Ancient Egyptian Calendars: How Many Were There?

Abstract

In 1950, Richard A. Parker hypothesized that pharaonic Egypt had three separate calendars: original lunar; civil; later lunar, of which the most ancient was the original lunar. l To be fair, it should be noted that Ludwig Borchardt first discussed the idea of a second lunar calendar in great detail, and earlier scholars, such as Brugsch (in volume I of his Thesaurus inscriptionum Aegyptiacarum) had also attempted also attempted to explain various anomalies by hypothesizing multiple lunar calendars. The evidence for a Predynastic lunar calendar is explicit in double-dated inscriptions that occur throughout ancient Egyptian history.2 In particular, correlations of a lunar month-and-day date with a civil month-and-day date confirmed Parker's theory that a functioning lunar calendar co-existed with the civil calendar.