Astronomy reveals ancient healing spots

[Guest guest]

Astronomy study reveals ancient places of healing

 

 

14:53 05 April 04

 

NewScientist.com news service

 

Mysterious T-shaped monuments scattered around the Mediterranean

island of Menorca were most probably places of healing, says an

archaeoastronomer who has studied the orientation of the Bronze Age

monuments.

 

Each "taula" - named after the Catalan word for table - is formed by

two massive stone blocks arranged in the shape of an upright "T".

The taulas face an opening in a surrounding ring of stones, and all

but one of the 30 structures on Menorca face roughly south.

 

 

The taulas are usually made from limestone and range between two

and five metres (Image: Michael Hoskin)

"It has long been known that these taulas were sanctuaries," says

University of Cambridge archaeoastronomer Michael Hoskin, citing the

large number of bones from sacrificial animals that litter the sites.

 

But the sites were also home to a few intriguing bronze statues,

including a bull, an Egyptian figurine with an inscription in

hieroglyphics reading, "I am Imhotep the god of medicine" and horse

hooves. The latter is particularly curious as there is no known

horse god in ancient Mediterranean cultures.

 

 

Southern horizon

 

 

Hoskin was invited to study the sites' orientation to understand the

significance of both the bronze statues and why no taulas are found

on the nearby island of Mallorca. The taulas' southern orientation -

facing the sea or looking down from a hillside - gave him an

important clue.

 

"What was near the southern horizon that was of interest?" Hoskin

wondered. Today the answer is not much. But over time, gravitational

tugs from the Sun, Moon, and planets make the Earth wobble on its

axis like a spinning top.

 

For this reason, the night sky would have looked slightly different

in 1000 BC, when the taulas were constructed. At that time, the

entrance to the taulas framed the seasonal rise of a constellation

known as Centaurus by the ancient Greeks. Today, it is split into

the constellation of the Southern Cross, followed by the bright

stars Beta and Alpha Centauri.

 

In Greek mythology, the Centaur - who had a man's head and a horse's

body - taught medicine to Asclepius, the god of medicine.

 

Myths circulated around the Mediterranean and Near East even before

the taulas were made and the different cultures engaged in a lot of

trade, "so it is entirely possible - but not proven, of course -

that the Menorcans had a similar view of Centaurus [as the ancient

Greeks]," Hoskin told New Scientist.

 

 

The association with healing could explain the bronze hooves -

which could be the remains of a statue of the Centaur, the Egyptian

medicine god figurine - possibly left by an Egyptian sailor - and

even the absence of taulas on neighboring Mallorca.

 

"Menorca is flat and you can see the Southern Cross, etc., from

almost any location," Hoskin explains. Settlements on mountainous

Mallorca, on the other hand, were located in valleys "from which the

Cross was invisible because it was screened by the surrounding

hills".

 

Steve McCluskey, a historian of astronomy at West Virginia

University in Morgantown, West Virginia, US, says Hoskin's

astronomical and archaeological evidence "combine to provide strong

indications of a healing cult at this site".

 

McCluskey also said Hoskin has "fundamentally transformed"

archaeoastronomy by showing that the builders of these monuments

were little concerned with the "highly precise orientations that had

formerly been the touchstone of archaeoastronomical investigations".

Pointing their constructions in roughly the right direction appears

to have sufficed.

 

 

Maggie McKee

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994849