I don't recall it from "Horns of Moses", but maybe it was not directly referenced as "Mithraic Tauroctony".
Added: I just checked and can't find it under those keywords. The only thing is a footnote clarifying briefly what is the tauroctony scene.
Prehistoric Astronomy and the Younger Dryas Catastrophe?
- Thread startermkrnhr
- Start date
I don't recall it from "Horns of Moses", but maybe it was not directly referenced as "Mithraic Tauroctony".
Added: I just checked and can't find it under those keywords. The only thing is a footnote clarifying briefly what is the tauroctony scene.
Okay, I used the search function and found it.
Well, tried to paste it in but because it has so many footnotes, images, etc, it got all messed up. So, made a PDF. Keep in mind that this is an extract from an 800 page document!!! And it was not finished/finalized, so this is a draft.
PS: It also has not been spell-checked so excuse typos!!!
Well, tried to paste it in but because it has so many footnotes, images, etc, it got all messed up. So, made a PDF. Keep in mind that this is an extract from an 800 page document!!! And it was not finished/finalized, so this is a draft.
PS: It also has not been spell-checked so excuse typos!!!
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Ever heard of „Körtik Tepe“? Me neither. Just came across it on YouTube. A site not far away from Gobekli Tepe with findings that seem to contradict the mainstream model of human evolution. There seem to be quite some similarities in style and artistics to the symbols in Gobekli.
Thanks for the link to the video Pashalis. Fascinating, especially as it appears the excavations have been going on 17 years yet next to nothing out there about these finds!
The suggestion that these were the settlements of those who were in some way connected with Gobekli Tepi appears to have merit especially when you see the near identical imagery from the upright stones replicated on pottery from the site. Bass relief carvings of perhaps a 'fox'(?) were also very interesting for the same reason. But the clear comet imagery struck me the most - especially at 10:45 in to the video with what looks like clear plasma/cometry symbolism with 6 separately marked objects in focus around a central object (that also brings to mind owl eyes/staring 'god' eyes that you see on much later figurines?) - perhaps a memory of the 6-7 'planets' or dis-asters!
No signs of agriculture (if true) also very interesting. Settled people who did not farm as we know it (unless they were living off domesticated livestock/meat) yet traded far and wide and had a high level of social structure and architectural skill 12500 years ago. Another nail in the gradualists coffin!
The suggestion that these were the settlements of those who were in some way connected with Gobekli Tepi appears to have merit especially when you see the near identical imagery from the upright stones replicated on pottery from the site. Bass relief carvings of perhaps a 'fox'(?) were also very interesting for the same reason. But the clear comet imagery struck me the most - especially at 10:45 in to the video with what looks like clear plasma/cometry symbolism with 6 separately marked objects in focus around a central object (that also brings to mind owl eyes/staring 'god' eyes that you see on much later figurines?) - perhaps a memory of the 6-7 'planets' or dis-asters!
No signs of agriculture (if true) also very interesting. Settled people who did not farm as we know it (unless they were living off domesticated livestock/meat) yet traded far and wide and had a high level of social structure and architectural skill 12500 years ago. Another nail in the gradualists coffin!
Laura, my head is spinning!
Thank you so much for sharing this draft chapter(?) from what I assume is your unfinished(?) Secret History Volume IV(?). I only pray that sometime you will find the time to finish (?) and publish it... a gift to the world.
Anyway, the hints and suggestions you have given to link the ancient knowledge from the north regarding our hidden identity and reality right through to its outburst in Mithraic rites is mind bending... but very much in tune with all that you have revealed before.
我一直认为密特拉教持有这样一个不rtant clue or bridge between the lost ancient wisdom and its passage fully underground post Christianity. I have even wondered if the original 'Christianity' was indeed actually stoic Mithraism which was then suppressed as a movement with its teachings/stories Stalinised, lifted and forcibly inserted into a Greco/Egyptian hybrid so as to sanitise it as well as make it a more palatable food for the masses and hence a form of ultimate control (with of course the utterly unconnected Jewish elements added much later to produce the ultimate in schizoid religions... ) Scholars often muse on the close parallels between the two (Mithraism and Christianity) but never seem able to go the extra mile and ask is that is because they are or were one and the same until the knives came out to make sure the knowledge it was based on became broken and divided. Perhaps I'm way off beam here.
