Happy Halloween 2006 ! The Origins of Halloween and Connections to Ancient Cultures - Aveni - Freeman - LexiLine Journal 439

We can not yet upload graphics here directly to LexiLine postings (we hope Yahoo! will ultimately enable this) so we have uploaded our 2006 Happy Halloween Pumpkin Cat to our LawPundit blog at http://www.lawpundit.com/blog/lawpundit.htm

For some connections between Halloween and ancient cultures and civilizations, see:
Space.com - Anthony Aveni on Archaeoastronomy

For a more comprehensive article see Celtic Spirit - Mara Freeman on the origin of Halloween in Samhain, the Celtic end of Summer and the Beginning of Winter, the Celtic New Year, plus many other revelations - this is a MUST read if you want to understand the origins of Halloween in the English-speaking world.

Marking the Equator - Now as Compared to Ancient Eras - Ecuador Mitad del Mundo Catequilla - LexiLine Journal 438

Just how accurate ancient astronomers may have been is exemplified by a site in Ecuador which was recently brought to my attention by a graphic relating to the pre-Inca site of Catequilla , Ecuador (a mountain on the eastern side of San Antonio de Pichincha, near Quito , the capital of Ecuador), sent to me by Enrico Calzolari, a long-standing member of LexiLine, who himself is the discoverer of The Mark of Cassiopeia in Italy.

In a posting entitled "something interesting", Mickey at the blog 3 Old Men Building Things in the Woods does a superb job of describing the factual situation, accompanied by several easily understandable cartographical maps from Google Earth .

The situation is essentially this. In the year 1736 the French (see Louis Godin, Pierre Bouguer, Charles Marie de la Condamine) measured the exact location of the Equator - something which in those days was not easy to do because the equatorial regions consist primarily of ocean, other waters, swamps and jungle.

Finding "hard ground" to measure the Equator led the French to Ecuador and the region north of the city of Quito, where the point of La Mitad del Mundo ("The Middle of the World") was established, where it still exists today as the "Equator Line Monument", which was built 200 years later in 1936 over the old French point to commemorate its measurement, and is today the leading tourist attraction in Ecuador . [For our German members, this French historical measurement of the earth has been described by Daniele Jörg in Ecuador – Armes reiches Land, Stipendien-Aufenthalt in Ecuador, 25. März bis 06. Mai 2004, "Die Vermessung der Erde".]

A geopage by Olivier Auverlau at the University of California at Berkeley provides panorama photos of the Middle of the World Monument as well as the orange line marking the Equator in Ecuador. Take a look. The photography is quite impressive.

With the arrival of satellite-driven GPS technology, scientists discovered to everyone's surprise, however, that the 1736 French measurement was not quite accurate, being off by about 300 meters. The correct line of the Equator turned out to run straight through the middle of a nearby pre-Inca ruin, Catequilla. See photo and cartographic map marking at the 3 Old Men, who comment this development as follows:

"A group in Ecuador has found all sorts of alignments with other ruins suggesting that the Ancients knew a lot more about how to find the Equator than the French scientists.…"

At the site of the Mexican Jaguars a detailed article is found which we definitely recommend as important background reading material:

It is an article about Catequilla written December 22, 2005 by a writer in Ecuador who discusses the AMAZING DISCOVERIES at EARTH'S EQUATOR (we include only excerpts here - be sure to read the original article):

"... In 1936 ... a monument was constructed near Ecuador's capital, Quito ... at the line reckoned by the 18th century French scientists to be zero degrees latitude ....

Recent findings have slightly relocated the equator.... in 1997 the seemingly insignificant ruins of a semicircular wall were discovered on top of Mount Catequilla, which lies a little to the north of Quito. Using ... the Global Positioning System (GPS), investigator Cristobal Cobo discovered that one end of this wall was located precisely on the equator. (On the other hand, GPS places the famous Middle of the World monument some 1,000 feet to the south of the true equator).

[A] line connecting the two ends of the wall creates a 23.5-degree angle to the equator ... almost precisely the angle at which earth's axis is tilted.... Further, one end of the connecting line points to the rising of the sun on the solstice in December; and the other end, to the setting of the sun on the solstice in June....

As more astronomical alignments were plotted on a map, a figure began to emerge --an eight-pointed star....

The Quitsa-to Project, directed by Cobo, is amassing compelling evidence of the astronomical acumen of the early natives. ('Quitsa-to' comes from the language of the Tsachila Indians and means 'Middle of the World.' Some believe that Quito is a name derived from this term.) More than a dozen archaeological sites and many ancient towns have been found to line up perfectly along the astronomical star figure when it is superimposed over the equator with Catequilla at its center...."

