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The Tal-Qadi Script THE TAL-QADI STONE So far several explanations have been suggested for the mysterious disappearance of the temple people but none of them can be proved in an empirical way. These magnificent architectural structures still instil awe and admiration from modern man. However, over-exploitation and eventual exhaustion of the natural resources, compounded by the successive years of drought, which forced the entire population to desert the island, seems so far the most plausible solution to this enigma. In Europe, the situation was similar. There were yet no forms of primitive writing, no villages yet constructed, nor the origins of some philosophical reasoning. However mankind left indelible marks with the construction of mysterious megalithic structures. Professor Alexander Thom came to the conclusion that most of the significant lunar alignments and observation points at the Brogdar ring are provided by the mounds and outlying stones surrounding it. The high cliffs on Hoy Island and other hills would serve as distant foresights for the rising and setting moon alignments. A map of the moon 10 times older than anything known before was found at Neolithic site of Knowth in Ireland by Dr. Philip Stooke of the University of Western Ontario, Ireland. Dr. Stooke prepares maps of asteroids based on spacecraft observations and detailed maps of the moon. He claims that the overall pattern of the lunar features such as Mare Humorum through to Mare Crisium can be observed through this Neolithic map. Investigations at Knowth have shown that at certain times moonlight could shine down the eastern passage of the tomb. Remarkably, the moonlight would also fall on this Neolithic lunar map. Such typical sites not only flourished throughout Europe but were also concentrated in the Maltese Islands. According to Sir Themistocles Zammit, the Tal-Qadi ruins were first brought to light by a certain Henry Sant who worked as a Government civil engineer. The Tal-Qadi temple is situated on the right-hand side of Mdawra road to Salina Bay. Close by, one can still find a farmhouse. Although the land on which the temple stands is Government property, Zammit had persuaded the Government of that time to buy a couple of fields, which adjoined this land further down. This was done because Zammit had noticed that some standing stones, which seemed to form an entrance to a building to a higher level. Excavations were carried on this site between 11th May and 15th September 1927. These were first supervised by Upton Way and later directed by Temi Zammit. The shallow soil and lack of megaliths made it quite difficult to follow the ground plan of the temple. Zammit had recorded this excavation period in the Museum Annual Report 1927-28, and a plan of the remains was made in 1952. The main features are the outline of two apses of the temple, the main axis of which evidently ran from east to west. According to Evans the temple was of the four-apse type. He arrived at this conclusion because remains of a corridor, probably leading to a second pair, were found to the east of the two surviving apses. However nothing remains, except for four horizontal slabs which lie about four metres to the east of the corridor, and which may be the remains of the temple’s paving. One of the main problems is to determine whether the temple faced west or east. According to the report of the excavations, Zammit believes that the temple was oriented towards the west. Professor Frank Ventura has a different opinion on this. According to Zammit’s field-notes, he mentions that the first work in May was done in the lower field called ic-cens tas-Sinistru. In his description it appears that he had established the existence of a path or avenue leading to the eastern ruins at a higher level. One must also mention that Zammit was not entirely convinced by this assertion, since one can still notice a question-mark after he had written down this statement in his note-book. Zammit’s report describes the passage as consisting of a few blocks of coralline limestone aligned in the lower field. Zammit states explicitly that the corridor formed by these megaliths was 3.66 metres wide. These led to the main entrance of the building facing due west. According to Zammit, it seems that there might have been steps leading from the lower field to the temple’s entrance, which he measured as being 1.53 metres above that of the lower field. He cites no evidence for these steps to bridge this height. The steps that now lead into the eastern remains have been built following the excavations for the convenience of visitors. The four flat slabs to the east of the corridor at the back of the two surviving apses challenge the hypothesis that the main entrance of the temple faced west. It seems that this represents the paving of another corridor, and if one had to take the geometric plan of the temple consisting of four apses, then one would conclude that this was the entrance to the temple. A reconsideration of Zammit’s hypothesis, namely that the remains of the stones on the west disclose the main width of the corridor, reveals that such width of four metres is too wide to be considered as the width of the corridor. Such corridor widths (between two set of apses) are usually less than 2 metres, as other megalithic structures around the Maltese Islands reveal. Notwithstanding, there are still further arguments, which support Zammit’s hypothesis. If the temple entrance faced east, then it must have been facing up hill, which would certainly make it unique when compared with other megalithic sites in the Maltese Islands. The second pair of apses is missing and therefore it is not possible to