Total solar eclipse, 1999. Wikipedia.
A
total solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes directly in front of the Sun. This is a spectacular sight, even to our modern
society which understands the scientific reason for such an occurrence. It was
surely even more impressive to our ancient ancestors who did not have our
understanding of it. This is another of the subjects that I cannot imagine
would not have been commemorated in rock art somewhere, but I personally know
of no such proven examples (although I suspect some examples - explained
below).
Solar Eclipse of Aug. 7, 1869, portrayed by Lone Dog (left) and
The Swan (right). From Greene and Thornton,
The Year The Stars Fell, Smithsonian, 2007.
There are examples of Native American images of
total eclipses that may allow us to speculate what a total eclipse might look
like in rock art. These consist of a number of examples from Lakota Winter Counts
portraying the total eclipse of August 7, 1869. The line of totality for that
eclipse crossed Lakota territory, and obviously impressed them enough to result
in these images. In each known example
they portray it by showing the obscured sun as a black disk and in each case a
couple of bright stars are shown, reflecting the fact that in the darkened sky
during totality bright stars may be visible. Greene and Thornton (2007)
illustrate a few examples in their fascinating book The Year the Stars Fell; Lakota Winter Counts at the Smithsonian. “An
Eclipse of the Sun, a drawing by the winter count keeper Lone Dog (Greene and
Thornton 2007:264), commemorates the blackening of the sun on August 7, 1869
and accompanying visibility of otherwise invisible stars in the darkened sky.”
Pecos, Texas rock art, Photo Teresa Weedin, 2004.
Painted Cave, Bandelier, Los Alamos
County, NM. Photograph: Russ Finley.
I stated above that I suspect some rock art may indeed
represent a total solar eclipse. My candidate for this would be the solar
portrayal with projecting rays from the four quadrants that is known as the Zia
sun symbol. The Zia Indians of New
Mexico regard the Sun as a sacred symbol. Their symbol, a red circle with
groups of rays pointing in four directions, is painted on ceremonial vases,
drawn on the ground around campfires, and used to introduce newborns to the
Sun. (Wikipedia) The examples illustrated above come from the Pecos region in Texas, and a personified Zia sun symbol toward the left of the panel from Painted Cave at Bandeliere, New Mexico.
New Mexico automobile license plate.
Most recognizable from the automobile license plate
from the state of New Mexico, the Zia sun symbol is actually a good
representation of the moment of totality in a solar eclipse when the corona of
the sun becomes visible and the sharp-eyed viewer can see the prominences in
the solar atmosphere (see the first illustration of a total eclipse). Indeed, that is the only time one can see this phenomenon
with the naked eye, and this suggests that any sun symbol with points, rays, or
projections beyond the outer circle might be a representation of a total eclipse.
Also, representations of the sun with triangular projections around the rim could well be attempts to illustrate this phenomenon. What candidates do you know of?
REFERENCES:
Greene, Candace S. and Russell Thornton (editors)
2007 The
Year the Stars Fell: Lakota Winter Counts at the Smithsonian, University of
Nebraska Press, Lincoln.
Wikipedia
Posts
You're conjecture-hypothesis is on the right track. There should be little doubt that the Zia cross symbol which appears on the state flag of New Mexico is a solar cross that was inspired by observations of the sun's corona during total solar eclipses. There is a scientific astronomical drawing of the 1870 total solar eclipse that distinctly resembles the Zia cross symbol.
ReplyDeleteSee my Eclipsology essay 'How The Solar Cross Symbol Was Inspired By Total Solar Eclipses' here:
http://eclipsology.blogspot.ca/2009/09/how-solar-cross-symbol-was-inspired-by.html