Chapter 28 Chapter 30 The Cosmic Tree and the Stone Mill of the Gods

In an extensive and profound masterpiece "Hamlet's Stone Mill" co-authored by them, two professors Santillana and Cai Chengde put forward a series of myths and iconographic evidence, trying to prove a strange fact.For some mysterious reason, at a certain period in history, some ancient myths circulating around the world were "selected" as a medium to convey a complex set of astronomical data about the precession of the equinoxes ( "Election" is a rather intriguing term).An expert on the ancient measurement system pointed out that this astonishing theory is bound to "set off a Copernican revolution in the academic world and change our current views on the development of human culture"①.

Hamlet's Stone Mill was published in 1969; more than 20 years later, the revolution has yet to happen.During this period, the work was neither widely distributed nor received the attention it deserved by scholars of ancient cultures.This phenomenon is not caused by the problems or shortcomings of the work itself.As Martin Bernal, professor of public administration at Cornell University, puts it, the real reason is this: "Few archaeologists, Egyptologists, and ancient historians have the time, energy, and knowledge to investigate Santilla A very technical argument put forward by Nat."②

Santillana's argument mainly involves the "precession message" repeatedly and continuously conveyed in ancient mythology around the world.Curiously, many of the key images and symbols that recur in these myths—particularly those associated with “disorder in heaven”—also appear in the havoc legends of the ancient world explored in Chapters 24 and 25 of this volume. In Norse mythology, for example, we see Fenrir, the wolf imprisoned by the gods, finally breaks free from his chains: "He shook his fur, and the whole world trembled." Poplar Yggdrasil Yggdrasil trembled from the roots to the tops of the trees. The mountains fell and the ground cracked... The earth began to deform. The stars floated in the sky."

Santillana and Dai Chengde believe that this myth combines two themes: one is the familiar "catastrophe" theme, and the other is the seemingly irrelevant "precession" theme.On the one hand, we see a cataclysm on earth, even worse than the biblical flood; "③. Such astronomical imagery recurs in myths all over the world, differing only slightly from one another. The two authors of "Hamlet's Stone Mill" believe that this kind of myth "is not the kind of story told by ordinary storytellers"④.After the Nordic mythology describes the escape of the wolf Fenrir and the shaking of the poplar tree, the next thing is to report to us that the gods are divided into two camps and start a final decisive battle in the style of the apocalypse in the Bible.In this earth-shattering and tragic battle, the side representing "Order" marched from the Hall of Valhalla (Valhalla):

I see, on the wall of Valhalla With five hundred and forty gates; Eight hundred strong men pass through each gate, Go to the front line to fight the wolf⑤. The understatement of the four-line poem has a mysterious charm.When we read this, we couldn’t help but pause, and carefully counted the heroes who marched from every gate of the Hall of Valor to the battlefield: 540×800=432000.This is the total number of all the soldiers in the Hall of Valor.In Chapter 31 of this book, we will find that in mathematics, this number is related to the astronomical phenomenon "precession".Its appearance in Norse mythology is unlikely to be an accidental coincidence, especially since the poet had just mentioned the "disorder of the heavens" before the number was cited--the stars lost their positions in the sky and began to drift about.

To understand how this is happening, we need to understand the basic imagery used in the ancient "messages" discovered by Santillana and Dechende.This image transforms the luminous dome of the ball into a huge, intricate machine.Like a water wheel, agitator, whirlpool, or pebble mill, this machine is in constant rotation, endlessly.The sun corrects its motion at all times; during the course of the year, the sun rises in rotation through the twelve signs of the zodiac. The four cardinal points of a year are the vernal equinox, autumnal equinox, summer solstice, and winter solstice.At different cardinal points, we see the sun rising in different constellations (for example, the sun rises in Pisces at the vernal equinox, Virgo at the autumnal equinox, Gemini at the winter solstice, and Sagittarius at the summer solstice). .For the past 2,000 years, the sun has risen in those four constellations at these four seasons every year, and it has never changed.As mentioned above, due to the "precession of equinoxes", in the near future, the vernal equinox will shift from Pisces to Aquarius.When this happens, the signs representing the other three cardinal points change (from Virgo, Gemini, and Sagittarius to Leo, Taurus, and Scorpio).This situation is like a huge cosmic machine clumsily shifting gears.

