Extreme Sports at Adventure Ice - Eventyrisen - Megalithic Glacier Towers as Models for the Megaliths? - LexiLine Journal 453

Did someone say "extreme sports"? We are not the type to just sit at our PC. How about glacier climbing in Jotunheimen in Norway? We literally "chanced" upon Adventure Ice (Eventyrisen) during a 1977 camping trip in Scandinavia. All photographs below are by Andis Kaulins (viz. Reinhard Penner) and I share them with you here (reproduced from 30-year old slides in various stages of quality).

All photographs were made by Andis Kaulins viz. Reinhard Penner and are copyright © 2007 by Andis Kaulins (my camera). In the Svellnos glacier.
Did glacial towers like this serve as the origination of the idea for man's making of megaliths?

The above photo was taken in 1977 in Svellnosbreen (Svellnos Glacier), Spiterstulen, Jotunheimen, Norway, during a guided "tour" of the glacier. Saagar writes at Virtual Tourist:"

Out of Spiterstulen cottage there are daily (season and weather permitting) guided trips to the Svellnosbreen glacier just below Galdhøpiggen, the highest peak in Norway. The glacier is a wonderland of crevasses, tunnels, towers and ice cliffs ... it's a great experience. Except hiking strength and relevant clothing (you will be told), no previous skills are needed. Daily tours 15 July-15 August. Contact Spiterstulen at 61211480." [Our comment: please note that Visit Norway gives different months for this 7-hour tour - inquire first.]

Jotunheimen means "Home of the Giants".

These Giants are of Ice. Solid Blue Ice. Mega Megaliths.

Did our guide plan to go way up there? We had to follow.
(The sky background of this photo was damaged so we replaced it. The rest is original.)

Key phrases in the Virtual Tourist quotation above are "hiking strength" and "relevant clothing". Guided glacier climbing in Norway like this (not quite the same as glacier walking or glacier hiking) is an extreme sport for most. Do not do this unless you are young and fit, and if you are older, in very good shape and sure-footed. This is mostly suitable for athletic types.

The ice terrain to be mastered in the glacier is not always easy. This is wet ice and snow.

An example of the ice terrain to be mastered is found in the photo above which includes the lady in front of us on the mountain rope and her young daughter, who both made the tour with flying colors. In that photo we are coming down and out of the glacier. You have very steep ice terrain on your right, and a big crevice left. This is nothing for the weak-hearted or those without a good sense of balance. Plus, you have to have stamina for this kind of a climb.

This photo gives a good idea of the long trek from valley to glacier and back.
The difference in elevation is ca. 1000 meters but the hike is longer of course.

An ad for a "glacier tour" does not mean a comfortable tourist-type tour to view a glacier, as we thought. They surprised us. The description of the glacier tour further above says "no previous skills" required, but you do need to learn immediate skills, like climbing ice hills on crampons (metal spikes) and moving safely up and down steep icy slopes while tethered to a mountain climbing rope shared by 10-15 other people. When you do this the first time, you will have butterflies in your stomach. Guaranteed.

The is the glacier trail at the beginning, but it is not all like this.

We did manage to survive and enjoy this "tour" immensely in 1977 as absolute novices. The young Norwegian guide, who does the glacier tour every day in season (which might be only one summer month, because otherwise the weather can be bad and quite dangerous), looked at us carefully from top to bottom, saw we were young and strong, made a sensible impression, and said we would make it, even though we did not have proper footwear or clothing. He was right, but it was rougher than we thought, as I lost one pair of eyeglasses in a crevice underway through a quick jerky tautening of the mountain rope as someone ahead of me slipped. The rope caught the glasses and they were gone. When I reached into my breast pocket for my replacement pair, I discovered that one eyeglass of those had also broken somewhere underway, so that only one healthy lens remained. It was a half-blind descent. But, then again, not many people worldwide have ever been in this glacier, so we are proudly one of them.

Andis Kaulins, unshaven for 2 weeks, in the Blue Tunnel, Svellnosbreen, Norway, 1977.

