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Tables 3 and 4 show the coordinates
of the stars associated with the interpretation that
has served, after much trial and error, to arrive at
a coherent astronomical solution already seen at other
sites. In the second Okabe subgroup, table
3 corresponds to the beginning of the setting of Orion,
although it could actually be a moment earlier as at
Ibi Untxi —Declining Rabbit?, instead of hare—; table
4 corresponds to the passage of Antares over the pyramid
of Orhi’s Peak. The two tables, with the mountains
surrounding the stone circles and the witnesses still
apparent, help to understand the following solution:
« Circle 13: Antares
a Scorpius, with a magnitude of 0.96.
« Circle 14: t Scorpius, with
a magnitude of 2.82.
« Circle 15: z Ophiuchus, with
a magnitude of 2.56.
« Circle 16: Sabik, h Ophiuchus, with a magnitude of 2.43.
« Circle 17: q Ophiuchus, with
a magnitude of 2.43.
« Circle
18: Planet.
« Circle 1: Arneb,
a Lepus, with a magnitude of 2.6.
« Circle 2: Rigel,
b Orion, with a magnitude of 0.1.
« Circle 21: Alkaid, h Ursa Major, with a magnitude of 2.4.
« Circle 22: Alderamin, a Cepheus, with
a magnitude of 2.3.
« Circle 23: Menkar, a Cetus, with a magnitude of 2.5.
« Circle 24: Aldebaran, a Taurus, with
a magnitude of 0.85.
« Circle 25: El Nath, b Taurus, with a magnitude of 1.65.
« Circle 26: Alhena, g Gemini, with a magnitude of 1.93.
| Table 3 |
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| Star |
Azimuth |
Height |
| b
de Orion |
248° 58’ |
1° 26’ |
| a
Lepus |
238° 29’ |
-0° 03’ |
| k
de Orion |
243° 14’ |
7° 30’ |
| Pleiades |
288° 04’ |
0° 42’ |
| a
Taurus |
275° 05’ |
6° 17’ |
| b
Taurus |
280° 20’ |
22° 15’ |
| g
Gemini |
259° 56’ |
31° 48’ |
| a
Cetus |
277° 38’ |
-19° 42’ |
| e
Pegasus |
12° 03’ |
-45° 44’ |
| a
Canis Major |
228° 57’ |
14° 27’ |
| a
Canis Major |
238° 29’ |
38° 44’ |
| a
Lyra |
33° 19’ |
1° 22’ |
| a
Libra |
109° 119’ |
14° 34’ |
| a
Scorpius |
104° 28’ |
-10° 05’ |
| a
Boötes |
81° 30’ |
41° 45’ |
| a
Virgo |
121° 35’ |
32° 48’ |
| a
Corona Borealis |
63° 59’ |
28° 12’ |
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In the proposed alignment, which
is basically Orion-Scorpius, the pivot point is
assumed to have been located at Ursa Major, represented
in this case by a single star, circle 21, which
has assimilated to h
UMa located in the path going towards Orion, represented by Rigel
in circle 2, after crossing circles 24, 25 and
26, which have been likened to Alhena, El Nath
and Aldebaran, corresponding to the alignment
in question.Moreover, the alignment refers
to another of the representations common to the
Pyrenean stone circle: the one depicting the sections
of the MilkyWay crossed by the ecliptic,
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indicating the doorways to the
upper circles. In the northern part the gate of
men through which souls would descend, at the
height of Taurus and the Twins —circles 24 through
26— and to the south, the gate of the gods, through
which the souls of the dead would rise to the
resting place of the gods. Both gates are represented
at Okabe — the gate of men and the gate of the
gods, together with Antares —circle 13— which
seems to be signalling the Serpent through Ophiuchus,
revealing a clear similarity with the gate already
studied at what is today Gerasunko Ataka.
