eye. The maria cover about 16% of the lunar surface, mostly on the nearside visible from Earth. The few maria on the far-side are much smaller, residing mostly in very large craters where only a small amount of flooding occurred. -- Reference Wikipedia The mythology about Dowth speaks
of a bull and seven cows, it seems likely that the site has some connection with the constellation of Taurus, the Bull, which contains
the open cluster the Pleiades, otherwise known as "The Seven Sisters. This constellation was very important around the year BC, when the Boyne Valley mounds were being constructed, as it contained
the Sun on the Spring Equinox, that very important moment of the year when the Sun's path along the ecliptic crossed the celestial equator heading northwards. It is the Sun's position among the zodiac stars at this time which determines the current 'age' – i.e. the "Age of Taurus. Another interesting phenomenon which occurs at this time is what is known to astronomers as a 'heliacal rising' of the Pleiades. This happens when the stars in question rise at the eastern horizon but are quickly lost in the glare of the rising sun. It is interesting to note that the Egyptians, and the Dogon tribe in Africa, (See The Oz Factors) among others, used the same Dowth-like 'sun-wheel' symbols to signify a heliacal rising. If these 'sun-wheel' symbols do represent the heliacal
rising of the Pleiades, it tells us something very significant about the Neolithic people – they were aware of the great cycle of precession, the slow wobble of the Earth's axis which causes the celestial pole to shift overtime, resulting
in the Vernal Equinox point, that place where the Sun crosses the celestial equator, moving backwards, or westwards, through the Zodiac over a huge 25,800- year period. This Vernal point moves just one degree (about two widths of the full moon) every 72 years, and spends on average 2,150 years in each of the twelve constellations of the Zodiac" -- Reference http://www.mythicalireland.com/ancientsites/dowth/candlelight.html
(back to 9)
Share with your friends: