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56-465: El Lahun was initially excavated by William Flinders Petrie in 1889-1890. He mapped the town of Kahun, located the pyramid's entrance, and found many objects of daily life and went back in 1920 to continue his work. His excavations uncovered pottery and other artifacts from the city Kom. Ludwig Borchardt had also worked there in 1899 recording the architecture in Kahun. Borchardt found 1000s of papyri related to

112-500: A cache of pharaonic-era mummies in brightly painted wooden coffins in the sand-covered desert rock surrounding the pyramid. The pyramid at Lahun is dedicated to King Senwosret II . It is located west of the town and the first entrance discovered was found on the south side farther away from the pyramid than expected. Like the other Twelfth Dynasty pyramids in the Faiyum , the Pyramid of Lahun

168-727: A considerable fortune equal to 53.7 kilograms of gold, and spent most of it on buying a villa in Cairo . In 1907, Borchardt founded the German Archaeological Institute ( Deutsches Archäologische Institut ) in Cairo , and remained its director until 1928. While based in Cairo, he also directed the excavations in Heliopolis and the noble tombs of the Old Kingdom in Abu Gorab . He was also

224-768: A member of the Egyptology Committee that was in charge of the antiquities administration service in Egypt. He was forced to resign from all his archaeological positions when the Nazi Party came to power in 1933. Borchardt then went into self-imposed exile in Paris , where he died on 12 August 1938. His brother Georg Hermann, a well-regarded writer, was murdered by the Nazis in Auschwitz on 19 November 1943. Recently, controversy has arisen with

280-469: A point when the return of the bright star Sirius to the night sky was considered to herald the annual flooding of the Nile . However, because the civil calendar was exactly 365 days long and did not incorporate leap years until 22 BCE, its months "wandered" backwards through the solar year at the rate of about one day in every four years. This almost exactly corresponded to its displacement against

336-446: A rise of Sirius at all. Three specific observations of the heliacal rise of Sirius are extremely important for Egyptian chronology. The first is the aforementioned ivory tablet from the reign of Djer which supposedly indicates the beginning of a Sothic cycle, the rising of Sirius on the same day as the new year. If this does indicate the beginning of a Sothic cycle, it must date to about 17 July 2773 BCE. However, this date

392-493: A row, and any observation of that rise can date to any of those four years, making the observation imprecise. A number of criticisms have been levelled against the reliability of dating by the Sothic cycle. Some are serious enough to be considered problematic. Firstly, none of the astronomical observations have dates that mention the specific pharaoh in whose reign they were observed, forcing Egyptologists to supply that information on

448-470: A tertiary cycle. This is mathematically defined by the formula 1 a + 1 b = 1 t {\displaystyle {\frac {1}{a}}+{\frac {1}{b}}={\frac {1}{t}}} or half the harmonic mean . In the case of the Sothic cycle the two cycles are the Egyptian civil year and the Sothic year. The Sothic year is the length of time for the star Sirius to visually return to

504-420: Is about 1.1 km from the pyramid and lies in the desert a short distance from the edge of cultivation. The town was orthogonally planned, with mudbrick town walls on three sides. The fourth wall may have collapsed and been washed away during the annual inundation or covered due to the cultivation in the area. The town was rectangular in shape and was divided internally by a mudbrick wall running north to south that

560-403: Is believed to have been inhabited by the workers who both constructed the pyramid and then served the funerary cult of the king. The main function "has usually been linked to the funerary cult of Senwosret II – whose nearby pyramid complex has been understood as the main reason for its existence – housing administrators, as well as temple staff for the upkeep of his royal mortuary cult." The village

616-408: Is made of mudbrick , but here the core of the pyramid consists of a network of stone walls that were infilled by mudbrick. The pyramid stands on an artificial terrace cut from sloping ground. On the north side many mastabas were found, probably for the burial of personages associated with the royal court. In front of each mastaba is a narrow shaft leading down to the burial chamber underneath. Also on

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672-430: Is no extant mention of the Sothic cycle in ancient Egyptian writing, which may simply be a result of it either being so obvious to Egyptians that it didn't merit mention, or to relevant texts being destroyed over time or still awaiting discovery. Marc Van de Mieroop , in his discussion of chronology and dating, does not mention the Sothic cycle at all, and asserts that the bulk of historians nowadays would consider that it

