The Met office said rain...all day yesterday.
Today, just as bad.
This leaves me with Sunday as the last day of solstice full moon..possibly without rain.
The Pleiades in particular will be impossible to see...
Because on Monday
Guess what?
More rain is forecast.
It is now a week after the winter solstice and tomorrow the moon set is too late in the morning to be seen.
Closer to the solstice
The moon sinks below the horizon just before the sun rises.
But let's face it
This year the moon and sun will be hazy areas of brighter sky.
If I'm lucky.
I find to my surprise that I quite like archaeoastronomy.
I bought Stonehenge Decoded many years ago.
It didn't answer any questions...
But it did leave me curious.
General rules rarely apply to individual monuments.
And modern folklore is more fun than hours charting azimuths.
Between the two extremes- the people who are satisfied with the numinous and mysterious, and the people who try to explain the official versions...
Rarely do I find accounts of what the sun and moon does during the year, clear enough for me.
After a year of thinking about sun, moon and sky
I realise that I still don't know very much.
It is difficult to write about meridians, zeniths and azimuths- let alone declination- in plain English!
A side affect of studying The Sanctuary is that I want to know more about archaeoastronomy and create a clear and easy guide book. I'm pretty sure that the sun and moon are not as confusing, as the language currently used, makes it appear.
Archaeoastronomy- the walkthrough.
And then there is the mythology.
Ancient British myth is difficult to untangle.
I'm unconvinced by arguments linking Bronze Age British belief systems embedded in earthworks and timber/stone, to Mesopotamian texts.
I say this in almost every blog post I publish.
Specifically, I'm thinking of the Pleiades, and the Mul.Apin.
I wouldn't be surprised if the symbol possibly representing the Pleiades on the Nebra sky disc had been inspired by the symbols used for sun or Venus on Kassite Kudurru stones, for instance.
But British Bronze Age society was not the same as that found in the Mesopotamian city states.
The image is easier to transmit than its original meaning. In this case, the icon of important star, or star cluster, as a ring of dots around a central dot.
Ideas seeped out and across countries and continents along side traded goods.
As Mesopotamian myth influenced Hittite, influenced Greek, became Roman myth and on and on.
Christmas appears to be a hybrid of 'Persian' Mithraic myth with 'Babylonian' stories of Dumuzi, grafted onto (Iron Age?) European midwinter festivals.
As Robertson Smith pointed out, ritual remains fairly robust, but meanings do not stay the same..people do stuff and think that they know why.
Or as Berkert says, myth and ritual come together.
One does not necessarily lead to another.
Myth seems to become grafted onto ritual as an explanation.
Britain circa 1600 BC
As far as I know 'we' did not have 'books of stars'...
As far as I know 'we' didn't 'do' writing.
And unless anyone is counting and keeping record (a pre-cursor to writing)
There is never any need to know how many moons have passed to make a year.
Without counting, the problem of equalizing lunar and solar months, vanishes!
In other-words, writing and books often provide complex solutions to simple problems that may not be problems at all.
It is possible to embody sun and moon working together in a structure like The Sanctuary.
Oral tradition is hard won, and someone who learns the secrets and passes the tests required to gain access to knowledge rarely records it in an accessible form.
One way or another
I think that British Bronze Age oral tradition was lost.
I believe that latter, Iron Age mythology may still be around.
But I think that The Bronze Age myths have gone...
Professor Wolfhard Schlosser Rahlf studied the Nebra sky disc and decided that because the Mul.Apin explains how a thirteenth month should only be added to the lunar calendar when the constellation of the Pleiades and moon are in the sky exactly as they appear on the Nebra sky disc, this is what the disc was made for.
'Babylonian' texts are named from their opening words.
In this case the Mul Apin.
Today, just as bad.
This leaves me with Sunday as the last day of solstice full moon..possibly without rain.
The Pleiades in particular will be impossible to see...
Because on Monday
Guess what?
More rain is forecast.
It is now a week after the winter solstice and tomorrow the moon set is too late in the morning to be seen.
Closer to the solstice
The moon sinks below the horizon just before the sun rises.
But let's face it
This year the moon and sun will be hazy areas of brighter sky.
If I'm lucky.
I find to my surprise that I quite like archaeoastronomy.
I bought Stonehenge Decoded many years ago.
It didn't answer any questions...
But it did leave me curious.
General rules rarely apply to individual monuments.
And modern folklore is more fun than hours charting azimuths.
Between the two extremes- the people who are satisfied with the numinous and mysterious, and the people who try to explain the official versions...
Rarely do I find accounts of what the sun and moon does during the year, clear enough for me.
After a year of thinking about sun, moon and sky
I realise that I still don't know very much.
It is difficult to write about meridians, zeniths and azimuths- let alone declination- in plain English!
A side affect of studying The Sanctuary is that I want to know more about archaeoastronomy and create a clear and easy guide book. I'm pretty sure that the sun and moon are not as confusing, as the language currently used, makes it appear.
Archaeoastronomy- the walkthrough.
And then there is the mythology.
