Coptic and Ethiopian Calendars

Ancient Egyptian calendar was reformed in 26 B.C.E. It happened shortly after the capture of Egypt by the Romans. The reform consisted of introduction of leap years. Every forth year contained 366 days at the expense of the increase of number of additional days. Such reformated calendar was called Alexandrine and it is still used by Copts - direct descendents of ancient Egyptians, who is now counted by several millions. Copts speak Arabic language and mainly are Christians. The count of years Copts start with Friday 29, 284 A.D. according to the Julian calendar. Formally this is the date of Diocletian era, but Copts call it the era of martyrs in memory of Christians tortured to death by Emperor Diocletian.

Copts calendar is the solar one and is not correlated in any way to Sirius, unlike their predecessor � ancient Egyptian calendar.

The same Alexandrine calendar is used by the Ethiopians. But they start their calculation from the Ethiopian era — from Wednesday August 29, 8 C.E. according to the Julian calendar.

Ordinal number of the month	Names of Coptic calendar months	Names of Ethiopian calendar months	Number of days in the non leap year	Number of days in the leap year
1	Tout	Meskerem	30	30
2	Baba	Thikimt	30	30
3	Hator	Hidar	30	30
4	Kiahk	Tahsas	30	30
5	Toba	Thir	30	30
6	Amshir	Yekatit	30	30
7	Baramhat	Megabit	30	30
8	Baramouda	Miyazia	30	30
9	Bashans	Ginbot	30	30
10	Paona	Senie	30	30
11	Epep	Hamlie	30	30
12	Mesra	Nehasie	30	30
Days of extra period of year	Nasie	Phagumien	5	6
Total days in the year:			365	366
Medium length of a year in the 4 years cycle:			(3 * 365 + 366) / 4 = 365.25

As we can see an average length of the year is the same as in the Julian calendar. This is explained by the equal with Julian calendar number of days in ordinary and leap years and by the fact, that in each four years period there is one leap year for three ordinary years exactly as it is in the Julian calendar.

Try converting dates using the Calendar Converter.