I must also dig out a scholarly paper I have somewhere which shows the incredibly similarities between the ancient Irish myth of the goddess Macha and her giving birth to divine twins and the Greek myth of Leto and Apollo/Artemis. The list of identical motifs is staggering. I think that Hyperborea existed when England and Ireland were one land mass (DNA testing shows that much to the horror of the Irish they still share way over 65% of their genes with their historical enemy!) and I suspect that many of the Hyperborean myths have been incorporated into remaining Irish stories, though they would have belonged to all peoples of that area (hence the close similarities with surviving Welsh myths). Whilst I hold to your view that the round temple was Stonehenge (the giant's dancing castle) I somehow wonder if the great round mound at Newgrange (said to have been founded in 3,200BC - strangely coincidental if probably inaccurate) could be a possible alternative or connected in some way... but I do not doubt your assessment and conclusions. 3,100BC may well be the date when the cataclysm in the north led to the final inundation and separation of the islands… and perhaps the final end of Hyperborea as a whole entity/civilisation.. including the final drowning of the moutain that is now the Isle of Mann?
Have you ever read ‘Atlantis of the West: The Case for Britain’s Drowned Megalithic Civilisation’ by Paul Dunbavin? I think he possibly conflates a number of different catastrophes/events but still accumulates a great deal of impressive evidence concerning a major 3,100BC event in the British Isles.
From Amazon:
Atlantis of the West
I do often wonder about the issue of when the change in the earth’s axis occurred (could it possibly have been this late?) and its obvious implications with regard to the zodiac/ecliptic… but that’s another day’s work…
Anyway having read through the PDF once I’m going to go back and study with greater forensic attention. Your work is a miracle and beyond compare. Thank you again for this unexpected gift.
Fascinating reading!!!I would certainly have remembered that. Now it's in my growing awareness of the historical timeline and current recommended reading too. The more I get familiarized with Secret History of the World, the greater the gap between my previous crippling knowledge through conventional history and the growing awareness of "Who Are we? What are we? How did we get here?". There are unlimited possibilities in store here!
Ditto!! Several doubts that I had while reading Plato Prehistorian, trying to situate myself in the information of the previous volumes of Secret History and the clues from the Cs sessions, are less murky. For instance, why in caves, "Where Troy Once Stood", Bronze Age events vs Atlantean times, Mithraism vs Zoroaster. I definitely have a long way to go in terms of assimilating knowledge, but I feel very situated.
Would definitely go back and study with greater attention too!
We do live in exciting times!
Hey Michael, I'm not sure if this helps with your wonderings, but in Pierre's articleFlash冷冻猛犸象和宇宙灾难he writes:
I'm making my way throughThe Dawn And Twilight Of Zoroastrianismat the moment but paused to read the chapter/PDF on Mithras, and, although i've only read half so far, it was quite timely for where i am with the other book, and it's fascinating. It also helps with making connections with a lot of the other recent history reading. Thanks for sharing, Laura!
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mariowil7
Jedi
About Hudson Bay and Pierre's article, this discovery from 2017 gives credence to that theory, it states:
THE mystery surrounding a strange place on earth where gravity barely exists has finally been solved by a crack team of scientists.
ByPatrick Christys
PUBLISHED: 06:36, Wed, Jan 11, 2017 | UPDATED: 11:35, Wed, Jan 11, 2017
For more than 40 years experts were baffled by an “anti-gravity zone” surrounding the Hudson Bay are in Canada, with some conspiracy theorists even claiming the spot might be a portal into another dimension.
Scientists conducting a global gravity field survey first noticed the strange anomaly in the 1960s but have been unable to explain why gravity is so much weaker in the Canadian region – until now.
It has been revealed that the Laurentide Ice Sheet, which covered much of present-day Canada and the northern United States, was so large that it dented the earth 10,000 years ago, literally bending gravity.
Hudson Bay, Canada, has been found to have less gravity than anywhere else in the world
The earth is taking a long time to bounce back, currently it flattens by around half and inch a year, which is minuscule when compared to the amount of pressure it came under from the monumental ice sheet, which was 2.3 miles thick.
