tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-69156982024-03-14T06:29:20.063+01:00Ancient World BlogUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger849125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6915698.post-11161251805918540052022-03-19T15:08:00.003+01:002022-03-21T16:14:25.341+01:00Serrania de la Lindosa Colombia South America Rock Art Wall Painting Section Deciphered as a Sky Map of the Southern Stars ca. 3000 B.C.<p style="text-align: justify;">At CNN, Katie Hunt this month in her article <br /><a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2022/03/07/americas/rock-art-colombia-scn/index.html" target="_blank">Controversial rock art may depict extinct giants of the ice age</a><br />featured a section of the rock art wall paintings of Serrania de la Lindosa<br />in the Colombian Amazon rainforest,<br />an image of which section of rock art can be found at:</p><p><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/220307082103-01-rock-art-colombia-scn-exlarge-169.jpg&source=gmail&ust=1647779933328000&usg=AOvVaw0tiQMylVBU_wxJ9tJnvAn8" href="https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/220307082103-01-rock-art-colombia-scn-exlarge-169.jpg" target="_blank">https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/<wbr></wbr>dam/assets/220307082103-01-<wbr></wbr>rock-art-colombia-scn-exlarge-<wbr></wbr>169.jpg<br /></a></p><p>We have deciphered that particular section of the wall painting below, finding it to be astronomical in nature and -- via the painted figures -- to depict the starry sky of the night as a sky map of the southern stars as seen from the wall painting Colombian location. </p><p>Below is our decipherment, comparing the wall painting to what we allege are the comparable stars depicted, as shown by our clip of the comparable heavens using <a href="https://starrynight.com/starry-night-8-professional-astronomy-telescope-control-software.html" target="_blank">Starry Night Pro astronomy software</a> (click on the image for a larger graphic);<br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhWuc-wmsd3PZJnctndZn4Lzey21OyCGMG5ExNLquCADHo32HbQB0r4T071lP4U_EiIdWGF1voFB1QH9282ldQCm9vpOBSZH4PnezFHOPf4lIvBzCabpNaUIc0ZTZTMe0Ak0Lo6cx5sKRhZuW9DvTTqUGKwMvvZmSXkXVuyH_DIrxsgEpZSjiY=s992" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="992" data-original-width="867" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhWuc-wmsd3PZJnctndZn4Lzey21OyCGMG5ExNLquCADHo32HbQB0r4T071lP4U_EiIdWGF1voFB1QH9282ldQCm9vpOBSZH4PnezFHOPf4lIvBzCabpNaUIc0ZTZTMe0Ak0Lo6cx5sKRhZuW9DvTTqUGKwMvvZmSXkXVuyH_DIrxsgEpZSjiY=w559-h640" width="559" /></a></div><p></p><p>In our opinion, the alleged age of the wall painting(s) by mainstream academia as being more than 12000 years old is extremely doubtful, expecially since the stars of Sagittarius seem to be clearly depicted as a horse-mounted rider, which is a much more recent rendering of the stars of that stellar constellation.</p><p>Based upon the wall painting's portrayal of the southern stars with Crux at the approximate horizontal middle of the painting, and taking into account the scope of the painting as running from approximately Canis Major on the left to Sagittarius and Scorpio on the right, which latter approximately mark the Autumn Equinox ca. 3000 B.C., we consider a date in that much later ambit to be far more likely.</p>
<p>Please note: the label for the stars of Ophiuchus was inadvertently pushed
upward when adding text to the image. It should be lower to the right
below Scorpius, where there is a large head profile. It will be corrected when we can get back to image work.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6915698.post-26375336244238458502022-02-15T14:27:00.000+01:002022-02-15T14:27:25.653+01:00Zinātnes pētījumi un mēmu un memētikas loma: kas nosaka patieso patiesību? Science Research and the Role of Memes and Memetics : What Defines the Real Truth? Google Translate Latvian Translation of the English Language Original <p style="text-align: justify;">Some
years ago, Google Translate translations of text in blog postings were
at best "moderately useful", but required substantial manual editing to
obtain sufficient accuracy.
Accordingly, it occurred to us recently that we should look anew at
Google Translate translations of our materials for the two
languages other than English that we ourselves speak fluently, German
and Latvian.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The
following translations (one here and one in the previous posting) are
thus samples of Google Translate today, that we hope are representative
for other languages as well. The translations are stunningly good,
providing very useful results, but with a few exceptions, that in part
surely depend on the writing clarity or unclarity of the original text.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">One
practical feature of Google Translate translations that we like is also
that, when the reader hovers the mouse over a Google Translate
translation of online material, the original text of the sentence
underneath the mouse is shown in a text box. Try it out.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b>Below is the Google Translate Latvian translation, without substantial subsequent editing</b> [minor edits in brackets]<b>,</b> of <a href="https://lawpundit.blogspot.com/2022/02/science-research-and-role-of-memes-and.html" target="_blank">Science Research and the Role of Memes and Memetics : What Defines the Real Truth?</a> with that title translated by Google Translate into Latvian as <b>Zinātnes pētījumi un mēmu un memētikas loma: kas nosaka patieso patiesību?</b> <br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">"<span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Būdams
Stanfordas Universitātes Juridiskās fakultātes absolvents, pašreizējais
autors ar prieku lasīja žurnālā Scientific American pie </span></span><a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/science-research-needs-an-overhaul/" target="_blank"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Science Research Needs an Overhaul</span></span></a><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">, ka Džons PA Joannidis pirms dažiem gadiem līdzdibināja jaunu centru Stanfordas Universitātē ar nosaukumu </span></span><a href="https://metrics.stanford.edu/" target="_blank"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">METRICS</span></span></a><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"> ("</span></span><a href="https://metrics.stanford.edu/" target="_blank"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Meta-pētniecība". </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Inovāciju centrs Stanfordā</span></span></a><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"> ), lai risinātu dārgo problēmu, ka liela daļa galveno pētījumu tiek izšķiesti</span></span>.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;"></span><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Ioannidis
atsaucas uz vadošo medicīnas periodisko izdevumu The Lancet, kas
apgalvo, ka šie "atkritumi" attiecas pat uz 85% medicīnas pētījumu, tā
saukto "cieto" zinātni.</span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Cik slikti tad ir lietas mīkstajās zinātnēs, kur pierādījumu standarts, iespējams, ir zemāks nekā medicīniskajos pētījumos?</span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Ioannidis raksta, ka METRICS centrs:</span></span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">"</span></span><span style="color: #0b5394;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Mēģināsim
izpētīt pētniecības praksi un to, kā to var optimizēt. Tajā tiks
pārbaudīti labākie līdzekļi pētniecības protokolu un programmu
izstrādei, lai nodrošinātu, ka rezultāti nav strupceļi, bet gan bruģē
ceļu uz priekšu. Dariet to, izpētot, kādi ir labākie veidi, kā padarīt
zinātnisko izpēti uzticamāku un efektīvāku</span></span></span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"> .</span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Mēs ar entuziasmu atzinīgi vērtējam šo attīstību.</span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Mēs
gadiem ilgi esam saskārušies ar lētticīgiem, neinformētiem un
[pašpārliecinātiem] cilvēkiem gan zinātnē, gan ārpus tās, kas sludina galveno
ideju un pētniecības metožu gandrīz nekļūdīgumu, un mums patiešām ir maz
pacietības pret šādām muļķībām.</span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Paši mācīdami pētniecību universitātes līmenī, no pieredzes zinām, ka patiesība ir tieši pretēja tam, ko apgalvo zinātne...</span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">un
patiesība ir tāda, ka liela daļa no tā, kas tiek pētīts zinātnē, un tas
ir salīdzinošais pārskats, kas publicēts šo pētījumu rezultātā, ir
dārga laika izšķiešana un bieži vien virza zinātni nepareizā virzienā. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Salīdzinošās pārskatīšanas process daļēji ir paredzēts, lai izpūstu valdošo iestāžu spalvas. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">"Patiesība" ir sekundāra lieta.</span></span><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Viens
no galvenajiem iemesliem šīm "zinātniskās izpētes" muļķībām, kā mēs
esam vairākkārt rakstījuši, ir tas, ka zinātne pagātnē galvenokārt bija
"balstīta uz autoritātēm", t.i., nevis "kas", bet gan "kurš" nosaka
patiesību zinātnē, un šī novecojusi prakse ir radījusi milzīgas kļūdas. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Pirms
modernā laikmeta rītausmas "uz autoritātēm balstīta" zinātne bija
nepieciešama, jo autoritātes bija galvenā zināšanu krātuve. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Bet mūsdienu laikmetā tas ir ļoti mainījies.</span></span><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Paskatieties
uz COVID-19 koronavīrusa pandēmiju, kurā, neraugoties uz varonīgajiem
centieniem, pēdējos divos gados ir bijušas grūtības iedibinātajām
zinātnēm. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">"Zinātnei" vajadzēja būt labāk sagatavotai pandēmijai, nekā tā bija. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Kāpēc tā nebija?</span></span><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Zinātnes fokusa maiņa ir absolūti nepieciešama. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Pagātnē
dominējošie standarti, kad zinātnē valdīja tā sauktās "autoritātes",
pašlaik mūsu digitālajā laikmetā bieži vien ir nevietā, kad ikviens, kas
vēlas, tiešsaistē var meklēt gandrīz visu, ko vēlas. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Pēdējā analīzē viena autoritāte šodien ir tikai vēl viens viedoklis. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Lai nodrošinātu drošāku cilvēka nākotni, rītdienas zinātnei ir jābalstās uz zināmiem faktiem, nevis uz zināmām autoritātēm.</span></span><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Mūsu digitālajā laikmetā galvenā prioritāte ir jāpiešķir "uz pierādījumiem balstītai izpētei".</span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">No novecojušiem mēmiem ir lēnām jāatsakās.</span></span></span><br /></b></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Bet kas ir </span></span><a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/what-defines-a-meme-1904778/" target="_blank"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">mēmes</span></span></a><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"> ?</span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme" target="_blank"><b><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Mēms</span></span></b></a><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">
ir termins, ko ieviesis Ričards Dokinss, Oksfordas universitātes
Anglijā emeritētais profesors sabiedrības izpratnes jautājumos par
zinātni.</span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Mēmas parasti tiek definētas kā "</span></span><b><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">atkārtotas idejas, simboli vai prakse</span></span></b><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">".</span></span><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Mēs uzskatām, ka mēmi apraksta galvenās zinātnes stāvokli jebkurā laikā un izskaidro daudzas tās novirzes. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Mēmas darbojas kā vīrusi (vai gēni).</span></span><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Mēma </span></span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme" target="_blank"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Vikipēdijā</span></span></a><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"> ir definēta kā:</span></span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #0b5394;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">""</span></span><span style="color: #cc0000;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">[Ideja, uzvedība vai stils, kas kultūras ietvaros izplatās no cilvēka uz cilvēku. </span></span></span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">"Mēma
darbojas kā kultūras ideju, simbolu vai prakses vienība, ko var pārnest
no viena prāta uz otru, izmantojot rakstīšanu, runu, žestus, rituālus
vai citas atdarināmas parādības ar atdarinātu tēmu. Koncepcijas
atbalstītāji uzskata, ka mēmes ir kultūras analogi gēniem, jo tie paši
replikējas, mutē un reaģē uz selektīvu spiedienu... Vārdu mēms ieviesa
britu evolūcijas biologs Ričards Dokinss [Richard Dawkins] ... kā jēdzienu diskusijām par
evolūcijas principiem, izskaidrojot ideju izplatību un kultūras
parādības. Mēmu piemēri, kas sniegti [izdevumā The Selfish Gene],
ietvēra melodijas, īstās frāzes, modi un arku veidošanas tehnoloģiju."</span></span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Mūsuprāt,
to, ko akadēmiskajā vidē parasti sauc par "domu skolu", precīzāk definē
kā "mēmu", jo "domai" bieži nav nekā kopīga ar to. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Drīzāk idejas, pareizi vai nepareizi, iesakņojas dažādās zinātnes disciplīnās un izplatās tā, it kā tām būtu sava dzīve. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Tas pats attiecas uz politiku un reliģiju. </span><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Cilvēki tic lietām aiz ieraduma, nekam vairāk.</span></span><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><b><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Patiesība nemaz nav problēma.</span></span></b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Drīzāk, kā rakstīts Wikipedia par </span></span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memetics" target="_blank"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Memetics</span></span></a><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"> : </span></span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">"</span></span><b><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Memētika</span></span></b><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="color: #0b5394;">
ir garīgā satura teorija, kas balstīta uz analoģiju ar Darvina
evolūciju... Piekritēji apraksta memetiku kā pieeju kultūras
informācijas nodošanas evolūcijas modeļiem... Tāpat kā ģenētikā, īpaši
Dokinsa [Dawkins] interpretācijā, mēma panākumi var būt tas ir saistīts ar tā
ieguldījumu tās saimnieka efektivitātē.</span>"</span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><b><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Attiecīgi
un pretēji priekšstatam, ka "patiesība" ir mērķis zinātnē vai citur,
cilvēki tādējādi faktiski pieturas pie dotas idejas, domas skolas,
kultūras prakses vai reliģijas </span></span><span style="color: red;"><i><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">, jo konkrētas mēmas piekritēji to uztver kā tādu, kas nodrošina tās turētājus tas mēms ar priekšrocībām.</span></span></i></span></b> </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Šī
būtiskā izpratne palīdz izskaidrot daudzas novirzes, kuras var atklāt
zinātnē, jo, domājams, "racionālie" cilvēki stingri turas pie sen
novecojušām idejām un veidiem, kā uz lietām skatīties, kas bieži ir
pretrunā ar pieejamajiem pierādījumiem.</span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Mēs skatāmies uz pierādījumiem! </span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="vertical-align: inherit;">Tas ir tas, kas nosaka mūsu darbu.</span></span></span></p><p><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6915698.post-82386562847297655202022-02-15T14:23:00.000+01:002022-02-15T14:23:09.067+01:00Wissenschaftsforschung und die Rolle von Memen und Memetik: Was definiert die wahre Wahrheit? A Stunningly Good Google Translate German Language Translation of Our Original English Language Posting<p style="text-align: justify;">Some years ago, Google Translate translations of blog postings were at best "moderately useful", but required substantial manual editing to obtain sufficient accuracy.
