Egypt
In Egypt, the ancient festival of Sham El Nessim (Arabic: شم النسيم, literally meaning "smelling of the breeze") is celebrated on the Coptic (i.e. Eastern) Easter Monday, though the festival dates back to Pharonic times (about 2700 BC). It is celebrated by both Egyptian Christians and Muslims as an Egyptian national holiday rather than as a religious one. Traditional activities include painting eggs, taking meals outdoors, and eating feseekh (fermented mullet).
Read more about this topic: Easter Monday
Famous quotes containing the word egypt:
“It flows through old hushed Egypt and its sands,
Like some grave mighty thought threading a dream,”
—Leigh Hunt (1784–1859)
“The great pagan world of which Egypt and Greece were the last living terms ... once had a vast and perhaps perfect science of its own, a science in terms of life. In our era this science crumbled into magic and charlatanry. But even wisdom crumbles.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“Hieratic, slim and fair,
the tracery written here,
proclaims what’s left unsaid
in Egypt of her dead.”
—Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961)