Scientists believe it will be 5,000 years before it has recovered to a normal level of gravity.
Until the deep indentation in the earth is flattened out, gravity in the region will always be less than anywhere else in the world.
Scientists believe a massive 10,000-year-old glacier is responsible
But there is also another reason why the Hudson Bay defies the laws of physics – it is a convection current hot spot.
The earth’s mantle, located around 100 miles below the surface, is a constantly swirling vortex of seething magma and this creates the convection currents, which drag the continental tectonic plates down.
This decreases the mass in the area and reduces gravity.
But the region is also acting as a natural geographical diet for scores of people who flock to the Hudson Bay in a desperate bid to lose weight.
A lack of gravity means less density and humans weigh less in that part of the world than they will anywhere else.
The bay is the second largest in the world and has an average depth of 100 metres.
Hudson has long fascinated believers in the supernatural, with many scientists assuming its distinctive shape was formed from tectonic activity, but a growing school of experts believes it could have come to be because of extraterrestrial activity.
它可能是一个巨大的流星从到Bay, creating the deep cavern of anti-gravity activity.
It was heavily militarised during the Cold War to watch for potential Soviet bombing raids coming over the North Pole.
As usual just my two cents...
Link of the article:SHOCK DISCOVERY: Scientists find place on earth where GRAVITY hardly exists
Thanks Itellsya for pointing out the implications of Pierre’s article regarding the most likely date/cause of the change in earth’s axis. And the gravity anomalies around Hudson Bay highlighted by mariowil7 are also very interesting.
Assuming that it happened in relatively recent human history (and many of the most ancient myths speaking about a previous golden age and a single season certainly are suggestive of that), it makes most sense that the catastrophic events of some 13,000 years ago have to be a prime culprit. Anything later really doesn’t align with so much else especially the development of seasonal stories, the slow emergence of agriculture/civilisation and many of the myths that followed. A close passage or interaction with ‘Venus’ and ‘Mars’ are perhaps the only other recent suspects – placing when that happened and how these events are related to the end of the ice age event is still a question for me… were they as seems likely later follow on events…? Was ‘Venus’ one of the large broken pieces of the original monster or a new interloper? Did she take on repeated close passages as a result of the disturbances caused to the inner solar system by the 13,000 year event before eventually either wearing herself out or settling into a plentary orbit as propossed by Velikovsky?… placing these in something like a correct order is a monumental tease…
The issue of the impact on zodiacal lore is one of key significance however. If we assume the earth was wholly or more upright and that most if not all of the present 23degree tilt only came about post the catastrophic end of the ice age, then any theory that deduces an extrapolation of current ecliptic/zodiacal constellations as being meaningfully consistent back in time beyond this point is in trouble asobviously it is only this tilt that creates the ecliptic and places the constellations we know along its sight line. Without it the zodiac would be on or under the horizon and have no reason to have impacted human consciousness.It also raises the issue of whether the Precession of the Equinoxes also only dates post this time.
This is where I have some issues with Sweatman’s “Prehistory Decoded". I was uncomfortable with many of his almost cavalier deductions concerning the imagery on the T stones at Gobekli Tepe and his firm connections to current zodiacal constellations. Having studied Sumerian and Babylonian astronomy in some detail it is clear that as late as between 5-1,000 BC constellations were constantly changing, evolving andeven being written off in large numbers and new ones createdin their steadparticularly as a result of the effects of precession.Revision of the sky over long periods of time must be taken into account it seems to me and it’s a huge leap to claim that constellations that we know today had similar or comparable meaning, imagery or place in the lore of the ancients over such huge time spans.
As an example, in his fantastically informative and important book BABYLONIAN STAR-LORE, Gavin White posits the following with regard to the erasing of a whole tranche of once pivotal constellations that I wondermay possibly have something very important to say with regard to the fabled11 strong zodiac of old…
Taking the above into account, plus all the wealth of detail concerning the ever evolving star-scape above (a simple example being the evolution of a fascinating figure called The Hired Man into the Ram of Aries that took place quite late on) – and even though there are real symbolic connections between the two, the iconography and indeed the actual shape of the constellation was significantly altered. We should also bring to mind the pivotal halving of what was once the full constellation/iconography of Tauraus the Bull to in part facilitate this.
