Something Interesting | Facts about New Year
So, we have just clocked over to another year on our human-made internationally accepted Gregorian calendar. The new year we celebrated on the 1st of January is not based on any astrological or seasonal markers. Does another “New Year” exist?
If you are wondering where ‘January’ came from, Janus is the Roman god of beginnings, time, transitions, and passages and is depicted with two faces looking in opposite directions.
The Gregorian calendar is attributed to Pope Gregory XIII who introduced a revised version of the Julian calendar in 1582 as some miscalculations around leap years were noted to create some problems, notably around seasonal celebrations. The Julian calendar, a revised version of the Roman republican calendar which in turn has roots in Greek and Babylonian calendars, was introduced by Julius Caesar in 46 BCE (Before Common Era) .
The Gregorian calendar, although now widely adopted and utilised for civil and official purposes even in countries where there are more culturally prominent calendars, was for a long time only used in Catholic-dominant nations. You may find it hard to believe that the Gregorian calendar was not utilised in Britain and America until 1752 .
A few countries have not adopted the Gregorian calendar, Ethiopia and Iran are two among them . The Ge'ez calendar is the official state calendar of Ethiopia and it is seven years behind, with its new year falling on September 11th or the 12th every leap year on the Gregorian calendar . With one of the longest chronologically recorded histories in the world, Iran or otherwise known as Persia, is said to have had a succession of calendars in use for over two thousand years, with the modern Iranian calendar still used as the official calendar. New year on the Persian Solar Hijiri Calendar corresponds to the Northern Spring equinox and occurs around the 20th of March on the Gregorian calendar. It is also the official calendar in Afghanistan. So, when most of us celebrated the dawn of a new year on the 1st of January 2025, it was the 12th day of the 10th month of the year 1403 on the Solar Hijiri calendar and the 30th of the 3rd month of the year 2017 on the Ethiopian calendar !
Several countries in the Middle East and Asia use different cultural calendars alongside the Gregorian calendar. Hence, they may celebrate “New Year” more than once. A handful in Asia use a fusion of the Gregorian and cultural calendars. For example, the Thai calendar operates on the 12-month system of the Gregorian calendar but with the Buddhist Era as its method of calculating the year. 11th of March 543 BCE, believed to be the date of the death of Guatama Buddha, marks the beginning of the Buddhist Era. So, if you are ever in Thailand this year, don’t be alarmed to find yourself in year 2568!
Dulani Abeysinghe, eCALD® Educator
