The New Year in Antiquity

When the Jews were exiled to Babylon, they found there a festival called Akitu. It was celebrated at the New Year. The festival began on the first day of the month of Nissannu and lasted 12 days. That first day corresponded to the spring equinox, which is 21 March in today's calendar. In certain towns of Mesopotamia the festival was celebrated both in Nisan and in Tishri, the autumn equinox.

At the Akitu festival the King of Babylon led the celebration, and this was the beginning of a yearly cycle. The new year corresponded in theory to the beginning of the universe and the cosmos. The festival began at the Ishtar Gate (the name Esther comes from this goddess; a small part of the remains of this gate is in the Istanbul Archaeological Museum, and a very large part in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin) and ended at the Temple of Akitu. When King Cyrus conquered Babylon, the festival was celebrated no more.

The new year in Egypt began when the rains of Ethiopia caused the floods of the Nile, which filled the river bed with the silt that gave Egypt life. The Egyptians had a fixed sign: when the star Sirius disappeared from view and reappeared 70 days later, that was the start of the new year, and getting thoroughly drunk they celebrated it joyfully. The date corresponded more or less to the middle of July. If the Nile floods were small there was famine, but if they were too great they caused destruction.

What is interesting is that the Egyptian calendar says we are now in the year 6259 from the beginning of the world. This differs little from our own calendar, which says we are in the year 5780 from the beginning of the world. Only remember that the Egyptians built this calendar not like ours, on the lunar system, but on the solar system, taking into account that the earth goes round the sun in 365 days. They said these 365 days were made up of 12 months of 30 days each. The 5 additional days formed another month called 'the short month'. That is why they counted not 13 but 12 months. This calendar is used today only by the Copts, in their churches.

The Romans began by celebrating the new year in the month of March. They worshipped the god Janus, whose name meant 'gate' and who has 2 faces, one looking right and the other left. This symbolized the beginning and the end. In the year 153 BCE the Senate decided that the year should begin on the first day of the month of Janus, or January. Caesar modified the calendar, which is why it is called the 'Julian calendar'. Later a pope named Gregory made another modification in 1582, and so the calendar came to be called the 'Gregorian calendar'.

Today a few countries such as Iran, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Nepal and Saudi Arabia continue with their own calendars.

According to the famous Sumerologist Muazzez İlmiye Çiğ, among the Turks before they became Muslims the new year celebration went like this: the sky was divine, and day and night fought each other. Since 21 December was the shortest day and the longest night of the year, they held celebrations using a branch of pine they called 'AKÇAM', 'the White Pine', and placed little gifts under the branch, tying small things to it so that Heaven would bring goodness to the world. Mrs Çiğ also says that 'Father Christmas' is a Turkish figure, because his clothes closely resemble what the Turks of Central Asia wore, and that this figure entered the Western tradition by way of the Huns.