Page 235 - Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock

Graham Hancock – FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS

Beneath the clear and unpolluted heavens of the ancient world, it is
easy to understand how human beings might have felt reassured by
regular celestial motions such as these. It is equally easy to understand
why the four cardinal points of the year—the spring and autumn
equinoxes, the winter and summer solstices—should everywhere have
been accorded immense significance. Even greater significance was
accorded to the conjunction of these cardinal points with the zodiacal
constellations. But most significant of all was the constellation in which
the sun was observed to rise on the morning of the spring (or vernal)
equinox. Because of the earth’s axial precession, the ancients discovered
that this constellation was not fixed or permanent for all time but that the
honour of ‘housing’ or ‘carrying’ the sun on the day of the vernal equinox
circulated—very, very slowly—among all the constellations of the zodiac.
In the words of Giorgio de Santillana: ‘The sun’s position amongst the
constellations at the vernal equinox was the pointer that indicated the
“hours” of the precessional cycle—very long hours indeed, the equinoctial
sun occupying each zodiacal constellation for almost 2200 years.
1
The direction of the earth’s slow axial precession is clockwise (i.e., east
to west) and thus in opposition to the direction of the planet’s annual
path around the sun. In relation to the constellations of the zodiac, lying
fixed in space, this causes the point at which the spring equinox occurs
‘to move stubbornly along the ecliptic in the opposite direction to the
yearly course Direction in which the vernal point shifts as a result of
precession of the sun, that is, against the “right” sequence of the zodiacal
signs (TaurusÆ AriesÆ PiscesÆ Aquarius, instead of AquariusÆ PiscesÆ
AriesÆ Taurus).’
2

1 Hamlet ‘s Mill, p. 59.
2 Ibid., p. 58.

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