728-608: Is not possible to put forward exact dates earlier than the 8th century BCE. Some have recently claimed that the Theran eruption marks the beginning of the Eighteenth Dynasty , due to Theran ash and pumice discovered in the ruins of Avaris , in layers that mark the end of the Hyksos era. Because the evidence of dendrochronologists indicates the eruption took place in 1626 BCE, this has been taken to indicate that dating by

784-460: Is too late for Djer's reign, so many scholars believe that it indicates a correlation between the rising of Sirius and the Egyptian lunar calendar, instead of the solar Egyptian civil calendar, which would render the tablet essentially devoid of chronological value. Gautschy et al . (2017) claimed that a newly discovered Sothis date from the Old Kingdom and a subsequent astronomic study confirms

840-561: The 18th Dynasty . Many have prayers inscribed on them with later mummies having texts from the Book of the Dead inscribed on them. Some mummies even contain almost all of the funerary equipment from when the person first died. Multiple mummies also had Egyptian gods depicted on their sarcophagus, like Horus . [REDACTED] Media related to El-Lahun at Wikimedia Commons Ludwig Borchardt Ludwig Borchardt (5 October 1863 – 12 August 1938)

896-523: The Julian calendar . It is an important aspect of Egyptology , particularly with regard to reconstructions of the Egyptian calendar and its history. Astronomical records of this displacement may have been responsible for the later establishment of the more accurate Julian and Alexandrian calendars . The ancient Egyptian civil year , its holidays, and religious records reflect its apparent establishment at

952-636: The Sothic ;year as well. (The Sothic year is about a minute longer than a Julian year .) The sidereal year of 365.25636 days is valid only for stars on the ecliptic (the apparent path of the Sun across the sky) and having no proper motion , whereas Sirius's displacement ~40° below the ecliptic, its proper motion, and the wobbling of the celestial equator cause the period between its heliacal risings to be almost exactly 365.25 days long instead. This steady loss of one relative day every four years over

1008-454: The precession of the equinox : For the same reason, the heliacal rising or zenith of Sirius does not slip through the calendar at the precession rate of about one day per 71.6 years as other stars do, but much slower. This remarkable stability within the solar year may be one reason that the Egyptians used it as a basis for their calendar. The coincidence of a heliacal rising of Sirius and

1064-728: The Catalogue of the Egyptian Museum ( Catalogue Général du Musée du Caire ). His main focus was Ancient Egyptian architecture. He began excavations in Amarna , where he discovered the workshop of the sculptor Thutmose . Amongst its contents was the famous bust of Nefertiti (now in the Neues Museum in Berlin). From 1902 until 1908, he undertook extensive excavations of the Pyramid of Sahure , exploring

1120-517: The Egyptian calendar to the Julian calendar . A Julian leap day occurs in 140 CE, and so the new year on 1  Thoth is 20 July in 139 CE but it is 19 July for 140–142 CE. Thus Meyer was able to compare the Egyptian civil calendar date on which Sirius was observed rising heliacally to the Julian calendar date on which Sirius ought to have risen, count the number of intercalary days needed, and determine how many years were between

1176-524: The Middle Kingdom like the rest of the site, but there have been ones that date to the Roman period. The Valley temple at Lahun is located slightly southwest of the town. The temple was most likely used for the royal mortuary cult of Senswosret II. It no longer exists as it lays under modern day cultivation. Originally, it would have been connected to the pyramid, but there is no evidence of a causeway connecting

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1232-410: The Middle Kingdom. The value 1461 could also be maintained if the date of the Sothic rise were artificially maintained by moving the feast in celebration of this event one day every fourth year instead of rarely adjusting it according to observation. It has been noticed, and the Sothic cycle confirms, that Sirius does not move retrograde across the sky, like other stars, a phenomenon widely known as

1288-476: The New Year reported by Censorinus occurred about 20 July, that is a month after the summer solstice. Determining the date of a heliacal rise of Sirius has been shown to be difficult, especially considering the need to know the exact latitude of the observation. Another problem is that because the Egyptian calendar loses one day every four years, a heliacal rise will take place on the same day for four years in