The website Exploring Ecuador writes about Cristóbal Cobo, the driving force behind this research, as follows :

"Cristóbal Cobo is an Ecuadorian scientist who has engaged in extensive studies about pre-Incan astronomical wisdom. His theories have already led to the discovery of several archeological sites in and around Quito, dating back to 1500 BC. Cobo holds that all the pre-Incan archeological sites in Quito and its surroundings are either in line with or parallel to the ecliptic and solstices axes running through Catequilla. He believes all these complexes are the work of the Quitus-Caras, a culture of which very little is known ...." I believe that Catequilla was the middle of the world for the Quitus-Caras, the point where their cosmological and spiritual belief systems came together." (Geographical, September 2002).

Cobo also discovered that several colonial churches in Quito, built over antique pre Incan sites, are aligned with the sunrays of the solstices....

Cristóbal Cobo is the director of the scientific research project Quitsa-to (Quitsa-to is the original name of the city, meaning "middle of the world"). His research findings are displayed at the "Solar Culture Museum" close to the Middle of the World Monument. He may be reached at cristocobo@hotmail.com or at his cell phone 099-701-133. Contact him to learn about activities programmed for December 22nd."

This research is having its public impact. Sailariel.com writes in their sailing log book:

"We spent one day in Quito adjusting to the high altitude which at 9200 feet was necessary for our sea level adapted bodies. Just outside Quito at La Mitad del Mundo (the middle of the world) where the equator passes through, we found a scientific research project exploring this past discovery using GPS.... It is now known that the monument is in fact 300 meters away from the equator but that a pre-Inca site on a nearby hill was built exactly on the equator proving this ancient civilization had more accurate calculations. In old town Quito there are a cluster of about 15 churches all built on top of ancient pre-Inca solar sites. On the solstices and equinox the sun shines in on the faces of the Christ above the altars. Much of the Indian weaving seen in the markets depict the layout of these sites in their designs."

______________

One of our members, Enrico Calzolari, the discoverer of the Mark of Cassiopeia in Italy, recently sent me a photo of Catequilla in Ecuador, together with the following information:

"Catequilla (Ecuador)
Latitude: 00° 00' 00"
Longitude: 078° 25' 43,3"
Elevation: m 4 000
Datation: 980 years B.C.
The semicircular wall between winter and summer solstices is the Real Middle of the World (quitsa-to).
Copyright of the Photo: Project Quitsa-to
Director of the project: Cristòbal Cobo
Archaeologist: Oswaldo Tobar"

I was going to upload that photo for you here on Lexiline, but in order to save me time and work in formatting that photo for our purposes, I found instead a similar photo of Catequilla and several related photos online at the following photography website:
http://snipurl.com/129jw

Germanic Archaeoastronomy Gustav Friedrichs - LexiLine Journal 437

This posting presents information about the work of Gustav Friedrichs in the area of archaeoastronomy in the early part of the 20th century.

As reported previously, I present a paper each year at the annual conference of the Walther Machalett Association for Prehistory and Early History (Arbeits- und Forschungskreis Walther Machalett für Vor- und Frühgeschichte e.V.) and I work together closely with the former attorney, Dr. Gert Meier, President of this Association [since renamed Der Forschungskreis Externsteine e. V.]
See in this regard:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/LexiLine/message/1495
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/LexiLine/message/1345
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/LexiLine/message/1343
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/LexiLine/message/1309
http://ancientworldblog.blogspot.com/2005/12/upcoming-conferences-of-machalett.htm

In the course of discussions about the upcoming annual 2007 and 2008 conferences (which always take place starting on Ascension Day in Horn / Bad Meinberg, Germany), Dr. Meier recently sent me a copy of a rare book previously unknown to me which he had just located in a local German library.

TITLE: Germanische Astronomie und Astrologie während der Stein- und Bronzezeit [Germanic Astronomy and Astrology during the Stone and Bronze Ages ] + Die Gertrudenberger Höhle bei Osnabrück: eine germanische Kultstätte um 1600 v.Chr. [The Gertrudenberg Cave ]
AUTHOR: Gustav Friedrichs (who was a "Rektor", i.e. a school principal, in Osnabrück, Germany)
PUBLISHER: Lindenberg, Hellerau bei Dresden, 1929.

Friedrichs is also apparently the author of Gustav Friedrichs, Die Geschichtszahlen der Alten sind Kalenderzahlen , Verlag Wilhelm Heims, Leipzig 1910 and also Gustav Friedrichs, Deutung und Erklärung der germanischen Märchen und Mythen, Verlag Wilhelm Heims, Leipzig 1934.

