A 5,355 YEAR-OLD ANCIENT IRISH RECORD OF AN ECLIPSE – OR NOT?

Cairn "L", Loughcrew, County Meath, Ireland. Online image public domain.

Recently reports have surfaced about carvings on stone panels in a Neolithic passage tomb known as “Cairn L,” on Carbane West, at Loughcrew, outside Oldcastle, in County Meath, Ireland which supposedly record an eclipse that happened in 3340 BC. I think this is another huge over-reach in interpretation, but you can read below and make up your own minds.

In 2013, Dr. Frank Prendergast completed a detailed study of the monument and found no reason to assign any such significance to any of the carvings.

Chamber of cairn "L", Loughcrew, County Meath, Ireland. Online image public domain.

“The chamber and passage are orientated east-south-east. There are no apparent distinctive topographical or monumental features on the horizon in this direction. This could suggest an alternative imperative for the orientation of the tomb. The summary astronomical investigation presented here was undertaken as part of a national survey of passage tombs undertaken by the writer. From that, the measured passage orientation (azimuth or direction relative to true north), the horizon altitude and the geographical location of Tomb L were used to calculate the indicative astronomical declination (δ). From δ, the likely dates of sunrise for the north and south azimuth limits of the tomb/passage and the central axis were determined. Although the azimuths were derived from compass bearings, above data are sufficiently accurate to allow for a determination of the dates and date ranges of solar illumination within the tomb to an accuracy of a few days. These should be consistent with what would be seen by an observer located in the chamber.” (Prendergast 2013)

 “In assessing the significance and meaning of tomb orientation, numerous criteria/factors (including astronomical) can explain any possible intentionality and, thus, deliberate axial alignment. There is also the possibility that tomb orientation can be random. In the case of Tomb L, and in the apparent absence of any indicative/distinctive natural or built horizon feature that might have acted as a focal target, the tomb may have been simply built to face the rising sun.” (Prendergast 2013) Notice Prendergast’s conclusion that the tomb was built to face the rising sun, but not aligned with any specific landscape features.

“These phenomena are interpreted by the writer as not having had any calendrical significance in the prehistoric past and popular ideas of Tomb L being aligned towards the mid-quarter dates of November 5/February 4 are thus challenged here for several reasons. Although sunlight will penetrate to the edge of cell 6 around these dates, any claim for the alignment of the passage axis being calendrically significant in an early prehistoric context has little basis in fact. Tomb L was built in the Neolithic and, as such, predates (by almost three millennia) any late Iron Age/early Medieval evidence for calendrical subdivision of the solar year.” (Prendergast 2013) Prendergast found no significant archeoastronomical orientations at Tomb L. He also made no mention of any of the stone carving supposedly portraying an eclipse. Prendergast’s conclusion is that this tomb, and thus its carvings, have no celendrical significance. Brennan (1983) conducted an extensive study of Irish Burial Mounds, including Tomb L, and found numerous carved images that he identified as lunar images.

'Eclipse' stone in the chamber of cairn "L", Loughcrew, County Meath, Ireland. Online image public domain.

But then, the theory popped up that the carved boulder at the end of the passage in Tomb L portrays the earliest known record lf a solar eclipse. “Our ancient Irish ancestors carved images of an ancient eclipse into giant stones over 5,000 years ago, on November 30, 3340 BC to be exact. This is the oldest known recorded solar eclipse in history.” (Hayes) I believe that this extraordinary claim can be first attributed to Dr. Philip J. Stooke, Philip J. (1994) who stated “The historian Diodorus Siculus (writing shortly before the time of Christ but quoting Hecataeus, some five centuries earlier, 'and certain others') wrote of the 'Island of the Hyperboreans' ... ‘there is also on the island both a magnificent sacred precinct of Apollo and a notable temple which is adorned with many votive offerings and is spherical in shape... They say also that the moon, as viewed from this island, appears to be but a little distance from the Earth and to have upon it prominences, like those of the Earth, which are visible to the eye. The account is also given that the god visits the island every nineteen years....’ The nineteen year period is presumably that between almost identical eclipses.” (Stooke 1994)

Close up of 'eclipse' stone in the chamber of cairn "L", Loughcrew, County Meath, Ireland. Online image public domain.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and I have been unable to find any explanation of this claim except Stooke’s reference to Diodorus Siculus who had never, of course, visited Ireland. Another citation sends us to “Irish archaeo-astronomer Paul Griffin has announced the confirmation of the world's oldest known solar eclipse recorded in stone, substantially older than the recordings made in 2800 BC by Chinese astronomers. This finding was made at the world's oldest lunar eclipse tracking multi cairn site at the Loughcrew Cairn L Megalithic Monument in Ireland, and corresponds to a solar eclipse which occurred on November 30, 3340 BC, calculated with The Digital Universe astronomy software.” (Colomba 2020) Now I do not doubt that there was an eclipse then if astronomers agree on it, I just doubt that these petroglyphs have anything to do with it.