Sweatman makes the classic and to my mind fatal mistake that so many have made before in falsely assumingthat associated constellational lore/imagery and the actual shape of the stars in the sky are in anyway connected．They are not, and even in the few cases where this can be argued, it is obvious this was not the defining reason why certain areas of the sky were chosen to assume certain imagery around whichimportant knowledge could be located and retained．The heavens were the ancients super computer. The sky above was their sacred metaphysical/physical text. We are not talking about bored, sub-civilised thinkers who stared up at the heavens and in their spare time undertook a children’s game of join the dots (‘Hey, that looks just like a lion!”) but rather the projection of an incredibly subtle, complex, interwoven memory system – a kind of giant cosmic library of multi-levelled knowledge written upon the heavens and maintained orally over over millennia through which high initiates and priestly astronomer astrologers (it is never the common people who come up with these processes and myths) maintained, lost and remade through countless catastrophes and collapses of human culture,a timeless yet ever evolving understanding of the above and the below in perpetual union and strife.And whilst I wholeheartedly agree with Laura that later Greek and neo-platonic ‘esoteric’ extrapolations and interpretations were falsely attached with garbled meaning, that from the get go the systemhad an inherent ‘spiritual’ aspect hand in hand with the harsh reality aspectderived from constant threats from the heavens by ‘the gods’ in the form of comets and where they ‘lived’. When you begin to trace the evolution of the sky story you constantly come across startling andclear associations to a double and concurrent underlying story– one of human spiritual potential, entrapment and the means to escape side by side and interlocked with the realities of our 3rd density matrix and its 4th density control system. I think thetrue lost story is one of a slow erasing of this complex understandingand a replacement with one more fractured and obtuse – very much in alignment with what happened when writing replaced oral capacity allowing for a process of Chinese whispers to occur that the Bible and its makers used to ensure the past was near washed clean.
Anyhow, Sweatmans interpretation of ‘Pattern Matching’ of such figures as The Fox, Tall Bending Bird, Duck/Goose, Bending Bird, etc to current known constellations is to my mind a huge leap in assumptions and whilst his statistical arguments impressive, should – to my mind – not easily be accepted on face value.
However I do accept that his overall argument is most likely absolutely in the right direction – and whilst my jury is open I think his deducing that the 4 ‘handbags’ are markers of the equinoxes and solstices has merit and is worth further exploration – especially if these 4 sign posts were new and freshly important signifiers of something hugely significant post the initial catastrophe and the establishment of the 4 seasons.
Assuming that it happened in relatively recent human history (and many of the most ancient myths speaking about a previous golden age and a single season certainly are suggestive of that), it makes most sense that the catastrophic events of some 13,000 years ago have to be a prime culprit. Anything later really doesn’t align with so much else especially the development of seasonal stories, the slow emergence of agriculture/civilisation and many of the myths that followed. A close passage or interaction with ‘Venus’ and ‘Mars’ are perhaps the only other recent suspects – placing when that happened and how these events are related to the end of the ice age event is still a question for me… were they as seems likely later follow on events…? Was ‘Venus’ one of the large broken pieces of the original monster or a new interloper? Did she take on repeated close passages as a result of the disturbances caused to the inner solar system by the 13,000 year event before eventually either wearing herself out or settling into a plentary orbit as propossed by Velikovsky?… placing these in something like a correct order is a monumental tease…
The issue of the impact on zodiacal lore is one of key significance however. If we assume the earth was wholly or more upright and that most if not all of the present 23degree tilt only came about post the catastrophic end of the ice age, then any theory that deduces an extrapolation of current ecliptic/zodiacal constellations as being meaningfully consistent back in time beyond this point is in trouble asobviously it is only this tilt that creates the ecliptic and places the constellations we know along its sight line. Without it the zodiac would be on or under the horizon and have no reason to have impacted human consciousness.It also raises the issue of whether the Precession of the Equinoxes also only dates post this time.
