Beyond heliacal Hamal (and the midnight culmination of Alkes) there was a very special week beginning with the day which according to the Julian calendar was spring equinox, viz. 'March 25 (84):
It ended with the last day in 'March - respectively with the last night in 'September (at the Full Moon).
But we should not forget the 3 missing 'runes': ... Vainamoinen set about building a boat, but when it came to the prow and the stern, he found he needed three words in his rune that he did not know, however he sought for them. In vain he looked on the heads of the swallows, on the necks of the swans, on the backs of the geese, under the tongues of the reindeer. He found a number of words, but not those he needed. Then he thought of seeking them in the realm of Death, Tuonela, but in vain. He escaped back to the world of the living only thanks to his potent magic. He was still missing his three runes. He was then told by a shepherd to search in the mouth of Antero Vipunen, the giant ogre. The road, he was told, went over swords and sharpened axes. Ilmarinen made shoes, shirt and gloves of iron for him, but warned him that he would find the great Vipunen dead. Nevertheless, the hero went. The giant lay underground, and trees grew over his head. Vainamoinen found his way to the giant's mouth, and planted his iron staff in it. The giant awoke and suddenly opened his huge mouth. Vainamoinen slipped into it and was swallowed. As soon as he reached the enormous stomach, he thought of getting out. He built himself a raft and floated on it up and down inside the giant. The giant felt tickled and told him in many and no uncertain words where he might go, but he did not yield any runes. Then Vainamoinen built a smithy and began to hammer his iron on an anvil, torturing the entrails of Vipunen, who howled out magic songs to curse him away. But Vainamoinen said, thank you, he was very comfortable and would not go unless he got the secret words. Then Vipunen at last unlocked the treasure of his powerful runes. Many days and nights he sang, and the sun and the moon and the waves of the sea and the waterfalls stood still to hear him. Vainamoinen treasured them all and finally agreed to come out. Vipunen opened his great jaws, and the hero issued forth to go and build his boat at last ... I have guessed they referred to how Gregory XIII omitted to draw back the Sun with 3 days compared to the fixed stars in the sky, these 3 days being what should have been adjusted for the time between Julius Caesar to the Council of Nicaea. ... When Julius Caesar established his calendar in 45 BC he set March 25 as the spring equinox. Since a Julian year (365.25 days) is slightly longer than an actual year the calendar drifted with respect to the equinox, such that the equinox was occurring on about 21 March in AD 300 and by AD 1500 it had reached 11 March. This drift induced Pope Gregory XIII to create a modern Gregorian calendar. The Pope wanted to restore the edicts concerning the date of Easter of the Council of Nicaea of AD 325 ... Gregory dropped 10 days to bring the calendar back into synchronisation with the seasons. Accordingly, when the new calendar was put in use, the error accumulated in the 13 centuries since the Council of Nicaea [325 A.D.] was corrected by a deletion of ten days. The Julian calendar day Thursday, 4 October 1582 was followed by the first day of the Gregorian calendar, Friday, 15 October 1582 (the cycle of weekdays was not affected). So the shift in the date of the equinox that occurred between the 4th and the 16th centuries was annulled with the Gregorian calendar, but nothing was done for the first four centuries of the Julian calendar. The days of 29 February of the years AD 100, AD 200, AD 300, and the day created by the irregular application of leap years between the assassination of Caesar and the decree of Augustus re-arranging the calendar in AD 8, remained in effect ... ... First 4 centuries / 13 later centuries * 10 days adjustment = 3 days difference. Regula de tri. The 3 leap days in 100 A.D., in 200 A.D., and in 300 A.D., were left intact in time-space. When the Sun reached 0h in March 21 it would have been to arrive at such heliacal stars which rose 3 days earlier than according to a correctly adjusted Julian calendar:
March 21 + 3 = March 24 (83). According to the Gregorian calendar heliacal Altair would therefore be expected not 300 days but 297 days after equinox, i.e. 3 days too early, in January 15 instead of in January 18 (383). By shifting the dates ahead with only 10 days instead of with 13 days, the heliacal stars would not be properly placed in the calendar. Precession had pushed them a further 3 days into the year and measured from 0h their distances became to short. The adjustment from the Julian equinox date March 25 [325 as in the Council of Nicea] to Gregorian March 21 in a way caused an opposite effect with 4 days, but this adjustment referred to the path of the Sun and not to the positions of the fixed stars ... In my glyph table above I have used the Gregorian structure all the way from the beginning of the C text:
Adjusting for the 3 excessive days before the Council of Nicaea:
If at the time of rongorongo and according to the Gregorian calendar - adjusted with 4 precessional days since the time of Gregory XIII - Hamal was due to rise 30 days after March 21, then its true date ought to have been April 23. I.e., in April 20 the position of Hamal ought to have been *27. |
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