Accordingly, it occurred to us recently that we should look anew at Google Translate translations of blogpostings for the two languages other than English that we ourselves speak fluently, German and Latvian.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The following translations (one here and one in the posting following) are thus samples of Google Translate today, that we hope are representative for other languages as well. The translations are stunningly good, providing very useful results, but with a few exceptions, that in part surely depend on the writing clarity or unclarity of the original text.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">One practical feature of Google Translate translations that we like is also that, when the reader hovers the mouse over a Google Translate translation of online material, the original text of the sentence underneath the mouse is shown in a text box. Try it out.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b>Below is the Google Translate German translation, without substantial subsequent editing </b>[a few manual edits in brackets]<b>,</b> of <a href="https://lawpundit.blogspot.com/2022/02/science-research-and-role-of-memes-and.html" target="_blank">Science Research and the Role of Memes and Memetics : What Defines the Real Truth?</a> with that title translated by Google Translate into German as <b>Wissenschaftsforschung und die Rolle von Memen und Memetik: Was definiert die wahre Wahrheit?</b> </p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">"Als Absolvent der juristischen Fakultät der Stanford University war der vorliegende Autor erfreut, im Scientific American at <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/science-research-needs-an-overhaul/" target="_blank">Science Research Needs an Overhaul</a> zu lesen, dass John P.A. Ioannidis vor einigen Jahren ein neues Zentrum an der Stanford University namens <a href="https://metrics.stanford.edu/" target="_blank">METRICS</a> ("the <a href="https://metrics.stanford.edu/" target="_blank">Meta-Research Innovation Center at Stanford</a>") [etabliert hat], um das kostspielige Problem anzugehen, dass viel Mainstream-Forschung verschwendet wird.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Ioannidis zitiert die führende medizinische Zeitschrift The Lancet, die behauptet, dass diese „Verschwendung“ sogar für 85 % der medizinischen Forschung gilt, einer sogenannten „harten“ Wissenschaft.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Wie schlecht steht es dann in den Soft Sciences, wo der Beweisstandard wahrscheinlich niedriger ist als in der medizinischen Forschung?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Ioannidis schreibt, dass das METRICS-Zentrum:</span></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #0b5394; font-size: medium;">„Ich werde versuchen, Forschungspraktiken zu untersuchen, und zu untersuchen wie diese optimiert werden können. Es wird die besten Mittel zur Gestaltung von Forschungsprotokollen und -agenden untersuchen, um sicherzustellen, dass die Ergebnisse keine Sackgassen sind, sondern vielmehr einen Weg nach vorne ebnen. Das Zentrum wird dies tun [...], indem Sie untersuchen, was die besten Möglichkeiten sind, um wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zuverlässiger und effizienter zu gestalten."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Diese Entwicklung begrüßen wir ausdrücklich.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Wir sind seit Jahren mit leichtgläubigen, uninformierten und eigensinnigen Menschen innerhalb und außerhalb der Wissenschaft konfrontiert, die die nahezu Unfehlbarkeit von Mainstream-Ideen und Forschungsmethoden verkünden, und wir haben wirklich wenig Geduld für solche Torheiten.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Da wir selbst Forschung an der Universität gelehrt haben, wissen wir aus Erfahrung, dass genau das Gegenteil von dem gilt, was die Wissenschaft behauptet...</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">und wahr ist, dass viel von dem, was in der Wissenschaft erforscht wird, und das als Ergebnis dieser Forschung veröffentlichte Peer-Reviews eine kostspielige Zeitverschwendung sind und die Wissenschaft oft in die falsche Richtung führen. Der Peer-Review-Prozess existiert teilweise, um die Federn der amtierenden Behörden aufzuplustern. „Wahrheit“ ist Nebensache.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Ein Hauptgrund für diese Torheiten der „wissenschaftlichen Forschung“, wie wir immer wieder geschrieben haben, ist, dass die Wissenschaft in der Vergangenheit überwiegend „autoritätsbasiert“ war, dh nicht das „Was“, sondern das „Wer“. bestimmt die Wahrheit in der Wissenschaft, und diese veraltete Praxis hat zu massiven Fehlern geführt. Vor dem Anbruch der Moderne war eine „autoritätsbasierte“ Wissenschaft notwendig, da Autoritäten die wichtigsten Wissensspeicher waren. Aber das hat sich in der Neuzeit stark geändert.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Schauen Sie sich nur die COVID-19-Coronavirus-Pandemie an, bei der die etablierten Wissenschaften in den letzten zwei Jahren trotz heldenhafter Bemühungen ihre Schwierigkeiten hatten. Die „Wissenschaft“ hätte besser auf die Pandemie vorbereitet sein müssen, als sie es war. Warum nicht?</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Eine Verschiebung des Fokus der Wissenschaft ist unbedingt erforderlich. Die vorherrschenden Standards der Vergangenheit, als sogenannte "Autoritäten" die Wissenschaft beherrschten, sind heute in unserem digitalen Zeitalter, in dem jeder, der will, fast alles, was er will, online nachschlagen kann, oft fehl am Platz. Letzten Endes ist eine Autorität heute nur noch eine Meinung. Um eine sicherere menschliche Zukunft zu gewährleisten, muss die Wissenschaft von morgen auf bekannten Tatsachen beruhen, nicht auf bekannten Autoritäten.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">„Evidence-Based Research“ muss in unserem digitalen Zeitalter oberste Priorität haben.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #990000;"><b>Veraltete Memes müssen langsam aufgegeben werden.</b></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Aber was sind <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/what-defines-a-meme-1904778/" target="_blank">Meme</a>?</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme" target="_blank">Meme</a> ist ein Begriff, der von Richard Dawkins, emeritierter Professor für Public Understanding of Science an der Universität Oxford in England, geprägt wurde.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Meme werden allgemein als „ nachgebildete Ideen, Symbole oder Praktiken “ definiert.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Wir sehen Meme als Beschreibung des Standes der Mainstream-Wissenschaft zu einem bestimmten Zeitpunkt und als Erklärung für viele ihrer Abweichungen. Meme verhalten sich wie Viren (oder Gene).</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Ein <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme" target="_blank">Meme</a> wird bei Wikipedia wie folgt definiert:</span></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">„“ <span style="color: #cc0000;">[Ein]e Idee, Verhaltensweise oder Stilrichtung, die sich innerhalb einer Kultur von Person zu Person verbreitet.</span>„ <span style="color: #0b5394;">Ein Meme fungiert als eine Einheit, um kulturelle Ideen, Symbole oder Praktiken zu transportieren, die durch Schreiben, Sprache, Gesten, Rituale oder andere nachahmbare Phänomene mit einem nachgeahmten Thema von einem Geist zum anderen übertragen werden können. Befürworter des Konzepts betrachten Meme als kulturelle Analoga zu Genen, da sie sich selbst replizieren, mutieren und auf Selektionsdruck reagieren ... Das Wort Meme wurde vom britischen Evolutionsbiologen Richard Dawkins geprägt ... als Konzept zur Diskussion evolutionärer Prinzipien zur Erklärung der Verbreitung von Ideen und kulturelle Phänomene. Beispiele für Meme, die [in The Selfish Gene] gegeben wurden, waren Melodien, Schlagworte, Mode und die Technologie des Baus von Bögen.</span>"</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Was in der Wissenschaft normalerweise als „Schule des Denkens“ bezeichnet wird, ist unserer Ansicht nach genauer als „<a href="https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mem" target="_blank">Mem</a>“ definiert, da „Denken“ oft nichts damit zu tun hat. Vielmehr verankern sich Ideen, zu Recht oder zu Unrecht, in verschiedenen Wissenschaftsdisziplinen und verbreiten sich, als hätten sie ein Eigenleben. Dasselbe gilt für Politik und Religion. Die Leute glauben Dinge aus Gewohnheit, mehr nicht.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Die Wahrheit ist überhaupt nicht das Problem.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Vielmehr, wie bei Wikipedia über <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memetics" target="_blank">Memetics</a> geschrieben:</span></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">„<b>Memetik<span style="color: #0b5394;"> </span></b><span style="color: #0b5394;">ist eine Theorie des mentalen Inhalts, die auf einer Analogie zur darwinistischen Evolution basiert.... Befürworter beschreiben die Memetik als eine Annäherung an evolutionäre Modelle der kulturellen Informationsübertragung auf seinen Beitrag zur Leistungsfähigkeit seines Gastgebers zurückzuführen sein.</span>"</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Dementsprechend und im Gegensatz zu der Vorstellung, dass „Wahrheit“ das Ziel in der Wissenschaft oder anderswo ist, halten Menschen tatsächlich an einer bestimmten Idee, Denkschule, kulturellen Praxis oder Religion fest, [weil die Anhänger eines bestimmten Mems es als Vorteil für die Inhaber dieses Mems wahrnehmen.].
Dieses grundlegende Verständnis hilft, viele Abweichungen zu erklären, die in der Wissenschaft entdeckt werden können, wobei [angeblich] "rationale" Menschen an längst überholten Ideen und Sichtweisen festhalten, oft im Widerspruch zu den verfügbaren Beweisen.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Wir schauen auf die beweiskräftigen Beweise!</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Das macht unsere Arbeit aus."</span></p><p> </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6915698.post-4123264965156385792022-02-12T16:48:00.000+01:002022-02-12T16:48:02.133+01:00The Ancient Stargazing Origins of Timekeeping and Navigation : Celestial Chronology, Land Survey, and Mapmaking (Cartography) by Astronomy<p>Prehistoric Mankind's Primary Technologies Were Rooted in Astronomy and the Prevailing Economies Were Based on Land and Property, Mapped via the Stars<br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">To understand the development of human civilization, it is important to recognize that mankind's first "scientific" technologies were arguably based on primitive "stargazing", i.e. what we modernly call "astronomy".</p><p style="text-align: justify;">No less a thinker than Bertrand Russell wrote in <a href="https://www.abebooks.com/book-search/title/human-knowledge/author/russell-bertrand/" target="_blank">Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits</a> (Simon and Schuster, Clarion Books, New York, 1948) that:</p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #0b5394;">"Astronomy is the oldest of the sciences, and the contemplation of the heavens, with their periodic regularities, gave men their first conceptions of natural law."</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Furthermore, there is a direct connection to astronomy in terms of both land survey and land or sea navigation, as written at the Wikipedia under <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveying" target="_blank">Surveying</a>:</p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #0b5394;">"The primary way of determining one's position on the earth's surface when no known positions are nearby is by astronomic observations. Observations to the sun, moon and stars could all be made using navigational techniques. Once the instrument's position and bearing to a star is determined, the bearing can be transferred to a reference point on the earth and which can then be used as a base for further observations. Survey-accurate astronomic positions were difficult to observe and calculate and so tended to be a base off which many other measurements were made. Since the advent of the GPS system, astronomic observations are rare as GPS allows positions to be determined adequately over most of the surface of the earth."</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Since human survival has at all times depended on either ownership or control of actual physical territory on our planet Earth, that same astronomy served as the simplest way to map out that territory, with maps made to mirror the ever-present and ready-made sky map of the heavens, "as above, so below".</p><p>At our <a href="http://www.megaliths.net/">Megaliths.net</a> website on megalithic cultures we have written:</p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #0b5394;">"As observed by Alice Cunningham Fletcher (Alice C. Fletcher) in her 1902 publication in the American Anthropologist, there is ample evidence that some ancient cultures, e.g. the Pawnee in Nebraska, geographically located their villages according to patterns seen in stars of the heavens. Fletcher, A. C. (1902), Star Cult Among the Pawnee – A Preliminary Report, American Anthropologist, 4:730–736. doi:10.1525/aa.1902.4.4.02a00050."</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;">To the importance of astronomy for ancient peoples we can add timekeeping, as written some time ago at <a href="http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/observational-astronomy/timekeeping" target="_blank">Curious About Astronomy</a>:</p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #0b5394;">"In ancient times, the practical need for timekeeping and navigation was one of the primary reasons for the study of astronomy. The celestial origins of timekeeping and navigation are still evident."</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;">In spite of the above observations, anthropologists and archaeologists worldwide generally proceed in their academic work as if the ancients knew more or less nothing of astronomy and, furthermore, placed little or no importance upon it for land survey, navigation, timekeeping and chronology, whereas the probative evidence that we have increasingly found presents exactly the opposite picture.</p><p>Astronomy DOMINATED the ancient world.
</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6915698.post-41629164535176978332022-02-12T16:06:00.004+01:002022-02-12T16:06:53.341+01:00The Study of the History of Civilization : The Battle Against Monopolistically-Inclined Thinking<div style="font-family: verdana;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="text-align: center;">The Study of the History of Civilization: The Battle Against Monopolistically-Inclined Thinking</span></span><br /> </div><div style="font-family: verdana; text-align: justify;">The "<b>History of Civilization</b>" is a concept which many people in academia misunderstand, thinking the study of the history of culture and technology to be the realm of specialized vested-interest historians or monopolist-like professions.</div><div style="font-family: verdana;"> </div><div style="font-family: verdana; text-align: justify;">Alternatively seen, when we speak of the history of civilization, we must consider that the actual progress of mankind may have been substantially different than currently portrayed in over-creative, oft unsubstantiated documentaries on television or other media. Indeed, it is very likely that the "priests" of ancient cultures were, above all, less interested in pots and pottery, the realm of modern Archaeology, but were rather stargazers and land surveyors, comparable in their day to our astronomers and mapmakers.</div><div style="font-family: verdana;"> </div><div style="font-family: verdana;">As written by John Bedell at Bensozia in
<a href="http://benedante.blogspot.de/2011/09/aztec-surveying.html"><span style="color: blue;">Aztec Surveying</span></a>:</div><div style="font-family: verdana;"> </div><div style="font-family: verdana; margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #cc0000;">"The two things that drove mathematical progress in ancient civilizations were land surveying and astronomy."</span></div><div style="font-family: verdana;"> </div><div style="font-family: verdana; text-align: justify;">"<b>Civilization</b>" thus may encompass a broader perspective than that presented to us by current science, and we need to grant such a possibility a greater audience.</div><div style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: verdana; text-align: justify;">
We quote Winston S. Churchill, “Civilization,” Chancellor’s Address,
University of Bristol, July 2, 1938, via Niall Ferguson in <a href="http://books.google.de/">Civilization: The West
and the Rest</a> and Michael Kaplan at <a href="http://newjacksonianblog.blogspot.de/2011/12/winston-churchill-on-meaning-of.html">The New Jacksonian Blog</a>, citing to Winston S. Churchill, <a href="http://www.biblio.com/bookstore/the-history-place/winston-s-churchill-speeches-page-1~22cc6~1e50ef">Blood, Sweat, and Tears</a>, Randolph S. Churchill, ed. (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1941), pp. 45-46:</div><div style="font-family: verdana;"> </div><div style="font-family: verdana; margin-left: 40px; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #0b5394;">"There are few words which are used more loosely than the word “Civilization.”
What does it mean?</span></div><div style="font-family: verdana; margin-left: 40px; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #0b5394;"> </span></div><div style="font-family: verdana; margin-left: 40px; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #0b5394;">It means a society based upon the opinion of civilians. It means
that violence, the rule of warriors and despotic chiefs, the conditions of
camps and warfare, of riot and tyranny, give place to parliaments where laws
are made, and independent courts of justice in which over long periods those
laws are maintained.</span></div><div style="font-family: verdana; margin-left: 40px; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #0b5394;"> </span></div><div style="font-family: verdana; margin-left: 40px; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #0b5394;">That is Civilization—and in its soil grow continually
freedom, comfort and culture.
