LUGH AND THE FESTIVAL OF LUGHNASA
One of Bill McGlone’s strongest advocates is Kean Scott Monahan, whose videos from March 1984 to the present captured dozens of date-specific solar interactions with regional rock art and inscription finds.*16
Monahan’s documentary film History on the Rocks features the Anubis Caves and includes interviews with Bill McGlone, Phillip Leonard, Rollin W. Gillespie, Ted Barker, Gloria Farley, Barry Fell, and others. As a former news broadcaster, he produces videos and commentaries on the archaeoastronomy of that region that have provided well-informed and masterful documentation of the Caves’ difficult-to-film sunrise and sunset heliolithic animations. In addition, his archaeoastronomy website gives an extensive background to the science along with links to documentaries and other resources. Later on, Monahan and I were to team up to write an article for Ancient American magazine, “Evidence of Old World Travelers in Colorado: The Sun Temple and Crack Cave.”1
Fig. 9.1. Kean Scott Monahan, whose documentary films Old News and History on the Rocks document the work of Bill McGlone and Phillip Leonard at the Anubis Caves, Crack Cave, and the Sun Temple.
After I had introduced Kean to the Pathfinder site of chapter 6, he reciprocated by inviting me to join him at the August 6, 2006, cross-quarter day event at the Sun Temple, which was located on a large ranch property situated on the high plains in eastern Colorado. McGlone and Leonard first brought him there in March 1984, more than a year before the alignment was known. Since then, it is likely he has viewed this cross-quarter day alignment there more than anyone in recent history.
Local ranchers knew of the Sun Temple petroglyphs for many years before McGlone and Leonard arrived in 1982. In addition to what was instantly recognized as an ancient Celtic alphabet, the modern explorers also found the engraved profile of a human head, featureless except for an upturned, button nose. Some forty feet away, an isolated, east-facing, fourteen-inch-diameter (35.5 centimeters) circle was found inscribed at the back of the amphitheater-like cove. It was then that McGlone and Leonard decided to name the place the Sun Temple.
Kean and I had previously secured permission to camp at the site and arrived in the late afternoon. After preparing a simple campsite while fanned by a warm, dry evening breeze, Monahan readied his cameras and equipment for the following morning as I explored the Sun Temple grounds and became more familiar with its petroglyphs. After a light meal, we talked late into the night and speculated about how the ancient Celtic people might have migrated to and from the Crack Cave, Anubis Caves, the Sun Temple, and other sites in the region.
Kean credits NASA veteran Rollin W. Gillespie, who had helped reveal the timekeeping aspects of Crack Cave (as related in chapter 7), with many of the profound insights and deductions relating to observed archaeoastronomical phenomena in the area. Likewise, McGlone and Leonard had laid the foundation for the study of the Sun Temple inscriptions with their epigraphic work on interpreting its symbols and Ogham marks. Monahan believes the Sun Temple was used to celebrate the Lughnasa festival because an Ogham inscription was translated by McGlone and Leonard to read, “At Lughnasa the summer sun restores the gathering for sports.”
Lughnasa (also Lughnasadh) is the cross-quarter day festival named for the Celtic god Lugh (also known as Lugus, Lug, and Lugos), which is interpreted as meaning “light” or “shining.” In Old Irish, Lunasa means “August,” but he was was also referred to as Lugh of the Long Arm and is often depicted with a slingshot or spear.2 To the Celts, Lugh was the god of the arts and traveling and had an influence in money and commerce. In later times he became associated with Mercury by the Romans.3 (More information on Lugh is provided in chapter 11).
Lughnasa is a midsummer festival celebrated near the summer cross-quarter day, the midpoint from summer solstice toward the autumnal equinox. The actual date of Lughnasa has shifted over thousands of years. It was originally celebrated on the cross-quarter day or on the nearest full moon to it. In 2014, the precise cross-quarter date is August 7. However, over time the celebration date became a fixed day, and different traditions use August 1, August 5 (Old Lammas), and August 7 for Lughnasa.
Lughnasa is the first harvest festival and also a celebration of the coming darkness, so many traditions have evolved from it. The celebration of Lughnasa was said to include the cutting of the first grain. In England, this god of the harvest was eventually to become the Green Man, also known as John Barleycorn, the “man” who every year sacrificed himself to sustain life on Earth. An old English song memorialized this.