I have written a few times on RockArtBlog about eclipses (check the cloud index at the bottom). The thing that is really unique and impressive about a solar eclipse is that most partial eclipses would have been missed, the sun is partially eclipsed but it is still too bright to look directly at so all the viewer would notice is the world around him is not as bright for a while. A total solar eclipse, on the other hand, is a tremendously impressive with its blackout and the ring of fire. It is my belief that the ring of fire, by far the most impressive part of a solar eclipse, is what would be shown by someone recording the event. To see a record of a total solar eclipse I would expect to find an empty circle with no internal details, but externally some rays or markings could represent the solar coronal glow and discharge. These markings at Cairn L just don’t look right to me to be a record of a total solar eclipse. And I have been unable to find any explanation of that claim. Now concentric circles just might represent a sun, but not one being eclipsed.

Transit of Venus panel in the chamber of cairn "L", Loughcrew, County Meath, Ireland. Online image public domain.

But this is not the most extreme claim made for the astronomical symbolism at Cairn ‘L.’ ”Just on the left, as you enter the chamber, is a lovely little design of nested arcs, some 13 in all, radiating out and down from what seems to be a rising heavenly body. Close by is another smaller set of nested arcs. Martin Brennan has suggested that this image may represent an image of a transit of Venus.” (Fr. O’Flanagan History Center) Now we are supposed to accept that 5,355 years ago ancient Irish astronomers made naked eye observations of a transit of the planet Venus in front of the sun’s disk? To believe that they could see that is even more preposterous than the eclipse claims. The first transit of Venus recorded in history was on 4 December 1639 by English astronomer Jeremiah Horrocks (Naeye 2012) so I have to be skeptical about the Cairn ‘L’ claim to that as well. All in all these claims appear to be a whole load of fantasy with apparently no proof to back them up.

NOTE 1: I contacted the Fr. O’Flanagan History Center asking for clarification and information but I have received no reply. I have also failed to find Irish Archaeo-astronomer Paul Griffin’s paper that apparently leads to the conclusion involving the portrayal of an eclipse. My search for that paper online leads to a dead end every time. My negative conclusions are based on a lack of confirming data.

NOTE 2: Some images in this posting were retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If any of these images are not intended to be public domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner will contact me with them. For further information on these reports you should read the original reports at the sites listed below.

REFERENCES:

Ancient Pages, 2015, Ancient Irish Were First To Record An Eclipse – 5,355 Years Ago, 31 July 2015, https://www.ancientpages.com. Accessed online 12 May 2023.

Brennan, Martin, 1983, The Stars and the Stones, Ancient Art and Astronomy in Ireland, Thames and Hudson, Inc., New York.

Columba, Iona, 2020, Ireland in History Day by Day, 30 November 2020, https://irelandinhistory.blogspot.com. Accessed online 26 July 2023.

Fr. O’Flanagan History Center, The art within Cairn L at Loughcrew, Old RIC Barracks, Cliffoney, County Sligo, Ireland, http://www.carrowkeel.com/sites/loughcret/cairnlart.html. Accessed online 11 June 2023.

Hayse, Cathy, Loughcrew (Irlande): Ancient Irish were first to record an eclipse – 5,355 years ago, http://www.archeolog-home.com. Accessed online 30 June 2023.

Naeye, Robert, 2012, Transits of Venus in History: 1631-1716, 1 June 2012, https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/transits-of-venus-in-history-1631-1716/. Accessed online 30 July  2023.

Prendergast, Frank, Dr., 2013, Tomb L, Carnbane West, Loughcrew Hills, County Meath – an archaeoastronomical assessment, 18 January 2013, Unpublished internal report available on www.academia.edu. Accessed online 12 May 2023.

Stooke, Philip J., Dr., 1994, Neolithic Lunar Maps at Knowth, https://knowth.com/lunar-maps.htm. Accessed online 13 November 2022.

 

 

 

 

 

HERE THEY COME AGAIN: Decoding European Palaeolithic Art: Extremely Ancient Knowledge of Precession of the Equinoxes.

Pillar 43 at Gobekli Tepe, Turkey.

Photo from the Internet,

Public domain.

