It's Not What You Say, It's What People Hear: The Sequential Presentation of Information Is More Important than the Content

We just updated our About Andis Kaulins page today at Ancient World Blog.

We did so because we just finished reading today's encore selection at DelanceyPlace.com,
which sends out daily so-called "excerpts"
covering interesting sources on a wide variety of subjects.

As Richard Vague writes there:

"There is no theme, except that most excerpts will come from a non-fiction work, primarily historical in focus, and will occasionally be controversial."

The topic today was "the order of information -- 4/30/15":

"Today's encore selection -- from Words That Work: It's Not What You Say, It's What People Hear by Frank I. Luntz."

We were amazed by what we read there, even though we should not have been.

Just the sequential presentation of information can be more important than the information itself.

We have always been of the opinion that the facts will ultimately win.
Clearly, that is not the case.

Long Key White Sand Mound and Earthworks Boca Ciega Bay Gulf Coast Florida near St. Petersburg Mark Stars of Cetus and Eridanus

The Long Key Mound and Earthworks west of St. Petersburg and Boca Ciega Bay on the Florida central west coast, just to the northwest of Terra Ceia, are diagrammed in a reconstruction image at page 218 in William N. Morgan, Precolumbian Architecture in Eastern North America, Ripley P. Bullen Series, Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida Press, Gainesville, FL, 1999, http://www.upf.com/.

For the original reconstruction image Morgan references Clarence B. Moore, "Certain Aboriginal Mounds of the Florida Central West-Coast" in the year 1903, a reprint from the Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, Volume 12, pt. 3. [Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, P.C. Stockhausen, 1903].

We have redrawn and enlarged the image below, although original sources should be consulted for corroboration. Morgan describes the Long Key mound as an "oval knoll" of white sand. As Morgan writes further at p. 218:

"Midway to the summit, the mound appeared to be surrounded by a circumambulation that was connected, on the north, to a raised flat-topped embankment or causeway extending toward the northeast. To the south a second embankment flanked the mound to form an access at grade level.... [link added]

The purpose of the earthworks is obscure."

Although one can surmise the general location of the stars represented by the above earthworks from the previous decipherment of the nearby stars of Terra Ceia, their exact identification is by no means overwhelmingly proven here, nor is it perfectly clear exactly what the ancients meant to portray at Long Key.

About Long Key it has been written: "The mound is described by Mr. S. T. Walker (op. tit., pg. 403, et. seq.) who also gives a plan of it, and ascribes to it the form of a turtle." Clarence B. Moore, Certain aboriginal mounds of the Florida Central West-Coast, reprint from The Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, Volume XII, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, P.C. Stockhausen, 1903.

Indeed, the mound is referred to as "Turtle Mound" in a catalogue of prehistoric works at the Smithsonian.  Catalogue of Prehistoric Works East of the Rocky Mountains, Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of Ethnology: J.W. Powell, Director, Washington D.C., Government Printing Office, 1891.

We have problems with the turtle interpretation of the earthworks because the earthwork legs are simply much too long for a turtle. Hence, we think the Long Key Earthworks could rather have represented an octopus (an anthropomorphic image sometimes assigned to Eridanus), as shown in our decipherment image, based, as always, on star positions via Starry Night Pro, to which we add thick colored lines and labels by way of explanation:

The oval that we have selected above includes the star HIP13717 and surrounding stars. It is a pretty good fit, but most of the stars in that oval are pretty faint, and one could argue that an oval of stars further to the left is more prominent in the stars of Eridanus as Eta and Rho Eridani, which are brighter.

The reasons that we think that the "oval" that we have selected is correct are:

• the center of that oval is directly on the Galactic Meridian, and we know from previous decipherments that the ancients knew the location of that Galactic Meridian, and used it as a focus of orientation for drawing their anthropomorphic figures in the stars, if possible
• the oval above is really nearly perfect in its "oval shape"
• the oval has the right angle of orientation to the northeast
• the oval has the same "nose" to the left as the Long Key earthworks
• the arms that extend from this particular oval seem to match the mound and earthworks at Long Key

We might note, however, that there is another interpretation possible for what is being represented by the Long Key Earthworks, especially given the white sand used for the mound.

If the Long Key earthworks are related by subject matter to the nearby Terra Ceia site, just to the southeast, and if our decipherment is correct of Terra Ceia as representing stars shaped as a bakers peel, dough, mortar and pestle, then it could be that Long Key simply represents an egg (for baking), it then being located near to the bakers peel.

Perhaps that is not likely, but possible, and so we wanted to mention it, in case more information were to surface in the future about the Long Key site, which might make a more reliable identification possible than is currently the case.

Otherwise, this will simply remain a "fun site" whose ancient oval design and white sand mound one could -- in jest of course -- regard as an ancient "egg" premonition of the works of Salvador Dali, whose Salvador Dali Museum in St. Petersburg now neighbors Long Key, with the earthwork extensions of the Long Key mound as premonitions of the famed Salvador Dali moustache.

THIS POSTING IS Posting Number 70 of
The Great Mound, Petroglyph and Painted Rock Art Journey of Native America

Long Key White Sand Mound and Earthworks Boca Ciega Bay Gulf Coast Florida near St. Petersburg Mark Stars of Cetus and Eridanus

Terra Ceia Island and Madira Bickel Mound State Archaeological Site Mounds and Earthworks Between St. Petersburg and Bradenton Florida Represent Stars in Cetus as Mortar Pestle Dough & Bakers Peel

We now return to Florida.

Terra Ceia and the Madira Bickel Mound State Archaeological Site in Florida mark stars of Cetus.

For those of you who wonder why we sometimes jump back and forth it is because some decipherments are crystal clear and virtually irrefutable while others really are astounding and bound to raise skepticism. We thus try to stagger their presentation to make it easier on the reader. Once the reader comes to terms with an easy decipherment he or she is more likely to see the sense of a more difficult decipherment solution, which this one was and is.

Here is how we have deciphered Terra Ceia and the Madira Bickel Mound State Archaeological Site in Florida as ancient land survey by astronomy. As always, star positions in the images are shown as clipped via Starry Night Pro at http://astronomy.starrynight.com/ but the texts, red arrows, circles and texts, and thick blue lines have been added by us by way of explanation.

Terra Ceia and Madira Bickel Archaeological Complex as Stars of Cetus

At the top right, Terra Ceia Island marks the stars Zeta Ceti and Chi Ceti (in Cetus) together with the ladle-formed stars to the left of them.

Two elements indicate this placement is correct.

• One is the triangle of three stars at the upper part of the handle.
• The other is the right lower edge of the spatula viz. "bakers peel", which is longer than the left lower edge, and that corresponds to this same feature in the stars.