compare them for their size with the surviving pair. Another difficulty in determining the orientation of the temple comes from the absence of remains consistent with those of the temple’s façade. Evans concludes that in view of all this, he believes that the entrance faced west. The argumentation whether the orientation of this temple is towards the east or the west is still argued amongst scholars. This Mediterranean chameleon found lingering in the sun blends and contrasts itself quite well with its’ mysterious surroundings and the unique artefacts that were discovered there.....as soon as he sensed our approach the chameleon escaped slowly into hiding. The original size of the temple at Tal-Qadi is also problematic, as it is paving towards the east. The latter might have been part of a corridor leading to some eastward extension, or even to another building. Evans remarked that its orientation appears to be slightly different from that of the two surviving apses and the corridor on the eastern side of these. If we are to consider the western entrance, there are very little remains. One can find three stones, now level with the ground on the southern side, which were probably uprights. Two of these stand back to back and project into the apse. The broken stumps of two uprights represent the northern side of the temple. It seems that they were placed there quite recently, but perhaps they rest on ancient foundations. The outline of the southern apse is preserved only on the western and southern sides. The stones are all very low and broad, and give the impression of being footing-blocks rather than the remains of the uprights, which must have composed the walls of the apse. Beyond this line of stones on the south-west side, are a few stones which may be connected with the outer casing of the building. On the northern side of this apse are a few stones, one perhaps the remains of an upright, which could perhaps be the relics of a stone screen across the entrance to it as at Hagar Qim temple. The northern apse is a little better preserved. There is a double line of stones here, but they are very difficult to interpret. Of the inner line only two at the southern extremity and one at the opposite, eastern end are certainly in situ, and the remainder all rest on loose rubble. The outer line, on the other hand, consists of eight stones, all of which appear to be in situ. Perhaps these mark the real line of the apse wall. The central space between the temple’s apses and the demolished walls further east is quite well-marked by the position of the corridor. One of the paving slabs which measures 1.6 metres long and 0.8 metres wide lies lengthways across the corridor, and its length probably gives the original breadth of the corridor. The remains of a small upright, flanks the northern part, whereas the remains of two stone uprights are on the southern part. On the eastern side of the surviving paving slab is what appears to be a southern half of a raised threshold. It seems that to the east of the corridor the only recognizable remains are the four slabs mentioned earlier, which could have resulted from two horizontal slabs that were pulled down and eventually broken. The long sides have been carefully shaped to fit the upright slabs, which must have formed the sides of the corridor, but of which no traces remains. The two smaller slabs, again perhaps part of a single slab, lie to the west of this large slab. The orientation of this corridor must have been east north-east. The remains of the large slab have several parallel grooves or scorings on its upper surface, which run from east to west. All seem relatively modern in origin and made for various purposes, such as giving a better foothold on the slippery rock for beasts of burden, or making the rock more absorbent when laying out a field, etc. They have nothing to do with prehistoric building techniques. To the north of the surviving northern apse are some further remains. First there is a short stretch of wall consisting of six small upright slabs. Behind these are the remains of some five large slabs, which are supported more or less horizontally at some distance above the ground by piles of debris, which is composed in part of fairly large blocks of stone. According to Evans, Zammit was uncertain whether these could have any direct relation with the remains further south. However it seems that when one compares this with the temple in Bugibba, these slabs could have been the outer façade of the temple. In his diary Zammit recalls that in a conversation he had with a certain Giovanni Stivala, who was the tenant of the land where the temple is found, Stivala stated that he had destroyed a group of globigerina uprights in the north-west corner of the field years before. These might have been further remains of the outer casing of the temple or indeed the missing façade. There may have been a building on the Tal-Qadi site as early as the Zebbug phase, though there is only one sherd of that phase among the material preserved in the Museum. There are 13 sherds belonging to the Ggantija phase, but the majority of the pottery is of the types belonging to the Tarxien phase. In fact 847 sherds of this phase were counted. Later, some use seems to have been made of the building during the Bronze Age period. Zammit suggests that the remains of pottery and other objects of Tarxien cemetery type which he found just behind the corridor to the east of the apses, may have belonged to a cremation burial like those found at Tarxien itself. This would be the ashy nature of the soil, but he does not mention the finding of any pieces of cremated bone. Amongst the Tarxien cemetery pottery are the Borg in-Nadur and Bahrija types. The Tarxien