This is where I have some issues with Sweatman’s “Prehistory Decoded". I was uncomfortable with many of his almost cavalier deductions concerning the imagery on the T stones at Gobekli Tepe and his firm connections to current zodiacal constellations. Having studied Sumerian and Babylonian astronomy in some detail it is clear that as late as between 5-1,000 BC constellations were constantly changing, evolving andeven being written off in large numbers and new ones createdin their steadparticularly as a result of the effects of precession.Revision of the sky over long periods of time must be taken into account it seems to me and it’s a huge leap to claim that constellations that we know today had similar or comparable meaning, imagery or place in the lore of the ancients over such huge time spans.
As an example, in his fantastically informative and important book BABYLONIAN STAR-LORE, Gavin White posits the following with regard to the erasing of a whole tranche of once pivotal constellations that I wondermay possibly have something very important to say with regard to the fabled11 strong zodiac of old…
P82
THE CREATURES TIAMAT
The Creatures of Tiamat are a group of 11 mythical beings found in the Epic of Creation．They are of considerable interest to astrologers becausefour of them appear in star-lists as constellations in their own right.In this respect, they bear many similarities toanother group of mythical beings known as the Heroes’,a number of which embodymemories of archaic constellation figures that were removed from the heavens in ages long past.
Along with a host of venomous serpents and ferocious dragons,the 11 Creatures were created by Tiamat to fight against the gods.Tiamat was an ancient goddess, the embodiment of the primeval oceans, who held sway among men before the arrival of the gods. In the ensuing battle Marduk killed Tiamat, routed her battle-legions and captured her monstrous host.
After the victorious Marduk had bound and imprisoned the Creatures,he set about constructing a new world-order from the corpses of his slain adversaries.He divided Tiamat’s dead body into two halves from which he created heaven and earth. He then sacrificed Kingu, Tiamat’s battle-leader and lover, and from his spilt blood he created ‘primeval’ man’, the blood of the slain god constituted the ghost of that first man.
However, Marduk was morelenient towards the 11 Creatures, after binding them and making them subservient to him,he made images of them and installed them at the gate of the Abyss to commemorate his victory．Ultimately, the purpose of Marduk’s leniency towards the Creatures was to harness their power for benevolent ends. Thus they became ‘protective entities’, whose allotted role wasto guard the entranceways to temples, palaces and houses．So, in addition to affirming Marduk’s supremacy over all creation, the magical function of the Creatures was henceforthto protect buildings against the incursions of other demons and monsters.
The names and natures of the 11 creatures are as follows:
The Furious Serpent(mušhuššu) is first seen in the artwork of the Akkadian period. It is a composite creature made up from theparts of a serpent, lion and bird.During its long history it has been associated with various gods, first with Ninazu and Tišpak, later with Ningišzida, Marduk and Aššur. It appears as a constellation in the Old Babylonian ‘Prayer to the Gods of the Night’ (see fig 121).
The Bašmu-serpentis regarded as an early name for the constellation later known as the Serpent. In later artwork the Bašmu is depicted as a horned serpent with two front legs and wings (see fig 120). Its name can beunderstood as the ‘horned serpent with a womb’.
The Exalted Serpent(mušmahhu) is sometimes thought to be the same asthe seven-headed serpent slain by Ninurta．In early artwork just such a beast is attacked by a hero who slices off one of its heads (see fig 40). The motif has ultimatelyinspired the Greek myth of Heracles’labour against the seven-headed dragon called the Hydra.
The Great Dragon(ušumgallu) might be the 4-legged dragon with wings that appears in some late 3rd millennium artwork. In truth, the attribution is uncertain, as the Great Dragon is often confused with the bašmu-serpent whose name is also derived from Ušum, the Sumerian term for ‘dragon’. The term ‘Great Dragon’ can be used as an epithet of deities and kings whereit means ‘the sovereign’ or ‘sole ruler’.
The Lahāmuappears to be a collective term for agroup of watery beings, half-man, half-fishin appearance. According to creation myths they are primeval beings born from the waters of Tiamat. In later traditions they could be found in the subterranean waters among the entourage of the wise god Enki. Together with Enki they guard the ‘bolt of the sea’ that seems to be related to the abundance of the oceans.