When Civilization reigns, in any country, a wider
and less harassed life is afforded to the masses of the people. The traditions of the past are cherished, and the inheritance bequeathed to us by former wise or valiant men becomes a rich estate to be enjoyed and used by all.</span></div><div style="font-family: verdana; margin-left: 40px; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #0b5394;"> </span></div><div style="font-family: verdana; margin-left: 40px; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #0b5394;">The central principle of Civilization is the subordination of the ruling authority to the settled customs of the people and to their will as expressed through the Constitution.</span></div><div style="font-family: verdana; margin-left: 40px; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #0b5394;"> </span></div><div style="font-family: verdana; margin-left: 40px; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #0b5394;">In this Island [Great Britain] we have today achieved in a high degree the
blessings of Civilization. There is freedom: there is [the rule of] law; there is love of
country; there is a great measure of good will between classes: there is a widening prosperity. There are unmeasured opportunities of correcting abuses and making further progress."</span></div><div style="font-family: verdana;"> </div><div style="font-family: verdana; text-align: justify;">Despite those wonderful words of wisdom by Winston Churchill more than 80 years ago, we today live in an allegedly "modern" era where the cardinal virtues of Civilization are greatly under siege and where we can only view the future with a certain amount of trepidation. World news is still dominated daily by conflict and strife rather than by progress and peace. Science still suffers from great and <a href="https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/colossal">colossal</a> failings, despite heroic efforts, as the current pandemic teaches us all.</div><div style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: verdana; text-align: justify;">It may of course be argued that Civilization always wins in the end and moves onward or even forward, but it is always a battle against the forces of yesteryear and against various monopolistically inclined nations, groups, religions, organizations, and schools of thought, that always have -- and today continue -- to strive to bind mankind in the chains of blindered ignorance and superstition.</div><div style="font-family: verdana;"> </div><div style="font-family: verdana; text-align: justify;">It is our duty, especially the best and most capable of us, to counter the selfish voices of despots and tyrants, small and large, whether in politics or academia.</div><div style="font-family: verdana; text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="font-family: verdana; text-align: justify;">We must lead positively into the future.<br /></div><div style="font-family: verdana;"> </div><div style="font-family: verdana;">That is always the pioneer spirit behind our own work.</div><div style="font-family: verdana;"> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6915698.post-76557537551029768022022-02-12T16:03:00.002+01:002022-02-12T16:03:53.184+01:00Scientific Research and the Role of Memes and Memetics : What Defines the Real Truth?<p style="text-align: justify;">As a Stanford University Law School graduate, the present author was pleased to read in the Scientific American at <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/science-research-needs-an-overhaul/" target="_blank">Science Research Needs an Overhaul</a>, that John P. A. Ioannidis some years ago co-founded a new center at Stanford University called <a href="https://metrics.stanford.edu/" target="_blank">METRICS</a> ("the <a href="https://metrics.stanford.edu/" target="_blank">Meta-Research Innovation Center at Stanford</a>") to deal with the costly problem that much mainstream research is wasted.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Ioannidis cites to leading medical periodical, The Lancet, which avers that this "waste" applies even to 85% of medical research, a so-called "hard" science.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">How bad are things then in the soft sciences, where the standard of proof is likely lower than in medical research?</p><p>Ioannidis writes that the METRICS center:</p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: justify;">"<span style="color: #0b5394;">[W]ill seek to study research practices and how these can be optimized. It will examine the best means of designing research protocols and agendas to ensure that the results are not dead ends but rather that they pave a path forward. The center will do so by exploring what are the best ways to make scientific investigation more reliable and efficient.</span>"</p><p>We enthusiastically applaud this development.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">We have been confronted for years by gullible, uninformed, and opinionated people in and out of science proclaiming the near infallibility of mainstream ideas and research methods and we really have little patience for such follies.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Having taught research ourselves at the university level, we know from experience that exactly the opposite of what is claimed by science is true...</p><p style="text-align: justify;">and what is true is that much of what is researched in science and that is peer-review published as a result of that research is a costly waste of time and often leads science in the wrong directions. The peer-review process exists in part to fluff the feathers of the reigning authorities. "Truth" is a secondary matter.<br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">One main reason for these follies of "scientific research", as we have written time and time again, is that science in the past has been predominantly "authority-based", i.e. it is not the "what" but the "who" that determines truth in science, and this outdated practice has led to massive errors. Before the dawn of the modern age, "authority-based" science was necessary since authorities were the key repositories of knowledge. But that has greatly changed in the modern era.<br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Just look at the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic where the established sciences have had their difficulties the past two years, despite heroic efforts. "Science" should have been better prepared for the pandemic than it was. Why was it not?<br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">A shift in the focus of science is absolutely necessary. The prevailing standards of the past, when so-called "authorities" ruled the roost in science, are currently often misplaced in our digital age when anyone who wishes can look up nearly anything they want online. In the last analysis, one authority today is just one more opinion. In order to insure a more secure human future, the science of tomorrow must be based upon known facts, not upon known authorities.<br /></p><p>"Evidence-Based Research" must be given top priority in our digital age.</p><p><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Outdated memes must be slowly abandoned.</span><br /></b></span></p><p>But what are <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/what-defines-a-meme-1904778/" target="_blank">memes</a>?</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme" target="_blank"><b>Meme</b></a> is a term coined by Richard Dawkins, emeritus Professor for Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University in England.</p><p>Memes are defined generally as "<b>replicated ideas, symbols or practices</b>".<br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">We view memes as describing the state of mainstream science at any given time and to explain many of its aberrations. Memes act like viruses (or genes).<br /></p><p>A <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme" target="_blank">meme</a> is defined at the Wikipedia as:</p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #0b5394;">""<span style="color: #cc0000;">[A]n idea, behavior, or style that spreads from person to person within a culture.</span>" A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols, or practices that can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals, or other imitable phenomena with a mimicked theme. Supporters of the concept regard memes as cultural analogues to genes in that they self-replicate, mutate, and respond to selective pressures.... The word meme was coined by British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins ... as a concept for discussion of evolutionary principles in explaining the spread of ideas and cultural phenomena. Examples of memes given [in The Selfish Gene] included melodies, catch-phrases, fashion, and the technology of building arches."</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;">In our view, what is normally called a "school of thought" in academia is more accurately defined as being a "meme", because "thought" often has nothing to do with it. Rather, ideas, rightly or wrongly, become entrenched in various disciplines of science and propagate themselves as if they had a life of their own. The same is true for politics and religion. People believe things out of habit, nothing more.<br /></p><p><b>Truth is not at all the issue.</b></p><p>Rather, as written at Wikipedia about <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memetics" target="_blank">Memetics</a>: </p><p style="text-align: justify;">"<b>Memetics</b> is a theory of mental content based on an analogy with Darwinian evolution.... Proponents describe memetics as an approach to evolutionary models of cultural information transfer.... As with genetics, particularly under a Dawkinsian interpretation, a meme's success may be due to its contribution to the effectiveness of its host."</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b>Accordingly, and contrary to the notion that "truth" is the objective in science or elsewhere, people thus actually adhere to a given idea, school of thought, cultural practice or religion <span style="color: red;"><i>because the adherents of a particular meme perceive it as providing the holders of that meme with advantages.</i></span></b> </p><p style="text-align: justify;">That essential understanding helps to explain many aberrations that can be discovered in science whereby presumably "rational" people hold fast to long-outdated ideas and ways of looking at things, often at odds with the available probative evidence.</p><p>We look to the probative evidence! </p><p>That is what defines our work.</p><p> <br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6915698.post-73979904691367002072021-12-02T22:16:00.005+01:002021-12-14T09:47:13.223+01:00Stajnia Cave Poland Mammoth Ivory Pendant Dorsal Side Decipherment Corroborated by "Opposite Astronomy Stars" on the Ventral Side Carvings<div><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> No less a thinker than <a href="https://lawpundit.blogspot.com/2015_01_19_archive.html" target="_blank">Bertrand Russell wrote</a> in <a href="http://www.abebooks.com/book-search/title/human-knowledge/author/russell-bertrand/" target="_blank">Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits</a> (Simon and Schuster, Clarion Books, New York, 1948) that:<br />
</span></p><blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #0b5394;">"Astronomy
is the oldest of the sciences, and the contemplation of the heavens,</span><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #0b5394;">with their periodic regularities, gave men their first conceptions of
natural law."</span></div></blockquote><p style="text-align: center;"> <span style="font-family: verdana;">__________________________________________</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><a href="https://ancientworldblog.blogspot.com/2021/12/stajnia-cave-mammoth-ivory-pendant.html" target="_blank">Our previous decipherment</a> of the so-called "dorsal side" carvings on the Stajnia Cave mammoth ivory pendant is corroborated by our "flipping" the pendant over and deciphering the carvings on the "ventral side" of that same pendant, as found pictured at <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-01221-6/figures/1">https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-01221-6/figures/1</a>.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Critical, truly "scientific method"-oriented readers would arguably have examined this essential probative option on their own initiative -- right?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">and we are sure you did....</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Based upon our astronomical decipherment of the "dorsal side" of the pendant as representing midheaven stars ca. 7500 B.C., we would logically expect the "ventral side" to also represent stars, indeed, stars on the "other" side of Draco opposite that dorsal side, i.e. especially the stars of Cygnus, the swan.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">And so it is, as shown by our decipherment image of the ventral side below:</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: times;">The "Ventral Side" of the Stajnia Cave Mammoth Ivory Carved Pendant ca. 7500 B.C.<br />Our Decipherment of the Holes, Lines and Figures as Ancient Astronomy viz. "Stargazing"<br />Marking the Starry Night Stars of Midheaven<br />The underlying star map was created<br />via <a href="https://www.starrynight.com" target="_blank">Starry Night Pro astronomy software</a><br />while the explanatory marks are by Andis Kaulins of Traben-Trarbach<br />(click on the graphic to obtain our larger, original decipherment image)</span></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AcnvJsDf0oI/YakzrF3MfFI/AAAAAAAANd0/XX7UTn4YyCcV9Ldprq9Rp5Bw0o4iM-5rwCNcBGAsYHQ/s751/Stajnia%2BCave%2Bcarvings%2Bventral%2Bdeciphered%2Bby%2BKaullins.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="751" data-original-width="611" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AcnvJsDf0oI/YakzrF3MfFI/AAAAAAAANd0/XX7UTn4YyCcV9Ldprq9Rp5Bw0o4iM-5rwCNcBGAsYHQ/w520-h640/Stajnia%2BCave%2Bcarvings%2Bventral%2Bdeciphered%2Bby%2BKaullins.png" width="520" /></a></div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> We have been doing these kinds of decipherments for over 40 years now.</span></div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">One day, some smart mainstream "scientists" will take notice ....<br /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">I myself turn 75 years of youth tomorrow.</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">I greet my few loyal "smart" followers herewith.</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">You belong to the "chosen few" who want to know</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">what our human ancestors were really like</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">and how our concepts of who we are in this universe</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">including the origin of our heaven-centered religions <br /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">developed through the ancient study of the stars.</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The ancients sat around their campfires, </span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">looked up at the Milky Way,</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">and asked,</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">"Where -- in God's name -- are we?"</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">__________________________________________<br /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">No less a thinker than <a href="https://lawpundit.blogspot.com/2015_01_19_archive.html" target="_blank">Bertrand Russell</a> wrote in <a href="http://www.abebooks.com/book-search/title/human-knowledge/author/russell-bertrand/" target="_blank">Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits</a> (Simon and Schuster, Clarion Books, New York, 1948) that:<br />
</span></p><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: left;">
<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #0b5394;">"Astronomy
is the oldest of the sciences, and the contemplation of the heavens,</span><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #0b5394;">with their periodic regularities, gave men their first conceptions of
natural law."</span></div></div></blockquote><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">__________________________________________</span> <br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;"></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6915698.post-70270387483444590702021-12-01T23:11:00.007+01:002022-01-17T15:43:38.070+01:00Stajnia Cave Mammoth Ivory Pendant Carvings Deciphered by Andis Kaulins as Portraying the Midheaven Stars of the Starry Sky ca. 7500 B.C.<p>
<span style="font-family: verdana;">An article titled "<b>A 41,500 year-old decorated ivory pendant from Stajnia Cave (Poland)</b>" by Talamo, S., Urbanowski, M., Picin, A. et al. was presented at Nature Magazine's Scientific Reports, Sci Rep 11, 22078 (2021), <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-01221-6">https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-01221-6</a>. For the location of Stajnia Cave, please see the map at <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-71504-x">https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-71504-x</a>.<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">That same pendant has now subsequently appeared in <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-03534-y" target="_blank">Nature Magazine's News, November 29, 2021</a>, under the headline "<b>Is this mammoth-ivory pendant Eurasia’s oldest surviving jewellery?</b>", sub-headlined as
"<b>Radiocarbon dating suggests 41,500-year-old carved tusk fragment could be the region’s earliest known example of jewellery decorated by humans</b>." </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">We do not analyze here the dubious alternative interpretative explanations offered by the archaeological mainstream community for the significance of the ivory carvings on the mammoth <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pendant" target="_blank">pendant</a>, nor do we go into the radiocarbon dating of the mammoth ivory, whose carvings can of course be of a much later origin.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">There is in our opinion a clear and inescapable interpretation of the mammoth ivory carvings possible -- our decipherment -- as portraying the midheaven of stars of the starry night sky, which carvings we thus date to ca. 7500 B.C.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Our
date of ca. 7500 B.C. was selected because of our decipherment-required
position of the North Celestial Pole in that era. The position of the
North Celestial Pole changes slowly but continuously over a period of
