There are four major celestial conjunctions in Plato’s Great Year (25920 years) that were of interest to the ancients since they divide the Great Year into four epochs or Great Ages of 6480 years each.
In the paper ‘Crucifying the Earth on the Galactic Cross’ (Smelyakov, Wicherink 2006) these four extremely rare celestial conjunctions in a Great Year were called the Great Celestial Conjunctions (GCC). These Great Celestial Conjunctions coincide with the moments in the precession cycle that the Earth Cross of the Zodiac aligns with the Galactic Cross of the Solar Zodiac.
A Great Celestial Conjunction coincides with the Sun aligning with the Galactic Equator at solstices or equinoxes. There are two places on the ecliptic where the Sun can align with the Galactic Equator since the ecliptic crosses the Milky Way at two places and hence we discern two different types of galactic alignments in a Great Year:
An alignment of the Sun with the Galactic Equator in the constellation Scorpio\Sagittarius near the Galactic Center. This alignment corresponds with the Sun residing in the Dark Rift during the alignment.
An alignment of the Sun with the Galactic Equator in the constellation Gemini\Taurus near the Galactic Anti-Center. This alignment corresponds with the Sun residing on the Milky Way near the Pleiades during the alignment.
Whenever an alignment of the Sun with the Galactic Equator occurs on an equinox or solstice day, this alignment will correspond with a Great Celestial Conjunctions as mentioned in the paper ‘Crucifying the Earth on the Galactic Cross’
The last Great Celestial Conjunction occurred in our own current era around 1998 and this conjunction is also known as ‘Galactic Alignment’ that was popularized by John Major Jenkins in a book with the same title. Galactic Alignment is the winter solstice Sun’s alignment with the Galactic Equator when the Sun is in the Dark Rift. This alignment was encoded into the Maya sacred site Izapa in Mexico.
Picture 1) Winter solstice Sun (1998) in the Dark Rift of the Milky Way John Major Jenkins - Galactic Alignment
Since the conjunction of the Sun with the Galactic Equator happens twice a year, we also had a summer solstice Galactic Alignment happening around the last GCC in the year 1998. During this alignment the Sun was on the Milky Way near the Galactic Anti-Center, which in turn is close to the Pleiades.
Picture 2) Summer solstice Sun (1998) on the Milky Way
Notice the Pleiades on the bottom right!
In this article we will reveal how Stonehenge may encode exactly this summer solstice alignment of the Sun with the Galactic Equator. It’s a summer solstice version of John Major Jenkins winter solstice Galactic Alignment.
The Pleiades will become the key in unlocking the secrets of the summer solstice Galactic Alignment of Stonehenge. Stonehenge may not be the only ancient site that encodes the current summer solstice Galactic Alignment; we have every reason to suspect that there may be more.
Picture 3) Stonehenge UK
Wayne Herschel’s monumental work on the ancient star maps
In 2003 Wayne Herschel published his monumental work ‘The Hidden Records’. This book is the culmination of years of research into many ancient sites around the world. His book presents the recovery of ancient star maps that were encoded on the land following the ancient Hermetic principle ‘as above, so below’. Herschel’s book shows that a pyramid building culture must have once thrived on this planet since hundredths of pyramids have already been discovered all over the globe and in the last decade alone ‘new’ pyramids have been unearthed in unexpected places such as in Bosnia-Herzegovina in Europe.
Herschel discovered that all the stars along the Nile in Egypt actually mimic constellations along the Milky Way. For some reason the Egyptian star map seemed to put extra emphasis on the constellation Pleiades that corresponds with the pyramids at Abusir south of Giza along the Nile.
