Valentine's Day

Every February, across the country, candy, flowers, and gifts are exchanged between loved ones, all in the name of St. Valentine. But who is this mysterious saint and why do we celebrate this holiday? The history of Valentine's Day -- and its patron saint -- is shrouded in mystery. But we do know that February has long been a month of romance. St. Valentine's Day, as we know it today, contains vestiges of both Christian and ancient Roman tradition. So, who was Saint Valentine and how did he become associated with this ancient rite? Today, the Catholic Church recognizes at least three different saints named Valentine or Valentinus, all of whom were martyred.

All of the three different Saint Valentines are mentioned in the early martyrologies under date of 14 February. One is described as a priest at Rome, another as bishop of Interamna (modern Terni), and these two seem both to have suffered in the second half of the third century and to have been buried on the Flaminian Way, but at different distances from the city. Of the third Saint Valentine, who suffered in Africa with a number of companions, nothing further is known.

One legend contends that Valentine was a priest who served during the third century in Rome. Under the rule of Emperor Claudius II - Rome was involved in many bloody and unpopular military campaigns. Claudius the Cruel, as he was known at the time, was having a difficult time getting soldiers to join his military leagues. Men didn’t want to leave their wives and children for the long military expeditions which would last for months and even years. Claudius believed that single men made better soldiers than married ones. He, then, banned and outlawed marriage for young men -- his crop of potential soldiers. St.Valentine, realizing the injustice of the decree, defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret. When Emperor Claudius was informed of these ceremonies, Valentine was sent to prison where he remained until Claudius ordered that he be condemned to death on February 14 in the year 270.

Other stories suggest that Valentine may have been killed for attempting to help Christians escape harsh Roman prisons where they were often beaten and tortured.

According to one legend, Valentine actually sent the first 'valentine' greeting himself. While in prison, it is believed that Valentine fell in love with a young girl -- who may have been his jailor's daughter -- who visited him during his confinement. Before his death, it is alleged that he wrote her a letter expressing his gratitude for her love, support, and friendship, and he signed it 'From your Valentine,' an expression that is still in use today. Although the truth behind the Valentine legends is murky, the stories certainly emphasize his appeal as a sympathetic, heroic, and, most importantly, romantic figure. It's no surprise that by the Middle Ages, Valentine was one of the most popular saints in England and France.

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Christmas History & Traditions

In the U.S., modern Christmas is a season for giving, sharing, and caring. Many traditions, like Christmas trees and candy canes, are of European origin, but an American imagination brought forth our Santa Claus in all his plump, red-suited glory.

Dating back to 336 A.D., Christmas was first celebrated in ancient Rome, around 300 years after Christ's birth. It was a popular Christian holiday until the Protestant Reformation in the 1500s. Because pagan customs had been enfolded into the religious observance, many Protestants chose not to celebrate it at all, including the American Puritans. In the rest of colonial America, Christmas was a raucous public holiday. Hunting, dancing, and feasting were the custom in the country, while city streets filled with enthusiastic celebrants.

By the 1800s, the holiday-focused merrymaking became such a public spectacle that concerned citizens, including Clement C. Moore, author of the famous poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas" (popularly known as "Twas the Night Before Christmas"), wanted to promote Christmas as a family holiday. His poem, written in 1822, and the pictures illustrator Thomas Nast drew from 1863 to 1886, depict the Santa we have come to know and love today, a cherubic and jolly fellow.

While merchants count the shopping days until Christmas, it is also a time to share with those less fortunate. Collecting and donating warm clothing, toys, and food is as American as bell-ringing "Sidewalk Santas." No matter how you choose to observe it, celebrating Christmas has become a beloved American tradition. It is the season to rejoice with friends, family, and community and dream of "peace on earth" and goodwill for all.

Favorite Traditions:

Read this list of the most popular Christmas traditions and their origins.

1. Christmas Greenery Ancient Egyptians used palm branches, while northern cultures preferred evergreens, to brighten the home during the winter. Continuing a custom that dates back to the 16th century, German immigrants were the first Americans to purchase and decorate Christmas trees, typically in the pine family.

2. Old Saint Nick Today's "jolly old elf," Santa Claus, is based on a real saint who lived in Turkey in the 4th century. Saint Nicholas was renowned for his generosity and love of children. According to historical sources, he would drop coins down the chimney to preserve his anonymity and the dignity of his recipients.

3. Gift Giving Once frowned upon as a pagan custom dating back to the Romans, gift giving is an integral part of our Christmas tradition. Santa's alias, "Kriss Kringle," means Christ child in German, and referred to a medieval legend that the infant Jesus distributed presents.