Reinhard Penner at the Entrance to the Blue Tunnel, Svellnosbreen, Spiterstulen, Norway, 1977

The guide, a strapping young Norwegian in great shape, said the glacier climb was not dangerous, unless the weather got really bad, in which case we would turn around and go back home. We were lucky and had sun nearly all day long. Here is a good quotation from elsewhere:

"On a clear morning we packed up and began the climb from 5000 to 7000 feet. As we stepped onto the glacier we roped up. This put a guide at the lead and each person tied into a rope at about twenty foot intervals. Another truth about climbing was revealed to all of us. When a guide says, "one" you translate to, "two and a half." For example, you ask, "how long is the climb to high camp?" The guide would say, "one hour." You then translate this to "two and a half hours." If the guide says, "three" the true answer is, "seven and a half" and so on. Once understood, it eased our anticipation...." Leon Watts, Living the Life with MountainZone.com

The guide told us that he made the hike down from the glacier in about one hour. It took us nearly 3 hours to go up to the glacier and nearly 2 hours down (plus 2 hours in the glacier), but we were in street shoes - that's all we had along - as we were in Norway more to find and photograph elk than to do any glacial mountaineering. We had been in Lom , the gateway to Jotunheimen, to take a look at the Lom Stave Church, among the oldest stave churches in the world, and were headed South when Spiterstulen stopped us. Better planning is essential, truly.

It is a long, rocky and partially watery trek from the base camp lodges in Spiterstulen
to the glacier above, probably ca. 1000 meters elevation difference
with a hiking distance of about 3 km very steeply uphill.

How we got to Svellnosbreen was a surprise. We had no expectation of a 2-3 hour hike straight uphill to reach the glacier, with only 1 Coke and 1 Snickers along for thirst and hunger. We were not prepared for that. The Norwegians in our group shared their food and drink with us.

Experienced climbers had the right footwear, clothing and backpacks with food & drink

A simple tourist brochure ad for a "glacier tour" which we saw by chance in Spiterstulen - with emphasis on "tour" - turned out to be a totally unexpected full day's real-life adventure.

Andis Kaulins - August 1977 - near the end of the glacier tour on the return leg.
Whew. It was a bit cold in that rain outfit.
Wow! We made it. It was a thrilling experience and an unprecedented memory for a lifetime.
We are surely one of very few chance "passers by" to ever take this glacier tour unplanned.

Background Information and Links

Jotunheimen is the highest mountain range in Scandinavia. The name means "Home of the Giants".

Spiterstulen is at 1100 meters, at the border of the tree line, and serves as the base camp lodging for hikers and climbers in this area. We do not know the exact elevation of the glacier tongue at Svellnosbreen.

Arnstein Berg has a superb photo of the entire Svellnosbreen Glacier from the front as seen from Visdalen - with Galdhøpiggen, the highest mountain in Norway, at the immediate back
High Resolution map of SvellnosbreenSpiterstulen (Norwegian, English, German)
Høgskulen i Volda (Volda University College) nice page on Spiterstulen
Svellnosbreen rundt map of the glaciers around Spiterstulen (bottom of page)
Per Gustaffson at Eventyrisen climbers at Svellnosbreen
Eventyrisen at FlickrTraildatabase for this region of Norway
Den Norske Turistforening (The Norwegian Trekking Association)
Sogneford
TuristVeg
Jotunheimen at Wikipedia
Jotunheimen - in Norwegian, but see picture gallery
Jotunheimen Links of various kinds for hiking in Norway
Till Topps Guide to Jotunheimen
Visit LomTrygg i Jotunheimen (Feel Safe in Jotunheimen - only in Norwegian)
Jotunheimen-Turist - Vågå Reiseliv (Norwegian, English, German)Fjellsiden (Norwegian - some photos of Jotunheimen)Adam Cagliarini has a photo of Svellnosbreen glacier looking from Galdhøpiggen
Mike Greenfield has great pictures of the glacier and surrounding area
At Fjellweb you see how people are properly dressed for climbing in this region
Britta Schönenborn has a great photo of the Giants of Svellnosbreen
Hakadal KFUK bildegalleri of Svellnosbreen
Aktiv i OsloBreogfjellsportGletscher Touren und Kurse (Fjell-touren, Gletschertouren, Gletscherkurse)

Revised Decipherment - Cloak & Dagger Astronomy : Gerum Cloak Sweden - LexiLine Journal 452

John de Sieyes wrote:

"A quick question that I did not see a clear answer to in the body of the write up...did Starry Night Pro validate the assumed origination date range of the cloak, or invalidate said?"