We were surprised that the lower elements, which appear to be a mortar and pestle for grinding -- in this case -- surely grain into flour dough, bypassed Tau Ceti, but they clearly do.


To the left of the mortar and pestle is a figure that could be meant to represent flour dough, but we are not sure. We leave this issue to expert bakers in the baking field.


Note that CEIA in Portuguese means "supper", "meal", "dinner", Spanish CENA. so that "terra ceia" literally means "supper land". Spaniard Juan Ponce de León was the first European explorer to set foot on Florida and Spaniard Hernando de Soto and his men were in the area in 1539. There is an annual DeSoto Grand Parade in Bradenton, Florida annually.

The Bradenton Herald writes in Manatee History Matters: Terra Ceia island was Heavenly Land for produce:

"Terra Ceia ... at one time ... was a thriving agricultural and business community.... There have been many spellings of the name Terra Ceia. But by 1897, when the name appeared in the general directory for Manatee County, it was spelled as Terra Ceia, the way we spell it today. There is some question about the name's meaning. While it cannot be literally interpreted from either Spanish or Portuguese as Heavenly Land, this is also the commonly held meaning and dates back more than 100 years.

Island a garden spot

The island was known for its rich soil and ability to produce crops of all kinds from citrus to vegetables, including celery and peppers and also flowers. At one time, Terra Ceia-grown produce was known throughout the world. Asters grown on Terra Ceia were even used in the inaugural parade in early 1900s for President William Howard Taft."

Read more here: http://www.bradenton.com/2015/03/30/5721201/manatee-history-matters-terra.html#storylink=cpy

Our initial date setting for our Starry Night Pro star map was 1131 B.C. but we are unable to find any particular mark here in the Pinson Mounds to set the date, so it could be earlier or later. We do not know.

Greetings to family in Florida!
You know who you are!

THIS POSTING IS Posting Number 69 of
The Great Mound, Petroglyph and Painted Rock Art Journey of Native America 


Terra Ceia Island and Madira Bickel Mound State Archaeological Site Mounds and Earthworks Between St. Petersburg and Bradenton Florida Represent Stars in Cetus as Mortar Pestle Dough & Bakers Peel

Pinson Mounds in Tennessee -- Largest Middle Woodland Mound Complex in the USA -- Sauls Mound, Ozier Mound, Earthworks -- Mark the Stars of Cassiopeia as a Bird

This is one of our most significant decipherments because it is so clear and involves one of the largest mound complexes in America.

Pinson Mounds in Madison County, Tennessee, at Pinson Mounds State Archaeological Park near the Madison County seat Jackson, between Memphis and Nashville, is the largest Middle Woodland mound complex in the United States, with the second largest mound in the country (Sauls Mound).

We have deciphered the Pinson Mound Complex to mark the stars of Cassiopeia, an expected result given our previous identification of stars in Alabama below Tennessee as marking the stars of Perseus. Since Cassiopeia is above Perseus this identification was still work, but not exceedingly difficult, since the mounds look like Cassiopeia anyway, even though star identification can be touchy.

We append our decipherment image below, taking note that:

• The Ozier Mound and quadrant of stars mark Epsilon Cassiopeia (Segin). The ramp to the northeast may mark the Galactic Equator (or) the position of the Celestial Meridian somewhat later than the date we give here.
• Sauls Mound marks Gamma Cassiopeia, which in the modern era is a brighter star than the variable star Alpha Cassiopeia, Schedar, "the breast". Richard Hinckley Allen in Star Names writes that Gamma "was the first star discovered to contain bright lines in its spectrum -- and so is of much interest to astronomers. The spectrum is peculiarly variable, as also is its light."
• the nearby star Delta Cassiopeia (Ruchbah) marks the tailfeathers, and as noted by Richard Hinckley Allen in Star Names "was utilized by Picard in France, in 1669, in determining latitudes during his measure of an arc of the meridian, -- the first use of the telescope for geodetic purposes".
• The circular so-called "Geometric Earthwork" marks Beta Cassiopeia and neighboring stars, whose circular form marks the head of a bird, with Rho Cassiopeia and Sigma Cassiopeia marking the eye and beak of the bird's head respectively. Indeed, at Pinson Mounds the stars of Cassiopeia were represented by earthworks, mounds and wetland edges formed in the shape of a bird with the right wing and tailfeathers marked.

There are at least 30 mounds and earthworks at the Pinson Mound Complex, of which 17 have thus far been identified as anciently man-made. See Mark Norton, The Pinson Mounds Complex, West Tennessee Historical Society Papers 55, 2001. Given this many mounds and earthworks, the identification of the stars of Cassiopeia is crystal clear, since there are few uncertainties.

The mounds and earthworks mark stars ca. 1 A.D. between the Celestial Meridian on the left, the Galactic Equator and edge of the Milky Way at the top, the  Ecliptic Meridian to the right and the edge of the Milky Way at the bottom. Note that different software programs, sky maps and planispheres mark the edges of the Milky Way differently, some broader, some thinner, but the general pattern is quite obvious. Richard Hinckley Allen in Star Names has noted that Cassiopeia "almost wholly lies in the Milky Way".

The Pinson Mounds as the Stars of Cassiopeia
 (in the corresponding lower star map below from Starry Night Pro,
to which we have added the thick colored lines, circles and figures,
the Milky Way is colored in a blue-purple color)

Our map diagram of the Pinson Mounds above is based on three map sources:

• William N. Morgan, Precolumbian Architecture in Eastern North America, Ripley P. Bullen Series, Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida Press, Gainesville, FL, 1999, http://www.upf.com/, and
  
• Pinson Mounds State Archaeological Park
  
• Tennessee History for Kids, which has a virtual tour

What Tennessee State Parks writes about the Pinson Mounds is worth reading as regards the important preservation of ancient valuable Native America sites:

"Pinson Mounds is a national historic landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

In the 1950s and 1960s, local citizens, believing in the value of the site, convinced the state to purchase the land and preserve it as a park. Pinson Mounds officially became a Tennessee State Park in 1974. To this day, the park contains the largest Native American Middle Woodland Period mound group in the United States.
 
The Pinson Mounds museum is designed to replicate a Native American mound. The building includes 4,500 square feet of exhibit space, an archaeological library, an 80-seat theater and 'Discovery Room' for historical exploration, park offices and the West Tennessee Regional Archaeology Office."

 Looks like a great place to visit!

Greetings to family in Rocky Top! You know who you are!
Happy Birthday Bob!

