nix wrote:
The earliest recorded of any astronomical markings are about 20,000 years old on fragments of bone from caves near Dordogne and on the bone handle of a knife found in Africa
I wonder if some Australian art might be older? Had a quick google and found this -
http://aboriginalastronomy.blogspot.com/2011/07/astronomy-rock-art.html
nix wrote:
each with scratched marks in sets of 29 diagrams cycling over three months - it is thought they may be have been used ... as a record of a menstrual cycle.
Was the moon then considered as female? Interestingly in Australia it seems the other way round, according to the article-
'In most Aboriginal cultures, the Moon is male and the Sun is female'
I like the explanation for the movement of the 'sun woman' -
'She lights a small fire each morning, producing the dawn, and decorates herself with red ochre, some of which spills onto the clouds, to create the red sunrise. Carrying a blazing torch made from a stringy-bark tree, she travels across the sky from east to west, creating daylight. At the western horizon, she extinguishes her torch, and travels back underground to her morning camp in the east'
and the 'moon man' -
'The phases of the Moon are caused by Ngalindi being attacked by his wives, who chopped bits off him with their axes, reducing him from the fat full moon to the thin waning Moon, and eventually dying (the new Moon). After staying dead for three days, he rose again, once more growing round and fat to become the full Moon, when his wives attacked him again.'
and eclipses -
'For example, in Arnhem Land a solar eclipse is caused by the Sun-woman being hidden by the Moon-man as they make love'
Death and rebirth, the union of the sun and moon - all sounds very familiar. I know using ethnographic evidence is a real minefield but it is tempting to try to draw parallels to fill in the blanks in the understanding of the western prehistoric mindset.
-Chris
