druids' knowledge of astronomy?

Notice how carefully Oriel, over a period of some years, has avoided
explaining exactly where his views and the views of other members of
this group differ. He writes whole paragraphs - sometimes nultiple
paragraphs - hundreds of times a year but refuses to explain something
as basic as this.

He also refuses to answer any questions designed to identify what the
difference might be.


As an example - Oriel, if you look due south at midnight on July 1st
and again at midnight on January 1st of the next year will you see the
same stars in the same places.


Yes or no?

On Feb 11, 9:45*am, oriel36 wrote:
The most inviolate of all
astronomical principles is that days/years transfer directly into
daily rotations/annual circuits

Is it? I thought the ancient astronomers were happy to have the Sun
rise in the East and set in the West in the most literal sense, moving
in the sky each day above an immobile and flat Earth.

The notion of the Earth rotating came along later, and that of the
Earth orbiting the Sun much later yet. So, since Copernicanism is
invisible to casual observation, that it might have led to a change in
the definition of the Earth's rotation, as that is something hidden
from our initial understanding, does not seem to me to present
difficulties.

John Savard

On 11/02/2013 15:27, Chris L Peterson wrote:
On Mon, 11 Feb 2013 02:16:22 -0330, David Dalton
wrote:

What is known of the ancient druids' knowledge of
astronomy? And that of the peoples that preceded
them in the British Isles, e.g. those responsible
for Stonehenge and other stone circles?

Virtually nothing is known of the Druids. Essentially everything that
we associate with them today is some sort of modern reconstruction.
Nevertheless, one thing that is consistently seen in all
pre-technological societies is a basic understanding of the movement
of the stars and of the seasons, and it's highly likely that the
Druids understood these things as well.

I am not sure you can call a culture that was capable of quarrying and
moving stones the size of the ones at Stonehenge pre-technological. They
clearly had some pretty good stone age technology, planning and
engineering skills but no written language so far as we can determine.
This makes it very hard for historians to work out what they knew.

Nothing is known of the astronomical knowledge of earlier people in
the British Isles except what can be gleaned from the various henges
and burial chambers that have been unearthed. They clearly understood
something of the solstices and equinoxes, and perhaps something of the
long term motion of the Moon. Beyond that, it gets pretty speculative.

Agreed. Although some of the numbers for the various post holes are
suggestive that they might have used it as a sort of calendar
calculator. Several civilisations are know to have used lunar months and
lived with some empirical adjustment devised by their prophets.

We can deduce that they either had a lot of spare time on their hand or
placed great importance on building the structure to last forever.

Some claim to detect complex astronomical capabilities like eclipse
prediction in the position of stones or posts in henges, but I think
that's unlikely.

Given how terrifying a solar eclipse would be to an ancient culture I
can imagine that their leaders would expend some effort in trying to
determine when the next dragon swallows sun event was coming. Even as
late as the middle ages when Chinese court astronomy had got fat and
sloppy the Jesuit Ferdinand Verbeist was able to use Newcombs tables to
beat the incumbents at predicting eclipses and so condemn them to the
miserable death they had planned for him at the outset. Ad hoc
predicting local eclipses by remembering across a period 3 Saros or 54y
1 month. Bit too long for any one person to see back then.

Because they did not appear to have written records I am inclined to
agree with you that they didn't understand how to predict eclipses - but
some new archeological discovery could still change this.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

On Tue, 12 Feb 2013 11:29:26 +0000, Martin Brown
wrote:

I am not sure you can call a culture that was capable of quarrying and
moving stones the size of the ones at Stonehenge pre-technological. They
clearly had some pretty good stone age technology, planning and
engineering skills but no written language so far as we can determine.

Humans are, fundamentally, engineers. It's probably our most
distinguishing characteristic as a species. Nevertheless, in
anthropological lingo, "pre-technological" has a specific meaning, and
it certainly applies to all neolithic cultures.

"Martin Brown" wrote in message ...

On 11/02/2013 15:27, Chris L Peterson wrote:
On Mon, 11 Feb 2013 02:16:22 -0330, David Dalton
wrote:

What is known of the ancient druids' knowledge of
astronomy? And that of the peoples that preceded
them in the British Isles, e.g. those responsible
for Stonehenge and other stone circles?

