At the dawn of the new year, it is customary to take good resolutions pretty much everywhere in the world. The New Year is an important time milestone in the calendar, and many people set new goals for the coming year.
These New Year’s resolutions don’t actually have nothing new: the most ancient cultures had established a religious festival or some form of tradition to mark the beginning of the new year.
Early 20th century New Year’s resolution postcards. | Ivan Akira via Wikimedia Commons
The Babylonians
Historically, the Babylonians, about 4,000 years agoare the first to commit for the new year (which later become resolutions).
The Babylonians are also the first civilization (according to our current knowledge) to have organized celebrations in honor of the new year. However, for them, the year did not begin in January, but in mid-March, at the time of sowing. For the Babylonians, the resolutions of New Year were linked to religion, mythology, power and socio-economic values.
They would thus have initiated the tradition ofa twelve-day New Year’s festival called “Akitu”. Statues of deities paraded through the streets of the city and rites were organized to symbolize victory over the forces of chaos.
During this festival, people planted and sowed, pledged allegiance to the king in place or crowned a new one, and promised to repay their debts during the following year. The Babylonians believed that if they fulfilled their New Year’s promises, the gods would grant them boons in the new year.
In ancient Rome
Ancient Rome perpetuated the tradition of the celebration of the New Year and the making of promises which accompanied it. The Roman New Year was originally celebrated on March 15 (the Ides of March), because it was on this date that the most important Roman officials (the consuls) took office.
The Anna Perenna partygoddess of the new year and the beginning of spring, was also celebrated on March 15.
With the Julian calendar, introduced by the Emperor Julius Caesar in 46 BC. AD, 1er January becomes the beginning of the new year. This new date made it possible tohonor the Roman god Janus.
Symbolically, Janus has two faces, one looking back, to the previous year, and the other looking ahead, towards the new year. Janus was the protector of doors, arches, thresholds and transitions to new beginnings.
Statue depictedas Janus in the Vatican Museums. | loudon dodd via Wikimedia Commons
To celebrate the new year, the Romans offered sacrifices to Janus and promised to renew the bonds between citizens, the state and the deities. Blessings and gifts were exchanged (for example, fruit and honey), and pledged allegiances to the emperor. New Year celebrations and pledges were rooted in the spirituality, power structures, and social fabric of Roman culture.
The age of chivalry
At Middle Ages (c. 500-1500), knights took the oath of allegiance and renewed their knightly vows each year.
According to legend, the most famous chivalric vows were “peacock vows” or “pheasant vows”: knights laid their hands on a live or roasted peacock and renewed their vows of upholding the values of chivalry. The splendid and varied colors of these birds would have symbolized the majesty of kings and nobility.
In the Middle Ages, the New Year was celebrated at different times of the year depending on the society. Due to an error of schedulethe Julian calendar had granted seven days too many to the year 1000.
Modern era
To solve the problems related to the Julian calendar, the Gregorian calendar was introduced by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582. The new year is then officially reinstated at 1er January.
The religion continued to exert an important social and cultural influence on the purposes and function of New Year’s greetings. For example, in the XIXe century, Protestantism emphasized promises strongly tied to religion, spirituality and morality.
However, by the 1800s there was some evidence that the resolutions were beginning to be scoffed at. For example, a series of satirical resolutions was reported in Walker’s Hibernian Magazine (1802), with for example the following pike: “Statesmen have resolved to have no other object in view than the good of their country.”
As resolutions became commonplace, people made and broke commitments as they still do today. For example, as early as 1671, the Scottish author Anne Halkett inscribed in His diary the following resolution: “I won’t offend anyone anymore.”
As before, people in all cultures continue to celebrate the New Year (albeit at different times) and make resolutions. Just as ancient civilizations prayed for rich harvests, those who make resolutions today tend to project societal values.
New Year’s resolutions continue to crystallize our imaginations, hopes and desires for betterment; the new year continues to symbolize a new threshold, an opportunity for a fresh start.
This article is republished from The Conversation under Creative Commons license. Read theoriginal article.
