Explores the relationship between ancient astronomical practices and megalithic cultures, highlighting how early societies understood time through celestial cycles. It contrasts matrilineal hunter-gatherer societies with later patriarchal agricultural ones, suggesting that megalithic structures reflect deep, sacred knowledge of the cosmos and have influenced subsequent architectural designs across civilizations.
Above: (center) The form of the Minoan “horns of consecration”, on the island of Crete, followed (outside) the form of the manifestations of Venus in her synodic period.
Time appears to march on at what seems a constant rate. In this way time has two opposite directions, the somewhat known past and the largely unknown future. However, events in the sky repeat and so they can be predicted as seasons within a year or lunar phases within a month. Even before modern calendars, stone age humans counted the days in a month to understand recurrence of the menstrual period and know when moonlight would be strong again at night.
Figure 1 (above) L’Abri Blanchard Tally Bone 30,000 BP with (below) Alexander Marshack’s interpretation, showing marks as days shaped to express the moon’s phase, over 59 whole days or two lunar months.
Two months happen to equal 59 whole days: a lunar month is 29.53 days long, just over twenty-nine and a half, which is half of 59. In the artifact shown on the top of figure 1, each day was carved upon a flat bone, each mark appearing varied in shape and depth to show the moon’s changed phase on a given day. The flat bone enabled a cyclic shape to be used, of 59 marks, which “ate its own tail”: showing there were always the same number of days in two “moons”. This sameness emerges from dividing the recurring time of the solar day into the time of the month’s phases over two months, to give the recurring whole number of 59, then forever useful as a knowledge object.
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