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Aphrodite
was the ancient Greek Goddess of Love and Chocolate is
universally acknowledged as the food of love ~ So what
better name than Aphrodite? ~ for a company who
craft fine delicious handmade chocolates from only the
finest natural ingredients?
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Surprisingly, Easter eggs do not owe their origins to the Christian festival of Easter, which celebrates the crucifixion and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In fact, the festival of Easter itself also had nothing to do with Christianity either. A closer look at the history of both Easter and Easter Eggs reveals a much earlier association with pagan ritual and in particular, the pagan rites of spring, dating back into pre history.
Rites to celebrate the Spring Equinox are most obviously associated in our minds with the Druids and mysterious places like Stone Henge, but in fact, most ancient races had similar spring festivals to celebrate the rebirth of the year. The Egg, along with the Rabbit and chicks appear to have been associated with these rites from the very earliest times, thought to be symbols of fertility and re-birth, .
In fact, it appears that the festival of Easter is a classic example of the early Christian church adapting an existing pagan ritual to suit their own purposes. Although ancient Britons had their spring festival and the Roman conquest brought Roman festivals to Britain, the story really starts with the arrival of the Saxons in Britain in about the 5th century AD. The Saxons also had a spring festival called Eostre, named after the Saxon goddess of dawn and when they came to Britain, the festival came with them.
At the time of their arrival the indigenous British (the Celt's etc) were already mainly Christian and celebrated the Christian festivals. As we know, the Anglo Saxons gradually became the dominant race in Britain and converted to Christianity. They also started to celebrate the Christian festivals and the festival celebrating the death of Christ and the resurrection happened to coincided with Saxon festival of Eostre, so that's what the early Saxon church called the celebration, Eostre or Easter in modern English. A name which gradually spread throughout the Christian church.
The actual date that Easter falls on every year is governed by a fairly complex calculation related to the Spring Equinox. The actual formula is: The first Sunday after the first full moon following the Spring Equinox, this is Easter Sunday or Easter Day. This formula was set by Egyptian astronomers in Alexandra in 235ad, and calculated using the same method as the Jews have traditionally used to calculate the feast of the Passover, which occurred at about the same time as the crucifixion.
Easter Eggs
As well as adopting the festival of Eostre, the Egg, representing fertility and re-birth in pagan times, was also adopted as part of the Christian Easter festival and came to represent the 'resurrection' or re-birth of Christ after the crucifixion and (in some cases) a symbol of the 'rolling away' of the stone blocking the Sepulchre.
In the UK and Europe, the earliest Easter eggs were painted and decorated hen, duck or goose eggs, a practice still carried on in parts of the world today. As time went by, artificial eggs were made and by the end of the 17th century, manufactured eggs were available for purchase at Easter, for giving as gifts and Easter presents to children.
Easter eggs continued to evolve through the 18th and into the 19th Century, with hollow cardboard Easter eggs filled with Easter gifts and sumptuously decorated, culminating with the fabulous Faberge Eggs. Encrusted with jewels, they were made for the Czar's of Russia by Carl Faberge. Surely these were the 'ultimate' in Easter Eggs, to buy even a small one now would make you poorer by several millions of pounds.
It was at about this time (early 1800's) that the first chocolate Easter eggs appeared in Germany and France and soon spread to the rest of Europe and beyond. The first chocolate eggs were solid soon followed by hollow eggs. Although making hollow eggs at that time was no mean feat, because the easily worked chocolate we use today didn't exist then, they had to use a paste made from ground roasted Cacao beans.
By the turn of the 19th Century, the discovery of the modern chocolate making process and improved mass manufacturing methods meant that the Chocolate Easter Egg was fast becoming the Easter Gift of choice in the UK and parts of Europe, and by the 1960's it was well established worldwide.
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