THIS POSTING IS Posting Number 68 of
The Great Mound, Petroglyph and Painted Rock Art Journey of Native America

Pinson Mounds in Tennessee -- Largest Middle Woodland Mound Complex in the USA -- Sauls Mound, Ozier Mound, Earthworks -- Mark the Stars of Cassiopeia as a Bird

The Shell Rings on Sapelo Island Near Darien Georgia Mark Upper Stars of Pisces in an Astounding Manner: They Show an Early Snorkeler with Water Serpent, Whale, Shark, Sardine, Octopus, Starfish and Tropical Fish

To complete the upper part of the stars of Pisces in the mounds, we now go to the so-called "shell mound rings" and "nonring middens" of Sapelo Island near Darien, Georgia, which have been dated (at the earliest) to ca. 2170 B.C.

As written inter alia at the Wikipedia under Sapelo Island:

"Sapelo Island ... is a state-protected island (barrier island) located in McIntosh County, Georgia. The island is reachable only by airplane or boat, with the primary ferry coming from the Sapelo Island Visitors Center in McIntosh County, Georgia, a seven mile (11 km), twenty-minute trip.

Approximately 97 percent of the island is owned by the state of Georgia and is managed by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources; the remainder is under private ownership.... Visitors to the island must be a part of an organized tour or guests of residents on the island. The island also has a small private airport run by the state of Georgia."

The Sapelo shell mound complex is one of the most astounding sites we have deciphered, as you will see in the course of this posting, especially since we initially accepted the standard view that the site consisted of three large shell mound rings and numerous non-ring middens of little apparent consequence.

Since we had just posted our decipherments of the Mill Cove Complex and the Little Talbot Island Grand Mounds as stars of Pisces, it appeared superficially that the three Sapelo ring mounds in their triangular formation likely represented the stars Phi, Upsilon and Tau Piscium above the other two sites.

Nevertheless, we pressed on to get to the bottom of some puzzling things we found in our examination of various representations of the Sapelo site, which appeared to us to be far more complicated than one imagined at first glance. This view was verified -- we agree totally -- in the article cited below where Thompson et al. write at p. 192, citing to the work of Lewis H. Larson Jr.:

"... Archaic peoples possessed a degree of complexity previously unrecognized by Southeastern archaeologists."

How right they will be proven to be!

We read as follows in the abstract to Victor D. Thompson, Matthew D. Reynolds, Bryan Haley, Richard Jefferies, Jay K. Johnson, and Laura Humphries, The Sapelo Shell Ring Complex: Shallow Geophysics on a Georgia Sea Island, Southeastern Archaeology, Vol. 23, No. 2, (Winter 2004), pp. 192-201, Maney Publishing, Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40713321:

"The Sapelo Shell Ring complex, located on Sapelo Island, Georgia, consists of three large circular shell mounds and numerous smaller amorphous shell middens. Today, one of the rings is highly visible; however, the two other rings and the nonring middens have little surface relief and are virtually invisible. In fact, the location and very existence of the two other rings has been debated for some time. Recent geophysical survey, however, has located the subsurface remains of the two less obvious rings, as well as some of the amorphous middens."

The work of Thompson et al. as cited above is essential because at page 198 they produce a topographic map of the Sapelo Island shell mound complex and accompany it with text indicating that they had found numerous circular "anomalies" inside and outside the rings and other amorphous middens, i.e. that there was much more to the site than immediately met the eye.

That topographic map in the Thompson et al. publication is the key to Sapelo!

At this point, let us add the following addendum about JSTOR, where we were able to access the Thompson article for free and from which we obtained the images that served as the basis for the decipherment presented below.

You will have to go to JSTOR and register to see the original topographic map and images and try your hand at tracing that map to see if you come close to our result. You may, or may not. Give it a try. But you will need a program like Paint Shop Pro (we use the ancient version 7) which allows all kinds of zooming, color change and lightening and especially the threshold level function, which we set to "1" to arrive at a black-traced black and white result.

We have been severe critics of JSTOR in the past because of their pay-to-view policy for articles originally and already subsidized directly or indirectly by the taxpayers, so why should we have to pay for them again? Such payment is no problem for university faculty, who not only are paid well for their academic positions, but whose colleges and universities also foot the JSTOR bill, so that the JSTOR world is essentially open to them for free, whereas those of us who are researchers in alumni standing (surely a small minority of people) not only get no pay from any institution but are asked to pay considerable sums to view articles whose value we can only guess until we actually see the articles.

To their credit, however, as we discovered today, at least JSTOR now permits registered users to view a few articles for free on their user shelf, and that covers the most urgent articles, such as the article cited above, without which our analysis could not have been performed. So, for that we are thankful.

Here is the decipherment of Sapelo, and believe you me, it is fantastic! We obtained our result by zooming the original topographic map image from Thompson et al. (as cited above) at differing colors and shades of brightness and various higher resolutions ranging from twice to eight times the size of the original image and then tracing to the best of our honest ability all the shapes and circles and darker lines that we could find -- to see if it made any sense, as we had no idea what was being portrayed initially, other than the fish of Pisces. You see the result below:

The Shell Mounds of Sapelo Island near Darien Georgia

Mark Stars of Pisces at the Celestial Equator ca. 2170 B.C.

Showing Them Anthropomorphically as an Underwater Snorkeler

Using Archaic Breathing Apparatus in an Ocean of Fish

As one can see from our decipherment image, the Sapelo Island shell mounds, i.e. the so-called "rings" and "non-ring" middens paint an underwater sea picture of the stars of Pisces in ca. 2170 B.C. at the celestial equator.

What is astounding is that the main figure is an ancient snorkeler viz. diver using some kind of archaic breathing apparatus about which we are going to make no speculations, for the simple reason that we know nothing beyond basics about diving technology, ancient or recent. We leave that to the experts.

The snorkeler or diver is represented in a sea of fish marked by the stars, including a water serpent, whale, shark (or other large fish), sardine, octopus, starfish and tropical fish.

We never expected to find an ancient snorkeler or underwater diver at Sapelo, but there he is, and, as we have rudimentarily discovered online, there is in fact ample evidence of ancient snorkeling known. We quote from the "Early History of Snorkeling" and "Earliest Snorkelers" at Key West Snorkeling Tours:

"Thought to be the earliest mention of snorkeling, the Greek philosopher Aristotle mentioned the practice in his study "Parts of the Animals", where he refers to divers as using "instruments for respiration" resembling an elephant’s trunk.

