Friday Fact - Celebrating The New Year
"Happy New Year!"
That greeting will be said and heard for at least the first couple of weeks as the new year gets under way. But did you know that the day celebrated as New Year's Day was not always January 1st?
The celebration of the new year is the oldest of all holidays. It was first observed in ancient Babylon about 4000 years ago. At around 2000 BC, Babylonians celebrated the beginning of a new year on what is now March 23rd with the first new moon (actually, the first visible crescent) after the the Vernal Equinox...the time of year that spring begins and new crops are planted...a time of renewal.
The Romans actually continued to observe the new year in March, but because various emperors continually tampered with the calendar, the calendar soon became out of sync with the sun. What WERE they thinking?!
Then, in 153 BC, they declared...quite arbitrarily...January 1st as the beginning of the new year naming this first month of the year after the mythical figure of Janus ...a symbol of beginnings and endings, whose faces allow him to look both forward and backward in time.
Despite having seemingly resolved the matter (pun intended), tampering with the calendar continued and before you knew it, January 1st wasn't the new year any more. I repeat, what WERE they thinking?!
Finally...in 46 BC...all the shuffling ended for good. Julius Caesar had the clout to establish what was to become known as the Julian calendar. It re-established January 1st as the new year once and for all. It also re-synchronized the calendar with the sun...which, by the way required that the previous year to drag on for 445 days.
And that's a Friday Fact!
Post Note
The Romans celebrated the new year by exchanging gifts and they
had their own version of the tradition of resolution-making (something first
begun by the Babylonians). A common resolution in ancient Rome was to
seek forgiveness from enemies of previous years. I guess we've
expanded that to include seeking reconciliation with our own inner enemies like food!
And Happy Year of the Rat to you !!! seriously May Blessings abound to you and yours this 2008
Posted by: sandy k | December 28, 2007 at 11:25 AM
I hope that this New Year is a most excellent one for you. Happy celebrating!
Posted by: CountryDew | December 28, 2007 at 03:35 PM