A bookseller writes as follows: Broschur, Umschlag mit Beschädigungen, 88 S. 15,7x23,2. Aus dem Inhalt: Die verschiedenen Arten der Märchen-, Mythen und Sagendeutung; Die astrologische Weltanschauung; Vollmondzeit wird durch drei, Neumondzeit durch zwei Personen vertreten; Jeder der drei Brüder wird durch zwei Personen vertreten; Erlösungsmärchen; Höllenmärchen; Himmelsmärchen; Astrologische Körperteile; Astrologische Wunderdinge. 18,00 EUR, #413).

Book Review by Karl Kaiser in ZfdPh 63 (1938), pp. 398-401.

Friedrichs' book on Germanic astronomy is of great interest because it anticipates some of the discoveries that I discuss in my book Stars Stones and Scholars, not only in my conclusions about megaliths in general but also about German megalithic sites in particular.

Friedrichs claimed, as do we, that there were astronomical lines of sight to be found at ancient Germanic megalithic sites and he also argued that ancient megaliths and mounds represented stars of the heavens. For example, he identified a megalithic site at Giersfeld (map, illustrations), Ankum, near Osnabrueck in the county of Bersenbrueck as the stars of Ursa Major.

As noted in Destination Germany at visit-germany info :

"The Giersfeld, the Osnabrück region's largest area of prehistoric graves, has 6 megalithic tombs and 4 tumuli which offer an insight into the New Stone Age and Bronze Age."

See in this connection also, Das Giersfeld by Wilhelm Tiede (in German language).

Friedrichs' observations have in part been criticized by the German astronomer, Dr. Andreas Hänel , President of Dark Skies Germany, Museum am Schölerberg, Osnabrück, Natur und Umwelt - Planetarium, Am Schölerberg 8, D-49082 Osnabrück, Tel.: 0541-5600326, Fax: 0541-5600337, http://www.spacetelescope.org/projects/anniversary/press_meetings.html, who himself later has however written about Neolithic astronomical alignments at megalithic sites (Dr. Andreas Hänel, Astronomie in der Steinzeit - astronomische Orientierung von Megalithgräbern), abstracted as follows in German:

"Auf der Suche nach den frühesten Hinweisen auf astronomische Beobachtungen sind wir auf mögliche astronomische Orientierung von Bauwerken angewiesen. Geeignete Monumente sind die megalithischen Bauten des Neolithikums, wobei die Zugänge von Grabkammern besonderes Interesse erfahren. Die Methoden der Messungen werden beschrieben und die Orientierungen neolithischer Grabkammern in Nordwestdeutschland, der Bretagne und Katalonien wurden vermessen und werden in einem europäischen Zusammenhang diskutiert."

Friedrichs, as Hänel has written, may have made some initial amateurish, pioneering types of errors, but our review of his work indicates that he was on the right archaeoastronomical track in an era when the mainstream academia totally negated the idea that Germanic peoples had any Neolithic astronomy of any kind, much less the sophisticated kind of astronomy alleged by Friedrichs. The recent discovery of the Nebra Sky Disk has of course laid such erroneous notions to rest. What Friedrichs wrote, therefore, is plausible.

A Coming Documentary: As Above So Below - LexiLine Journal 436

There are many signs that the mainstream world is slowly moving toward our correct pioneer position on the meaning of the megaliths as ancient hermetic astronomy and land survey by the stars .

Via the Stone Pages Archaeo News and their October 15 posting, Irish passage tombs explored in a new documentary, we were directed to The Meath Chronicle in Ireland (free registration required) and their October 14 article titled Passage tombs explored in a new documentary which states:

"THE Boyne Valley passage tombs are to feature in a special film by the documentary-maker Roel Oostra.

Oostra, who has worked with such great names as Robert Bauval, Graham Hancock, Archie Roy, Bill Sullivan and Hertha von Dechend, was in Ireland to film part of a documentary about how ancient cultures tried to replicate what they saw in the sky on the ground. Tentatively entitled `As Above, So Below', the one-hour documentary will take a year to complete. [emphasis added by LexiLine]

In addition to featuring the famous Boyne Valley tombs, the documentary team will also visit England, Holland, Egypt, Japan, South America and Sri Lanka.

During his visit here, Roel Oostra, who was accompanied by camerman Ge Aarts, concentrated on the Boyne Valley, and in particular the Sygnus Enigma theory formulated by Anthony Murphy and Richard Moore who have been studying the archaeology and myths of Ireland and their associated astronomy for the past eight years.

