Crystal River Mounds of the Crystal River Archaeological State Park in Florida Mark Stars at the Head of Cetus

The most significant site for reconstructing the land survey in the Florida Peninsula was the Crystal River Archaeological State Park with its well-known Crystal River Mounds, where it is written online that "The 14 acre six mound complex [actually, more, since some mounds appear conjoined] is one of the most imposing prehistoric ceremonial centers on Florida's west coast."

The Wikipedia writes at the entry for Crystal River Archaeological State Park that:

"Crystal River State Archaeological Site ...[u]nder the title of Crystal River Indian Mounds ... is ... a U.S. National Historic Landmark (designated as such on September 29, 1970)."

As written by Dale Cox at Explore Southern History in The Crystal River Archaeological State Park: Prehistory on the Crystal River:

"[T]he two great platform mounds ... appear to be part of a planned alignment ... a giant astronomical observatory. It is thought that the placement of the mounds could be used to track the seasons by the way they aligned with the sun and other stars at different times of the year.... [a] feature [that] can also be seen at a number of other prehistoric mound complexes....

Of particular interest at Crystal River are two mysterious stone stele or monuments. They align with the mounds and one even features a faded carving of a human face...."

That is one of the few observations we have seen anywhere, other than in our work, that the mounds have astronomical significance in the stars. Bravo!

The Crystal River site in the ancient land survey of Native America marks the star Gamma Ceti, but the site itself is marked by mounds which are deciphered by us below as marking the "head" stars of Cetus.

Cetus is a star group (asterism) with a similar heavenly form even in distant Chinese astronomy, where it is viewed as a circular celestial granary.

Of interest in that regard is that the somewhat distant "Temple" Mound represents the binary star Xi1 Ceti, as written at the Wikipedia:

"Xi¹ Ceti (ξ¹ Ceti), is a binary system located in the constellation Cetus, suspected as a ternary. In Chinese, 天囷 (Tiān Qūn), meaning Circular Celestial Granary, refers to an asterism consisting of α Ceti, κ¹ Ceti, λ Ceti, μ Ceti, ξ¹ Ceti, ξ² Ceti, ν Ceti, γ Ceti, δ Ceti, 75 Ceti, 70 Ceti, 63 Ceti and 66 Ceti. Consequently, Xi¹ Ceti itself is known as the Fifth Star of Circular Celestial Granary, Tiān Qūn Wu.[3]"

The binary nature of that star could account for the elongated shape of the mound as marking "two" stars as it were. The central mound is similar, marking a "triple star" and maps have shown sort of a multiple CDE mound there. We show the decipherment of the Crystal River Mounds below.

Our analysis indicates that the megaliths -- called stelas viz. steles in the literature -- marked the colure, i.e. line of the Equinoxes in ca. 1150 B.C., but the issue of dating is not critical here to the identification of the mounds as stars of in the head of Cetus. We will examine Stela #1 in the next posting.


THIS POSTING IS Posting Number 50 of
The Great Mound, Petroglyph and Painted Rock Art Journey of Native America 

Crystal River Mounds of the Crystal River Archaeological State Park in Florida Mark Stars at the Head of Cetus