Go to Underworld

Isturitz, Malabar, going beneath, double-axe, ground grooves, Flyhov, ban-in-ban, flint chisel, Meton's cycle, Saros' cycle, New Grange, Underworld's portal, ancestor skull

To begin with this reminder tell that ritual symbolism is older than Ritual Age that began ca 4200 BC when we can be sure of the astronomic ritual. The spiral at left symbolise winter and the double spiral alternate while the single run into earth since the foot is below surface. That is surely the heavenly water running to earth in spring symbolically. We know for instance from Ireland about the early nomadic movement of fishing at the shore in spring, be inland in summer and at the hills in winter.

The right symbol is seen in Skaane maybe 8000 years later at Jarestad 4. In the zodiac it is the situation at Cancer with a foot underground to he Water-snake

In this connection we should mention that the double-axe was also in use in India and that symbols go back to 4^th millennium BC, however we do not know too much about it. We know from Sumerian songs that the priesthood carried the double-axe in procession to Inanna. Maybe it symbolises the phases of the moon and also "going beneath".

Since the Indus calendar and the beginning of our ground grooves coincides around 3100 BC looking for symbols and figures we can learn something from is natural.

I counted to 55 grooves and if each has been used for 19 years it continued for about 1045 years. Probably they made them at the same time as on Gotland and then from 3150 BC to 2100 BC.

The stroke drawn with chalk is south to north. That indicates that they may have made them following the extremes of the moon. On several places along the line of grooves there are rock carvings. We cannot tell for sure that they made them synchronised with the grooves.

The figure being on the left side of the grooves at Flyhov. We can call it ban in ban with astro-terms. That has the same roots as ban and band in English. It is something picturing a fix loop. In Sumerian it means, "bow".

I believe I found it on the top of the runic stone in Sparlausa, Vaestergautland. On top is only one word Vi which we may understand as if they picture the method below the word. Then we have a late proof that vi is a method to synchronise the moon's orbit and the sun's orbit at the full moon in spring. Alternatively deciding Ramadan.

  …This is an abstract symbol meaning the same thing. It is not always as clear as this, because they had no standardising committee and handwriting always differs from person to person.

Now we can have a closer look of the results from G. Henriksson's investigations when he and others found 660 grooves on Gotland. In his article he tells that grooves are also found in Skaane, Halland, Austergautland, Luxemburg, France, Fiji Islands, Australia and we have to add Flyhov and Bornholm too. Australia puzzles me and it is a real question for archaeologists, I think.

We can expect many grooves still to be found, because we easily overlook that sort of remain if there are no other remains near them. Some of the picture-stones from Gotland have grooves, which have followed them from the quarry.

Fortunately on Gotland are many finds in hoards of big flint chisels suggesting they were ground in the grooves. Most of them are too big to be practical for real work. All over Dal we have single finds of big ground chisels made of flint from Skaane.

The biggest is 44,5 centimetres and together with other chisels bigger than normal they might have imported them for some cult society. The same is case with a few big pickaxes, but some of them have been in pair. All these are physic evidence of a ritual using axes as symbol.

We should not forget the other physic part, which is the sun, moon and the stars. They have ground most of them at the first full moon after a spring equinox and in relation to a fix-star. When they began ca 3150 BC Antares in Scorpio was exact the right. They ground a smaller part at solstices reminding that we never may categorise about the past.

They have made the grooves during a period of 19 year and as the moon is an active part it is just its cycle. The moonrise moves 12,5 degrees at the horizon every day. It comes back to exactly the same point in 235 turns or nearly 19 years. They made them for more than a thousand years as real science. We can suggest they also learned what experts in our days call Meton's cycle as well as the Saros cycle. That is how often the eclipse occurs.

In my encyclopaedia they tell that Chinese made their earliest observations 2300 BC ... making records I think. The Babylonian priest made their from 2000 BC. If that were true, we are far ahead in Scandinavia? However our are not in plain English but grooves in hard rock.

... ... ....

We have naturally to scale down our valuation when it comes to the past. Still, we should see the ground grooves as recorded science. Maybe they are more durable than our papers and storing media for the computers. The grooves are deep and will be there after all rock carvings have eroded.

Literally several cultures including Christianity are using the very ancient methods of deciding their ritual year.

Unfortunately G. Henriksson went to "the woods" believing he would find signs of eclipses and comets in rock-carvings.

He believed that our ancestors were scared off by eclipses and then tried to find out why some evil Mights were threatening them. I do not know what they taught. Nevertheless, I assume that man has seen eclipses since the beings have been on earth. There are different opinions about the intellectual man, but I believe he is more than 30000 years old.

We can also compare the intellectual level of man making observation fields at Carnac perhaps 2000 years before the habit of grinding grooves. The Jew and the Sumerian calendar are perhaps both from 3761 BC.

I see the calendars of 3100 BC and grinding grooves as a correction of methods. Perhaps also discovery of precession after the first calendar start about 4200 BC.

Because we have finds of ritual axes, we also have an indication of intellectual level and belonging to southern cultures. That is besides the big passage graves, dolmens, cursus and long barrows ... and of course Newgrange dated 3400 BC. I am sure they knew all about cycles and periods of sun and moon at least and also about Venus looking like a very bright star.

Many are fundamentalist and surely most of them are found among religious people. It is like a disease in the profession, because they naturally want other people to follow the message literally. Still, most of us just want a flexible guideline to follow. Following the heavenly phenomenon is depending on the Mights of weather.

