page_title: Egyptian calendar
section_title: Legacy
hierarchical_section_title: Egyptian calendar / Legacy
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Heiligenkalender, die Monate Januar und Februar, zweite Häfte des 11. Jahrhunderts. 26,9x28,2cm, eine von vier Tafeln English: Saints of January and February feasts from a calendar icon (one of four), 2nd half of 11th century. 26.9x28.2 cm Français&#160;: Les Saints des mois janvier et fevrier dans un calendrier, deuxième moitié du 11ième siècle. 26,9x28,2 cm
context_page_description: The ancient Egyptian calendar – a civil calendar – was a solar calendar with a 365-day year. The year consisted of three seasons of 120 days each, plus an intercalary month of five epagomenal days treated as outside of the year proper. Each season was divided into four months of 30 days. These twelve months were initially numbered within each season but came to also be known by the names of their principal festivals. Each month was divided into three 10-day periods known as decans or decades. It has been suggested that during the Nineteenth Dynasty and the Twentieth Dynasty the last two days of each decan were usually treated as a kind of weekend for the royal craftsmen, with royal artisans free from work.
  Because this calendrical year was nearly a quarter of a day shorter than the solar year, the Egyptian calendar lost about one day every four years relative to the Gregorian calendar. It is therefore sometimes referred to as the wandering year, as its months rotated about one day through the solar year every four years.
context_section_description: The reformed Egyptian calendar continues to be used in Egypt as the Coptic calendar of the Egyptian Church and by the Egyptian populace at large, particularly the fellah, to calculate the agricultural seasons. It differs only in its era, which is dated from the ascension of the Roman emperor Diocletian. Contemporary Egyptian farmers, like their ancient predecessors, divide the year into three seasons: winter, summer, and inundation. It is also associated with local festivals such as the annual Flooding of the Nile and the ancient Spring festival Sham el-Nessim.
  The Ethiopian calendar is based on this reformed calendar but uses Amharic names for its months and uses a different era. The French Republican Calendar was similar, but began its year at the autumnal equinox. British orrery maker John Gleave represented the Egyptian calendar in a reconstruction of the Antikythera mechanism.
caption: An 11th-century Coptic calendrical icon displaying two months of saints
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