A blessed Wepet Renpet to those of you who have already celebrated. May this year be (much, much) better than the last.
My own Wepet Renpet, the Egyptian New Year, comes a bit later. I wait until I can see Her heliacal rising as the star Sirius (Sopdet in Egyptian) just before the sun in my local area. For me, this year, it is August 22nd at 5:54 in the morning. If the skies are clear, I’ll be up on a local hilltop, watching toward the east, waiting for Her.
If you’d like to know when She rises in your area, here is a free, online calculator. It’s from in-the-sky.org. Just give it a date near when you think Sirius might rise in your area (in the northern hemisphere, try starting on July 1st, for instance), and let it use your local time. Then look down the resulting chart until you no longer see “Not observable” and instead see a date and time. That’s your local rising time and date.
The “Five Days Upon the Year”
But for the ancient Egyptians, and for those of us who honor the Ancient Egyptian Deities today, something else happens prior to the rising of Our Lady’s star: the “Five Days Upon the Year,” or the epagomenal days. These were five days outside of time that marked the transition from the Old Year to the New Year. These five days, added to the Egyptian 360-day year, brought them up to the requisite 365 (or almost; they were short a quarter-day).
On these five days, the birthdays of Osiris, Horus (or Horus the Elder), Set, Isis, and Nephthys were celebrated. But this time wasn’t just a happy-birthday party for the Deities. This time-outside-of-time, this liminal period, was also a period of great danger. This was the period before the coming of the yearly flood that fertilized Egypt’s fields along the Nile. It was the time of the lowest water; in some places, boats could no longer navigate. All along the Nile banks, everything was drying out. People were beginning to anticipate—and be anxious about—how high the waters would rise this year. Would there be famine or feast?
To those of us in the northern hemisphere, this may feel quite familiar in late July, and particularly in August. The foliage that used to be lush green has started to look dried out and dusty. Heat sits heavy upon the land. And though my local farmers’ markets are beginning to fill with harvest produce, my social feeds are filling up with people canning and preserving—for we still feel the need to conserve today’s harvest against the coming darker months.
For the ancients, the epagomenal days were also the time that Sakhmet sent out Her plague demons to infect the people. Known as the Messengers, Slaughterers, or Arrows of Sakhmet, these frightful Beings struck people down, sickening or evening killing them. There is new research showing that the infamous bubonic plague or Black Death may have originated in Egypt—and indeed that it, or something like it, had been plaguing Egypt for centuries. The Ebers medical papyrus, dated to about 1500 BCE, lists a disease that includes the description of a bubo, an infected lymph node that was characteristic of the bubonic plague.
All this is to say that Sakhmet’s Arrows were not to be taken lightly. And people did not. The king and the temples worked to protect Egypt during this time with the rituals of Sehotep Sakhmet, “pacifying” or “satisfying” Sakhmet, for She Who could bring plague could also protect against it. The people themselves wore special amulets and used particular spells to avert the plague, or other calamity, at this time of year.
Protections for the Epagomenal Days
One amulet listed 12 of Sakhmet’s Messengers “who bring slaughtering about, who create uproar, who hurry though the land.” To make this amulet, you draw Them on a piece of linen, knot it 12 times, and wear it around your neck (one of our most vulnerable spots). Then you repeat a prayer regularly from the time you put it on until the rising of Sirius and the New Year. You were also to make offerings of bread, beer, and incense as part of activating the amulet. Archeologists have even found some examples of these linen amulets.
As a great Magician Goddess, Isis is particularly associated with magical knots—like the dozen in this amulet—and especially in relation to protective magic. When an ancient Egyptian referred to a “knot amulet,” what they often meant was the famous Knot of Isis, one of the amulets that protected the dead. Isis and Nephthys are said to work protective magic for Osiris with knotted cords. Knot magic continues to be a popular form of spellwork today.
In addition to this overall protection, there were particular spells and amulets associated with each of the five epagomenal days. Linen amulets, similar to the one already mentioned, featured the image of the Deity Whose birthday was celebrated that particular day. We have a few examples of these, but not a complete set. Below and to the left is a picture of the one we have for Isis’ birthday; the other two existing ones are for Nephthys and Osiris. And that is all we currently have. Imagine how many people were probably using these compared to how few remain.
Another reason that the epagomenals were an apprehensive time of year was that normal cyclical time, neheh-time—the yearly changes and renewals, came to a stop. The old year had ended, but the new one had not yet begun. Djet-time, perfected unchanging time, took over. Now, you might think perfected time would be a good thing. And it is. Eventually. But not so much for life on earth. Life here needs the changes of the seasons and the development of the years to survive. For more about neheh and djet time, go here and here.
For me, with the rising of the Star of Isis on the 22nd, the epagomenal days begin on the 17th of August. I plan to honor each of these Great Deities on Their birthdays, perhaps with similar amulets, and certainly with prayers, bread, beer, and incense.
What is the Heliacal Rising, Anyway?
Oh, and in case you’re not sure what a heliacal rising is, let me explain. Sirius cannot be seen during a period of about 70 days, from sometime in May to sometime around or after midsummer (again, in the northern hemisphere). Before this time, Sirius and the sun are in conjunction so that the sun’s greater light blocks the visibility of Sirius. The star is there, of course, but it can’t be seen with the naked eye. The heliacal rising of Sirius is when the star and sun are sufficiently separated so that—for the first time in 70 days—Sirius can be seen on the horizon just before dawn.
In the northern hemisphere, this occurs in the hottest part of the year. From Classical times, this period has been known as the “Dog Days” since the Dog Star of Sirius is once again visible. This hot part of the year can be miserable indeed. Homer knew it as a time of fevers and suffering. The Romans thought it made dogs act crazy. We think of it as a time when we’re panting like a dog because of the heat.
While the ancient Egyptians didn’t have the Sirius-dog connection, when Egypt came under Greek, and then Roman, rule, Isis gained Her this association. Nevertheless, in Egypt, She had been connected with the Canine God Anubis very early on. In a later-period aretalogy from Kyme in modern Turkey, Isis says of Herself, “I am She that riseth in the Dog Star.”
Sirius could also be considered the Ba—the manifestation or “soul”—of Isis. In the same way, the constellation Sah is Osiris’ Ba. In the skies, since Orion rises before Sirius, we can see the ancient myth of Isis searching for Her lost husband playing out before our eyes as the Orion constellation moves through the sky ahead of the Beautiful Star of Isis. In the “Lamentations of Isis and Nephthys,” Isis says to Osiris, “Your sacred image, Orion [Sah] in heaven, rises and sets every day; I am Sothis [Sopdet; Sirius] following after Him and I will not forsake Him.”
There is an additional interpretation of the movement of the stars through the sky that takes us to an even more important point in the Isis-Osiris story. When the Orion constellation first appears on the horizon, Osiris seems to be on his back, with Iset-Sopdet rising beneath Him. As the night passes and the constellation rises higher into the sky, He “stands up,” with Isis at His back all the while, pushing upward until the God is raised.
Even more than the myth of Isis following Osiris to pick up the pieces, we can see Isis raising Osiris from the dead in the skies above. We can understand this as the stellar model of the ritual of Raising the Djed Column, which the pharaoh, with the help of Isis, performed on earth.
This year, I am definitely feeling the unsettled liminality of the approaching epagomenal days. It has much to do with the political situation here. I have hope that with the rising of the Star of Isis later this month—and with Her even more brilliant position in the night sky in…oh, let’s say, November…that Ma’et will prevail. But right now, right now, we don’t yet know how high the river will rise. And so we wait, and soon we will act.
Isiopolis 