Much to his surprise Herschel discovered more ancient sites around the world that had been using the Pleiades as a central theme. Among these sites were:
But the same recurring Pleiades theme was also discovered in:
Lascaux Halls of the Bulls cave in France
Sardinian cave paintings
Sumerian clay tablets
The Nineveh disc
Egyptian Dendera zodiac
Herschel interpreted this recurring ‘Pleiades theme’ as a way shower to a certain star, a solar system with a G2 class star that could have an Earth like planet, the home planet of the extraterrestrials that he believes were the architects of all the ancient monuments. His conclusion was drawn after studying ancient artifacts and ancient texts that clearly are suggestive of an extraterrestrial presence in ancient times here on Earth.
The author of this article does not object to such a view, however I do think that Herschel’s interpretation of the ‘Pleiades theme’ may be wrong in this sense that it is not likely to express a place in the sky, a ‘mystery’ star, the home of extraterrestrials that once settled on Earth as Herschel wants us to believe.
Missing aspects of Herschel’s star map interpretation
In interpreting the meaning of the Pleiades theme in the ancients sites that Herschel investigated, one important factor seem to have been overlooked and that’s the astronomical significance of these sites. Therefore Herschel’s ‘mystery’ star theory is most likely incorrect considering the following facts:
All the ancient sites dealing with the Pleiades star map were astronomical and astrological sites with equinox and solstice alignments that were not taken into consideration by Herschel when decoding the star maps.
The ‘mystery star in Egypt near Abusir corresponds to the temple of Ra. The consensus by Egyptologists is that Ra must be associated with the Sun in the Egyptians texts and not with some hypothetical G2 class star. In addition the alignment of the Sun Temple at Abusir is an anomaly in his star map theory, it does not point into the same direction the other ‘mystery‘ stars do in the rest of his star maps.
When Herschel checked his astronomical software for his ‘mystery’ star he couldn’t find a star close enough to match his ‘mystery’ star. Using new software and rewinding the clock back 17.500 years he finally succeeded and was able to make a match. If the ‘mystery’ star isn’t a star at all as we are suspecting, it comes as no surprise that Herschel wasn’t able to locate this star in the first place.
Bringing the astronomical significance of the ancient sites to the forefront will reveal a new and very compelling significance of this ‘Pleiades theme’ in these ancient sites that were tracking the summer solstices!
A new light on Herschel’s mystery star
It’s my hypothesis that Herschel’s ‘mystery’ star near the Pleiades in fact represents a midpoint between the Pleiades and the place where ‘the Sun is on the Milky Way’. The ‘mystery’ star therefore represents a way shower to a ‘precession anchor’ that can be used to determine a special moment in the Great Year as it connects the Pleiades with this ’precession anchor’.
The ‘mystery‘ star in fact is the Sun itself! Some of the ancient sites that Herschel mentions are built close to a river. Its my assumption that the river mimics the great river in the sky, the Milky Way. The summer solstice observatories such as Stonehenge were built close to the river to represent the ‘Sun on the Milky Way’. If the summer solstice observatory had been built in it’s correct position, it would have been built into the river (Milky Way) itself since this is the place where the Sun resides at Galactic Alignment. So there are obvious reasons as to why the ‘mystery star’ (the Sun) was built on the land and not in the river. The position of the ‘mystery’ star (monument) on the land that aligns the Pleiades (monument) with the Milky Way (river) is in fact hinting at:
The Sun on the Milky Way at the current summer solstice that coincides with the last Great Celestial Conjunction!
The Sun on the ecliptic aligns with the Milky Way in the constellation Taurus where the Pleiades are. This may explain why the Egyptians worshiped the celestial Bull and why so many other cultures around the world venerated the Pleiades.
The picture below is a view of the skies on the summer solstice sunrise around the last Great Celestial Conjunction (1998).
Picture 4) Sunrise at summer solstice 1998
At summer solstice (June 21) of 2012, the Sun will be residing on the Milky Way near Taurus where the Pleiades are; it’s a summer solstice Galactic Alignment and the reverse situation of the better know winter solstice Galactic Alignment occurring six months later. Now let’s compare it with Herschel’s star map of the Pleiades:
Notice in picture 5 how the Pleiades on the left are pointing towards the rising Sun on the summer solstice of 1998 while the picture on the right is showing Herschel’s star map, it’s a recurring star map theme that has not only been found in Egypt but in other places around the world as well such as at Stonehenge and the Maya temple site Tikal in Guatemala.