Santillana and Dai Chengde explained that the poplar tree named "Ygdresil" in Norse mythology is like a stone-milled wheel axle; in ancient scientific language, it "represents the world's Axis - This axion extends from the Earth (for observers in the northern hemisphere) to the north pole of the celestial sphere: Most people would intuitively think that this axis is an upright pillar... Such an idea is too simplistic.In the system of myth, it is better to think of the axion not as a single straight line, but as a whole with its frame... When we see a radius, we immediately think of a circle; Earth, this axion reminds us of two key great circles on the surface of the celestial sphere—the so-called equinoctial colure and solstitial coluer in astronomy⑥.

The equinoxes and solstices are imaginary circles by astronomers that intersect at the celestial north pole, connecting the two equinoxes in the Earth's orbit around the sun (where it lies on March 20 and September 22 each year), and the two Solstices (June 21 and December 21).This means: "The axis of rotation of the polar axis must never be separated from the two great circles that follow it in the sky. The frame and the axis are integrated."⑦ Santillana and Dai Chengde remind us that what such a celestial map presents is not a belief, but an allegory.They repeatedly point out that ancient astronomers didn't really see the universe as it was—two intersecting circles forming a celestial frame suspended from an axel.It is just a "thinking tool"; smart people can use it to decipher the code hidden in the myth and find out the astronomical information of the equinox precession contained in it.

It is such a thinking tool, in various forms, that keeps popping up from ancient myths all over the world. mill slave A myth circulated in Mesoamerica provides us another example, showing that there is indeed a strange and symbolic "overlapping" phenomenon between the precession myth and the disaster myth. The 16th-century Spanish scholar Diego DeLanda paraphrased the myth: Among the many gods worshiped by this people [the Mayans] were four whom they called the Bacab.According to them, when God created the world, he placed these four brothers in the four corners of the earth and asked them to support the sky and prevent it from collapsing.They say the Bakab brothers took the opportunity to escape after the world was flooded. ⑧

Santillana and Dai Chengde pointed out that Mayan astronomers and priests did not believe that the earth was flat and had four corners.They believe that the story of the four Bakab gods is used as a technological fable to discuss the astronomical phenomenon of "precession of the equinoxes".In short, the four Bakab brothers represent the coordinate system of the astrological age.They symbolize the dichotomous circle and the solstice circle in astronomy, connecting the four constellations together, and these four constellations are exactly where the sun rises in the spring, autumn equinox, summer and winter solstice every year in the 2200-year cycle.

