4. The front side of the text has 8 * 30 days, we can think, but maybe only the last 8 * 21 = 168 of them are to be counted as summer. This idea was hinted at already at Ruhi:
Later, at Tagata Gagana, it was noted that the length of the synodical period of Jupiter (399 days) is equal to the ordinal number of Gb6-16, a Thursday where we can count 61 * 6 = 366 and where there are 168 glyphs preceding on side b:
Number 168 appears in several places, though, and in e.g. The Arrow of Time I suggested it could have been used in duplicate:
And counted from Sirrah the day number of Dubhe (the 4th Tahitian star pillar) is 168:
Yet, also a connection with Antares seems to be affirmed in the G text, because Antares is said to announce the beginning of summer and 186 + 168 = 354:
It therefore seems probable that 168 was a number primarily used for the days of summer, which is shorter south of the equator than north of the equator. 192 - 168 = 24 and 186 - 168 = 18. When we find 168 glyphs on side b before tagata gagana in Gb6-16 it presumably is a numerical sign which indicates that the synodical period of Jupiter ought to end together with the 'week' of Sun, because beyond comes Venus and Saturn who rules in the interregnum before next Sun will be born. We can understand 168 days counted from Ga3-2 to the end of side a as a numerical sign which underlines that the end of side a coincides with the end of a cycle of Sun. Counted from Sirrah the day number of the last glyph on side a is 64 + 230 = 294 and next day will be counted as 10 * 29½. Similarly, 168 days from Gb3-13 to the end of side b can be interpreted as a Sun cycle which is beginning with Gb3-14 (a π glyph). The location of Ana-mua to glyph number 186 can be explained by the reversal from winter to summer (168). This in turn will put Ana-muri (Aldebaran) in position 186 - (250 - 69) = 5:
192 = 360 - 186 can be regarded as just a consequence of defining Ana-mua to be in position 186. If 186 is a reflection of 168, then we should know why 168 is important. Maybe it was chosen for numerical reasons among half a dozen possible candidates (for a suitable summer measure), e.g. is 16 * 8 = 128 = 2 * 64, which in turn can allude to 264 - another measure for the end of summer:
Both 16 and 8 are important numbers and the decision to put Antares at day number 186 was certainly made after having contemplated its whole net of interrelated positions - an idea hard to grasp for us civilized and modern people who have cut up everything into arbitrary small confetti pieces in order to be able to analyze each piece without being disturbed by implications. We are quite similar to ostriches, birds which no longer can fly and see the whole landscape. But in order to be able to keep all the cycles and positions in memory it was useful to use easy to remember interrelated numbers close to the true observations. 168 → 16 * 8 = 128 for instance, will easily be remembered because of the 'reversed' 186 (= 354 - 168) and because 186 → 18 * 6 = 108 can be compared with 128. Both numbers will be associated with a final for Sun - the old number of months was 10 and the later measure was 12 months, with 8 being the number of completion, perfection. 108 is also the measure for a pentagon (where 5 means 'fire'):
108 is therefore probably related to 186, and we should be able to correlate both numbers with winter. 260 + 4 = 264 is also a sign for winter and by adding 4 to 104 it can be changed from 'Sun present' to 'Sun absent'. North of the equator it was the opposite, 4 was present only until the rainy season had arrived: ... On February 9 the Chorti Ah K'in, 'diviners', begin the agricultural year. Both the 260-day cycle and the solar year are used in setting dates for religious and agricultural ceremonies, especially when those rituals fall at the same time in both calendars. The ceremony begins when the diviners go to a sacred spring where they choose five stones with the proper shape and color. These stones will mark the five positions of the sacred cosmogram created by the ritual. When the stones are brought back to the ceremonial house, two diviners start the ritual by placing the stones on a table in a careful pattern that reproduces the schematic of the universe. At the same time, helpers under the table replace last year's diagram with the new one. They believe that by placing the cosmic diagram under the base of God at the center of the world they demonstrate that God dominates the universe. The priests place the stones in a very particular order. First the stone that corresponds to the sun in the eastern, sunrise position of summer solstice is set down; then the stone corresponding to the western, sunset position of the same solstice. This is followed by stones representing the western, sunset position of the winter solstice, then its eastern, sunrise position. Together these four stones form a square. They sit at the four corners of the square just as we saw in the Creation story from the Classic period and in the Popol Vuh. Finally, the center stone is placed to form the ancient five-point sign modern researchers called the quincunx ... Later on in this series of rituals, the Chorti go through a ceremony they call raising the sky. This ritual takes place at midnight on the twenty-fifth of April and continues each night until the rains arrive. In this ceremony two diviners and their wives sit on benches so that they occupy the corner positions of the cosmic square. They take their seats in the same order as the stones were placed, with the men on the eastern side and the women on the west. The ritual actions of sitting down and lifting upward are done with great precision and care, because they are directly related to the actions done by the gods at Creation. The people represent the gods of the four corners and the clouds that cover the earth. As they rise from their seats, they metaphorically lift the sky. If their lifting motion is uneven, the rains will be irregular and harmful ... |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