The very earliest snorkelers were thought to be sponge farmers on the Grecian island of Crete some 5,000 years ago who used hollow tubes to allow breathing while they kept their faces in the water to free-dive for sponges. Archeologists studying Assyrian bas-relief paintings from 900 B.C. have identified figures using air-filled animal skins as a crude form of diving tank, allowing exploration further beneath the sea. Snorkels also found their use in the ancient world’s military action. Around 500 B.C., historian Herodotus tells of Scyllis, a Greek who escaped a Persian ship undetected by using a hollow reed as a snorkel and then proceeded to cut the entire Persian fleet adrift."

Good snorkeling!

THIS POSTING IS Posting Number 67 of
The Great Mound, Petroglyph and Painted Rock Art Journey of Native America

The Shell Rings on Sapelo Island Near Darien Georgia Mark Upper Stars of Pisces in an Astounding Manner: They Show an Early Snorkeler with Water Serpent, Whale, Shark, Sardine, Octopus, Starfish and Tropical Fish

An Alternative Browser in "Pale Moon" as a Fork of Mozilla Firefox but No Australis Keeping Firefox 28 Customizability Including Tabs BELOW the Address Bar and Full Profile Migration

We crosspost this posting from LawPundit as a public service
to people who do a lot of Internet research work.

Pale Moon might be the alternative browser solution we have been looking for!

We are generally always a few steps ahead of the pack, except in the case of browsers where we have been very unhappy with Mozilla Firefox ever since they started ignoring the wishes of users -- users who originally migrated from IE because they did not want to be told what to do, but rather wanted to customize their browser any way they wished. It is no wonder that Firefox keeps losing market share. You do not survive in the digital world (or the real business world either) by ignoring user wishes -- not over the long term.

Starting with so-called Firefox 29 "Australis" things got totally out of whack and we had been using Firefox 28 since then -- until today -- because it was the last version of Firefox that still could run TabMixPlus which allowed us to have our tabs below the address bar and our other tab bars.

We sometimes use the computer for internet research 18 hours a day and we are FAST at what we do, probably much faster than anyone in your home or office. Hence, we want and need that lower tab location because we want what WE are doing to be in the immediate foreground and closest to OUR screen doings, rather than hidden above all the garble at the top of the screen.

We also want to reduce "mouse miles" -- something another errant company such as Microsoft has never understood, especially in its newest Windows and Office versions --i.e. the distance we have to push our mouse daily on the screen to get done what WE want done. LESS is more. We want less distance to travel on the screen and as few clicks as possible to get done what WE want to get done.

We don't care what other tablet and smartphone users do or want. We also have a tablet (full HD), we have a smartphone (octacore), but to get real WORK done, we use a PC, and there, time is money. NO NONSENSE. We do not want to see any of the adolescent useless stuff that dominates the handheld market. Most of it is for the kiddies. Nothing wrong with that. But that is not a graphic interface that a serious user wants to have to deal with. 

Today, Firefox 28 started crashing every minute without reason -- we opened some other browsers at the same time to check, but they had no trouble, so Firefox was at fault. Who knows what they have changed out there.

That was the last straw. We had tried many alternative browsers in the past, but none of them did the job we wanted. There had to be another alternative.

AND THERE APPEARS TO BE THAT ALTERNATIVE,
though our enthusiasm must remain provisional until the browser discussed below stands the test of time. Thus far it is superb.

The browser is called PALE MOON. It is a "fork" of Mozilla Firefox 28 and a continued individual development from there which does not adopt Australis. BRILLIANT.

Among other things, it allows what appears to be -- at least it was for us -- an unproblematical lightning fast migration of your Firefox profile, although you have to download a special program to do that after you install Pale Moon. For us, the process went without a hitch, except that you have to activate your "extension" add-ons after they have been migrated.

Caveat emptor. Our applause for Pale Moon is no guarantee of suitability for you and we disclaim any and all liability for anyone switching browsers, since problems are never totally eliminated for sure and can depend on the hardware and software of any given computer system and the skills of the installer. Still, it IS ENCOURAGING!

Here are some of the features which we pass on from the PaleMoon.org site, whose logo is ""Pale Moon -- Your Browser, Your Way"

• You are able to import existing Firefox profiles with the migration tool
• You have the option to put tabs not only above, but also BELOW the address bar
• Under the Pale Moon "Status Bar" preferences at the tab option "Address Bar" you can click "Show progress in the Address Bar - and the line style that appears in that bar: none, bottom, top or fill -- try it out -- great!
• The whole philosophy of Pale Moon is what made Mozilla Firefox popular in the good old days -- USER customizability, not tyranny by software programmers or other company types trying to be important and pushing their ideas and preferences on others against their will. The USER is king.

Here is what Pale Moon writes at http://www.palemoon.org/:

"Pale Moon is a free and open-source web browser based on Mozilla Firefox, available for Linux, Windows, and Android, developed and distributed by Dutch developer M.C. Straver. Pale Moon is a fork of Firefox, retaining the fully customizable user interface as seen in the previous era of the Firefox browser, and focusing on the core tasks of web browsing."

"Developer(s) M.C. Straver
Initial release October 04, 2009
Development status Active
Written in C/C++
Operating system Windows, Linux, Android
Engine Gecko
Platform IA-32, x86-64
Available in 85 languages
Type Web browser
License Source code: MPL 2.0, Binaries: Proprietary freeware"

We might note that Pale Moon offers inter alia Google, Bing and Yahoo as the search engine of choice in the search bar (also Wikipedia, Twitter, AddThis -- the latter may have been added by our AddThis extension, we do not know since we did not check beforehand), but the default search engine is set at DuckDuckGo at https://duckduckgo.com/, so we tried it out, and it does have a SIGNIFICANT feature that may cause us to switch our search engine preferences, even though we have been a staunch Google user from the start.

DuckDuckGo does not force your search into the region of the location of your PC, as Google does now, and which we regard to be illegal. When we enter google.com in the search bar that is what we should be given as a matter of law, and not, as currently happens, google.de. When we want google.de, we will enter that accordingly, otherwise, we want what we have entered, nothing more, and nothing less. When you buy something in a store, the clerk can not give you something else, and the same should be true for search engines.

The Wikipedia writes about DuckDuckGo as follows:

"DuckDuckGo (DDG) is an Internet search engine that emphasizes protecting searchers' privacy and avoiding the filter bubble of personalized search results. DuckDuckGo distinguishes itself from other search engines by not profiling its users and by deliberately showing all users the same search results for a given search term. DuckDuckGo emphasizes getting information from the best sources rather than the most sources, generating its search results from key crowdsourced sites such as Wikipedia and from partnerships with other search engines like Yandex, Yahoo!, Bing, and Yummly.

The company is based in Paoli, Pennsylvania, United States, in Greater Philadelphia, and has 20 employees. The company name originates from the children's game duck, duck, goose.

