Elsewhere he was the artizan-god Ptah, who with his hammer broke the egg; sometimes Thoth, the moon-god and principle of intelligence, who spoke the world into existence.'
The adoption of the Julian year must therefore have taken place about 160 years before the year 136 of our era (the difference between the Egyptian and Julian years being one day in four years), that is to say, about the year 25 B.C. In fact, the first of Thoth corresponded with the 29th of August in the Julian calendar, in the years 25, 24, 23 and 22 B.C.
By the Romans the era of Actium was considered as beginning on the 1st of January of the 16th of the Julian era, which is the 30th B.C. The Egyptians, who used this era till the time of Diocletian, dated its commencement from the beginning of their month Thoth, or the 29th of August; and the Eastern Greeks from the 2nd of September.
Khufu's work in the temple of Bubastis is proved by a surviving fragment, and he is figured slaying his enemy at Sinai before the god Thoth.
The ibis-god Thoth was early identified with the moon.