Mystery star and position of the Sun on the ecliptic
On Herschel’s website we find proof for the hypothesis of this article that the so called ‘mystery’ star in Herschel’s star maps which he thinks refers to a star near the Pleiades, is in fact denoting the position of the Sun on the ecliptic.
So the location where the ‘mystery’ star is pointing too is the place where:
THE SUN IS ON THE MILKY WAY AT SUMMER SOLSTICE 1998!
The summer solstice Sun of 1998 will be in between the horns of Taurus when the Sun is on the Milky Way (See picture 7)!
Picture 7) Summer solstice Sun 1998, the Sun is in between the Bull’s horns (Taurus)
Herschel’s own website provides us with the arguments that our thesis may be correct and that the ‘mystery star’ in Herschel’s star maps is NOT a star near the Pleiades at all, but in fact is a way shower to the Sun on the ecliptic in between the horns of Taurus! This position is where the Sun is on the ecliptic at the summer solstice of 1998 at the last Great Celestial Conjunction!
Pleiades Template
Picture 8) Pleiades template
To further test and proof the hypothesis that the Pleiades in Herschel’s star maps may be pointing towards the 1998 solstice sun on the Milky Way a template of the Pleiades was created using the free open source astronomy software Stellarium. Stellarium presents a realistic 3D representation of the sky similar to what we see with a naked eye observation of the stars. Stellarium will allow us to test out thesis.
The template (picture 8) is created from a screenshot of Stellarium at the moment of summer solstice 1998. The green line in this template is exactly aligning the stars Alcyone and Pleione with the 1998 summer solstice sun on the Milky Way. The orange line is a base line of the Pleiades constellation connecting the stars Taygeta, Maia and Alcyone of the Pleiades constellation with the stars HP 17832 and HP 17900.
This template will be tested on Stonehenge to see if the angle between the Pleiades and the solstice sun on the Milky Way has any significance with respect to Stonehenge.
Stonehenge
It is an established fact that Stonehenge was an astronomical observatory for both solar and lunar observations. One of its functions was the determination of the summer solstice date using the summer solstice sunrise. At the 21st of June the rising sun in the North East shines its light in between the Heel Stone onto the Alter Stone at the center of the Trilithons or horseshoe of Stonehenge.
Picture 9) Stonehenge summer solstice Sun alignment
South West of Stonehenge we find the Winterbourne Stoke Barrows. Herschel claimed that the Winterbourne Stoke Barrows at Stonehenge actually represented a star map of the Pleiades and indeed these barrows seem to have the shape of this constellation. The Winterbourne Barrows as the Pleiades are pointing the way to Stonehenge according to Herschel.
Picture 10) Winterbourne Stoke barrows
Now let’s superimpose our Pleiades template on the Winterbourne Stoke barrows and see if we can make a match first. To this end we align the stars on the orange base line in our template with the corresponding barrows at Stonehenge.
Picture 11) Winterbourne Stoke barrows at Stonehenge (Google Earth)
superimposed with the Pleiades template
It’s quit obvious from the picture above that the barrows do not perfectly fit the stars of the Pleiades. Although the stars of the Pleiades constellation take on the same contours of the barrows, the geometrical pattern of the constellation itself is somewhat distorted since it is stretched along the orange base line. Surly the ratios between our template and the actual ground plan of the Pleiades do not match. Over long periods of time stars drift and this may very well explain why the barrows don’t match up perfectly with the actual constellation of the Pleiades any longer thousands of years later. However the barrows that are running in a straight line from South West to North East will allow for the mapping and alignment of the Pleiades star map template onto the Winterbourne Stoke barrows.