Andis Kaulins replied:

That's a very good question. As you have deftly observed, I have avoided the date corroboration issue almost entirely, and this intentionally so, because I simply can not tell definitively from the small photos available exactly where the rather heavy-handed slits in the cloak start and end and where the lines should be precisely drawn, because the cloak is also damaged around those slits, so that the threshold method does not work there.

Nevertheless, I was not happy with my initial result, so that I have recalculated the entire thing by placing several layers of thresholded pictures on top of one another to give a composite photograph - which allows a more accurate placing of the lines, and give the new results below. Theoretically, the angle between the vertical celestial meridian running between Scorpio and Orion and the dagger mark on the upper left edge of the cloak (presumably the Autumn Equinox) gives an angular separation by Starry Night Pro of about 30°, which would in fact correspond to around 300 BC, the date to which the Gerum Cloak is dated.


As for the Spring Equinox (the right lower corner of the Gerum Cloak), this is a troublesome cloak region for interpretation. I previously calculated it as 24°, measured from Orion's bow viz. shield, which gave me a date of ca. 1750 BC, so that I was concerned about that date. In the recalculation above we have 15°, measured from Bellatrix, i.e. the right edge of Orion, which would measure to Aldebaran and the Hyades, whereas 30° would measure to the Pleiades and it is about 50° angular separation to the Spring Equinox in 300 BC. This corner of the decipherment I think one can best view as "unclear" and I have marked it so in the revised decipherment above. Perhaps in fact they were marking Aldebaran and the Hyades and the Pleiades in that era, but I am sceptical.

The first thing that must be done - based on the results of my work - is for the Gerum Cloak to be examined in Sweden by the forensics experts there to confirm or deny whether stars of the heavens are marked on that Gerum Cloak, as I allege they are.

The next thing to be done by the forensic experts in Sweden is to mark exactly the contours of the dagger incisions (i.e. the slits in the cloak made by some kind of a sharp object) and then to draw the various possible lines which can be drawn to and from these various slits (both from the back as well as the front of the slits) across the cloak to see what kinds of exact angle measurements one obtains.

Only then would one be in a position to determine exactly where the lines were originally intended to run and then one could measure the resulting angles exactly, thereby permitting a more exact interpretation.

Even then, we have no assurance that the astronomy depicted on the cloak necessarily coincides with the era in which the cloak was made. The cloak could be a copy of an earlier cloak. (We have this problem, for example, with chronologies found on cuneiform tablets - which in part have simply been copied from much earlier predecessors - see my discussion of MUL.APIN ).

I think that my discovery of star representations on the Gerum Cloak can be reproduced and substantiated. I think it is less clear as to how possible lines of astronomical orientation on the cloak may ultimately be interpreted.

The Universe and Man Religion Cosmology Philosophy Theology Cosmogony & Astrophysics - LexiLine Journal 451

Where are We? The Universe and Man

Cosmology is the study of the nature of the universe, forming the root foundation for all human philosophy (what is the nature of existence), theology (what is the nature of God), cosmogony (what is the origin of the universe) and in our modern age, astrophysics (what is the actual observable physical nature of the universe).

All are concerned with a question once well formulated by Giordano Bruno, a thinker who envisioned the universe as a wheel within a wheel, who thought the universe might be populated by intelligent beings other than man, and who was burned at the stake by the organized Church (the word catholic derives from Greek katholikos meaning universal) as a heretic for expressing these ideas.

Giordano Bruno question was : "If the world has no beginning and no end, then where are we?"

The question remains even if the universe is finite, rather than infinite, and does have a beginning and end: Where are we then?