Transposing
what has been seen at Gera Suge —Arrival of the
Serpent— and adjacent groups to Okabe, circle
18 would represent the ‘carrier of souls’ planet,
to which the souls ascended in their passage through
the pyramidal Pico de Orhi. This is what
the gate seems to indicate, the direction of which
is shown in stone circle 13. The same concept
is applied as that observed from the dolmen in
the southern part of Agiña I, whose cist and principal
witnesses point to a snow-capped Orhi seen through
the trees in winter on the right-hand fringe of
Auza, writing one of the most recurring and precise
pages in the other history of the Pyrenean stone
circle — the religious history. Seeing it once
again at Okabe suggests that for now we should
opt for this solution in lieu of others which
are apparently more astronomically coherent.
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| Table 4 |
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| Star |
Azimuth |
Height |
| a
Scorpius |
125°
14’ |
9°
47’ |
| t Scorpius |
125°
42’ |
7° 32’ |
| q Ophiuchus |
117°
01’ |
1°
05’ |
| h Ophiuchus |
110° 46’ |
8° 29’ |
| z Ophiuhcus |
111° 08’ |
18° 04’ |
| G Scorpius |
124° 14’ |
-10° 14’ |
| a Lyra |
51° 35’ |
16° 14’ |
| a Ursa
Major |
340° 14’ |
54° 36’ |
| h Ursa
Major |
28° 44’ |
64° 51’ |
| a Auriga |
315° 16’ |
9° 29’ |
| b Taurus |
299° 31’ |
1° 40’ |
| g Gemini |
280° 41’ |
9° 56’ |
| b Taurus |
299° 31’ |
1° 40’ |
| a Canis
Minor |
263° 12’ |
18°
03’ |
| g Corona
Australis |
176° 57’ |
3° 40’ |
| a Cygnus |
33° 22’ |
0°
32’ |
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However, it is not a matter of coming up with
ingenious solutions, but of gradually unravelling
the stellar fabric. Adhering to specific constants,
this is what inspired the stone circle within
a specific geographical area, which, given its
features, corresponded to minimum yet definite
conditions. The people who found their sought
Promised Land were aware of these features and
had the knowledge to imagine and draw attention
to likenesses between the sky and the earth.
The tumular nature of a good part of the circles
at Occabé might be
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explained by the
fact that their builders were trying to represent
different stories with the circles: in the central
group, the story of Hesiod told earlier, and the
gate of the gods to one side, were represented
with stone circles, whereas the circles representing
the gate of man or stars involved in the sequence
were represented by tumular cromlechs, or better
yet, cromlech-like tumuli, an expression repeated
at other places to differentiate stellar ephemerides.
The celestial coordinates for the stars that may
have been involved historically when Antares passed
over Pico de Orhi are seen in Table 4, in reverse
order from the Milky Way as the position shown
in the first table. These coordinates faithfully
represent, as has been said before, what was found
in other groups of stone circles.
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Table 4 has been suggested to emphasize
a solution inspired in the preceding ephemerides. Although
they are important in the Pyrenean stone circle, a good
part the solution aims more at precisely marking the
gates of the ecliptic as it crossed the Milky Way than
at an attempt to indicate astronomical ephemerides,
although they are in fact shown. Often, as is the case
here, a tumular stone circle — circle 18 — is added,
probably identified with a planet crossing the ecliptic
at that point. Might the souls have taken advantage
of the planets being swallowed by Pico de Orhi to go
from Orhi to the planets and ascend to the stars, which,
as we know, turned in the opposite direction from the
planets, on their way to the resting place of the gods?
In addition to what has already been discussed, in Astrology and Religion Among the Greeks and Romans, at page 185, Franz
Cumont adds: «Finally, there is a very wide-spread belief
of Syrian origin that souls fly to heaven in the back
of an eagle. According to the story, Etana in Babylone,
like Ganymede in Greece, had been carried off in this
way. ... The reason is that in the East the eagle is
the bird of the Baals, solar gods, and it carries to
its master those who have been his servants in the world
below.»