1344-594: The Sothic cycle model. The second observation is clearly a reference to a heliacal rising, and is believed to date to the seventh year of Senusret III . This observation was almost certainly made at Itj-Tawy , the Twelfth Dynasty capital, which would date the Twelfth Dynasty from 1963 to 1786 BCE. The Ramses or Turin Papyrus Canon says 213 years (1991–1778 BCE), Parker reduces it to 206 years (1991–1785 BCE), based on 17 July 1872 BCE as

1400-408: The Sothic date (120th year of 12th dynasty, a drift of 30 leap days). Prior to Parker's investigation of lunar dates, the 12th dynasty was placed as 213 years of 2007–1794 BCE interpreting the date 21 July 1888 BCE as the 120th year, and then for 2003–1790 BCE interpreting the date 20 July 1884 BCE as the 120th year. The third observation

1456-513: The assertion that Borchardt smuggled the bust of Nefertiti out of Egypt by reporting it as an artifact made of gypsum. However, the Swiss art historian Henri Stierlin has claimed that the bust is a copy dating from 1912. In 1928, he published a proposal for the construction of the Great Pyramid . It uses an outside straight ramp that runs vertically towards the pyramid and grows with the height of

1512-453: The basis of a certain amount of informed speculation. Secondly, there is no information regarding the nature of the civil calendar throughout the course of Egyptian history, forcing Egyptologists to assume that it existed unchanged for thousands of years; the Egyptians would only have needed to carry out one calendar reform in a few thousand years for these calculations to be worthless. Other criticisms are not considered as problematic, e.g. there

1568-483: The beginning of a cycle and the observation. To calculate a date astronomically, one also needs to know the place of observation, since the latitude of the observation changes the day when the heliacal rising of Sirius can be seen, and mislocating an observation can potentially throw off the resulting chronology by several decades. Official observations are known to have been made at Heliopolis (or Memphis , near Cairo ), Thebes , and Elephantine (near Aswan ), with

1624-471: The building that could hold enough grain for the entire town. They are located on the north edge of the town next to the northern wall. These mansions were also separated into smaller units within that may have housed the entire family, the staff, and administrative activities. There are also administrative sections in the mansions that contained seals and a few papyri detailing administrative duties and dealings as well as names of individuals. A major feature of

1680-529: The calendar dates when Sirius rose at dawn. He found six of them, on which the dates of much of conventional Egyptian chronology are based. A heliacal rise of Sirius was recorded by Censorinus as having happened on the Egyptian New Year's Day between 139 CE and 142 CE. The record itself actually refers to 21 July 140 CE, but astronomical calculation definitely dates the heliacal rising at 20 July 139 CE, Julian. This correlates

1736-456: The course of the 365-day calendar meant that the "wandering" day would return to its original place relative to the solar and Sothic year after precisely 1461 Egyptian civil years or 1460 Julian years. This calendar cycle was well known in antiquity. Censorinus described it in his book De Die Natale , in CE 238, and stated that the cycle had renewed 100 years earlier on the 12th of August. In

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1792-616: The daughter of the Senwosret II. Artifacts found were a crown, pectorals, bracelets, necklaces, and cowries. There have been many cemeteries found between the pyramid and the town. There appears to be a mixture of elite burials and pit burials depending on the cemetery. In the Bashkatib cemetery, there have been multiple types of burials found: open graves, shallow shaft tombs, stairway tombs, and deep shaft tombs. Abdel Rahman el-Aydi found four cemeteries with an Egyptian mission. They mostly date to

1848-465: The entire mortuary complex. He published his discoveries in a two-volume study Das Grabdenkmal des Konigs Sahure , "The Funerary Monument of the King Sahure", which is still considered the standard work on Sahure's complex. Borchardt married Emilie (Mimi) Cohen, one of the daughters of Eduard Cohen and Ida Kuhn. In 1903, Mimi received an inheritance from her grandfather Abraham Kuhn of 150,000 Marks,