On December 1, 2018, I posted a column titled Astronomy in Rock Art – Decoding Gobekli Tepe? about wild speculation that carvings at Gobekli Tepe can be read, and encode the date of a comet strike on earth that caused the Younger Dryas. This claim was published by Martin B. Sweatman and Dimitrios Tsikritsis of the Engineering Department of the of Edinburgh in a paper titled Decoding Gobekli Tepe With Archaeoastronomy: What Does The Fox Say?, (see References below for complete citation). Now, Sweatman is back with even more sweeping and far-fetched claims. He and new partner Alistair Coombs have published Decoding European Palaeolithic Art: Extremely Ancient knowledge of Precession of the Equinoxes.

To try to prove their case statistically they go through a complicated chain of logic that states that their interpretation has only “around 1 in 100 million” chance of being wrong, or from their Appendix B, “Multiplying all these probabilities together gives a chance of 1 in 300 thousand that Göbekli Tepe does not implicate the Taurid meteor stream in the Younger Dryas impact event.” (Sweatman and Coombs 2019:12) Now I am not a statistician, and if I was really good at mathematics I would probably not be an art historian, but to me this is actually ridiculous. It depends on their having been correct in their suppositions in identifying 12 star constellations/asterisms with carved animals at Gobekli Tepe. I have said before that we do not even know if all of these ancient cultures identified constellations/asterisms in the sky, and if they did we cannot begin to guess what they saw. Yet, this whole construct is built on guessing that their 12 identifications are correct. This is one of those logic chains that starts with a whole bunch of maybes and then uses them to supposedly definitely prove something – you cannot do that.

In my December 1, 2018, column Astronomy in Rock Art – Decoding Gobekli Tepe? I presented Sweatman’s theory that the vulture pillar at Gobekli Tepe is a record of a comet that struck the earth and caused the Younger Dryas climate event (see Sweatman and Tsikritsis 2017). They matched images from the carvings on pillar 43 with constellations (all assumed on their part, there are no records proving any connection). They then used their relative positions to calculate a date which they presented as the date of the cosmic catastrophe.

Shaft scene at Lascaux cave,

France. Photo from the

Internet, Public domain.

Now, using the same logic(?), they have expanded their studies to Paleolithic Europe. “The final piece of the logic puzzle is provided by the famous Shaft Scene at Lascaux which has an almost identical interpretation to the Vulture Stone at Gobekli Tepe. They differ only in the date of the catastrophe memorialized and the recorded radiant of the cometary strike.” (Sweatman and Coombs 2019:6)

“Another clue to the meaning of the shaft scene is provided by the fact that only four different animal symbols are displayed here; a bison/aurochs, duck/goose, and rhinoceros (to the left of the falling/dying man) on the main wall with a horse on the rear wall. -  The horse on the back wall is not often described as being part of this scene, but it is central to the interpretation described next.

Similarities with Gobekli Tepe’s Vulture Stone are striking. Both display a man, possibly dead or dying and both display four prominent animal symbols. At Gobekli Tepe the four animals are the vulture/eagle, bear, ibex/gazelle and tall bending bird corresponding to the four solstices and equinoxes at the date of the Younger Dryas event. It is therefore sensible to enquire whether the Shaft Scene at Lascaux is equivalent to the Vulture Stone of Gobekli Tepe and can therefore be decoded using the same method.” (Sweatman and Coombs 2019:6)

“Noting the bison/aurochs and duck/goose symbols in the Shaft Scene, and using Table 1 and Stellarium we immediately find the following;

• Bison/aurochs = Capricornus = summer solstice between 15,350 and 13,000 BC
• Duck/goose = Libra = spring equinox between 15,700 and 14,100 BC

Therefore, this scene might represent a date anywhere between 15,350 and 14,100 BC. To narrow down this range we need to consider the other two animal symbols. Unfortunately, neither of these symbols has previously been decoded. But logically, they are unlikely to correspond to constellations that have already been decoded. When we consider this date range we see the following possibilities;

• Autumn equinox: Taurus 15,350 to 14, 950 BC, or Aries 14,950 to 14,100 BC
• Winter solstice: Leo 15,350 to 14,800  BC, or Cancer 14,800 to 14,100 BC
  

Given that in Tables 1 and 2, Aries is represented by the ram and Cancer is represented by a large feline, and that rams and felines are recorded in Palaeolithic art, it is likely the date range is limited to between 15,350 and 14,950 BC, and therefore the rhinoceros and horse likely represent Taurus and Leo. When we consider these constellations at sunset (see Table 3), which is the convention for this system (1), we find that the rhinoceros and horse are good fits to their respective constellations (Taurus and Leo), which provides further confidence in this interpretation. We therefore suggest that the Shaft Scene encodes the date 15,150 ± 200 BC, and we have now completed our ancient zodiac.” (Sweatman and Coombs 2019:6-7)

They have identified 12 constellations in this ancient zodiac. Perhaps a natural assumption considering that our zodiac has 12 constellations in it, we are pre-programmed to think that is the correct number (and please don’t come back to me with comments about how the phases of the moon in a lunar year determine the number and it’s rising month by month mark the constellations). But, we have no way of actually knowing what constellations the ancient Europeans who painted Lascaux, or the ancient Anatolians of Gobekli Tepe, thought they saw in the sky, let alone the number (if any) that they identified.

