シャンム・ナシーム

Sham El-nessim
正式名称	شم النسيم Sham en-Nessim
挙行者	Egyptians, Copts
種類	Cultural, seasonal, and agricultural
日付	The day after Eastern Christian Easter
行事	Visiting public places Going on picnics Eating fesikh and salted herring Coloring and eating eggs
関連祝日	Easter

Sham Ennessim (アラビア語エジプト方言: شم النسيم‎, Sham El Nessim or Sham en-Nessim, IPA: [ˈʃæmm ennɪˈsiːm]) Template:Lang-cop, Shom Ennisim) is an Egyptian national holiday marking the beginning of spring. It always falls on the day after the Eastern Christian Easter (following the custom of the largest Christian denomination in the country, the Coptic Orthodox Church).

Despite the Christian-related date, the holiday is celebrated by Egyptians of all religions, so it is considered a national festival, rather than a religious one. The main features of the festival are:

• People spend all day out picnicking in any space of green, public gardens, on the Nile, or at the zoo.
• Traditional food eaten on this day consists mainly of fesikh (a fermented, salted and dried grey mullet), lettuce, scallions or green onions, tirmis, and colored boiled eggs.

History

According to annals written by Plutarch during the 1st century AD, the Ancient Egyptians used to offer salted fish, lettuce, and onions to their deities during the spring festival known as Shemu.

After the Christianization of Egypt, the festival became associated with the other Christian spring festival, Easter. Over time, Shemu morphed into its current form and its current date, and by the time of the Islamic conquest of Egypt, the holiday was settled on Easter Monday. The Islamic calendar being lunar and thus unfixed relative to the solar year, the date of Sham el-Nessim remained on the Christian-linked date. As Egypt became Arabized, the term Shemu found a rough phono-semantic match in Sham el-Nessim, or "Smelling/Taking In the Zephyrs," which fairly accurately represents the way in which Egyptians celebrate the holiday.

See also

• Shemu
• Nowruz
• Kha b-Nisan
• Public holidays in Egypt
• Easter