type sherds included examples of scratched wares, including those with ‘dot and line’ decoration, and studded, pitted, channelled, and relief decorated wares. The Bronze Age sherds included ordinary and grey Tarxien Cemetery wares, ordinary Borg in-Nadur ware and examples of the dark-coloured ware with rope patterns, and both coarse grey and fine black Bahrija wares. Zammit records the discovery of Bronze-Age material pertaining to the Tarxien Cemetery phase at the south-west corner of this corridor, which occurred just above the remains of these stones. These consisted of one large and some smaller pots, an amulet and a kind of spindle-whorl. Zammit states that the latter might have been the fragment of a small figurine of the Tarxien Cemetery type, which could have been easily mistaken for part of a spindle-whorl. The archaeological finds at Tal-Qadi temple include a fragment of a statuette, seemingly representing the abdomen of a human figurine. The abdomen is distended and a pair of arms and hands is roughly represented as lying symmetrically across it. This is another fragment of a figurine of lightly baked grey-buff ware, representing part of shoulder and upper body of a figurine of the same type. One of the breasts is represented by a small swelling near the upper corner of the fragment. A cylindrical pestle with an expanded head, roughly hewn of limestone and a whetstone which is a small narrow plaque of slaty stone, pierced with a large stone at one end for suspension were also found. The whetstone is worn down somewhat at the centre, and most probably was used for sharpening knives. Of particular importance is a decorated broken slab of globigerina limestone, roughly worked but with a rather uneven decorated surface. According to Evans, the whole slab, of which the surviving piece probably represents a part adjoining the centre, was probably circular, and divided by various incised radial lines into numerous segments. From an observation point, this broken-shaped fan stone has carved radiating lines, which apparently depict stars and crescent moon or first-quarter moon. There are five sectors in the Tal-Qadi stone. According to Ventura in his book Astronomy in Malta, he cites both Evans and Pace and states that it seems that archaeologists agree that the symbols on this stone represent the moon and stars. Ventura also quotes Ridley by saying that the suggestion of the complete stone being a map that represented the heavenly skies, is due to the fact that whoever incised these scratchings to represent the heavens divided the night sky in a number of sectors. One should consider Ridley’s suggestion further. Around 1100 BC, the Babylonians divided the heavens into three parts namely the path of Enlil that is the northerly sky, the path of Anu that is the equatorial sky and the path of Ea, that is the southerly sky. Each part consisted of 12 stars. Cuneiform clay texts referred to as MUL.APIN provide further information on these stars. The first sector has three short lines, a symbolic triangle or pyramid and one symbol with 5 rays, which seems to represent a star, the second sector has seven stars, and three short lines. One of the stars in this sector has 8 rays. The third sector seems to have the representation of crescent moon or first quarter moon. The fourth sector has nine stars and 2 lines in the shape of the letter I. Two of these stars are 8 rayed. The lead star in this sector is 7-rayed. According to Zecharia Sitchin 7 represents the Earth’s true number in terms of the cosmology of the Ancient Sumerians inherited from their predecessors and mentors. As from time immemorial this number was always considered as sacred in several cultures. The fifth sector has nine stars, which are 8-rayed. It is difficult to give an interpretation of the short lines and letter I’s. Amongst scholars who investigated and who tried to give an interpretation of the Tal-Qadi stone, Richard England, Malta’s leading architect, had studied the possible use of notches in the hills around the temples as horizon markers for observation of the moon and stars by ancestral sky-watchers, along the lines found in northern Europe. In May 2000, Kurt Schildemann, president of the Society of German Linguists, provided an interpretation and the likely significance of the Tal-Qadi stone, which was provided to him by Hubert Zeitlmair, President of the Association of the Maltese Megalithic Underwater and Above Ground Structures Exploration Fund. Schildemann commented on the division of this ancient artefact into five distinct sectors. The pyramid in the first sector signifies UPAMA or as-ra, ‘The Most High’. The star does in fact represent as-ra, which in this case is Jupiter. The seven 8-rayed stars in the second sector are Jupiter taken as number 7, together with the sum of 1, 2 and 3. These are to be understood as powers of 7 and therefore translate to 7 plus 49 plus 343, which adds up to 399. This represents the number of days in Jupiter’s synodical year, a number that was considered as sanctified within the Indus-Valley culture by their institution of a 7-day week. The third sector shows the crescent moon or first quarter moon. According to Schildemann proto-Sanskrit isch means both moon and force/strength. The fourth sector contains the inverted N sign or asu fused with H or ara. The VH sign or asu-ara results as one of the oldest known Sanskrit symbol for the Sun. The moon is the world-giant’s left eye and the sun is the right eye. The nine 8-rayed stars in sector 4 symbolise the planet Mars, 9 having been the number most closely related with it until the outbreak of the Trojan War when, Homer informs us that Athena reduced the length of its synodical year from 819 to 780 days. Even so, the