Cosmology Drives the World Religions

It is the question of "where are we" which drives the world religions, for each presumes through its proprietary religious dogmas to provide its adherents with the required answer. The worldwide strife and conflict we witness every day in the news is the inevitable result.

A Photographic Infrared Image of our Galaxy - The Milky Way In this context, it is interesting to look at a photograph which we personally consider to be one of the greatest photographs ever made (rivalled perhaps only by space photos of our own Earth): it is an infrared view (infrared measures "heat") of our Milky Way Galaxy assembled from six months of data taken by the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS):


What you see above is our compressed version of the original (to save download time & space). See the original larger IRAS image here. This "All Sky" far infrared survey photograph is by the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center, Caltech/JPL. IPAC is NASA's Infrared Astrophysics Data Center.

The photo is described as follows at the CalTechGallery:

"The bright horizontal band is the plane of the Milky Way, with the center of the Galaxy located at the center of the picture.... Hotter material appears blue or white while the cooler material appears red.... Celestial objects visible in the photo are regions of star formation in the constellation Ophiuchus (directly above the galactic center) and Orion (the two brightest spots below the plane, far right). The Large Magellanic Cloud is the relatively isolated spot located below the plane, right of center. Black stripes are regions of the sky that were not scanned by the telescope in its first six months of operation." [links added by this posting]

For more detailed information, download the free Digital Universe Atlas from the Hayden Planetarium.

Where are we - now?

That "All Sky" photograph brings us one step closer to an answer of the "where are we" question posed at the beginning of this posting. Indeed, it provides us a different kind of "big picture" than other types of photographs or depictions of our galaxy, which show more its spiral form or the distribution of stars within that spiral as individual points.

The "All Sky" infrared "heat" photograph above shows clearly that our universe is "a galactic burning ring of fire" which in its profile looks like a bit like a gigantic ignited galactic egg.

How do the religions portray our universe?

Now consider how the world's organized religions portray our universe to control their adherents. The ignorant masses are kept in fear by the threatening allegation their deeds - bad and good (as determined by that particular organized Church management) - will be rewarded either by eternal heaven or eternal hell, with hell pictured as a region of eternal burning fire.

Take a look again at that infrared photograph of our current "heaven above". This is where we are NOW. Galactically seen, speaking of the Devil, we are already in a burning ring of fire.

The portrayal of the cosmological universe by man's organized religions, including their cosmogenic visions of paradise and hell, is thus so antiquated as to offend normal intellect and elementary independent thinking. There is surely no hell in this universe, and if there were one, we are already in it, because the universe, according to the big bang theory, is conceivably one, big expanding exploded fireball. The IRAS infrared photo confirms the big bang theory.

The fact is that man's religion is rooted in ancient astronomy, when God was seen to have an abode in the heavens at the immovable center of those heavens in the night sky of stars. In ancient days, mankind did not yet know that there was a Celestial Pole and an Ecliptic Pole, resulting from the 24° tilt of the Earth's axis. If there is a God and if he has a location in heaven, it can not be the one that the ancients imagined, because both the celestial and ecliptic poles only have relevance to Planet Earth and not to the entire Milky Way Galaxy.

Similarly, man's concept of hell developed from the ancient observation of the internal workings of Earth in volcanic eruptions, showing ancient mankind that the Earth, underneath its surface, was a world of fire. This was the "underworld" of souls, whereas heaven was the "upper world" of souls, to whose stars, for example, the ancient Pharaohs of Egypt thought that the souls of the deceased would rise.

Thousands of years have since passed since these primitive cosmogonies were developed.

These ancient antiquated beliefs no longer conform to what we know, neither in the world of astrophysics (the big visual picture) nor in the world of genetics (the sub-visual world).

It is time for a change.

Man's organized religions must be reformed to conform to modern knowledge

If we are to obtain healthy religious views and achieve a semblance of peace among humans on this planet, it is essential to achieve a reformation of the outdated, antiquated and simply grossly erroneous cosmologies and cosmogonies which the organized world religions still impose on their believers. This does not mean that God must be abandoned, but the religious view of God must be modernized to conform to modern knowledge, otherwise, religion is simply a sham, and a scam.

