RELIGION REFLECTED IN THE PSC

I have deduced the religion reflected in the Pyrenean stone circle from the astro-nomical meaning of the groups of Psc's and of the toponymy when some kind of corre-spondence exists between the two, and also from the syncretisms which spread widely with the saints and art corresponding to the period of Christianization. I have found equiva-lences with the known classic religions and, above all, with the astral religions.
The Belgian Franz Cumont and his work are sound references as far as astral relig-ions are concerned, of which I would point out: Astrology and Religion among the Greeks and Romans, published in 1912, easily found in facsimile version at certain Internet book-shops, and Las religiones orientales y el paganismo romano, published by Akal Universi-taria. Cumont's work, in addition to educated and well-documented, is overflowing with common sense and has the essential objective of knowing the truth. Some of his opinions are:
· "Babylonia was the first place to raise the building of a cosmic religion..."
· "It could be considered a proven fact that this astral religion succeeded in establish-ing itself in the 6th century BC."
· "The new doctrines were reconciled or combined with the old beliefs, placing the home of the gods in the stars, or identifying the former with the latter."
· "An astral theory of the universe is not a popular belief, but the result of a long process of speculative reasoning carried out within restricted circles of the well-informed."
· "Perhaps the schema of coincidences with Babylonia spread to the extent of divid-ing the firmament into countries, mountains and rivers corresponding to the geography known by them."
· "In Greece science always remained lay, while in Chaldea it was related to relig-ion."
The religion shown by the Psc, in addition to the toponymy of which we will talk at a later stage, is expressed in the meaning of some of the stars represented, in the repeated image of the two parts of the Milky Way crossed by the ecliptic, considered to be the doors through which the souls transited according to numerous classic authors, as indicated when dealing with the Okabe stone circles and in the Spanish section in the second instalment, entitled Retazos para futuros Apéndices (Religión).
The period of Psc construction -600 BC- coincides with that given by Cumont for the establishment of the astral religions.
As far as astronomical backing is concerned, the astral religions must have been im-precise. While Enuma Elis and The Pyramid Book show clear astronomical inspiration, until profound empirical knowledge was achieved, non-mathematical as yet, as reflected for example by the Mul-Apin tablets and the early Greek astronomy already mentioned, it was impossible for real celestial religions to exist. The Psc points towards a specific astro-nomical framework, directly deriving from the knowledge of the period in this material, while the religions of Mesopotamia, the peninsula of Anatolia, Asia Minor, the Arabian peninsula and Egypt, some of which have obvious astral connotations, give the impression of having existed prior to these and of having been born from a certain amount of incipient astronomical knowledge, to which I have attempted to give often hurriedly thrown together -scientific?- astronomical support gained with the passing of time and already devel-oped empirical astronomy. However, the experts do not always agree when drawing a par-allel between certain gods and specific stars or planets, offering different matches. On the other hand, Pyrenean astral religion observes superior astronomical cognition from which very definite conclusions can be drawn.
The origin of Pyrenean astral religion would seem to lie at the start of the Psc -approximately around 600 BC- and its decline must have started with Roman domination and ended with Christianization and the different emerging syncretisms, the last of which seems to be the conversion of the ancient pilgrimage of the Way of the Stars into today's Road to Santiago de Compostela. Somewhere around 1,500 years went by between the start and definitive end of Pyrenean astral religion. And almost a thousand since Rome reconverted the ancient belief of the last paganism, the astral, which ended up merging with Christianity. The fusion of this Pyrenean religion with Christianity is enunciated, and has its roots buried deep in the area surrounding the Pyrenees, in its landscape, its hermit-ages, in the saints to which they are dedicated, in the repetitions, orientations, the Roman-esque style, the start of the Way, and then in the Road to Santiago itself and Finisterre, etc.
Information on Pyrenean astral religion comes from two origins. Firstly, from the stone circle itself, as I have said, and secondly from the pagan remains to be found in later Christian monuments and remains. It is unthinkable, having understood the meaning of the Psc, that the deep knowledge and sensitivity involved in their construction could have dis-appeared without trace. So where are these traces? I would say that they are to be found in the toponymy and, more clearly, in the names of the Christian saints, in the saints to which Christian temples are dedicated, in their locations, their constructions, altars, images, etc. And, as is the case with the Psc, that a final conclusion will be possible after having made an individual study of each temple, of each hermitage, of each sanctuary, of each saint, etc., until finding analogies and similarities with the remains of the Pyrenean astral relig-ion.
