Figure 1. A Google Earth image of Ushtogai from above with yellow lines along its sides conforming to a 3-by-3 square aligned to north. The square sides of the monument obviously follow the angle of the double squares within the grid.
Following on from the first article, for some time I have been looking at northerly alignments within megalithic monuments as a possible siting mechanism for the circumpolar stars.
For example, the Le Menec cromlech in Brittany is a large Type 1 egg that this series of articles explores as having been a sidereal observatory, whose outputs formed The Alignments of Carnac, to the east. Modern observatories use sidereal or star clocks, and the circumpolar stars around the North Pole are such a clock. These stars directly show the rotation of the earth, from which the sidereal day can be tracked. (please use the search box for “sidereal” and “circumpolar” for a range of articles about this)
Monuments such a Gobekli Tepe, that predate the familiar megalithic periods, alignments to the star Vega are particularly interesting: around 12.500 BC, the ice age had a lull and Vega was the pole star. The northern alignment of Gobekli’s enclosures B, C and D, suggest Vega was being tracked there, around 9900 BCE (years before the current era).
Figure 2. A typical T-shaped stone of Enclosure D at Gobekli showing a “vulture” . The star Vega, in the constellation Lyra, was seen as a vulture or “falling one” and, in the mid section, one sees a vulture and a round shape that is probably that star, once Pole Star, but now departed from the celestial North Pole. © DAI, Göbekli Tepe Project for UNESCO.
The Ushtogai Square is thought to be at least 8000 BC and if the above alignment of 26 degrees, for a double square, were used to see Vega above the NW side of the square, then that would need to be around 9200 BCE (according to my planetarium program CyberSky version 5, see figure 3).
Figure 3. The upper area is the north pole and Vega on the celestial earth, looking north. Below this, the earth-coloured panel (north at the top) shows the north-west side of the Square of tumuli as an alignment to Vega in 9200 BCE.
The last ice age ended with a Maximum, but people were soon move around Eurasia: on the steppes, in Ushtogay where nomadism could flourish, and in eastern Turkey at Gobekli Tepe, at the head of the forthcoming Neolithic revolution. Such monuments display an advanced astronomical alignment and counting culture. This makes prehistory a lot more interesting, as to how and why there was such an early interest in matters cosmic.
In January, my new book will be published pushing this story forward. One in a series on such matters, it is called Sacred Geometry in Ancient Goddess Cultures because the ice age tribes were often organized around women and some “goddess” cultures seem to have been very interested in sacred geometry*. Matrilineal tribes had a social structure able to live off the land and with a large natural workforce (an extended family who were not farmers) such groups could achieve monumental works such as the Ushtogai Square.
*Such geometries were studied in my earlier books, Sacred Number and the Lords of Time (2014) and Sacred Geometry: Language of the Angels (2021).
Notes
- A previous exploration of the geometry of Ushtogai, onto which my proposed alignment to Vega can be added, is found in this pdf: A massive neolithique geoglyph … orientation … to cardinal directions (on academia.edu) by Howard Crowhurst.
- To explore the Ushtogai site, and Kazakhstan in general, you might try Wild Tickets.
- Ushtogai can sometimes be written as Ushtogay when searching.