"-The length of the year during the Middle Kingdom is not known from any contemporaneous document. Because in the Pyramid texts dating from the Old Kingdom there is mention of "five days," it was erroneously concluded that in that period a year of 365 days was already known.14
But no inscription of the Old or Middle Kingdom has been found in which mention is made of a year of 365 days or even 360 days. Neither is any reference to a year of 365 days or to "five days" found in the very numerous inscriptions of the New Kingdom prior to the dynasties of the seventh century.15 Thus the infer--
12 Pirkei Rabbi Elieser 8; Leket Midrashim 2a; Ginzberg, Legends, VI, 24.
13 Exodus 12 : 2. ** Breasted, A History of Egypt, p. 14.
15 The table of the dynasties in Egypt and their chronological ordei are the subject of die forthcoming Ages in Chaos.
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ence that "the five days" of the Pyramid Texts of the Old Kingdom signify the five days over 360
is not well founded.
There exists a direct statement found as a gloss on a manuscript of Timaeus that a calendar of a solar year of three hundred and sixty days was introduced by the Hyksos after the fall of the Middle Kingdom; 16 the calendar year of the Middle Kingdom apparently had fewer days. ^The fact I hope to be able to establish is that from the fifteenth century to the eighth century before the present era the astronomical year was equal to 360 days; neither before the fifteenth century, nor after the eighth century was the year of this length. In a later chapter of this work extensive material will be presented to demonstrate this point.
The number of days in a year during the Middle Kingdom was less than 360; the earth then revolved on an orbit somewhat closer to the present orbit of Venus. An investigation into the length of the astronomical year during the periods of the Old and Middle Kingdoms is reserved for that part of this work which will deal with the cosmic catastrophes that occurred before the beginning of the Middle Kingdom of Egypt.
^.Here I give space to an old Midrashic source which, taking issue with a contradiction in the scriptural texts referring to the length of time the Israelites sojourned in Egypt, maintains that
"God hastened the course of the planets during Israel's stay in Egypt," so that the sun completed 400 revolutions during the space of 210 regular years.17 These figures must not be taken as correct, since the intention was to reconcile two biblical texts, but the reference to the different motion of the planets in the period of the Israelites' stay in Egypt during the Middle Kingdom is worth mentioning.
In Midrash Rabba,18 it is said on the authority of Rabbi Simon
16 See Bissing, Geschichte Aegyptens (1904), pp. 31, 33; Weill, Chronologie egijptienne, p. 32.
But cf. also "The Book of Sothis" of Pseudo-Manetho in Manetho (transl. Waddell), Loeb Classical Library; there the introduction of the reform of adding five days to a year of 360 days is ascribed to the Hyksos King Aseth, who also introduced the worship of the bull calf Apis.
robin-bobin
17 An unknown Midrash quoted in Shita Mekubetzet, Nedarim 31b; see Ginzberg, Legends, V, 420.
18 Midrash Rabbah, Bereshit (ed. Freedman and Simon), ix, 14.
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that a new world order came into being with the end of the sixth world age at the revelation on Mount Sinai. "There was a weakening (metash) of the creation. Hitherto world time was counted, but henceforth we count it by a different reckoning." Midrash Rabba refers also to "the greater length of time taken by some planets." 19
19 Ibid., p. 73, footnote of the editors.
CHAPTER 6
The Shadow of Death
AN ENTIRE YEAR after the eruption of Krakatoa in the East - Indies in 1883, sunset and sunrise in both hemispheres were very colorful. Lava dust suspended in the air and carried around the globe accounted for this phenomenon.1
In 1783, after the eruption of Skaptar-Jokull in Iceland, the world was darkened for months; records of this phenomenon are found in many contemporary authors. One German contemporary compared the gloomy world of the year 1783 with the Egyptian plague of darkness.2
The world was gloomy in the year of Caesar's death, —44. "After the murder of Caesar the dictator and during the Antonine war," there was "almost a whole year's continuous gloom,"
wrote Pliny.3 Virgil described this year in these words: "The sun . . . veiled his shining face in dusky gloom, and godless age feared everlasting night. . . . Germany heard the clash of arms through all the sky; the Alps rocked with unwonted terrors . . . and spectres, pale in wondrous wise, were seen at evening twilight." 4
On September 23, —44, a short while after the death of Caesar, on the very day when Octavian performed the rites in honor of the deceased, a comet became visible at daytime; it was very bright and
1 The Eruption of Krakatoa: Report, ed. by G. J. Symons, pp. 40 f.
2 Ibid., p. 393; W. J. Phythian-Adams, The Call of Israel (1934), p. 165.
3 Natural History, Bk. ii, 30.
* Virgil, Georgics (transl. H. R. Fairclough, 1920), i, 466.
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moved from north to west. It was seen for only a few days and vanished while still in the north.6
It appears that the gloom which enveloped the world the year after Caesar's death was caused by the dust of the comet dispersed in the atmosphere. The "clash of arms" heard "through all the sky" was probably the sound that accompanied the entrance of the gases and dust into the earth's atmosphere.
If the eruption of a single volcano can darken the atmosphere over the entire globe, a simultaneous and prolonged eruption of thousands of volcanoes would blacken the sky. And if the dust of the comet of —44 had a darkening effect, contact of the earth with a great cinder-trailing comet of the fifteenth century before this era could likewise cause the blackening of the sky. As this comet activated all the volcanoes and created new ones, the cumulative action of the eruptions and of the comet's dust must have saturated the atmosphere with floating particles.
Volcanoes vomit water vapor as well as cinders. The heating effect of the contact of the globe with the comet must have caused a great evaporation from the surface of the seas and rivers.
Two kinds of clouds—water vapor and dust—were formed. The clouds obscured the sky, and drifting very low, hung as a fog. The veil left by the gaseous trail of the hostile star and the smoke of the volcanoes caused darkness, not complete, but profound. This condition prevailed for decades, and only very gradually did the dust subside and the water vapors condense.
"A vast night reigned over all the American land, of which tradition speaks unanimously: in a sense the sun no longer existed for this ruined world which was lighted up at intervals only by robin-bobin
frightful conflagrations, revealing the full horror of their situation to the small number of human beings that had escaped from these calamities." 6
"Following the cataclysm caused by the waters, the author of the
6 Dio Cassius, Roman History, xlv. 7; Pliny ii. 71. 93; Suetonius Caesar 88; Plutarch Caesar 69.
3. It is remarkable that a new world age was proclaimed by an Etruscan diviner named Voclanius as having begun with the approach of the comet of —44. Cf. "Komet." by Stegemann in Handworterhuch des deutschen Aberglaubens (1927). 6 Brasseur, Sources de Fhistoire primitive du Mexique, p. 47.
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Codex Chimalpopoca, in his history of the suns, shows us terrifying celestial phenomena, twice followed by darkness that covered the face of the earth, in one instance for a period of twenty-five years." "This fact is mentioned in the Codex Chimalpopoca and in most of the traditions of Mexico." 7