ca. <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=axial+precession+25920&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8" target="_blank">25920 years</a> due to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axial_precession" target="_blank">axial precession</a>,
so that a date of ca. 33420 B.C. would be theoretically, but not
technologically, possible, when the North Celestial Pole was at this
same location.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">However, we regard an earlier <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=provenance&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8" target="_blank">provenance</a> of the carvings to be impossible, since the sophistication of the stargazing astronomy represented here would fit well into post-Pleistocene Ice-Age technology, but not into </span><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">previous technology</span></span> eras.</p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">To produce our decipherment, we created an independent, unaffiliated drawing of the most prominent lines on the pendant, as based on our analysis of a photo of the pendant in question as credited to Antonino Vazzana/BONES Lab
see <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-03534-y">https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-03534-y</a>.</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: verdana;">The Stajnia Cave Mammoth Ivory Carved Pendant ca. 7500 B.C.<br />Our Decipherment of the Holes, Lines and Figures as Ancient Astronomy viz. "Stargazing"<br />Marking the Starry Night Stars of Midheaven</span><br />The underlying star map was created<br />via Starry Night Pro astronomy software<br />while the explanatory marks are by Andis Kaulins of Traben-Trarbach<br />(click on the graphic to obtain our larger, original decipherment image)<br /></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3SY9AiR5STw/YafuQCO5lnI/AAAAAAAANds/A18UXV2REyMCle6zBmwkOItlHjcfgi2SwCLcBGAsYHQ/s719/Stajnia%2BCave%2BMammoth%2BCarved%2BPendit%2BDecipherment%2Bby%2BAndis%2BKaulins.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="719" data-original-width="719" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3SY9AiR5STw/YafuQCO5lnI/AAAAAAAANds/A18UXV2REyMCle6zBmwkOItlHjcfgi2SwCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h640/Stajnia%2BCave%2BMammoth%2BCarved%2BPendit%2BDecipherment%2Bby%2BAndis%2BKaulins.png" width="640" /></a></p><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The red dashed lines overlapping the Starry Night Pro star map clip underneath have been added by Andis Kaulins and are meant to correspond to the round marks found carved on the Stajnia Cave mammoth ivory pendant. The blue circular objects overlappingly drawn in the star map by Andis Kaulins identify groups of stars which correspond to figures viz. markings that we allege to be found carved on the pendant, but those identifications are speculative as such lines on the pendant are very weak, if they exist at all, and are difficult to prove. The dark grey lines added by Andis Kaulins mark areas with few stars in the sky that correspond to dark areas on the pendant. The light grey lines added by Andis Kaulins mark the outer perimeter of the pendant in the stars.</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Late addition: please note that the lowest figure on this side of the pendant, called the "dorsal side", marks the stars of Ursa Minor. Our decipherment of the "ventral side" as corroborating ancient astronomy follows in the next posting.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6915698.post-52821942485684227102021-10-31T18:02:00.000+01:002021-10-31T18:02:06.035+01:00Star Constellations of Ancient Egypt and the Astronomical Decipherment of the Northern Arabia Neolithic Camel Site<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><a href="https://www.academia.edu/23910738/The_Celestial_River_Identifying_the_Ancient_Egyptian_Constellations" target="_blank">The Celestial River: Identifying the Ancient Egyptian Constellations</a></i>, <b>Sino-Platonic Papers</b>, 253 (December 2014), Victor H. Mair, Editor, Dept. of East Asian Languages & Civilizations, Univ. of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, 19104-6305 USA, vmair@sas.upenn.edu, www.sino-platonic.org</p><p style="text-align: justify;">authored by <a href="http://ber.io/" target="_blank">Alessandro Berio</a></p><p style="text-align: justify;">-- as posted by <a href="https://independent.academia.edu/MagdiSaleh1" target="_blank">Magdi Saleh</a> at <a href="https://www.academia.edu/23910738/The_Celestial_River_Identifying_the_Ancient_Egyptian_Constellations">Academia.edu</a> --</p><p style="text-align: justify;">presents astronomical analysis that bears significantly upon our recent postings about the Northern Arabia "Camel Site", which we have -- allegedly --- deciphered as Neolithic astronomy, and which, in our opinion maps the stars of the starry night ca. 4800 B.C.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">... with "the legs of the Camel" standing on the Celestial Equator at the Vernal Equinox, the left side of the camel marking the Summer Solstice and the right side of the camel marking the Winter Solstice, with the stars in the heavens being marked by carved figures and cupules (holes viz. indentations carved into stone).<br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">We thank here the website Academia.edu for alerting us to the respective link to the article by Berio as found at <a href="https://www.academia.edu/23910738/The_Celestial_River_Identifying_the_Ancient_Egyptian_Constellations" target="_blank">https://www.academia.edu/23910738/The_Celestial_River_Identifying_the_Ancient_Egyptian_Constellations</a>.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">We are sympathetic to Berio's approach, but our present posting does not engage in individual analysis -- pro or contra -- of the ancient Egyptian Constellations identified in Berio's publication or the system of rising and setting stars that is said there to explain some of the hieroglyphs (viz. "emblems") of the nomes. Each reader can evaluate the material on their own starting at the above link.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Given our own knowledge and understanding of the use of rising and setting stars in ancient astronomy and given our own writings about <a href="https://ancientworldblog.blogspot.com/2004/08/mulapin-decipherment-as-astronomy.htm" target="_blank">MUL.APIN : Decipherment as Astronomy</a> (see there for a start), we find that Berio has definitely produced a remarkable and highly interesting analysis which deserves our attention. See in this regard also our year 2004 postings on the astronomical and hermetic significance ("as above, so below") of the nomes of Egypt at: </p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://ancientegyptweblog.blogspot.com/2004/05/nomes-of-egypt-and-astronomy.htm" target="_blank">The Nomes of Egypt and Astronomy - A - Identification - ANE BC P4</a> </span></li><li><span style="font-family: times;"><a href=" https://ancientegyptweblog.blogspot.com/2004/05/nomes-of-egypt-and-astronomy-b-map-of.htm" target="_blank">The Nomes of Egypt and Astronomy - B - Map of Egyptian Nomes - ANE BC P5</a> </span></li><li><span style="font-family: times;"><a href="https://ancientegyptweblog.blogspot.com/2004/05/nomes-of-egypt-and-astronomy-c-nome.htm" target="_blank">The Nomes of Egypt and Astronomy - C - Nome Hieroglyph Chart - ANE BC P6 </a></span><br /></li></ul><p style="text-align: justify;">What interests us here as a general matter is the star placement comparison of:</p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>a map of the heavens that results from our <a href="https://lawpundit.blogspot.com/2021/10/the-neolithic-rock-art-camel-site-in_19.html" target="_blank">decipherment of the ca. 4800 B.C. Neolithic Northern Arabia Camel Site</a> <br /></li></ul><div style="text-align: center;"><b>THE NEOLITHIC CAMEL SITE of NORTHERN ARABIA <br />ASTRONOMICAL DECIPHERMENT as ca. 4800 B.C. by ANDIS KAULINS</b><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-o96uQ1ADRfQ/YX55qfy6J6I/AAAAAAAANcc/sPiD5WsHL3oWiGhG4Drb79CcK5PNr8xBgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1140/Camel%2BSite%2BDeciphered%2Bby%2BAndis%2BKaulins%2BOkt%2B2021%2BTraben.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="722" data-original-width="1140" height="406" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-o96uQ1ADRfQ/YX55qfy6J6I/AAAAAAAANcc/sPiD5WsHL3oWiGhG4Drb79CcK5PNr8xBgCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h406/Camel%2BSite%2BDeciphered%2Bby%2BAndis%2BKaulins%2BOkt%2B2021%2BTraben.png" width="640" /></a></div></div><p></p><li style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;">with Berio's <a href="Classical star map with Ptolemaic constellations compared to nome emblems overlaid on a map of the sky circa 3100 BC as seen from Memphis (30.57° N). " target="_blank">Classical star map with Ptolemaic constellations compared to nome emblems overlaid on a map of the sky circa 3100 BC as seen from Memphis (30.57° N)</a>.<br /></li><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b>Classical Star Map with Ptolemaic Stellar Constellations and<br />Nome Emblems Overlaid on a Sky Map ca. 3100 B.C.<br />according to Alessandro Berio </b><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-e55rihKfbCM/YX7AgheJCSI/AAAAAAAANcs/Q65eM-4q8Yc7d0QY_XogzwuvpHcSl42nACLcBGAsYHQ/s689/Berio%2BAncient%2BEgyptian%2BConstellations%2B3100%2BB.C.%2BPtolemaic%2BMap%2BOverlay.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="328" data-original-width="689" height="304" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-e55rihKfbCM/YX7AgheJCSI/AAAAAAAANcs/Q65eM-4q8Yc7d0QY_XogzwuvpHcSl42nACLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h304/Berio%2BAncient%2BEgyptian%2BConstellations%2B3100%2BB.C.%2BPtolemaic%2BMap%2BOverlay.png" width="640" /></a></div> <p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Our decipherment placement of starry night stars at the Camel Site finds numerous comparables in depiction on the above map of Ancient Egyptian stellar constellations as represented by Berio, though we do not agree on all of them, but that latter is not the issue here. Some DO agree, and that is what is important.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Moreover, in terms of researching the importance of the Ancient Egyptian nomes as hermetic astronomy ("as above, so below"), perhaps marking rising and setting stars, take a look at our Camel Site decipherment finding that the dog, Anubis, is there at the position of the stars of Libra, which stellar location was a mystery to us initially, but which makes sense as a placement given the rising and setting star analysis for nome emblems by Berio, who writes as follows:</p><p style="text-align: justify;">"<span style="color: #3d85c6;"><span class="a" style="left: 795px; top: 2686px; word-spacing: 22px;">Sirius, the brightest star of Canis Major, was identified with the goddess Isis-Sothis, the </span><span class="a" style="left: 530px; top: 2848px; word-spacing: 1px;">Egyptian mother goddess. Diodorus explains that the ritual procession of the Festival of Isis was led by </span><span class="a" style="left: 530px; top: 3010px; word-spacing: 1px;">dogs, an association illustrated in a passage by Diodorus:<br /></span></span></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><span class="a" style="left: 795px; top: 3260px; word-spacing: 4px;">On the stele of Isis it runs: “I am Isis, the queen of every land… I am she who riseth in </span><span class="a" style="left: 795px; top: 3423px; word-spacing: 1px;">the star that is in the Constellation of the Dog; by me was the city of Bubastus built.”</span></span><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><span class="a" style="left: 795px; top: 3423px; word-spacing: 1px;"></span><span class="a" style="left: 530px; top: 3673px; word-spacing: 21px;">The <span class="l6">capital <span class="l6">of <span class="l7">the <span class="l6">18th n<span class="l6">ome <span class="l6">of <span class="l6">Upper <span class="l7">Egypt ...<span style="color: black;"></span> was <span class="l6">a <span class="l7">place <span class="l6">for <span class="l7">the <span class="l6">worship <span class="l6">of <span class="l6">Anubis, <span class="l6">the <span class="l6">dog-</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span class="a" style="left: 530px; top: 3835px; word-spacing: 5px;">headed god, as the city was known as the “House of Anubis.” This nome corresponded to the time at </span><span class="a" style="left: 513px; top: 3998px;">which <span class="w8"></span>Canis <span class="w8"></span>Major’s <span class="w7"></span>star, <span class="w8"></span>Aludra, <span class="w9"></span>known <span class="w6"></span>as <span class="w8"></span>the <span class="w8"></span>“Virgins” <span class="w10"></span>to <span class="w6"></span>early <span class="w8"></span>Arab <span class="w8"></span>astronomers, <span class="w8"></span>was <span class="w8"></span>in <span class="w7"></span>its <span class="w8"></span>lower </span><span class="a" style="left: 530px; top: 4159px; word-spacing: 1px;">culmination, and Spica, the brightest star in Virgo, the virgin, was setting ....</span></span>" <br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">It would seem, therefore, as a possibility, that the astronomy deciphered by us at the Neolithic Camel Site in Northern Arabia may be a precursor to the hermetic ("as above, so below") astronomy of the later Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt. <br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Obviously, the historical ramifications are substantial if the chronological dates in question -- starting with around 4800 B.C. -- are correct. And it also may raise the question of whether the creators of the Camel Site were indigenous inhabitants, or more distant nomads, or, indeed, especially because of the "megalithic" style of portrayal, were perhaps even more distant ancient surveyors, stargazers and/or navigators from elsewhere who first carved the astronomical figures in Northern Arabia.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">See in this wider connection our previous postings at:</p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://ancientworldblog.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-four-corner-stones-of-land-survey.html" target="_blank">The Four Corner Stones of a Land Survey in Ancient Egypt and Arabia: Sais (Sa al Hajar, Rosetta Stone), Nabta Playa (Table Rock Stone), Mecca (Kaaba), Dumat Al-Jandal (Missing Stone)</a> and<br /><br /></li><li><a href="https://ancientworldblog.blogspot.com/2013/03/sais-rosetta-stone-champollion-and.html" target="_blank">Sais, the Rosetta Stone, Champollion and Google Earth in the Context of the Alleged Four Corner Stones of Sais, Nabta Playa, Mecca, and Dumat Al-Jandal viz. Sakaka and Al Rajajil<br /><br /></a></li><li><a href="https://ancientegyptweblog.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-standing-stones-megaliths-of-al.html" target="_blank">The Standing Stones (Megaliths) of Al Rajajil Deciphered as an Ancient Land Survey Triangulation: لرجاجيل في سكاكا al-Rajajeel Archeological Site</a><br /><br /></li></ul>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6915698.post-10594592457372590322021-10-20T19:21:00.000+02:002021-10-20T19:21:07.736+02:00Neolithic Northern Arabia Archaeoastronomical "Camel Site Decipherment Image" by Andis Kaulins Updated October 20, 2021<p>Please note:</p><p>The graphic Neolithic Northern Arabia Archaeoastronomical<br />"Camel Site Decipherment Image" by Andis Kaulins<br />presented in full in previous postings <br />was updated on October 20, 2021 with some additions<br />and improved color management of the figures,<br />thus, for example, retaining a clear view of the legs of the camel.</p><p>See the updated <a href="https://lawpundit.blogspot.com/2021/10/the-neolithic-rock-art-camel-site-in_19.html" target="_blank">decipherment</a>.</p><p><br /><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6915698.post-14851053117338875052021-10-19T00:04:00.006+02:002021-10-20T19:16:10.389+02:00The Rock Art "Camel Site" in Arabia Deciphered as a Neolithic Representation of the Night Starry Sky by Figures ca. 4800 B.C.<div><p>The Neolithic Rock Art "Camel Site" in Arabia Deciphered as Astronomy</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span><b>Please note: the graphic below<br />was updated with some corrected star placements on October 20, 2021.<br /></b></span></span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Our Interactive Lesson #6 consists of our independent archaeoastronomical decipherment of the Rock Art so-called "Camel Site" located in Northern Arabia.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">This is the last interactive lesson in this series of postings, which we will follow up with some explanatory postings about various aspects of our decipherment below. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">There are many unexpected surprises, especially for the era in question.<br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Look at the decipherment graphic and draw your own conclusions.</p><p style="text-align: center;"><b>The Neolithic Rock Art "Camel Site" in Arabia: <br />Interactive Lesson #6: Our Full Decipherment Image<br />The Camel Site Portrays the Night Starry Sky<br /><a href="https://ancientworldblog.blogspot.com/2021/10/the-camel-site-in-northern-arabia-ca.html" target="_blank">ca. 4800 B.C. by Figures</a></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;"><b>Click on the graphic below<br />to obtain a larger, more readable image! </b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span><b>Please note that the graphic below<br />was updated on October 20, 2021<br />with improved color management of the figures<br />and some corrected star placements<br /></b></span></span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span><b></b></span></p></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rIv6VUoAdC8/YXBOgpPqhRI/AAAAAAAANb0/449Sg3MSAHgcy17pB3TjnniHvcz_pu78gCLcBGAsYHQ/s1140/Camel%2BSite%2BDeciphered%2Bby%2BAndis%2BKaulins%2BOkt%2B2021%2BTraben.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="722" data-original-width="1140" height="406" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rIv6VUoAdC8/YXBOgpPqhRI/AAAAAAAANb0/449Sg3MSAHgcy17pB3TjnniHvcz_pu78gCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h406/Camel%2BSite%2BDeciphered%2Bby%2BAndis%2BKaulins%2BOkt%2B2021%2BTraben.