Dhwtyt

JEH-hu-tyt

egyptian: Dhwtyt

Definition

Dhwtyt (Egyptian Dhwtyt, "Feast of Thoth") is the Egyptian feast of the moon-god Thoth. It is entry (2) of the Old Kingdom 12-feast offering-list and falls on the 19th day of the first month of the civil year (written 1 Akhet 19). The feast honours Thoth (Ḏḥwty) as scribe of the gods and patron of timekeeping and of lunar reckoning. The Greek month-name Thoth — the first month of the Egyptian year in Greco-Ptolemaic-Roman use — comes from this feast.

In Tradition

Egyptologists — Clagett, Parker, and the Coffin Texts tradition — read Dhwtyt as the yearly Feast of Thoth, separate from the monthly feast psḏntyw (lunar day 1), which also went by "Feast of Thoth" as a second name. Parker held that Dhwtyt was an inserted leap-month; Clagett rejects that and treats it as the ordinary yearly Thoth-feast at 1 Akhet 19. Schott's Altägyptische Festdaten (1950) provides the standard documentation.

In Practice

Dhwtyt is the second feast in the Old Kingdom 12-feast list — it follows wp rnpt, the "Opening of the Year" — and it ties Egyptian worship to Thoth, the moon-and-scribe god, at Hermopolis. The feast turns up in dozens of Dynasty 5-6 tomb attestations and carries on into the Middle Kingdom Coffin Texts (Spell 936, de Buck Vol. 7, p. 137), where it follows the Wag-feast in the Anubis-formulae — showing how the order set by the canonical list (Dhwtyt = 2, Wag = 4) was routinely reversed in the offering-formulas as actually written. The Greco-Ptolemaic-Roman month-name Thoth, the first month of the Egyptian year, is this feast's lasting linguistic legacy. Thoth's patronage of timekeeping shows in the dog-headed baboon linked to Egyptian water clocks and in the central place of the Thoth-glyph on the Ramesseum astronomical ceiling.

Historical Origin

Dhwtyt is attested from Dynasty 5-6 tomb-attestations onward (in the Old Kingdom 12-feast offering-list), continues through the Middle Kingdom (Coffin Texts Spell 936), and survives into Greco-Ptolemaic-Roman documents as the month-name Thoth. It is treated in Schott, Altägyptische Festdaten (1950); Clagett, Ancient Egyptian Science Vol II, Doc III.1 Notes 22 and Doc III.1 Introduction p. 169 (1995); and Brugsch, Drei Festkalender (1877).

Definition

In Tradition

In Practice

Historical Origin

Further Reading