4. Common sense cannot discern any revival of Sun at winter solstice. We have to wait a month or two before Sun can be perceived to return. In the chapter Tiamat I tried to describe what once happened: ... Once upon a time, in Babylon, Marduk was the name for Spring Sun. He cut Tiamat, the great 'ocean monster' in half by a slash. Below I quote from Peter Jensen's Die Kosmologie der Babylonier: '... Marduk, die Frühsonne des Tages und des Jahres, wurde eben wegen dieses seines Charakters der Lichtbringer am Weltmorgen. Marduk, der die leblose, chaotische Nacht, die keine Gestaltungen erkennen lässt, besiegt, der den Winter mit seinem Wasserfluten, den Feind des Naturlebens, überwindet, wurde der Schöpfer des Lebens und der Bewegung, der Ordner des Regellosen, der Gestalter des Unförmlichen am Weltmorgen ... Die Sonne, die des Morgens das Weltmeer durchschreitet und besiegt und das Licht bringt, lässt aus dem Chaos der Nacht zuerst den Himmel, dann erst die Erde hervortreten, spaltet das gestaltlose Reich der Nacht in die zwei Hälften, den Himmel und die Erde ...' Marduk was the early Sun of the day and the year ('die Frühsonne des Tages und des Jahres'). He was the bringer of light in the morning of the world (der Lichtbringer am Weltmorgen). He defeated winter, with its 'floods of water', enemy of life in nature. And he was the creator of life and movement, the one who brought order where there had been none. He was the creator of forms in the morning of the world. The Spring Sun, who comes out through the 'world ocean' in the morning and defeats it, and who brings light, first allowed the sky and then the earth to come out, and he divided the shapeless domain of night into two halves, the Sky and the Earth. Marduk divided the 'night' (the winter season) in half. Winter is divided in half by the birth of Spring Sun at winter solstice. And then, of course, it must be reflected on the cycle of day and night, in which a new day will be 'born' at midnight ... We are now better prepared to understand. If Marduk really cut winter (Tiamat) in half, then it must have been a feat which moved the beginning of Spring Sun away from his earlier natural cardinal point to winter solstice - and consequently also predestined him to meet his end already at summer solstice, because Sun is a star and stars will descend after shining in 180º (180 days). ... 'The sun's rays,' he went on, 'are fire and the Nummo's excrement. It is the rays which give the sun its strength. It is the Nummo who gives life to this star, for the sun is in some sort a star ... Moreover, cutting Tiamat in half could also have severed the ancient natural connection between Sun as 'fire in the sky' from his aspect as Rain God. Sweet water is not the same as the water in the ocean. Streams of sweet water are necessary for agricultural life, while salt water will destroy the crops. However, the sweet water is mainly generated from evaporation from the seas. And the evaporation leads to clouds which will give back the water to the mountains, from where it later is carried down by the rivers to the ocean. Thus we know the answer to the riddle how the water of the ocean is replenished: ... Implored by the gods to fill the sea again, the Holy One replied: 'That water in sooth hath been digested by me. Some other expedient, therefore, must be thought of by you, if ye desire to make endeavour to fill the ocean ... The torrents from Aquarius arrive later than winter solstice. The year could once have begun with the yearly inundation as in ancient Egypt, though not in high summer but in 'high winter'. In the text of G we can imagine an influence from Babylon, because probably Gb6-20 represents winter solstice and Ga8-26 the 'final of Sun':
An astronomer would rather define summer and winter from the equinoxes, and the first 2 months of the year would then be in winter:
A calendar does not have to reflect exactly the whereabouts of the cardinal points in the sky, therefore the henua calendar can begin already before spring equinox. Likewise can day number 9 * 30 = 270 in the calendar be somewhat later than autumn equinox. According to the model with 300 days from manu kake in Ga3-1 Sun disappears after 7 months (where 7 corresponds to the mystic number of Pawahtun). Presumably Canopus marked the beginning of 'winter', when Spring Sun had left:
Canopus is very far down in the south (toga), or to be more precise, in the southwest:
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