4. I have put a question mark for which day to assign to Sirius:
From winter solstice to spring equinox there are (87 + 365) - 358 = 94 days. This is equal to my idealized number for the measure from spring equinox to summer solstice (= 68 + 26), and if not Antares had been given day number 68, then the number of days from spring equinox to summer solstice would have been 177 - 87 = 90 days. To change from the correct number 64 (= 151 - 87) to 68 results in a nice balance with spring equinox having 94 days on each side, an equality between 'night' and 'day'. 2 * 94 = 188. "... Llew Llaw changes his name with the seasons. Dylan the Fish is his New Year name - though in some accounts Dylan and Llew are twins; Llew Llaw the Lion is his Spring-Summer name; his Autumn name is withheld; in mid-Winter he is the Eagle of Nant y Llew." This description from The White Goddess has a kind of question mark - why is the name of the Sun god withheld in autumn? My answer is that I guess the Sun god disappears for a while in autumn, creating an interregnum (dark irregular days outside the world of light and order). Such a scenario would release the previous counting procedure and enable the counter to create a new order, e.g. with 6 * 29½ = 177 days for the remaining part of the year. 365 - 188 = 177. At present Sirius comes between winter solstice and spring equinox. Counted from Alderbaran Sirius should be 103 - 69 = 34 days later:
However, Ga2-8 is not evidently meant to illustrate Sirius - the glyph looks too insignificant and it seems to be just a part of the ordered sequence at the beginning of line a2:
Perhaps the season from winter solstice to spring equinox is 'withheld' (is a part of the path of Sun which is not described). There is a blank space to the right of the 'head' in the Taranaki storehouse:
The head of the Sun king was buried in a hole after his death and Ure Honu had to be helped by the spirit of the dead king (the rat) to find it. Similarly the head of One Hunaphu was down in the Underworld: ... And then the bone spoke; it was there in the fork of the tree: Why do you want a mere bone, a round thing in the branches of a tree? said the head of One Hunaphu when it spoke to the maiden. You don't want it, she was told. I do want it, said the maiden. Very well. Stretch out your right hand here, so I can see it, said the bone. Yes, said the maiden. She stretched out her right hand, up there in front of the bone. And then the bone spit out its saliva, which landed squarely in the hand of the maiden ... I have at Camp 5 suggested that Reitanga (one of the names for Sirius) meant the star was located at winter solstice: ... In ancient Egypt Sirius was connected with the rise of the Nile and responsible for its 'deluge' - in other words 'winter'. The name Reitanga suggests a similar idea on Easter Island, because rei-taga presumably means 'adornment caught in a sack' (cfr at Parehe and how at solstice the Sun bird is imagined to be caught in a bird-snare, mutu). The proper place of Sirius should be winter solstice ... To be caught in a sack implies to be no longer visible or in other words to be 'withheld' from sight (not belonging in the normal cosmological order of numbers). But I think we should try to let the ideal position of Antares guide us, and then we can increase the current day number beyond winter solstice for Sirius from 4 to 8 (= 4 + 68 - 64), an operation which could push Sirius 4 places ahead, from Ga2-8 to Ga2-12:
This position is more significant, for instance because there are 106 glyphs from number 366 to 472 which in a way suggests the gap between the end of one year and the beginning of the next. The first day of the new year would then be occupied by Sirius. Maybe we should put Sirius at the ideal position of day 1 after winter solstice:
My new structure is divided in 2 parts, one which begins with Sirius and the other with Sirrah. Autumn equinox will here break the path of Sun at day number 263. If the path of Sun then returns with Sirrah we need 90 days more to be able to count on to day number 12 * 29½ = 354:
Or maybe we should count on to day number 264 + 100 = 364:
Tagata in Ga2-1 (Saturn) evidently could mark the end of a year and create a new year as shown by toki in front. A hand reversal occurs beyond day number 366 and from Ga2-12 the hand returns to normal. Tagata in Ga2-7 has a pair of feathers at left instead of an eye (mata), a sign which presumably indicates 'birth' (and it is a day of Venus). This was noted at Midsummer:
According to my 'idealized' structure Sirius ought to be searched for 147 glyphs before Antares:
However, my arguments above imply neither Sirius nor Sirrah are given definite positions. Instead there are 8 + 8 = 16 glyphs around Sirrah and 13 glyphs around Sirius which can be played with in order to create several alternative systems for counting day numbers. The 'woman in chains' (Sirrah) is beginning with glyph number 399 + 1, and - we should remember from Ana-roto - counted beyond Sirius there are 399 + 1 right ascension minutes to the next star pillar:
At The First Point of Aries the day numbers for Sirius and Spica were given, and amazingly 102 for Sirius is half 204 for Spica:
We can put Spica at day number 204 and Sirius at day number 102 (= 204 / 2):
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