Science always looks for proof and fortunately we find a lot of cupmarks placed in the shape of known asterisms. Then it ties the carvings to the physical existence of the stars. It was ingenious but natural to picture time-flow with a river and boats.
starry constellations, seesaw, early boats, season symbols, Little Bear, Fenrisulven, Moon Dog Rahu, Place of Thing, asterism, Tail of Dragon, Scorpio, rock-carving at Ekenberg, fishing halibuts, small oaks, skin-boats, votive boat, ritual boats or ships
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Overzealous Christianity destroyed these stones called The Devils Stones at Als South Jutland. J Raben reconstructed the monument for less zealous generations.
This is Little Bear from Haugsbyn Dal where they have marked and supposed the star Koschab to be the pole star for a while. However, they mirror it like some other figures from the starry vault.
At Ireland is a place-name Bunnan Addan understood as a tied serpent if not a dragon. There is a clear Dragon's head in the cupmarks over the footprints
On this carving two lines cross the head of Dragon and they continued to the head of Fox and the other to the Goatfish. In the Edda they tied Fenrisulven and with good help of Tyr. The other binding is when they tie Loke, (Goatfish) like Prometheus who thought too much and before the others had caught the issue.
To speak about the Fox. Here on another rock at Haugsbyn cupmarks mark it but on nearby carvings it is drawn as a Fox.
The Sumerians tell that the fox Kiel gave man the idea of descending to Netherworld and perhaps to hide the food. After harvest it is actual. Indian Brahmins call it the Moon Dog Rahu.
The cross marks the pole and is read SU "as everyone knows" and below it is SKEAF in old Norse called "foxtail". The high boot at bottom is a Sumerian symbol DUGAL "The big one who does it". The bow and three strokes maybe are three standing days of the year.
This fraction is also from the Place of Thing Haugsbyn.
We see the constellations Orion, Perseus and three stars for Aurigae. A horn of a ram on a footprint marks Aries and the footprint with a marked toe is Perseus.
In this mass of cupmarks we maybe can see some constellations from the top possibly Urn, Auriga, Lyre, Perseus and inside the big figure Little Bear.
Nearby is this asterism Tail of Dragon and Auriga in a footprint. This was actual about 3000 BC.
Opposite to Aurigae is Scorpio and here from Lofteryd Smaaland.
This Scorpio is drawn figuratively and is from Backa Bohuslaen and another is found at nearby Balken. The small pig is probably Libra, as we know it from the Edda era.
These three are from Finntorp Bohuslaen.
Lyre to the right and Urn and head of Serpent. This serpent Opiuchos, "He who do it" carries away the harvest. They were actual about 2100 BC. The head of Serpent is also on carvings at Notaun Naemforsen and Flatberg, Vestra Haaland, Rogaland, Hanganger, Lister all in Norway
These are from Askum Bohuslaen and all of them may be found at other places.
The Dipper is known in England and found also as figure in the hand of a man. The others are Orion's Belt which were stars of Osiris. Some scientists tell that the three pyramids at Giza lays in the configuration of these stars. Some of the pyramids have canals pointing at Orion's belt.
... and the vicarage of Aur Dal.
.
Lyre is a little constellation and sometimes too much like the Dolphin stars.
It is circumpolar and may have been used during winter as leading star. It is found on a separate stone in the garden of Haugsbyn. Probably also at Finntorp, Gerum, Kalleby, Litsleby all in Bohuslaen, Skjeberg Norway and below at Flyhov Vaestergautland. To these we may add symbols as Skeaf, high boot, ram horn on different places.
The spring has always been the main issue of the year and ritual symbols are often only marked in the spring.
This detail is picturing weighing and is from the big rock-carving at Ekenberg Austergautland. The figures suggest it be the spring equinox and the symbolism of "the running dog" or spiral date it to about 1200 BC. The running dog may have been a ritual symbol for the doggy animals in the astro-symbolics.
Third millennium seems to have been the real birth of algebra. It is a kind of mathematics that is analytic and exacts one can handle a sort of virtual reality behind the symbols. It starts at the simple equation A + B = C. One of my teachers told us to see them as bags with different things. We may compare the bags and give them a value, but may not compare the contents with each other.
Then he told us to see an equation as a real balance like a scale or a seesaw. The quest is generally to compare an unknown unit with a known one. In algebra it is a quest of getting the known on one side and the unknown on the other and to keep a zero balance.
They see a few clear seesaws on the carvings and we may derive others from the picture. The two occasions a year when the seesaw was a god picture is of course at equinoxes, when day and night is equal long. In Egypt the season started at Candlemas, but in India and the Northern Hemisphere it was a suitable time to start the season at the time and climate then.
The Egyptian mathematics is known for their hanging on to old traditions. It depends on that most of the calculations were done in agriculture when they measured new fields every year caused by the inundation. They had to calculate seed and taxation of the harvest and most of it was to calculate with triangles. It is still the only way to calculate areas of various shape and height in the landscape.
