A Calanais myth and an alignment of the east stone-row with both the rising of the Pleiades and crossovers of Venus at sunrise on the summer solstices.

A myth asserts that at sunrise on the summer solstice 'something' came to the Calanais Stones' central ring heralded by the cuckoo's call. This paper investigates which of the three celestial objects easily visible at sunrise, the Sun, Moon and Venus, might be referred to. The stones have no obvious...

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Publicado en:Scottish Geographical Journal Vol. 137; no. 1-4; pp. 41 - 67
Autor principal: Nance, David Alexander
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: Taylor & Francis Ltd Mar-Dec 2021
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Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
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      dt: Mar-Dec 2021
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        10.1080/14702541.2021.1905871
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        atl: A Calanais myth and an alignment of the east stone-row with both the rising of the Pleiades and crossovers of Venus at sunrise on the summer solstices.
      aug:
        au: Nance, David Alexander
        affil: Department of Geography and Environment, School of Geosciences, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire, UK
      su:
        Summer solstice
        Sunrise & sunset
        Pleiades
        Venus (Planet)
        Lunar orbit
        Radiocarbon dating
      sug:
        subj:
          Summer solstice
          Sunrise & sunset
          Pleiades
          Venus (Planet)
          Lunar orbit
          Radiocarbon dating
      keyword:
        Archaeoastronomy
        Calanais Stones
        mythology
        stone-row
        summer-solstice
        Venus
      ab: A myth asserts that at sunrise on the summer solstice 'something' came to the Calanais Stones' central ring heralded by the cuckoo's call. This paper investigates which of the three celestial objects easily visible at sunrise, the Sun, Moon and Venus, might be referred to. The stones have no obvious orientation with the Sun and, while a 'window' of the midsummer full-moons could be seen over the stone ring, complex lunar orbits preclude any precise alignments including the lunar standstill positions. Several widespread European goddesses of fertility and sovereignty were associated with both Venus and the cuckoo, astronomically symbolised by the Pleiades in northern Europe. The east -row of the Calanais Stones is aligned with crossover events of Venus. Three crossover events occurred during the period of the east row construction suggested by radiocarbon dating. The azimuth of the rising Pleiades coincided with the Venus crossover of 1677 and 1674 BC. The 'something' was 'bright, shining, holy' in Brittonic, gwen, while Gwener is the planet Venus. The appearance of the Sun and Venus at sunrise on the summer solstice might represent a divine wedding. This is believed to be the first European prehistoric monument demonstrated to be purposely aligned with Venus.
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    language: English
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      custom: Copyright of Scottish Geographical Journal is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.
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