As the world prepared to celebrate the coming of the New Year, it was participating in a 4,000 year old tradition dating back to the ancient Babylonians. For the Babylonians however, the New Year did not begin in January, instead it would have been in March following the vernal equinox (the day with an equal amount of sunlight and darkness). They would mark the New Year with an 11 day religious celebration called Akitu.
For the Ancient Egyptians the New Year began with the annual flooding of the Nile, for the Chinese it was the second new moon after the winter solstice… it was not until the time of Julius Caesar that January 1 marked the start of the New Year.
The early Roman calendar had only 10 months and 304 days, however the use of this system along with the equinoxes caused the calendar to fall out of sync with the sun, and thus Julius Caesar solved the problem by creating a system upon which our current calendar is based. Caesar marked January 1 as the start of the New Year in honor of the God Janus (the God of new beginnings.) Janus had two faces which allowed him to look back into the past and forward into the future. People in Rome would celebrate by decorating their homes with laurel branches and having raucous parties.
In addition, the Babylonians, Egyptians, Chinese, and Romans would all take part in something which resembles our New Year’s Resolution tradition. In ancient times the New Year was seen as a time of new beginnings and forgiveness; debts would be paid and forgiven, people would perform favors for each other, and people would recommit to being productive members of their family and neighborhood.
Now, with all that history and tradition behind you, what will your New Year’s resolution be?