1904-461: The gods and their myths and tales that were found in other sites. Also, papyri dealing with the chronology of the Ancient Egyptian world have been found called Sothic cycle . The papyrus containing the Sothic date was found by Petrie and has narrowed Lahun's establishment to a fifty year timespan during the 12th Dynasty. The papyrus says that it is "Month 8 Day 16 of a Year 7". This date is one of

1960-476: The mansions. The houses located in the western section are smaller and much closer together than ones south and east of the mansions. Multiple artifacts have been found in these houses. In the smaller houses papyri and copper tools have been found which can tell us a little about what the people who lived here did. Mansions were significantly larger than the other houses that most of the workers and villagers lived in. Mansions also contained granaries on one side of

2016-436: The most definitive dates relating to Ancient Egypt . Knowing this date has allowed Egyptologists to organize the Middle Kingdom around Year 7 of Senwosret III's reign. With other archaeological information from Lahun and other sites they are better able to determine the chronology of Egypt. The seals were found in some buildings in the town. They were attached to "boxes, vases, and bags" and marked what they contained. They have

2072-482: The names of the people who owned the seals, or inscriptions to someone the object the seal was on was going to. The seals state who the person was and what their title was including high priest, citizen, or inspector. The town was not the only place seals were found. Some were discovered by Petrie in the pyramid, precincts, and other areas during excavations. These ones also had the names of the people and their titles on them. Other objects of daily life have been found in

2128-663: The ninth century, Syncellus epitomized the Sothic Cycle in the "Old Egyptian Chronicle." Isaac Cullimore, an early Egyptologist and member of the Royal Society, published a discourse on it in 1833 in which he was the first to suggest that Censorinus had fudged the terminus date, and that it was more likely to fall in CE 136. He also computed the likely date of its invention as being around 1600 BCE. In 1904, seven decades after Cullimore, Eduard Meyer carefully combed known Egyptian inscriptions and written materials to find any mention of

2184-457: The north side is the Queen's Pyramid or subsidiary pyramid believed to have been for Queen Atmuneferu based on the inscription. Within the pyramid complex multiple tombs were discovered by Petrie during his excavations. Those buried here were most likely family based on the names found in the tombs and the grave goods. One tomb with a large quantity of grave goods is that of princess Sithathor-yunit ,

2240-425: The northern wall and the other three across the street. The medium and small houses are located east and south of the mansions in the eastern section. In Kahun there are three main types of houses found: mansions, medium size houses, and smaller homes. The mansions are about 2,700 m, medium are 100-168 m, and small houses are 50 m or smaller. The small and medium houses are in the western section, and south and east of

2296-417: The owners in their daily lives or important objects that they waned in their afterlife. In 2009, dozens of pharaonic-era mummies were uncovered near the pyramid of Senwosret II by Abdel Rahman El-Aydi and his team. The sarcophagi were decorated with green, red and white and an image of the person laid to rest there. Archaeologists unearthed multiple well preserved mummies which range from the 12th Dynasty to

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2352-503: The pyramid. Sothic cycle The Sothic cycle or Canicular period is a period of 1,461  Egyptian civil years of 365 days each or 1,460  Julian years averaging 365 + 1 ⁄ 4  days each. During a Sothic cycle, the 365-day year loses enough time that the start of its year once again coincides with the heliacal rising of the star Sirius ( Ancient Egyptian : spdt or Sopdet , 'Triangle'; Ancient Greek : Σῶθις , Sō̂this ) on 19 July in

2408-431: The rising of Sirius observed at Cairo about 8 days after it is seen at Aswan. Meyer concluded that the Egyptian civil calendar was created in 4241 BCE . Recent scholarship, however, has discredited that claim. Most scholars either move the observation upon which he based this forward by one cycle of Sirius, to 19 July 2781 BCE, or reject the assumption that the document on which Meyer relied indicates

2464-482: The same position in relation to the sun. Star years measured in this way vary due to axial precession , the movement of the Earth's axis in relation to the sun. The length of time for a star to make a yearly path can be marked when it rises to a defined altitude above a local horizon at the time of sunrise. This altitude does not have to be the altitude of first possible visibility, nor the exact position observed. Throughout

2520-436: The sidereal year of 365.2564 days. The ecliptic and the meridian cut the sky into four quadrants. The axis of the earth wobbles around slowly moving the observer and changing the observation of the event. If the axis swings the observer closer to the event its observational year will be shortened. Likewise, the observational year can be lengthened when the axis swings away from the observer. This depends upon which quadrant of