The Great Storm-demon(Ugallu) is a lion-headed demon that first appears in Akkadian art; by the Old Babylonian period he is associated with the gods of the underworld where he is considered to bea punisher of transgressors and a bringer of disease．Armed witha mace and an upraised dagger, his appearance is to all intents and purposes identical tothe lion-headed demonknown as Lulal. (see figs 86 & 88)
The Mad Dog(Uridimmu) is a relatively rare figure that is first attested in Kassite art. The Mad Dog, has a human head and torsoset upon a lion’s hindquarters．This precise form is generally considered to be a late invention based on similar composite figures like the Bison-man and Scorpion-man. In later artwork it isoften paired with the Bison-man as an attendant to the sun god Šamaš.The Mad Dog appears among the constellationsnext to the Scorpion, it is ultimately the origin of the Greek constellationknown as the Wolf(Lupus). (see figs 12 & 90)
The Scorpion-man(Girtablilu) first appears in Akkadian art where it is depicted with a human head, bird’s legs,snake-headed阴茎and a scorpion’s segmented body and tail, in addition some examples also sport wings. From the Kassite period a slightly different figure appears that has the body of a bird and which is sometimesarmed with a bow and arrow, but it is uncertain whether this particular creature can also be called a ‘scorpion-man’. In the artwork of later periods Scorpion-mencommonly appear alongsidethe sun god andthe winged disk．(see figs 97& 117)
The Fierce Storm-demon(Ūma dabrutu) is probably a composite beast that incorporates thefeatures of a lion, but beyond this its appearance is uncertain. It is sometimes thought that a lion-like creature with the back legs of a bird is an ūma-demon. Such creatures first appear in Akkadian art and are essentially identical to thedepiction of the Panther-constellation．The similarity is reflected in later star- lore where the Panther is sometimes glossed as ūmu nā’iru -“咆哮”或“咆哮storm-demon”．Such a creature, withwater flowing from its mouth, is occasionally portrayed as the sacred beast of various storm gods. (see fig 102)
The Fish-man (Kulilu) and Fish-womanfirst appear in the artwork of the Old Babylonian period, where they often appearin pairs wearing the horned headdresses of divinity．They are naturally associated with the water god Enki and are counted among the wise inhabitants that dwell in thewatery Abyss below the earth.(see fig 5 & 6)
The Bison-man(Kusarikku) is a mythical beast derived from the bison. He is generally depicted with a human head and torso, and the hindquarters of a bison. He isclosely associated with the sun godŠamaš in the Akkadian and Old Babylonian periods; and is listed as a constellation in the Old Babylonian ‘Prayer to the Gods of the Night’.
(see figs 10-13)
p193
THE SLAIN HEROES
The Slain Heroes are a fascinating group of ‘primitive’ gods, demons and monsters that were all killed by the heroic god Ninurta. There is mounting evidence that several of the Heroes were actually worshiped as independent divinities as early as the Early Dynastic period (3100-2390 BCE). Their ‘deaths’ at the hands of Ninurta had certainly occurred by the end of the 3rd millennium as the Gudea inscriptions attest to their collective worship within the cult of Ninqirsu (a local form of Ninurta) around 2100 BCE.
The defeat of the Heroes is widely thought to represent a attempt to absorb their independent worship into the cult of Ninurta, andmay be but a part of a much wider cultic and religious reform that took place in the mid to late 3rd millennium．The most persuasive evidence for this cultic upheaval can be found in Akkadian artwork,where brutal scenes depicting the slaughter of captive gods abound.
In appendix 2, l have argued that the origins of this ‘war of the gods’ lies ina substantial reform of the constellations where numerous archaic constellation figures were removed from the star-map to be replaced by newly formed star- figures．
127 A warrior god, possibly Ninurta, slays a one-eyed solar deity, Old Babylonian plaque
In the present state of knowledge, we can only be certain that two of the Slain Heroes - the Anzu-bird and the Bison-man - were indeed ancient constellation figures that were struck from the heavens, butthere is the distinct possibility that several more Heroes were also archaic constellation figures．In fact the Slain Heroes may not be as ‘dead’ as their names imply - as there is reason to believe that some of themmay actually live on in some Greek constellations．I have noted the potential correspondences below.
