Vyacheslav Mizin has drawn my attention to the following page at his website
http://perpettum.narod.ru/arcticmegalith.htm, where he has a photo of an important dolmen at Vottovaara - a dolmen I have labelled "the Vottovaara Serpent Dolmen".
VOTTOVARRA SERPENT DOLMEN - DECIPHERMENTSee my drawing of this stone, together with explanation at vottovaara.gif
[the graphic below is vottovaara.png]
which I have added to our LexiLine files online under Russia, Karelia at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LexiLine/files
The dolmen - for a certainty - has the relief of a serpent on it (in the middle)....
The stone was without question carved by human hand.
The dolmen in my opinion represents the stars of the heavens.
The serpent represents the stars of Hydra in my current interpretation of this megalith and marks the Summer Solstice. This identification is clear.
I interpret the rest of the dolmen for now - but speculatively - as showing a man's (or monkey's) head at Gemini and Orion (with the stars of Canis Major below them) - marking the Vernal Equinox to the right. In Vedic literature, the monkey Hanuman has this position.
At the left, I see Libra as a bull (the bull is later assigned to the stars of Lupus) - marking the Autumn Equinox. I imagine the horns were seen as Libra and the body was seen as Lupus.
This interpretation puts the age of these megaliths at about 3117 BC or earlier.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION on the Karelian Dolmens at VottovaaraDolmens in Karelia are known as "Seidas", a Lapp word for them, although it is quite clear that the Lapps (or Saami) had nothing to do with making these seida complexes, their culture indicating no megalithic roots. Seidas is the same as Latvian Setas (long e) meaning fences, but also borders, or marked areas. We see a related term in the megaliths of Ireland at "Ceide" Fields.
Seida complexes are found on Mount Vottovaara in the national park of Paanajarvi in the Kuzova Islands in the White Sea, see
http://argonavt.narod.ru/kuzova.html.
For their exact location see
http://argonavt.narod.ru/kem-sol.jpg. Vottovaara is ca. 20 km east of the city of Kem in Karelia. See
http://www.kareliatour.info/eng/region/division/Kemskiy/The seidas at Vottovaara are the largest such gathering of dolmens in the Russian north.
The dolmens have been ascribed to the Lapps, but this of course is nonsense. The Lapps are herdsmen, whereas the peoples who put up the megaliths were clearly seafarers.
WHO WERE THE POMORIANS?The local population of the nearby city Kem consists largely of a group of people called Pomorians who are thought to have formed their culture fairly recently on the coast of the White Sea, e.g. in the ancient villages of Gridino and Kalgalaksha.
See
http://www.kareliatour.info/eng/region/division/Kemskiy/It is of course error to think the Pomorians are of recent origin, as linguistic analysis shows us a contrary picture.
As written at
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/4280/obrazcy/eng_peredovaja.htm"The long-standing coexistence of Russian and Balto-Finnic inhabitants resulted in the formation of the peculiar North Russian dialect of Zaonezh'e (a peninsula in the north-western part of Lake Onego), characterized by specific features such as ljapan'e (systematic shift of the word stress to the first syllable or preposition)."
But of course, as Latvian shows us, where all words are stressed on the first syllable, this indicates that the original language was also stressed on the first syllable and that loan words from the Russian have been adapted to this first-syllable stress system.
Thus, as written at that same previous website:
"Even though contemporary villagers in Gridino stress that they are 'Russian Pomors', many features of the local dialect give evidence of a Balto-Finnic substratum or, at least, existence of close ties with the Karelians."
POMORIANS WERE SEAFARERSIt is clear that the Pomorians were seafarers. There is reference to the "ships of Pomorians" at
http://www.volodia.com/eng_about_act.htmAt
http://www.angelfire.com/country/veneti/ToulaevAncestors.html it
is written:
"X - XII c. The Venetic civilization also developed on the southern coast of the Baltic inhabited by Pomors (Pomerans) [Pomeranians], Varii and Rugi. There appeared large religious centers (Arkona, Rhetra) and flourishing trade towns such as Volin (Vinetta) Stargrad, Szczecin. The whole region became known as Vindland."
And, similarly at
http://www.fact-index.com/p/po/pomeranians.html we can read:
"Pomeranians are a group of ... tribes living in historical region of
Pomerania. They used to speak dialects belonging to Lekhitic branch
of West Slavic languages. Their direct descendants are Kashubians."
Indeed, the origin of the term Pomeranian or Pomorian as we can read at
http://www.berlin.de/rbmskzl/gek/kalender/20040708.21357.htmlis seen as the combination of the words
Po morje as in German
üb-ers Meermeaning "on the ocean", i.e. those who travel by boat on the sea.
Indeed, on the Baltic, according to
http://www.fact-index.com/p/po/pomerania.htmlwe find concerning Pomerania that:
"Pomerania (Pomeranian/Kashubian: Pòmòrze, Polish: Pomorze,
German: Pommern, Latin: Pomerania, Pomorania,) is the historical region on
the south coasts of the Baltic Sea centered around the mouth of River
Oder on the present-day border between Poland and Germany, reaching
from River Reknitz in the west to River Vistula in the east."
There is thus is strong evidence here that the megalith builders were ancient seafarers with an ancient presence both on the White Sea and Baltic Sea (in Latvian, the latter term "Baltic Sea" means in fact "White Sea" and Balt means "white").
As for the term
Karelia, the Latvian term
Karālis (long 2nd "a") means "king".
Have we found here in Karelia - on the White Sea - the most ancient origin of the megalith builders and their art, as I have already suggested in previous decipherments of the rock drawings on the White Sea?
