It's Autumnal Equinox day for us here in the southern hemisphere (and the vernal equinox for friends in the north).
We will reach the equinox at exactly 20:01 AEDT this evening, where the Sun will be directly over the equator crossing from south to north.
The March Equinox has its roots in ancient astronomy, which helped people like my ancient Assyrian ancestors who lived in Mesopotamia to build their calendars and farm their lands.
As it's the spring equinox in the north, it meant it was the time of 'rebirth', and was the start of their new year.
This was only possible because many ancient cultures studied the position of objects like the Sun in the sky, and measured how long their day was. The collection of data, interpreting it, and recording it for future generations is very good science (even though it was tied to paganism/mythology).
Today, Assyrians celebrate NYE like most others, but some continue the tradition of celebrating NYE around this time of the year too. We call it “Resha-d-Sheta” which means “head of the year”. Here is how we write it:
ܪܫܐ ܕܫܢܬܐ
It ties into an ancient 12-day NYE celebration known as 'Akitu'.
So, when you think about the equinox today, think about how the calendars we use today, how we measure time passing, and how our base understanding of astronomy is connected in a very deep and long line of humans that stretches back thousands of years and will do so far into the future too.
time and date
