 This person has an 'elbow ornament' which might be showing a completed round (e.g. as a sign for the diurnal cycle of the sun as viewed down on earth in contrast to the fixed star nights of the moon high up in the sky).
We can contrast with Pb5-15 and guess the 'Clara-knife' raised in front in Hb3-10 corresponds to the 'hook in front'. ... About Carmenta we know from the historian Dionysus Periergetis that she gave orcales to Hercules and lived to the age of 110 years. 110 was a canonical number, the ideal age which every Egyptian wished to reach and the age at which, for example, the patriarch Joseph died. The 110 years were made up of twenty-two Etruscan lustra of five years each; and 110 years composed the 'cycle' taken over from the Etruscans by the Romans. At the end of each cycle they corrected irregularities in the solar calendar by intercalation and held Secular Games ... And day 172 could allude to June 21 (the northern summer solstice), i.e. to 365 - 300 = 65 days after APRIL 17 (107). Once upon a time I had deduced that Hb3-11 ought to be located at place number 100 + 11 = 111 on side b of the tablet. This idea can evidently now and here be perceived as supported by counting 172 - 111 = 61 = 1 (December 31) + 31 (January) + 28 (February) + 1 = March 1. ... The leap day was introduced as part of the Julian reform. The day following the Terminalia (February 23) was doubled, forming the 'bis sextum - literally 'double sixth', since February 24 was 'the sixth day before the Kalends of March' using Roman inclusive counting (March 1 was the 'first day'). Although exceptions exist, the first day of the bis sextum (February 24) was usually regarded as the intercalated or 'bissextile' day since the third century. February 29 came to be regarded as the leap day when the Roman system of numbering days was replaced by sequential numbering in the late Middle Ages ... |
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