MONUMENTS AND SKETCHES

In his paper Nouveaux vestiges mégalithiques en Pays Basque (III), published in the Bulletin du Musée Basque de Bayonne, no. 56 III,  1972?, Doctor Jacques Blot, irrefutable mastermind in the research and excavation of megalithic monuments on the Atlantic slope of the Pyrenees, said that in El Hombre Prehistórico en el País Vasco p. 248,  no. 12-28, José Miguel de Barandiarán describes the existence of 17 stone circles in Okabe, which had been discovered by René Gombault. Gombault’s work, Tumulus et Enceintes Funéraires de la Région d’Iraty, indeed registers 17 monuments in the region. Respecting R. Gombault’s numeration, Dr. Blot added another 8, which, since 1990 I have not been able to detect the two northernmost sites — Blot’s numbers 19 and 20, according to the sketch on page 59 of his publication. In the study conducted by Luis Millán and myself in 1990, I maintained the numeration of the mentioned work, excluding the two circles which I have yet to find —19 and 20. The general sketch presented now — sketch 1 — at a scale of 1:1.250 like before, includes the 24 circles seen and interpreted. It is numbered the same way as the first time, respecting the numeration of the circles designated by Dr. Blot. Although Okabe was divided into numbered subgroups, I now prefer to use names implicitly associated with the representations they meant to make. These new names are an attempt to reveal the essential truth of the stone circle, not only their astronomical meaning. In a search for their possible meaning, both astral and religious, the group has been divided into two subgroups:

• The first subgroup corresponds to the circles numbered 3 to 12, which has been called the Hesiod Group, because it is thought that it can be resolved by adequately interpreting Works and Days verses 609-614 by the Greek author, much the same as what occurs with Eteneta II, Unamene and ‘Lepoko Estua’ — ‘the setting of Orion’s Belt’.

• The second includes the rest of the circles in the area and those in sketch 1. Conceptually, however, special emphasis is placed on the alignment which runs from circles 1 and 2 to 13 and the surrounding circles. This alignment was initially called the Heavenly Gates of Macrobium because part of the stone circles belonging to this group appear to represent the gates souls passed through as they made their way from Heaven to Earth and vice versa, as the Latin author indicates in Book I Chapter XII of Commentary on Scipio’s Dream, as suggested in Cicerone’s On the Republic, and other authors who mainly took their inspiration from ‘Cave of the nymphs’, verses 102-112 from The Odyssey, Book XIII,  on this occasion written by an esoteric Homer, and analysed by Porphyry in his The Cave of the Nymphs. Months later a less classical, more Pyrenean name won out: Alignment of the Heavenly Doors of the Souls. The group actually reflects the Scorpion chasing after the Hunter, or Orion, as cited in classical literature, while in fact being particularly Pyrenean, since it is represented repeatedly; thus, between what we have already seen in the first part of the study, this chase was represented in groups 0100-03-13, 16 and 17, Iraingo Ataka, Ibintza and Gerasunko Ataka. The Oianleku N group seems to have greater significance within the same philosophy, as was mentioned in the discussion of the stone circles in the area. The graphic reflection of this chase can be made, much like with Okabe, by showing the ecliptic crossing through the two ends of the Milky Way. Regarding the heavenly doors of the souls, the classic writers, in particular Macrobium, give the impression that they moved away from the original idea somewhat imprecisely situating the gates in the sections of the ecliptic crossing the Milky Way from Taurus to the Twins. The northern gate — the gate of men — was the one used by souls to descend from Heaven to Earth when a person was born, and the southern gate — the gate of the gods — was the one through which souls passed upon dying on their way to their immortal place of rest. Macrobium began to be more precise, situating the northern gate at Cancer and the southern gate at Capricorn, both solsticial constellations of his time, moving away from Pyrenean representations, and therefore casting doubt on his credibility for naming the alignment.

As a result, the division of the subgroups designated in the first work has been changed, replacing it with two subgroups encompassing two astronomically different concepts. The first corresponds to what is now called the Hesiod Group, which includes the stone circles from the central group numbered 3 to 12. A new license was taken with the second subgroup, considered an alignment and named the Alignment of the Heavenly Doors of the Souls, comprising the rest of the Okabe stone circles including the two small tumuli numbered 22 and 23. In addition, two new sketches are included: sketch 2, made at what has become the most commonly used scale, 1:500, presents the Hesiod Group and the stone circles included in the Gate that Macrobium and other authors refer to as the Gate of the Gods. The groups Hesiod and Gate of the Gods — which include circles 13 to 18 — lie to the north on the field. For sketch 3, all of which belongs to the alignment of the two heavenly gates of the souls, I have maintained the general scale of 1:1.250, although circles 1, 2 and 21 were drawn at a scale of 1:500 to make their witnesses more illustrative and facilitate interpretation of the group.


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