4. Mistletoe Kissing Remember the following Norse fable the next time you sneak a smooch under the mistletoe: Frigga, goddess of love and beauty, wanted to make the world safe for her son, Balder. Everything on earth promised to do him no harm except the one plant Frigga overlooked, mistletoe. Loki, an evil spirit, made an arrow from the mistletoe's wood and killed Balder. Frigga's tears became the plant's white berries and revived her son. In her gratitude, Frigga promised to kiss anyone who passed under the mistletoe, just as we do today.

5. Candy Canes The striped confections we now love to crunch were once straight white sticks of sugar candy. In the 1600s, in Cologne, Germany, traditional folktales reveal that the candies were bent at the end to remind children of a shepherd's crook and to keep them quiet in church.

6. Christmas Stockings: According to legend, a kindly nobleman grew despondent over the death of his beloved wife and foolishly squandered his fortune. This left his three young daughters without dowries and thus facing a life of spinsterhood.

The generous St. Nicholas, hearing of the girls' plight, set forth to help. Wishing to remain anonymous, he rode his white horse by the nobleman's house and threw three small pouches of gold coins down the chimney where they were fortuitously captured by the stockings the young women had hung by the fireplace to dry.

Finally, the term "Xmas". Although it is a common misconception that the term Xmas is disrespectful, its origins show this not to be true. The Greek word for Christ is Xristos, and the letter "X" was frequently used as a religous symbol. Thus Xmas is merely an abbreviated form of the word Christmas and was first used by Europeans in the 16th century.

Papyrus; Symbol Of Lower Egypt

The importance of the papyrus plant is acknowledged by the fact that it was one of the symbols of Lower Egypt. Papyrus played a crucial role in the daily life of those times.
The Egyptians used papyrus reeds bundled together for boat making, they wove the papyrus fibers into water resistant ropes and sailcloth, they burned the roots for fuel, and from dried papyrus they made mats, mattresses, baskets, boxes, tables, sandals and utensils. Papyrus was even used as a source of food for the common people.

Egypt's greatest gift to the ancient world, however, was the fabrication of papyrus sheet, the forerunner of our present day paper. Papyrus sheets were the preferred writing materials of the ancient world because they were light, strong, thin, durable, and easy to carry. Thus, papyrus sheets share many of the advantages of modern paper, with which we are familiar.
Because of its importance, papyrus paper making was a state monopoly in Egypt and the method of its production was a closely guarded secret. Many efforts were made in various parts of the Mediterranean to find local substitute for papyrus sheets; thus we find that clay and wax tables, lead sheets and parchment were all used as writing materials by different peoples. However, all these materials proved to be inferior, in one respect or another, to papyrus, which remained the primary writing material in Egypt.

With the onset of the tenth century, the Arabs introduced the pulped paper process, which they had learned from their Chinese prisoners captured in Samarqand. Though the pulped paper was less durable than papyrus, the process was considerably easier and far less expensive than papyrus sheet making.As a result of the imported technology, the Egyptians gradually abandoned the production of papyrus paper and neglected the cultivation of papyrus plantations. A few centuries later papyrus paper had completely disappeared from the Egyptian panorama.

In 1960, nearly a thousand years later Dr. Hassan Ragab (Former Ambassador) set out to rediscover this lost art. Two formidable obstacles had to be overcome:
First, strange as it may seem, though papyrus is typically an Egyptian plant, it had completely vanished from Egypt due to lack of cultivation and heavy silting in the marshes, lakes and ponds where it used to grow. To re-establish the papyrus plant in Egypt, Dr. Ragab journeyed to Sudan to obtain rhizomes (roots) of the Cyprus papyrus. These rhizomes were used to establish his papyrus plantation at Jacob Island at Giza near Cairo, and it considered the largest man made papyrus plantation in the world.

The second major obstacle was rediscovering the process by which papyrus sheets could be produced. It is amazing that the ancient Egyptians, who left records about all aspects of their daily life and thousands of papyri in their tombs, did not leave a single word or drawing about papyrus papermaking. Dr. Ragab spent three years trying to solve this problem before his research was crowned with success, and papyrus sheet making was once again an inherent part of Egyptian culture.
As the papyrus paper making was a state monopoly during the ancient Egyptian time, it was a Ragab’s family monopoly for long time. Dr. Ragab registered papyrus paper making. (Patent No. 02331, October 1977).

Thanks to Dr. Ragab and his family papyrus paper making became one of the most important tourism industries in Egypt. Now the second and third generations of Ragab's family are still working in making papyrus.

