Almanac: Ancient Cycles
Maya, Egyptian & Lunar days
Free · Designed for iPhone. Not verified for macOS.
Now on Apple Watch. Name today as the Maya and Egyptians did, follow Venus, and see when forty ancient sites, from Stonehenge to Chichén Itzá, line up with the sky.
Every day, as the ancients counted it.
Almanac names any day from 10,000 BC to AD 3000 the way the Maya, the Egyptians, and the astronomers of China and Islam counted it, and shows when sixteen ancient sites, from Göbekli Tepe to Machu Picchu, line up with the sun, the moon and the stars.
TURN THE WHEELS OF TIME
• Spin the Maya, Egyptian, Islamic and Chinese calendar wheels with your finger and watch the days go round.
• Count the Maya Long Count up and down, and find when any Calendar Round last came round and when it comes next.
• Follow the Sothic cycle, as Sirius's rising walks round the Egyptian year over the centuries.
• Turn the moon through its month. On the day of a solar eclipse, watch the sun slide in behind the new moon and the sky darken.
• Type a date in any calendar, from 13.0.0.0.0 to 1 Thoth or 1 Muharram.
WHERE STONE MEETS SKY
• Sixteen sites, including Stonehenge, Newgrange, Giza, Karnak, Abu Simbel, Chichén Itzá, Teotihuacan, Angkor Wat and Machu Picchu.
• Thirty alignments: solstice sunrises and sunsets, the moon at its standstills, stars rising over the horizon or crossing a shaft.
• Watch each alignment happen: drag through the hours and see the sun cross the plan into line.
• Plans sit in a compass that turns with your iPhone, under a glass crystal that catches the light as you tilt it.
• Visit in time: jump to moments in each site's history and see the sky as it stood then.
• Follow a site to get a reminder before its next alignment, and a live countdown on your Lock Screen on the day.
THE SKY ABOVE YOU
• Your sky: where the sun rises and sets for you, today and at the solstices and equinoxes.
• Every solar and lunar eclipse, with what you can see of it from where you are or from any site.
• The wandering pole: drag through 27,000 years and watch the pole star change from Vega to Thuban to Polaris.
YOUR BIRTHDAY, ANCIENTLY
Find your Maya day sign, Egyptian season, Chinese animal, and your Hijri, Hebrew and Indian dates, and share them as a card.
WIDGETS
• Calendar Wheel: a calendar wheel turned to today, with buttons to step it day by day.
• Ancient Site: a site and its next sky event, or shuffle through them all.
• Sky Compass: where the sun stands right now over a site's plan.
Every calculation follows published astronomy, from Jean Meeus's Astronomical Algorithms to modern precession models, and every alignment shows its source. Almanac works offline, with no account, no ads and no tracking.
Ratings & Reviews
- This app hasn’t received enough ratings or reviews to display an overview.
Almanac 2.0 is a big one.
• Apple Watch: today's Maya day, the moon, Venus, the other calendars and the next solstice or equinox on your wrist, with complications for your watch face.
• Forty ancient sites, up from sixteen.
• Venus and the planets: follow Venus as morning and evening star through its Maya cycle.
• Eclipse maps: see where on Earth each solar eclipse can be seen, drawn on the device.
• Siri and Shortcuts: ask for today's date in any calendar, the moon tonight, the next alignment, the next eclipse or where Venus is.
• Control Center: a control showing the next alignment at an ancient site.
• Many fixes and refinements throughout.
The developer, danyal sarfraz, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy .
Data Not Collected
The developer does not collect any data from this app.
Accessibility
The developer has not yet indicated which accessibility features this app supports. Learn More
Information
- Seller
- danyal sarfraz
- Size
- 46.9 MB
- Category
- Education
- Compatibility
Requires iOS 18.0 or later.
- iPhone
Requires iOS 18.0 or later. - Mac
Requires macOS 15.0 or later and a Mac with Apple M1 chip or later. - Apple Vision
Requires visionOS 2.0 or later. - Apple Watch
Requires watchOS 11.0 or later.
- iPhone
- Languages
English and 3 more
- English, Arabic, Simplified Chinese, Spanish
- Age Rating
4+
- 4+
- Copyright
- © 2026 Danyal Sarfraz
