New Year festival celebrates the commencement of the New Year. It is, to varying degrees of explicitness in world cultures, a remembrance or repetition of the creation of the cosmos on the symbolic anniversary of its creation, in order that the gods, the cosmos, and the community may be strengthened.
Ancient festivals
In Egypt the year began in September because the river Nile would flood then and it ment good soil for crops. The Pharaoh would lead a big procession along the river Nile and musicians would play trumpets, drums and tambourines.
The Babylonians had a spring festival on 23 March every year and that was their New Year. For the ancient Greeks the New Year began on 21 December and by the Roman republican calendar the year began on March 1. However, after 153 BC the official date was January 1 and this was confirmed by the Julian calendar (46 BC).…
