1. There were other great coincidences, too. Given an early Golden Age when the Milky Way (River Nile) divided the year in a pair of halves corresponding to winter (È) and summer (Ç) - the cup form because winter was wet and cold, the cap because it was the opposite - the Gemini twins could personify the wonderful change in spring from before (Castor) to after (Pollux). The ψ Aurigae whip stars belong to Castor because strings imply winter (Cat's cradles were not allowed when Sun was about to rise in the east). The Club of Hercules is the opposite, it is broad and hard instead of weak and thin. This distinction was surely well known and used by the rongorongo writers, and we should remember it when trying to understand e.g. the necks as in Ka1-7 and Ka1-9:
The Cat (È), with his cradle (È) and 9 tails, could look the Sun King (Ç) in the eye because they were equal in rank (cfr at The Queen of Hearts): ... 'I don't like the look of it at all,' said the King: 'however, it may kiss my hand, if it likes.' 'I'd rather not,' the Cat remarked. 'Don't be impertinent,' said the King, 'and don't look at me like that!' He got behind Alice as he spoke. 'A cat may look at a king,' said Alice. 'I've read that in some book, but I don't remember where.'  'Well, it must be removed,' said the King very decidedly: and he called to the Queen, who was passing at the moment, 'My dear! I wish you would have this cat removed!' The Queen had only one way of settling all difficulties, great or small. 'Off with his head!' she said without even looking around ... Half a year later it was the King's turn to loose his head after having climbed to the apex of the year:
However, the time of the River was far back in time: ... In Hindu legend there was a mother goddess called Aditi, who had seven offspring. She is called 'Mother of the Gods'. Aditi, whose name means 'free, unbounded, infinity' was assigned in the ancient lists of constellations as the regent of the asterism Punarvasu. Punarvasu is dual in form and means 'The Doublegood Pair'. The singular form of this noun is used to refer to the star Pollux. It is not difficult to surmise that the other member of the Doublegood Pair was Castor. Then the constellation Punarvasu is quite equivalent to our Gemini, the Twins. In far antiquity (5800 B.C.) the spring equinoctial point was predicted by the heliacal rising of the Twins ... Spring equinox ca 5800 + 1870 = 7670 years ago corresponds to a distance of ca 7670 / 71 = 108.0 precessional days. This curious fact was presumably put into connection with the synodic cycle of Venus, because it describes a pentagon in the sky - and a pentagon 'carries' 5 * 108º = 540º inside. See chapter 8. And 540 = 1½ * 360, which might explain why the G text is carried by 1½ * 314 glyphs instead of 472 (= 8 * 59). The full precessional cycle is around 26000 years and a quarter is ca 26000 / 4 = 6500 years. This means the Twin Sign at vernal equinox north of the equator had moved (from the Golden Age to the age of rongorongo) from spring equinox to midsummer, i.e. to midwinter on Easter Island. South of the equator the Twin Sign could therefore be used once again with most of the original and pregnant meanings from the Golden Age preserved and remembered (not forgotten, kai viri kai viri), although moved a quarter ahead in the year due to effects of the precession:
The Alhena manzil began in 'July 22 (where 7 / 22 can be imagined as π inverted) and 2 synodical months after Sheratan 1, a structure which resembles how the dark January-February period preceds the spring month March. In G the parallel glyph has a little henua sign instead of a little marama in front, and the preceding bird is a manu kake ('climbing bird'):
Possibly it means G has a calendar for people living abroad (Hiva), those who were counting time in days, in contrast to a more traditional K text with time measured by moon, in nights. Ka3-18 is 50 days later than Ka1-9, where the element in front (see earlier above) looks like an old variant of the little one who is in front in Ka3-18. I do not suggest the Golden Age was literally remembered, but the discussions related to changing from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar were probably still remembered among the missionaries, especially as it had to do with the position of Easter. The facts of precession ought to have been well known. And independently the Polynesians themselves, perhaps the greatest navigators ever, could hardly have been less aware of the precession. ... The verdicts concerning the familiarity of ancient Near Eastern astronomers with the Precession depend, indeed, on arbitrary factors; namely, on the different scholarly opinions about the difficulty of the task. Ernst Dittrich, for instance, remarked that one should not expect much astronomical knowledge from Mesopotamia around 2000 B.C. 'Probably they knew only superficially the geometry of the motions of sun and moon. Thus, if we examine the simple, easily observable motions by means of which one could work out chronological determinants with very little mathematical knowledge, we find only the Precession.' There was also a learned Italian Church dignitary, Domenico Testa, who snatched at this curious argument to prove that the world had been created ex nihilo, as described in the first book of Moses, an event that supposedly happened around 4000 B.C. If the Egyptians had had a background of many millennia to reckon with, who, he asked, could have been unaware of the Precession? 'The very sweepers of their observatories would have known.' Hence time could not have begun before 4000, Q. E. D. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
