The party known as Sham el nessim It is a festival as old as Egypt, which may have been celebrated as far back as 4.500 years ago. It is celebrated on the first Monday after Easter and is related to agriculture in the Ancient Egypt, which contained the fertility rites later attached to Christianity and the celebration of Easter.
In this way, it marks the beginning of spring, and thus, it is the spring festival of the Egyptians and it becomes a national holiday. It is called Sham El-Nessim because the harvest season in ancient Egypt was called "Shamo." In Arabic, "Sham" means smell and "El-Nessim" , the air.
On this day, families start at dawn preparing their food, and then head to the countryside to enjoy the spring breeze, which on that day is believed to have a wonderfully beneficial effect. In Cairo, where there are few public parks and open spaces, people crowd all the lawns they can find.
Sham el Nessim is also celebrated for the consumption of traditional foods that mainly consists of chives (onions or greens), Fiseekh (smelly salty fish), boiled colored eggs, lettuce and TERMIS (Lupini beans).
Like the oldest festivals in Egypt, Sham El-Nasim was also affiliated with astronomy and nature. This marks the beginning of the spring festival, which is the time that they believed day and night are equal, (when the sun is in the zodiac Aries), hence it marks the beginning of creation.
Regarding the coloring of the eggs, it is a custom mentioned in the famous book of the Pharaohs of the Dead and in the songs of Akhenaten: «God is one, he created life from the inanimate and created chicks from eggs. Therefore, the egg is a symbol of life to the ancient Egyptians
In this way, that day the eggs are boiled on the eve, they decorate it and write on them the best wishes to place them in baskets made of palm leaves and hang them on the trees or on the roof of their houses in the hope that the gods respond to your wishes at dawn.
It is also traditional to paint the faces of colors and of various figures. As for flowers and plants, the ancient Egyptians considered sacred and the lotus flower was actually the symbol of the country in ancient times.