Persepolis may have been built in the 500s BC as a place to celebrate Nowruz. What is the holiday of Nowruz? Zoroastrianism became much more popular suddenly when the Persian kings [...]
Mordecai is leading Esther (on the horse) to talk to the Persian king. A fresco from the world's oldest preserved synagogue at Dura-Europos in Syria (244 AD) How did Purim [...]
Handmade Matzoh The beginnings of Passover In its earliest beginnings, which could go back to the Stone Age, Passover was a Jewish spring festival. Like other spring festivals, it celebrated the [...]
Wheat and barley on the Warka Vase (Sumeria, ca. 3200-3000 BC) Why celebrate spring? When people moved out of Africa further north to West Asia and then to Europe, about 60,000 BC, they began to [...]