It is now widely recognised that the myths of the Slain Heroes have启发至少一些希腊神话被称为the Labours of Hercules.There are some particularly convincing parallels between Hercules’ Labours against theHydraand theBoar of Erymanthia, and their Mesopotamian prototypes known as the Seven-headed Serpent and the Bison-man. This intriguing topic deserves further investigation.
Most mythic texts mention nine heroes, who seem to form some kind of canonical group, however other texts add at least two moreHeroes to their number. Their names and natures, as far as can be discerned, are as follows:
TheSix-headed wild ram(Šeg9-Sag-6) was slain by Ninurta who ‘brought it forth from the shining, lofty house’. Gudea laterinstalled the ram at the ‘gate of battle, where the weapons hang’.
TheWarrior Dragon(Ušum Ur-sag) was ‘brought forth from the great fortress of the mountains’. The Warrior Dragon was sometimes considered to be the counsellor of Tišpak, a warrior god who had a number of serpentine beings among his divine entourage.(See the section on the Star of Dignity).
TheMagilum boat可能是一艘船与人类头部或身体吗is seen in early artwork. Ninurta ‘brought it forth from ... hi Abyss’. Some modern researchers have suggested that the Magilum boat may be remembered inthe Greek constellation ofArgo ．The evidence in favour of such an attribution is limited and largely depends on some Arabic illustrations of the Argo, which depict it as a ship with human characteristics.
TheBison-man(Gud-Alim) was ‘brought forth from Ninurta’s battle dust’. His constellation is部分记得the GreekCentaurus, but in mainstream Babylonian tradition his constellation was removed from the heavens and replaced by the figure of the Wild Boar. (See the section on the Bison-man and figs 10-14)
TheMermaid(Kulianna) was ‘brought forth from the limits of heaven and earth’. In the section on Anunitum, I suggest that a memory of Kulianna may be retained on the Greek star-mapin the form of Andromeda．(See fig 6)
TheWhite Gypsum(Nig-Babbar-ra) was brought forth from the soil of the mountain range’.
TheStrong Copper(Urud-nig2 Kalag-ga) was ‘brought forth from the shattered mountain range’. He appears in the Sumerian poem entitled ‘the debate between Copper and Silver, where he is said to be the ‘strong heir of Father Enlil’. Some commentators have suggestedthat Strong Copper was a personified bell, used in later periods in exorcistic rituals．
TheAnzu-bird(lm-Dugud-mušen) was alion-headed eaglewell known in archaic myth and art. Ninurta ‘brought it forth from thehalub-harantree’ (a form of oak). The Anzu-bird’s constellation image wasonce located in the region aroundPegasus,but was subsequently replaced by the Horse constellation A memory of the Anzu-birdmay be retained in the Greek star-map in the form ofCygnus, the Swan, whose outstretched wings and trailing feet bear an uncanny resemblance to depictions ofAnzu．(See the section on the Anzu-bird and figs 7-8)
TheSeven-headed serpent(Muš-Sag-7 or Mušmahhu) is sometimes seen in early artwork, where it is attacked by a warrior god (See fig 40). Ninurta ‘brought it forth from the ... of the mountains’.
Among the lesser-known Heroes we also findLord Samanana, whose name, according to the lexicon, would mean the ‘Lord of the cosmic tethering rope’. A deity of this name was worshipped in the Early Dynastic period, and in Old Babylonian incantations a monstrous demon called Samana is sometimes mentioned. The little knownPalm-tree kingwas also worshipped in the Early Dynastic period. And one of the Gudea inscriptions also seems to imply that the ‘Lion, terror of the gods’was included among the Slain Heroes.
The Slain Heroes may not be as dead as the Babylonian sources suggest as some of their number could actually be incorporated into the Greek star-map. The most certain case is that of the Bison-man who lives on, albeit in a modified form, under the Greek nameCentaurus．As mentioned above a memory of the Magilum boat may inform the celestial ship called theArgo; and it is also possible that the form ofCygnus, the Greek Swan, is a slightly displaced and modified version of the Anzu-bird.