Some of DuckDuckGo's code is free software hosted at GitHub under the Apache 2.0 License, but the core is proprietary. On 21 May 2014, DuckDuckGo launched a redesigned version that focused on smarter answers and a more refined look. The new version added often requested features such as images, local search, auto-suggest and more.

On 18 September 2014, Apple included DuckDuckGo in its Safari browser as an optional search engine. On 10 November 2014, Mozilla added DuckDuckGo as a search option to Firefox 33.1."

It looks like a switch to Pale Moon and DuckDuckGo is possible. We shall see.

Shields Mound and Grant Mound at the Mill Cove Complex Jacksonville Florida Shape the Form of a Fishhook and Fishing Weight at the Head of the Mouth of Pisces

A "fish-hook" and "fishing weight" (sinker) are shaped by the stars as represented at the Shields Mound, Grant Mound and earthworks at the Mill Cove Complex, and those are stars just at the head of the head of Pisces.

Mill Cove is just to the south and west of our previously deciphered Talbot Island State Park Grand Mounds, both in the greater Jacksonville, Florida area. 
Each of these decipherments complements the other in adding great strength to this and previous mound and earthwork interpretations.

Shields Mound, Grant Mound, A Fishhook and Fishing Weight (Sinker)
Marked in the Stars of Pisces and at the Mill Cove Complex

The MOUNDS and EARTHWORKS at the Mill Cove Complex

Shields Mound, Grant Mound, A Fishhook and Fishing Weight (Sinker)

The mound location placements above are based on a map diagram in William N. Morgan, Precolumbian Architecture in Eastern North America, Ripley P. Bullen Series, Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida Press, Gainesville, FL, 1999, http://www.upf.com/, for which we are most grateful, since they are nowhere else to be found.

The site of the mounds was first excavated in 1894 and 1895 by Clarence Bloomfield Moore, upon whose drawings and descriptions Morgan relies, correctly so.

Incredulously, 2e read some article in an archaeology magazine questioning Moore's drawings because modern LIDAR soundings today just show rough earthwork remnant blobs of earthworks ruined by modern civilization, all of course in situ, but without the previous detail shown by Moore. That's mud!

It just goes to show how much has been destroyed in the last 100+ years by rapidly expanding populations and suburbs. LIDAR may have its uses, but it should never be used to replace quality drawings from previous eras. That would be ludicrous. Archaeology is not there to glorify modern technology or to call into question clear drawings from the past that have no business being challenged. Rather, Archaeology should try much harder to comprehend the facts before them, rather than "inventing" the past through confusion.

What Morgan writes is unequivocal, referring to Moore in 1895:

"Situated on a bluff along Mill Cove with a commanding view to the north, Shields Mound rose to a height of some 18 feet (5.5 meters) in 1895 and appeared to have rounded corners, although originally they may have been square. A lower oval platform or apron engaged the pyramid's north slope. An unusual ramp shaped like a fishhook proceeded south from the mound. Beginning more or less at grade, the ramp extended about 500 feet (150 meters) to the south, where it rose almost 14 feet (4.3 meters) above grade. The ramp then curved toward the northwest and descended once more to grade, terminating in a shallow depression bounded on the west by a linear berm.

Leading southwest from the pyramid and ramp, two parallel ridges of earth flanked a "covered way," or ceremonial avenue, at most 50 feet (15 meters) wide. The processional way continued possibly 1,800 feet (550 meters) to a small lake. Much disturbed by cultivation at the time of the survey, the low ridges of earth may have been formed by scraping fill material from the surface of the avenue."

And so somebody is now using LIDAR to challenge those descriptions?
Just because modern ARCHAEOLOGY can not explain what was clearly found?
We have no problem with the 1895 drawing.
IT IS CLEARLY CORRECT and BEAUTIFULLY DONE.
Thank you Moore and Morgan!
LIDAR is for OTHER things.

Moreover, we wonder why something as simple as the "fishing weight" has thus far apparently never been identified by the archaeological community. Have people never been fishing for bullheads in places like Oak Lake in Lincoln, Nebraska? Did not think so. Well, we did some of that in our youth. You need a fish hook (with an "eye" to thread or tie the line), fishing weight (we used to call that a "sinker"), fish line, bait, and a rod, or simple fishing pole. If you look at Moore and Morgan's drawings, you might find a fishing line as well, and note that the "ceremonial avenue" leads to a lake, obviously, to go fishing!

Learning How to Fish  -- is online.

THIS POSTING IS Posting Number 66 of
The Great Mound, Petroglyph and Painted Rock Art Journey of Native America

Shields Mound and Grant Mound at the Mill Cove Complex Jacksonville Florida Shape the Form of a Fishhook and Fishing Weight at the Head of the Mouth of Pisces

The Grand Mounds at Little Talbot Island State Park in Northeast Florida near Jacksonville mark the Ecliptic, Vernal Equinox, and Calculate Precession ca. 240 B.C.

The Grand Mounds at Little Talbot Island State Park in Northeast Florida, GPS 30.4519° N, 81.4189° W, near Jacksonville, Florida, mark the Ecliptic in the "upper" part of Pisces, very likely also the Celestial Equator and Celestial Meridian ca. 200 B.C., and, if our analysis be correct, may even calculate the movement of Precession over a space of 200 years.

The mound location placements below are based on a map diagram in  William N. Morgan, Precolumbian Architecture in Eastern North America, Ripley P. Bullen Series, Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida Press, Gainesville, FL, 1999, http://www.upf.com/, for which we are most grateful, since they are nowhere else to be found, also not at the Little Talbot Island State Park website.

In our decipherment, we have redrawn the small image in Morgan's book to much larger size here, so that any errors vis-a-vis the original are ours, and not Morgan's.

Morgan writes in the above-cited book: "Three platforms ... and an unusual sand mound to the west ... that rises impressively above the plaza level. A shell midden extends ... to the northwest.... An unusual ramp extends ... from the south mound into the central plaza. The ramp seems to be aligned with the center of the west mound." [emphasis added] 

Grand Mounds at Little Talbot Island State Park in Florida

Stars in Pisces Corresponding to the Grand Mounds

at Little Talbot Island State Park in Florida

As we have discovered, that "northwest line" that Morgan identifies surely marked the ecliptic at the three-star corner formed by HIP 8588, HIP 8888 and HIP 8859 in the "square" of the Grand Mounds in the "upper"as marked by three other corner stars: HIP 8306, Omicron Piscium, and HIP 8883.

