The early Babylonians believed that the planets had a divine nature and the ability to influence human destiny. They established the existence of a variety of gods, each controlling a particular area of human experience. Mercury was the god of intellect and was seen as quick and cunning. Mars was the ruler of violence and war; Jupiter, a kingly figure and sovereign of men; and Saturn, quick tempered and cruel.
Early North American civilizations, also adopted mythological heroes, like the Wily Raven whose trickery put sun, moon and stars in the sky and was responsible for world order. The Sioux, like the ancient Greeks, used animal imagery, with the sun represented as a crow, and an eagle as sun’s assistant. The moon was given human form, but had an owl to lend a hand; while the evening stars were buffalo. The Natchez, who resided along the Mississippi River, held the Sun as their divine ruler, and their chief a direct descendant. Other American tribes living in the plains performed a ritual known as the Sun Dance, where they inflicted physical pain as a way of giving thanks to the Sun and assuring it’s future comfort.
In fact, the sun was respected as the giver of life by all the world’s cultures to the point of worshipping it as a god. The early Egyptians called their sun god Ra and considered him the creator of light and all things. They believed that humankind was born from the tears of Ra, thereby creating the first couple, Shu and Tefnut, the parents of the earth and sky.
In Chinese mythology, there were actually ten suns, taking turns during the Chinese ten-day week. One day, all of these suns decided to appear in the sky together, but the heat was so intense that the Chinese people had to ask them to separate. They refused, so their father sent the archer Yi down from the heavens to reprimand his disobedient children. Each one held his ground (or sky), and were picked off until only the strongest survived. The Romans worshipped Sol as their sun god after their emperor Heliogabalus imported the cult of Sol Invictus ("the invincible sun") from Syria, making him the official god of the state of Rome.
There are thousands of similar legends and myths in the annals of history, all attesting to the value given the solar system, from the beginning of time. But, as early man watched the heavens in wonderment, a definite correlation was recognized between the happenings above and those on earth, giving rise to the birth of astrology and astronomy.
The Chaldeans of Mesopotamia, famed as magicians and sages; were one of the first to recognize that the events in the sky followed a pattern. As they watched the stars move in fixed order, while the planets orbited in much the same plane, it became apparent that although the planets had their own individual movement, they behaved in coherent cycles. It was in Chaldea where the first tables of planetary motion were constructed. Their cosmological system made use of the twelve main constellations through which the Sun and Moon regularly pass; the precursor of the zodiac.
Though no written records survived, in India humans also studied the solar system, and Indian astrology was held in such good standing that In The Life of Appollonius, a book written by Philostratus in 210 CE, he says of the Greek astrologer: “the wisdom and learning of Appollonius are set high above his contemporaries because he had studied astronomy and astrology with the sages of India."
But long before scientific instruments or written manuals were available, there is evidence that man had devised ways to observe and utilize the power of the heavens.
Stone work built about 5,000 years ago in Newgrange, Ireland; thought originally to be tomb, turned out in fact to be an observatory which the ancient Irish used to mark the solstice point of winter. Just before 9 am on each December 21, the shortest day of the year; the morning sun enters a small 8 inch portal and ignites the interior of the mound, showing that they were not only skilled architects, but learned astronomers as well.
At Medicine Mountain, Wyoming, there is an ancient site, dubbed the Bighorn Medicine Wheel, that proves how the aboriginal people of the area, used the solar system to their advantage. Now a tourist attraction, with interpretive presentations by people from nearby Crow and Cheyenne tribes, the wheel could reasonably predict summer and winter solstice by the way the rock formations lined up with the stars.
In fact there are at least 40 other similar wheels on the high plains of North America; most of them in Canada, including the Moose Mountain Wheel in Southeastern Alberta. Since the principal function of these sites was to compute the yearly movements of the celestial bodies, their primary purpose was for agriculture and migration. For example, at the Wyoming site, the aboriginal people were able to predict that the star Rigel rose 28 days after the summer solstice and Sirius 28 days after that; marking the end of summer and time to leave the mountain.
The Egyptian Pyramids, which served a dual purpose; a burial place of the pharaohs, and astrological calculators, are probably the most famous man-made scientific phenomena. Sloping corridors leading into the interior, allowed astrologers to make naked-eye observations with great accuracy, from which astrological calculations were processed.
But even larger than the Egyptian pyramids, is Monk’s Mound, located across the Mississippi from St. Louis. Once surrounded by a thriving metropolis of 30,000 aboriginal Americans, it was built completely from the ground up and would have taken thousands of workers about 200 years to construct, without the aid of wheeled carts.
It is also interesting to note how similar their contributions to art, culture and philosophy were. Though without an abundance of gold and precious gems to create the ornate trappings of an ancient Egypt, the aborigine’s enlightened sense of being allowed them to be creative with what resources were available, resulting in some of the most beautiful antiquities found anywhere; and their sage advice passed down from one generation to the next, would have rivaled the awareness of Plato.
