month was considered spiritually dangerous and the pharaoh performed a ritual known as "Pacifying Sekhmet" () to protect himself and the world from that god's plague. The period seems to have usually been a time of rest, placed between the New Year's Eve celebrations on 30Wep Renpet and the New Year's celebrations beginning on 1Thoth. Scribes sometimes omitted the entire period from their records of the year. Torches were carried and apotropaic charms were drawn on linen and worn around the neck. The period was known as the "birthdays of the gods" as early as the Pyramid Texts. By the early Middle Kingdom, the days were specified and ordered: The first day was the Birth of Osiris (). It was also originally known as the "Pure Bull in His Field" (), although that aspect of the intercalary festivities was later moved to the second day as Horus grew in importance. The second was the Birth of Horus (). The third was the Birth of Set (). The fourth was the Birth of Isis ( or ). The last day was the Birth of Nephthys (). It was originally the most important, heralding in the New Year's festival and celebrating a "child in his nest" (), but these aspects shifted to the fourth night in the Ptolemaic and Roman period owing to the greater importance of Isis and her longstanding connection with the star Sirius. Throughout the days, their connections to the solar boat of Ra, fish, and a "creator of terror" () were also stressed. In all but a handful of texts, however, the days are merely numbered as "Day ~ of the Five Days upon the Year". Ptolemy III's Canopus Decree was an attempted calendrical reform in 239BC which would have inserted a sixth day into the intercalary month, but it was abandoned due to the hostility of the priests and people of Egypt. The leap day was finally established by Augustus in 30, 26, or 25BC. Under this "Alexandrian calendar", the epagomenal days ran from Julian 24 August to 28 August in common years and to 29 August in leap years. Coptic In the present-day Coptic calendar, the intercalary month remains the same as the Alexandrian dates in the Julian calendar. In terms of the Gregorian calendar, it has begun on 6 September and ended on 10 September in common years and 11 September in leap years since