Happy Iranian (and Kurdish!) New Year

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The New Year starts at 05.14 on 20 March in London: click here for the time in other places.

Lion (representing the sun) eating a bull (representing the earth), in Persepolis. Symbol of the New Year. Image: Anatoly Terentiev

To see a very lovely video on the Zoroastrian celebration of New Year, please click here. This video says that the celebration of New Year came even before the time of Zoroaster; and explains how the reliefs at Persepolis showing a lion eating a bull are representations of the New Year.

This is also the blog’s second birthday: for the 2010 New Year, the focus was on how Shah Abbas celebrated Norouz; then in 2011, it was about Chaharshanbe Suri – the jumping over bonfires on the last Wednesday before the New Year.

Happy New Year to all of you!

1 thought on “Happy Iranian (and Kurdish!) New Year”

  1. LT texted me to point out that “as you already know”, it’s not only the Iranian New Year! Suitably chastised, I’ve altered the blog title

    Reply

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