The Reflector of the Sun
Last night, January 20, 2000, some of the world was able to see the most fantastic of the moon eclipses. The rare red gold of the sun refected on the moon as they passed each other in orbit. The moon rested on the horns of Taurus, the Bull, and hid the Pleiades from sight.
This event is rare indeed. But it is not so rare that it has never been seen and recorded in ancient history. Enamored as we are with gods and goddesses playing footsie in the heavenly spheres, we tend to forget that each element portrayed on ancient statuary has a meaning. Usually a very pertinent mnemonic that later scholars can only try to guess.
The problem with a "guess" is that we tend to impose our present-day knowledge upon the icon or symbol. However, what we are so sure of today, is not necessarily what the ancient artists and priesthood were aware of yesterday. Nevertheless, their research continues to hold many answers if we but join the pieces together in the correct order. 
The first clue here was the eclipsed moon resting on the horns of the constellation Taurus the Bull. The first thing I thought of was the Cow of Hathor with the disk between her black horns. Checking the mythology books, I discovered that she was called "Mistress of the Land of Punt,"a very foreign goddess indeed.
As the mother of Horus, it was explained that her name translated as "within her the sun-god (Horus) resided." 1 In a later book of mythology by Larousse2 Hathor was duped into drinking a fermented red liquid, which she mistook for blood. This would be similar to the blood red moon eclipse of January 20, 2000.
As a sky goddess, where Horus (the Sun god resides) we can assume that the ancients were aware that the Moon reflected the sun in many different stages, but the most fearful was that of a "red" moon. The reddness once indicated the partial annihilation of mankind.
Hathor was often associated with the Greek goddess, Aphrodite. Aphrodite, then, who was also a "reflecting" mirror of the sun. She is similar to Hathor in other ways since she was the goddess of love, and women's toiletries.
Toiletries, such as mirrors, perfumes and oils have been used by women since the beginning of time. The Greeks recorded that Aphrodite anointed herself with (fragrant) oils and used a mirror. A Roman mirror illustrates this event. Aphrodite, then, may not be a sky goddess after all, but an earthly or geographic mirror which reflected the moon.3 The celestial moon does not have oil, but Aphrodite may have been a mirror-like lake in a land where oil is a prominent feature of geology. And this in turn would agree with another description of her birth.4as the foam (or mul) of the sea. In this instance, Immanuel Velikovsky was correct in writing that Aphrodite was a "moon" goddess5, but very wrong in assuming that she was the planet Venus.6. 
The next clue came from Chaco Canyon, where the Anasazi once lived. One of the petroglyphs found there is that of a hand, an upside-down "U" and a blazing star form. Modern astronomy knows that the planet Venus, with a good telescope, looks like the crescent moon. A blazing star could have been the planet Venus, but more likely it was an errant comet. The "moon" goddess may have been reflecting, not the sun, but a great burning meteorite as it passed by the constellation Orion once called Ares.7 Ares is the Greek name for the Roman war god Mars. Chaco Canyon tells us that the event occurred during the time of a crescent moon.
The comet or blazing star would explain the fatherless Horus as a different "sun" god, just as Quetzalcoatl of the Aztecs and various other mythic gods who acted different from our familiar sun. The Egyptian cow with the disk between the horns may imply that many of these foreign women we believe to be the Sun Goddesses might only be reflectors of the sun when the moon turns a bright blood red, or disappears completely during an eclipse.
1Larousse (1960) Encyclopedia of Mythology, Prometheus Press.
2Larousse (1965) World Mythology, Hamlyn Press.
3Athenaeus, Deip. XV - 687 C, p. 181, Sophocles in the Judgement portrays Aphrodite as goddess of pleasure, anointing herself with perfume and toying with a mirror.
4Perry, p.8, Aphrodite (Venus) worship came first from the East. She was equal with Mylitta of Babylon and Semitic goddess As(h)tarte. The legend that she rose from the sea indicates her foreign origin.
Tacitus, II - 2: King Aerias founded temple of Venus at Paphos.
II - 3: Some say it was the name of the goddess herself who sprang from the sea.
5 Velikovsky, Worlds in Collision, p. 247.
6Ibid, p. 251, p. 361.
7 Allen (1963) Star Names: Their Lore and Meanings New York: Dover Publications.
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