Festival of th: Did you mean...?

The Festival of the Federation (Fête de la Fédération) was a celebration that occurred on the Champ de Mars outside Paris on 14 July 1790, the first anniversary of the Storming of the Bastille. With over 300,000 people in attendance, the...

The gods of the ancient Egyptians were always apparent to the people through natural events. The sunrise was Ra emerging from the underworld in his great ship, for example, and the moon was the god Khonsu traveling across the night sky. When...

The greatest party ever thrown in antiquity is the inaugral event thrown by Ashurnasirpal II (r. 884-859 BCE) in 879 BCE at the completion of his new city of Kalhu which was attended by almost 70,000 people who were served, among other treats...

Festival of the Federation (14 July 1790) on the Champ de Mars, from a perspective close to the king's pavilion, engraving by Isidore Stanislas Helman, after a painting by Charles Monnet, 1790. Bibliothèque nationale de France.

Fragment of a Babylonian clay tablet, with 16 lines of inscription describing rites in Babylon relating to the Akitu festival. Fragment of the right half, copy of a text containing regulations for making offerings. From the Library of Ashurbanipal...

The Hungry Ghost festival continues to be celebrated in China on the fifteenth night of the seventh month, when it is thought that the dead can cross over into the land of the living because the veil that separates the two worlds is thinnest...

Celebrations of the Ghost Festival include public altars and parades where food is thrown into the air. The ghosts are thought to be hungry and so food is provided for them in homes and also in public places. Altars of fresh fruit and sweet...

The Green Man fighting Jack Frost at a Neopagan Imbolc Festival, Marsden, England, 2007.

Did you know that the festive greeting Io Saturnalia to the Romans was much like Merry Christmas, or Happy Holidays is to us today? This video is all about the earliest predecessor to Christmas, the Roman festival of Saturnalia. The Ancient...

The Qingming Festival is held one hundred and four days after the winter solstice, and is known as the ‘pure bright festival’, ‘tomb-sweeping day’ and ‘ancestors day’. For over 2,500 years, this festival has been a day for Chinese people...