Virtually nothing is known of the Druids. Essentially everything that
we associate with them today is some sort of modern reconstruction.
Nevertheless, one thing that is consistently seen in all
pre-technological societies is a basic understanding of the movement
of the stars and of the seasons, and it's highly likely that the
Druids understood these things as well.

I am not sure you can call a culture that was capable of quarrying and
moving stones the size of the ones at Stonehenge pre-technological. They
clearly had some pretty good stone age technology, planning and
engineering skills but no written language so far as we can determine.
This makes it very hard for historians to work out what they knew.

Nothing is known of the astronomical knowledge of earlier people in
the British Isles except what can be gleaned from the various henges
and burial chambers that have been unearthed. They clearly understood
something of the solstices and equinoxes, and perhaps something of the
long term motion of the Moon. Beyond that, it gets pretty speculative.

Agreed. Although some of the numbers for the various post holes are
suggestive that they might have used it as a sort of calendar
calculator. Several civilisations are know to have used lunar months and
lived with some empirical adjustment devised by their prophets.

We can deduce that they either had a lot of spare time on their hand or
placed great importance on building the structure to last forever.

Some claim to detect complex astronomical capabilities like eclipse
prediction in the position of stones or posts in henges, but I think
that's unlikely.

Given how terrifying a solar eclipse would be to an ancient culture I
can imagine that their leaders would expend some effort in trying to
determine when the next dragon swallows sun event was coming. Even as
late as the middle ages when Chinese court astronomy had got fat and
sloppy the Jesuit Ferdinand Verbeist was able to use Newcombs tables to
beat the incumbents at predicting eclipses and so condemn them to the
miserable death they had planned for him at the outset. Ad hoc
predicting local eclipses by remembering across a period 3 Saros or 54y
1 month. Bit too long for any one person to see back then.

Because they did not appear to have written records I am inclined to
agree with you that they didn't understand how to predict eclipses - but
some new archeological discovery could still change this.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown
=================================================
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
You won't find a clay tablet that can survive 4000 years of
British weather even if you find one in dry desert sands.
These 2000 year old wooden tablets made it through, encased in
peat and oxygen free.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vindolanda_tablets
Could they have lasted ANOTHER 2000 years?


-- This message is brought to you from the keyboard of
Lord Androcles, Zeroth Earl of Medway.
When the fools chicken farmer Wilson and Van de faggot present an argument I
cannot laugh at I'll retire from usenet.

Martin Brown:
Given how terrifying a solar eclipse would be to an ancient culture...

I don't take that as a given. In the absence of written records I have
no idea how certain ancient cultures reacted to eclipses. In those
cases where written records exist--Sumer, Egypt, China--there is no
evidence that scientists were terrified by solar eclipses.

--
I agree with almost everything that you have said and almost everything that
you will say in your entire life.

usenet *at* davidillig dawt cawm

On 13/02/2013 01:24, Davoud wrote:
Martin Brown:
Given how terrifying a solar eclipse would be to an ancient culture...

I don't take that as a given. In the absence of written records I have
no idea how certain ancient cultures reacted to eclipses. In those
cases where written records exist--Sumer, Egypt, China--there is no
evidence that scientists were terrified by solar eclipses.

That figures since back then there were no scientists at all.
There were the forerunners of philosophers, leaders and priests.

Being able to predict the date and time of eclipses had *very* high
status - it was how Ferdinand Verbiest made progress in China. We know a
lot about him because sets of Chinese wood block prints of his Jesuit
technology survive to this day. Every now and then a Chinese cannon with
"Verbeist fecit" embossed on it surfaces.

The life giving sun going out during daytime or even having a big nibble
taken out of it must have been seriously disturbing to anyone who saw
it. Same with lunar eclipses and the moon turning blood red.

All the ancient texts have stories that mention eclipses in passing and
always in pretty doom laden terrified terms. Same with passage of comets
in the supposedly immutable firmament. Even very recent comets like
Kohoutek and Hale-Bopp have had their own death cults.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

"Martin Brown" wrote in message ...

On 13/02/2013 01:24, Davoud wrote:
Martin Brown:
Given how terrifying a solar eclipse would be to an ancient culture...

I don't take that as a given. In the absence of written records I have
no idea how certain ancient cultures reacted to eclipses. In those
cases where written records exist--Sumer, Egypt, China--there is no
evidence that scientists were terrified by solar eclipses.