Ancient British myth is difficult to untangle.
I'm unconvinced by arguments linking Bronze Age British belief systems embedded in earthworks and timber/stone, to Mesopotamian texts.
I say this in almost every blog post I publish.
Specifically, I'm thinking of the Pleiades, and the Mul.Apin.
I wouldn't be surprised if the symbol possibly representing the Pleiades on the Nebra sky disc had been inspired by the symbols used for sun or Venus on Kassite Kudurru stones, for instance.
But British Bronze Age society was not the same as that found in the Mesopotamian city states.
The image is easier to transmit than its original meaning. In this case, the icon of important star, or star cluster, as a ring of dots around a central dot.
Ideas seeped out and across countries and continents along side traded goods.
As Mesopotamian myth influenced Hittite, influenced Greek, became Roman myth and on and on.
Christmas appears to be a hybrid of 'Persian' Mithraic myth with 'Babylonian' stories of Dumuzi, grafted onto (Iron Age?) European midwinter festivals.
As Robertson Smith pointed out, ritual remains fairly robust, but meanings do not stay the same..people do stuff and think that they know why.
Or as Berkert says, myth and ritual come together.
One does not necessarily lead to another.
Myth seems to become grafted onto ritual as an explanation.
Britain circa 1600 BC
As far as I know 'we' did not have 'books of stars'...
As far as I know 'we' didn't 'do' writing.
And unless anyone is counting and keeping record (a pre-cursor to writing)
There is never any need to know how many moons have passed to make a year.
Without counting, the problem of equalizing lunar and solar months, vanishes!
In other-words, writing and books often provide complex solutions to simple problems that may not be problems at all.
It is possible to embody sun and moon working together in a structure like The Sanctuary.
Oral tradition is hard won, and someone who learns the secrets and passes the tests required to gain access to knowledge rarely records it in an accessible form.
One way or another
I think that British Bronze Age oral tradition was lost.
I believe that latter, Iron Age mythology may still be around.
But I think that The Bronze Age myths have gone...
Professor Wolfhard Schlosser Rahlf studied the Nebra sky disc and decided that because the Mul.Apin explains how a thirteenth month should only be added to the lunar calendar when the constellation of the Pleiades and moon are in the sky exactly as they appear on the Nebra sky disc, this is what the disc was made for.
 |
| The Nebra sky disc. |
'Babylonian' texts are named from their opening words.
In this case the Mul Apin.
- Mul means star
- Apin means the constellation known as the Plough.
- The current Triangulum constellation plus Gamma Andromedae
The Mul.Apin was originally composed in 1000 BC from older texts. And used for at least 500 years after that.
From the Enuma.Elish onwards, the stars, sun and moon were regarded as the homes of the gods. The positions, conjunction and eclipses were important for the temple calendar. The New Year and the Akita festival began at the spring equinox.
But if one counts the moon cycles alone as a way to determine where the earth is in relation to the sun....the year begins to slip.
The position of sun and moon gives a more accurate picture of the months and year. And without a compass it is quite possible to create a structure that records the cardinal directions and could be used to determine equinoxes and solstices.
The sky disc is dated to 1600 BC.
The sky disc represents for me the transmission of ideas and artefacts between people and continents. The disc was found close to the Gosek circle:
 |
| Neolithic Gosek circle- 4900 BC. The ditch was added latter. |
It is generally agreed that Gosek was used to sight the sun and that the sky disc represents a continuity in this science. Gosek has southeast and southwest openings, indicating that the midwinter sun was significant to the builders of Gorsek.
Stonehenge was one of many other such centres incorporating sun and moon in its design. But determining the time of year was never just an academic exercise, as the presence of so many cremations within its rings, shows.
Nor was there ever one big idea at Stonehenge. Stonehenge is a succession of reconfiguration and ideas.
Stars, sun and moon danced in Britain, said Diodorus..on an island beyond the Celtic lands where the people worshipped Apollo...
Was the temple of Apollo Stonehenge or Callanish?
The gold to make the sky disc came from the river Carnon in Cornwall, and the tin likewise from Cornish mines.
The copper, meanwhile, came from Austria
It is generally assumed that the circle of dots surrounding the central dot on the Nebra sky disc was influenced by Mesopotamian 'star' iconography- where the 'flower' pattern traditionally represents the sun or Venus...
The style of the disc, copper decorated with gold dots recalls this beautiful 'Persian' lapis dove:
 |
| A 4.5 inch long lapis lazuli dove is studded with gold pegs. Dated 1200BCE from Susa, a city later on shared with the Achaemenids. |
Unless a culture is bureaucratic enforcing penalties and fines on late work and missed deadlines, sighting the the sun and moon to determine the occurrence of solstice and equinox, to give warning of high tides and the lengthening/shortening of days, is sufficient.
Nevertheless, the differences in solar and lunar year could have become a preoccupation for some, enough to make it the preserve of an elite.
 |
| The ring of dots represents The Pleiades. |
 |
| Sun or full moon? |
 |
| Waning moon crescent? Or sun ship? |
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| New moon. |
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