Left: The ‘sun disc’ or ‘disc of Shamash’, a detail from the ‘sun-god tablet’ (c. 860-850 BCE), discovered in a foundation deposit in the Temple of Shamash at Sippar, ‘Iraq. Courtesy British Museum, London, United Kingdom. © Marinus Anthony van der Sluijs. Right: The total solar eclipse of 18 July…
Left: Bone pendant from Saint-Marcel (Argenton-Sur-Creuse, Indre, France) Right: Bone pendant from the Grotte Des Espélugues (Lourdes, Hautes-Pyrénées, France) Jun 20, 2014 Reproduced above are images of two engraved pendants made of reindeer bone, from prehistoric sites in France. Both objects are attributed to…
Jun 18, 2014 By what physical mechanism do planets and moons orbit around their larger hosts? Before Newton’s theory of gravity burst onto the scene, the so-called ‘vortex theory’ of the French philosopher René Descartes (1596-1650), first proposed in the 1630s, was much in vogue. Invoking experimental analogues in…
Apr 22, 2014 The discovery of ‘mega-lightning’, upper-atmospheric lightning or transient luminous events (TLEs) is relatively recent, due to the fleeting nature of these phenomena: most last no longer than a few milliseconds. A menagerie of types – such as the playfully labelled ‘sprites’ and ‘ELVES’ – discharge energetically between…
Mar 11, 2014 Many cultures recalled a period of unbearable cold, which they associated with a distant mythical age of ‘creation’, when the sun did not yet shine or fire had not yet been obtained. Such tales are hardly surprising for higher latitudes, such as the Viking sagas of…
Mar 06, 2014 Things may be carved in stone and still be nebulous. Petroglyphs come without captions; clues of their intended meanings are more often missing than not. Yet though certainty is rarely to be had, the quest for the meaning of rock art is as legitimate as any…
Mar 04, 2014 In the study of myth, the question of metaphors presents many a challenge. When does a ‘sun’ literally refer to the quotidian sun and when is it a metaphor for some other bright sky light? Hard-and-fast rules are risky; every tradition is best examined in its…
Jan 23, 2014 The proverbial ‘golden age’ is a classic case study in the difference between local and global themes in mythology. It was the German ethnologist Adolf Bastian (1826-1905) who first introduced a systematic distinction between universal ‘elementary ideas’ (Elementargedanke) and culture-specific ‘folk ideas’ (Volksgedanke) in 1860. Taken…
Jan 21, 2014 To eyewitnesses, including those at lower latitudes, highly energetic formations produced by extremely vigorous aurorae have often suggested some form of painting or supernatural inscription on the canvas of the sky. This was the case with observers of the prominent aurorae spawned by the coronal mass…
Jan 13, 2014 Most researchers address ‘known’ questions, such as ‘what causes ice ages?’, ‘how far is the moon?’ or ‘where did the ancestors of the human species live?’. Comparative mythologists face the double challenge of seeking answers to problems which most people are unfamiliar with in the first…
