Coptic Calendar

The Coptic calendar or the Alexandrian calendar is a calendar used by the Orthodox Church in Egypt. It appeared as a result of the Ptolemaic change in the Egyptian calendar. The Egyptian calendar was changed in the year 238 BC, by Ptolemy III who made several changes; By increasing the number of days of the Egyptian year, changes that did not please the Egyptian priests, the project was aborted. But it was re-implemented again in the year 25 BC by Emperor Augustus who completely changed the Egyptian calendar to coincide with the new Julian calendar (which is the basis of the Gregorian calendar that the West follows today). Thus, the Coptic calendar, which the Egyptian Orthodox Church operates in until today, came into existence, which differs from the Egyptian Pharaonic calendar.

However, the Egyptian calendar remained in use by some astronomers until the Middle Ages, so the Ethiopian calendar was affected by the Egyptian calendar in terms of the number of months of the year, with different names for the months.

The Coptic calendar originated in the year 4241 BC, that is, in the forty-third century BC, when the ancient Egyptians observed the Yamani poetic star, and put this calendar by observing three natural phenomena together, namely: “the burning sunrise of the star” with the “sunrise” with the advent of The Nile Flood.” Then they calculated the period between each two apparitions until they reached the number of days of the year. They divided the year into three great seasons, namely: flood, seed and harvest. Then into twelve months, each month of which is thirty days, and they added the remaining period, which is five and a quarter days, and made it A month they called the small month, and the Coptic year became 365 days in a simple year and 366 days in a leap year. The Egyptian farmer respected this calendar due to its conformity with the agricultural seasons and still follows it today.

The first month of the Coptic year is the month of Tut, in reference to the astronomer who set the ancient Egyptian calendar and invented the letters. Tut was born in the village of Mantoot, which still exists, and belongs to the Abu Qurqas Center, Minya Governorate, Upper Egypt, with the same old name.

The Egyptologist "Breasted" wrote that this great calendar was carried by "Julius Caesar" to Rome and was used there as the best calendar. It is mentioned by Dr. Isaac Obeid, in his book "The Wisdom of the Egyptians": This calendar is the first scientific calendar "solar calendar" followed by all the peoples of the civilized world. And that the global Gregorian calendar is taken from the Gregorian calendar, which is taken from the Roman calendar, which is taken from the Egyptian calendar.

The meaning of the Coptic calendar is a solar calendar, because it is related to agriculture - as we have also mentioned here in the Anba Takla Haymanot website in other sections - where it is not possible to organize the beginning of sowing and harvesting according to the Hebrew lunar calendar - bearing in mind that the Hebrews and Arabs depend on grazing and not agriculture. It is a fact that is now ignored by the prevailing culture in Egypt, which insists that we Egyptians are Arabs.

Adapted from:

https://www.marefa.org/التقويم_القبطي

Translated by Google