Deciphering the Pagan Stones

reply to post by beansidhe


I don't want to detract from the point of the thread so I won't continue with the side discussion here. I'll be making my own thread to lay out this stuff clearer.

reply to post by zardust


Absolutely no problem, zardust, it's all strangely relevant!

I'll look forward to your thread, it's intriguing

The carved balls has the same carved lines like some of the ancient tombs of Ireland. I wonder what they mean?

beansidhe
reply to post by zardust

 

Absolutely no problem, zardust, it's all strangely relevant!

I'll look forward to your thread, it's intriguing

Thanks Beanside, I don't know all the common courtesies here yet, so I didn't want to impose.

I just had to add this little find:

Phoenicians being known as 'purple people’ by the Greeks (as the Greek historian Herodotus tells us) because the dye would stain the skin of the workers. Herodotus cites Phoenica as the birthplace of the...

www.ancient.eu.com...

relevance?
the phone- (home)-et-ians were aryan blue in budda land
so we have budda, odin, moses, our lord amen, manis-tu, etc
and we have the pictish stones and glyphs in all the places to I think ...

the sumerian symbol for an the father of the gods is two stylus marks forming a cross

So I think the pagan stones are everywhere, and the symbols go back to thier language...sumerian phonecian and the related peoples, and the language of the pre flood civilization....the Yin Yang is a good example of that older bunch's language.

Logarock

beansidhe

This is so pertinent right now, I can't tell you! The problem I've had until now is that I've pretty much ignored the later stones because of their 'Christian' iconography, as if the Picts just decided to become Christians in a happy, pleasant way. Both of my parents are from 'Pict clans', and there's nothing happy or pleasant about either of them! Only joking (slightly).

But if this iconography isn't necessarily Christian as I understood it to mean then there should be many more symbols of note here too! As AtroxLux has pointed out, the beastie has remained the same for centuries, so why combine them with Christian symbols?

Because they weren't necessarily Christian symbols?

I have always kept an eye out for the Picts because of my respect for the brilliant Ian Anderson. Hes from Fife.

Yea on some of the stones with cross they still retain some of the old symbols but by that time these family icons may not have carried their significance over time. The cross may really be a sun symbol representing the suns emergence from the underworld up passed the earthly line represented by the horizontal line.

what if the pic tured cross up thread means order out of chaos?
that would certainly help explain my AV...

reply to post by FeistyFemme


HI there FeistyFemme (great name!).
It's so hard to know for sure, but the Picts and the Irish share a lot of symbols. They're on the Newgrange chamber, which is speculated to be a temple for initiation - it was the palace of the Tuatha de Danaan in folklore. It is aligned so that light floods the chamber at winter solstice, and so astronomical significance cannot be ruled out.
We've been wondering if they represent time - the time comets hit the earth, as measuring tools for significant re-occurrences of this, or perhaps they have more esoteric meanings. Maybe the direction they face is important, or they show a journey either actual or to the otherworld?

In other words, I haven't a clue! We've also been noticing how often they appear in other cultures and are wondering who influenced who, to an extent.
So, any input and ideas from you are most welcome!

zardust

beansidhe
reply to post by zardust

 

Absolutely no problem, zardust, it's all strangely relevant!

I'll look forward to your thread, it's intriguing

Thanks Beanside, I don't know all the common courtesies here yet, so I didn't want to impose.

Oh my goodness, you're not imposing at all! What you've brought is hugely important, because it shows the depth and meaning that these stones could convey.
My only premise at the onset was that our ancestors were not stupid, and that they must have been trying to say something - the stones had real meaning. I had no idea how much meaning they would have, and since there is no definitive Rosetta stone for 'Pictish', everyone's opinion is valid. In fact, I can honestly say that every single post on this thread has brought something useful and relevant to the thread.

If anything else strikes a chord about the stones, bring it right here!

Waddell shows there is a stone in Ireland that commemorates Menes death there while visiting....he was killed by a wasp sting...the stones were recorded before they were damaged

so some of the stones are commemorating events, some are area markers, some are sightlines...some are for marking time...calendrical...etc

B, Can you get us some pictures of your stones just for fun...so we can look for references to them?

reply to post by Danbones


And strangely the Picts are spoken of as being blue, painted or tattooed, by our Roman friends!

But, I think you're right about a very ancient knowledge and shared symbols. These were the people (in my mind), or at least the descendants of, the people who built the stone circles and chambered tombs on Orkney 5000 years ago, and the stone circles in Aberdeenshire etc.

So while they undoubtably intermarried with exotic Phoenicians and Etruscans, maybe Minoans, (and frankly, who can blame them?), they remain most decidedly Pictish with very distinct art.
It seems that their influences must have been ancient, and much earlier than thought before.

Danbones
Waddell shows there is a stone in Ireland that commemorates Menes death there while visiting....he was killed by a wasp sting...the stones were recorded before they were damaged

so some of the stones are commemorating events, some are area markers, some are sightlines...some are for marking time...calendrical...etc

B, Can you get us some pictures of your stones just for fun...so we can look for references to them?

Oh I love it! I've spend nights researching Cornish tin mines, and now you're at it too! Lol.
Here's the link for the database I've been using which has every stone found, and catalogued.
There's a few throughout the thread, but they're not in any order.

Enjoy some stones!

