The Gregorian Calendar and the Egyptian Calendar

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During ancient times, different cultures and people used different calendars to plan for different days of their lives in the community. These lead to the creation of different calendar systems. Some of these calendars include the lunar calendar, the Gregorian calendar, and the Egyptian calendar. The Egyptian calendar and the Gregorian calendar were both used to keep time and planning for the Egyptian and the Roman cultures respectively. They were also created and introduced at different times in history. For instance, the Gregorian calendar was introduced around 1582, and the Egyptian calendar is the first calendars known to humans and is assumed to be introduced in 4236 BCE. These show that the people of Egypt were the first people to create and implement the use of the calendar (Delaune 1943).

The Gregorian calendar which was introduced by Pope Gregory XIII making it to be named after him was formed and implemented mainly by use of arithmetical formation while the Egyptian calendar has anciently based the phases of the moon (Grimal 1997). The Gregorian calendar which was formed by the Roman Catholic Church, it’s the years that are counted starting from the time of Jesus incarnation and uses a structure called ‘the year numbering system’. The Egyptian calendar, on the other hand, used the Nile cycles to determine there three seasons; the Inundation which was from 21^st June to 21^st February, Emergence which was from 21^st October to 21^st February, and the summer which was from 21^st February to 21^st June.

The Gregorian calendar was a modification of the Julian calendar composed of 365 1/4 days with intercalation of a leap year which is after every four years while the Egyptian calendar is composed of 360 days a year with 12 months of 30 days each and 5 days added at the end of the year.

The creation and introduction of the Gregorian calendar by the roman pope made the lives of the community use it to have an upper hand over others using other forms of the calendar. The calendar also provided some forms of a setback in those using it. One of the merits of the Gregorian calendar is that in a month all the weeks have an integral number of days. The years also have the number of weeks that are integral. This makes it easy for those using the calendar to be able to directly tell the day of the week.

The gregorian calendar also provided an even number of weeks. It had the same number of weeks in a month. This made it more accurate compared to the other systems of the calendar since it breaks the whole day into 24 hours and does not specify the start and end of the day. Due to its accuracy and event number of days in a week and weeks in a month, it is commonly used by developed countries. It is also fixed thus making it to be possible to know dates of different days even a hundred years later.

The gregorian calendar which was perceived and used by many developed countries had its own setbacks that made it uneasy to use. For instance, in the Gregorian, the New Year varies with almost six days and the solstice and the equinox differ by at least a week. These make it hard to be used by historians and astronomers because they will not be able to know a particular season to plan their events. This calendar also has overly uneven month lengths which have inconsistent patterns and an appointed day is not on the same day always.

The Egyptian Calendar one of the first calendars was significantly considered since it was much easier to use and could survive and be used daily for more than three thousand years. Due to these, its use was even extended until the late 16th century by historians and astronomers. The calendars ten days in a week, thirty days in a month, and 365 days of the year made it a more sensible calendar to use thus giving it an upper hand (Carrier 1989).

Although it was considered sensible and easy to use, it was also not perfect. The number of days in a week which is not a perfect 365.242 in a normal tropical year makes it hard to determine the exact start and end of a particular season and the commencement of another.

Upon the creation and implementation of different calendar systems, the use was spread in different countries and adapted more easily or slowly into the running of the people’s life. Like for instance the Gregorian calendar which was created in Italy was easily spread in other countries like China, the UK among others. This was due to the integrity of the number of days and ease of determining a day even a thousand years later (Neugebauer 1975).

American society mostly started using the Gregorian calendar. This is because both the number of days in a week and the number of weeks in a month are integral. Due to the integral of the days and weeks, it is easy to tell directly the day of the week. It is also a useful calendar in American society due to the fact that it has the same number of weeks in a month. This is because it is fixed thus making it able to know a day even a thousand years later. One can therefore be able to plan an event that will happen even ten years later due to the certainty that the days will not change but will be the same year in rear out.

References

Carrier, C. (1989). Egypt Calendar: Converts Today’s Dates to the Ancient Egyptian System. Web.

Delaune, A.E. (1943). The Gregorian Calendar, Past-Present-Future: A Historical Transcript of the Gregorian Calendar Covering The Period from 1583 to 2100 AE. New York: Del-Whit Publications.

Grimal, N. (1997). A History of Ancient Egypt. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.

Neugebauer, O. (1975). A History of Ancient Mathematical Astronomy. Berlin Heidelberg: Springer Verlag.

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The Gregorian Calendar and the Egyptian Calendar

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