Just as in their day the synchronisms reflected by the Psc's standing on Pagolleta caused an about-turn in my systematic studies until then, the sanctuary of San Miguel de Aralar and its surroundings could serve to define the way we should consider the Christian monuments standing around the limits of the Psc, with the purpose of trying to find the relationship and similarities between the ancient and new religions. Below I have made a succession of notes on the said sanctuary, with a series of objective data.
For example, the last manifestation of Sirius has been observed in San Miguel de Aralar, site of a sanctuary said to date from the 10th century, destroyed by fire and in the 11th century rebuilt in the Romanesque style still existing today. The sanctuary stands on the E-W axis. We have to underline the importance on the landscape of stone circle con-struction and of the megalithic monuments to be found on numerous summits and preced-ing the sanctuaries and hermitages to be found today. For example, the presence some 50 kilometres beyond Pamplona of what look like two pyramids: the Peña de Izaga, standing at 119º, and the Higa de Monreal at 131º. Simultaneously we see: Altxueta, the crest of which stretches from 0º to 15º; the village of Huarte Araquil, standing in the valley of the same name at 180º; Beriain hermitage at 191º and on the San Donato mountain range, the western limit of which is located at 205º.
The sanctuary stands to the west of a small field to the east of which, around 100 metres away, is a little temple-chapel dedicated to the Holy Trinity, facing the Peña de Izaga at 119º.
As I have already said, the Psc was built on a trellis of N-S, E-W lines, and more or less in the alignment centred at 120º-300º -in fact the solstitial axis of opposition sun-moon-, this, in the first place, according to the rising of Canis Major and the simultane-ous setting of the Cygnus. The N-S orientation, considering the stone circle as a whole, has paradigmatic axes; the one furthest west starts at Easo and crosses the sanctuary of San Miguel de Aralar, named for astronomical reasons San Miguel de Excelsis, the way of Be-riain -Beli-ain, which we could translate as The Lady of the Heights- in San Donato - from Don-Aton or Don-Utu?, corresponding to the god Utu, sun in Sumerian-, after hav-ing crossed Huarte Araquil, located between Altxueta -Artz-txu-eta, place of the Ursa Minor, which shines over the mountain, seen from San Miguel at the rising of Sirius-. Huarte evokes Ku-Artz, Fish-she Bear, referring to Fomalhaut and the She-Bears, and would seem to be the correct name for designating the N-S axis.
The sanctuary has probably been dedicated to San Miguel since 1141. The altarpiece on the high altar is Byzantine in style, dating from the 12th century, and was restored and installed in its present position in 1765. It makes no reference to San Miguel. Represented at the centre in an almond-shaped frame are the Virgin Mary, sitting in heaven, with Child; on either side of whom are the alpha and the omega, Isiac symbols of eternity and creation, and, below alpha, a nine-point star -reminiscent of the year of three seasons?-. On either side of the Virgin Mary and Child there are six figures in two rows of three, coming to a total of 12. On the top part of the altarpiece, above the twelve figures, are 18 medallions, considered merely decorative, and yet another in a different colour at the centre of the al-tarpiece and above the Virgin Mary and Child. There are other figures of which I make no mention given my understanding that they point in the same direction as the entire altar-piece: the year of four seasons, directed by a syncretic Virgin Mary and Child. The twelve figures refer to the months of the year, divided into four quarters. The medallions could have represented the Metonic cycle of 19 years, governed by the Isiac Virgin.

