After seeing a recent post by a new member about dates (Welcome, fergusr) I began to wonder...

2 Questions:

#1 What calendar (including those of cultures that no longer exist) provides the highest number for this year?

#2 What is the first calander we have record of?

Shaggy

The Older cultures told time by Kings, (In the third year of King So and So)

Egyptian Seems to be the eldest (that I can find or know) If the Sumerians had a calender I do not know.

As for years. Set at 2000 Gregorian:


calender YEAR

Jewish 5760-5761
Chinese 4698 (Year of the Dragon)
Old Roman 2753
Buddhist 2544
Christian 2000
Coptic 1716
Islamic 1420-1421

You can't just add 4 years of 365 days, Some of these run on Lunar Cycles, others on different cycles which may or may not mesh correctly.

No matter what I try I can't get my columns to line up nicely in the post

Five thousand years ago, Sumerians in the Tigris-Euphrates (todays/Iraq) had a calendar that divided the year into 30 months, the day into 12 periods(corresponding to 2 of our hours) and each of these into 30 parts(like 4 of our minutes)
www.goclock.com/