“Now that we have a date, we can try to interpret the scene. What should we make of the falling/dying man and the speared/dying bison. Given that the Vulture Stone at Gobekli Tepe very likely refers to the Younger Dryas event and, according to Napier and Clube’s theory of coherent catastrophism, this is unlikely to be an isolated incident, could the Shaft Scene represent another encounter with the Taurid meteor stream? At Gobekli Tepe, the fox featured on the largest central pillars of the largest enclosure yet uncovered, indicating the event dated by the Vulture Stone refers to a cosmic event from the direction of northern Aquarius. Instead, the Shaft Scene displays an injured aurochs, representing Capricornus, not a fox. Is the aurochs here equivalent to the fox at Gobekli Tepe? To answer this we need to consider the precession of the Taurid meteor stream.

As described earlier, the longitude of the ascending node of the Taurid meteor stream is expected to precess at the rate of one zodiacal sign every six thousand years. Today the Taurid meteor stream radiant is centered (and hence maximal) over Aries. Therefore, at the time of the Younger Dryas event, around 13 thousand years ago, it would have been certered over Aquarius, described at Gobekli Tepe in terms of the fox. On the date depicted by the Shaft Scene, around 17 thousand years ago, its center would have been over Capricornus. Therefore, the injured aurochs in the Shaft Scene is consistent with its interpretation as a Taurid meteor strike from the direction of Capricornus. Hence the injured or dying man might indicate a catastrophic encounter with the Taurids, as for the Vulture Stone of Gobekli Tepe.”  (Sweatman and Coombs 2019:7)

Remember, above I quoted their claim that their interpretation has only “around 1 in 100 million” chance of being wrong.” Looking at all of their suppositions and the maybes/mights/possibly/perhapses it took them to reach their conclusion, how realistic do you think this claim sounds now?

Here at RockArtBlog, I really do not like to write attacks on people’s beliefs. I would much rather act as a cheerleader for a wonderful new theory or project. But, since these authors have academic credentials they get away with this, and this kind of nonsense needs to be called out. Go back and read their papers for yourselves. I could not find a single conclusion of theirs that is actually based upon provable fact. My own calculation on this says that they have about a 1 in 50,000 chance of being correct, but like I said, I am not a mathematician. If they had only learned the use of the words “maybe” and “perhaps” I could accept their work as interesting speculation, but never as proven fact. I do, however, invite you to check and decide for yourself.

NOTE: Images in this posting were retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If any of these images are not intended to be public domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner will contact me with them. For further information on these reports you should read the original reports at the sites listed below.

REFERENCES:

Faris, Peter
2018 Astronomy in Rock Art – Decoding Gobekli Tepe?, December 1, 2018, https://rockartblog.blogspot.com/2018/12/astronomy-in-rock-art-decoding-gobekli.html

Sweatman, Martin B., and Dimitrios Tsikritsis,
2017 Decoding Gobekli Tepe With Archaeoastronomy: What Does The Fox Say?, p. 233-50, Mediterranean Archaeology and Archaeometry (open access), Vol. 17, No. 1.

Sweatman, Martin B., and Alistair Coombs,
2019 Decoding European Palaeolithic Art: Extremely Ancient Knowledge of Precession of the Equinoxes, Athens Journal of History, Vol. 5, No. 1, pages 1-30.

A RIDICULOUS CLAIM - THE EGYPTIAN PYRAMIDS ARE ORIENTED TO THE STARS IN ORION'S BELT:

A supposed alignment of

the stars in the belt of the

constellation Orion with the

peaks of the Giza pyramids

in Egypt.

This is not strictly speaking about rock art, but it is such an egregious example of New Age fringie thinking that I felt I had to say something about it.

I recently ran across an article with this reference (Shreya below) about the pyramids of Giza Plateau in Egypt being aligned with the stars of the belt of the constellation Orion. Now, while we all know that ancient peoples would have seen the sky and probably picked out patterns in it just as we do, some of the supposed "ancient knowledge" about this is pretty weak. We have a whole cabal of New Agers and spiritualists who pretty much make up "ancient knowledge" out of the whole cloth. I decided to look a little deeper into this knowing that in ancient Egypt there actually was a body of sky knowledge.