We do not know if they were calculating the vault of heaven in everyday life. However, in temples with astronomers they surely did if they wanted to follow the stars and planets and foresee their behaviour.
Early Scandinavian boats
When a man with an odd outfit is seen above latitude 62 north it has to be a shaman. But if they see the same in southern Scandinavia it is a manager or a big chief.
It looks like bullhorns in North Sweden! They are of same age as the earliest Inanna figures at Alta ... and parallel to the same symbols in Egypt then! This picture is from Notaun Naemforsen Lappland.
Dietrich Evers authority on northern carvings makes this reconstruction of a boat covered with skin from Arctic area. He dates the above and the boat to fourth millenniums BC.
This picture illustrates the use of the boat in fishing halibuts.
We do not know whether they did the fishing by season or by specialised fishermen. However we know for sure that in those small boats they could not work at sea in too rough weather.
Nowadays the smallest known vessel is the kayak.
Those who were born in it so to speak can do almost what they like with it and in which time of year they like. We may suggest that it was the same with these boats.
A fisherman told once that many fishermen cannot swim and meant one is more careful when it is serious business all the time. ... I believe him because I one summer borrowed a very small boat for fishing in a river with a stream. I cannot swim either.
On Eufrat and Tigris they still today use small round "pot saucers" suitable in calm water and almost as old as man in those waters. In graves are finds of a half-moon shaped row boats called gigs in some places. They may be used in a hard stream too.
This pictures obviously whale hunting in Salawruga North Karelia ca 2000 BC.
When they saw this huge creature, the lazy men drooled at the thought of how much food and how many days easier living it would give. So, they made vessels suitable for whale hunting. Our believes that they had only small oaks or skin-boats come on nought.
A votive boat from an Egyptian grave.
In Egyptian descriptions of different kind we have to decide from case to case which interpreting to use. Is it a real boat ... a ritual boat ... a word for a season or a job like an icon ...is it a calendar boat and stands for time ...or is it simple scrawling. It is quite the same in our rock carvings.
On this part of the Evenstorp rocks saying it for what the symbols stand is difficult.
We have the help that the main carving is about rituals of the year. Still, it takes some thinking to decide what we see here. The crossed circle may stand for the syllable KA interpreted "go". But they use it also for a year, a quarter, a half-year and more seldom for "the leader" usually meaning Leo or another figure in its place.
The "ships" may be words, syllables, boats or time boats. Two of them are upside down and the upper one is definitely not a boat. A boat-like symbol may be the syllable MA and upside down is inversion AM in indefinite form and SAM in a definite form.
Sometimes the strokes are units as days and may be counted and used in a calendar as this. That is to decide Ramadan after a definite quadrature with a defined star.
Another example to mention is the Fossum carving where there are six summer ships with twenty-nine strokes as moons and also six winter-ships in a group. To this is added a little ship with eleven strokes to get 12 x 29 = 354 plus 11 days as twelve moons and eleven days in a sun year.
In the vocabulary of this book is used units or strokes for the strokes on countable boats or else. Only in a few cases they are done in man like figures or may be seen as oars or other definite forms. To this are added adequate explanations if needed.
In Bohuslaen there are more than 8000 figures of boat type. Some looks like big ships and others are small boats. They represent about half the figurative art or symbols. Thus we have not taken the cupmarks to account and they are double as many as all other figures together. It is of course only a fraction we may understand. However when we understand a little it is a good wall to bandy ideas against.
Ritual boats or ships
of this kind stands for a season or a quarter as on this at Fossum Bohuslaen.There are four different ships and this Nils Ishauj Christensen supposes to be the winter-ship. The two icons, a pair of warners with lures and a pair of defenders with baltas, we see in many carvings in the middle of Scandinavia, but not in Denmark and in the north.
On this detail from Backa Bohuslaen are two lures and only one man with a balta.
The baltas are sometimes pointing at the sky. The longhorn goat is referring to the period of Aries which began about 1200 BC.
This ship from Skee Bohuslaen has four lures.
The ritual icon may be Canis Major I normally call the Sirius Dog. Alternatively it is the fox in the other end of the growing season.
Aspeberget, Tanum Bohuslaen shows us this lively scene in spring.
The cultivator uses an Egyptian arder and the cowboy is driving the cattle maybe to a boat and sail with them to an island easy to keep all the summer. The Archer with his bow cut out the living space and the lures were perhaps meant to scare the wolf.
The Water-snake is the womb of Mother Earth and on top is perhaps a symbol of fire. The deer with fawns is saying that is forbidden to hunt sucking deer.
The grand old man of documenting drawings Lauritz Baltzer made this version. He was the first to draw carvings and his methods were so exact that his material stands the day of ours. Only a few details he has missed as a little doggy animal on the ship with dears and it means "until Ramadan". He also missed a ram as figurehead on the big ship. That date the carvings to about 1200 BC.