Sunday, March 01, 2015

Herschel Petroglyphs Monolith #2 Marks Stars at the Head of Scorpio Marking the Autumn Equinox ca. 3000 B.C.

Monolith #2 at the Herschel Petroglyphs via Figure A23 in the drawing by Erinn Dayle Schneider, p. 120, as cited below, shows stars of Scorpio, the Milky Way edge, the Ecliptic Meridian, the Celestial Meridian, the Celestial Equator, and the Ecliptic at the Autumn Equinox in ca. 3000 B.C.

Below is our own simplified illustration showing the petroglyphs and our decipherment of the corresponding stars of Scorpio, as found on Monolith #2 of the Herschel Petroglyphs:



Our image was made as in illustration relying on petroglyph placements in a photograph as Figure A23 of Monolith #2 at the Herschel Petroglyphs, as published in Schneider's Masters Thesis, Rock art in southern Saskatchewan, Department of Archaeology, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, 2003 -- online at eCommons Electronic Theses and Dissertations: http://ecommons.usask.ca/handle/10388/etd-03052009-135851 and  http://hdl.handle.net/10388/etd-03052009-135851.

The same basic star group on Monolith #2 in the same essential ancient "design" is found integrated in a petroglyph at the Saskatchewan petroglyphic site of Weyburn, a petroglyph which caught our attention immediately because of its 4 eyes, identical to the cupmarks (cupules) on Herschel Petroglyphs Monolith #2 marking the head stars of Scorpio.

In the Weyburn petroglyph, the stars are creatively used in drawing the face viz. visage of a person. Indeed, the main stars mark the eyes so subtly, that you have to look to see that this is not a "natural" face with its four eyes.

The artist also added various features, reflected in the shapes formed by the stars, such as hair, ears, neck, even eyebrows, and an "O"-shape star group marking the mouth of the figure near the Autumn Equinox ca. 3000 B.C. Also  incorporated cleverly are the main astronomical lines: celestial equator, celestial meridian, the ecliptic, the ecliptic meridian and the Milky Way edge.

Schneider, cited above, published the Weyburn petroglyph as Figure A81 on page 163 of that above source. We show that petroglyph below at the left in simplified form in our own illustration with the principally relevant stars in blue, which were the main clue, and then to the immediate right we show the stars portrayed by the petroglyph. Note not only the star representations but also the fact that the relative proportions of the faces match. What at first looked like a strange petroglyphic visage turns out to be clever astronomical art portrayal of the skies out of the prehistoric era, called the Archaic Era in Archaeology:


We had trouble with Monolith #2 in assigning the proper stars to the cupules and lines on the petroglyphs until we saw the above Weyburn petroglyph, which clearly showed which stars were intended to be portrayed. That also helped to clearly set the date of making of the Monolith #2 petroglyphs.

THIS POSTING IS Posting Number 24 of
The Great Mound, Petroglyph and Painted Rock Art Journey of Native America

Herschel Petroglyphs Monolith #2 Marks Stars at the Head of Scorpio Marking the Autumn Equinox ca. 3000 B.C.

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Sky Earth Native America


Sky Earth Native America 1:
American Indian Rock Art Petroglyphs Pictographs
Cave Paintings Earthworks & Mounds as Land Survey & Astronomy
,
Volume 1, Edition 2, 266 pages, by Andis Kaulins.

  • Sky Earth Native America 2:
    American Indian Rock Art Petroglyphs Pictographs
    Cave Paintings Earthworks & Mounds as Land Survey & Astronomy
    ,
    Volume 2, Edition 2, 262 pages, by Andis Kaulins.

  • Both volumes have the same cover except for the labels "Volume 1" viz. "Volume 2".
    The image on the cover was created using public domain space photos of Earth from NASA.

    -----

    Both book volumes contain the following basic book description:
    "Alice Cunningham Fletcher observed in her 1902 publication in the American Anthropologist
    that there is ample evidence that some ancient cultures in Native America, e.g. the Pawnee in Nebraska,
    geographically located their villages according to patterns seen in stars of the heavens.
    See Alice C. Fletcher, Star Cult Among the Pawnee--A Preliminary Report,
    American Anthropologist, 4, 730-736, 1902.
    Ralph N. Buckstaff wrote:
    "These Indians recognized the constellations as we do, also the important stars,
    drawing them according to their magnitude.
    The groups were placed with a great deal of thought and care and show long study.
    ... They were keen observers....
    The Pawnee Indians must have had a knowledge of astronomy comparable to that of the early white men."
    See Ralph N. Buckstaff, Stars and Constellations of a Pawnee Sky Map,
    American Anthropologist, Vol. 29, Nr. 2, April-June 1927, pp. 279-285, 1927.
    In our book, we take these observations one level further
    and show that megalithic sites and petroglyphic rock carving and pictographic rock art in Native America,
    together with mounds and earthworks, were made to represent territorial geographic landmarks
    placed according to the stars of the sky using the ready map of the starry sky
    in the hermetic tradition, "as above, so below".
    That mirror image of the heavens on terrestrial land is the "Sky Earth" of Native America,
    whose "rock stars" are the real stars of the heavens, "immortalized" by rock art petroglyphs, pictographs,
    cave paintings, earthworks and mounds of various kinds (stone, earth, shells) on our Earth.
    These landmarks were placed systematically in North America, Central America (Meso-America) and South America
    and can to a large degree be reconstructed as the Sky Earth of Native America."


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