First Date?

Astounding to Egyptologists, and not entirely convincing, was a story which last week rode the press wires out of Pittsburgh. The story: a 34-year-old University of Pittsburgh professor named Jotham Johnson had fixed the date when the ancient Egyptian calendar began. Sensationally simple was the Johnson voyage of discovery: he had had a Zeiss planetarium projector turned "back through time" to show the position of the stars and the phase of the moon on his chosen date.

After collating various scraps of evidence, he decided that June 18, 3251 B. C. was the likeliest date. Ancient Egyptian records indicate that on the first New Year's Day the Dog Star rose at dawn; Johnson felt there should also be a new moon in the west. Dr. Johnson asked the Buhl Planetarium to turn their big projector back through nearly 52 centuries. The planetarium did it, although the job required 20 hours. On the first try, the sky was not as it should have been. Then Johnson realized that the planetarium was using the Gregorian calendar, whereas he was going by the Julian calendar of Julius Caesar. When a correction for this difference was made, the moon and the Dog Star were just where he wanted them.

Said Dr. John Albert Wilson, Director of Chicago's Oriental Institute, when he heard of the Johnson theory last week: "If Professor Johnson has finally set the beginning of the Egyptian calendar for us, we owe him a debt for the next 52 centuries to come. . . . Unfortunately [it appears] that he went to the planetarium with one or two dangerous assumptions [e.g., that the Egyptian calendar started in June]. We shall have to agree with his assumptions before we can present him with a starry crown for achievement."

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