"The Decree of Canopus is a bilingual inscription in two languages, and in three scripts. It was written in three writing systems: Egyptian hieroglyphs, Demotic, and Greek, on an ancient Egyptian memorial stone stele, the Stone of Canopus. The inscription is a decree by Egyptian priests honoring Pharaoh Ptolemy III Euergetes; Queen Berenice, his wife; and Princess Berenice in 238 BC ...

The inscription touches on subjects such as military campaigns, famine relief, Egyptian religion and governmental organization in Ptolemaic Egypt. It mentions the king's donations to the temples, his support for the Apis and Mnevis cults, which enjoyed huge success in the Macedonian - Egyptian world, and the return of divine statues which had been carried off by Cambyses.

It extols the king's success in quelling insurgencies of native Egyptians, operations referred to as 'keeping the peace.' It reminds the reader that during a year of low inundation, the government had remitted taxes and imported grain from abroad ..." (Wikipedia)

"It inaugurates the most accurate solar calendar known to the ancient world, with 365¼ days per year. It declares the deceased princess Berenike a goddess and creates a cult for her, with women, men, ceremonies, and special 'bread-cakes'. Lastly it orders the decree to be incised in stone or bronze in both hieroglyphs and Greek, and to be publicly displayed in the temples.

The traditional Egyptian calendar had 365 days: twelve months of thirty days each and an additional five epagomenal days. According to the reform, the 5-day 'Opening of the Year' ceremonies would include an additional 6th day every fourth year. The reason given was that the rise of Sothis advances to another day in every 4 years, so that attaching the beginning of the year to the heliacal rising of the star Sirius would keep the calendar synchronized with the seasons.

This Ptolemaic calendar reform failed, but was finally officially implemented in Egypt by Augustus in 26/25 BCE, now called the Alexandrian calendar, with a sixth epagomenal day occurring for the first time on 29 August 22 BCE.Julius Caesar had earlier implemented a 365¼ day year in Rome in 45 BCE as part of the Julian calendar." (Wikipedia)

I think the calendar reform of Ptolemy III Euergetes hinged on the myth of the golden tresses of Berenike (his wife) being placed inside a sacred 'naos', and remaining there, in this 'cave', only for a short while before mysteriously disappearing.

The year should now begin with the 'liquidation' of the old Sun (with Berenike's golden tresses serving as pars pro toto). A new year would begin when Sun was down in Mother Earth (once coordinated with the house of Virgo and presumably also with the 8 nights when Venus as morning star disappeared for a while to return in the west). Life starts at conception, not at birth.

... The king, wearing now a short, stiff archaic mantle, walks in a grave and stately manner to the sanctuary of the wolf-god Upwaut, the 'Opener of the Way', where he anoints the sacred standard and, preceded by this, marches to the palace chapel, into which he disappears. A period of time elapses during which the pharaoh is no longer manifest.

When he reappears he is clothed as in the Narmer palette, wearing the kilt with Hathor belt and bull's tail attatched. In his right hand he holds the flail scepter and in his left, instead of the usual crook of the Good Shepherd, an object resembling a small scroll, called the Will, the House Document, or Secret of the Two Partners, which he exhibits in triumph, proclaiming to all in attendance that it was given him by his dead father Osiris, in the presence of the earth-god Geb. 'I have run', he cries, 'holding the Secret of the Two Partners, the Will that my father has given me before Geb. I have passed through the land and touched the four sides of it. I traverse it as I desire.' ...

(Cfr at A Common Sign Language.)

In the G text ζ (Zayin) Leporis probably shows where Sun enters into 'Earth' (an abstract henua). There are 5 nights needed for the 'Opening of the Way' and in the central position is atariki and Betelgeuze:


Ga1-22	*Ga1-23 (88)**	Ga1-24	Ga1-25	Ga1-26
γ Leporis (494.9)	Saiph (495.5), ζ Leporis (495.6)	Wezn (496.6), δ Leporis (496.7), Betelgeuze (497.3)	η Leporis (498.0), Praja-pāti, Menkalinan, Mahashim, and γ Columbae (498.3)	η Columbae (498.7), μ Orionis (499.3)
June 16	17	18	19	6h (499.3)
Opening of the Way

Although no longer the heliacal rising of Canopus and the emergence of new 'fire' were at the beginning of the calendar year the name Canopus could have been preserved as a technical term for its beginning - woven into the fabric of the new myth, braided into the myth of the vanished golden tresses. The pilot, the rudder, was still there.

"In Greek mythology, Canopus (or Canobus) was the pilot of the ship of King Menelaus of Sparta during the Trojan War. He is described as a young handsome man, who was loved by Theonoe, the Egyptian prophetess, but never answered her feelings. According to legend, while visiting the coasts of Egypt, he was bitten by a serpent and died. His master erected a monument to him at the mouth of the River Nile, around which the town of Canopus later developed." (Wikipedia)