the 21st, and the 28th of the month--with, however, a quaint occasional lapse into the 9th, the 22nd, the 29th, or the 1st-rather than any of the innumerable others, seemingly just as important and suitable, that were available!

Again, a perpetual stumbling-block for all interested in Egyptology-specialists not excluded-has been the meaning of, and the practical importance attached in the remote past to, what are known as the Sed and Henti Heb-periods. Says George St. Clair

"That there was a thirty-year celebration, called the Sed festival, is evident in the inscriptions; but the Egyptologists have hardly known what to make of it. Erman says, 'The day of a king's accession was kept as a yearly festival, and celebrated with special splendour on the 30th anniversary.' Naville in his Osorkom takes the same view; and Brugsch also speaks of the thirty years' jubilee of Rameses II. But this can hardly have been all that is meant, and is more likely to have been a secondary celebration modelled on a great one. On an obelisk of Queen Hatshepsu's, at Karnak, we read-She has celebrated in honour of Amen the first Sed festival. Naville is puzzled, because on no supposition can he make this celebration to have taken place later than the 16th year of her reign (not the 30th). Besides, we may remark that she holds the feast in honour of her god, and not as her own jubilee" (Creation Records, p. 279).

Then, after referring to the ideas of Brugsch and Gensler, St. Clair proceeds

"Our own suggestion is simpler and at the same time more adequate, for the periodical insertion of a 14th month would be easy, and a 30-day festival every 30th year would be an event to look forward to in every generation, while the kings would be very likely to mark their own 30th

year by imitative celebrations "......" Every fourth Sed festival would require to be treated as a leap-year, and have two months intercalated instead of one, and then the arrangement would work as well as the Julian Calendar before Pope Gregory's rectification. The Egyptians actually had some festival recurring at intervals of 120 years" (Ib., p. 280). Something was no doubt done to supplement the inadequacies of the 360° Spheroid (which was about 5 days shorter than the Natural Year), and that something appears to have been ingeniously turned into legendary form, and even eventually spiritualized, by the priests; but, in what we know of ancient Romic history, there is no evidence, so far as I am aware, that the Calendar was ever manipulated in the way here suggested by St. Clair. The 120-years, Festival that he refers to was the spheroidal Henti-Heb just about to be explained, and, like every other spheroidal Heb, it fell into place quite naturally, without any such periodical modifications as those proposed.

Writing as recently as 1914, Dr. E. A. Wallis Budge refers to certain "Re-birth" mysteries (the passing of a corpse through a bull's skin') whereby the Pharaoh was supposed to receive a fresh lease of life and strength-though I doubt whether that was really the underlying meaning; and he (i.e., Dr. Budge) does not hesitate to say that "The performance of these ceremonies was the sole reason for the celebration of the Set Festival" (A Short History of the Comment seems unnecessary.

Egyptian People, p. 29). Professor Petrie thinks that these Hebs were "at fixed astronomical dates, and not dependent on the years of the reign." The second part of this statement is unquestionable. But, as regards the first part, the idea it conveys, though not altogether wrong, is also not exactly right. Undoubtedly the Feasts set forth in Petrie's Report-List were held in

1 Note.--Compare the idea of the Pygmies in Africa that, after death, a man's body enters a Great Serpent--a conception that the Romiu themselves once entertained in connection with the defunct Ra, who, they held, was subsequently re-born in spiritual form in a double cave on an island in a lake.

connection with certain Sōthic-Risings. But what kind of Sothic-Risings? Sothic-Risings were annual events. Also, one such Rising occurred at the end of each Sōthic-Cycle, and may therefore be called epochal. These reported Feasts, however, were in connection with Sōthic-Risings that were neither annual not epochal! True, the Risings actually selected for report were " astronomical" phenomena. True, also, they were "fixed." But in what sense-apart from the fact that they were annual, and might or might not be epochal? In the sense that their importance for purposes of selection depended on the expiration-point of certain periodal divisions of the 364° Spheroid regarded as a Cycle of 1456 spheroidal years. In the Report-List, the calendrical data-spaced out at regular intervals (7 spheroidal days, or 28 spheroidal years) which are really periodal divisions of that character-confirm this. They show that the particular annual Feasts reported were reported because of their organic relation to what turn out to be spheroidally based stretches of Time--periods known to the Romiū as Sedperiods, and (in connection with their original 360° Spheroid), commonly called "Thirty Years' periods." Moreover, the "Sed festival of Sirius' rising" which, in his History of Egypt, Vol. I, p. 131, Petrie speaks of as having taken place in the 2nd regnal year of Mentu-hetep II (now stated to have been Mentuhetep IV) of the Eleventh Dynasty, is not included in the Report-List. Possibly calendrical data for it were wanting.

Again, in his History of Egypt, at pp. 38 and 39, Professor Breasted of Chicago University, speaking of the Pharaoh's attire on ceremonial occasions, says

"He wore...and a simple garment suspended by a strap over one shoulder, to which a lion's tail was appended behind.".

Then, as regards the Crown Prince, Professor Breasted adds

"On the thirtieth anniversary of his appointment by his father as crownprince to the heirship of the kingdom, the king celebrated a great jubilee called the Feast of Sed,' a word meaning 'tail' and perhaps ecmmemorating his assumption of the royal lion's tail at his appointment thirty years before."