![]() Romans celebrated by offering sacrifices to Janus, exchanging gifts with one another, decorating their homes with laurel branches and attending raucous parties. He introduced the Julian calendar, which closely resembles the more modern Gregorian calendar that most countries around the world use today.Īs part of his reform, Caesar instituted January 1 as the first day of the year, partly to honor the month’s namesake: Janus, the Roman god of beginnings, whose two faces allowed him to look back into the past and forward into the future. the emperor Julius Caesar decided to solve the problem by consulting with the most prominent astronomers and mathematicians of his time. Over the centuries, the calendar fell out of sync with the sun, and in 46 B.C. A later king, Numa Pompilius, is credited with adding the months of Januarius and Februarius. The early Roman calendar consisted of 10 months and 304 days, with each new year beginning at the vernal equinox according to tradition, it was created by Romulus, the founder of Rome, in the eighth century B.C. READ MORE: 5 Ancient New Year's Celebrations The first day of the Lunar New Year, meanwhile, occurred with the second new moon after the winter solstice. In Egypt, for instance, the year began with the annual flooding of the Nile, which coincided with the rising of the star Sirius. Throughout antiquity, civilizations around the world developed increasingly sophisticated calendars, typically pinning the first day of the year to an agricultural or astronomical event. ![]() when he introduced his new Julian calendar. In addition to the new year, Atiku celebrated the mythical victory of the Babylonian sky god Marduk over the evil sea goddess Tiamat and served an important political purpose: It was during this time that a new king was crowned or that the current ruler’s divine mandate was symbolically renewed.ĭid you know? In order to realign the Roman calendar with the sun, Julius Caesar had to add 90 extra days to the year 46 B.C. They marked the occasion with a massive religious festival called Akitu (derived from the Sumerian word for barley, which was cut in the spring) that involved a different ritual on each of its 11 days. ![]() For the Babylonians, the first new moon following the vernal equinox-the day in late March with an equal amount of sunlight and darkness-heralded the start of a new year. ![]() The earliest recorded festivities in honor of a new year’s arrival date back some 4,000 years to ancient Babylon. ![]()
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