That figures since back then there were no scientists at all.
There were the forerunners of philosophers, leaders and priests.
================================================== ======

Amazing... the forerunners of this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism
were dressed in leotards and clubbed women over the head
before dragging them off to their caves... right, Brown?
Pythagoras, Plato, Archimedes were not scientists... right, Brown?
Scientists have white lab coats, pocket protectors and thick glasses...
right, Brown?

-- This message is brought to you from the keyboard of
Lord Androcles, Zeroth Earl of Medway.
When the fools chicken farmer Wilson and Van de faggot present an argument I
cannot laugh at I'll retire from usenet.

On Feb 14, 11:50*am, Martin Brown
wrote:
On 13/02/2013 01:24, Davoud wrote:

Martin Brown:
Given how terrifying a solar eclipse would be to an ancient culture...

I don't take that as a given. In the absence of written records I have
no idea how certain ancient cultures reacted to eclipses. In those
cases where written records exist--Sumer, Egypt, China--there is no
evidence that scientists were terrified by solar eclipses.

That figures since back then there were no scientists at all.
There were the forerunners of philosophers, leaders and priests.

Being able to predict the date and time of eclipses had *very* high
status - it was how Ferdinand Verbiest made progress in China. We know a
lot about him because sets of Chinese wood block prints of his Jesuit
technology survive to this day. Every now and then a Chinese cannon with
"Verbeist fecit" embossed on it surfaces.

The life giving sun going out during daytime or even having a big nibble
taken out of it must have been seriously disturbing to anyone who saw
it. Same with lunar eclipses and the moon turning blood red.

All the ancient texts have stories that mention eclipses in passing and
always in pretty doom laden terrified terms. Same with passage of comets
in the supposedly immutable firmament. Even very recent comets like
Kohoutek and Hale-Bopp have had their own death cults.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

You all spend your time trying to make the ancient astronomers look
primitive in order to make this tragic empirical cult look good
however the level of dysfunction in society today due to the dominance
of this vicious strain of empiricism and especially in the area where
timekeeping and the planetary cycles mesh and how the ancients framed
their insights is spectacular in the most dismal sort of way.There was
always a market for doom laden 'predictions' but from my extensive
studies of ancient and not so ancient perspectives,such 'predictions'
didn't really factor in and when they did,arrived as valid objections
- the Pope's objections to the mechanical aspect of astronomy in
Galileo's time only really became significant when the Royal Society
introduced the calendar based framework of Ra/Dec.It is one thing to
be wrong but the way you look at history and especially human
achievements is exceptionally dull.

You and Peterson harp on about Genesis and the insistence of a literal
interpretation but you are hardly aware of the craft work that goes
into constructing the timeline that begins with Genesis 1 and ends
with Genesis 7 v11. You are so dreary that you couldn't pick up on the
clue found in Genesis 5 where Enoch lived for 365 years and the Hebrew
author breaks with the formula -"then he died"

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/...5&version=NASB

You need a lively spirit to work through the details and reveal the
work of art that frames the Genesis narrative from Adam to Noah and
especially the subtle detail of Gen 7 v11.

Life is short but the spirit lasts forever and each understands this
on their own terms whether it is heaven or the more creative and
productive approach of 'life in abundance.All you and the others ever
do and especially those who won't participate is diminish life through
the inability to reason properly where the celestial arena and
terrestrial effects mesh.

Martin Brown:
Given how terrifying a solar eclipse would be to an ancient culture...

Davoud:
I don't take that as a given. In the absence of written records I have
no idea how certain ancient cultures reacted to eclipses. In those
cases where written records exist--Sumer, Egypt, China--there is no
evidence that scientists were terrified by solar eclipses.

Martin Brown:
That figures since back then there were no scientists at all.
There were the forerunners of philosophers, leaders and priests.

Being able to predict the date and time of eclipses had *very* high
status...

You define scientist your way, I define it my way, which seems to be a
bit more flexible than your way. Ancients who were accurately
predicting eclipses, whether they were shamans or priests or
forerunners, were scientists in my view. Some of these people were
aware of what causes eclipses, some knew to within considerable
precision the circumference of the Earth. I call the methods they used
to measure and deduce, "science."

--
I agree with almost everything that you have said and almost everything that
you will say in your entire life.

usenet *at* davidillig dawt cawm