Cloak & Dagger Astronomy : The Gerum Cloak of Sweden as an Ancient Sky Map - LexiLine Journal 450

Bring on Sherlock Holmes . . .and at least one lawyer, trained in evidence . . . pro bono publico.

NOTE: A REVISED DECIPHERMENT has subsequently been made here.

THE GERUM CLOAK MYSTERY

The more than 2000-year old Cloak of Gerum (photos and info below) provides us - as we will show - with the greatest "real" (non-fiction) cloak and dagger mystery of all time, unsolved up to now, but - as we allege - for the most part solved (but not entirely) in this posting.

The technology that we use to solve this mystery is demonstrated in the following graphic - which contains a secret message - to which we give the simple and ultimately helpful clue: 42
(read further below to understand its significance in the context of this posting). Any change to this graphic by, e.g. compression, destroys the secret message:



Via the Swedish Museum of National Antiquitiesand the Swedish National Laboratory of Forensic Science (which "performs laboratory analyses of samples collected from various scenes of suspected crimes" and uses the most modern investigatory criminal forensic techniques available to man - the Scandinavians are indeed top in many scientific and engineering fields),

the mainstream archaeologists recently determined (our free translation from the Swedish using the assistance of Systran) that:

"[T]he Gerum Cloak has five cuts made by knife or dagger and that these stabs [if the cloak had been worn at the time] would have struck the body in the chest, abdomen, spine and neck."

This is cloak and dagger at its best. You have an - alleged - ancient cloak and you also have - alleged - multiple dagger incisions, but - thus far - you have no dagger, and no corpse.

Worse, when the Gerum Cloak was subjected to follow-up tests for blood and DNA, none were found. No human remnants. None.

How is this to be explained?

ORIGIN OF THE GERUM CLOAK

The Gerum Cloak, neatly folded and almost perfectly preserved - a great rarity for archaeology - was found in the year 1920¹ by peat bog diggers in Gerumsberget, Sweden, along with three small stones (found sitting on top of the cloak) which from the photos appear to be about the same size as a super-oversized computer mouse, interpreted - questionably - by the mainstream archaeologists as weights to weigh down the cloak in the bog.

PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE GERUM CLOAK

[Please note: All photographs below are copyrighted by their owners. We use them here in reliance on the fair use copyright exception for non-profit research. See the original linked articles for more details about each photograph. For the analysis below, one of the photos used MUST be the original, and we do use it.]


Photograph left above by ATA - Photograph right above (3 small stones) by Falbygdens museum in Falköping,
which is also a very important Swedish megalithic site



Photo left above by ATA of cloak 1920 - Photo middle (virtual cloak and stones)
& photo right (cloak hung) by Falbygdens museum

Gerum Cloak Overhead View
(Original Photo Essential for Forensics)

ABOVE: Overhead photograph of the Gerum Cloak by Gabriel Hildebrandt / SHM
(The discussion below shows that it is important to use the original photograph for analysis)

Gerum Cloak "On the Table View"

ABOVE: Photograph of the Gerum Cloak investigation, photograph by Christer Åhlin / SHM

The white points on the cloak here played a role in our solution of the mystery.

PHOTOGRAPHS ARE THE KEYS TO SOLVE THE GERUM CLOAK MYSTERY

The lower two photographs above were the key photographs for the solution of this mystery: 1) the table photograph because we wondered what the white points were; and, 2) the overhead photograph because we looked for those white points, wondering where they had vanished.

HOW OLD IS THE GERUM CLOAK? IS IT REALLY A CLOAK SHAPE?

Modern chronological dating shows the Gerum Cloak to originate around several hundred years before the birth of Christ (ca. 360-100 BC). The cloak is thus at least 2000 years old and is the oldest intact piece of "clothing" (or what is alleged to be clothing) ever found in Sweden.