Of course, everyone knows that whenever the operation of the stars in the universe "shifts gears", the old era will collapse and a new era will be born.These are all precessional images that we often see in mythology.In particular, Mayan mythology explicitly links this astronomical imagery to a disaster on Earth—the flood from which the Bakab brothers escaped.In addition, it is worth mentioning that the four Bacab brothers depicted in the reliefs of the ancient city of Chizhen Itza in Mexico obviously have beards and have European facial features and appearance.In conclusion, the bacab imagery (consistently misunderstood to represent "the four corners of the sky", "the quadrangular earth", etc.) The mystery of precession in astronomy.The most typical of this kind of thinking tool is the "stone mill" in Santillana's book "Hamlet's Stone Mill". Shakespeare's tragic figure—"the first modern, unhappy intellectual" in Western literature—is in fact a product of an ancient mythological tradition, with a storied past.He has maintained his unique personality throughout his many incarnations.This character first appeared in Icelandic legends. The name is Amlodhi (Amlodhi, sometimes also called Amleth). Like Hamlet, he has a melancholy personality and great talents. He is also bent on avenging his father. His words are cryptic, but they contain profound truths. He is the messenger of fate, and his whereabouts are erratic; once he completes his mission, he must disappear from the world..."⑨ In the rough and vivid Norse mythology, Amlodi owns a magical stone mill—a hand-push circular stone mill, which is said to be able to grind out a lot of gold and various treasures every day.According to many legends, two giantesses, Fenja and Menja, were hired to work the mill, because the stone mill was too big and heavy for ordinary people to push.For unknown reasons, the two giantesses were forced to work day and night.The master will not let them rest: They were led to the bench by the stone mill, push that gray stone; He didn't let them stop and catch their breath, Yijing pricked up his ears to listen to the rolling sound of the mill. Their singing is like a cry of ghosts, break the silence of the night; "Remove the grain storage box and lighten the weight of the stone mill!" But he ordered them to continue grinding⑩. Fania and Menia could bear it no longer, and one night, while everyone was asleep, they began to show their power, turning the mill like mad, and smashing its iron-bound pillars to pieces.The whole mill suddenly fell into chaos.A pirate king named Mysinger took the opportunity to steal the stone mill and sent it to the ship together with the two giantesses.Messinger ordered them to grind the mill, but this time it turned out salt.After grinding until midnight, they asked Messinger, does he really need so much salt?But he ordered them to continue grinding.They grinded for a while, but the boat suddenly sank: Thick stone mill pillars flew from the grain storage bins, The iron hinges burst, The handle trembles, Grain storage bins crashed down. ⑾ After sinking into the bottom of the sea, the stone mill continued to turn, but this time it crushed out stones and gravel, forming a huge whirlpool, which is said to be the dangerous whirlpool (Maelstrom) off the coast of northwest Norway today. Santillana and Dai Chengde claim that what these images show is the phenomenon of "precession of the equinoxes" in astronomy.The axons and "iron pillars" of the stone mill represent: A coordinate system of the celestial sphere reflects the structure of a world cycle.In fact, it is this framework that defines a world cycle.Since the celestial sphere's polar axes and finite circles form a whole invisible to the naked eye, when a part of it breaks away, the whole structure falls apart.As soon as this happens, a new Polaris, with the proper circle, will replace the obsolete one⑿. Santillana and Dai Chengde further explained the symbolic meaning contained in the "Great Maelstrom": [This image] often appears in ancient fables.In Homer's Odyssey, it appears as the Charybdis in the Staits of MeSSina; it also appears in Indian and Pacific mythology.It is intriguing that in such myths there is always a fig tree with beautiful branches, to which the shipwrecked hero clings to its branches, whether the hero is Satyavrata in Hindu mythology, or Kae of the Tonga Islands... These images, which recur in myths all over the world, could not have been invented by a single poet.Such stories have been part of cosmology since ancient times. Homer's "Odyssey" was written by bringing together Greek mythology from 3,000 years ago.It is not surprising that the imagery of the vortex appears there, since the great stone mill in Icelandic mythology also appears in this Greek epic, and in a similar manner.The story happened the night before the final battle.Otisius, bent on revenge, has returned to his hometown of Ithaca; under the cover of the magic of the goddess Athena, no one in the family recognizes him.Before appearing to face his foe, Otisius prayed to Zeus, the sky god, for a sign of encouragement: Zeus immediately sent thunder and lightning from the glorious Mount Olympus... Honest Odysseus, he was relieved when he saw it.At this time, a woman's wailing was heard from a nearby house.This house was the island owner's mill and employed 12 female workers.They turned the mills and ground the barley and wheat into food for the men.Now all the women workers went to bed, for they had done their work, but the frail woman remained.She stopped the mill, and began to pray... "Let this be the last day [of Otisius' enemies] feasting in the hall of his house! Let this be the day and night that make me work day and night to grind barley for them This meal will be their last meal!"