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><span><b> </b></span><br /><p></p></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6915698.post-6424931798158430302021-10-14T21:05:00.005+02:002021-10-14T21:05:56.252+02:00The Neolithic Camel Site in Northern Arabia: Interactive Lesson #5: Auriga to the Left of Perseus and Carved Figures and Cupule Stars to the Right of Perseus<p>The Neolithic Rock Art Camel Site in Arabia: Interactive Lesson #5: Auriga to the Left of Perseus and Carved Figures and Cupule Stars to the Right of Perseus</p><p>The stars of Auriga at the Camel Site are represented by the head of a goatherd with typical headdress, plus the head (and fleece ?) of an adult goat with several goat kids. This corroborates the correctness of our previous placement of the stars of Perseus to the right of Auriga. The fleece viz. the "wool" of Auriga is carved in the rock in an appropriate "ruffled" texture way. The adult goat appears to have several goat kids behind it, plus maybe a goat dog ("sheepdog") to the back left. </p><p style="text-align: center;">The Neolithic Rock Art Camel Site in Arabia: Interactive Lesson #5<br />Auriga the Goatherd is to the Left of Perseus<br />Auriga includes a Goat head profile and several goat kids, plus goatherd dog.<br /> Cepheus, Cassiopeia, and Andromeda are to the Right of Perseus</p><p style="text-align: center;">Please click on the graphic below to obtain a larger image.<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-y2EGbRsn0Ho/YWh71oSs_rI/AAAAAAAANas/oiFOQxTGsuY4PQJiM8BhmEj4OJoY5UqawCLcBGAsYHQ/s1140/Northern%2BArabia%2BCamel%2BSite%2BAuriga%2BPerseus%2Bright%2Bside.bmp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="722" data-original-width="1140" height="406" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-y2EGbRsn0Ho/YWh71oSs_rI/AAAAAAAANas/oiFOQxTGsuY4PQJiM8BhmEj4OJoY5UqawCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h406/Northern%2BArabia%2BCamel%2BSite%2BAuriga%2BPerseus%2Bright%2Bside.bmp" width="640" /></a></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Chco9nJxsfA/YWh-45y3r4I/AAAAAAAANa0/Bn40IWvPv1QxxGRZ_jwRqKQfYkAJPFYuACLcBGAsYHQ/s942/Arabia%2BCamel%2BSite%2BStars%2B24%2BJanuary%2B%2B4800%2BBC.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="942" height="612" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Chco9nJxsfA/YWh-45y3r4I/AAAAAAAANa0/Bn40IWvPv1QxxGRZ_jwRqKQfYkAJPFYuACLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h612/Arabia%2BCamel%2BSite%2BStars%2B24%2BJanuary%2B%2B4800%2BBC.png" width="640" /></a></div><p style="text-align: center;"></p><p></p><p>The figures to the right of Perseus are more difficult to assign with certainty, as they are very strongly characterized by the megalithic style of carving figures within figures within figures, which makes identification more speculative.</p><p>We think those figures mark stars of what we moderns identify as the stellar constellations of Cepheus, Cassiopeia, wife of Cepheus, and their daughter Andromeda -- a heavenly family as it were -- whose origins, e.g., in Egypt, and even by mainstream archaeology, reach back far and at least into predynastic ("pre-Pharaoh") times. Just how old these heavenly figures assigned to groups of stars in the starry sky actually are -- nobody really knows, but it is clear from the Neolithic Rock Art Camel Site in Arabia that they are much older then previously thought by the mainstream of researchers.</p><p>Just as an aside:<br />We think the term Auriga originally meant "sheep, lamb" as arguably in
what we see as a hypothetical proto-Indo-European root found e.g. in
Latvian <a href="https://tezaurs.lv/mev/show?id=J_00790&field=mo_pier&hl=" target="_blank"><i>j</i></a><i><a target="Center">ē</a>r-</i> <a href="https://tezaurs.lv/mev/show?id=J_00790&field=mo_pier&hl=" target="Center">jēruk-</a>
(=*aurig-) meaning "of (a) lamb".</p><p>The Latin meaning of "charioteer" may
arise out of a linguistic confusion of "auriga" with e.g. the root of a
word like "quadriga" and similar terms, which at their root have the
meaning "yoke" in proto-Indo-European, as in archaic Latvian "<a href="https://tezaurs.lv/mev/show?id=J_00527&field=mo_pier&hl=" target="_blank">jūgs, jūg-</a>".</p><p>The next posting in this series is Interactive Lesson #6. </p><p>Can you already find the stars portrayed on the left side of the carved rock but not yet identified?</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6915698.post-5526521127619155142021-10-10T14:54:00.001+02:002021-10-11T12:31:29.367+02:00The Camel Site in Arabia: Interactive Lesson #4: More Figures at Perseus and the Stars of the Leg to the Left<p>The Camel Site in Arabia: Interactive Lesson #4: More Figures at Perseus and the Stars of the Leg to the Left</p><p>In the image below we see the figure of Perseus, and an additional coiled (?) figure below it -- above the Hyena -- that emerges when we look at the stone-carved figures in detail.</p><p style="text-align: center;">THE STARS OF PERSEUS (IN FULL) AT THE CAMEL SITE<br />AND THE STARS OF THE CAMEL'S LEG TO ITS LEFT<br /><br />Click on the image to view a larger image version. <br /> </p><p style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-K7Gd-SX6q6A/YWLheIjDWnI/AAAAAAAANaQ/faelCAk8ElAehciagKXkomsLUBFGlLiQQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1140/Arabia%2BCamel%2BSite%2BStars%2Bof%2BPerseus%2BFull.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="722" data-original-width="1140" height="406" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-K7Gd-SX6q6A/YWLheIjDWnI/AAAAAAAANaQ/faelCAk8ElAehciagKXkomsLUBFGlLiQQCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h406/Arabia%2BCamel%2BSite%2BStars%2Bof%2BPerseus%2BFull.png" width="640" /></a></div><p></p><p>Perseus appears to wear a military-type (?) plumed hat and we can only ask ourselves if the figure below him is Medusa or a serpent-type figure, for this is very speculative and not perfectly clear. Such a hat is not likely to date back to 4800 B.C. Perhaps such figures were added later in time, in another era, by ancients who knew which stars the carved Camel Site represented in the sky.</p><p>Posting #5 of this decipherment series on the Camel Site of Northern Arabia follows, deciphering figures and stars to the right of Perseus, including the camel's leg to the right.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6915698.post-75894535837970189312021-10-09T22:26:00.000+02:002021-10-09T22:26:12.358+02:00The Camel Site in Arabia: Interactive Lesson #3: Where are the Stars of Perseus Marked by a Figure and Cupmarks? And Where is the Hyena?<p>Once one recognizes that the large camel at the Camel Site marks the Celestial Equator, the Celestial Meridian and the Celestial North Pole by its features...<br /></p><p>and if we also have a good idea of the date of the human stone carving work...</p><p><b>then the general positions of the stars at the Camel Site are inevitable</b>...</p><p>because their position is thereby determined by the major astronomical parameters.</p><p>The stars can not be elsewhere, and we can thus not place them subjectively, <br /></p><p>although it is also true, however, that individual stars may be difficult to identify with perfect certainty. Everything is not always as easy as it appears.<br /></p><p>We started out with the figure and cupmarks of the stars of Perseus because their placement at the Camel Site is eminently obvious. Just look at the Starry Night Pro star map below, a stellar map which we have already posted previously. Find Perseus on that star map and you will then know where to look for Perseus at the Camel Site stone relief.</p><p style="text-align: center;">THE STARRY SKY SECTION REPRESENTED AT THE CAMEL SITE<br />MARKS STARS AT AND ABOVE THE CELESTIAL EQUATOR ca. 4800 B.C.<br />Image clip 2021 A.D. by Andis Kaulins via <a href="https://www.starrynight.com/" target="_blank">Starry Night Pro astronomy software</a></p><div style="text-align: center;"> Click on the image to view a larger image version. <br />(image updated on 7 October 2021)<br /><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yXZB9FybjZs/YWGAujbfAtI/AAAAAAAANZ4/MrIr0voq72gEmztgmZ0Id3b9g-CM_A_zQCLcBGAsYHQ/s942/Arabia%2BCamel%2BSite%2BStars%2B24%2BJanuary%2B%2B4800%2BBC.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="942" height="612" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yXZB9FybjZs/YWGAujbfAtI/AAAAAAAANZ4/MrIr0voq72gEmztgmZ0Id3b9g-CM_A_zQCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h612/Arabia%2BCamel%2BSite%2BStars%2B24%2BJanuary%2B%2B4800%2BBC.png" width="640" /></a></div><p style="text-align: center;">As one can see from above, Perseus is to the far right of the Vernal Equinox on that 4800 B.C. star map and that is where we expect to find Perseus represented on the large camel at the Camel Site ... and so it is, as seen below.<br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">THE CAMEL SITE MARKS THE STARS OF PERSEUS<br />TO THE RIGHT OF THE VERNAL EQUINOX in 4800 B.C.<br />AND ITS LOWER STARS SHOW A HYENA NIPPING AT THE HEEL OF THE CAMEL<br />We have <a href="https://megalithicworld.wordpress.com/2007/11/14/horusfalconcultasastronomy/" target="_blank">previously written</a> that:<br />"<span style="color: #3d85c6;">Significant for our discussion of ancient celestial poles<br />is the fact that
the Arabic Bedouins in Egypt, instead of
a dragon,<br />saw a circle of camels at
heaven’s center that was being attacked
by hyenas.</span>"<a href="https://megalithicworld.wordpress.com/2007/11/14/%20horusfalconcultasastronomy/" target="_blank"><br />https://megalithicworld.wordpress.com/2007/11/14/horusfalconcultasastronomy/</a></p><p style="text-align: center;"> Click on the image to view a larger image version. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-k31KnQLo-mg/YWH4hw6axYI/AAAAAAAANaI/kVa5Ca7mpwwa1pYvPQERL16hUujnLEoegCLcBGAsYHQ/s1140/Arabia%2BCamel%2BSite%2BStars%2Bof%2BPerseus%2Band%2BHyena%2Bat%2BCamels%2BHeel.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="722" data-original-width="1140" height="406" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-k31KnQLo-mg/YWH4hw6axYI/AAAAAAAANaI/kVa5Ca7mpwwa1pYvPQERL16hUujnLEoegCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h406/Arabia%2BCamel%2BSite%2BStars%2Bof%2BPerseus%2Band%2BHyena%2Bat%2BCamels%2BHeel.png" width="640" /></a><br /></div><p style="text-align: center;">The arguably older representation is the tapered relief-carved figure of Perseus.<br />The arguably younger presentation consists of cupmarks<br />(carved holes in stone) of the brighter stars of Perseus,<br />as still used in modern astronomy to portray the figure of Perseus in the sky.</p><p style="text-align: center;">The hyena at the heel of the camel -- supporting ancient heavenly depiction --<br />is proof of the correctness of our decipherment of "The Camel Site" in Arabia.</p><p style="text-align: center;"> Lesson #4 is forthcoming in the next posting.</p><p style="text-align: center;"> <br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6915698.post-76036627680019639472021-10-07T16:06:00.006+02:002021-10-07T17:14:06.596+02:00The Camel Site: Interactive Lesson #2: What is the Camel Carrying? The Camel Carries the Starry Sky<p>The Neolithic Rock Art Camel Site in Northern Arabia as Astronomy:<br />Interactive Lesson #2:<br />What is the Camel Carrying?<br />The camel carries the starry sky.</p><p>The mid-center Celestial Meridian as the prominent left foreleg of the camel and the top of the camel's hump at the location of the North Celestial Pole indicate that the camel carries the stars in the sky, i.e. the vault of heaven.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KuB_j2QEzak/YV7_HPXvCZI/AAAAAAAANZg/j9Yc5N9zzU8M4fOLJVoUDWtIL6Y2VrNrQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1140/Arabia%2BCamel%2BSite%2BCelestial%2BMeridian%2BNorth%2BCelestial%2BPole%2Bbw.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="722" data-original-width="1140" height="406" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KuB_j2QEzak/YV7_HPXvCZI/AAAAAAAANZg/j9Yc5N9zzU8M4fOLJVoUDWtIL6Y2VrNrQCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h406/Arabia%2BCamel%2BSite%2BCelestial%2BMeridian%2BNorth%2BCelestial%2BPole%2Bbw.png" width="640" /></a></div>Arab sources of antiquity place the camel at a position near the North Celestial Pole. Citing to Richard Hinckley's <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Star-Names-Their-Lore-Meaning/dp/0486210790" target="_blank">Star Names: Their Lore and Meaning</a> (Dover edition, 1963)We have <a href="https://megalithicworld.wordpress.com/2007/11/14/horusfalconcultasastronomy/" target="_blank">previously written</a> that:
<p></p><blockquote>"<span style="color: #3d85c6;">Significant for our discussion of ancient celestial poles is the fact that
the Arabic Bedouins in Egypt, instead of
a dragon, saw a circle of camels at
heaven’s center that was being attacked
by hyenas.</span>"</blockquote>See:<br /><a href="https://megalithicworld.wordpress.com/2007/11/14/ horusfalconcultasastronomy/" target="_blank">https://megalithicworld.wordpress.com/2007/11/14/horusfalconcultasastronomy/</a><p></p><p>Before we present our decipherments, the reader may try to identify
stars represented at the Camel Site by carved figures and holes carved
in stone to represent bright stars or groups of bright stars. Good luck!<br /></p><p>Groups of stars can be represented by figures, as we still do in modernity by the stellar constellations.</p><p>But stars can also be represented individually by "cupmarks" (cupules, holes carved in stone to represent stars).</p><p>Usually -- the larger the hole, the brighter the magnitude of the star.</p><p>Please note:</p><p>The carved figures at the Camel Site are likely to be older than the identifiable cupmarks, which appear to be younger, because they cover less space than the corresponding figures. We see this at the representation of the stars of Perseus, which we add to our decipherment image in the next posting.</p><p>This same phenomenon is found at sites such as Lascaux in France -- but, to our knowledge, is something not recognized by mainstream archaeologists -- where cave paintings cover rocks that were already previously carved to mark the same stars as the later paintings.</p><p>People often see what they want to see or things easy to see ... and miss the rest. No less an observer than Albert Einstein said that he had little patience with scientists who drilled only where the drilling is easy.</p><p><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6915698.post-41197536069720450512021-10-07T00:59:00.001+02:002021-10-07T14:26:20.257+02:00The Camel Site in Northern Arabia ca. 5000 BC: Neolithic Rock Art as Astronomy: Interactive Lesson #1: Where does the Camel Stand? It Stands on the Celestial Equator<p><span style="color: red;"><i>The Neolithic Rock Art Camel Site in Northern Arabia as Astronomy:<br />Interactive Lesson #1:<br />Where does the Camel Stand?<br />It Stands on the <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=celestial+equator&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8" target="_blank">Celestial Equator</a></i></span><br /></p><p>Our interactive decipherment begins with a clip of the section of sky that we regard to be represented by carved figures and cupmarks at "The Camel Site"<br />-- figures and holes carved in stone to mark bright stars viz. star groups.</p><p>The starry sky corresponding to the stars represented by the Camel Site is found<br />in the image below -- applying to stars ca. at or above the <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=celestial+equator&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8" target="_blank">Celestial Equator</a> <b>on which the camel stands</b> ... carrying the heavens. Our image clip from <a href="https://www.starrynight.com/" target="_blank">Starry Night Pro astronomy software</a> is the year 4800 B.C., close to the dates of ca. 5600 to 5200 BCE estimated by archaeologists for human inhabitation of the site.</p><p style="text-align: center;">THE STARRY SKY SECTION REPRESENTED AT THE CAMEL SITE<br />MARKS STARS AT AND ABOVE THE CELESTIAL EQUATOR ca. 4800 B.C.<br />Image clip 2021 A.D. by Andis Kaulins via <a href="https://www.starrynight.com/" target="_blank">Starry Night Pro astronomy software</a></p><p style="text-align: center;"> Click on the image to view a larger image version.<br />(image updated on 7 October 2021)<br /> </p><p style="text-align: center;"></p><div style="text-align: center;"> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-S-F0Gle1Hvc/YV7m_L8aT1I/AAAAAAAANZQ/gjWKYVe7fCMKlbG4Q2KBDLVbuMMRgO2YACLcBGAsYHQ/s942/Arabia%2BCamel%2BSite%2BStars%2B24%2BJanuary%2B%2B4800%2BBC.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Camel Site Stars Arabia 24 Jan 4800 BC.png" border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="942" height="612" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-S-F0Gle1Hvc/YV7m_L8aT1I/AAAAAAAANZQ/gjWKYVe7fCMKlbG4Q2KBDLVbuMMRgO2YACLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h612/Arabia%2BCamel%2BSite%2BStars%2B24%2BJanuary%2B%2B4800%2BBC.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /></div><div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;">The Celestial Equator in the star map above is the red nearly horizontal line running through the Vernal Equinox. The Celestial Equator at the Camel Site is the line drawn below -- and identified by us -- upon which the camel stands:</p><p style="text-align: center;">THE CAMEL SITE CELESTIAL EQUATOR ON WHICH THE CAMEL STANDS</p><p style="text-align: center;">Click on the image to view a larger image version. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zPGYRq9TMAU/YV4k6tuQgBI/AAAAAAAANZI/BjdQ3frbbJccnHtCOaAnjRUePBo7EX5vwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1140/Arabia%2BCamel%2BSite%2BCelestial%2BEquator%2BLabelled.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="722" data-original-width="1140" height="406" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zPGYRq9TMAU/YV4k6tuQgBI/AAAAAAAANZI/BjdQ3frbbJccnHtCOaAnjRUePBo7EX5vwCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h406/Arabia%2BCamel%2BSite%2BCelestial%2BEquator%2BLabelled.png" width="640" /></a></div><p>That line provides the foundation for the astronomical decipherment. Once such an important astronomical parameter is correctly identified, the rest follows. </p><p><b>See if you can now identify the stars represented at the Camel Site without referring to our decipherment. You have the star map above.</b><br /></p><p>This posting begins a series of experimental interactive
presentations of our recent, independent, and unaffiliated
archaeoastronomical decipherment of the so-called archaeological "Camel
Site" in Northern Arabia...<br /></p><p>as that site is described by the following authors<br />Maria
Guagnin, Guillaume Charloux, Abdullah M. AlSharekh, Rémy Crassard,
Yamandú H. Hilbert, Meinrat O. Andreae, Abdullah AlAmri, Frank Preusser,
Fulbert Dubois, Franck Burgos, Pascal Flohr, Pascal Mora, Ahmad
AlQaeed, and Yasser AlAli...</p><p>in their article<b><i><br />Life-sized Neolithic camel sculptures in Arabia: A scientific assessment of the craftsmanship and age of the Camel Site reliefs</i></b>,<b>
