What was the name of the inundation season in the ancient Egyptian calendar? Akhet. Akhet was the first of ancient Egypt’s three major seasons and was traditionally associated with the annual inundation, or flooding, of the Nile.
The season followed the extra epagomenal days at the end of the year and came before Peret, the season of emergence or growth. It was followed by Shemu, the season of low water and harvest. In the natural cycle, Akhet roughly corresponded to September through January, although the exact timing of the flood varied.
Akhet was divided into four months, conventionally written as I Akhet, II Akhet, III Akhet, and IV Akhet. In the civil calendar, each month contained 30 days. Because that calendar lacked a leap-year adjustment for much of its history, the named seasons gradually shifted relative to the solar year.
A common mix-up is treating Akhet as a fixed modern date range. It was a calendrical season tied to the Nile’s life-giving flood, not a permanently aligned block of Gregorian months. Peret meant emergence or growth, while Shemu referred to the harvest or low-water period.