HISTORY OF ETHIOPIAN NEW YEAR: WHAT'S ENKUTATASH?

HISTORY OF ETHIOPIAN NEW YEAR: WHAT'S  ENKUTATASH?

   

Why is your friendly neighborhood scholarly person writing concerning the Ethiopian New Year? some of years agone the Washington Post interviewed Maine for an article they were publishing on the topic. The Washington D.C. area has over 200,000 Ethiopian-Americans who celebrate the vacation this year on 9-11. a gaggle of native Ethiopian activists and businessmen want to make the day, known as Enkutatash in Ethi­o­pia, a section of the american roster of holidays, during a} way that's very similar to St. Patrick’s Day or Cinco Delaware mayo. columbus day, as an example, was popularized out of denver, CO back within the middle nineteenth century as a way of promoting Italian culture.

Meaning

    Enkutatash is the name for the Ethiopian New Year, and means that “gift of jewels” within the Amharic language. The story goes back nearly 3,000 years to the Queen of Sheba of ancient Ethiopia and Yemen who was returning from a visit to visit King Solomon of Israel in Jerusalem, as mentioned within the Bible in 1 Kings ten and II Chronicles 9. She had gifted Solomon with one hundred twenty talents of gold (4.5 tons) as well as a large quantity of unique spices and jewels. when the Queen came back to Ethiopia her chiefs welcome her with enku or jewels to replenish her treasury.

Celebration

   The celebration is each religious and secular. generally this is the end of the long rainy season and also the countryside is covered with yellow daisies. The day begins with church services followed by the family meal. Young children can receive little gifts of cash or bread when the girls gather flowers and sing and boys paint footage of saints. Families visit friends and adults drink Ethiopian beer.

Date


   The Ethiopian calendar is a unique form of the Coptic or Alexandrian calendar, derived from the sooner Egyptian calendar that influenced the Julian calendar. On Sept 12, 2007 Ethiopia celebrated its bi-millennial, or 2,000 years from the Annunciation of Christ. Why is their calendar 7-8 years completely different from the West’s Gregorian calendar? in the West, the calendar was calculated around A.D. 525 by Dionysius Exeguus a Roman monk-mathematician-astronomer who based his calculations for the birth of Christ on an erroneous date for the death of herod the great. in the East, an Alexandrian monk named Panodorus (or Annias) did his calculations differently back around A.D. four hundred for the Egyptian calendar.