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VESTIGES OF A LOST CIVILIZATION II

[Typescript corrected in pencil. Handwritten date “13/6/27”.]

Article 1 described a sculptured stone at Sliabh-na-Caillighe, Ireland, in which are portrayed some of the world’s oldest stories, such as those of the Creation, the Deluge, the Phoenix, and the Halcyon Days. It was shown that all these stories are allegorical, and are based upon a profoundly ancient astronomical knowledge dating from the Stone Ages.

How, it may be asked, can an apparently crude and haphazard piece of carving be endowed with so much significance? How can it, without words or numerals, record the year which it commemorates, and the astronomical events of that year?

The answer is that, besides being a pictorial record, the stone contains a subtle, but essentially simple and ingenious geometrical record. It is an astronomical clock. A Frenchman does not require English to read the time on Big Ben: neither do we require a knowledge of prehistoric languages or numerals to read the record of the prehistoric carvings.

The geometrical symbolism is present in thousands of rock carvings throughout the world – in the British Isles alone there are probably at least five thousand. These form a great, unread library. The key to the meaning of the carvings is now available; and it may be said to unlock gateways hitherto locked, bolted, and barred upon the distant past.

At some period remotely distant in the Old Stone Age – not less than thirty-two thousand years before Christ, possibly twice or thrice as early, mankind, or a section of mankind, emerged from brutish ignorance, and amongst other things became adept in astronomy. Some supreme genius of Palaeolithic times invented a method of recording observations – a method which oversteps all the barriers of race, of speech, and of time. His method was chiefly that of a standard clock-dial, now reconstructed, which may be applied to any prehistoric record so as to extract the message which the ancient sculptor inscribed.

In the case of the Irish carving, the message is an account of what happened in 5619 B.C., more particularly what happened on the day corresponding to our November 25 of that year.

But, it will be urged, surely it is inconceivable that at so early a date <there> were astronomers in Ireland capable of observing and recording an eclipse of the sun?

According to conventional thought in these matters, nothing of moment in science and philosophy ever came out of the British Isles in classical or pre-classical times. We are taught to look to Egypt, Babylonia, and Greece for the beginnings of mental culture, and indeed for most civilizing influences. Even in such a matter as the invention of Bronze, this copper- and tin-producing country is rarely credited with initiative. Bronze, like everything else, is supposed to have come to us from some region vaguely known as the East

This is mere fatuity. The wonderful prehistoric records and relics of our own country have not been adequately recognized, because it has never been deemed possible that they can contain an {14} intelligible message. Such things as cup-and-ring rock markings have been set aside as meaningless and childish. Thus British archaeology has suffered from the lure of the distant drum of the East.

This attitude of mind requires drastic readjustment. It is now possible to show that skilled astronomers and geometricians were at work in Western Europe before the mud of the Nile Valley had accumulated sufficiently to grow crops for a teeming population.

As early as about 11,000 B.C. skilled geometricians were busy on Salisbury Plain, and the first or at least the oldest now traceable, portion of Stonehenge was planned in strict accordance with a universal plan. In France the traces go much further back, but it is reasonable to assume that the British Isles witnessed most of the phases of culture traceable in France.

The earliest human document so far discovered is a cup-marked slab from a Mousterian grave at La Ferrassie, France*. This stone records eclipses of the sun and moon in the year 31,719 B.C.

*[cf. Glasgow Herald article.]

Eclipse cycles

The foundation of this extremely old Science was the study of recurrences of celestial events. Within the bounds of this well-defined field, the prehistoric astronomer knew probably more than his modern successor. This knowledge was by no means confined to such comparatively short cycles as the Saros of 18 years 11 days, or to the Metonic Cycle of nineteen years.

One or two writers have suggested that both the Saros and the Metonic cycle were known earlier than is usually asserted in works on astronomical history. No writer, however, has dared to suggest that the knowledge went back tens of millennia‘millions’ in 1977 edition, and that the precise elements of astronomical time, such as the solar year, the synodic month, the nodical month, the eclipse year, and the synodic periods of the planets, were precisely known in prehistoric ages – much less to suggest that rock-markings dating from those ages record astronomical events, such as eclipses, correctly to the day, the hour, and almost to the minute.

Nevertheless, proof of a profoundly ancient and acurate knowledge of celestial periods has long been available apart from the new evidence here adduced. In the Scriptures, for instance, time cycles such as 2300 years and 1260 years are clearly inidcated. The Swiss astronomer, De Cheseaux, drew attention to these a century ago. Since his time no astronomer appears to have faced the question – How did the writers of Daniel and Revelation know the value of the solar year and the synodic month to such a degree of accuracy as to disclose that in 1260 years the moon returns to within eleven hours of a common lunisolar starting point, or that the 2300-year cycle witnesses a correction of accumulated error in the Metonic cycle?

To classical writers the value of the solar year was not sufficiently well understood to enable them to disclose these cycles. From what source, then did the information spring? Some might answer that the numerical quantities were a part of the Divine revelation which produced the Scriptures.

There is, however, a rational and simple explanation; and such works as the Irish carving prove it.

{15} For tens of tbousands of years a section of humanity had studied the mysteries of the celestial vault, counting with infinite care (probably under stern discipline) the days, minutes, and seconds taken not only by the sun and moon, but by the five anciently known planets to perform their apparent rounds of the heavens, (the synodic periods). These periods became known to the finest point of accuracy – they are so recorded in every petroglyph the writer has so far examined. No evidence of initial or transitional stages in this remarkable cult has so far been found: it appears upon the scene fully fledged and perfected. Everywhere there is the same rigid exactitude.

