Robert Tulip

Hi Jake, this is a bit of a drift from the theme of this thread, but is is relevant to my reply on the Queen of Heaven as Virgo, in terms of how the ancients observed precession.

I linked to a good arxiv article on ancient observation of the precession of crux at http://cosmoquest.org/forum/showthre...ient-astronomy

I have now uploaded this ppt to show crux was visible in Jerusalem in 1000 AD.

jakejonesiv

Hi Robert,

Sorry, I didn't mean to hijack your thread with speculation. I am trying to learn the basics.

Thanks for supplying this additional material. If you will indulge me just a bit---still using Crux as an example during the first couple of centuries CE. Around the Mediterranean, the Southern Cross (Crux) would only rise above the southern horizon in the spring, is that correct? Spring, of course, being the time when the vegetation cycle "resurrects." And the constellation Cassiopeia is exactly opposite on the celestial sphere (northern horizon) and therefore it cannot appear in the sky at the same time. Right?

So my question is, did the ancients notice this kind of thing and build myths around them? I think perhaps we keep our noses stuck in books so much now, thinking we can parse the past with grammar, that we do not fully comprehend the awe and grandeur the night skies must have meant to the ancients.

Jake

aa5874

But, did you not admit you were speculating?

mountainman

In the 4th century the Christians ripped off midwinter and the Saturnalia festival for their own use.

Blessed Virgin Mary (Roman Catholic) - Early veneration in Rome


Where's Wally Mary?

Oh yes, there's Mary.

It's worse than the two murals of Jesus at Dura Europos.

There is no evidence for Mary worship until the 4th century.

Perhaps the Isis cults in the empire, which had been openly sponsored by some Roman Emperors, decided to try and survive using Mary?








εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia

mountainman

Inside the "Keep Out" sign.






εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia

Clivedurdle

A world in which one studies the positions of the entrails of the people you kill, in which you drag cartloads of animals into battle with you to sacrifice, where echoes are spirits whispering back to you and where the sound of volcanic eruptions are the gods fighting is definitely one that also watches what happens to the stars. It was the primary regular thing around - changes were very important.

What does one do if one is just as intelligent as we are but without the understanding and technology and experience we have? We are standing on the shoulders of giants - blind ones.

mountainman

Antikythera mechanism

These people were smarter than we think.

The names of the major ancient pagan (Egypto-Graeco-Roman) gods have been ultimated derived from the detailed and technological investigation of the sun, moon and planets of this solar system. (Helios, Luna, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn)



εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia

Robert Tulip

You can see that from the link I provided, where crux reaches meridian around midnight in February. I like your idea of the cross in the sky as a symbol of spring. Cassiopeia = 01h, +60°
v
Crux = 12h 30m, −60°

They are 30m of arc away from antipodal, so yes, both cannot be seen at the same time. In Australia Crux is circumpolar so we never see the W.
This sense of awe and grandeur arising from observation of the stars is central to understanding the ancient worldview. Some modern writers have understood this, for example Sir Norman Lockyer, discoverer of helium and founder of the journal Nature, whose superb book The Dawn of Astronomy explores how Egyptian temples served as horizonal telescopes.

Reverence for the visible heavens is the core of the idea of eternity, for example with Plato's concept of the Milky Waty as the symbol of identity in The Timaeus.

The constellation Virgo is linked to the Virgin Mary, but its link to Isis is unclear, as far as I know, given her association with Sirius. The Virgin Mary is presented in the Catholic Dogma as 'full of grace'. So it is interesting that the shift of the equinox from Libra to Virgo at the time of Christ could be symbolised as a shift from law (Libra - the scales of justice) to grace (Virgo = the Virgin Mary), as per the theology of John and Paul of the New Age instituted through Christ.

The ban on looking at the sky is a theme of Doris Lessing's Canopus in Argos series. It is a satire of our modern alienated earth where looking at the heavens is banned in popular culture. The stars were the ancient TV. There must have been many more stellar myths than have survived. For example the relation between the cosmic ship Argo and Noah's Ark looks obvious, especially with Columba the Dove next to it, but this has not survived explicitly, allowing apologist idiots to deny it. In spring Argo sits as though floating on the Nile, with its reflection in the great river providing the 'as above so below' motif of Thoth, hence the Isidis Navigium on 5 March which may have influenced Mary's Blessing of the Fleet, the Star of the Sea and the farewell to meat of carne vale.

Robert Tulip

I think that is obvious. There was both co-option of Isis traditions by Christianity and efforts by Isis followers to adapt their practice to the new desolate dispensation of monotheism. Since Isis worship was banned, the suppressed spiritual energies that had gone into her devotions had to find an acceptable expression, through veneration of the Blessed Alien Virgin Mary.

Robert Tulip

Hi spin. Acharya S cites it from pp43-44.