If our hypothesis is correct and the orange base line of the Pleiades is aligned with the barrows, the green line should be pointing towards Stonehenge! So let’s zoom out and see what we got:
Picture 12) Stonehenge pointing the way to the AvonRiver (Milky Way)
The green line of our template is running straight through Stonehenge!
The green line runs through Stonehenge and eventually ends up intersecting the Avon river. The intersection is the place where the ‘Sun is on the Milky Way’.
Let’s double check our thesis in reverse order. First we take a picture of the skies at summer solstice 1998 when the Sun is on the Milky Way with the aid of the Stellarium software. Next we superimposed that picture onto Stonehenge making sure the Pleiades are superimposed on the Winterbourne Stoke barrows and the Sun is residing on the Avon river like this:
Picture 13) Summer Solstice 1998 superimposed on Stonehenge. (white line represents the summer solstice sunrise to which Stonehenge is aligned)
If we now zoom in on the Winterbourne Stoke barrows we find the same result:
Picture 14) Close up of the Winterbourne Stoke barrows alignment.
I think it’s safe to say that the coincidence of the near perfect alignment of the Winterbourne Stoke Barrows with Stonehenge, are beyond chance.
Most likely Stonehenge represents the Sun itself. Since it could not be built into the river it was built on the land as a midpoint between the Winterbourne Stoke barrows and the Avon river. Stonehenge now became a way shower to the Sun and its purpose was to connect the Pleiades with the summer solstice Sun on the Milky Way (green line in picture 13).
Additional proof
At summer solstice the Sun at Stonehenge rises at 50º azimuth in the North East while the Pleiades can be found at 75º azimuth. This means that at summer solstice sunrise the Pleiades can be viewed from Stonehenge right above the Avon river at the exact location where a line drawn from the Winterbourne Stoke barrows through Stonehenge intersects the Avon river. This location of course corresponds with the ‘Sun on the Milky Way’ in our thesis. In other words:
At summer solstice sunrise the Winterbourne Stoke barrows, Stonehenge and the Pleiades align!
Picture 15) Stonehenge links the Winterbourne Stoke barrows with the Pleiades.
This fact shows that Stonehenge links the Winterbourne Stoke barrows with the Pleiades at summer solstice sunrise. The Pleiades are mirrored on the ground as the Winterbourne Stoke barrows with Stonehenge as the focal point of this mirror image.
So let’s recap the facts:
In order for the Winterbourne Stoke barrows to mirror the Pleiades at summer solstice sunrise, they were placed at 259º azimuth South West of Stonehenge (See picture 15).
Next the orientation of the Winterbourne Stoke barrows on that location where created such that they would represent the Pleiades at a summer solstice galactic alignment (1998) when the Sun was on the Milky Way. This meant that the barrows would have to be aligned such that Alcyone and Pleione were aligned with Stonehenge, since this alignment was showing the way to the Sun on the Milky Way (see the green line in our template in picture 8)
Considering the fact that Stonehenge is also a summer solstice sunrise observatory the message of Stonehenge now becomes very clear:
Stonehenge is telling us that the Pleiades are pointing the way to the Sun on the Milky Way at summer solstice; in other words Stonehenge encodes a summer solstice Galactic Alignment!
Woodhenge
Just North East of Stonehenge we find Woodhenge. Woodhenge is the wooden ‘counterpart’ and precursor of Stonehenge. Woodhenge consists of concentric elliptical rings of wooden poles. Both the entrance of Woodhenge and the long axis of the ellipses are oriented to the summer solstice sunrise making Woodhenge another summer solstice observatory.
Picture 15) Woodhenge aerial photo
Recent excavations in 2006 of both Woodhenge and the Durrington Walls made archeologist believe that Woodhenge and Stonehenge were both part of one and the same ‘religious’ site. An avenue that connects Woodhenge with Stonehenge indicates that both sites were connected.