Since the ecliptic is constant regardless of era, it is likely that these mounds date to ca. 200 B.C. (240 B.C. would be a good estimate) when the Vernal Equinox was marked on Earth by the "unusual" sand mound to the west. The fact that precession "moves" the point of the Equinoxes in the stars is perhaps the reason that this mound was constructed of sand, because the location of the Equinox in the stars would have been seen to "move" like a natural sand dune does, just as one saw the celestial meridian migrating forward with precession.

Additional speculative analysis is possible if the vertical outer lines in Morgan's drawing are actually marked on the ground by changes in elevation and are not merely drawing constructions. The same is true for the line-marked inner areas.
In such a case, there is a  plausible explanation possible for the divisions.

If we take each long vertical line gap to mark 10 years, then the Grand Mounds would in size correspond to the actual time that it took the Celestial Meridian to move from HIP8883 (the sand dune in the West) to HIP 8306 and Omicron Piscium in the East. The distance between the former and the latter is about 10 gaps, i.e. about 200 years. We find that a count of all the marked areas, also the long verticals, which are split in the middle perhaps to form two separate counts, results in an 8 x 24 count plus 8 i.e. 192 + 8 as set-off areas = 200.
We think that could intentionally have been done to actually mark the years individually, even if already marked by 10-year intervals in the vertical lines.

The strange marked areas to the right of the mounds are then immediately made understandable if we view the top to be a crossing path of the celestial equator horizontally and the long vertical ribbon to represent the ecliptic. Then the entire design of the figure makes perfect sense as matching the stars.

Our placement of the Grand Mounds in Pisces is mandated by our previous decipherments and by our subsequent decipherments of other nearby mound sites. In the next posting we look at the "fish hook" at the mouth of Pisces.

THIS POSTING IS Posting Number 65 of
The Great Mound, Petroglyph and Painted Rock Art Journey of Native America 

The Grand Mounds at Little Talbot Island State Park in Northeast Florida near Jacksonville mark the Ecliptic, Vernal Equinox, and Calculate Precession ca. 240 B.C.
 

Lake Jackson Mounds in the Florida Panhandle Mark a Rectangle of Stars Left of the Head of Cetus at the Lower End of Taurus

The Lake Jackson mounds at the Lake Jackson Mounds Archaeological State Park in the Florida Panhandle clearly mark a rectangle of stars on the edge of Cetus and at the extended end of Taurus, i.e. the stars Omicron Tauri and Xi Tauri and neighboring stars to the left of the head of Cetus (see also Florida State Parks). In our decipherment image below, the Lake Jackson mound section is highlighted in the light red box toward the middle and bottom left.

The stars represented at the Lake Jackson Mounds in rectangular form are the row of stars at 5 Tauri, 4 Tauri, and 6 Tauri and the row of stars at HIP15850, Xi Tauri and Omicron Tauri, with the lone star 30 Tauri to their left. Note that I have turned the star rectangle 180° here from what I had in the previous image. Sorry, it was an oversight and has now been corrected in the original Florida mounds posting also with insertion of the above image.

The mound location placements are based on a diagram in  William N. Morgan, Precolumbian Architecture in Eastern North America, Ripley P. Bullen Series, Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida Press, Gainesville, FL, 1999, http://www.upf.com/.

Lake Jackson Mounds in the Florida Panhandle Mark a Rectangle of Stars Left of the Head of Cetus at the Lower End of Taurus

THIS POSTING IS Posting Number 64 of
The Great Mound, Petroglyph and Painted Rock Art Journey of Native America

Speaking of Florida, Dali and da Vinci through July 26, 2015 at "the Dali" Museum in St. Petersburg: Minds Machines & Masterpieces

Speaking of Florida, see Dali & da Vinci: Minds, Machines & Masterpieces - Unparalleled collection of Salvador Dali art works, March 8, 2015 through July 26, 2015, at "the Dali" Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Mound Key and Other Sites in the Estero Bay Aquatic Preserve South of Fort Myers Florida Appear to Have Been Worked by Human Hand to Mark Stars of Cetus

Estero Bay Aquatic Preserve was established in 1966 as the first such preserve in Florida. Not only does it hold the archaeologically significant Mound Key Island, but naturally occurring original topography appears to have been worked by human hand in ancient days to transform it into land survey markers at Estero Bay, as mapped by the stars, here principally by the stars of Cetus.

Here is an anthropomorphic example clipped from Google Earth of an Estero Bay location.... just to the left of Mound Key.... and now you perhaps know something more about Art and Archaeology.... see the previous posting, where we merely applied to this image the "correct color to original" command.... and added a nice picture frame ....

Google Earth Image Clip, Estero Bay, Florida
(published as research "fair use")

Here is our decipherment of Estero Bay locations

-- the images are so large that they have to be shown separately.

Our red lines mark the star correspondences

shown in the second graphic image below the first image

using similar lines and circles:

These are the star correspondences to the Estero Bay locations,

with Mound Key shown in the middle, i.e mostly stars of Cetus.

Star positions are shown via Starry Night Pro, http://astronomy.starrynight.com/, although the non-affiliated decipherer, Andis Kaulins, April, 2015, Traben-Trarbach, has added the thick red and blue lines to show the star correspondences better and has also drawn the outline of Cetus in darker black so that it is more easily seen.

THIS POSTING IS Posting Number 63 of
The Great Mound, Petroglyph and Painted Rock Art Journey of Native America 

Mound Key and Other Sites in the Estero Bay Aquatic Preserve South of Fort Myers Florida Appear to Have Been Worked by Human Hand to Mark Stars of Cetus

The Ultimate Test for Art and Archaeological Aptitude - "ArtArchApt" Shows Your "ArtArchAptness"

This is the "ArtArchApt Test", the "ultimate" Test for Art and Archaeological Aptitude-- in which we use a framed photographic test clip referred to as "the artwork". This "artwork" is copyrighted by a copyright owner known to us and may not be used by anyone for any commercial purpose.

Your answers to the following questions are important not only for this test but also for the postings which subsequently follow.

First, however, let us warn you in advance not to drag and drop the image below into Google image search to find visually similar images, for which we disclaim any and all liability because we have no control over that technology. Use it at your own risk, as you may get offensive material. Not our fault! And it will not help you find the origin of this artwork....

"THE ARTWORK"
(copyrighted, no commercial use)

The following art and archaeology aptitude questions relate to the above "artwork". Each question has only ONE right answer, but multiple answers may build that right single answer, i.e. "multiple choice".