Egyptian Jewelry

Before the beginning of the 1st Dynasty in 3100 BC, the Egyptians already had access to precious metals, and throughout the Dynastic Period they acquired it in ever increasing quantities, at first from the Eastern Desert and Nubia, later too as tribute and spoils of war from Syria and the north. The Egyptian craftsmen used these enormous amounts of gold in many and varied ways - to gild lesser materials, to plate wood and stone, solid casting it into small statuary, hammering and cutting sheets of it into elements of religious and ceremonial furniture and funerary equipment. However, its most widespread use was in the production of jewelry, both that worn by the living and, in particular, that made expressly for the adornment of the corpse. Egyptian funerary beliefs required that the mummified body be bedecked with the finest products of the jewelry- maker's art and, whether for amulet or collar, pectoral or diadem, the first choice of material, indeed the prescribed material according to some of the funerary texts, was gold.

Materials used in Ancient Egyptian Jewelry

The Egyptian jewelry maker did not use precious stone; what he held the most valuable the modern world would consider at best only semiprecious. It is, perhaps, even more surprising that some of the most characteristic and pleasing effects were obtained using man-made materials, such as glazed composition and glass in imitation of semi-precious stones. Furthermore, most of the materials used were chosen not just because their colors created a particular effect, but because colors for the Egyptians had an underlying symbolism or amulet significance. Indeed, in the case of funerary jewelry, certain materials were strictly prescribed for the magical properties of their coloring. Thus Chapter 156 of the Book of the Dead required the amulet in the form of the Girdle Tie of Isis, placed at the throat of the mummy, to be made of red jasper, whose blood-like coloring would enhance the words of the spell: ‘You have your blood, Isis; you have your power.’ Green was the color of new vegetation, growing crops and fertility, hence of new life, resurrection even. It was, in particular, the color of the papyrus plant, which in hieroglyphs actually wrote the word wadj, meaning 'to flourish' or 'be healthy'. Wadj was also the name for the emerald-green mineral malachite when it was employed as Egypt's principal green pigment for painting and as the main constituent of green eye make-up. But the green stone most favored by the Egyptians was turquoise -mefkat- whose Egyptian name in the Late Dynastic Period was used as a synonym for 'joy' and 'delight'. Apart from turquoise (and green glazed composition and glass in imitation of it), the principal green stones employed by Egyptian lapidaries were green jasper, green feldspar (also known as Amazon stone), prase, chrysoprase, olivine, serpentine and, in the Graeco-Roman Period, beryl and peridot. Dark blue was the color of the all-embracing, protective night sky, of lapis lazuli- and of the deep-blue glazed composition and glass made to imitate it. Curiously enough, khesbed (hsbd), the principal word for lapis lazuli, was used in the Late Dynastic Period, like the word for turquoise, as a synonym for 'joy' or 'delight'. It is difficult to believe that the Egyptians could not really distinguish between blue and green, yet the suggestion that the usage arose because of the linking over a long period of the materials turquoise and lapis lazuli is not very convincing.Red was the colour of blood with all its connotations of energy, dynamism, power, even life itself. But it was also the colour of the evil-tempered desert-god Set, patron of disorder, storms and aridity, and murderer of his brother Osiris. This curious dichotomy is reflected in the fact that khenmet (hnmt), the word for red jasper, was derived from the verb hnm, 'to delight', but cornelain, with its orange-red hue, was considered an ill-omened stone and in the Late Dynastic Period its name, herset (hrst), also meant 'sadness'. Sard was the third red stone employed by the Egyptian lapidary, and from the New Kingdom onwards all three could be imitated by red glass and glazed composition. The Egyptian jewelry-maker made use of an amazing variety of stones, minerals, metals, man-made materials and animal products. Most were obtained locally in the hills and deserts within Egypt's boundaries and from creatures which inhabited the Nile Valley and surrounding areas, but some, most notably lapis lazuli and silver, always had to be imported from beyond Egypt's farthest frontiers.

Examples from the Materials used by Egyptian jewelry makers :
- Alabaster;
- Amethyst (a translucent quartz (silicon dioxide));
- Beryl: a transparent or translucent yellowish-green aluminum- beryllium-silicate with a glassy sheen;
- Breccia is a sedimentary rock in which angular white fragments are set irregularly into a red-colored matrix;
- Feldspar or Amazon Stone is an opaque, green or blue-green potassium-aluminum-silicate;
- Garnet is a transluent red iron- or magnesium-aluminum-silicate with a violet or brown tint;
- Lapis Lazuli is an opaque dark-blue;
- Quartz (Mtlky) is a hard, opaque white variety of silicon dioxide;
- Turquoise is an opaque, pale sky-blue or blue-green copper-containing basic aluminum phosphate which the Egyptians obtained alongside copper ore at Wadi Maghara and Serabit el-Khadim in Sinai;
- Gold production of jewelry of every description: amulets, pendants, diadems, pectorals, bangles, earrings, finger-rings, anklets, torques, elements of collars, girdles and bracelets were all manufactured from the precious metal. Indeed, certain chapters of the Book of the Dead demanded that prescribed amulets and funerary jewelry be made of gold;
- Silver was at first called by the Egyptians nub hedj (nbw hd), later just hedj, which means literally 'white gold';
- Copper was the first metal known to the Egyptians and as early as the Badarian Period it was being made into beads, Bangles and finger-rings.

