EGYPTIAN CALENDARS

Introduction

Egyptians mainly used two types of calendars for different purposes .

The oldest is the lunar calendar ,this is an astronomy based calendar
and used for agriculture and religious purposes. Second is the
civilcalendar used for administrative purposes , it is simpler than
the lunar calendar with no astronomy involved in it and easy to use
for common people.

Old lunar calendar Civil calendar

THE OLDEST CALENDAR USED BY EGYPTICIANS  USED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE PURPOSES,

INDEPENDENT OF THE NEED FOR CAREFUL

USED FOR SETTING DATES AND TIMES FOR
ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATIONS MORE
SACRIFICES, FESTIVALS AND HOLIDAYS
AMENABLE TO CIVIL BUSINESS PLANNING

SPLIT INTO TWELVE MONTHS OF 30 DAYS WITH

YEAR WAS DIVIDED INTO THREE SEASONS OF 4
AN ADDITIONAL FIVE EPAGOMENAL DAYS
MONTH EACH AKHET,PARET,SHEMU
ATTACHED AT THE END OF THE YEAR

Modified Egyptian calendar continues to be used in  Egypt to calculate

the agricultural seasons and celebrate festivals like Flood of Nile and
the ancient spring festival sham el-nessim

The Yazdegerd calendar (used by Zoroastrians in regions of Iran, Azerbaijan and

central Asia, and by Parsis in India) and the Armenian calendar still use the Egyptian
calendar with largely same structure