‘Three stones in his belt’… astronomical imagery in myth and ritual sites
Channel: Recording Archaeology
Date: 2017-05-16

Following the work of Larsson and Kristiansen (2006) that uses Indo-European myth to explain the iconography of Bronze Age Scandinavian art, it is worth asking whether the ceremonial sites of the British Isles might also be illuminated through the application of myth. To this end I have used Renfrew’s ‘Anatolian hypothesis’ (1987) that argues for a Neolithic spread of the Indo-European languages to reconstruct a tentative ‘shaping mythology’ (Bradley 1998) behind Neolithic and Bronze Age ritual sites in Britain, one which includes visual references to specific events in the heavens, especially surrounding the winter solstice.
In this talk I will look at the imagery found in myth of the ‘rescuer of the sun’ and of the goddess whose obscene gestures precede the release of the sun/fertility from its winter imprisonment, arguing that such figures can be linked to the behaviour of the Milky Way and Orion at the solstice; I will show how this stellar ‘narrative’ provides an origin for certain motifs found in Neolithic and Bronze Age iconography – especially the lozenge symbols found on female figurines and in megalithic art. I will then argue that the same stars are referenced in the alignments and design of many ceremonial sites, suggesting such myths may have provided the narrative accompaniment to a seasonal drama played out both in the heavens (skyscape) and re-enacted in ceremony in the landscape, and which retain in their imagery detailed visualisations of these ancient skies.

John Grigsby, University of Bournemouth

References:
Bradley, Richard. 1998. The Significance of Monuments. Routledge
Larsson, T and Kristiansen, K. 2006. The Rise of Bronze Age Society Travels, Transmissions and Transformations. Cambridge
Renfrew, C. 1987. Archaeology and Language. Jonathan Cape