The synodic month has 29.5306 days and the tropical year 365.242. The calculation is 365.242 / 29.5306 = 12.3683 moons or months per annum. This means that the real year has more than 12 months and less than 13, which is why, in Antiquity, extra days were inserted into a year or a month every 'x' number of years in order to make the two cycles tally. According to this calculation, given that the year has 12 whole months, 0.3683 parts of a month are left over each year. After 19 years, this causes a deficit of 0.3683 x 19 = 6.9977, which very nearly comes to the whole number of 7. Hence, by inserting 7 months every 19 years, the solar and lunar cycles end up coinciding with one another. The 19-year cycle was introduced in Athens in 432 AD by the astronomer Meton. According to Norman Davidson in Astronomy and Imagination, p. 108: "This cycle was used by the Greeks to predict the days on which their religious festivals, determined by the moon's phases, should be celebrated. It is still used by churches today. ... The Christian calendar dates the start of its Metonic series from the year 1 BC." These cycles appeared when we already exactly knew the duration of the solar and lunar cycles. Previously, the ancient Greeks and Babylonians had calculated the insertions, generally irregularly implemented, by means of astronomical observations practiced during generations. The Okabe and The Crown's of the Moon stone circles, plus the hypothetical original sanctuary of San Miguel de Aralar, push me, with the help of the landscape, hidden by the trees in The Crowns, to consider the irregular insertions suggested by local experts; while the altarpiece inside San Miguel indicates official insertions according to the Metonic cycle.

The rectangular altarpiece and its figures come to 4, although the appearance of the Virgin, represented by the Canis Major, before Christianity, in Pyrenean religion, an-nounced the start of the year of three seasons. Geminus, in chapter VIII of Introduction to the Phenomena, gives an idea of the moon-sun cycle and of the festivities held in honour of Isis. Spanish readers can find a good version of the little book of Geminus which, in the same volume -no. 178 of the Gredos Classic Library- is accompanied by Aratus' Phe-nomena, another recommended title when it comes to understanding the Psc. The chapel to the right of the high altar houses the well-known image of San Miguel de Aralar which may also, though far less explicitly, indicate a syncretism of both kinds of year -three and four season-.
I am unable to give a precise date for the little temple to the east of the sanctuary; it is dedicated to the Holy Trinity, as indicated by the representation of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Three; and facing the Peña de Izaga, 119º, in a direction continuing as far as the Leire mountain range, more or less the point at which Sirius and Antares rose in the first millennium BC.
I mentioned the Peña de Izaga in Del crónlech pirenaico (descodificación as-tronómica de una religión olvidada), when looking at the Psc's of Ezkain, and, in the sec-ond instalment of this web, similarly on the subject of this group, made an observation pointing towards a Fomalhault located on the Peña de Izaga; while, from San Miguel, it is Sirius that rose from the said Peña, or rock. Not far from the summit of the Peña de Izaga is a hermitage likewise dedicated to San Miguel.
According to the Gran Atlas de Navarra, published by the CAN, most of the churches and hermitages to be found in Navarra are dedicated to the Virgin Mary, 158, followed by Saint Martin with 93, Saint Peter with 78, Saint Steven with 59, Saint John the Baptist with 57, Saint Andrew with 52, Saint Michael with 51, Saint Bartholomew with 17, Saint Vicente the Martyr with 14 and Saint James with 13, up to a total of 175 different dedications. Constructions which, based on other observations, could be another loose end linking Pyrenean astral paganism to the beginnings of Christianity. While according to the historians the process of Christianization is not well known, they do say that it must have made decisive progress in the 4th Century. This approximate date, leaving other historical aspects to one side, permits me to suppose that the Pyrenean astral religion existed from the period in which the Psc was built, for around almost a millennium, to which we have to add another half millennium until the appearance of the first Christian syncretic expres-sions, specifically in the shape of analogies of symbols and attributes related to the gods, in the similarity of the names of ancient gods with the modern saints, in the creation of the Christian Trinity, in the acceptance of the change from three to four seasons, in solid, deep changes: if an important god was female, it most probably changed sex until achieving the greatest possible syncretism, thus indicating the culmination of Christianity, with the re-covery of the Way of the Stars in the Way of Saint James.
The toponyms of a good part of the mountains visible from San Miguel seem to be inspired in its astronomic-religious meaning:
· Izaga, could be considered today to come from the Basque Iza-ga, 'hunting place'; but it would seem more likely that it must have come from Izar-ga 'place of the star', in this case Sirius and, perhaps also making a potential reference to Antares in the hiemal solstice, following the example observed on the axis Pico de Orhi-Okabe-Auza-Peñas de Aia-Jaizkibel-Bay of Biscay.