If we take a look at picture 16 we see that Woodhenge is not only close to the river but also the so called ‘Cursus’, a path that archeologists believe represents an ancient race track, is running parallel with the ecliptic. In addition the ‘Cursus’ is running through Woodhenge!
Picture 16) Cursus running through Woodhenge
If the ‘Cursus’ was meant to represent the ecliptic and Woodhenge the Sun, the Woodhenge site would represent the place where the ecliptic (Cursus) and the Milky Way (Avon river) intersect. In other words:
Woodhenge could represent the ‘Sun on the Milky Way’ at a summer solstice galactic alignment
Conclusions
Given Herschel’s multiple Pleiades themes found around the world which he has interpreted as a ‘mystery’ star, we offer a new interpretation of Herschel’s ‘mystery’ star in this article. An interpretation that takes into account the astronomical significance of the sites in question something that Herschel did not take into consideration. We took Stonehenge as an example and demonstrated that our thesis apparently works for Stonehenge. It could mean that the ancients have left us clues about our current:
Great Celestial Conjunction or summer solstice Galactic Alignment
This astronomical event hails a New Age.
October 4th 2009:
Breaking news:
Discovery of new henge at Stonehenge
On October 3rd 2009 scientists have announced the discovery of what may be the most important find in decades, a smaller version of Stonehenge. They call it Bluehenge. Bluehenge is named after the colour of 30 giant stones placed in a circle. Bluehenge and Stonehenge are connected by means of a causeway called the Avenue. The Avenue runs from Stonehenge (aligned to the summer solstice) all the way to Bluehenge which resides at the bank of the river Avon. But the path continues to the river itself. Professor Mike Parker of Sheffield University who discovered Bluehenge argues that both Stonehenge and Bluehenge were used in rituals of life and death.
The death were brought to Woodhenge (symbol of life) north east of Stonehenge and transported over the river Avon. The death were brought ashore at Bluehenge and were transported next along the Avenue to Stonehenge (symbol of death). The ceremony started at sunrise (symbol of life) and ended at sunset (symbol of death) and included quote ‘massive feasts at Woodhenge to mark the winter solstice’.
The most important discovery is that in the ceremonies at Stonehenge, the journey of the death on the river Avon symbolized the passage from life to death.
This ceremony is echoed in many myths where the death have to cross over the waters to enter the afterlife. In ancient Egypt the death crossed that great river in the sky, the Milky Way through the ‘Gate of God’. The river Avon at Stonehenge is a methaphor for the Milky Way. The ‘gate of God’ astronomically speaking is the crossing of the ecliptic and Milky Way in 5° Sagittarius. The deceased pharaoh travelled into the Netherworld as described in the ‘Book of the Gates"’ by passing the primeval waters of the Milky Way at the hour of the rebirth of the Sun (sunrise). The gates of the Sun were first mentioned by the Greek author Microbius and mentioned in 'Morals and Dogma' by Albert Pike .
The burial rituals at Stonehenge mimic these Egyptian burial ceremonies and not only deal with the passing of the soul into the afterlife but metaphorically also encode the death and resurrection of the Sun when it passes through the ‘gates of the Sun’ (crossing of the ecliptic and Milky Way) . Astronomically speaking, the moment when the Sun passes through these gates (crossing the Milky Way) at solstices, defines the moments of a Great Celestial Conjunction or Galactic Alignment (Sun conjunct with the Galactic Equator at a solstice day). This rare astronomical event that only occurs twice in 26.000 yeras, is occurring right now in era-2012 and is directly linked to the ending of the Maya calendar on the winter solstice of 2012 (= Galactic Alignment)!
We are not surprised to find Bluehenge (representing the Sun) at the bank of the river Avon, since symbolically ‘it encodes the Sun on the Milky Way at the summer solstice’ . Building a henge on the bank of the river is as close as one can get to the river since the henge could not be built in the river. The causeway that connects Bluehenge with the summer solstice alignment of the Avenue at Stonehenge links Bluehenge (the Sun) with the summer solstice.
