Kolla varsham: An unrevealed heritage Many cultures celebrated the first day of the year, as New Year’s Day, cutting across time. Intersections of the solar year such as the vernal / autumnal equinox, the summer / winter solstice, all moments of standstill, of turning round, offered occasions of making a new start for the beginning of the year, among ancient peoples. The New Year festival of the Egyptians, Phoenicians, and Persians, began with the autumn equinox (September 21). The ancient Romans and the ancient Greeks began the year at the winter solstice (December 21): the former, until the Julian calendar transferred it to the first day of January, 1 and the latter, until the 5 th century BCE. The beginning of the year among the Greeks until 432 BC was at the winter solstice; later, at the date mentioned, they made the summer solstice, June 21, their New Year's Day. The Roman republican calendar began with the first of March as the New Year Day, 2 “ because the beginning of a month was the most suitable day on which to open the official year, that the original celebrations of the turn of the year took place around the ides of March (vernal equinox); another celebration of New Year’s Eve may be recognised in the Saturnalia of December (winter solstice), and the later official year began on January 1; all of them are illustrations of the phenomenon also observed in Mesopotamia: that of celebrating several New Year festivals within one calendrical year.” 3 The most ancient and universal institutions of New Year celebrations “have the same underlying theme – what is old, exhausted, weakened, inferior, and harmful is to be eliminated, and what is new, fresh, powerful, good and healthy is to be introduced and ensured.” 4 Phenomonology of the akītu festival Celebrated around the time of the vernal equinox in mid-March, Mesopotamian New Year’s festival is believed to have had the earliest recording of its kind. The Encarta Encyclopedia has traced back astrology “to the earliest literate urban civilization in Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) before 2000 BC, although its origins may date from earlier attempts to create calendars in order to regulate civil and religious life or to divine the future. The Akkadian word akitu, for 'barley,' contained seasonal renewal motifs. Akitu means the ‘head of the year,’ and marked two festivals celebrated in the beginning of each of the two half years of the Sumerian calendar, such as the ‘cutting of barley’ (spring) and the other ‘sowing of barley’ (autumn). As agrarian rites performed at harvest and sowing time, akiti-festivals were observed semi-annually. In cities like Ur and Erech, two akitu festivals took place, one around the autumnal equinox, in Tashr(itu) , and the other six months later around the vernal equinox, in Nisan(nu) . 5 Both months were considered as the beginning of the year ( sag mu-an-na). In Babylonia, the festival of Nisan opened the civil year, and the festival of Tashritu opened the religious year. 6 The Akitu festival is assumed to be the pivotal annual rite of the Sumerian religious year, originally held around the beginning of autumnal equinox. Israel also celebrated the New Year festival in autumn, in the month of Teshrit. 1