Pictish stone database

reply to post by beansidhe


yeah I forgot about that blue pic thing
good one

PS
you are a very gracious thread host B Its Been a great thread so far
Thank you so much

ets
right off, on the top of the cross, the top the first symbol looks like draco which orbits the pole star polaris now, but which was a star in the constalation draco 5000 years ago

reply to post by Danbones


You're so welcome, and any passionate and enthusiastic people are more than welcome! There's so much in these carvings that it's taking us a kind of step-by-step, and then a few steps back, approach but we're making some headway.
I really want to look at Miller's ideas, and also the bird headed Thoth figures, who I think might be a 'mythical' Irish druid called Mug Ruith.
Every time I think I've got a handle on something, another symbol pops up and makes me think again!

reply to post by beansidhe


Beansidhe,

The Mesopotamian influence in your stones might have it's origins here.

Kudurru was a type of stone document used as boundary stones and as records of land grants to vassals by the Kassites in ancient Babylonia between the 16th and 12th centuries BCE.[1] The word is Akkadian for "frontier" or "boundary" (cf. Hebrew גדר "gader", fence, boundary; Arabic جدر "jadr", جدار "jidar" 'wall'; pl. جدور "judūr"). The kudurrus are the only surviving artworks for the period of Kassite rule in Babylonia with examples kept in the Louvre, the British Museum and the National Museum of Iraq.

The kudurrus recorded the land granted by the king to his vassals as a record of his decision. The original kudurru would be stored in a temple while the person granted the land would be given a clay copy to use as a boundary stone to confirm legal ownership.

The kudurrus would contain symbolic images of the gods who were protecting the contract, the contract itself and the divine curse that would be placed on a person who broke the contract. Some kudurrus also contained an image of the king who granted the land. As they contained a great deal of images as well as a contract, kudurrus were engraved on large slabs of stone.

en.m.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by punkinworks10




Punkinworks, I could just hug you!
What a find!

Boundary markers, issued by the King, with the gods (or spirits) who were protecting the contract, and the curse that would befall any who broke the contract.
I need to go back and look at the class 1 stones, but oh my god, you could be right!
That's why the emblem's are so similar, it could explain the beastie - this is so exciting!

ETA - And it explains why there has been no consensus up until now - everyone was right! They are magic 'power' stones and boundary markers and bear the names of Kings or families all at the same time. I love it!

I'm reading a book on math ( Hidden Harmonies by Robert and Ellen Kaplan )and they are descibing how sumerians would use thier clay tablets as calculators by tearing off and moving around various parts of thier diagrams for figuring AREA

I bet the figures may also be constilations that mark time and position too
like that star chart in the great pyramid that is dated at 10.000 BC

The first stone aberlemno 1, at the link recently posted by B shows draco or the north star at that time, a pointer and also a z arrow lightening bolt which was the emblem of one of Sargon's recent ancestors, I think...have to look in a book for that A prototype for Zeus

reply to post by beansidhe


Speaking of Stones how about Jacob. His wife Rachel, stole her Father's household gods. The word is Teraphim. Nobody really knows what they are,but some have speculated that they are boundary markers of territory.

Also after Jacob had a dream on his way to get his wife, you know the one Jacob's Ladder. He awoke and said "this is the house of God" or Beth-El, he anointed the rock he slept on.

Bethel, Baetylus

"Baetylus (Greek), a word of Semitic origin that means Bethel and denoting a sacred stone, which was supposed to be endowed with life. These fetish objects of worship were meteoric stones, which were dedicated to the gods or reserved as symbols of the gods themselves (Pliny, Nat. Hist. xvii. 9; Photius, Cod. 242). In Greek mythology the term specially applied to the stone supposed to have been swallowed by Cronus. This stone was carefully preserved at Delphi, anointed with oil every day [italics mine — this is exactly what Jacob did to the first Bethel-stone] and on festal occasions covered with raw wool (Pausanias x. 24) [to put on rough wool, or a wool garment, was like Esau who was covered with hair. It supposedly represented the prophetic office — see Zechariah 13:4]. In the Phoenician mythology, one of the sons of Uranus [Jacob, who supposedly initiated the use of Bethelstones] is named Baetylus. Another famous stone was the effigy of Rhea Cybele, the holy stone of Pessinus, black and of irregular form, which was brought to Rome in 204 B. C. and placed in the mouth of the statue of the goddess. In some cases an attempt was made to give a more regular form to the original shapeless stone: thus Apollo Agyieus was represented by a conical pillar with pointed end, Zeus Melichius in the form of a pyramid. Other famous baetylic idols were those in the temples of Zeus Teleios at Tegea. Even in the declining years of paganism, these idols still retained their significance, as is shown by the attacks upon them by ecclesiastical writers."

"Baetylus," Enyclopaedia Britannica (11th ed.) vol. 3. pp. 191–192

reply to post by zardust


Absolutely! Jacob is hugely relevant, as the Stone of Destiny is also known as 'Jacob's Pillow Stone'. It is said to have come from him directly.

Allegedly Kenneth MacAlpin, the King of Dal Riada (part of Ireland and Strathclyde area in Scotland) brought it to Scone, in Perthshire when he joined with the Picts to become the first leader of a united Scotland.
It has been stolen, and reclaimed, but rumour has it that the stone the English stole and the stone on display are not the real stone...

Picts and stones and intrigue really do go hand in hand!

reply to post by Danbones


Hidden Harmonies? And maths? They wouldn't say anything about tuning forks, would they? We can't seem to figure out this symbol, known as the tuning fork:

reply to post by beansidhe

I think maybe....lol, a guess
the little rams head is part of the cross of the type found in the pyramid: see miller
that part is in a brit museum
the rest is the sight
the circles are the orbits of the objects that are being sited and measured...