Usually, the months of the lunar calendar were listed by their placement in the seasons related to the flooding of the Nile, so that Mesori is most commonly described as the fourth month of the season of the Harvest (4 Šmw),[3][4] variously transliterated as IV Shemu or Shomu.
[c] The month was also personified as the deity of its festival,[9] which in late sources is given as Ra-Horakhty (Rꜥ Ḥr Ꜣḫty, "Ra–Horus of the Horizons").
[3] The most common name continued to be the "Opening of the Year", although its little-attested synonym "Birth of the Sun" (Mswt Rꜥ) or Masut Ra became the namesake of the Ptolemaic Greek and Coptic month.
It always consisted of 30 days, each individually named and devoted to a particular patron deity, and was always followed by an intercalary month, although it slowly cycled relative to the solar year and Gregorian date owing to the lack of leap days until the Ptolemaic and Roman eras.
[13] Once the holidays were transferred to the civil calendar, Wep Renpet proper was celebrated on the first day of Thoth[6] by at least the Middle Kingdom,[23] though the last month of the year continued to bear its name.
[10] This practice extended to commoners presenting gifts—such as rings, scarabs, and bottles inscribed "Happy New Year's" (Wpt Rnpt Nfrt)—to one another during the Saite Period.