The documentary-makers filmed at Newgrange, Knowth, Dowth and Fourknocks over the course of two days. As well as exploring the Cygnus Enigma, they were particularly keen to impart the notion that the Boyne complex builders were concerned with much more than just the solstice sun. [link added by LexiLine - we think the Cygnus Enigma is a nice idea, and it corresponds in general to our identification of nearby County Monaghan and Drumnart as Cygnus in the ancient survey of Ireland by astronomy]

There was a great emphasis on the moon here, as well as the stars. There is a well-formed theory that the megalithic monuments of Bru na Boinne are astronomical constructs which have yet to be fully fathom."

Chronos & the Chronology of Time - LexiLine Journal 435

Few elements of ancient history have been as severely botched by mainstream scholarship as ancient chronology. But we write about this all the time.

What about the term "chronology" itself?

The etymology of the word chronology is generally traced back by mainstream linguists to the Greek term chronos viz. khronos meaning "time" as combined with the word logos meaning "discourse".

But in fact, the term chronos can be traced back further to more basic terms in other Indo-European languages, such as e.g. the archaic Latvian language, which has the word gariens (= khronos) meaning "length (of time)". Similarly, Greek aeon "a longer segment of time" can be traced back to older Indo-European terms such as Latvian gājien- "passage (of time)".

The mainstream view can be summarized as written below:

"In Greek mythology, Chronos ... in pre-Socratic philosophical works is said to be the personification of time. He emerged from the primordial Chaos. He is often mythologically confused with the Titan Cronus ....

He was depicted in Greco-Roman mosaics as a man turning the zodiac wheel. Often the figure is named Aeon (Eternal Time), a common alternate name for the god. His name actually means "Time", and is alternatively spelled Khronos (transliteration of the Greek), Chronos, Chronus (Latin version). Some of the current English words which show a tie to khronos/chronos and the attachment to time are chronology, chronic, and chronicle."

Chronos is a late development as a Greek concept. In the fragments of the pre-Homeric ancient Greek Mousaios (Mousaeus, Musaeus ), which deal with Time and the Sphere of the world, the term Chronos does not appear. As written by the Presocratics Study Group :

"Thus in the conception of Mousaios time in the sense of the succession of day and night played an important role. This warrants the suspicion that it came up for discussion in his work, too. In the fragments the Greek word for time—chronos—does not occur. "

As written by Eric S. Gruen , who - erroneously and without the slightest shred of probative evidence - calls such tales fables:

"For the Greeks, according to Artapanus, Moses was a revered figure, identified with the mythical Greek poet Mousaios, reckoned as the teacher of Orpheus, and even made equivalent to Hermes in his capacity as patron of literature and the arts (Eus. PE 9.8.1-2; Clement, Strom. 1.154.2-3). So Moses emerges here as culture hero, a source of inspiration to Hebrews, Greeks, and Egyptians alike."

Many misguided classical scholars such as Gruen denigrate and wrongly assess such historical information as legends without substance, apparently because such tales contradict their own personal erroneous historical views, which diverge from the historical accounts. There is in fact not one piece of probative evidence to indicate that the historical account of Artapanus is not true. In fact, as we have been writing for years, Artapanus is a pillar of veracity and reliability, whose biography of Moses contains important basic chronological foundations for reconstruction of the true chronology of the ancient world, including a redating of Exodus to conform to the eruption of Santorini.

The previously mentioned emphasis on the succession of day and night as an early concept of time is found in the Greek term dyna- as embedded in the word dynasty. The term Dyna- is nothing more than a variant of ancient Indo-European word for "day", e.g. the Latvian term diena "day".

A better understanding of ancient chronological terms will help to bring about a better understanding of ancient chronology.

Astronomers Win Nobel Prize in Physics - LexiLine Journal 434

As just reported today (one hour ago) by Dennis Overbye in the New York Times, two American astronomers have just won this year's Nobel Prize in Physics for their contributions to cosmology and to our understanding of the universe in which we all live.

This Nobel award is quite remarkable, as Nobel Prizes for astronomers are rare.

We thus congratulate heartily

John Mather of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland
and
George Smoot of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory at the University of California.

Really, to the question, "what's it all about, Alfie?", the answer is, it is all about astronomy.

As we have previously written :

"Eusebius wrote regarding Manetho's lists for the length of the rule of Egyptian Pharaohs that:
"ALL [reigns] were astronomy".

The secret to ancient chronology is thus stated in ancient sources quite clearly - it is ALL astronomy."

And that is one of the main themes of this list.

To understand the universe, you have to understand astronomy.

To understand the ancient world, you have to understand astronomy.

It is really quite simple.