There was three men come out o’ the west their fortunes for to try,
And these three men made a solemn vow, John Barleycorn must die.
They ploughed, they sowed, they harrowed him in, throwed clods upon his head.
And these three men made a solemn vow, John Barleycorn was dead.4
During the pre-Roman times in the British Isles, Lugh of the Long Arm was one of the most popular Celtic deities, and statues were placed at crossroads to honor him. For centuries in what was to become Roman Gaul, the Council of the Gauls met in Lyons, which was also referred to as Lugdunum, or the City of Lugh until it was conquered by Julius Caesar in 53 B.C.
Despite the inroads made by the Romans, the Festival of Lughnasa was celebrated until 1169 in Ireland, when it underwent a name change to Lammas. Eventually the “patron saint” Patrick replaced Lugh, which was one of the many earlier indigenous customs that were supplanted by Christian ceremonies and stories. Even the early Christian legend of St. Patrick climbing the Tailitu Mound to banish the false idols evolved from earlier Lugh stories. The Tailitu Mounds are named after Tailitu, Lugh’s foster mother, whom he buried beneath the mounds. She is also referred to as an earth goddess and a goddess of the harvest and is likened to the goddess Brigid.5
CROSS-QUARTER DAY ALIGNMENT AT THE SUN TEMPLE
The Sun Temple is located amid numerous five-story-tall, wind-sculpted “hoodoos” standing as sandstone sentries above a wide and shallow canyon.
Most of the Sun Temple’s alphabetic grooves appear on the ceiling of a small, shallow cave approximately seven feet above the amphitheater floor, which is elevated well above the canyon floor. Protected somewhat by the ceiling’s overthrust is a panel tilted skyward on the lower lip of the wedgelike cave that has a bold but short inscription with several crisscross carvings.
Nearby, about twenty feet higher up, is a clue that nearly escaped the attention of McGlone and Leonard because the splotchy black patina on the cliff face had camouflaged the grooves. What initially appeared to be a crudely etched tree trunk with branches on the cliff face was later understood to be the Sun Temple’s key Ogham inscription, which underscored an ancient scribe’s intent to memorialize when and where to see a date- and site-specific sunrise alignment.
Fig. 9.2. The Sun Temple’s wind-sculpted sandstone features are called hoodoos. Amidst them, the Sun Temple alignment coincides with Beltane (May festival) and Lughnasa (August festival), two of the four Celtic cross-quarter days.
Fig. 9.3. Some of the Sun Temple’s alphabetic grooves, located above the floor of the amphitheater, remain untranslated.
Fig. 9.4. The Tree Ogham at the Sun Temple was inscribed vertically, similar to inscriptions on nearly all Irish monuments. (© 2005 by TransVision)
The Tree Ogham, along with some grooves to the left, was written in Celtic and was translated by McGlone and Leonard to mean “The ring along with the shoulder by means of sun and hill.”6 Because of the site’s orientation, they supposed the Sun Temple might have an alignment at dawn on the summer solstice, but a number of sunrise vigils on June 21 yielded no obvious solar alignments and nothing involving the conspicuously inscribed ring.
Fig. 9.5. Drawing of the Sun Temple cross-quarter day alignment (McGlone et al., Ancient American Inscriptions, 198)
Fig. 9.6. Sighting technique for the Sun Temple, showing a boy placing his head in a pecked sun ring petroglyph to see the notch bracketing the horizon. (McGl
one et al., Ancient American Inscriptions, 198)
In this type of solar alignment, the sun is observed from a fixed target, or at sunrise in the case of the circular pecked “ring” mentioned in the inscription (the circular petroglyph). By looking at the “sun and hill” from the pecked ring on the cross-quarter day the specific event is seen. The word “hill” clearly refers to the topology on the opposite side of the canyon, which is called a mesa, from the Spanish meaning “table,” in today’s terminology. However, one of this site’s most remarkable features is a massive rock overhang that juts out from the northern cliff wall. The overhang is parallel to and just above the horizon from the northern cliff wall, as viewed from the front of the fourteen-inch-diameter inscribed pecked circle or ring.