Journal of Archaeological Science</b>: <b>Reports, 2021, 103165, ISSN 2352-409X</b> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2021.103165" target="_blank"><br />https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2021.103165</a> as found published online at...<br /><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352409X21003771" target="_blank"><br />https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352409X21003771</a>.<br /></p><p>More Camel Site photos are also published at Artnet.com in <a href="https://news.artnet.com/art-world/ancient-saudi-arabian-camel-carvings-are-actually-older-than-stonehenge-and-the-pyramids-of-giza-2012754" target="_blank">Thousands of Years Before the Pyramids, Neolithic Peoples Were Carving Camels into Saudi Arabia’s Rocky Desert</a>, an article by Sarah Cascone online at :</p><p><a href="https://news.artnet.com/art-world/ancient-saudi-arabian-camel-carvings-are-actually-older-than-stonehenge-and-the-pyramids-of-giza-2012754">https://news.artnet.com/art-world/ancient-saudi-arabian-camel-carvings-are-actually-older-than-stonehenge-and-the-pyramids-of-giza-2012754</a><br /></p><p>In
order to avoid copyright image issues -- we make our own drawings for
use in the course of our decipherment and refer readers to original
photographs in the above cited sources for review. We have no
affiliation with any of the above. <br /></p><p>We now look at the Celestial Meridian and Celestial North Pole in Lesson #2, i.e. the next posting. The question is: What is the Camel Carrying?<br /></p></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6915698.post-20034169150015557392021-03-29T23:12:00.003+02:002021-03-29T23:12:37.881+02:00The Hebrew Calendar Starts Autumn 3761 B.C. Is it Because the Autumn Equinox Location in the Stars Was Virtually at the Center of Our Galaxy in that Era?<p style="text-align: justify;">We came to the conclusion some years ago that <a href="https://lawpundit.wordpress.com/2016/10/13/stonehenge-groundplan-extended-map-with-interpretation-relating-to-the-milky-way/" target="_blank">the main focus of Stonehenge alignments</a> (our independent discovery) is the galactic center of our Milky Way Galaxy (the "Galactic Centre"). </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Megalithic culture seems to mirror an ancient belief of mankind that the galactic center of our galaxy was the origin of souls, a location in the stars to which human souls were correspondingly also believed to return upon worldly passage.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">We examined the origin of the Hebrew Calendar and found it to be similar.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">What reason did the Hebrew forefathers possibly have for starting their calendar in Autumn, 3761 BC?</p><p style="text-align: justify;">People did not likely say, "Oh, let's start a calendar today!"
just any day. They surely had a very strong TIMELY reason for their choice.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">We were then not surprised to find that the Autumn start of the Hebrew Calendar in Autumn 3761 B.C. corresponds to the location of the Autumn Equinox in that era at the Galactic Centre of our Milky Way of stars. <br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">At <a href="http://www.TimeAndDate.com/">TimeAndDate.com</a>, Konstantin Bikos writes at <a href="https://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/jewish-calendar.html" target="_blank">The Jewish Calendar</a> that:<br /></p><blockquote>"<span style="color: #0b5394;">12th-century Jewish philosopher <a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/moses-maimonides-rambam" target="_blank">Maimonides</a> established 3761 B.C. as the biblical Date of Creation</span>". [<b>link added by us</b>]</blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">That <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/post-facto" target="_blank">post facto</a> later date creationist-type explanation arguably reflects ancient astronomical religious knowledge, myth or legend as conceivably passed down over the generations by astronomically calendric-savvy Jewish diaspora priests.<br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">We present below an image of the stellar center of our Milky Way galaxy, via an underlying clipped star map made by us via <a href="https://starrynight.com/starry-night-8-professional-astronomy-telescope-control-software.html" target="_blank">Starry Night Pro astronomy software</a>, to which the present author of this posting, Andis Kaulins, the LawPundit, has added a circle to represent the Galactic Centre with arrows added to show the "striking" lines of stars pointing to the center of our Milky Way Galaxy.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">There is of course no way to fully "prove" that this theory of the origin of the Jewish Calendar in 3761 B.C. is correct beyond doubt, but we think it adds some new astronomical and calendric sense to the origin of mankind's calendar time-keeping by the positions of the "Sun, Moon and Stars".</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Note that the position of the Center of our Milky Way Galaxy must have been known by the ancient stargazers already in that era. These ancient "astronomers" likely formed the "purposeful" if also subjective figures of the nearest surrounding stellar (star) constellations viz. asterisms or similar groupings of stars to correspond to their astronomical knowledge of the location of the Galactic Centre.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">These ancient "druids", for lack of a better term, also surely drew prominent "pointing" lines of stars using bright magnitude stars in their subjectively drawn figures, <b>precise intended lines that point to the Galactic Centre</b>, specifically:</p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="color: #e06666;"><b>the tip of the arrow of Sagittarius points to the Galactic Centre<br /></b></span></li><li><span style="color: #e06666;"><b>the stinger of Scorpio points to the Galactic Centre, and</b></span></li><li><span style="color: #e06666;"><b>the lowered (we think, then serpent head of Ophiuchus), or one could view it as the bottom head of the "staff" around which the serpent of Ophiuchus perhaps twined, also points to the Galactic Centre. One can be of different minds about which precise stars the ancients actually intended, but the posited scheme is clear.</b></span><br /></li></ul><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b> "Striking" Stars at the Milky Way Galactic Centre</b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-m-VG0HgwVxE/YGI_cFD_siI/AAAAAAAAM80/PvB5KiwQNqUEyWERUv0cqpcDVhO27D1-gCLcBGAsYHQ/s588/Galactic%2BCentre%2B3761%2BBC%2Bwith%2BPointing%2BStriking%2BLines%2Bof%2BStars.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="588" data-original-width="340" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-m-VG0HgwVxE/YGI_cFD_siI/AAAAAAAAM80/PvB5KiwQNqUEyWERUv0cqpcDVhO27D1-gCLcBGAsYHQ/s16000/Galactic%2BCentre%2B3761%2BBC%2Bwith%2BPointing%2BStriking%2BLines%2Bof%2BStars.png" /></a></div><p style="text-align: justify;">Some might suggest that this confluence is chance only, but such a pure
coincidence would be unlikely given the "striking" nature of the
figures used.<br /></p><p>The three constellations Ophiuchus, Scorpio and
Sagittarius not only "surround" the Galactic Centre but are specifically
characterized and marked by what might be called "striking" directional
lines of stars aimed at the Galactic Centre. In our view, such an
unusual merging of purpose was INTENDED by the ancients.</p><p>As one
can read in our other postings, it was this galactic center that was the
focus of attention of major later megalithic sites, e.g. <a href="https://lawpundit.wordpress.com/2016/10/13/stonehenge-groundplan-extended-map-with-interpretation-relating-to-the-milky-way/" target="_blank">Stonehenge</a> in particular.</p><p> </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6915698.post-59051888170552326182021-03-16T16:54:00.000+01:002021-03-16T16:54:05.421+01:00Words, Acts and Cognition: Speech as an Act of Performative Utterance: Language Performativity Suggests Rethinking the ImpACT of the Human Word<p style="text-align: justify;">What a superb article by <a href="https://www.wsj.com/news/author/peggy-noonan" target="_blank">Peggy Noonan</a> at the Wall Street Journal (WSJ)<br />at <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-we-care-about-the-royal-family-feud-11615507719" target="_blank"><b>Why We Care About the Royal Family Feud</b></a>.<br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Noonan's "performativity"-centered discussion about the British Monarchy has had a special bonus for us, by opening up a new way of thinking about human communication and interaction in the form of "speech acts", which analysis also provides an unexpected connection to "critical legal thinking" (see the link below).</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performativity" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a> writes: "<span style="color: #cc0000;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performativity" target="_blank">Performativity</a> is the concept that language can function as a form of social action and have the effect of change. The concept has multiple applications in diverse fields such as anthropology, social and cultural geography, economics, gender studies (social construction of gender), law, linguistics, performance studies, history, management studies and philosophy.</span>" [link added] <br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Indeed, "performativity" suggests to us that the unending mainstream media discussion about controversial social topics such as e.g. White House lies and untruths over the last four years have completely -- and we mean completely -- missed the point in their analysis of the significance of an avalanche of Twitter Tweets from the past U.S. President and from his similar performative utterances. Something else -- arguably more important than truth -- was at work.<br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">As the language professionals writing about performativity suggest to us, it is not the content of spoken words per se or even the truth or falsity of that content that is at issue, but rather the purpose viz. societal influence of a given "speech act",<br />ala <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._L._Austin" target="_blank">John L. Austin</a>.<br /><br />Read on below .... where we find to our astonishment ... really, in a fascinating turn of analysis ... that the assertion of truth or untruth has nothing to do with it.<br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/performative">https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/performative</a> </li><li><a href="https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/performative">https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/performative</a> </li><li><a href="https://criticallegalthinking.com/2016/11/14/judith-butlers-performativity/">https://criticallegalthinking.com/2016/11/14/judith-butlers-performativity/</a> </li><li><a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/p/performativity">https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/p/performativity</a> </li><li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performative_turn">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performative_turn</a> </li><li><a href="https://medium.com/humanist-voices/performative-language-a466e9aee860">https://medium.com/humanist-voices/performative-language-a466e9aee860</a></li></ul><p>Who would have thought it. Performativity is even applicable to basic science.<br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">It is thus likely e.g. that the truth of history or other content being written about is not the chief issue in academic publications, as otherwise alleged by the powers that be, but rather the often hidden ulterior motives lurking behind such publications that are among the main driving forces of science. Scientific periodicals and human interactions at gatherings such as congresses can thus fundamentally be viewed as forums for performative acts. Recall that the motto is "publish or perish" but NOT "publish the truth or perish".<br /></p><p>We have always known the above to be true, but never understood why.<br /><br />Now we suspect to know a little more.</p><p></p><p>Hat tip to CaryGEE.</p><p><br /><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6915698.post-48831548290605581532021-03-05T13:11:00.001+01:002021-03-05T13:11:16.967+01:00Should We Also Amend Our Ways? - Nicholas Kristoff at the NY Times Examines How to Reach People Who Are Wrong<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/03/opinion/progressives-conservatives-think-again.html?campaign_id=39&emc=edit_ty_20210304&instance_id=27712&nl=opinion-today&regi_id=14116646&segment_id=52765&te=1&user_id=19ee713621f38864cddc4b0f6a728a81">Opinion | How to Reach People Who Are Wrong - The New York Times</a></p>Definitely worth a thought, also by us. <p> </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6915698.post-85672331942790480212021-02-26T14:53:00.004+01:002021-02-28T11:43:28.346+01:00Amazon Mounds and Earthworks: Too Difficult for Contemporary Archaeologists or Modern Astronomers? Here is an Update.<p style="text-align: justify;">One of the primary obstacles that we face in our megalithic research -- an obstacle that is greater than the difficulty of astronomical decipherment of standing stones themselves -- is the lack of a wide, knowledgeable audience.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Many contemporary archaeologists and people in related professions erroneously seem to assume that e.g. megaliths or earthwork mounds erected by prehistoric societies are properly the realm of study of Archaeology, even though most archaeologists seem to know little about megaliths, and even less about astronomy. The sky above is exactly the opposite of their chosen "geo-bound" interest. Who cares about the far distant stars above them? Pots rule.<br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Similarly, those few researchers who call themselves archaeoastronomers or astroarchaeologists, often do not go beyond elementary solar and lunar considerations, virtually ignoring the starry night of stars -- thus suggesting to us that their understanding of ancient mankind is very limited. We expect little help from their ranks.<br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">We have found, <a href="https://lawpundit.wordpress.com/tag/teaching/" target="_blank">contrary to flawed prevailing directions of research</a> -- research is an area in academics that we taught at the university level -- that the starry night of stars and the ever-present band of the Milky Way DOMINATED ancient society as the domicile of their gods.</p><p>As we have written at <a href="http://www.megaliths.net/">Megaliths.net</a></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">"<span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: small;">Megaliths.net is a <b>systematic</b> graphic-supported analysis of
megaliths and megalithic sites around the world which shows that
ancient megalithic sites are land survey sites located by prehistoric
astronomy. As observed by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Cunningham_Fletcher" target="_blank">Alice
Cunningham Fletcher</a> (Alice C. Fletcher) in her 1902 publication in
the <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1525/aa.1902.4.4.02a00050/abstract" target="_blank">American
Anthropologist</a>, <b>there is ample evidence that some ancient
cultures, e.g. </b><b><a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LexiLine/message/1390" target="_blank"> the Pawnee
in Nebraska</a>, geographically
located their villages according to patterns
seen in stars of the heavens. </b>FLETCHER, A. C. (1902),
STAR
CULT AMONG THE PAWNEE —A PRELIMINARY REPORT. American Anthropologist,
4: 730–736. doi: 10.1525/aa.1902.4.4.02a00050.</span>" </span><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">However, that knowledge has not seeped into <b>so-called</b> mainstream science. Unless one is shooting rockets into the sky for war or putting new satellites into orbit, the stars are ignored. Indeed, even the Zodiac of stellar groupings has been relegated to the realm of esoteric Astrology. Any hermetic "as above, so below" explanation for prehistoric mankind's cultural focus is not taken seriously.<br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Sadly, the profession of astronomy itself has not persevered where Archaeology and related professions have dismally failed, thus leaving a "black hole" in science as regards serious research regarding the megaliths and similar constructions. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Paradoxically, so-called modern astronomers and people in related professions spend a lot of resources studying "black holes" in far distant space that bear little relation to human life on Planet Earth, now or ever. A stellar connection for ancient human <b>technology</b> is of no interest to them. Indeed, your average academic astronomer seems no longer to know much about the
visible stars -- those that we humans see above with the naked eye. How ancient mankind viewed the wide expanse of the starry sky above
them is not a scientific question for modern skywatchers. That is "below them". Their eyes are focused on distant space, where billions are spent on NASA, planetary visits (mostly by machines), and the search for extraterrestrials.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Those same dedicated people, however, seem to consider it lunacy to allege that ancient mankind ALSO had an overriding interest in the stars.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">You figure it out, we can't.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b>Perhaps mainstream scientists just find this entire field to be too difficult for them.</b> Just two months ago we posted <a href="https://lawpundit.blogspot.com/2020/12/landmarks-by-stars-in-ancient-days.html" target="_blank">Landmarks by the Stars in Ancient Days: Amazonian Pre-Columbian Earthworks & Geoglyphs Represent Stars in the Sky in a Cosmic Geo-Hermetic Stellar Map "As Above, So Below"</a>, which contains an explanatory map for perusal by contemporary archaeologist and/or modern astronomer. That posting has 27 hits thus far. It should be hundreds of times more than that.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Too tough? We post an elementary explanatory visual update below:<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LQoYSiF6Ljg/YDj5VJtUPlI/AAAAAAAAMyw/qjMe6E5msoUtciqokYto1ziY9R3euelYQCLcBGAsYHQ/s695/SW%2BAmazonian%2BSW%2BMound%2BVillages%2BGeoglyphs%2BAstronomy%2BArrowed.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="695" data-original-width="518" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LQoYSiF6Ljg/YDj5VJtUPlI/AAAAAAAAMyw/qjMe6E5msoUtciqokYto1ziY9R3euelYQCLcBGAsYHQ/s16000/SW%2BAmazonian%2BSW%2BMound%2BVillages%2BGeoglyphs%2BAstronomy%2BArrowed.png" /></a></div><p>and here is how we explained it in the previous posting:<br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">"Why would the ancients have used stars of the starry night to "map" their Earth? <br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Just
imagine trying to make your way in a tropical climate in ancient days.