Greeks, as well as the Romans and the Central-American Maya still associated 9 with Mars. The Ancients associated the number 7 with Jupiter, 8 with Venus and 9 with Mars, whereas 4.5 with Mercury achieved by 4 fingers and half of one, the thumb. The respective lengths in days of the synodical years of these bodies are indicated by raising the afore-mentioned numbers to the powers of 1, 2 and 3 and then summing the results as was shown for Jupiter. Closer inspection to decipher the VH symbol in this sector proved fruitless and it seems that the scratched marks in this sector are not deliberate. In the fifth sector, although Schildemann states that the four 8-rayed stars clearly represent all stars taken collectively, none of the stars in this sector are in fact 8-rayed. According to Schildemann, the meaning of the remaining succession of symbols is just about discernible, ki kar-as asu…yoni which means him, the creator of Life, of all Races…………. but again this remains debatable. Dr. Anthony Pace, Superintendent of Cultural Heritage, provides us with his views on the interpretation of the Tal-Qadi stone. The Tal-Qadi stone is not the only evidence that we have that our ancestors were observing the heavenly skies. Buried on the Mittelberg hill near the German town of Nebra, this 32-centimetre in diameter sky disk tracks the sun’s movement along the horizon, for which they claim to be the oldest known depiction of the night sky and which served as an agricultural and spiritual calendar. The Nebra sky disk weighs about 2 kilos. Recovered from smugglers in a daring police sting, the 3,600 year-old Nebra sky disk reveals that Bronze Age Europeans were surprisingly acute keen followers of the night sky. Whether this is the oldest known representation of stars in the world or not remains highly debatable as the Tal-Qadi stone, the cup marks found on this megalith at Mnajdra and other incised carvings at the small trefoil temple of the same temple as well as the representation of the Southern Cross as identified by Sir Temi Zammit at the threshold of the Tarxien temple. The Nebra sky disk shows the representation of a gold sun and moon set in a field of glimmering 32 gold stars. One constellation appears to be the Pleiades. The archaeologist Dr. Harald Meller claims that this is the oldest representation of the Pleiades. This is rather a strange discovery to be found in Central Europe and not in Egypt of Mesopotamia. If the Nebra sky disk is the same age as the bronze swords that were found accompanying it, it will precede the beginning of Greek astronomy by a thousand years. Astronomers have confirmed that the sky map matches the latitude of the place where it was found. Unfortunately we shall never know when mankind began to understand the movement of celestial bodies and to register such findings. Up till recently, the oldest representation of celestial body movements appeared in Egypt in 1400 BC. This assertion fell recently in argumentation. The associating dating used instead of carbon dating revealed that the Nebra sky disk is 1600 BC that is some two hundred years earlier than in Egypt. The Pleiades representation was also discovered by Professor Frank Ventura of the University of Malta at the small trefoil temple at Mnajdra temples in Malta. This temple dates back to around Ggantija period and therefore dates back to around 3600 to 3300 BC. Is this then the oldest representation of the Pleiades? Amazingly on a clay disk found in Crete these two symbols look like the 7 stars representing the Pleiades. This is a Bronze Age calendar and is said to be the symbol for the equinox and goniometer. Professor Frank Ventura offers this explanation. Returning back to the Nebra disk, if these are not the Pleiades, then what are they? A recent research on this disk shows that since there are 32 such stars and one had to minus the 7 stars that appear to be the representation of the Pleiades, one will end up with the figure of 25. Half of a year consists of 25 or 26 weeks and 4 days. This looks very much like a calendar. The ends of the two gold bands of the Nebra sky disk, of which one was lost in antiquity, along its outer edges mark the points on the horizon where the sun rises and sets on the summer and winter solstices, the longest and shortest days of the year. The angle here is 82o, further north it would be 90o, whereas further south it would be 60o. The objective of the Nebra sky disk was to follow the sun’s path along the gold bands to establish a rudimentary calendar, thus providing vital information for planting and harvesting. The disappearance of the Pleiades in October in central Germany signals the beginning of the planting season. Some researchers claim that the other so called stars on this disk serve as decoration. Other researchers totally disagree and claim that the constellations of the Great Bear, Cassiopeia, Andromeda and Orion and the stars Sirius, Vega and Deneb can be observed. The significance of the other two objects is less clear. If they indeed represent the crescent moon and the darkened moon of a lunar eclipse, this suggests that Bronze Age astronomers used the disk to predict eclipses. Thus it becomes clear that what we refer to as barbarians had been studying the heavenly skies for generations. According to Flemming Kaul of the National Museum of Denmark, it also seems that the Nebra sky disk has a religious significance as the disk shows a curved gold object laced with feather-like oars set between horizon bands. It may indeed represent a night ship, a solar boat, a celestial craft of an early people who believed that it carried the sun god on his journey from darkness to dawn. This motif was common in Egypt but this representation on the sky disk