MYTHICAL-RELIGIOUS COMMENT

The psc is the descendent of the beliefs existing in the Pyrenees at the time of their construction, and of the landscape and geographical environment in which they stand. These beliefs can be deduced from the astronomical meaning of the psc. Having proven that the psc does represent stars, we run into the questions asked and which I have tried to answer in my published works. In Arihouat, given the great number of graves found, above all, in circles that can be matched -based on proven data- to stars, we should look at the number of graves existing outside of the circles, until now only rarely found in other groups studied.
A great number of graves are located outside of the circles in triangle K-A-120 ac-cording to Müller's study and as indicated on the general map. This fact could be consid-ered to be the result of eschatological astral beliefs, already reflected with variations in other parts of the Pyrenees. In chapter VI on Eschatology p. 167 and following of the re-peatedly quoted Astrology and Religion among the Greeks and Romans, Kessinger Pub-lishing Co. Montana, Cumont gives a clear idea of the beliefs which existed historically with respect to the world beyond the grave and which, given the period in which they were built, could have been used by the builders of the psc. Hence:
· On p. 174: "Certain beliefs which are found, side by side with many others, among primitive peoples, regard the spirits of the dead as departing to inhabit the moon or the sun, or even fancy to their ever-growing host forms the multitude of stars or crowds the long of the Milky Way."
· On p.183: "How did souls rise to the stars?
It may be say that originally they made use of every method of locomotion: they as-cend to heaven on foot, on horseback, in carriages, and they even had recourse to aviation. Among the ancient Egyptians, the firmament was conceived as being so close to the moun-tains of the earth that it was possible to climb up to it with the aid of a ladder."
· On p. 185: "Finally, there is a very wide-spread belief of Syrian origin that souls fly to heaven on the back of an eagle. According to the story, Etana in Babylon, like Ganymed in Greece had been carried off in this way."

Notwithstanding previous statements, it seems premature to make affirmations with respect to the Pyrenean astral religion. It is more a question of calling the attention to the enormous amount of literature ex-isting and largely explaining the reason to be of the psc. In this respect, Franz Cumont deserves careful study. Apart from that already said, his book: Les Religions Orientales dans le Paganisme Romain, quatrième édition, Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthener, Paris, 1929, transcribing the conferences given on the subject at the Collège de France in 1905, is an excellent reference with respect to the belief that religion may well have inspired the psc. The book is packed with notes, the careful reading of which along with the text takes us to the sources used by Cumont while making us realise that we are largely before the origin and meaning of the psc. See Chapter V, entitled: "Syria", could have had a special interest. Spanish readers have a translation in the shape of: Las religiones orientales y el paganismo romano, Ediciones Akal, S.A., Madrid 1987, copies of which could still be found no more than a few years ago. This Spanish version, translated from an edition prior to the fourth French version, doesn't have the latter's useful index and contains less notes.

These are all beliefs making sense of a good part of the stellar representations implemented by means of Pyrenean stone circles and, more specifically, by those found in Arihouat: rising to the skies in a chariot -Auriga-; ascent on the back of an eagle and home in the Milky Way -principally the ST-. These representations, of which there are still so many in the Pyrenees, the meanings of which have unmistakable historical references, despite the occasional qualifying remark and mismatch, induce me to make the general but well-grounded statement, that: 'the builders of the psc believed that on incinerating bodies, souls would rise to heaven'. There is an extensive amount of historical literature on such beliefs, as noted in my work of recent years. In this respect, Arihouat is a different example particularly underlining the Milky Way and giving it at least four positions: from north to south, two, one with Sirius in culmination and another with Altair in culmination, positions which can be seen on the circles ranging from A to 96 which are roughly solstitial; while the positions of the Milky Way in an E-W situation, high on the zenith at the rising of Sirius, or close to the horizon at the rising of Altair completing the ST and setting of Procyon taking the WT with it also roughly correspond to the equinox. According to Norman Davidson in Astronomy and the Imagination, Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd New Cork, 1985, p. 160: "This is a misty, unsubstantial type of zodiac which weaves all round the horizon -in Azimuth- from highest to lowest -in altitude-." That's exactly the point. I can also say that, in Arihouat, as is almost always the case of the psc, the stone circles, in addition to fulfilling a burial function, could also be indicating periods of the year. My only doubt, on not having seen it in writing, is to ask whether or not souls made the most of the time when the Milky Way was beneath the horizon and therefore touching the earth to climb to their astral homes, which, if indeed the case, would multiply the places of ascent. This is neither the place nor the time to look at this question which has nevertheless been assiduously mentioned throughout the entire study; what is however remarkable, as I have said on occasions, is the number of toponyms related to the word 'stairway' in a whole variety of different languages.
Other authors like Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend in Hamlet's Mill (An essay on myth and the frame of time) David R. Godine, Publisher, Inc. 1977, Boston, throw light on these questions. Santillana and von Dechend, start chapter XVIII, The Gal-axy, p. 242, with the words: "Men's spirits were thought to dwell in the Milky Way be-tween incarnations. This conception has been handed down as an Orphic and Pythagorean tradition fitting into the frame of the migration of the soul." Appendix 29 of this said book is also related to these concepts.

Given the insistence in representing the Milky Way, so obvious in Arihouat and in the entire Pyrenean stone circle and even in the Way to Santiago de Compostela itself, I have changed my opinion stated at the start of this document about making no mention of the ill-fated toponymy in this work. Richard H. Allen, in Star Names their Lore and Meaning, Dover Publications, Inc., N.Y., on referring to the Milky Way, on p. 475, says: "Usually, however, in Judaea was Aroch -in Armenia and Syria, Arocea-, not a lexicon word but evidently from Aruhah, a Long Bandage, and well applied to this long band of light."

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