A modern star chart of

the constellation Orion.

"In ancient Egypt, the stars of Orion were regarded as a god, called Sah. Because Orion rises before Sirius, the star whose heliacal rising was the basis for the Solar Egyptian calendar, Sah was closely linked with Sopdet, the goddess who personified Sirius. The god Sopdu, was said to be the son of Sah and Sopdet. Sah was syncretized with Osiris, while Sopdet was skyncretized with Osiris mythological wife, Isis. In the Pyramid Texts, from the 24th and 23rd centuries BC, Sah was one of many gods whose form the dead pharaoh was said to take in the afterlife." (Wikipedia)

"The pyramids named Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure are aligned with the stars (Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka) of the Orion belt (a constellation in the night sky). No one knows, till date(?), how the Egyptians could have achieved this feat of aligning the pyramids with the celestial bodies. Orion was not even named till 2,000 years after the pyramids were made but it is believed that the constellation was linked with Osiris God of Rebirth, by the Egyptians." (Shreya 2018)

This is such a wonderful example of  New Age fringie thinking that I had to pass it along to you. Let's begin with the phony photograph illustrating it - Oh, the wonders of PhotoShop! This picture is phony. I am not versed in astronomical mathematics, but even I can do a few simple calculations that prove this. 

First, by my simplistic measurements off of a star chart the belt of Orion subtends approximately 3˚  (degrees) of arc, and measuring off of a map of the Giza Plateau from peak to peak the distance between the outer two pyramids is 900m. So for this photo with the stars of Orion's belt so perfectly aligned to the peaks of the pyramids to work, the peaks of the two outer pyramids have to be 3˚ apart too. If each 3˚ of the arc is 900m then the circumference of the full circle is 108,000m. This give us a diameter of the circle at 34,394.90m (d=C/n), and half of that is the radius, the viewing point at which the pyramids would appear to subtend 3˚ of arc is the center. This radius comes to 17,197.45m (56,422 feet), or 10.7 miles. Do you really believe that the pyramids of Giza look that large and impressive from almost eleven miles away? 

Well, you say, the picture could have been taken with a telephoto lens from that far away and the peaks of the two outer pyramids would be 3˚ of arc apart just like Orion's belt. Then I have to ask you what brand of telephoto lens the ancient Egyptians used, and if you actually think you have an answer for that then we have nothing more to discuss.

Diagram showing that

there is no alignment.

Then we have the question of their supposedly perfect alignment. I went back to my star chart and map of the Giza plateau and drew lines from the stars through the peaks of the pyramids and to a viewing point, and they don't line up properly. You can change the size of the spread of the stars or its angle (remember Orion moves through the sky and its angle changes), but you cannot change the relative distances between the stars, or the pyramid peaks, and no matter how you try to adjust it, they will never line up.

Hancock, Graham, Magicians of

the Gods, 2015, page 504.

For some reason, Graham Hancock, in his 2015 book Magicians of the Gods, decided to throw in with this nonsense as well. He sees it as supporting his premise of ancient knowledge lost to our modern age. I find his explanation (Hancock 2015:504) no more convincing than the others, indeed, the fact that he sees it as more proof of his claims of ancient lost knowledge argues very effectively against this theory in my opinion. (I will not quote him here but will refer you to his book if you are interested in pursuing this theory).

So, this story is just more of the New Age fringie fiction which is so unfortunately common in our anti-scientific society. And admittedly, my crude analysis above is based upon my own gonzo astrophysical calculations, and I would welcome a more scientific and accurate analysis, but until that occurs I will stand by my conclusions.

NOTE: Some images in this posting were retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If any of these images are not intended to be public domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner will contact me with them. For further information on these reports you should read the originals at the sites listed below.

The hieroglyphics were provided by http://quizland.com/hiero.mv as a translation for "bullshit". As always, one-on-one translations will be incorrect because their word would not have necessarily a direct equivalent for our word.

I will welcome the help of any mathematician or astrophysicist who would like to refine my crude calculations and examples. Send them to me and I will be happy to post them here on https://rockartblog.blogspot.com.

REFERENCES:

Hancock, Graham
2015 Magicians of the Gods, St. Martin's Press, New York.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_(constellation)

Shreya,

2018 Pyramids Were Constructed 1000s of Years Ago but Some Facts About Them are Still Astonishing, August 14, 2018, https://newsd.co/pyramids-constructed-1000s-years-ago-facts-still-astonishing/9/?k=y3452&adb2=1&sp=2

http://quizland.com/hiero.mv