· Monreal. Higa de Monreal. The Higa is located 131º from San Miguel de Aralar, on the vertical axis of which the complete birth of the Canis Major was visible before con-verting it into a dog, to remove it from the celestial pantheon, it was the Pyrenean astral Mother Goddess, just like Astarté, Hécate, Rea, Isis and a long list of others. From San Miguel de Aralar, with respect to the Peña de Izaga and the Higa de Monreal, the concepts seen from Okabe with the help of the Pico de Orhi repeat themselves. On Okabe, Sirius was born on a horizon marked by the passage to the left of the Pico de Orhi, which ex-pressed the splendour of its already formed constellation on completing its triangular foot on the pyramidal Pico de Orhi. San Miguel is in itself Sirius over Izaga; while the goddess, the Lady, the constellation of the Canis Major, in definitive, completed one another on their passage through Monreal -¿Amon-Re, Amon-Rea, simple chance or semantic tricks?-. Discovering the real meaning of that religion implies the understanding of past esotericisms.
The point is that Okabe and San Miguel de Aralar are two threads in the same story captained by Sirius and its constellation. Okabe is the stellar pagan representation and San Miguel de Aralar constitutes a syncretic representation of the ancient worship of the Mother Goddess given shape in Christian images, with influences of other beliefs implicit in Okabe. The proof of the story is once again the landscape: the pyramidal Orhi and its surroundings seen from Okabe are also equivalent to the similarly pyramidal Peña de Izaga and Higa de Monreal seen from San Miguel, beyond and in line with Pamplona; such as the Orgamendi of Okabe, corresponding to the Artxu-eta of San Miguel.
In Okabe and San Miguel, or rather on the axes Pico de Orhi-Peñas de Aia and Peña de Izaga/Higa de Monreal-San Miguel de Aralar, there may be a hidden astronomical ephemeris which may have contributed to the choice of these sites for construction of the monuments standing on them. This is the full moon-sun opposition during the solstices. In the vernal solstice, with the heliacal rising of Sirius, the sun rose towards 60º through Can-cer, on the nightfall of the same day, the sun in Cancer set towards 300º, past Peñas de Aia in the case of Okabe and San Miguel in the latter case. Some of these days, with the sun still in Cancer, hiding itself in Peñas de Aia and San Miguel, the full moon would be situ-ated in an acronyc Capricorn which would shine over the Pico de Orhi and the Higa de Monreal. In the opposite hiemal solstice, the sun-full moon opposition would be heliacal, and would take place at the rising of the sun in Capricorn through Orhi and the Higa de Monreal, while the full moon would be in Cancer over the Peñas de Aia and San Miguel. This doesn't mean that these celestial phenomena were taken into account; however, sup-posing that they were would clear up a number of doubts. In the first place they would give an additional explanation to the importance granted to these axes indicated by outstanding mountains; on the other hand I would indicate an at least provisional solution for the mean-ing of the repeated word Oca or Oka, which could indicate a full moon on certain dates and in certain positions, hence, when saying Okabe, they may have been pointing towards Oca-Bel, to the full moon with the treatment of Bel, which also seems to have been the case of the Canis Major as would seem to indicate the name Jaizkibel, Jaiki-Bel, Ascension of Bel, in the place where we see a representation of the complete Canis Major. A full moon mounted on the Pico de Orhi or on the Higa de Monreal in the twilight of the vernal sol-stice. What finally convinces me of this affirmation is the possibility that the vernal full moon on Orhi or on the Higa de Monreal could have served to reduce, adding days, the annual differences between the solar and lunar cycles, the former defined by the heliacal rising of Sirius and the second by the days of difference, from one year to another, in the appearance of the full moon in the summer solstice over Orhi and Monreal. Regarding the question of the added days, Hunger & Pingree, in Astral Sciences in Mesopotamia -pp. 75-79-, give us an idea of the mention made of the subject on the Mul Apin tablets. I un-derline the fact that the months in Mesopotamia started with the full moon; they therefore used days number 15, those of the full moon, on the subject of which the Mul Apin tablets tell us: "[...] The solstices are determined by the rising of Arrow on 15 Du'uzu in the morn-ing and the rising of Arrow on 15 Tebetu in the evening [...]" [...] "On the 15th of Nisannu, on the 15th of Du'uzu, on the 15th of Tesritu, on the 15th of Tebetu, you observe the ris-ings of the Sun, the visibility time of the Moon, the appearance of the Arrow, and you will find how many days are in excess".