2576-511: The sky the phenomenon is observed. The Sothic year is remarkable because its average duration happened to have been nearly exactly 365.25 days, in the early 4th millennium BCE before the unification of Egypt. The slow rate of change from this value is also of note. If observations and records could have been maintained during predynastic times the Sothic rise would optimally return to the same calendar day after 1461 calendar years. This value would drop to about 1456 calendar years by

2632-550: The temple during his time at Lahun. From 1989 to 1997 Egyptologist Nicholas B. Millet worked there with the University of Toronto. The most current excavations and work at Lahun are being done by Zoltan Horvath and a Hungarian team. Also found in the town were the Kahun papyri , comprising about 1000 fragments, covering legal, medical, religious, and astronomical matters. Re-excavation of the area in 2009 by Egyptian archaeologists revealed

2688-555: The temple. There were also census lists that listed the people who lived in the town including soldiers, servants, scribes, and members of certain households. Among the administrative papyri there were legal proceedings recorded including ones on debt. Petrie was the first to propose that the seals and papyri found in the town of Kahun were for administrative purposes which was later supported by other finds including those in 1899 by Ludwig Borchardt. Many of these papyri also tell stories that were religious or literary. There were ones about

2744-465: The town and in the pyramid complex. These include copper tools found in what is believed to be the western workmen's section, flint tools, and pottery which is both local and foreign. The pottery would have included bowls, storage jars, water jars, plates, and other tableware. Cosmetic jars have been found in houses and the most common ones found have been kohl jars. Jewelry has been found in the town and inside tombs that could have been potentially used by

2800-409: The town was the so-called "acropolis" building. The acropolis is roughly the same size as the other mansions at Lahun and is located at the end of the main street to the west. It is next to the four mansions on the north side. It was most likely made for the mayor based on the seals and seal impressions found. The platform the mudbrick building was built on was carved out of stone that already existed; it

2856-467: The two areas. There have also been papyri found associated with the temple and the mortuary cult and even a day-book where "letters to and from the mayor were copied". Other papyri at the temple included information about the cult of Anubis that was inside the temple and correspondence between the mayor and temple accountant. These recorded the inventory of the temple and what goods were required for it to operate. The village of el Lahun, also known as Kahun,

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2912-426: The year the star will rise to whatever altitude was chosen near the horizon approximately four minutes earlier each successive sunrise. Eventually the star will return to the same relative location at sunrise, regardless of the altitude chosen. This length of time can be called an observational year . Stars that reside close to the ecliptic or the ecliptic meridian will – on average – exhibit observational years close to

2968-521: Was a German Egyptologist . He is best known for finding a famous bust of Nefertiti at Amarna . Born in Berlin in 1863 into a well-established Jewish family, Borchardt was the second-oldest of six children of the merchant Hermann Borchardt (1830–1890) and Bertha, née Levin (1835–1910). Also known as Herbert, Borchardt initially studied Architecture and later Egyptology under Adolf Erman . In 1895, he journeyed to Cairo and produced, with Gaston Maspero ,

3024-455: Was added after the initial eastern part of the town was built. This wall divided about one third of the area of the town and created a western section with rows of back-to-back, side-by-side single room houses. The eastern section of the town contains mansions, medium sized houses, and small houses similar to the ones in the western section. The mansions are located in the north part of the eastern section and there are seven in total with four along

3080-531: Was in the reign of Amenhotep I , and, assuming it was made in Thebes, dates his reign between 1525 and 1504 BCE. If made in Memphis, Heliopolis, or some other Delta site instead, as a minority of scholars still argue, the entire chronology of the 18th Dynasty needs to be extended some 20 years. The Sothic cycle is a specific example of two cycles of differing length interacting to cycle together, here called

3136-403: Was only carved down to create the platform. It rests above the rest of the town on this platform. The papyri have been found in multiple areas of Lahun and are on different topics: administrative dealings, the town, and the temple. They had to do with agriculture, temple proceedings, and town organization. Temple documents discuss the daily occurrences at the temple and important information about

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