Ancient New Year's Celebrations

Until the widespread incorporation of the Julian calendar, cultures throughout the world, including the Romans, each had their own day to start the new year.

The Romans new year's celebrations used to coincide with the vernal equinox - March 20th this year. 

The Babylonians celebrated the rebirth of the natural world following the first new moon of the vernal equinox - March 30th this year.

The Egyptians tied their new year's celebrations to the Nile's annual flood-typically in July.(1)

The recent Chinese New Year started over 3,000 years ago as a celebration of the spring planting season-February 19th this year.

Nowruz or Persian New Year started around the 6th century B.C. under the Achaemenid Empire coinciding with the vernal equinox-March 20th this year.

So if you fall asleep before the drop of the ball in Times Square, you have a number of other dates during the year in which you can celebrate the start of a New Year.

For more information on these customs and festivals, click on the link to History.com's:
 5 Ancient New Year's Celebrations

(1) Synonym.com, Traditional Ancient Egyptian Celebrations, Michelle Lee

A scientific theory to Moses' parting of the Red Sea

A very interesting essay in The Wall Street Journal about how Moses may have parted the Red Sea without divine intervention. I found Napoleon's similar experience fascinating.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/how-did-moses-part-the-red-sea-1417790250

A scene from ‘Exodus: Gods and Kings’ 20TH CENTURY FOX

Book Review: The Lost Army of Cambyses

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I picked up The Lost Army of Cambyses from my mother’s bookshelf. Being an aficionado of ancient history, I knew Cambyses was an ancient Persian King who died not long after he conquered Egypt. But I wondered why my mother didn’t initially offer this novel to me after she read it. She explained that it was a mystery novel set in modern times and she knew that I wasn’t a big mystery fan. (If you check my list of “Books Read” section , you’ll see most are historical fiction, historical non-fiction, science fiction, and action adventure.)

Standing in the hallway with the book in my hand, I decided to look at Chapter 1. Wouldn’t you know it, Chapter 1 started off in 523 B.C. with the lost army. I was hooked. Unfortunately, Chapter 1 was the only chapter set in that time period, but the novel kept me going with Sussman’s academic and detailed style. I say academic, because his use of grammar marks such as commas, semicolons and colons were placed so perfectly. It stood out in the way one of his characters mentioned you could tell the difference between hieroglyphic forgeries and the real thing: the forgeries were always perfect. I started to wonder if Sussman’s work had been translated. There seemed to be a simplicity to his style, yet it worked well with the novel’s setting, especially when we were in the Egyptian police officer’s perspective.

Sussman’s details created a great sense of place. From “the clutter of cement bags and paint pots” in the officers’ apartment for his fountain to the “towering wall of sand stretching right across his line of sight in a single, unbroken curve, with other higher dunes ranged behind it, like waves freeze-framed in the act of crashing down onto a beach. The outlying ranges of the Great Sand Sea.”

Sussman almost lost me when we he used his great attention to detail to dive into Tara’s emotional issues about her father and lover in chapter 3, but once I slogged through those 9 pages (out of 576), the novel really took off.

A good read.