The coordinates in tables 3 and 4 give
meaning to virtually all of the prominent witnesses
in the group, which follow the stellar sequence of the
stars associated with the different ephemerides mentioned
in their passage over the outstanding mountains in the
area. The positions most worth our attention are those
closest to the earth; in other words, the positions
of the stars which are lower. In fact, this constitutes
a genuine Pyrenean table of simultaneous risings and
settings, which are actually the same as the ones we
can find in the writings of Aratus, Higino, Geminus
or any other classical author, plus in a good number
of Babylonian tablets. By interrelating all of the coordinates
we come up with a more acceptable comparison between
the stone circles and their respective stars, especially
when we begin to perceive the similarities that exist
between different groups.
With regard to the rotation of Ursa
Major, the focus of so much attention throughout the
Pyrenees, the toponyms bear testimony to the pursuit
of celestial synchronisms today forgotten but once the
essence of the Pyrenean stone circle. These names can
be found continually from Organbide pass in the enclave
of Urkulu to the crest of Organbidesca, the latter of
which frames the lower culmination of the Great Bear
as seen from Millagate when Sirius closes the sequence
reflected in the stone circles there and in the two
Orgamendis, located due north of Okabe. In this direction,
in the mountains preceding the sites, we can observe
the lower culmination of Ursa Major at the rising of
Sirius and the upper culmination at the rising of Antares.
Let us move on to stone circle 21 and the small set of stone circles
that accompany it, numbers 22, 23, 24, 25 and 26. It
was first assumed that the counterpoint to stone circle
13 seen as Antares, at the other end of the Milky Way,
might be Orion as it began to set, which on the field
corresponded to circle 2 — Rigel. More or less half
way between Rigel and Antares, Ursa Major stands out,
practically horizontal from a to h.
Owing to the fact that circle 21 is closer to circle
13 — Antares — it was thought to be better matched with
the h of the
Great Bear, Alkaid;
this idea was later discarded, leaning more towards
the alpha of Corona Borealis or Ariadne, which fits
in better in geometrical terms. In addition, adhering
to the Pyrenean philosophy of representing the doorway
of the ecliptic that crosses the Milky Way between Taurus
and the Twins, the three now faded stone circles 24,
25 and 26 correspond to Alhena, El Nath and Aldebaran.
In this case circle 23, aligned on the ground with Alhena
and Aldebaran, would find its match in the Whale, in
what was probably an intentional counterpoint, at the
other side of the ecliptic of Aries. This has already
been observed in other places such as Burnin Buru, and
much later in The Crown. Lastly, it is plausible that circle 22, located at the
centre of the group mirroring circle 21 — Alkaid — in
the sky represents one of the stars in Cepheus at the
centre of the Milky
Way, a kind of repeated symbolism seen at Izurrizti
I and Arritxulangaña.
At the rising of Sirius, the Winter
Triangle was completing its formation while the Summer
Triangle was breaking up with the disappearance of Altair,
to the precise east of which it was replicated by Procyon,
while at the same time Regulus prepared to preside over
a rising Leo; Orion crowned the pyramid of Pico de Orhi
and simultaneously Alkaid performed Ursa Major’s yearly
cycle in inferior culmination at the edge of the mountains
of the Orgamendis. How could those who believed that
the gods wrote signs for men in the sky not build up
their hopes? The signs that some of them saw and depicted
in stone circles seem irrefutable; it is another thing
that errors may have been made in interpreting them.
However, it seems that this philosophy has come to us
camouflaged in a number of ways — as I will try to demonstrate
on another occasion — in spite of some concessions that
were made to different syncretisms and despite the total
silence surrounding the Pyrenean stone circle for nearly
three thousand years — first because due to interest
and later to ignorance. That is discretion and that
is how history has been written.
Lines have been drawn in sketch 3 to
graphically show the stellar sequence of the heavenly
doors of the souls and to underline the asterisms comprising
them; celestial chart number 2 does much the same.
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