One of the
most important concerns, when trying to understand a message
from some foreign culture, would be the intellectual context in
which it was prepared. Where and when did its authors live? For
example, when trying to understand modern crop pictures, many
people seem to believe that they could only come from
extra-terrestrial aliens. If that were true, then we would
expect to see all kinds of alien symbol in Wiltshire fields.
Instead, we generally see symbols from Earth's distant past, or
specifically from the British Isles 4000 to 5000 years ago.
A now-famous
crop picture that appeared at East Field on July 7, 2007
illustrates that point perfectly. Thus, in order to understand
the rather complex message shown at East Field, we need to study
symbols from Earth's distant past: namely ancient lunar
calendars! Most ancient people on Earth would draw the 29-day
phase cycle of our Moon as a "long arc with many little balls"
strung out along its length. One example appears in a lunar
calendar from Knowth, dating to 3000 or 4000 BC:
Two more
examples appear in 29-day or 13-day lunar calendars from Lascaux,
dating to 15,000 BC:
A third
example appeared in crops at
Trottiscliffe in 1999. Three
"crescent Moons" were drawn in the same field nearby, so there
can be little doubt that those images refer to a 15-day half
cycle of our Moon:
Finally we
come to East Field 2007, where a series of four lunar phase
cycles were drawn end-to-end, so as to create huge crop picture
1 km long:
(
Two of those
symbolic groupings appear to represent 29 or 30-day phase cycles
of our Moon. A third (upper left) appears to represent a 15-day
half-cycle of our Moon. A fourth (at centre) appears to
represent a 7 or 8-day quarter-cycle of our Moon.
Within the
15-day cycle (upper left), another "large white circle" has been
drawn, just as was shown at
Trottiscliffe in 1999. By comparison
to other crop pictures from 2007, one may suggest that the large
white circle as shown there simply represents our Earth, with
the Moon in orbit around it
In summary,
East Field 2007 closely resembles other ancient lunar calendars
drawn at Knowth or Lascaux thousands of years ago, or in crops
at
Trottiscliffe in 1999. But when might its four lunar
cycles begin and end? Previously I thought they might begin with
a new Moon on May 17, 2007 as "start of the summer season". Yet
they could also begin with a new Moon on August 13, 2007 as the
"first following its date of formation". In which case, its
fourth quarter-cycle would end on November 19-20, 2007. Only in
retrospect perhaps, will we be able to understand why the crop
artists showed us this.
RED COLLIE
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