The Cheshire Cat only grinned when it saw Alice...

you’re an asshole after all

atpyhctyh adjacent

ammonite (2020) dir. francis lee

Isabella Rossellini, 1979

Rocking the most incredible leather jacket.

Isabella Rossellini, 1979

Rocking the most incredible leather jacket.

Okay, so I’ve been seeing posts for years saying Atem’s birthday is July 26th so I decided to speak up because it’s wrong xD. Obviously there was a huge misunderstanding about which calendar Kazuki Takahashi used to establish Atem’s birthday.

I. Which calendar was used for Atem’s birthday?

The Egyptians had several calendars throughout their history. The one Kazuki Takahashi used is the Ancient Egyptian civil calendar whereas the fans that tried to convert Atem’s birthday into a gregorian date used the Coptic calendar hence getting the wrong date.

The Coptic calendar was used in the Middle Ages by Christian Egyptians. Atem died milleniums before this calendar was even put to use…

The Ancient Egyptian civil calendar was slightly different from the Coptic one. http://www.lavia.org/english/archivo/EgyptianCalendarEN.html

It had no names for the months. Months were referred to by their number within the season. The seasons followed the Nile’s Flood Cycle: Akhet (flood) - Peret (germination) - Shemu (it literally means ‘dry’ or ‘low water’, it’s also harvest time).

If you check the Nile’s flooding cycle, you’ll see that the flood comes about at the end of July (which means the end of July was during Akhet season whereas Atem was born during Shemu when there was no water).

II. How do we convert Atem’s birthday into a gregorian date?

Egyptologists have established the equivalences between our two calendars long ago. Of course, this is all very theoritical because the Ancient Egyptian civil calendar doesn’t have a leap year. So the exact equivalences made by Egyptologists are only real if we pretend that February 29th doesn’t exist xD.

Anyway, the important part is that Kazuki Takahashi used these equivalences. I’m sure of it because if we use the Ancient Egyptian civil calendar instead of the Coptic one, all the Egyptian characters have the same birthdays as their modern counterparts. Seth and Seto are both born on October 25th, for example.

If you check the link up above, you’ll find that it says that the 1st month of Akhet is from July 19th to August 17th. It means that the 1st day of the 1st month of Akhet is July 19th, the 2nd day of the 1st month of Akhet is then July 20th, etc.

Go to Shemu season, check the 3rd month and count for yourself the 19th day. It falls on June 2nd. Interestingly enough, Yuugi’s birthday is June 4th and you’ll see below that all the Egyptian characters are linked to their modern counterpart.

July 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th and 18th were five extra days added in between the last day of the year and the first day of the new year.

Atem - June 2nd (Yuugi is June 4th) 19th day, 3rd month, Harvest

Shimon - Oct 5th (Sugoroku is October 4th) 19th day, 3rd month, Flood

Mahad - October 31st 15th day, 4th month, Flood

Isis - April 4th (Isis Ishtar is April 5th) 20th day, 1st month, Harvest

Karim - August 18th 1st day, 2nd month, Flood

Shadah - July 21st 3rd day, 1st month, Flood

Aknadin - February 12th 29th day, 3rd month, Germination

Seto - October 25th  (Kaiba is October 25th) 9th day, 4th month, Flood

Mana - September 20th 4th day, 3rd month, Flood

My understanding is that the civil calendar actually has travelling dates, moving back through the solar year every four years. This is because it follows the Sothic Cycle, and was marked by the rise of the binary stars Sirius A and B (also known as Sothis, Sirius, the Dog Star, so on) as a reliable indicator for when the Floods could be expected.

So, the dates noted above are for… which tetraëterides? It looks like it’s calculated for the year 1 CE. I don’t think Atem was born then, Joshua of Nazareth maybe.

If you use 1500 BCE (Tutankhamun was born 1342 BCE, and it’s commonly thought KT based Atem on him), you have the heliacal rise of Sothis on the III Shemu 19, which is also Atem’s birthday– and is July 4th.

If we use 1000 BCE, then the heliacal Sothis rising is III Akhet 19 and July 8th. In turn this would make Atem’s birthday on III Shemu 19 correspond to March 5th.

I’m not super happy with either of these, and I’d love to get it more precise, but I’m not sure where I’d find details on the rise of Sirius in Egypt for 1342 BCE. I’m also not partial for 1342 BCE as a birthdate for Atem, but that’s a YMMV fandom thing.

I believe these records exist in Ancient Central or South Asian records, so you’d need to compensate for differing heights of the horizon (above sea level), but probably not for equatorial distance (correct me if I’m wrong) dealing with these figures. 

Moonlit Scents

The moon is to hang low tonight. Windows are barred and doors are shut tight to keep safe from the ceaseless wailings and clanging of metal outside. The smell of incense filling the streets signal the start, and the effigies being strung up in every corner herald the worse. Only a madman would open their door on the night of the hunt.

Bloodborne AU / FIC LINK

(notes under the cut, contains spoilers for the game and fic)