Egyptian Craftsmen

In Egypt the great workshops attached to the temples and palaces where fine-quality jewelry was produced were under the control of high officials; it is their names which have survived and in their tombs that the manufacture of jewelry was depicted. Far less often are known the names of the craftsmen who actually shaped semi-precious stones into inlays, delicately tapped and chased precious metal into jewelry elements or strung beads into intricate collars, and most of those named are goldsmiths - the Egyptian term is neby. Although part at least of the jewelry-maker's art involved working with precious metal (indeed, it is no accident that the activities of precious-metal workers and jewelry-makers are always depicted side by side), still remarkably few of the skilled craftsmen who called themselves neshdy, earlier mesneshdy, are known. This word is best translated as 'jewelry-maker', although it actually means something more like 'worker in semi-precious stones'. However, the ability to shape a hard stone into an inlay to fit snugly within a cloison or to form an intricately detailed amulet from a pebble was the essence of the Egyptian jewelry-maker's art, far more than the craft of the 'bead-maker' - iru weshbet - or 'stringer together of a collar' - seti nub. Nevertheless, a recent study has identified less than thirty named men who bore the title over a period of fifteen hundred years, from the early New Kingdom to the end of the Ptolemaic Period, and no tomb of a neshdy has ever been discovered.

Bracelets and Bangles

The Egyptians used the same term, menefret (mnfrt), for bracelets and anklets but by adding the words 'for the arms' - net awy (nt'wy) - they were able to distinguish quite clearly the functions of these ornaments, which often came in matching sets. Another even less informative term, 'appurtenance of the arms' - iryt awy ('ryt 'wy) - was employed in the same dual way. The earliest bracelets are in some ways little more than shorter versions of the strings worn around the neck. The finest examples - four in all were found on a wrapped arm in the tomb of Djer at Abydos. The one nearest the wrist consists of lapis lazuli and hollow gold balls, flanking irregularly shaped turquoise beads and gold triple ring-bead spacers, with a single hollow gold rosette at the centre; these are strung on gold wires and animal hair plaited together and were originally closed by a loop-and-ball fastening. The best-known bracelet is composed of twenty-seven alternating turquoise and gold plaques, the latter apparently cast in an open mould in the form of an archaic crouched falcon atop a rectangular serekh, with its characteristic palace facade paneling. The serekh usually contained the Horus name of the king, associating him with the ancient falcon-form sky-god, and a series of dots on each bead may be a crude rendering of the serpent hieroglyph with which Djer's name was written. The beads are graduated in size, with markings on the back of each to indicate its position; a single pyramid-shaped bead of gold at each end acts as a terminal. A series of gold plaques embossed with the cartouche of Sety II surmounted by feathers, with suspension rings at each corner, came from the Gold Tomb in the Valley of Kings; although eighteen centuries later than Djer's serekhs, these plaques presumably formed a similar royal bracelet.

Finger-rings

In the Badarian Period simple rings of horn or stone were probably worn on the finger. That was certainly the function later of small strings of beads, gold-foil bands and wires of copper or silver closed by twisting the ends together. By hanging a scarab on the wire before twisting it shut the most popular form of Egyptian finger-ring came into being, although sometimes, as in the case of a 17th Dynasty woman buried at Qurna, it was merely held in place on the finger by a fiber cord. Two fine early examples of scarab finger-rings were owned by Sithathoriunet. In each the gold wire shank is twisted together opposite the gold scarab bezel; the scarab's wings are inlaid with strips of turquoise and lapis lazuli, its thorax with cornelian, its head with green stone and its legs with cornelian and blue and white composition. There were a number of finger-rings in Mereret's cache, of which two gold examples have an elongated oval rigid bezel, one patterned with tiny granulation lozenges, the other chased with four spirals. Her remaining gold rings have scarab bezels, one of them inlaid exactly like that of Sithathoriunet, the others made of lapis lazuli, turquoise, amethyst and glazed composition, some with texts, the others plain.