⒁ Santillana and Dai Chengde pointed out that the image of "the celestial sphere that rotates like a stone mill and is always mischievous"⒂ also appears in the legend about the strongman Samson in the Bible.Samson was "blind and working at a mill with a bunch of slaves".One day, his enemies unchained him, took him into the temple, and asked him to "play" in front of them; Samson stretched out his hands to hug the two pillars in the center of the temple, and shook them vigorously, and the huge building immediately fell to the ground. It collapsed and crushed all the enemies to death⑸.Like Fennia and Menia in Norse mythology, Samson finally had his revenge. The same theme appears in Maori legends from Japan, Central America, and New Zealand.In Nordic Finnish mythology, this "Hamlet/Samson" character is called Kullervo, and the stone mill also has a special name: Sampo.Like Fenia and Menia's mill, it was later stolen, put on a ship, and finally broken into pieces. According to scholars' research, the word Sampo comes from the Sanskrit skambha, which means "pillar or axis"⒅.In the Atharvaveda, the oldest work of Hindi literature, we find a hymn in praise of the skambha: It supports the earth and the atmosphere, it supports the sky, and keeps the fire, the moon, the sun, and the wind in their respective positions... It supports the sky and the earth at the same time; it supports the vast atmosphere; it supports the vast six directions; it supports everything in the universe. Whitney, who translated this hymn (Vol. 10, Chapter 7 of the Mantra Veda) into English, was puzzled: "Skambha means pillar, support, pillar, and in this hymn it is used to describe the structure of the universe."⒆ However, this ancient Vedic text will not seem so strange as long as we understand the complex set of ideas that connect the mythical imagery of the cosmic stone mill, vortex, world tree, and so on.Like other mythological fables, this hymn presents the "architecture of the world cycle" - the astronomical operation of a period of more than 2,000 years, during which the sun always rises from the same four cardinal points, and then gradually moves the four celestial constellations. Shifting to four new constellations begins another 2000+ year cycle. Thus, in these myths the stone mill often breaks, the pillars break away, the pins pop, and the handle wobbles.What these images reveal is the phenomenon of "precession of equinoxes" in astronomy; every long period of time, the effect of precession of equinoxes can change - even destroy - the stable coordinates of the entire celestial sphere. Pathfinder It is worth noting that as a symbol of the mechanism of the universe, stone mills continue to appear in myths all over the world, even if some legends have been incomplete.As Santillana and Daichengde point out, it doesn't matter whether the myth is preserved or not.They believe: "One of the major functions of mythological terms is to allow those who tell stories and fables to pass on certain knowledge firmly and independently through it." ⒇ In other words, in the process of passing on from generation to generation and repeating narration, basically The imagery will be preserved and passed on, although the stories told by later generations may have deviated from the original plot. This deviation does not prevent the preservation of basic images and messages. One example is the myth of the Cherokees in North America.They call "the Milky Way" (our constellation of stars) "where the dogs run away."According to the legend of the Cherokee, in ancient times, "people in the south had a corn mill", which was often stolen. Later, the owner discovered that the thief was a dog.After being exposed, the dog "howled" and fled back to his hometown in the north. While running, he dripped cornmeal from his mouth, leaving a white trail on the road, which is the Milky Way we see today. So far, Cherokee People still call it...the place where dogs run away."(21). In Central America, among the many myths about Quetzalcotel's deeds, there is a record that the flood flooded the world, leading to the end of the "Fourth Sun Period". He carried out salvation work and promoted the revival of mankind.According to this myth, Quetzakotel led a companion—X0lotl with the head of a dog—into the underworld to retrieve the bones of the dead.He tricked Miclantechutli, the god of death, into taking the bone marrow back to a place called Tamoanchan in the underworld.There he ground the bones into powder with a stone mill, as if grinding grain.The gods then sprinkled the blood on the bone meal, creating the first ancestors of today's humans (22). Santillana and Dai Chengde think that the dog's appearance in these two mutant cosmic stone mill myths is unlikely to be a coincidence.They pointed out that Kullervo — the Hamlet in Finnish mythology — also had a black dog named MuSti.Otisius was the first to recognize him when he returned to the homeland of Isega, his loyal dog.Those who are familiar with the Bible know that Samson's deeds involve foxes (3O0 in total (23)), and foxes are canids.The Danish version of the Amraes/Hamlet legend records: "Amraes was on his way through the undergrowth when a wolf stopped him." Even more intriguing, in a revised version of the Finnish Kullervo legend, the hero "Sent to Estonia to stand under a fence like a dog; he barked like that for a whole year..."