No doubt a great volume of celestial lore had been accumulated before one of the master minds of all time marshalled and analysed it, and established his method of recording astronomical findings. Mousterian man in Europe was in possession of the knowledge. Onwards through Aurignacian, Magdalenian and later ages, until the early centuries of our era, the methods remained unchanged.

Vestiges of a lost civilization

The records are chiefly upon rock-surfaces, flat, sloping, or vertical; and upon standing stones, slabs, and stone objects. They appear also in the lay-out of groups of standing stones and in the dimensions of monuments, such as earthworks and pyramids.

The methods can here be briefly described. After some twenty-five years’ study of hundreds of examples of prehistoric carvings and structures of all kinds, at home and abroad, the writer has been able to reconstruct the system in its essentials and in most of its details.

Prolonged study of the heavens had revealed to prehistoric man that eclipses recurred in definite order after certain long intervals, and that the errors, which gradually crept into the Saros, became neutralised after groups of saroses had elapsed. He saw for instance deep significance in such periods as 521 years, 949 years, 1040 years, 1154 years, 1260 years, 1656 years, 2300 years and 2326 years.

At the very earliest stage it is plain that the subtle mechanism of eclipses was known in so far as it concerned calculations of time. The periods of the nodical month and the eclipse year were known; but only a few of the elements necessary to determine the nature of an eclipse were known. The prehistoric astonomer could not foretell the visibility in a given region of a solar eclipse. His conception of the universe seems to have been that of great invisible spheres, carrying round the sun, the moon, the stars and the planets, with the centre of the earth being the centre of all things. Not being able to allow for the varying distances of the moon, he could not distinguish between the likelihood of the recurrence of an annular as against a total‘solar’ in 1977 edition eclipse.

In everything concerning Time, however, his knowledge was as nearly perfect as it was possible to be. Time was conceived to be the great Mystery of God. It was compounded of certain cyclical elements. The celestial orbs went through a certain ordered routine, and every now and again came back into something like harmony.

Eclipses were the milestones of time: all great cycles ended with eclipses. The occurrence, for instance of seven eclipses in one year was a red-letter event. Of course, it was impossible to witness all seven. The emphasis laid upon certain years both in the carved records and in tradition points nevertheless to the fact that the early {16} astronomers were aware that seven eclipses could be compressed within the space of 365 days.

The mythology associated with time-cycles seems to have been entirely overlooked. When, however, certain passages in the Scriptures and certain legendary tales are read in the light of celestial time-cycles, their meaning becomes apparent.

It has been recognized that the reference in Daniel (8:14) to the cleansing of the sanctuary after 2300 days indicates the 2300-year cycle; and that when the woman of Revelation (12:6) is given the wings of a great eagle that she might fly to a place where she might be protected for 1260 days from the wrath of the serpent, the 1260-year luni-solar cycle is alluded to.

It is doubtful, however, whether the significance of the term “cleansing of the sanctuary” has been understood.

It means that the calendar was rectified. The Metonic cycle is not a perfect cycle: each period of nineteen years sees a widening gap between the position of sun and moon. By the 2300th year, however, the difference has accumulated so that the month is brought into almost exact line once more with the apparent movements of the sun.

Neither does the symbolism of the 1260-year cycle and the Eagle seem to have been realised. The Eagle was one of the “Four Living Creatures” of the Scriptures, and was indeed the symbol of one of the four great Time-Cycles of which prehistoric man conceived Time to be compounded. The Eagle was symbolic of Saturn, the Chronos or Time deity and the god of eclipses. The cycle of 1260 years is a solar eclipse great cycle, comprising about 76 saroses. The woman of Revelation therefore symbolised the celestial orbs which were immune from the attack of this particular serpent for 1260 years.

To appreciate fully the ancient conception of Time, it is only necessary to read the opening passages of Ezekiel. Here the four living creatures – the Eagle, the Lion, the Man, and the Calf – are symbols representing the four great calendric cycles of 3780, 3843½, 3600 and 4750 years. These cycles are the basis of time reckoning in rock-carved astronomical records throughout the world.

The 3780-year cycle is recognisable as three periods of 1260 years, and is represented by the Eagle. The 3843½year cycle symbolised by the Lion, is the famous Maya “Long Count” of 1,403,811 days. The writer was amazed to find this period – actively in use in Central America during the early centuries of this era – the basis of reckoning in a cup-marking of Mousterian France, and indeed of all cup-markings.

The 3600-year cycle, symbolised by the “Man”, is plainly allied to the 12,000-year “ages” or “yugas” of the Babylonians and the Indians.

The fourth cycle, that of 4750 years, is symbolised by the Calf. It consists of 250 Metonic cycles, and is apparently not be traced in national traditions although very prominent in monument geometrical records.

{17} The four living creatures – synonymous with the “four beasts” and the “four horsemen” of the Apocalypse – were therefore:

The terminal dates arrived at from study of the monuments and from traditional records such as those of the Patriarchs and Manetho’s Egyptian lists of kings (all involving astronomical symbolism), presented perhaps the greatest difficulty which the writer experienced in elucidating the system by which prehistoric man handed down his records.

It is clear, that, given the number of years elapsed in any two cycles, it is possible to identify a year over a very long period of time. In 1927, for instance, there have elapsed 1900 years of the 4750 or Calf cycle which began in 27 A.D.; and 1931 years of the Man cycle which began in 5 B.C.

This is the means by which the prehistoric chronologer isolated a

[Typescript breaks off here. One or more sheets probably missing.]