On our latitude we have many cloudy days and nights and need several methods to follow time. We say "to follow time" as it was a leader in front of us, because we know what the next step of time is in the cycle of a year ... I once dreamt that Time was running in front of me shouting: "Hang on old man! ... then I took off my socks. I have always been faster without.

However beside the practical astronomy they surely had an old character that made marks in a stick or by other means followed the time. We know from Egypt that making marks in a palm-leaf that were the usual way of counting and symbolising years.

I sense and read that they taught they were "in the ban" meaning being in the cycle of the natural cycle. The opposite is of course "ur ban" or "out of the ban" as those living in cities.

The measurements Henriksson and Gannholm made shows that they needed pendulums with a diameter at least two metres to get the periphery in the grooves. Possibly there is a horizontal curve too. We have to search for shapes that show a pendulum and that it goes beneath the surface.

Going beneath

The abstract part is to understand the thinking in going underground. Because the artefacts have not been used, we know for sure that they made them for a ritual. If we know the use, it shows the time of the year. We have only to know that spring is the growing season and that we go to underground when planting or sowing. Our ancestors probably tried to understand every moment of the process from working with the soil to the new life was safely visible above earth.

Rituals need not be for the culture of crops, since whole nature including the animals needs the process of a new growing year. The wishes were of course intensive in the dry lands in Sumer and Egypt. In both they needed canals and watering also during the growing season. Going beneath may also mean taking water from the river. We see the beaker and pot as symbol in both cultures because they were essential tools in pumping water. The pumping with pots is still seen today in many places and also the makers of pots.

We have to look for a synthesis of the practical work, the myth and the chosen stars as icons and then see it all in symbols and figures.

The fist symbol is commonly "work" ... it could be a rod in a pot. The second become more difficult because we have to define the upper figure. I prefer to see it as Ursa Minor where the star is Koschab. They seem to have used it as polestar then. In the third figure we are near a boat axe with a shaft. Some of the finest have clearly the shape of a little boat. Perhaps meant for the little Germ on the river to underground.

The last figure shows an "enclosed or separated world" from where lines are ending within and another going outside and to underground. Again it is a question, should we see it in two or three dimensions? We have to mention that those making flint axes also went underground.

In the Alps they have found ritual places using the fertility ritual of growing crops. Still, not one corn was found. A good guess is that it was for the metallurgist selling the ritual tools for agriculture. At the time the stone art was at it highest, as if the stone masters sensed that the metals would soon conquer the world.

It was a Sumerian ritual symbol and to that the words "the face of Underworld". Taken together the pictures may show rituals or real work in going beneath.

To go beneath had two sides. The temples led the early farming rituals and perhaps with a part in the underground. The other side was for the nobility searching not only for metals but also for germ stones and what else could be found in the mountains. Raw materials became a big trade.

The earliest known gem-material in trade was the cowri shell being traded from the Pacific to the Atlantic. For instance on places in the Aegean area they practised an early cult with ancestors' skulls. They used cowri shells to cover the skulls. A trade from Sumer to the Indus culture via the Indian Ocean was natural. They might have reached Egypt too through the Red Sea. Rich and big cultures could afford luxurious merchandises, new tools and weapons of metal.

Symbolic acts are part of behaviour of man. We still remember our ancestors and use their knowledge. The church wants us to remember them only at Hallows' Day, but I remember them whenever I need during the year. We are prisoners of languages and customs, I think.

The left one is from Indus and the other from Easter Island. First we can perhaps suggest that they are "flying". The foot is marking reference or that the triangle is above ground.

In A we see that the triangle is synchronised, fixed or with a string. Maybe it must be fixed to the spring equinox and then the three corner points at stars used in the moon year?

In B is perhaps the triangle "in Dolphin". The heart shapes associate to a "sitting" or the goddess Uni =Libra

C, but there are horns too. On Phoenicians stelae the back of Tinia shows her butts in heart shape. To the right D they perhaps tie them to the ground as well as direction. In F is the main idea "the triangle" (of the moon year)

Of the symbols in E the left one might be a real tool used to fix a star in each ring. We see a different shape of the same in the Elephant seal. The other we see in astro-symbolism as a marked corner of the square.

We cannot read and translate them to plain English. Still we can analyse the symbols and compare them to known figures and uses in other cultures. Then we can prove that at least parts of the symbolism are about time and stars.

Through the years I have been more carefully in using the word true or being absolute in statements. Partly it depends on my studies in theoretic relativity. That forces us to tie our statements to not only a physic phenomenon, but also to time and alteration in the time. The other part is the evidence or lack of evidence in a long time and manifold culture.

During my life I have seen how new facts have been hold back because of old facts with no substance. It is mostly the same syndrome as when Ahhenaten was only a dayfly in history. He threatened much stronger Mights of tradition, which did not want to see the truth.

Some religions believe today that they have received the only truth in one god ... however they have the trinity too. But the very kernel of Akhenaten's religion was that the sun is the only real ruler. That is true if we believe in the thermodynamic and other so-called laws of physics. Then it is the sun that keeps everything going. Everything else in our intellectual sphere is poetry and like pastime chatter.

Changes in religion or ideology of that size use the big time wheel, which take one step every thousand years. The fellows of truth are Rhetor and Self-interest, so they are two against one in the trio with Truth.

Traditions in astronomy continued and some maharaja in Rajasthan build his own observatory still going strong if used only in the ancient way. The wings restrict the observed part of the sky and can be fixed to known stars. The stairs to heaven are instruments as well as symbol of rising. A stairway to heaven and light was used also in early symbolism of Christianity. Some churches have a stairway to a window and pointing at the light. It is the raising plant from beneath too.