QUESTION 1
What is the provenance of the "artwork" clip pictured in the image above?
1) webby award Earth Sky art from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York
2) a rediscovered classic vase portrayal scene now found at the Louvre in Paris
3) some popular nouveau art featured at the Naive Art Museum in Moscow
4) modern art exhibited at "the Tate" galleries (London, Liverpool and Cornwall)
5) a bas-relief from a famed copper amphora in the British Museum in London
6) a Musée d’Orsay Auguste Renoir on display at the Hermitage
7) a piece from Gustav Klimt at MOMA, the Museum of Modern Art in New York
8) King Arthur with shield and sword in a German Nebra Sky Disk production
9) None of the above.
Note your answer. The "artwork" will be identified later.
Click on the "artwork" to see it as a larger image.

QUESTION 2
What content does the "artwork" have? (multiple answers are possible)
1) Person
2) Animal
3) Fish
4) Plant
5) Artefact viz. artifact
6) Shard
7) Textile
8) all of the above
9) none of the above

QUESTION 3
Who created this artwork?
1) Pablo Picasso emerged from Lascaux, saying art since had learned "nothing"
2) Marc Chagall the murals! the windows!
3) Claude Monet of seasonal changes could have painted this, but did he?
4) Andy Warhol and his will, veritably, "to advance the visual arts"!
5) Salvador Dali in surrealistic, "pure, boundless creativity"
6) Damian Hirst challenges "boundaries between art, science & popular culture"
7) Keith Haring "my drawings don't try to imitate life, they try to create life"
8) Wolfgang Fischer, aka known as Wolfgang Beltracchi "our greatest painter ?"
9) none of the above

QUESTION 4 
Do you see any of the following particulars in the "artwork"?
1) a man
2) a woman
3) a child
4) a human head with two eyes
5) a wall tapestry
6) a metal shield
7) a serpent
8) all of the above
9) none of the above

QUESTION 5
Based on your view of "the scene" portrayed in "the artwork",
which of the following statements is true?
1) the man is standing
2) the woman is sitting
3) the woman is holding a child
4) all of the above
5) none of the above

QUESTION 6
In what "medium is" / "mediums are" the "artwork" created?
1) Oil painting
2) Water colour viz. water color viz. aquarelle painting
3) acrylic painting
4) all of the above
5) none of the above

You are now ready to gain insight into your ArtArchAptness!
See the next posting.

THIS POSTING IS Posting Number 62 of
The Great Mound, Petroglyph and Painted Rock Art Journey of Native America 

The Ultimate Test for Art and Archaeological Aptitude - "ArtArchApt" Shows Your "ArtArchAptness"

Revised and Expanded Decipherment of the Mounds and Earthworks of the State of Florida Including Mound Key Which is a Map of North America ca. 1150 B.C.

Back to Florida!

So ... you doubt our hypothesis and the massive "mound" of evidence that we have already collected that the ancient world was surveyed by astronomy?

We have a surprise for you.
Let us ask why others have not seen that Mound Key is a map .... ????

Mound Key Island (what is left of the original man-created island topography) clearly is intended as a map of North America ca. 1150 B.C. Check it out. It is not perfect, by any means, but the MAP purpose is clear and without doubt.

Below and in coming postings we revise and expand our previous decipherment of mounds, earthworks, etc. in Florida in the Native America land survey by astronomy.

The overall Florida decipherment below and subsequent individual site decipherments supersede, as applicable, the previous ones. Not only does Florida mark Cetus, as already deciphered, but, as we have since discovered via new mound and earthwork locations found through William N. Morgan's book as cited below, mounds on the upper Atlantic side of Florida also marked stars of Pisces, and the Lake Jackson mounds marked a rectangle of stars just to the left of the head of Cetus at the lower end of Taurus.

We ordered online and several days ago received our own copy of William N. Morgan, Precolumbian Architecture in Eastern North America, Ripley P. Bullen Series, Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida Press, Gainesville, FL, 1999, http://www.upf.com/.

Because of the maps found there, and subsequent complementary and detailed maps found online, we have been able to solidify our previous decipherment of Florida mounds and earthworks as Cetus, but with a couple of revisions necessitated, and many new identifications. The mound and earthwork decipherments now added have caused us to change our initial decipherment so that Tick Island and Windover are no longer counted to the head of Cetus but to the immediately neighboring stars of Pisces, since Tomoka clearly marks the lower row of stars in Pisces, to which Tick Island must then be counted. We previously placed Tick Island simply on the basis of its geographic location without looking at the site geography itself. That was incorrect.

To our original decipherment map of the mounds of Florida, we have now added the Lake Jackson Mounds, the Tomoka Mounds and Middens in Ormond Beach, Guana River State Park with Sanchez Mound, Little Talbot Island State Park with Grand Mounds, Shields Mound and Grant Mound at the Mill Cove Complex, Mount Royal, Turtle Mound, Philip Earthworks at Lake Marion Creek Wildlife Management Area, Long Key on the gulf side of the Peninsula, Terra Ceia Island and Madira Bickel Mound State Archaeological Site, Big Mound City and the Big Circle Mounds, and Mound Key, decipherments based in part on maps in William N. Morgan's book, as cited above.

The following mound and earthwork sites in Florida mark the following stars and we will be presenting short decipherments of each mentioned site, as possible:

• The Lake Jackson mounds at the Lake Jackson Mounds Archaeological State Park in the Florida Panhandle clearly mark a rectangle of stars on the edge of Cetus and at the extended end of Taurus, i.e. the stars Omicron Tauri and Xi Tauri to the left of the head of Cetus(see also Florida State Parks)
• Grand Mounds at Little Talbot Island State Park mark the Ecliptic, for, as Morgan writes in the above-cited book: "Three platforms ... and an unusual sand mound to the west ... that rises impressively above the plaza level. A shell midden extends ... to the northwest.... An unusual ramp extends ... from the south mound into the central plaza. The ramp seems to be aligned with the center of the west mound." As we have discovered, that "northwest line" marked the ecliptic.
• A "fish hook" is formed in shape at the Shields Mound and Grant Mound at the Mill Cove Complex, and those are stars at the head of Pisces
• Terra Ceia Island and Madira Bickel Mound State Archaeological Site mark the stars Beta Ceti and Chi Ceti together with the ladle-formed stars below and to the left of them
• Philip Earthworks at Lake Marion show the circle of stars at 34, 38, 39 and 42 Ceti with 34 Ceti the star somewhat "outside" the circle
• The Tomoka Mounds mark the line of stars at the lower fish, extending from alpha Pisces to the celestial meridian
• Mount Royal marks the Celestial Meridian in its era
• The Turtle mounds mark Delta Piscium and 62, 60 Piscium
• Big Mound City (J.W. Corbett Wildlife Management Area) and the Big Circle Mounds of the Belle Glade Culture both mark the same stars in Cetus, but apparently in different eras, with the four main stars being Phi1, Phi2, Phi3 and Phi 4 Ceti together with the surrounding stars and covering a large area celestially and territorially with at least 23 mounds.
• Tick Island marks the cerebral shape of the stars at 41 Piscium and neighboring stars to its right and above it
• About Long Key, Hillsboro County, it has been written:
  "The mound is described by Mr. S. T. Walker (op. tit., pg. 403, et. seg.) who  also gives a plan of it, and ascribes to it the form of a turtle."
• Mound Key Archaeological State Park is an island in Estero Bay, north of Naples, and north of Marco Island and the Horr's Island site, and the archaeology there is dated back to ca. 1150 B.C., quoting the Wikipedia: "The Calusa culture is carbon-dated back to 1150 B.C. at Mound Key." It is, quite clearly, a map of North America at around that date.

