Ancient Map of the Moon at Knowth - LexiLine Journal 323

Via the Center for Archaeoastronomy at http://www.wam.umd.edu/~tlaloc/archastro/ae32.html I ran across an April 22, 1999 BBC article by BBC News Online Science Editor Dr. David Whitehouse at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/325290.stm entitled Prehistoric Moon map unearthed and reporting on Dr. Philip Stooke, University of Western Ontario, Canada, who clearly has identified an ancient map of the Moon "carved into a rock in one of Ireland's most remarkable prehistoric tombs at Knowth, County Meath".

To see how close that Moon map is to more modern "Moon maps" see especially the Moon map of Sidereus Nuncius in 1610 at
http://snipurl.com/bzav
http://www.kernchemie.uni-mainz.de/~pfeiffer/aag/gut/vortr/v14.html

Whitehouse writes:

"The people who carved this Moon map were the first scientists," said Dr Stooke. "They knew a great deal about the motion of the Moon. They were not primitive at all."

The passage tomb at Knowth is estimated to be about 5,000 years old. It was obviously built by men who had a sophisticated understanding of the motions of the Sun, Moon and stars.

It is known that many stone circles and ancient tombs are aligned with the Sun but less attention has been paid to possible lunar alignments. This is despite the fact that at certain times the Moon
can rise or set at any location on the horizon that the Sun can....

Investigations at Knowth almost 20 years ago showed that at certain times moonlight could shine down the eastern passage of the tomb.

Remarkably, the moonlight would also fall on the Neolithic lunar map."

WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT

This identification of a Moon Map at Knowth is important for understanding the sophistication of the ancient megalithic culture.

First, it shows that the ancients had more interest and more knowledge about astronomy than they have been given credit for by mainstream scholars.

Second, it shows that figures were carved on stone by the ancients to represent astronomical objects.

Third, it shows that the ancients mapped astronomical objects by carving onto rock, which was their "paper". All three of these support the decipherment of the megaliths as found in Stars Stones and Scholars.