How did you get around and know where you were?</p><p style="text-align: justify;">We think stars and landmarks based on stars are the answer.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">West
& SW Amazonian Pre-Columbian village mounds viz. earthworks,
geoglyphs and "enclosures" identified by archaeologists are shown here
in our independent decipherment -- not related in any way to the
publications of the archaeologists -- as having been located by the
ancients to represent the Milky Way and corresponding stars in the
stellar constellations Aquila, Sagittarius, [Scorpio perhaps via a
natural mountain formation], Lupus, Centaurus, Crux, Musca, Carina,
Vela, Pyxis, & Puppis. Note that the ancients may have grouped and
designated the respective stars somewhat differently, but the principal
star locations in the sky remain the same nevertheless, concentrating on
the sky's brightest stars by magnitude, which form the "shape" of
artificial star groupings.<b><br /></b></p><p style="text-align: justify;">The
star correspondences shown below were discovered in December 2020 by
Andis Kaulins after reading an article in Smithsonian magazine about
Amazonian Pre-Columbian mound villages and other earthwork and similar
constructions. See the article by Livia Gershon in Smithsonian
magazine at These Amazonian Villages Were Laid Out Like Clock Faces <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/archaeologists-find-clock-face-layout-amazon-villages-180976553/">https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/archaeologists-find-clock-face-layout-amazon-villages-180976553/</a>. <br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">As
retained down to this day, we find that the ancients placed their
religious "gods" in the heavens, i.e. stellar locations which provided a
natural, fixed easily accessible map, which was mirrored geographically
on Earth "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermeticism" target="_blank">as above, so below</a>".</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Please
note that our decipherment star maps -- shown below -- were created
using our clips of star maps produced via Starry Night Pro astronomy
software, to which we have added explanatory texts, labels, and figures,
as necessary.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">See <a href="https://starrynight.com/" target="_blank">http://www.starrynight.com/</a><br /></p><p>In the image below, the upper section shows a geographic map clip by us from </p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #cc0000;">-- a geographic map at <span class="span-citation">Iriarte, J., Robinson, M., de Souza, J.,
Damasceno, A., da Silva, F., Nakahara, F., Ranzi, A. and Aragao, L.,
2020. Geometry by Design: Contribution of Lidar to the Understanding of
Settlement Patterns of the Mound Villages in SW Amazonia. <i>Journal of Computer Applications in Archaeology</i>, 3(1), pp.151–169. DOI: <a href="http://doi.org/10.5334/jcaa.45">http://doi.org/10.5334/jcaa.45</a></span> --</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;">which
shows the locations of the Amazonian archaeological sites in question,
together with our added star labels and the appropriate Milky Way
section of stars. These identifications were made independently by Andis
Kaulins, Traben-Trarbach, Germany, who is not affiliated in any way
with any of the authors of the article cited above. We use the
geographic map as fair use for research purposes.<br /></p><p>In the article cited above, Iriarte et al. mention a possible "cosmic" meaning to the locations, as follows:</p><blockquote>"<b>Arranged
in symbolically significant ways with no clear hierarchy, the villages'
circular layouts may reflect their Indigenous inhabitants' conceptions
of the cosmos (Iriarte et al., Journal of Computer Applications in
Archaeology, under CC BY 4.0)</b>".</blockquote><p>To that we can
independently add: YES ... the
COSMOS ... We find that the cosmos referred to is comprised of specific
"landmark" stars and sections of the Milky Way of stars visible from
the identified Amazonian locations. <br /></p><p><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jBV-GovARb8/X9u9_GhjI3I/AAAAAAAAMMA/vH0cytkhzEY_1igpH9OgqILHDnCibNQPwCLcBGAsYHQ/s695/Amazonian%2BSW%2BMound%2BVillages%2BGeoglyphs%2BOther%2BEnclosures%2BAs%2BAstronomy.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="695" data-original-width="518" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jBV-GovARb8/X9u9_GhjI3I/AAAAAAAAMMA/vH0cytkhzEY_1igpH9OgqILHDnCibNQPwCLcBGAsYHQ/s16000/Amazonian%2BSW%2BMound%2BVillages%2BGeoglyphs%2BOther%2BEnclosures%2BAs%2BAstronomy.png" /></a> </p><p>Still too difficult?</p><p>-- given the map update further above in this posting??? </p><p>Take another look at the updated explanatory map.</p><p>You want to go contra? Forget it.</p><p>It is time for you all to bring your "science" up into the modern age.</p><p> <br /></p>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6915698.post-32066086986665526852020-12-26T19:33:00.011+01:002020-12-27T10:05:42.035+01:00The Guadalperal Megalithic Standing Stones of Peraleda de la Mata, Cáceres, Extremadura, Spain as Stars of the Starry Night Sky ca. 4200 B.C.<p> </p><p style="text-align: justify;">The reservoir-flooded megalithic
standing stones of Guadalperal reappeared in the drought of 2019 in the
Tagus River Valdecañas Reservoir in Peraleda de la Mata, Cáceres,
Extremadura, Spain.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">We present here
our decipherment of these megaliths, whose "stone circle" -- actually,
more in the shape of a boat than a circle, as at <a href="http://www.megaliths.net/" target="_blank">Tanum, Sweden</a> -- is clearly astronomical in nature.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">We
show through the images below that these stones represent the starry
night of stars ca. 4200 B.C., based on our dating of the solstitial
colure that we have located in the stones.<br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">The
underlying main photograph here of the Guadalperal megaliths --
essential for the decipherment -- is copyright of Rubén Ortega Martín,
Raíces de Peralêda de la Mata <a href="https://raicesdeperaleda.com/">https://raicesdeperaleda.com/</a>. We use the photograph here as "fair use" for research purposes. </p><p>The underlying aerial photo, equally essential for decipherment<br />-- which we clipped to better fit the decipherment image --<br />is attributed to 1080 Wildlife Productions at<br /><a href="https://allthatsinteresting.com/dolmen-de-guadalperalnterpretation">https://allthatsinteresting.com/dolmen-de-guadalperalnterpretation</a>.<br />We use the photograph here as "fair use" for research purposes. <br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">This is our decipherment image of the megalithic standing stones of Guadalperal <br />(<b>click on the image for the larger original image which can then be properly read</b>):</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xsM8NjwOTyk/X-EIlYH72NI/AAAAAAAAMeQ/GxQbenZEgx4lm6udoQt7XknN5cFzysNbgCLcBGAsYHQ/s948/Guadalperal%2BDecipherment%2Bby%2BAndis%2BKaulins%2Bas%2BAstronomy.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="682" data-original-width="948" height="460" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xsM8NjwOTyk/X-EIlYH72NI/AAAAAAAAMeQ/GxQbenZEgx4lm6udoQt7XknN5cFzysNbgCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h460/Guadalperal%2BDecipherment%2Bby%2BAndis%2BKaulins%2Bas%2BAstronomy.png" width="640" /></a></div><p style="text-align: justify;">The
decipherment is fairly self-explanatory, with the solstitial colure in
ca. 4200 B.C. running from Leo to the North Celestial Pole, marked by
the central megalith in the center of the boat-shaped "stone circle" at
Guadalperal.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The remaining standing
stones mark groups of stars, known modernly as constellations viz.
asterisms of definite shape, a shape determined by bright stars, all
known well in modernity, and here represented by a clip of a star map via <a href="http://www.starrynight.com/" target="_blank">Starry NightPro astronomy software</a></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><i>-- but
perhaps seen somewhat differently in ancient days, though the bright
stars are the same, so that the analysis still holds, even if the star
groups were somewhat different then --</i><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">going
clockwise from the left after Leo and Coma Berenices -- Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Boötes,
Hercules, Ophiuchus, Lyra, Aquila, Cepheus, Pegasus, Andromeda, Ursa
Major, Ursa Minor, Draco, the North Celestial Pole, Cassiopeia, Perseus,
Camelopardalis, Lynx, Auriga, Gemini, Orion, Cancer and Hydra. We may
have missed a few groups of stars, but on the whole, the
analysis stands.</p><p> <br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6915698.post-43823609061022237252020-12-26T19:04:00.003+01:002020-12-26T19:04:29.430+01:00Landmarks Sited by the Stars in Ancient Days: Amazonian Pre-Columbian Earthworks & Geoglyphs Represent Stars in the Sky in a Cosmic Geo-Hermetic Stellar Map "As Above, So Below"<p style="text-align: justify;">Why would the ancients have used stars of the starry night to "map" their Earth? <br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Just
imagine trying to make your way in a tropical climate in ancient days.