 

Individual decipherments of these newly added Florida sites as marking stars of the sky within the previously described system follow via graphic maps.

Revised and Expanded Decipherment of the Mounds and Earthworks of the State of Florida Including Mound Key Which is a Map of North America ca. 1150 B.C.

THIS POSTING IS Posting Number 61 of
The Great Mound, Petroglyph and Painted Rock Art Journey of Native America

The Nazca (Nasca) Mystery Image Deciphered as Anthropomorphic and Cupmark (Cupule) Marking of Stars of Andromeda and Pisces on Earth

This decipherment follows the previous "Location" posting relating to the "Next" Great Google Earth Image Mystery for Archaeology, Astronomy and Archaeoastronomy Buffs.

At Nazca,
the "Mystery Rock" image is located via Google Earth and Digital Globe

(these clipped images -- used here as "fair use" for research -- are copyrighted in their base image by Google Earth and Digital Globe)

at
latitude 14°39'5.29"S
and
longitude 75°14'17.89"W

The Mystery Rock is located in the utmost northernmost corner
of the entire flatland part of the complex of Nazca Lines,
where the mystery rock is virtually lodged between two "horns", as it were,

as shown by the pin location in the image below clipped by us from Google Earth. It is on the outer perimeter of the so-called Nazca Lines "fields". 

We show the "Mystery Rock" in larger size below as deciphered by us showing that this rock, nearly the size of a football field, shows stars of Andromeda and Pisces to the right of the "horns" of Triangulum and Aries and to the left of the Great Square of Pegasus, and does so by drawing the stars via anthropomorphic figures and cupmark-like markings. There is no doubt about the depiction of this general part of the sky, but issues remain as to the precise identification of individual stars and figures, and this will require substantiation by others.

Below we show the correspondence of stars and anthropomorphic figures and cupmarks (via cupules) on the ground at the Nazca Mystery Rock, using star positions via Starry Night Pro, http://astronomy.starrynight.com/. Click the image to see it in larger format.

Via the above image one can see that the Nazca Mystery Rock has a male head profile drawn in the stars with the crown of the head at Delta Andromedae and a female head profile just below that with the eye at about the level of Zeta Andromedae, while most of the stars marked are stars of Pisces between the "upper" fish of Pisces to the left and the Great Square of Pegasus to the right, with the stars Eta Piscium marking the lower left corner and Gamma Pegasi (Algenib) marking the lower right hand corner of the Mystery Rock star group.

A fish, perhaps a depiction of a Peruvian Anchoveta, is pictured in the bottom middle. As the Wikipedia writes:

"[The Peruvian anchoveta] has yielded greater catches than any other single wild fish species in the world...." [emphasis added]

Surely that fish was also an important food source for Nazca fishermen in ancient days.

An additional figure is pictured on the rock at the right bottom, but hard to identify. We think perhaps it could be a child, i.e. the child of the man and woman previously mentioned. To the left, by the way, the man seems to have his hair tied in a long pig-tail, which could be seen as a serpent, but unlikely.

WHY are THESE STARS depicted at this MYSTERY ROCK?

In terms of dating, in the era around ca. 1150 A.D.,  the celestial meridian ran approximately through the center of the stars Delta Andromedae and Zeta Andromedae, thus putting the point of the Vernal Equinox virtually between them, right at the middle of stars we today view as Pisces, the fish. That same line then continued on to Beta Ceti, i.e. Diphda in Cetus.

Note that the right ascension of the star Beta Ceti (Diphda in Cetus)
-- where our Native America land survey by astronomy hits its most southeastern point in the Northern Hemisphere --
is virtually identical to the right ascension of the star Zeta Andromedae in the middle of this mystery rock.

Via the Wikipedia for Beta Ceti

Constellation	Cetus
Right ascension	00h 43m 35.37090s[1]
Declination	–17° 59′ 11.7827″[1]
Apparent magnitude (V)	2.02[2]

Via the Wikipedia for Zeta Andromedae

Constellation	Andromeda
Right ascension	00h 47m 20.3254s[1]
Declination	+24° 16′ 01.841″[1]
Apparent magnitude (V)	3.92 to 4.14[2]

Right ascension for a star is comparable astronomically to terrestrial longitude. 

Beta Ceti has a declination that is ca. 42 degrees from Zeta Andromedae, and so the angular separation between the two stars is ca. 42 degrees.

The latitude of the Miami Circle is 25°46'10.05"N
The latitude of the Mystery Rock at Nazca is 14°39'5.29"S
The latitudinal distance between the two locations is thus nearly 42 degrees. Perhaps one served as a celestial and terrestrial measure for the other.

Hence, the two stars could be closely related in the Native America land survey by astronomy, and Nazca could be viewed as a continuation of the general North/South survey into the Southern Hemisphere. After all, the Miami Circle, as we have deciphered it, shows stars of the Southern Hemisphere, as they are visible at Nazca, Peru. Moreover, Cetus, the Whale, marks the end of the Nazca Lines fields at the southernmost corner of those fields. Hence, these stars surely served a celestial and terrestrial measurement function at Nazca.

Another possible era for the Mystery Rock image, however, is the era around 1000 B.C., when the celestial equator marked a line which is the bottom limit of the rock figures, i.e. the line from approximately the stars Eta Piscium marking the lower left corner and Gamma Pegasi (Algenib) marking the lower right hand corner of the Mystery Rock star group. Which date is correct?

Accordingly, we need to return to Florida for more detailed decipherment material, which begins in the next posting.

THIS POSTING IS Posting Number 60 of
The Great Mound, Petroglyph and Painted Rock Art Journey of Native America

The Nazca (Nasca) Mystery Image Deciphered as Anthropomorphic and Cupmark (Cupule) Marking of Stars of Andromeda and Pisces on Earth