How it works

The vulkanistic calendar consists of four months of equal length, each with 91 days, plus a special additional day – Volcanic Day, which marks the New Year. The months are called Sobek (August 18 – November 16), Piez (November 17 – February 15), Frinek (February 16 – May 17), and Arpol (May 18 – August 16) and are roughly based on the seasons. The Day of the Volcano/ The Vulkanistic New Year falls on August 17, is not part of a month or week, lasts 30 hours instead of 24, and elegantly compensates for the leap year problem.

The starting year of the vulkanistic calendar is 1642, which results from 1642 being the first four decimal numbers when dividing the number 69 (nice) by 420. Since some events occurred before this time, there are two ingenious solutions. Either you write it as pVT, an abbreviation (pre-vulkanistic time), or you can simply write a minus before the year.

Example: August 18, 1500: 1th Sobek -142.

You can, of course, also write the dates by hand. For example, you can write 1/1/365 for the 1th Sobek 365. But what do we do when we have the most beautiful day of the year, The Day of the Volcano? There are two elegant solutions. Either you write 0/0/365 in the case of the volcanic New Year, 365, and then 1/1/365 the next day. But you can also make it easier and simply write V/365. Both come to the same thing, depending on your preference.