Given its oval nearly elliptical shape, the identification as a cloak (rather than, for example, as a tablecloth or wall tapestry) is however certainly susceptible to doubt. We have many cloaks but we have never seen one with an oval shape and with no cut or incision for the head. The peat bog finders, not knowing what else to do with their finding, threw it over their shoulders as if it were a cloak and it has been regarded as a cloak ever since, but it is most likely NOT a cloak. Indeed, if not a cloak, then the dagger marks of the archaeologists are not stab marks at all, which seems likely given their overly wide distribution on the cloak, mostly near the edges.

The shape of the cloak, as we shall see, as well as the dagger slashes on the cloak, are, however, important clues to the resolution of the real secret of the cloak.

WHAT ABOUT THE THREE STONES?

If someone had committed a murder and was trying to hide a bloodied cloak, they would not use three such unusually-shaped and differently weighted stones this small to sink the cloak in a bog, nor would they first fold the cloak neatly. The fact that the cloak was still neatly folded when found indicates additionally that the stones had no effect on sinking the cloak, which, if effective, would have destroyed the folding. Rather, it appears that the cloak and stones were intentionally and neatly hidden together - but possibly too near an inviting bog, probably by someone who thought that he or someone else might recover them soon. Perhaps they were hidden in the bog by someone thinking they could not be found there, would not sink too deeply and could be retrieved shortly. But no one came to retrieve them and so they sank slowly (retaining the folding) into the bog which preserved them for over 2000 years.

The bottom stone looks almost like an iron for ironing clothes or fabric, i.e. something to slide along a surface, and in my opinion the upper two smaller stones appear to be made to fit exactly on top of the larger stone. Each of these smaller stones has what appears to be a sculpted straight edge, suggesting a maneuverable usage intended for marking something, much like modern markers for lines or locations on a map, perhaps a kind of angle-setter? We leave this issue to the engineers out there in cyberspace.

WHAT IS THE REAL SECRET OF THE GERUM CLOAK?

Does the Gerum Cloak hide a different real secret, and if so, what is it?

We have discovered that all that is required to reveal the hidden secret of the Gerum Cloak are the right tools and the right detective work in using them.

With apologies to other forensic experts, but in the case of the Gerum Cloak, every internet user potentially possesses tools necessary for decipherment success in the instant case.

FORENSIC SCIENCE, STEP BACK : WE ONLY NEED ONE PHOTO PLUS PSP

All that one needs to decipher the Gerum Cloak are:

1) an otherwise unformatted original overhead photograph copy of the Gerum Cloak laid down flat, such as the original photograph of Gabriel Hildebrandt (who we do not know personally) reproduced above, and;

2) a graphics program such as Paint Shop Pro ("PSP", by Corel, formerly JASC) having a "threshold level" menu option for showing the most minimal color differences in any image. We use the German version of PSP 7.00, where the threshold value menu option is found under the colors menu as the option "Schwellenwert": [Farben/Farbeinstellungen/Schwellenwert]. Note that this menu is activated only after an image is loaded into PSP.

MENU OPTION FOR THRESHOLD VALUE PERMITS PRO SLEUTHING

The ability to depict very precisely the minutial differences in color of adjacent pixels on a photograph allows the identification of marks or etchings on surfaces which are as good as invisible to the human eye or which can otherwise only be found with great difficulty - or not at all - by more modern technologies. To our knowledge, we were the first ever to use precisely this graphics technology in archaeology, already applying it to the study of figures found on photographs of megaliths, megalithic sites and petroglyphs (see Stars Stones and Scholars).

GABRIEL HILDEBRANDT'S OVERHEAD PHOTOGRAPH OF THE GERUM CLOAK AND THE COLOR THRESHOLD METHOD OF FINDING HIDDEN FIGURES

Using Gabriel Hildebrandt's original photograph above and available at Gabriel Hildebrandt / SHM, anyone having the graphics program Paint Shop Pro (it may also work with other graphics programs having a comparable menu option) can duplicate our results by using the threshold settings that we provide below. The three rows below show the color blue (#0000ff) progressively differentiated by 1) brightness, 2) saturation and 3) hue.


