World Calendars
Egyptian calendar date today
The calendar of the pharaohs, in use by about 2500 BC. Every year had exactly 365 days and no leap day, so New Year's Day slowly drifted through the seasons.
29 Phamenoth, year 2775
Years counted from 747 BC (Era of Nabonassar)
- In the Gregorian calendar
- Wednesday 11 November 2026
- This day began
- At midnight, as Wednesday 11 November 2026 begins
- This day ends
- At midnight, as Thursday 12 November 2026 begins
- Year Year 2775 began
- Friday 17 April 2026
- Next new year
- Saturday 17 April 2027 (in 157 days)
- This year has
- 365 days
- Year 1 began
- 18 February 747 BC (Gregorian calendar counted backwards)
- A year has
- 12 months of 30 days, plus 5 extra days for the gods' birthdays
- How it works
- Three seasons of four months, named for the Nile flood, emergence and harvest
- Years count from
- 747 BC, the year count used by the astronomer Ptolemy
- Unusual detail
- The star Sirius rose on New Year's Day only once every 1,460 years
Next holidays in this calendar
157 days
Egyptian New Year 1 Thoth, year 2776
17 April 2027 · Egyptian civil
How the Egyptian calendar works
The year had twelve months of 30 days, grouped into three seasons of four months: Akhet (inundation), Peret (emergence) and Shemu (low water, or harvest). Each month was split into three 10-day decans. Egyptologists write a date by season, so the new year is I Akhet 1. The Greek month names below are the ones Ptolemy used in his Almagest.
| No. | Month | Days |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Thoth (I Akhet) | 30 |
| 2 | Phaophi (II Akhet) | 30 |
| 3 | Athyr (III Akhet) | 30 |
| 4 | Choiak (IV Akhet) | 30 |
| 5 | Tybi (I Peret) | 30 |
| 6 | Mechir (II Peret) | 30 |
| 7 | Phamenoth (III Peret) | 30 |
| 8 | Pharmuthi (IV Peret) | 30 |
| 9 | Pachons (I Shemu) | 30 |
| 10 | Payni (II Shemu) | 30 |
| 11 | Epiphi (III Shemu) | 30 |
| 12 | Mesore (IV Shemu) | 30 |
| - | Epagomenal days | 5 |
The five extra days, "those upon the year", stood outside the months. They were the birthdays of Osiris, Horus, Set, Isis and Nephthys, and were thought dangerous. With no leap day the calendar lost about one day every four years against the Julian year. The heliacal rising of Sirius, thought to herald the Nile flood, came back to 1 Thoth only after 1,461 Egyptian years, or 1,460 Julian years. That period is called the Sothic cycle.
Variants and the method used here
Egyptians dated documents by the regnal year of the reigning pharaoh, so their own records give no continuous year count. This page uses the one astronomers used. Ptolemy's Almagest, written around AD 150, counts 365-day years with no leap days from the first year of Nabonassar, king of Babylon from 747 to 734 BC, a starting point earlier than the oldest Babylonian observations Ptolemy had. 1 Thoth of year 1 fell on 26 February 747 BC (proleptic Julian), at about noon at Alexandria. The Canon of Kings, a list of rulers starting with Nabonassar, let astronomers date eclipses in the same whole Egyptian years.
Here the date is a plain count of days from that epoch, divided into 365-day years. The day changes at midnight, while Ptolemy's epoch is at noon. The wandering year carries on past the reform of Augustus, as it does in the Almagest. Before 26 February 747 BC the count runs to year 0 and negative years. As a check, it puts 1 Thoth of year 887 on 20 July AD 139 (Julian), the date astronomers calculate for the Sirius rising that Censorinus recorded on an Egyptian New Year's Day.
A short history
The civil calendar was in place by the Old Kingdom: its use is probable under Shepseskaf, around 2510 BC, and certain under Neferirkare in the mid-25th century BC. Parker proposed that it was introduced between about 2937 and 2821 BC. A lunar calendar ran alongside it for some religious festivals. Eduard Meyer's 1904 study of Sirius observations underpins much of the conventional chronology of Egypt, though his origin date of 4241 BC has been discredited.
In 238 BC Ptolemy III's Decree of Canopus proposed a sixth epagomenal day every fourth year, but priests and people resisted it and it was dropped. Augustus imposed the reform in 26 or 25 BC, creating the Alexandrian calendar, with the first leap day in 22 BC. Its descendant, the Coptic calendar, is still used in Egypt by the Coptic Church and by farmers.
Sources
How this site calculates the date: The 365-day wandering year (no leap day), counted in Ptolemy’s Era of Nabonassar from 26 February 747 BC.