The Armenian calendar is the calendar traditionally used in

Armenia Armenia, officially the Republic of Armenia, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of West Asia. It is a part of the Caucasus region and is bordered by Turkey to the west, Georgia (country), Georgia to the north and Azerbaijan to ...

, primarily during the medieval ages. Since 1918, the civil calendar in Armenia is the

Gregorian calendar The Gregorian calendar is the calendar used in most parts of the world. It went into effect in October 1582 following the papal bull issued by Pope Gregory XIII, which introduced it as a modification of, and replacement for, the Julian cale ...

. The Armenian calendar was based on an invariant year length of 365 days. Because a solar year is about 365.25 days and not 365 days, the correspondence between the Armenian calendar and both the solar year and the

Julian calendar The Julian calendar is a solar calendar of 365 days in every year with an additional leap day every fourth year (without exception). The Julian calendar is still used as a religious calendar in parts of the Eastern Orthodox Church and in parts ...

slowly drifted over time, shifting across a year of the Julian calendar once in 1,461 calendar years (see Sothic cycle). Thus, the Armenian year 1461 ( Gregorian & Julian 2011) completed the first Sothic cycle, and the Armenian Calendar was one year off. In A.D. 352, tables compiled by Andreas of Byzantium were introduced in Armenia to determine the religious holidays. When those tables exhausted on 11 July 552 (Julian Calendar), the Armenian calendar was introduced. Year 1 of the Armenian calendar began on 11 July 552 of the

. The calendar was adopted at the Second Council of Dvin. Armenian year 1462 (the first year of the second cycle) began on 11 July 2012 of the Julian calendar (24 July 2012 of the

). An analytical expression of the Armenian date includes the ancient names of days of the week, Christian names of the days of the week, days of the month, Date/Month/Year number after 552 A.D., and the religious feasts. The Armenian calendar is divided into 12 months (de facto 13) of 30 days each, plus an additional ( epagomenal) five days, called '' aweleacʿ'' ("superfluous"). Years in the Armenian era are usually given in

Armenian numerals Armenian numerals form a historic numeral system created using the majuscules (uppercase letters) of the Armenian alphabet. There was no notation for zero in the old system, and the numeric values for individual letters were added together ...

(written in

Armenian letters The Armenian alphabet (, or , ) or, more broadly, the Armenian script, is an alphabetic writing system developed for Armenian language, Armenian and occasionally used to write other languages. It is one of the three Alphabets of the South C ...

) preceded by the abbreviation , for (, meaning "in the year"). For example, , which means "the year 1455." Another prefix is , standing for ( "in the Armenian year").

Months

The Armenian month names show influence of the

Zoroastrian calendar Adherents of Zoroastrianism use three distinct versions of traditional calendars for Zoroastrian festivals, liturgical purposes. Those all derive from Middle Ages, medieval Iranian calendars and ultimately are based on the Babylonian calendar a ...

L. H. Gray, "On Certain Persian and Armenian Month- Names as Influenced by the Avesta Calendar," ''JAOS'' 28 (1907), 339. and Kartvelian influence in two cases (2nd and 3rd months). There are different systems for transliterating the names; the forms below are transliterated according to the Hübschmann-Meillet-Benveniste system:

Days of the month

The Armenian calendar gives the days of the month names instead of numbering them – something also found in the

Avestan Avestan ( ) is the liturgical language of Zoroastrianism. It belongs to the Iranian languages, Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family and was First language, originally spoken during the Avestan period, Old ...

calendars. Zoroastrian influence is evident in five names:

Holidays

Per Armenian law, 12 days are declared as non-working days. Non-working days include:

References

Literature

* V. Bănăţeanu, "Le calendrier arménien et les anciens noms des mois", in: Studia et Acta Orientalia 10, 1980, pp. 33–46 * Edouard Dulaurier,
Recherches sur la chronologie arménienne technique et historique
' (1859), 2001 reprint . * Jost Gippert, ''Old Armenian and Caucasian Calendar Systems'' in The Annual of The Society for The Study of Caucasia", 1, 1989, 3-1

http://titus.uni-frankfurt.de/personal/jg/html/jg1986f.htm Jost Gippert: Old Armenian and Caucasian Calendar Systems [I]: Frame] * Louis Herbert Gray, Louis H. Gray, ''On Certain Persian and Armenian Month-Names as Influenced by the Avesta Calendar'', Journal of the American Oriental Society (1907) * P'. Ingoroq'va, "Jvel-kartuli c'armartuli k'alendari" ("The Old Georgian pagan calendar"), in: Sakartvelos muzeumis moambe ("Messenger of the Museum of Georgia"), 6, 1929–30, pp. 373–446 and 7, 1931–32, pp. 260–336 * K'. K'ek'elije, "Jveli kartuli c'elic'adi" ("The Old Georgian year"), in: St'alinis saxelobis Tbilisis Saxelmc'ipo Universit'et'is šromebi ("Working papers of the Tbilisi State University by the name of Stalin") 18, 1941, reprinted in the author's "Et'iudebi jveli kartuli lit'erat'uris ist'oriidan" ("Studies in the history of Old Georgian literature") 1, 1956, pp. 99–124.

External links

The Haik calendar
(Origin of the Armenian calendar).

{{DEFAULTSORT:Armenian Calendar

Calendar A calendar is a system of organizing days. This is done by giving names to periods of time, typically days, weeks, months and years. A calendar date, date is the designation of a single and specific day within such a system. A calendar is ...

Calendar eras