Is there some kind of free online calendar?

Did Ancient Egypt use a calendar? If so, what kind of calendar did it use?

• Answer:

  The ancient Egyptians did use a calendar, but not in the same sense we do now. They understood the basic length of a year, and how many days were in it.  And they could tell when particular seasons were imminent, both by counting days, but also by the position of certain stars. But keeping track of years was normally based on a Pharaoh's length of reign.  Ramesses II (probably the most well known) lived for 66 years.  Egyptians would have counted past years by something like "the 10th year of Ramesses".  If the time in question was before Ramesses II, it would be something like "the 9th year of Seti" (Seti I was Ramesses father, and reigned for 11 years). Generally, when you see a current calendar applied to an ancient Egyptian period, the word "circa" is often applied.  This is because the timelines were fluid at the time.  Kings may have been stricken from the record, and forgotten to history, so trying to gage a particular date mentioned in texts may be off by years or decades.