Today,
Wednesday, April 15, 2020, we are midway between the Easters of the Western and
Eastern Churches. According to Western Christianity, Easter occurs on the
Sunday after the first full moon of Spring. In the Eastern Orthodox tradition,
Easter also occurs after the first full moon of Spring, but it has to be after
Jewish Passover (and the Orthodox churches rely upon the Julian calendar, not
the Gregorian calendar). Apart from the frequent discrepancy between the dates
of Eastern each year, most of the customs are similar. This includes the Easter
Egg.
In
Western tradition, hard-boiled eggs are decorated in many manners – simply with
commercial dyes and vinegar or more artistically with any number of paints or
colorants. In the Eastern tradition, there is often variety, but red is a
common color, representing the blood of Christ. Adults enjoy hiding eggs and
watching children find them; we all love to eat them. But what is the
association between Easter and eggs?
On
the one hand, since Easter is a springtime celebration, eggs are commonly associated
with the beginning of a new agricultural cycle. On the other hand, Christians borrowed
an ancient pagan concept, that eggs represent rebirth.
We
an unsure when human beings began to believe in an afterlife and the prospect
of being reborn. Artistic representations from the Paleolithic period, from
around 35,000 BCE, suggest that we already believed in invisible entities and magic.
It is only through the art and writing of people living in the regions of
Mesopotamia and Egypt, from around 3000 BCE, that we can be certain that people
believed in an afterlife. For example, the Egyptians believed that when a
person died, their soul was judged by the god Anubis, who placed the soul on a
scale. If the person’s soul weighed less than a feather, the deceased would
enjoy a glorious afterlife; if the soul weighed more than the feature, it would
be devoured by a monster.
Eggs
are occasionally depicted in Egyptian art, representing life after death.
Another culture, the Etruscans, who inhabited Italy for centuries before the Roman
Empire emerged, very frequently depicted eggs in funerary art. When eggs are
depicted, there is generally a transfer from one person to another.
In
ancient Mediterranean cultures, it was important for the living to assist the
recently deceased on her/his journey to the next realm and it was common to
depict them together. In some cases, family members will be portrayed mourning
near the deceased person. In many cases, you cannot easily discern who is alive
and who is dead because they interact in real-life situations, like dances and
banquets. In some of these representations, an egg is passed between the hands
of a living and a recently deceased person.
(Tomb of the Shields, Tarquinia, from Affreschi Etruschi by Stephan Steingraber, 2006, p. 188)
For
example, the main scene in the Etruscan “Tomb of the Shields” (necropolis of
Tarquinia, late 4th century BCE), Velia Sethiti and Larth Velcha, wife
and husband sit upon a banqueting couch. Lavish banquets with lively musicians,
dancers and revelers were frequently portrayed in Etruscan tombs. Larth, who
has died, stretches his legs upon the elaborately patterned couch with his clothing
pulled down to expose his chest. Velia sits at one end of the couch, gazing lovingly
at her husband. She has beautifully arranged hair and wears elegant clothes, her
left arm resting gently on Larth’s right shoulder. In her right hand, she holds
an egg which Larth reaches for, their fingers touch in a light caress.
In
another well-known work of art, a terracotta sarcophagus from an Etruscan
cemetery near the city of Caere, a husband and wife recline upon a banquet
couch. The sarcophagus dates to the 6th century BCE, when naturalism
in art had not yet been introduced. The couple reclines awkwardly with their
torsos facing frontally and their legs stretched unnaturally along the banqueting
couch like the legs of the Wicked Witch of the East beneath Dorothy’s house.
(Sarcophagus from Caere, in Villa Giulia Museum, Rome. Photo by Eric De Sena 2010)
They
look outward, rather than at each other, and they both smile. The man holds his
arm around the neck of his wife, and although there is no object in his hand,
the gesture he makes indicates that he would be holding a wine challis. In fact,
it is common in Etruscan art for the subjects to make gestures that the
observer understood. The woman’s left hand stretches outward in a gesture
intended to suggest she is holding a plate. The man’s left hand extends toward
his wife, hand held flat, while the woman reaches toward her husband’s hand. Her
index and middle finger are pinched toward her thumb as if holding a small
object. In fact, she is passing her husband an egg.
This
tradition of an egg as a representation of life after death continued into the Middle
Ages and was eventually adopted as a symbol of Easter. The question that I
cannot answer is the origin of the Easter Bunny.
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