How did you get around and know where you were?</p><p style="text-align: justify;">We think stars and landmarks based on stars are the answer.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">West
& SW Amazonian Pre-Columbian village mounds viz. earthworks,
geoglyphs and "enclosures" identified by archaeologists are shown here
in our independent decipherment -- not related in any way to the
publications of the archaeologists -- as having been located by the
ancients to represent the Milky Way and corresponding stars in the
stellar constellations Aquila, Sagittarius, [Scorpio perhaps via a
natural mountain formation], Lupus, Centaurus, Crux, Musca, Carina,
Vela, Pyxis, & Puppis. Note that the ancients may have grouped and
designated the respective stars somewhat differently, but the principal
star locations in the sky remain the same nevertheless, concentrating on
the sky's brightest stars by magnitude, which form the "shape" of
artificial star groupings.<b><br /></b></p><p style="text-align: justify;">The
star correspondences shown below were discovered in December 2020 by
Andis Kaulins after reading an article in Smithsonian magazine about
Amazonian Pre-Columbian mound villages and other earthwork and similar
constructions. See the article by Livia Gershon in Smithsonian
magazine at These Amazonian Villages Were Laid Out Like Clock Faces <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/archaeologists-find-clock-face-layout-amazon-villages-180976553/">https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/archaeologists-find-clock-face-layout-amazon-villages-180976553/</a>. <br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">As
retained down to this day, we find that the ancients placed their
religious "gods" in the heavens, i.e. stellar locations which provided a
natural, fixed easily accessible map, which was mirrored geographically
on Earth "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermeticism" target="_blank">as above, so below</a>".</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Please
note that our decipherment star maps -- shown below -- were created
using our clips of star maps produced via Starry Night Pro astronomy
software, to which we have added explanatory texts, labels, and figures,
as necessary.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">See <a href="https://starrynight.com/" target="_blank">http://www.starrynight.com/</a><br /></p><p>In the image below, the upper section shows a geographic map clip by us from </p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #cc0000;">-- a geographic map at <span class="span-citation">Iriarte, J., Robinson, M., de Souza, J.,
Damasceno, A., da Silva, F., Nakahara, F., Ranzi, A. and Aragao, L.,
2020. Geometry by Design: Contribution of Lidar to the Understanding of
Settlement Patterns of the Mound Villages in SW Amazonia. <i>Journal of Computer Applications in Archaeology</i>, 3(1), pp.151–169. DOI: <a href="http://doi.org/10.5334/jcaa.45">http://doi.org/10.5334/jcaa.45</a></span> --</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;">which
shows the locations of the Amazonian archaeological sites in question,
together with our added star labels and the appropriate Milky Way
section of stars. These identifications were made independently by Andis
Kaulins, Traben-Trarbach, Germany, who is not affiliated in any way
with any of the authors of the article cited above. We use the
geographic map as fair use for research purposes.<br /></p><p>In the article cited above, Iriarte et al. mention a possible "cosmic" meaning to the locations, as follows:</p><blockquote>"<b>Arranged
in symbolically significant ways with no clear hierarchy, the villages'
circular layouts may reflect their Indigenous inhabitants' conceptions
of the cosmos (Iriarte et al., Journal of Computer Applications in
Archaeology, under CC BY 4.0)</b>".</blockquote><p>To that we can
independently add: YES ... the
COSMOS ... We find that the cosmos referred to is comprised of specific
"landmark" stars and sections of the Milky Way of stars visible from
the identified Amazonian locations. <br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><p><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jBV-GovARb8/X9u9_GhjI3I/AAAAAAAAMMA/vH0cytkhzEY_1igpH9OgqILHDnCibNQPwCLcBGAsYHQ/s695/Amazonian%2BSW%2BMound%2BVillages%2BGeoglyphs%2BOther%2BEnclosures%2BAs%2BAstronomy.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="695" data-original-width="518" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jBV-GovARb8/X9u9_GhjI3I/AAAAAAAAMMA/vH0cytkhzEY_1igpH9OgqILHDnCibNQPwCLcBGAsYHQ/s16000/Amazonian%2BSW%2BMound%2BVillages%2BGeoglyphs%2BOther%2BEnclosures%2BAs%2BAstronomy.png" /></a></p><p style="text-align: left;">One
possibility to perhaps partially confirm the likelihood of the
correctness of our stellar correspondences occurred to us after
examining some additional neighboring earthworks viz. similar locations
identified in de Souza, J.G., Schaan, D.P., Robinson, M. et al. <a href="https://draft.blogger.com/#" target="_blank">Pre-Columbian earth-builders settled along the entire southern rim of the Amazon</a>. <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-03510-7" target="_blank">Nat Commun</a> 9, 1125 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-03510-7.</p><p style="text-align: left;">If
our stellar analysis is sound, then neighboring Amazonian earthwork
locations should also represent other stars in the sky located beyond
those shown in the image above, and, indeed, we find it is possible to
view those earthworks located to the West of those above as representing
the stars of Aquila and Sagittarius, which identification fits into the
system of star correspondences shown above.<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EARp2AbfcPY/X-cM0wX24cI/AAAAAAAAMg4/4o2EPzLlDGcfyOhu5VYdurvxhAvfVZBuQCLcBGAsYHQ/s685/West%2BAmazonian%2BMounds%2BRepresent%2BStars%2Bof%2BAquila%2BSagittarius.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="685" data-original-width="525" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EARp2AbfcPY/X-cM0wX24cI/AAAAAAAAMg4/4o2EPzLlDGcfyOhu5VYdurvxhAvfVZBuQCLcBGAsYHQ/s16000/West%2BAmazonian%2BMounds%2BRepresent%2BStars%2Bof%2BAquila%2BSagittarius.png" /></a></div><p style="text-align: left;"><b>Recall our original question: </b></p><p style="text-align: left;"><b>Why would the ancients have used stars of the starry night to "map" their Earth? </b><b><br /></b></p><p style="text-align: left;"><b>Just imagine trying to make your way in a tropical climate in ancient days. How did you get around and know where you were?</b></p><p style="text-align: left;"><b>We think stars and landmarks based on stars are the answer.</b></p><p style="text-align: left;"><b> </b><br /></p></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6915698.post-4672054275424327162020-10-09T23:13:00.005+02:002020-10-13T12:09:51.020+02:00Science Writing Getting Harder to Read: Acronyms, Jargon, Wordy Text<p><a href="https://www.natureindex.com/news-blog/science-research-papers-getting-harder-to-read-acronyms-jargon" target="_blank">Nature Index</a> tells us that</p>"Science is getting harder to read : From obscure acronyms to unnecessary jargon, research papers are increasingly impenetrable – even for scientists."Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6915698.post-90979492829418014862020-09-14T14:21:00.003+02:002020-09-14T15:49:56.102+02:00Improving Education in the Modern World: Teaching The Dry Facts Prior to the Teaching of Conceptual Ideas and Cognitive Concepts<p></p>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"<a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/products/how-to-educate-a-citizen-e-d-hirsch?variant=32205907460130" target="_blank">Bad Teaching is Tearing America Apart</a>" is an article by Naomi Schaefer Riley at the Wall Street Journal, September 12, 2020, reviewing "<a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/products/how-to-educate-a-citizen-e-d-hirsch?variant=32205907460130" target="_blank">How to Educate a Citizen</a>", by E.D. Hirsch, Jr., a timely book just published by HarperCollins, in which Hirsch examines important aspects of the teaching focus of the American educational system and its connection to problems of culture and race. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Naomi Schaefer Riley writes <i>inter alia</i>:</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"<span style="color: #3d85c6;">The current fashion is for teachers to be a “guide on the side, instead of a sage on the stage,” [Hirsch] says, quoting the latest pedagogical slogan, which means that teachers aren’t supposed to lecture students but to “facilitate” learning by nudging students to follow their own curiosity. <b>Everything Mr. Hirsch knows about how children learn tells him that’s the wrong approach.</b> “If you want equity in education, as well as excellence, you have to have whole-class instruction,” in which a teacher directly communicates information using a prescribed sequential curriculum.</span>" [emphasis added by us]</blockquote>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The valuable -- if also surely controversial -- educational issues of our time presented by Hirsch in his book would appear to be essential reading for everyone, not just educators, and at all levels of teaching and learning.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b><a href="https://lawpundit.wordpress.com/2004/01/26/research-skills-are-not-everything-but-close-research-skills-in-academia-fail-according-to-berkeley-study/" target="_blank">Studies show that many teachers prefer to teach "concepts" rather than "facts"</a></b>, which is understandable, since concepts can be far more fun to teach, being a creative focus of attention, but it is of course the often dry "facts" that people must learn and utilize first, since they provide the necessary practical knowledge usage base for teaching and learning, and -- in later application -- since they establish areas of accepted expertise in all fields of life.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"Conceptual ideas" viz. "cognitive concepts", on the other hand, are important dynamic tools down the road that are necessary to obtain more or improved knowledge beyond that which has already been taught and learned or is allegedly "known" to be true of thought to be true.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
But the foundation of facts must have initial precedence, and must be taught in the schools, rather than the conclusions based on such facts -- and this also applies to the religions, and similar "conclusory" disciplines -- whose concepts may be true or not. This order of priority should apply especially -- but not only -- to primary school teaching and learning levels, and should also take priority precedence at undergraduate college and university graduate research levels.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
FIRST the facts, and only then can we rightly ponder what those facts mean, always checking those same alleged facts for veracity and up-to-datedness. The state of the art of knowledge is always in flux, and what is seen as true today, may not be seen as true tomorrow. Get your facts straight and only then let your conceptual thoughts and conclusions follow. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempus_fugit" target="_blank">Tempus fugit</a>. Consider that what "is known" is always much less than what can still be known or will be discovered as new facts in the future, with new concepts to follow -- that in any case is the history of human knowledge.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Hat tip to CaryGEE.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6915698.post-60092361457809102552020-09-08T01:22:00.000+02:002020-09-08T01:22:09.442+02:00Connect the Dots : The Midheaven Plaquette of Les Varines, Jersey, Channel Islands, UK : The Perimeter Stars, the North Celestial Pole and Carved Figures in Stone<p style="text-align: justify;">Connect the Dots: The Midheaven Plaquette of Les Varines, Jersey, Channel Islands, UK: Perimeter Stars, the North Celestial Pole and Carved Figures in Stone<br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">This is a follow-up on our previous posting <a href="https://lawpundit.blogspot.com/2020/08/a-lesson-in-critical-analysis-for.html" target="_blank">A Lesson in Critical Analysis for Archaeology and Astronomy: The Midheaven Plaquette (Plaquette #2) of Les Varines, Jersey (near St. Helier) ca. 7600 B.C</a>.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">We show in the graphic image below*** how the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perimeter" target="_blank">perimeter</a><span style="color: #cc0000;"> [<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perimeter" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a>: Greek περίμετρος <i>perimetros</i> from περί <i>peri</i> "around" and μέτρον <i>metron</i> "measure"]</span> of the Midheaven Plaquette follows a shape that is outlined by brighter stars of the midheaven starry night sky.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">We claim that one can try to place this stone plaquette shape anywhere else in the night's starry sky and it will not fit as well in terms of the stars located at the plaquette shape's perimeter. One could of course draft a mathematical algorithm comparing star magnitudes in the heavens as a means to <b>fit</b> a plaquette like this in the stars of the sky, but this shape would surely fit best at midheaven anyway. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Similarly, the North Celestial Pole on the plaquette is in a unique place not duplicated elsewhere in the starry sky. Indeed, together with the positions of the Celestial Meridian and Ecliptic Meridian in that era, which arguably have their plaquette comparables, the plaquette origin can be dated to ca. 7600 B.C.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">There is really very little that can be disputed here on those <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/parameter" target="_blank">parameters</a>.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WT1zU5WkMUU/X1Zci4-CojI/AAAAAAAAL-U/JuCR-cCHTw0krMinGPOKzHJM97FibNgzgCLcBGAsYHQ/s760/Les%2BVarines%2BMIdheaven%2BPlaquette%2BPerimeter%2BStars%2Band%2BNorth%2BCelestial%2BPole%2B1.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="649" data-original-width="760" height="533" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WT1zU5WkMUU/X1Zci4-CojI/AAAAAAAAL-U/JuCR-cCHTw0krMinGPOKzHJM97FibNgzgCLcBGAsYHQ/w625-h533/Les%2BVarines%2BMIdheaven%2BPlaquette%2BPerimeter%2BStars%2Band%2BNorth%2BCelestial%2BPole%2B1.png" width="625" /></a></div><p></p><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Where the fun starts -- for those interested -- is in identifying any possible figures carved onto the plaquette via the lines carved in the stone and, so we allege, following the corresponding connected lines viz. dots of stars in the heavens.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Such figures would be expected for a prehistoric portrayal of the stars at heaven's center -- e.g. perhaps comparable to the predynastic Egyptian figures at midheaven of one or even two guardian falcons or a similar high-flying bird, such as an eagle, perhaps including also a guardian dog and a precessionally-winding serpent, all of which we could easily draw above on the plaquette by connecting the dots accordingly (<b>see our sample figure drawing below</b>).</p><p style="text-align: justify;">But what figures are really there? No one knows for sure. Perhaps detailed microscopic analysis by experts of the carved incisions could give us more probative information. Otherwise, it is all guesswork.<br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Moreover, there are numerous other figures that could be identified on the Midheaven Plaquette above -- e.g. we see perhaps what could be two large horse heads (or similar) one above another in the middle of the plaquette, looking right -- which would be "old" carvings perhaps even preceding the Holocene, a "prehistoric" hand-me-down plaquette possibility that is not totally excluded by us -- as also numerous human faces on the plaquette and also on the perimeter of the plaquette -- especially when the plaquette is magnified viz. zoomed digitally so that the star connections "by dots" can be subjectively drawn in detail.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Indeed, the plaquette seen as a whole could also be said to mark a human head looking right, with the hair represented by numerous comparably drawn lines, and a hair bun or animal hat on top of the head marking the North Celestial Pole, which also may have a face figure marking the pole star looking up. <br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b>Proving any such figures is next to impossible</b> in our modern day, because there are so many uncertain subjective possibilities, and because there is a clear indication that a multiplicity of figures can be drawn, often appearing to exist as overlays on top of murky, previously drawn viz. carved figures, so that the figures drawn on the plaquette may have been the subjects of time-differing work carved by succeeding generations separated by eras.</p><p style="text-align: center;"><b>Connect the Dots:<br />What Figures Were Carved on the Midheaven Plaquette? ***</b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wRKTP3IB3C4/X1a9FL0pLBI/AAAAAAAAL-g/DWHKhkGmxisbpcdUdo4huGMVcGlLwT_0gCLcBGAsYHQ/s760/Les%2BVarines%2BMIdheaven%2BPlaquette%2BCarved%2BFigures%2B1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="649" data-original-width="760" height="533" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wRKTP3IB3C4/X1a9FL0pLBI/AAAAAAAAL-g/DWHKhkGmxisbpcdUdo4huGMVcGlLwT_0gCLcBGAsYHQ/w625-h533/Les%2BVarines%2BMIdheaven%2BPlaquette%2BCarved%2BFigures%2B1.png" width="625" /></a></div><p style="text-align: center;"></p><p style="text-align: justify;"> </p><p style="text-align: justify;">See by comparison the figures found on the Pharaonic Egyptian palettes marking Midheaven via:</p><ul><li style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://lawpundit.blogspot.com/2020/07/prehistoric-stargazers-on-british-isles.html" target="_blank">Prehistoric Stargazers on the British Isles: Mapping Midheaven Stars at the Cove Stones of Avebury Henge<br /><br /></a></li><li><div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://lawpundit.blogspot.com/2020/08/the-boxgrove-west-sussex-united-kingdom.html" target="_blank">The Boxgrove, West Sussex, United Kingdom (UK) Reconstructed Flint and the Boxgrove Bone Hammer are Megalithic Astronomy</a></div></li></ul><p style="text-align: justify;">__________ <br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b>***</b> The decipherment images above consist of a map of stars -- created by
Andis Kaulins, August 28, 2020, using Starry Night Pro astronomy
software -- which map is superimposed on a lightened graphic of
Plaquette 2 to better show the imposed stars, a graphic based on photos
found at <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/" target="_blank">PLOS ONE</a> in <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0236875" target="_blank">Artists
on the edge of the world: An integrated approach to the study of
Magdalenian engraved stone plaquettes from Jersey (Channel Islands)</a> and BBC News of 19 August 2020 at <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-53835146" target="_blank">https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-53835146</a>. See the *** footnote at the end of this posting for full credit to the photographic original image, governed by a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution License</a>.<br />
</p><p style="text-align: justify;">*** Credits taken directly from the cited PLoS article are as follows:<br />
</p><div class="articleinfo">
<b>Citation: </b>Bello SM, Blinkhorn E, Needham A, Bates M, Duffy S,
Little A, et al. (2020) Artists on the edge of the world: An
integrated approach to the study of Magdalenian engraved stone
plaquettes from Jersey (Channel Islands). PLoS ONE 15(8): e0236875. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0236875" target="_blank">https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0236875</a><br />
<b>Editor: </b>Michael D. Petraglia, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, GERMANY<br />
<b>Received: </b>February 5, 2020; <b>Accepted: </b>July 15, 2020; <b>Published: </b> August 19, 2020<br />
<b>Copyright: </b> © 2020 Bello et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution License</a>,
which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any
medium, provided the original author and source are credited.<br />
<b>Data Availability: </b>All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting Information files.<br />
<b>Funding: </b>Excavations at Les Varines were funded by Jersey Heritage through the States of Jersey Tourism Development Fund (<a href="https://www.gov.je/Leisure/Events/TourismDevelopmentFundTDF/pages/abouttdf.aspx">https://www.gov.je/Leisure/Events/TourismDevelopmentFundTDF/pages/abouttdf.aspx</a>) in 2013-15 and in 2017 (BS received the funding), by the British Museum research fund in 2016-18 (<a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/research">https://www.britishmuseum.org/research</a>) (Grant nos EC164/EC208) (BS received the funding), in 2016 by British Academy (<a href="https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/">https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk</a>) small grant SG152868 (CC received the funding) and Society of Antiquaries (<a href="https://www.sal.org.uk/">https://www.sal.org.uk/</a>)
Research Grants R121086 in 2017 and BH181355 in 2018 (CC received the
funding). Funding from the Universities of Manchester, Southampton and
UCL supported student training at the excavation. Silvia Bello’s work
was part of the ‘Human Behaviour in 3D’ Project funded by the Calleva
Foundation. Beccy Scott’s work was also supported by the Calleva
foundation (Pathways to Ancient Britain project). The funders had no
role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish,
or preparation of the manuscript.<br />
<b>Competing interests: </b> The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.</div>
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