A birthday celebration is always one of the most awaited moments for everyone in the world. On this special day, most of us are excited to celebrate with festivity. However, quite a few people prefer a simpler celebration, attended only by family or close friends.
Regardless of how you like to celebrate, have you ever wondered who was the first person to celebrate their birthday and where they were from? They were certainly lucky to be the first person ever whose birth was joyfully celebrated.
Sumerians: The First People to Celebrate Birthdays
Previously, many researchers assumed that birthday celebrations originated in Ancient Egypt. However, recent research on ancient inscriptions suggests that such celebrations were held long before that.
"The earliest evidence of birthday celebrations comes from economic texts from Lagash," said Vladimir Emelianov, a historian at St. Petersburg University in Russia, as quoted by Live Science.
He explained that Lagash was an important city in ancient Sumeria. Emelianov has studied ancient inscriptions that were composed in the third millennium BC during the reign of King Lugalanda (2384-2378 BC). According to these inscriptions, at that time, there was a festival to celebrate the birth of noble children. The birth of the elite was marked by animal sacrifices performed by the living alongside their deceased ancestors.
"When Lugalanda was removed from power, the recording of birthdays also ended," Emelianov said. "As far as I know, nothing similar existed in Egypt or ancient Asia Minor [modern-day Turkey]."
The misconception that Egyptians were the first to celebrate birthdays may come from Genesis 40:20, which states: "On the third day, which was Pharaoh's birthday, he held a feast for all his servants." However, according to Emelianov, Pharaoh's birthday celebrations were not historically recognized until the Ptolemaic era (305-30 BC).
Early Records of Birthday Celebrations in Persia
Another early record of birthday celebrations comes from the Greek historian Herodotus. In the fifth century BC, he wrote about Persian customs in Histories, stating that out of all days, it was their tradition to honor their own birthdays. On this day, they considered it appropriate to prepare a more festive banquet than on any other occasion.
Both the rich and the poor were entitled to hold this birthday feast, where they would cook abundantly, with most of the food consisting of meat and delicious desserts.
"For a Greek of the High Classical period, celebrating a birthday was deemed unusual," Emelianov wrote in a 2017 study published in the research journal Bulletin of St. Petersburg University Oriental and African Studies.
Even so, Emilianov can't ensure when exactly the birthday celebrations begin every year till now. But those traditions maybe started by Sumerian Kings 4,000 years ago or may have be done by Persians in the fifth century.
"Only one thing can be established with certainty - the day of birth is something that clearly sets one person apart from the other," Emelianov wrote. As soon as ancient societies became more focused on individuals rather than on the community, he concluded, "one's birthday becomes a landmark of personal existence and a cornerstone of individual success."
(DIR/DIR)
