Enki Iesous Offline

43 Male from Los Angeles       46
         

Herodotus got birthday's all wrong.

Šag-hul2 U4-tu-ud-da ("Happy Birthday" in Sumerian), where u4-tu-ud-da means "birthday", and where Šag is a “blessing” or “to be blessed” and hul2 is “rejoice” or “joyful”, with Šag -hul2 together meaning a “joyful blessing” or to be “joyfully blessed”

The first record of a birthday being celebrated anywhere in recorded history dates to the 24th century BCE and is listed in five Sumerian cuneiform texts from the Ancient city of Lagash. These inscriptions were written at the time of Lugalanda, and detail offerings made in the temple of Bau on the birth of children in the King’s family.

According to the Ancient Greek historian Herodotus, who is often referred to as "The Father of History", it was the Persians who were the first to celebrate birthdays, which he noted in his 5th century BCE writings. At the time it was highly unusual custom to a Greek of the High Classical period. Indeed, into the Golden Age of Athens the celebration of people’s birthdays was unknown. It was the Persians, then, that were credited with first introducing the concept of the Birthday to Rome and the Roman Empire.

However, as we can see from the cuneiform evidence from Sumerian times, that idea was far older than Herodotus gave it credit for. Interestingly it was in Mesopotamia following the Persian Conquests, and throughout the Hellenistic Period, that horoscopes of new born children were first compiled. With our evidence of the Sumerian celebration of birth days dating back to the 24th century BCE, it is possible to surmise that this concept was transferred to the Persians at this period in time from Mesopotamia thought, and not the other way around as was previously thought.

Source : V.V Emelianov 2017 – ‘First Account of a Birthday in Human History’ (St Petersburg State University)
musicl45_1967
musicl45_1967: Very insightful thanks enki!
6 years ago Report
1