Hellas' Winter Festival - The Brumalia
The Germans have Yule. The Romans have Saturnalia. Hellas also has reason to celebrate this time of year, the Brumalia Festival!
Brumalia is the festival which was celebrated in ancient Greece on the shortest day of the year which is Dec. 22nd, the winter solstice. It coincides with the last days of the Roman Saturnalia. It was celebrated by lighting lights, drinking the new wine from the harvest, and giving gifts. Dionysus, the god of wine, is the patron. Hellas shall celebrate this year from Dec. 18th to 22nd.
| We will have several events during Brumalia and all are open to all AW members:
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- The Grab Bag - There will be a grab bag gift table where anyone can choose a clickable gift donated and wrapped by AW members.
- E-card Center - There will be a card shop which allows members to email holiday cards to anyone right from Hellas.
- Dionysus Quiz - No festival is complete without a quiz, and we're having one on the Greek god of wine, Dionysus.
- The MBG Pub Crawl - The Macedonian Bar and Grill is sponsoring an around the world pub crawl for all five days with a new taverna to visit each day and chat and drinks in all.
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| We hope you will all join in the fun!
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Winter Solstice in Ancient Greece
by Athenia Glaucon
Trying to put together a complete picture of ancient Hellenic festivals is always a little difficult - for one thing, there was no fixed civil calendar; for another there was no consistency among Hellenic city-states on festivals. Each city had its own festivals days - much like most towns in America have their very own "town day" today.
Because of the difficulty in determining exactly what was celebrated where, modern recreationists use a somewhat hybrid calendar that was cobbled together from written, archeological and anthropological records. We do know a little more about what Athens did, and so the Athenian calendar tends to be the default these days. [More...]
Hellas' New Scribal Team
On November 5, Hellas welcomed a great new team of scribes: Kallistos Alexandros, Demetrios Xanthippos and Muse Alexandros. They have been long-time members of AncientWorlds and have vast reserves of experience to help you. If you have any questions, ideas, or are a new member wanting to get more involved with the community, just contact any of them. They'll be happy to meet you and help in any way they can.
