Easter Egg History

Egg Coloring Tradition Dates Back to Persians and Egyptians

Traditions of egg decorating have enriched the myths and legends of many cultures, and have delighted people of all ages around Eastertime for centuries.

Popular beliefs, imagination and craftsmanship have turned egg decorating into a highly developed and diversified folk art. The egg itself possesses the secret of life; it symbolizes a "rebirth" and is often associated with Easter, Spring, dawn and creation. All involve a beginning, and in one form or another, almost every living thing comes from or can be traced back to an egg of some sort.

Many years before the birth of Christ, the Persians and Egyptians were coloring eggs. And while the Jew so not celebrate Easter, they too colored eggs at approximately the same time of the year, during their Passover season. In some parts of the world, Jews still use colored eggs for Passover and other religious celebrations. Because of the coincidental nearness of Passover and Easter, Christians may have gotten the idea for colored eggs from the Jews and incorporated it into their Easter celebration.

In many European countries, it was the custom on Easter day to have a "tapping" contest where children would knock the ends of eggs together to see who could keep his egg unbroken the longest. Egg tossing and egg-rolling games were brought to the United States by German settlers, as was the concept of the "Easter Bunny". Because rabbits multiply quickly and are a symbol of fertility, they became associated with the celebration of Easter with the "Easter Bunny" bringing a basket full of colored eggs to children on Easter morning.

Some of the early German and Pennsylvania Dutch traditions and customs are still in existence today. The most common tradition, still practiced, is hiding eggs for children to find on Easter morning. Both parents and children color the eggs during the Easter week, leaving the eggs for the "Easter Bunny" to hide on Easter Eve. If an egg is particularly beautiful, it may be kept to treasure as a work of art or given as a gift to a special friend. There are records for the household expenses of kings for decorating eggs with gold leaf to give as gifts but even those who were not royalty decorated eggs by using natural dyes such as boiling them with the leaves or petals of certain flowers, onionskins or bark.

Well-known goldsmith, Peter Faberge, created fantastic eggs for the Czarina of Russian in the late 1800’s. A total of fifty-seven eggs were created in all. Today many of these eggs can be found in museums all over the world.

The various methods of decorating eggs have also become tradition. Today, a few people still color their eggs by boiling them in natural materials such as onion skins, bark, or flowers, but a more universal method of applying color is to use commercial dyes made especially for that purpose. With Doc Hinkle Doc Hinkle's Egg Coloring, colors can be easily applied with cotton swabs or brushes to create virtually any original design.

Stripes, floral, geometric designs and dot patterns are the most common. A slightly more difficult method involves coloring the egg and scratching off portions of the color to expose the shell, creating a "reverse" color effect. Probably the most sophisticated method is "pysanky", a "resist-dyeing" egg craft that produces intricate designs by using wax.

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