From Birth to Burial: the Curious History of Easter Eggs

Chocolate Eggs (credit)

But back to eggs.  Most of us take for granted the association of eggs with Easter, particularly when that association involves the words Cadbury, Kinder, or Reese's.  But before the egg became firmly linked to Christianity, it was a symbol of life dating back at least 2,500 years.

Our first historical records of egg symbolism in religion date to about 500 BC.  In the Achaemenid period, the Iranian calendar was influenced by Zoroastrianism, and the spring equinox - the first day of their calendar year - became a holiday.  Called Nowruz, this holiday is often celebrated today by decorating, sharing, and eating eggs, and may have been celebrated similarly in the past, as a carved relief from Persepolis (dating to around 500 BC) seems to depict noblemen carrying colored eggs:

But it's not clear that the Persians had much of an influence on early Christianity.  To see the beginnings of the egg as a Christian symbol, then, we have to look at the Roman world.  In pagan times, eggs were part of the Bacchic or Dinoysian mysteries, possibly a chthonic symbol (Macrobius, Saturnalia 7.16); they could be used to cast spells and, conversely, to offer protection (Clarke 1979).  A fortified castle was built in the 15th century in the Bay of Naples, but legend has it that the poet Virgil (1st c BC) buried an egg on the site for protection, hence the modern name of the structure: Castel dell'Ovo. 

Hatchling (credit)

The symbolic uses of the egg varied in the Roman world, but the link between eggs and birth is fairly straightforward. The Romans had plenty of species of birds, and most people probably would have observed chickens, pigeons, or other fowl laying eggs out of which new life hatched.  Roman medicine was greatly influenced by the Hippocratic treatises (c. 400 BC), which sometimes used egg-hatching as comparanda for human birth.  In de Natura Pueri (29.1-3), a human baby breaking out of the confines of the womb is described in direct analogy to a chick breaking out of its shell (Hanson, 2008).  

But by the early Imperial period (1st c AD), we get the association of eggs with burials.  There aren't that many examples of these burials in the bioarchaeological record, though.  At Colchester, York, and Winchester in Roman Britain, eggs have been found in or near cremation urns and inhumation burials (Pollexfen 1867, Wenham 1968, Clarke 1979), and eggs are sometimes depicted on Roman sarcophagi (Nilsson 1907), suggesting they were a symbol for all social classes.  Eggshells are fairly thin, so archaeological excavation techniques prior to about 1980 might very well have missed additional examples of eggs in Roman burials.  Two cases of burial with an egg have been found recently in Rome, though.  

At the site of Castellaccio Europarco, whose skeletons I studied for my dissertation, Tomb 31 was the burial of a 3- to 4-year-old child, dating to roughly 50-175 AD.  The archaeologists note that: "under the left hand of the deceased is a chicken egg, which in a funeral context is probably not only a material offering of food, but perhaps also an allusion to eschatological renaissance (rebirth).  Besides the presence of the egg, the method of disposition of the child is interesting: s/he presents on his/her stomach. This position is very rare in the context of Roman cemeteries" (Buccellato et al., 2008:18-19 [translation mine]).  And in the Vatican necropolis under the via Triumphalis, a child a little less than a year old was found buried with an egg.  This burial dates to around the same time as the Castellaccio child, about 50-150 AD, although this child was buried facing up and had additional grave goods.  Excavators write that the egg is most likely "a symbol of rebirth, a new life balancing the injustice of a premature end" (Liverani et al., 2010; 229 [translation mine]).

Figure 74 from Liverani et al. (2010)

It is possible that these two children represent early Christian burials, as the egg has been strongly wedded to the idea of rebirth since the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.  The egg "is an apparently animate and inert substance which carries within itself a potent principle of life, and that which has a special vital power must perforce awake or enhance the vital powers of those to whom it is offered" (Nilsson 1907, quoted in Alcock 1980: 56).  This could explain the association: the dormant egg, like the tomb of Jesus, contains new life within it.  The eggshell is the rock that sealed the tomb of Christ.  

Historical evidence of eggs being linked to Jesus, though, is kind of uncertain.  There is surprisingly little in the Bible about eggs - we get passages about eggs as food (Job 6:6) and a few passages using an egg in an analogy (Luke 11:12, Isaiah 10:14).  Eastern Orthodox tradition has it that Mary Magdalene was bringing cooked eggs to Jesus' tomb; the eggs turned bright red - the color of blood - when she saw that Christ had risen.  In a similar vein, another story holds that when Mary Magdalene went to Tiberius, the emperor of Rome, to tell him that Christ had risen, he insisted that "Christ has no more risen than that egg is red," after which the egg turned bright red.  But these are just traditions handed down, possibly apocryphal or used to retroactively justify the tradition of dyeing and eating Easter eggs.
     

Mary Magdalene with Red Egg (credit)

Dyed and Decorated Easter Eggs (credit)

Egg on End (credit)

Yet two millennia later, we're still buying up Paas dye kits and hiding delicious treats in plastic eggs to the delight of our kids (and those of us who are kids at heart).  One of my fondest memories of Easter, though, was the year that I was allowed to stay up really late.  I was maybe 8 or 9, and my father explained that some people believed the spring equinox meant that there were special gravitational forces on this day, which would let us do something amazing: balance an uncooked egg on its end.  After many attempts (and a broken egg or two), we finally got one to stand, and I went to bed happy.  The next morning, the egg was still standing, and it continued to stand for a couple days until we had to toss it out.  Turns out, this business about special gravitational forces is an urban legend, but it shows that even in the 21st century, we're still linking eggs with the vernal equinox.

So, why do we gobble up anything ovoid at this time of year, from Pancake Day before Lent to chocolate eggs on Easter?  Pretty simply: the egg has long been associated with rebirth and renewal, first applied to the beginning of spring and then adopted as a symbol of Christianity.  The egg is a handy way of visualizing the circle of life that starts - for many plants and animals - in spring.

Happy equinox... happy Easter... and happy eating!

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