Archaeoastronomy: The Unknown

Archaeoastronomy, although well-researched, cannot tell its secrets to men who only use telescopes and complex calculators to investigate the skies above them.

The astronomers of ancient times, it has been believed, only recorded those stars that were visible to the naked eye with the aid of very high structures. And sure enough, mankind discovered that the closer one is to the sky, the clearer the stars become, and naturally, those that were seen can indeed be tracked by modern astronomers even today.

But only the constellations and the passing planets, as the regular apparitions of the stars, were recorded in such a way that much of it can be verified by today's mechanics. Those records are as regular as a a text book for all to read and learn.

The problem here is that once in a while, the heavens put on a display that only a God could create. Such events were dutifully recorded by astronomers of old. However, at times, such information is only remembered for a short time. This form of astronomy is much more difficult to determine and it can be equated to a lesson written on a blackboard, which is eventually erased by the "Great Janitor in the Sky", either immediately, or after several months and never seen again.

A very good example of this type of lesson was displayed by a health professor. He placed a list of all the bones in the body on a blackboard. It stayed there for the whole school year. During that year, the professor never mentioned the list on the board nor did he even referred to it. Instead, he talked about many other things, When exam time came around, ALL of his questions were about the list, erased just before the exam took place. Not one question on the exam referred to the class discussions.

It is such with astronomy. The stars are seen every night and eventually one learns each star. However, there are other sky events that the ancient teachers could not ignore. In order to make learning more palatable, they made up stories about all the stars, both those that were constant and those that visited the sky for only a short time. But most especially, they made up stories about those extra events in such a way that the stars seemed to be almost human. The process is called mnemonics.

A familiar humanistic tale makes the dull process of learning by rote much more interesting. However, when the cultures that created the stories have been destroyed, all that is left are the tales no longer understood. Technology, then, begins to rule the heart and those visible but rare sightings (without telescopes and other paraphenalia), because they have been recorded as stories, become myths of the ancients with no connection to the astro events that created the need for them. Archaeoastronomy, then, is a hidden science, one that cannot be determined through modern procedures. An astronomer who wants to unravel the history of the heavens, must first assimilate the cultures of the ancients through their manuscripts and monuments. It is not until those symbolic star references are solved that one can unlock the mysteries of the ancient Skies.