Taygetos Taleton 1
This is a series of 5 small documentary films about Taygetus the mountain of the Ancient Spartans
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taygetus
posted by vetdino at Monday, July 02, 2007
Monday, July 02, 2007
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3 Comments:
the text is in Greek, but I will translate it as soon as I get some free time.
for now, enjoy the beautiful pictures!!
Thanks
Taygetus: The Sacred Mountain of the Sun
Taleton 2,407 meters
During the pre-historic era the largest concentration of population is found in the area of Laconia. A form of organized life with standard rules has begun to emerge. In order to set these rules people must find geographical standards.
Which would be the first “standard” from where they would begin their calculations?
The Sun and the Moon constantly “moved”. So did the Stars. Only one star stayed still in the night sky. But how can they use a standard only seen at night? How can they calculate directions and distances from one star?
They searched for the highest point on the land of Laconia. This point must be visible from everywhere. They noticed that Taygetus stands so abruptly that its peaks look as if they are hanging from the sky. So for their first “standard” they chose the highest peak of the mountain, which could be seen clearly from almost everywhere in Laconia.
They climbed up the top to see what they can observe. There, they realized that, on a clear day, they could not only see Laconia, but almost the entire Peloponnese up to the south of mainland Greece, even some islands of the Cyclades, all the way to Kythira as well as the mount peaks of western Crete!!
Seeing the alignment of the highest peaks of the Taygetus (from South to North) they noticed that they can use this as the base of their calculations. They also noticed that the only still star on the sky was on the same imaginary line as the great mount peaks (the Pole Star). So they set Taleton as the center of they geographical circle and the imaginary line of the mount peaks as the starting (archiki=arctic) radius of the circle.
They observed that the first rays of the sun fell (and still fall) always on the highest peak of the Taygetus, and beginning from up high descend the mountain to the valley. They used the letter “A” to symbolize the first sun-light and named the center of their geographical center “ALPHA”. It is said that the first letter in all western alphabets was named in honor of the Sun: AL=ALIOS=ILIOS (=Sun) and PHA=PHAOS=PHOS (=Light)
AL PHA= ALIOS PHAOS
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