Revisiting Sevsar

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc Eduard Frincu ◽  
Raul Perez-Enriquez ◽  
Levon Aghikyan
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
High Accuracy ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
The Sun ◽  
Landscape Features ◽  
Remote Location ◽  
Remote Sites ◽  
Concentric Circles

The Armenian highlands contain numerous remote sites featuring petroglyphs. Many of these rock carvings are pastoral depictions of animals, while others are abstract and complex, and one example of the latter, believed by archaeologists to date back to the Late Bronze Age (LBA), is found on an isolated site on Sevsar Mountain at an altitude of about 2700 m. The most accepted theory about the significance of these carvings dates back to the 1980s and suggests that they were representative of a lunisolar calendar. During our two recent expeditions to the site in 2017 and 2019, we noticed a cup mark in the largest circular petroglyph, deep enough to hold a vertical wooden pole, and from this we inferred a more extensive astronomical function for the carvings. In particular, the petroglyph’s intricate design of a radiating spiral and three concentric circles placed at non-equidistant radii from the centre made us consider its possible use as a sundial, with the inscribed circles representing the noon shadow lengths on solstices and equinoxes. We measured the radii of the circles north–south and the orientation of the main landscape features using a Suunto clinometer and compass. Our analysis shows that the dimensions of the petroglyph closely match actual shadow lengths in the LBA, and that the petroglyph can be reconstructed to high accuracy from theoretical ellipses. Additionally, the remote location of this site further suggests that the movement of the Sun was important to the builders, as the site may have also served as a ritualistic and initiation destination.

scholarly journals Imaginary Vessels in the Late Bronze Age of Gotland and South Scandinavia: Ship Settings, Rock Carvings and Decorated Metalwork

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-103
Author(s):  
Richard Bradley ◽  
Peter Skoglund ◽  
Joakim Wehlin
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
The Other ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
The Sun ◽  
Close Relationship ◽  
The Dead ◽  
The Bronze Age

The paper compares the Bronze Age ship settings of Gotland with the vessels portrayed in rock carvings on the Scandinavian mainland. It also makes comparisons with the drawings of vessels on decorated metalwork of the same period. It considers their interpretation in relation to two approaches taken to the depictions of ships in other media. One concerns the use of boats to transport the sun, while the other emphasises the close relationship between seagoing vessels and the dead. A third possibility concerns the distinctive organisation of prehistoric communities on Gotland. It seems possible that the largest of the ship settings were equivalent to the Bronze Age cult houses found on the mainland and that they may even have represented the island itself.

Toward the Reconstruction of a Sacred Landscape of the Judean Highlands

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-41
Author(s):  
Aaron A. Burke
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
Sacred Landscape ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Landscape Features ◽  
Middle Bronze Age ◽  
Divine Name

Abstract At least a dozen biblical toponyms for sites and landscape features in ancient Judah’s highlands bear divine name elements that were most common during the Middle and Late Bronze Ages. In light of archaeological evidence from many of these sites, it is suggested that they were first settled as part of a settlement influx in the highlands during the Middle Bronze Age (ca. 2000–1550 BCE), following a reemergence of urbanism and a return of economic development that occurred under Amorite aegis. The cultic orientation of these sites may be suggested by reference to ritual traditions at Mari during the Middle Bronze Age but especially Ugarit during the Late Bronze Age. Such evidence may also serve to elucidate the various enduring cultic associations that persisted in connection with these locations during the Iron Age, as preserved in various biblical traditions.

scholarly journals The Vedic Agni and Scandinavian Fire Rituals: A Possible Connection

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-97
Author(s):  
Anders Kaliff
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
The Sun ◽  
Ritual Practice ◽  
Archaeological Interpretation ◽  
The World ◽  
The Creation

To use ethnographic analogies is not the same as picking up ready-made interpretations from one cultural context and importing them into another. On the contrary, analogies are a powerful and necessary tool for any archaeological interpretation. If we as scientists are not aware of this we will most certainly use our own time and culture as an unconscious analogy: it is not possible to make interpretations, or even to think, without references outside oneself, and such references are nothing but analogies. l will put forward the hypothesis that the Late Bronze Age society of Scandinavia had rituals resembling, and probably related to, the Vedic tradition. As in Vedic tradition, fire sacrifice seems to have been an important ritual practice in Scandinavia. The Vedic fire altars are built as a symbolic microcosmos, repeating the creation of the world, and the fire (Agni) is seen as a link between earth and the heavenly fire —the sun.