Beyond the star-map there could be further inherited memories of the Heroes in the corpus of Greek mythology. The most obvious example is the Seven-headed Serpent, which is, no doubt, the precursor of the Greek Hydra. For now the matter needs to be left unresolved - we can only hope that future discoveries concerning the Heroes will throw more light on this intriguing issue.
Taking the above into account, plus all the wealth of detail concerning the ever evolving star-scape above (a simple example being the evolution of a fascinating figure called The Hired Man into the Ram of Aries that took place quite late on) – and even though there are real symbolic connections between the two, the iconography and indeed the actual shape of the constellation was significantly altered. We should also bring to mind the pivotal halving of what was once the full constellation/iconography of Tauraus the Bull to in part facilitate this.
Sweatman makes the classic and to my mind fatal mistake that so many have made before in falsely assumingthat associated constellational lore/imagery and the actual shape of the stars in the sky are in anyway connected．They are not, and even in the few cases where this can be argued, it is obvious this was not the defining reason why certain areas of the sky were chosen to assume certain imagery around whichimportant knowledge could be located and retained．The heavens were the ancients super computer. The sky above was their sacred metaphysical/physical text. We are not talking about bored, sub-civilised thinkers who stared up at the heavens and in their spare time undertook a children’s game of join the dots (‘Hey, that looks just like a lion!”) but rather the projection of an incredibly subtle, complex, interwoven memory system – a kind of giant cosmic library of multi-levelled knowledge written upon the heavens and maintained orally over over millennia through which high initiates and priestly astronomer astrologers (it is never the common people who come up with these processes and myths) maintained, lost and remade through countless catastrophes and collapses of human culture,a timeless yet ever evolving understanding of the above and the below in perpetual union and strife.And whilst I wholeheartedly agree with Laura that later Greek and neo-platonic ‘esoteric’ extrapolations and interpretations were falsely attached with garbled meaning, that from the get go the systemhad an inherent ‘spiritual’ aspect hand in hand with the harsh reality aspectderived from constant threats from the heavens by ‘the gods’ in the form of comets and where they ‘lived’. When you begin to trace the evolution of the sky story you constantly come across startling andclear associations to a double and concurrent underlying story– one of human spiritual potential, entrapment and the means to escape side by side and interlocked with the realities of our 3rd density matrix and its 4th density control system. I think thetrue lost story is one of a slow erasing of this complex understandingand a replacement with one more fractured and obtuse – very much in alignment with what happened when writing replaced oral capacity allowing for a process of Chinese whispers to occur that the Bible and its makers used to ensure the past was near washed clean.
Anyhow, Sweatmans interpretation of ‘Pattern Matching’ of such figures as The Fox, Tall Bending Bird, Duck/Goose, Bending Bird, etc to current known constellations is to my mind a huge leap in assumptions and whilst his statistical arguments impressive, should – to my mind – not easily be accepted on face value.
However I do accept that his overall argument is most likely absolutely in the right direction – and whilst my jury is open I think his deducing that the 4 ‘handbags’ are markers of the equinoxes and solstices has merit and is worth further exploration – especially if these 4 sign posts were new and freshly important signifiers of something hugely significant post the initial catastrophe and the establishment of the 4 seasons.
As an addendum to the above, here's Gavin White's attempt at recreating the star map of circa 5,000BC. He openly admits its a work in progress but its certainly suggestive of a cross over happening between a previous landscape and the one we have now.
Without this 23° tilt the ecliptical plane would be simply coplanar with Earth's equatorial plane so tilt doesn't create ecliptic. It means that zodiac would simply consist partly or completely of different constellations. And due to different visible size of constellations, I can imagine, that in the "pre-tilt" zodiac some (probably the smaller ones) constellations would be "replaced" by others while others (the bigger ones) would "remain" and that zodiac itself would possibly even consist of a bigger or smaller number of constellations.
From Wiki:
The Earth inits orbitaround theSuncauses the Sun to appear on thecelestial spheremoving along theecliptic(red), which istilted23.44° with respect to thecelestial equator(blue-white).
Added: I'm pretty sure that it would be relatively easy to calculate which constellations zodiac would consist of if the Earth rotational axis wasn't tilted.
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