Ancient laws Ritual fields 1

Ancient laws Ritual fields 1

Here a presentation of some of the fields in Haugsbyn on Dal.Time Law was the ancient world order connected to the yearly starry round. In time they developed law codes in pace with needs. We see only fractions of them in rock-carvings and we have to get the pattern from early province laws.

Spit of Ronar, Shore, Farmers' almanac, Meadow, Sketching the square, Field, time-wheel, Egyptian almanac, what to be, pair of footprints, College of Seven, ground grooves, Tumblers rock-carving, icon of Auriga, early zodiac, Bear-Watcher, Himmelstadlund

The Law rock | Law of Brotherhood | Evenstorp ritual law |Ritual field 1 | Ritual field 2 | Origin of Law codes |indexTL | indexST | home |

 Spit of Ronar (bull) west

The Spit of the Ronar (the bull) seems to be a sketch for the observation place at the Shore. They observed often the heavens at points with water around. The contents are of various age. The hand on the top is from c. 1000 BC and the part at bottom seems to be the oldest. It may be as youngest from 3100 BC or older. The middle contains signs of seasons and a time-wheel, to go below, to do work and so on.

The Shore

Click for map

The Shore is supposed to be the observation place and very likely in spring. There may have been poles at the small rocks and some of them in the water. Those two on the right and with thicker frames are on the other side of the bay.

Clockwise from north the small rocks contain at first a normal carving at settlements with the four season marks as icons. One of the marks is Inanna and her mate. The next carving is not easy to interpret, but the one besides shows signs of marriage. A circle or KER stands for a whole with no definition. Coupled snakes stand for unity. Probably they together are symbols of marriage. In the Sumerian myth the marriage was an idiomatic expression for making new life.

The carving in south may be the Bull current about 2700 BC a similar sign is seen at the island Ven in Auresund. In southwest the sign is like ancient Q and means equal, but also to go thorough. On the next rock could be a fork or sign of the Capricorn. That seems reasonable because the two bigger cup-marks usually stand for Watergate at the tail or Sagittarius. One contoured foot is an imperative on or start here. The other with thicker frame could mean equal at, but we are not sure if this much younger mark of almost our time.

The Farmers' almanac

The left part of Farmers' Almanac contains a short resume of the summer season of farming. I am not sure whether the rock has been carved at once or at several occasions.

The story begins with the spring at bottom. There is a small bird and it may be a common snipe. This was used in an old proverb to remind that there was enough grass for the mare when the common snipe arrived. They discovered that the spring in the Egyptian almanac was too early. The Northern season mainly starts three moons later. This is here explained as three moons of waiting before growing.

The hand at left bottom may have been carved later and was sign of the Crab and dates about 1100 BC. At the left end of lower boat is three snakes and a snake-tail shaped like the Urn. They are belonging to the farming myth. The whole message is what to be for the next moons. The middle boat is about the growing moons and the upper about harvest. At the top migratory birds and the dividing of harvest in the settlement.

The middle part contains details of the organisation of the summer half. In the upper row from left is a time wheel with marks for starting point of the two seasons. Then follow a field with the snakes of growing and a pair of footprints marked with signs of season details.

Second row from left assumes the work under ground and on the right icons for GE I BAN. The ancient word BAN is probably equal to the orbit, the ecliptic and surface of the earth.

Here it pictures the ritual of sowing and the work of going underneath.

Third row from left is the Collegium of Seven - in the Latin septemvir - marked with seven different footprints in an enclosure. The frame means that they have mutual responsibility for the season.

In the middle something electrical is happening between the Lady and the Leader.

 Second row from left assumes the work under ground and on the right icons for GE I BAN. The ancient word BAN is probably equal to the orbit, the ecliptic and surface of the earth.

Here it pictures the ritual of sowing and the work of going underneath.

Third row from left is the Collegium of Seven - in the Latin septemvir - marked with seven different footprints in an enclosure. The frame means that they have mutual responsibility for the season.

In the middle something electrical is happening between the Lady and the Leader.

