Measuring time in "moons"
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The awaited return of the most obvious seasonal signal
The "brilliant" sectors of the sky
An assembly of sacred images
Figures portrayed
by stars in the night,
by nature "dramatic" figures
Why make reference to
seasonal stars.
Measuring time in "moons"
When lunar imagery is combined
with stellar imagery to compose
a "mythical cinema"
The human condition
and its development
in the
collective memory
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Successive and concurrent religious calendars using
grand mythical names that enlighten us
In light of these discoveries, many of the figures and episodes of Greek mythology quite naturally begin to take on meaning. For example, how can the impressive festivities that mark the "Passage of the Cycle" be transmitted down through a population’s collective memory? The answer is in a condensed form, as symbolic images, initially a sacred image that just needs to be called up. This image and the name we give it summarize all of the acts that mark the seasonal celebration. This is exactly the same process as using "Santa Claus" or "Saint Nicolas" to bring to mind the festivities that in our regions currently punctuate the Winter Solstice.
How is this image formed? Using elements that signaled the start of the festivities. What are these elements? Essentially the symbol of the lunar month in connection with the figures outlined on the reference constellation.
This is how three great emblematic figures appeared and competed during three millennia. Their images and names provided us with three cyclic calendars:
Atlas: (first according to Diodorus) with the "Atlant" calendar.
The Giant on bended knee, positioned near the dragon Ladon in his "Garden" which contains a "Tree of the Serpent" marked by three "Golden Apples". Atlas is reputed to be he who "Supports the Sky".
This image of a "Holding up something" is precisely what his name suggests:
The term :
ATL :
TL, Tel, Tol, Tal
(Tlaô, Tollo: I carry with effort, I bear, I carry away).
This term engenders a rich family of words that range from profane to sacred: heel (talos, talus) and "holding up the balance" (tal-enton) that weighs souls and their value (talent). It is eminent in the names of fabulous Giants, who were at the origins of dramatic sacrificial festivities (Talos, Tan-Talos, Tel-Amon). This is a family of names that date from millennia, particularly flourishing in the Cyclades, but which seems to have crossed the Bering Strait. Atlatl, designates "javelin holder", the Aztec spearthrower, and the great Tohil, who created fire with a scrape of his sandal, the eponymic divinity of the Toltecs, a people who produced the most complex astronomical calendar in history.
Aetolia (northern Greece) has maintained a trace of the feminine form of the name Atlant, namely Atalanta. Once again, the Three Golden Apples plays a decisive role: in a context of javelin-throwing hunters the myth revolves around a White Huntress, an unbeatable runner who killed young men. She stops running in the middle of her race to pick up Three Fateful Golden Apples. As the loser she is married to the winner, Melanion or Meleager, the "Black Hunter". The sequence can give an indication on how the Cycle Passing Ceremony took place. Initiated by the Moon (the lunar month) where the Giant Hunter of the night with his three-starred belt appears, it is followed by a sacrificial slaughter and then a sacred marriage of deities that augurs happy survival.
In this manner, Atl-Ant, whether in the masculine or feminine form is, according to Diodorus, the "media" of expression of the initial stellar-lunar-solar calendar and is worthy of the posterity it gained as the symbol of most ancient expression of astronomical knowledge and understanding of the universe.