The current discoveries seem to support our overall thesis that Stonehenge was not simply a solstice observatory, but also encodes the Great Celestial Conjunction of era-2012!
In ancient Egypt pharaoh’s were buried with their arms crossed and were given two Ankhs in their hand. The Ankh Egyptologists suggest is a symbol of life. On close examination it consists of two basic symbols, one is a cross called the Tau cross, the other is a circle. The Tau cross has been associated with the constellation Taurus which is not surprising since the crossing of the ecliptic and Milky Way occurs in between the horns of Taurus. "Esoterically the Tau represents a gate or opening, symbolic death'".
The dot in a circle represents the Sun (Ra) and the circle itself in the Ankh it but a simplification of the circumpunct (dot in circle). To create an artefact of the Sun symbol (circumpunct) would be impossible without using spokes to sustain the dot in the circle. While the circle in the Ankh represents the Sun, the Tau cross represents a gate and a crossing. The combination of both symbols in the Ankh therefor clearly suggest 'the Sun at the crossing'.
There are only two crossings on the ecliptic, and that’s where the Milky Way crosses the ecliptic (path of the Sun). These two crosses were called the ‘gates of the Sun’ and were associated with life and death . The soul enters life through the gate of Man (crossing of ecliptic and Milky Way in Gemini). This is why the Ankh was associated with life since the crossing of the ecliptic and Sun (gate of Man) is the place where the soul incarnated into the next life in the eternal cycle of reincarnation. Upon death the pharaoh would leave his body and his soul would travel on Ra’s barge (crossing the Milky Way) through the ‘gate of God’. The ‘gate of God’ is the crossing of the Milky Way and ecliptic in Sagittarius. This is the place where the soul enters the afterlife.
We may now understand why pharaohs were buried holding the symbol of life (Ankh) in his sarcophagus with both hands crossed as another symbol of a cross.
It is my strong belief that the burial ceremonies at Stonehenge are copies of the ancient Egyptian death ceremony. The river Avon is the English counterpart of the Nile , representing that great river in the sky the Milky Way (as above, so below). Egyptologists made a major mistake by interpreting Ra’s and Horus travel on a barge as a nocturnal journey along the sky while in reality they only require a barge to cross the Milky Way in the 26.000 year cycle called the precession of the equinoxes.
Now is the time that Ra (the Sun God) traverses the Milky Way once more after 12.500 years (1/2 precesssion cycle) on the solstices when the Sun is conjunct with the galactic equator of the Milky Way.
The Ankh is a symbol of life for it encodes the place where the soul enteres and leaves life (ecliptic and Milky Way crossings in Gemini and Saggitarius called the gates of the Sun)
Update september 2013
In September 2013 professor Mike Parker Pearson has postulated a new theory about Stonehenge. According Mike Parker Pearson, the ancients who built Stonehenge, picked this place for the erection of the typical standing stones because the ridges of the landform were carved by melting ice water exactly along both the summer and winter solstice axis! According to Mike Parker Pearson, the ancients picked this peculiar place because of its remarkable solstice alignments.
Quote “"This natural landform happens to be on the solstice axis, which brings heaven and earth into one. So the reason that Stonehenge is all about the solstices, we think, is because they actually saw this in the land."
Reasoning along Mike Parker Pearson interpretation that the ancients saw the skies in the land, the old ancient Hermetic adagium ‘as above so below’ comes to mind.
The ancients dug ditches along the solstice aligned ridges forming the Avenue that extends from Stonehenge’s north-east entrance all the way to the Avon river at West Amesbury. Through these ditches one may presume water ran from the Avon river. At least in prehistoric times melting ice water ran along the solstice axis lines to form the ridges.
Symbolically the running water through the Avenue is highly symbolic for the Hermetic adagium ‘as above so below’ representing the Milky Way on the land.