The right part is the winter season. It is difficult to interpret, but at top is marked 15 parcels suggesting the families to share the harvest. Double stroked footprint stands for "the other" seasons and is here divided in two quarters.

The meadow

 This is the Egyptian hieroglyph twins. More symbols of the Twins are seen in two sections in upper row and in the right corner too. It may be assumed that a Nordic calendar was made late in third millennium. At that time the Twins were current in May.

The carving at Fossum, Bohuslaen suggests that in some places they simply started to follow the Twins during whole the year at this time. It was because the old Lady Auriga did not behave as before and the boys became men and took charge. The Fossum image is much like the text-carvings of Haugsbyn but in figures.

The upper row also contains the icon "going below", Water-snake and two cup-marks at end of season.

The crossed circle in 45 degree stands for division of year as February, May, August and October. Here it marks the end of season. While the circle is crossed in 90 degree it is the four points at sun ecliptic. It may stand for an imperative "go", for a quarter, for a whole. Two alike may stand for going underneath as well as for harvest. In both cases every place has to be interpreted up to local customs.

The lover row is the winter half. There are also signs of the Twins and they may be dated from c.2400 BC and onwards. The right end is carved on a rock supposed to have been used for ritual grinding for some time.

The rocks of Haugsbyn are of clay slate. The clay slate does not behave like this by itself. Thus I suppose that man made these cuttings. They are covered with soil so we do not know how many they are. The grinding do not need to have been for as long period as at Flyhov and on Gotland, which was from ca 3150 BC to 2150 BC.

The picture is from Flyhov near Kinnekulle, Vaestergautland and shows some of the ground grooves.

.

Next the Tumblers rock-carving is the youngest whole moon calendar in Haugsbyn dated c.700 BC. Tommy Andersson in charge at Haugsbyn has recorded the nowadays-invisible third part. This is a late moon calendar with three periods a year as it was in Levant at the same time. Not much to tell about but let the pictures talk.

Sketching the square

Click for map

The Garden of which the rocks 8 - 11 are covered.

The icon of Auriga is on the carving in the middle. There are some boats of same shape as at the Spit too. Auriga date the centre to ca 3100 BC. On the right we may recognise two cup-marks as sign of the Tail also used in Babylon. Below this stars of Lyre, maybe used as the leader in winter season for a period.

The rest is not easy to get anything out of or to be easily understood. Maybe some of the groups of cup-marks picture star constellations as the Perseus, Ursa Minor and others.

The rock 4 seems to be a sketch of an early zodiac. Perhaps used as blueprint for the harg.

They also call the rocks 1 to 7 the Field and contain sketches, explanations and marks to construct a harg. Maybe an avenue of stone has belonged to this but is taken away since about 100 years. A pity because it should have been unique in Sweden. The nearest avenue is now in southern England.

The harg was probably a squared place used for observations and in rituals. There may have been a Maiden Stone with a heel stone as suggested by the picture rock 1.

This rock has the number rock 4. It looks like a sketch of the night sky and originally a squared one. The icons of constellations are correct in relation to the sky and zodiac. However, the carvings are done at least in three periods.

Oldest "zodiac" signs here may be the Heel and down the step to the Underworld and just opposite the Dog/ Fox/ Sagittarius. It looks as the watchers have been standing on a small edge to the south east watching the sky.

The next part is nearly to the east. It contains footprints of a bear, and one footprint is also found below the Ramadan-boat in southwest. The boat is the interesting one and may be used as a side of the harg. This dates that part to when the Spring Moon came to the Arcturus in Northern language called the Bear-Watcher. That happened about 1700 BC. In the same part is the Ear and pairs of swastikas and some more sign cuts into the clay slate and dates from c 700 BC or later.

..

This carving is an outer part of a carving and shows footprints of a bear. There are three more prints too far to the left. This is from Himmelstadlund, Norrkauping and confirms the date of that of rock 4.

And the wolverine is waiting for the rest. This carving is from Himmelstadlund. Our ancestors simply loved animals.