Each of the 36 colors above is a different RGB blue color. The differences in blue in each color row above are very hard to discern with the human eye, though the eyes do "see" these colors, as shown by our comparison of the leftmost and rightmost elements of each row (you need true color on your monitor to see all of these colors).

However, such subtle color changes, when close to each other, are turned by the brain into flowing color schemes by a process called optical mixing. This facility of our brain was exploited in Neo-Impressionism, a school of art founded by Georges Seurat, whose computer-futuristic and greatly underestimated Pointillism (try it out here) consisted of painting by small dots too small to be seen individually, which gave his paintings a tremendous brilliance because of the miniscule white space surrounding those dots. Pointillism clearly anticipated pixel technology on television screens and computer monitors.

In a similar way, the PSP threshold value menu option permits us to isolate real but otherwise imperceptible color differences between pixels and to discover actual figures present in an image which we otherwise would not recognize as such.

In PSP the color threshold settings can be given a minimum value of 1 and a maximum of 255.

Below you see Hildebrandt's original photo viewed using the Paint Shop Pro color threshold settings of 81 in the first case, and 85, 86 and 87 in the second case. We presume these settings work identically on all computers running the same program. Run the threshold values on the original photograph first and not on a resized version of it, which gives less accurate results:

The Hildebrandt photograph shown at PSP threshold level 81

Look at the middle of the above 81-PSP-thresholded image. What do you see?
Lots of dots, right?
Do you see anything familiar in those dots?


The Hildebrandt photograph shown at threshold levels 85, 86 and 87
--
We call your attention again to the center of those three Gerum Cloak images, using PSP threshold settings of 85, 86 and 87, and we ask you, what do you see? If you see nothing recognizable, we suggest you call in your resident astronomer for advice and assistance.

DECIPHERMENT OF THE GERUM CLOAK

Do not read further here
if you do not want us to tell you what you see
and/or if you want to decipher the Gerum Cloak on your own.
Otherwise, read on.

What those images clearly show in the middle of the Gerum Cloak - thresholded at 81 by PSP - are the stars of Ursa Major (the Big Dipper, the Great Bear, the Wain), Virgo, Boötes, Hercules and Lyra - and they show those stars pretty exactly. Recall that we are seeing here just a tiny photographic image of a large piece of fabric. More sophisticated photo equipment taking OPTICAL close-ups of sections of the Gerum Cloak will give even better results.

Below are two digitally-made close-ups of the Gerum Cloak photo. In the first we compare the Gerum Cloak with the stars of Ursa Major, Virgo, Boötes, Hercules and Lyra as shown by Starry Night Pro. We have a clear match of stars.


In the second close-up we view the images representing the threshold values of 85, 86 and 87 as compared to the stars produced by Starry Night Pro. Opposite of Ursa Major we clearly find the stars of Draco marked on the Gerum Cloak (this is at the North Ecliptic Pole):


Some of the star groups in the course of life of the Gerum Cloak appear to have been painted over with an appropriate figure, for example, Cygnus, which is shown as a bird (head at the top middle) at threshold level 74, although the stars iota and kappa Cygnii are clearly identifiable:


Also important are the images which result for the stars Orion and Scorpio - which are across from each other in the heavens and build a traditional historic ancient celestial meridian. At the identical PSP threshold value of 54 for both of these groups of stars, a threshold identity which suggests that these stellar groups were both marked on the Gerum Cloak in the same manner at nearly the same time, the main stars of Orion and Scorpio can clearly be identified (see the close-ups in the final decipherment image below.

Knowing now the position of the above stellar groupings on the Gerum Cloak, we can possibly identify the knife or dagger marks on that cloak, as intentional dagger slashes acting as permanent edges for major astronomical lines of orientation, specifically the Equinoxes and Solstices and the 24° degree axis tilt of the Earth relative to ancient cardinal points at Orion and Scorpio. Perhaps the cloak was hung on an ancient wooden wall using sharp objects at the focal areas. Seasonally seen - the tilt of the Earth's axis is "equalized" at both the Autumn and Spring Equinoxes, when the days and nights are equally long everywhere, and when the ecliptic (angled 24° to the celestial equator) crosses the celestial equator at the two crossing nodes.



