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As Karl Kerenyi points out (Kerenyi 1976, pp 29ff), the onset of the fiercest killing heat of summer is a counter-intuitive beginning point for the Greek calendar. In Egypt, however, the calendar year, marked with the summer rising of the Nile, begins with the rising of Sirius ("Sothis" in the Egyptian Calendar ). Calendar systems are always part of the deepest embedded layers of culture, and Kerenyi remarks "The connecting link could only have been the Minoan culture", where the Greek archaeologist Spyridon Marinatos connected the orientation of Minoan palaces with the summer rising of Sirius.

Leading religious and political sites on the Hellenic mainland began their calendar with the rising of Sirius: Olympia , Delphi , Athens (see Attic Calendar ), Epidauros , and other Greek City-state s with Mycenaean origins.


REFERENCE

  • Kerenyi, Karl , ''Dionysus: Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life'' (Bollingen, Princeton) 1976.