(24). Santillana and Dai Chengde point out that the "doggish ness" that permeates the myth has a function: it is part of an ancient astronomical code that has not yet been cracked, sending signals all over the world.There are many other canine symbols in mythology.Santillana classifies these symbols as "morphological markers" (morpho logical markers) - through these markers, we can find the astronomical information of the equinox precession contained in ancient myths (25).The mark itself may be meaningful, or it may be just a symbol, alerting the reader of the myth that a major astronomical data is about to be revealed in the story.Interestingly, these marks sometimes also play the role of "pathfinder", guiding beginners from one myth to another, in pursuit of the scientific information contained in it. So while we don't see the familiar imagery of stone mills and whirlpools, we'd better be on our toes when the story mentions that Orion, the great hunter of Greek mythology, has a dog.According to mythology, Orion once tried to rape the goddess Artemis; she summoned a scorpion from the ground and stung Orion and his dog.Orion's soul ascended to the sky and became the "Orion Constellation", and his dog also became "Sirius" (Sirius) - the "Dog Star" (Dog Star) in the minds of Westerners (26). The ancient Egyptians also had a similar statement about the origin of Sirius; in their mythology, Orion is closely related to the Egyptian god of life, Osiris.Ancient Egypt gave the faithful tengu its fullest and most definitive mythological color and meaning—they called it Upuaut, which means "god who opened the way."If we follow this wolf-headed god to Egypt.Looking up at the constellation Orion in the sky, and entering the tragic myth of Osiris, we find ourselves surrounded by a group of familiar symbols. The reader will recall that, according to Egyptian mythology, Osiris died in a conspiracy. (Translation note: see Chapter 9 of this book.) His murderer smoked him in a sealed mouthful of semen and let him float on the Nile.In this, is he much like Unapishtim, Noah, Kirks Kirkstri (see chapter 24 of this book) and others who hid in an ark (or chest) and escaped the world? Holocaust's flood hero? Another familiar symbol in the myth of Osiris is the "World Tree and." or "House Beams" (the two are combined in this story).This symbol is a typical astronomical precession image.The myth tells us that Osiris, who was confined in a cabinet, went down the river and entered the sea, and was finally washed by the waves to the port of Byblos in the Middle East to produce oil (Byblos).The chest was stranded among the leaves of an alder tree.The tree grew rapidly, became very tall and lush, and surrounded the trunk of the chest.The local king took a fancy to this alder tree and ordered it to be felled, and the part that hid Osiris was sawed off to make a beam and pillar to decorate his palace.Later, Isis, the wife of Osiris, dug up her husband's bones from the beams and pillars, brought them back to Egypt, and tried to resurrect him (27). This Osiris myth also contains some key figures.Whether by coincidence or design, these numbers will lead us into the ancient "science" of astronomy, and let us explore the mystery of precession.This will be the topic we explore in the next chapter. Notes: ① "The Secret of the Great Pyramid", pages 381~382. ② Martin Sinner, "Black Athena: The Asian-African Roots of Classical Civilization", p. 276. Martin Bernal, Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization, UintageBooks, London, 1991, p. 276． ③ See Chapter 25 of this book. ④ "Hamlet's Stone Mill", p. 7. ⑤ "Anthology of Ancient Icelandic Poetry", page 93, quoted from "Hamlet's Stone Mill". 162 pages. ⑥ "Hamlet's Stone Mill", pp. 232-233. ⑦ Same as above, page 231. ⑧ "The Yucatan Peninsula before and after the Spanish Invasion", page 82. ⑨ "Hamlet's Stone Mill", 2 pages. ⑩ "Song of the Stone Mill", quoted from Elsa Tichner's "Odin's Mask", p. 198. "The Song of the Mill," in Elsa B． Titchenell, The Masks of Odin, Theosoph cal University Press, Pasadena, 1988, p 198. ⑾ "Song of the Stone Mill", quoted from "Hamlet's Stone Mill", pp. 89-90. ⑿ "Hamlet's Stone Mill", 232 pages. ⒀ Ibid., p. 204. ⒁ "Odyssey" (Rouse's English translation), Volume 20, lines IO3-109. Odyssey (Rouse translation), 20:103-19 ⒂ Roman satirist Petronius, quoted from "Hamlet's Stone Mill", p. 137. ⒃ Old Testament Judges, Chapter 16, Verses 25-30. ⒄ "Hamlet's Stone Mill", pp. 104-108. ⒅ Ibid., p. 111. ⒆ Ibid., p. 233. ⒇ Ibid., page 312. (21) Ibid., pages 249 and 389.See also Munro and Williamson, Flying in the Air: Native American Star Myths, pp. 117-118. Jean Guard Monroe and Ray A Williamson, They Dance In the Sky: Natiue American Star Myths, Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1987, PP.117-18 (22) "Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and Maya", 70 pages. (23) Old Testament Judges, Chapter 15, Section 4. (24) "Hamlet's Stone Mill", pages 13 and 31. (25) Ibid., pages 7 and 31. (26) "World Mythology", page 139.It is worth noting that, like Samson, Orion is blind—the only blind figure in the constellation mythology.See "Hamlet's Stone Mill", pp. 177-178. (27) "Egyptian Book of the Dead", Introduction, 50 pages.