Coptic calendar Roman Emperor Augustus imposed the Decree upon Egypt as its official calendar (although it was unsynchronized with the newly introduced Julian calendar which had erroneously been intercalating leap days every third year due to a misinterpration of the leap year rule so as to apply inclusive counting). To distinguish it from the Ancient Egyptian calendar, which remained in use by some astronomers until medieval times, this reformed calendar is known as the Coptic calendar. Its years and months coincide with those of the Ethiopian calendar but have different numbers and names. The Coptic year is the extension of the ancient
Roman calendar role as "pontifex maximus", ordered a reformation of the calendar in 46. This was undertaken by a group of scholars apparently including the Alexandrian Sosigenes and the Roman M. Flavius. Its main lines involved the insertion of ten additional days throughout the calendar and regular intercalation of a single leap day every fourth year in order to bring the Roman calendar into close agreement with the solar year. The year 46 was the last of the old system and included 3 intercalary months, the first inserted in February and two more—' and '—before the kalends of December. After Caesar's assassination,