... In China, every year about the beginning of April, certain officials called Sz'hüen used of old to go about the country armed with wooden clappers. Their business was to summon the people and command them to put out every fire. This was the beginning of the season called Han-shih-tsieh, or 'eating of cold food'. For three days all household fires remained extinct as a preparation for the solemn renewal of the fire, which took place on the fifth or sixth day after the winter solstice ...

I have, so far as I can remember, never encountered a calendar which has winter solstice in April. It could be a simple lapsus of Lévi-Strauss, caused by the idea of how the old winter 'year' should be dying when the summer 'year' is born. A solstice is where such a year comes to a standstill. But Sun is not coming to a standstill in April, he stops in late December and also in late June.

The head of Medusa is not the head of Sun, it is rather the head of winter. Maybe Perseus cuts it off with his curved sword in April:


Gb8-12 (454)	Gb8-13	Gb8-14	Gb8-15	Gb8-16
Algol (454.9)	Misam (455.2)	Botein (455.9)	Zibal (457.0)

Misam evidently means 'wrist', perhaps here of the sword hand of Perseus.

100 days beyond day number 12 * 29½ could be just a symbolic position, but suppose winter solstice should be in day number 354, in which month will Algol then be?

In our own calendar, north of the equator, there are 10 days from winter solstice to the beginning of January:

North of the equator		South of the equator
spring equinox	80 (89)	autumn equinox	266
summer solstice	172 (181)	winter solstice	358 = 266 +172 - 80
autumn equinox	266 (275)	spring equinox	87 = 358 + (266 - 172) - 365
winter solstice	356 (365)	summer solstice	177 = 87 + (356 - 266) = 6 * 29½

100 - 10 = 90 = 360 / 4. With spring equinox normally at March 21, which is day number 80 if it is not a leap year, we will arrive at March 31. South of the equator this is 10 days after autumn equinox.

At present Algol is rising heliacally at right ascension 03h 05m (to use the value in my book), which can be translated to day number 185 / 1440 * 365¼ = 47 beyond equinox. But considering the probable connection of Algol with Sun light we should rather translate 185 minutes to 185 / 1440 * 360 = 46 days (= 314 - 266).

Precession could thus have pushed Algol ahead in the year with 46 - 10 = 36 days, which corresponds to a time depth of ca 72 * 36 = 2,592 years. This is a beautiful number, not only equal to (2 * 36) * (1 * 36) but also, possibly, to 1 / 10 of the precessional cycle. At King Cepheus I have written:

... In the perspective of time we could say that Polaris was pushed down from the spring equinox (day 'zero' position) around 1 / 12 * 26000 = ca 2160 years ago, or close to the beginning of the era of Pisces.

I am slightly irritated over not finding any precise value for the great cycle, it can hardly be exactly 26000 years. The only precision I have is that it is 'slightly less than 26000 years'. Suppose a more exact value was 25920 years, then a 'month' would be exactly 2160 years. Perhaps the Easter Islanders used the value 25920 instead of 26000 - because with zero meaning nothing 216 (= 6 * 6 * 6) could refer to such a 'month' ...