THE FINAL DECIPHERMENT GRAPHIC FOR THE GERUM CLOAK

Armed with the above knowledge, knowing that an oval viz. elliptical shape is the shape of the heavens, it is easy to see, using the threshold value of 81 as the basis for the graphic below, that the Gerum Cloak is a sky map of the heavens of the northern hemisphere. It is an ancient planisphere.


We have added the positions of the North Ecliptic Pole and the North Celestial Pole to our decipherment graphic for purposes of understanding, but these circles are not marked on the Gerum Cloak directly as far as we can tell, although the fact that the heaven's pole positions are centered in the middle of the cloak would seem clearly to demonstrate a knowledge of those positions on the part of the cloak's makers, as we have seen for Scandinavia in the rock drawings.

If the Gerum Cloak is a cloak at all, then it is similar in its North European origin perhaps to the heavenly cape found in e.g. Verse 33854 of the Latvian Dainas,² where the Moon is seen to ride his steed in the sky with a cape of stars on his back. It was surely an important motif in ancient astronomy. Indeed, Johann Bayer, a German lawyer and amateur astronomer, published his famous star atlas Uranometria in the year 1603 with Diana pictured on the front cover of the book as the Moon goddess wearing a cape of stars. When we view some smaller modern fabrics, such as "banners", for example, the flags of the United States of America or the European Union, then we see that the stars have not lost their importance as symbols of choice.

We hope that the archaeologists in Sweden, perhaps with the help of this posting, may elevate the Gerum Cloak to the noble position in ancient astronomy which it would seem to deserve.

42.

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¹ Post, L.v., Waltersdorff, E.v. & Lindqvist, S., Bronsåldersmanteln från Gerumsberget i Västergötland. (Der bronzezeitliche Mantel von Gerumsberget in Västergötland.) 1924-25. Out of print.
² Latviešu tautas dziesmas, (Chansons populaires lettonnes), in 12 volumes, volumes I-XII, edited by Arveds Švābe, Kārlis Straubergs, Edīte Hauzenberga-Šturma, Copenhagen, Imanta (publishers), 1952-1956, Vol. XI, p. 375.

In Latvian, Verse 33854 of the Latvian Dainas reads [with our translation next to it]:

[Daina number 33854]

Mēnesītis nakti brauca, [The Moon rides the heavens,]
Zvaigžņu deķis mugurā; [A blanket of stars on his back;]
Rīta zvaigzne, vakarāja, [The Morning Star, (and) Evening Star]
Tie Mēneša kumeliņi. [Are the steeds of the Moon.]

This electronically searchable text of the Latvian Dainas at the University of Virginia is one of the great book digitization achievements of historical literature in the modern era and we heartily congratulate all of those who made it possible, some of whom are listed here and here.
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Addendum and Correction:

Cloak & Dagger Astronomy : Gerum Cloak Sweden

In the original posting about the Gerum Cloak I wrote "Each of the 36 colors above is a different RGB blue color."

It is true that I did start out with 36 colors originally for this demo of the decipherment technology used on the Gerum CLoak, but I later expanded it to 48 boxes and 46 colors (since 3 boxes are identical) to accord with my clue of
42 as per the link http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/AGXE6GU0YO8OW
It was just a bit of extra fun.

But I forgot to change some texts which I have now corrected from 36 to 46 on the graphics themselves. However, I do not want to repost this posting in its entirety again to this list, so that I merely inform you that:

correctly, that line in the previous text SHOULD read:

"Each of the 46 colors above (48 boxes but 3 are identical) is a different RGB blue color."

It bears no relavence to the decipherment of the Gerum Cloak as such but is sort of a "wheel within a wheel" when compared to the content found at the clue to "42" above.

If you do not understand the clue of 42 as applied to my posting- obviously this is the threshold value setting at which you should FIRST try to decipher those 48 blue color boxes using PSP or a graphics program having similar technology. Then you can vary the threshold settings to see clearly how this technology works in distinguishing miniscule color differences virtually imperceptible to the naked human eye.