The nucleus creating the dissention between those in favour of the Pyrenean astral religion and Christianity, their last redoubt, was the division of the year. The Pyrenean followers, understood as those who defended this religion, preferred the three seasons, written in the skies and indicated on the geography by means of monuments and toponyms; while Christianity and the whole of the west had adopted the more scientific division into four. The problem seems to have lain in the fact that the three seasons came from a reli-gious system which was deeply rooted in the area, based on original religious concepts, such as that of the Mother Goddess, which were legible in the sky and written on the land-scape. This said, despite the agreed or imposed syncretism, those in favour of the three seasons continued to leave hidden traces wherever they could. The Way is full of examples and the symbols of many secret societies point in the same direction. One of the last hidden expressions of the belief, according to my own opinion, may be found in the well known "Juego de la Oca" (a Spanish version of snakes and ladders), which, in its modern version became fashionable in times of Felipe II, given to him as a gift by Francesco de Medicis on a trip to Spain. The "Juego de la Oca" has a number of particularities, one of which de-serves analysis: it has 63 squares, which I would say correspond to the divisions of the year: 63 cannot be divided by four -seasons?- but it can be divided by 3, hence assign-ing 21 squares to each season? It would seem logical to assume that the squares indicating the change of season should contain a singularity related to the progress of the game. These boxes, in multiples of 3, are 21 and 42. Nothing changes in the game with box no. 21, al-though the Inn is located two boxes earlier, in no. 19; while no. 42 houses the Maze. The half seasons are represented 10 boxes further on than the 21 and the 42, hence in 31 and 52. In the former is the Well and in the latter the Prison. It all therefore seems to indicate that this is really a division of the year in to three parts which, in turn, are each subdivided into 2, coming to a total of 6. The subdivision into 3 could be symbolized with the goose-foot, that of 6 with the 6-armed chrismon. There are also 13 geese -moons?-, de a oca y tiro porque me toca (literally: from goose to goose and I throw because it's my turn). The year has 12 thirty-day months and 13 of 28 days -sidereal moons, returning to the same star-. There are two ways of playing: in the transcending method the only geese to re-ceive a bonus are those falling on multiples of 9, therefore of 3, all coming to 9, like the points of the star found beneath the letter alpha on the altarpiece in San Miguel de Aralar: 1+8 = 9, 2+7 = 9, etc. The 30-day moon would give us a year of 360 days, which doesn't coincide with the real year of 365.25 days, which is why extra days were introduced in Antiquity to complete the two cycles. So, I'd say that the Inn is not located on no. 21 as would correspond to a change of season, perhaps because of the extra number of days re-quired to synchronize the cycles. The Goose may not be just any full moon, but a solstitial full moon Goose serving to add days to the year and make the moon-sun cycles corre-spond. With time, was discovered that every 19 years the lunar and solar cycles matched and the moon, the sun and Sirius, set at the same points on the day of the solstice and, who better than Our Lady to handle the cycles and decide what days had to be added? Hence, the 18 circles on the altarpiece of San Miguel plus an additional 1 in a different colour, LA OCA, at the disposition of Our Lady.

This solstitial full moon expressed in San Miguel, in addition to making sense of the toponym of Okabe indicating Oca Bel, confirms my intuitions regarding the group of stone circles known as The Crowns of the Moon, located in the Hecho Valley, presented in the Spanish and French versions of the 3rd instalment, under the name of 'La corona de las lunas' given a supposed etymology of the word 'corona', which, later, on starting to study the 'Les couraüs d'Accaüs' stone circles in Bilhères-en-Ossau, was simplified by the consideration that, like in the French group, 'courrous' referred to "corros", to the circles themselves, thus making sense of the consideration that 'las coronas', 'the crowns', near the other side of the border, also referred to circles; as a result, I changed the name of the English version still being translated.
I state this by way of an explanation of why there are two different nominations for this group, the meaning revealed by the word 'Oca', so often repeated in the stone circle and on the Way of Saint James, endorsing a good number of the toponyms of the area housing the 70 stone circles of the group of The Crowns of the Moon, starting with the forest in which they are to be found, the Oza Forest, which could well have been known as the Oca Forest in keeping with the meaning of the group.

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