On subsequent investigations, the researchers discovered that when one’s head is positioned in the pecked ring only on Lughnasa and Beltane, its springtime cross-quarter mirror day in May, the rising solar disc is perfectly framed within the gap formed by the overhang, the cliff face, and the distant hill. Thus, the jutting overhang must be the “shoulder” mentioned in the Tree Ogham inscription.
COSMOLOGY OF THE SUN TEMPLE
Much of the Sun Temple’s association with Lughnasa evolved from the translation of the Celtic Ogham. In addition to the Tree Ogham message, as previously noted, there are other Ogham inscriptions on the roof of the wedge cave. A small circle dominates the ceiling within which appears the bold Ogham consonant sl, representing the word sol (sun) and announcing in Gaelic (as in other ancient scripts) that this place is a solar observatory. Strokes on the other side of the “sol” petroglyph form the inscription, “At Lughnasa the summer sun restores the gathering for sports.”
Fig. 9.7. A Celtic Ogham inscription at the Sun Temple. The prominent circle contains the Ogham letters sl, understood to stand for sol, or “sun.”
Fig. 9.8. This Sun Temple inscription reads, “Season for reaping” in Ogham. (From McGlone et al., Ancient American Inscriptions, 195)
Close by the “sol” inscription is another inscription translated by McGlone and Leonard as “season for reaping,” which coincides with the harvest festival of Lughnasa. The inscription includes a large pointed arrow or triangle aligned toward the rising sun in August. The triangular glyph could represent a cornucopia opening that is filled by the rays of the sun.
Adding to the astronomical references, Leonard has translated the bold Celtic Ogham on the lower lip of the cave to read “Noble Twins,” an Old World synonym for the Gemini constellation.
Rollin W. Gillespie also was involved in unraveling the mystery of the Sun Temple and had visited many of the Colorado Purgatoire River sites with Barker, McGlone, and others. At the Sun Temple he postulated that the pattern of the marks resembled the Gemini constellation, with the slightly elongated two lead marks representing the stars Castor and Pollux.
The age of the Sun Temple has been unclear. However, two dating methods have been used. Ron Dorn, a geography professor at Arizona State University, used an experimental cation ratio technique involving chemical analyses of the patina embedded in the grooves of the Noble Twins and Tree Ogham inscriptions that resulted in a dating of about 3,000 years ago, +/− 500 years.
The second dating method involved astronomy, as suggested by Gillespie. He showed that the marks in the inscription that are about one inch long represent Castor and Pollux in the Gemini constellation, whereas the three-inch-plus marks are most likely planets. Gillespie, helped by Leonard and associates at Evans and Sutherland in Salt Lake City, the leading manufacturer of digital planetariums in the world, identified an extremely rare triple planetary alignment in Gemini that occurred in the predawn skies of August A.D. 471. This alignment involved Venus, Jupiter, and Saturn and would have been seen from the site. Since it coincided with the season of Lughnasa it would undoubtedly have been worthy of memorializing in rock by posterity-conscious traveling Celts. Nevertheless, McGlone and Leonard suggest this dating method is too uncertain to be useful in establishing the date of the site.8
Fig. 9.9. The Noble Twins inscription. According to Rollin Gillespie, this Sun Temple petroglyph has a specific association to the Gemini constellation.7 (Photo and graphics by Kean Scott Monahan, © by TransVision)
While the dates of Dorn’s experimental cation ratio technique and Gellespie’s on-site astronomy findings vary greatly, they are not necessarily inconsistent because the tested petroglyphs could have been created at different times. However, it will take additional research with more advanced dating methods to determine with surety when the Sun Temple was created.
All in all, my visits to the Sun Temple site were certainly memorable, and observing the sun disc fill the specified notch on the horizon, as instructed by the Celtic Ogham inscription, was an absolutely inspiring event. But it was Monahan’s videos that made the compelling case for the preciseness and intentionality of the Sun Temple alignments, which thus supported the Old World origin thesis presented by McGlone and Leonard.9
CELTS IN KANSAS
After our trip to the Sun Temple Monahan and I planned another expedition, this time to central Kansas. There I met Crystal Trickle, an avid rock art investigator and organizer who served as president of the Epigraphic Research Association, a local Kansas organization.
With local mentors Keith, Ben, and Ron Jeffries, who had spent time with Bill McGlone in Colorado, Crystal and husband Wayne began exploring and chronicling the rock art and other ancient artifacts of their region.