‘Silver’: A Hurrian Phaethon

2012 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 237-251 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter James ◽  
Marinus Anthony van der Sluijs
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
The Sun ◽  
The Moon ◽  
Classical Myth ◽  
Divine Identity

Abstract It is proposed that the story of the Hurrian deity ‘Silver’, as portrayed in the Late Bronze Age Song of Silver, is a plausible precursor to the classical myth of Phaethon. Shared motifs include the teasing of the young hero, the revelation by his mother of his father’s divine identity, a temporary assumption of power in heaven, a clash with the god of thunder, a disastrous episode involving the Sun and the Moon, and an etymology meaning ‘radiance’. As the Phaethon myth also seems to contain Semitic elements, it is argued that the source of the classical story was the region of northern Phoenicia to Cilicia, or Cyprus.

scholarly journals Round Barrows and Dykes as Landscape Metaphors

2004 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-203 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Tilley
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Phenomenological Research ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
Landscape Features ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
Historical Significance ◽  
Dry Valley ◽  
Holistic Manner

This article outlines the results of phenomenological research on the significance of landscape features, in particular ridges and coombe (dry valley) systems, in relation to the locations of Bronze Age round barrows and late Bronze Age/early Iron Age crossridge and spur dykes constructed along a chalk ridge in central southern England. It considers the locations of these monuments in a holistic manner and argues that together the round barrows, and then subsequently the dykes, network or draw together very different aspects of the topography in narratives about life and death. The round barrows differentially reference the significance of these places metaphorically through a combination of their specific locations. By contrast, the monumental courses of the dykes physically impose themselves on, or objectify the significance of, the same landscape features, but in a radically different manner indicating both continuity and difference in the historical significance of place.

Golden Hat of Schifferstadt

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Luca Amendola
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
The Sun ◽  
Summer Solstice ◽  
Southern Germany ◽  
Central Germany ◽  
Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries

Four conical golden hats of the Late Bronze Age were discovered in southern Germany and western France in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Their users were probably members of a caste of priests or priestesses performing ceremonies linked to astronomical/calendrical knowledge. Another find discovered in central Germany, the Nebra bronze-gold disk, predates the golden hats by two to six centuries and has also been interpreted as an astronomical/calendrical ceremonial tool. From the burial location of the Nebra disk the Sun sets on the highest mountain of the Harz range, the Brocken, on the summer solstice. Here we investigate whether the burial location of the Schifferstadt golden hat also had an astronomical meaning. Our results make it possible to hypothesise that the Schifferstadt location was a natural astronomical/calendrical viewing place with the same function as several prehistoric circular enclosures, but where the natural hilly horizon of the Odenwald and the Palatinate Forest replaced the artificial horizon of the enclosures.

The Concept of Palestine: The Conception Of Palestine from the Late Bronze Age to the Modern Period

2016 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 143-202 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nur Masalha
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Political Geography ◽  
Classical Antiquity ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
Collective Consciousness ◽  
Ancient History ◽  
Master Narratives ◽  
The Bible ◽  
School History

The Concept of Palestine is deeply rooted in the collective consciousness of the indigenous people of Palestine and the multicultural ancient past. The name Palestine is the most commonly used from the Late Bronze Age (from 1300 BCE) onwards. The name Palestine is evident in countless histories, inscriptions, maps and coins from antiquity, medieval and modern Palestine. From the Late Bronze Age onwards the names used for the region, such as Djahi, Retenu and Cana'an, all gave way to the name Palestine. Throughout Classical Antiquity the name Palestine remained the most common and during the Roman, Byzantine and Islamic periods the concept and political geography of Palestine acquired official administrative status. This article sets out to explain the historical origins of the concept of Palestine and the evolving political geography of the country. It will seek to demonstrate how the name ‘Palestine’ (rather than the term ‘Cana'an’) was most commonly and formally used in ancient history. It argues that the legend of the ‘Israelites’ conquest of Cana'an’ and other master narratives of the Bible evolved across many centuries; they are myth-narratives, not evidence-based accurate history. It further argues that academic and school history curricula should be based on historical facts/empirical evidence/archaeological discoveries – not on master narratives or Old Testament sacred-history and religio-ideological constructs.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document