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Now with regard to mere human matters, the accounts which they gave,
and in which all agreed, were the following. The Egyptians, they
said, were the first to discover the solar year, and to portion out
its course into twelve parts. They obtained this knowledge from the
stars. (To my mind they contrive their year much more cleverly than
the Greeks, for these last every other year intercalate a whole
month, but the Egyptians, dividing the year into twelve months of
thirty days each, add every year a space of five days besides, whereby
the circuit of the seasons is made to return with uniformity.) The
Egyptians, they went on to affirm, first brought into use the names
of the twelve gods, which the Greeks adopted from them; and first
erected altars, images, and temples to the gods; and also first
engraved upon stone the figures of animals. In most of these cases
they proved to me that what they said was true. And they told me that
the first man who ruled over Egypt was Min, and that in his time all
Egypt, except the Thebaic canton, was a marsh, none of the land
below Lake Moeris then showing itself above the surface of the water.
This is a distance of seven days' sail from the sea up the river.
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