During three days of excursions throughout their central Kansas location, the Trickles and Keith Jeffries were guides for Monahan and me, along with Ida Jane Gallagher, a published diffusionist scholar. With Warren W. Dexter, Gallagher had coauthored Contact with Ancient America, which presented many examples of Old World contacts in the New World. The book is notable because a significant part addresses different writing systems, including Native American syllabaries.10 Gallagher shared her research experiences with our group as we visited the Kansas rock art sites that included equinox sunrise and sunset alignments and Ogham-looking inscriptions.
Fig. 9.10. Crystal Trickle and Keith Jeffries pointing out petroglyphs in Kansas (2008).
Fig. 9.11. From left to right: Bill McGlone, Judy Morehouse, Rollin W. Gillespie, Ida Jane Gallagher, and Phillip Leonard in front of Crack Cave in 1986. (Printed with permission from Ida Jane Gallagher, Contact with Ancient America)
CAVE HOLLOW SUNRISE
Cave Hollow, the site we visited first, is a long rock shelter located in Ellsworth County, and it is one of the most intriguing caves in Kansas that contain rock art. A cylindrical cave approximately ninety feet long and housing many petroglyphs, it has a large, tunnel-like entrance facing west and a portal facing east that one can maneuver through with effort.
Right after sunrise on the equinox, the sun rays pass through the tunnel’s east portal and focus on a rock carving. At first light, a crescent interacts with a vertical mark inside the tunnel adjacent to a pecked half circle. The alignment consists of the light crescent following the edge of the mark as the sun rises.
On the north wall of Cave Hollow amidst graffiti and complicated rock art inscriptions is a rayed sun figure. A possible rebus for “sun” could spell Grian in Gaelic Ogham, with the strokes grouped in a clockwise manner, 2-5-3 to spell G-R-N, and there are earlier reports that associated images on the other end of the tunnel once memorialized a winter solstice sunset alignment.
Unfortunately, a large exterior panel with many ancient petroglyphs, including a twenty-foot-long reclining anthropomorphic figure, was lost in 1996 when a slab collapsed due to the instability of the wall above a spring that runs beneath the cave.
Fig. 9.12. Cave Hollow, Kansas. (See also color insert.)
Fig. 9.13. Stone seat for onlookers to sit and view the equinox sunrise at Cave Hollow. Ida Jane Gallagher is pictured.
Fig. 9.14. Cave Hollow equinox sunrise alignment. (See also color insert.)
Fig. 9.15. Rayed-sun pe
troglyph surrounded by modern graffiti in Cave Hollow, Kansas.
Fig. 9.16. Detail of the Cave Hollow rayed-sun figure.
OTHER ENCOUNTERS
During this eventful excursion to Kansas, our group investigated other types of artifacts, including an intriguing tablet housed in the Kyne House Museum in Lincoln, Kansas. On display was a stone tablet with etched characters surrounded by an arrow, with lines and dots below. Reportedly unearthed by a farmer in the local community in 1913, it is said to be from ancient times, but no one really knew much more, so it was named the Beverly Mystery Stone after the nearby town of Beverly. It is on loan to the Kyne House Museum from the Lincoln County Historical Society. Keith Jeffries had been instrumental in arranging to have the stone displayed there, and the friendly and gracious local museum staff allowed us to take the tablet out of its display case and photograph it.
The Beverly Mystery Stone measures eleven by nine inches, and the hole in the center is said to have been created when the farmer who discovered the stone accidentally hit it with a pickaxe as he tried to dislodge it. Dean Jeffries contends that the stone, which was dug up more than one hundred years ago, was inscribed around A.D. 500, and he assembled a translation of the sixteen-symbol inscription on the tablet, which he claims is Gaelic Punic. His translation suggests that it marks the grave of a fallen comrade, while others have suggested that the lines below indicate the year 1322, so at this point nothing has been definitively interpreted.11
Fig. 9.17. The Beverly Mystery Stone (with U.S. quarter in upper-left corner to show size), at the Kyne House Museum, Lincoln, Kansas
Secrets of Ancient America: Archaeoastronomy and the Legacy of the Phoenicians, Celts, and Other Forgotten Explorers Page 15