is the earliest evidence of Bronze Age Europeans. The question of what was an Egyptian symbol doing on a European disk raised doubts about the origins of the Nebra disk. However chemical analysis using spectrometer techniques revealed that the Nebra sky disk was indeed constructed by minerals found in the vicinity that the disk was discovered. The religious symbolic significance of the sky disk was sustained by Miranda Aldhouse Green who is an authority on religious history and claims that the symbolism provided by the moon as a passage of time, the sun which symbolises life, the solstices, the Pleiades and the travel towards the sun using the solar boat are five important religious themes that are brought forward together on the Nebra disk. This brings to discussion certain issues of relative importance. What kind of people were they with such a complex religion? Is this then a primitive society as has always been thought? Dr. Anton Mifsud brings forward some ideas. The objective of this documentary is to investigate and correlate the utility of the Tal-Qadi stone based on the orientation of the Tal-Qadi temple’s with celestial objects. The azimuths quoted in this documentary were measured north through east. Work published by Ventura and Agius in 1980 gave the azimuth of the Tal-Qadi temple as 76o. A theodolite measuring with an accuracy of one minute of an arc was used. Several sources of error could have been the main reason for not determining precise azimuths. The errors could have arisen from weathering and erosion effects on the main portal entrances of the Tal-Qadi temple. On the other hand, one should note that the position of the temple eliminates the refraction at the moment of sunrise, thus making the calculations more precise. The latitude of the Tal-Qadi temple was taken from an Ordinance Survey Map. The latitude makes an appreciable difference on the declination corresponding to a particular azimuth. Looking from inside the temple along its main axis, the horizon opposite the main entrance can be below, at, or above eye level. This also plays an important role on the declination at which the sun would appear to rise from inside the lower temple. The unique engravings showing the crescent or first quarter moon and groups of stars enclosed in sectors by carved lines, on one side of the Tal-Qadi stone, show that the megalithic builders might have shown interest towards the heavenly skies. Although interpreted as symbols for stars, one can never be sure that this is a correct interpretation of the Tal-Qadi stone. The objective of this documentary is to try to determine the interpretation of the symbols on the Tal-Qadi stone. The apparent interest in the stars during the temple building period may serve us with an objective to investigate whether in fact any alignments did take place along the main axis of the Tal-Qadi temple. One should not overlook the fact that during the rising and setting of stars, they appear much fainter due to atmospheric extinction. Furthermore, certain stars can easily be missed due to hazy conditions and due to moonlight. However one must state that the hill profile and altitude of the temple, helps to minimize such effects. Although the stars seem to be fixed year after year, on closer observation one will observe that some are rising to higher declinations whilst others are going to lower declinations in the sky. Over hundreds of years such movements become evident and are referred to as precession. Every 25,800 years the Earth’s axis precesses at a slow rate. The Earth’s poles revolve with reference to the celestial sphere of fixed stars. Thus stars that are presently visible from a particular latitude may be invisible in a few hundred years and vice-versa. The values of the relative longitude and latitude of the Tal-Qadi temple, were inputted using a computer astronomical program, together with the respective azimuth of 76o, considering the eastern orientation and 256o, considering the western orientation and respective declination. The base year investigated was 2650 BC, which pertains to the Tarxien phase that is 3000BC to 2500BC and which is logical to investigate as most pottery found was of this period. The base year 2650 BC was chosen as mid-way for the Tarxien phase. Since we do not know the exact orientation of the temple the motion of the crescent/first quarter moon and stars were studied using both orientations. No alignments were found with rising planets for the year 2650 BC. Those stars with a clear visible magnitude were noted in relation to the respective crescent and first quarter moon days. Investigation on stars pertaining to investigative base year of 2650 BC was maintained with the temple’s longitude and latitude so that one could determine what megalithic man was observing. Between January and June 2650 BC, star observations were difficult since the visible magnitude was low. However in February 2650 BC, the planets Mars and Venus could have been observed. In June 2650 BC, the main axis of the temple was aligned with the crescent moon. In the beginning of July, the main passage of the temple was aligned with the crescent moon. It could be that the Tal-Qadi stone is a representation of these constellations. In August and in September 2650 BC star observations were once again difficult to observe, but in September 2650 BC, the planet Mercury was observable. In October 2650 BC, the main axis of the temple was aligned with the full moon. In the November and December of 2650 BC, although star observation was difficult due to low magnitude, the planet Mars was observable. Thus it seems that the only possible representations of stars, which resemble those that are found on the Tal-Qadi stone are those pertaining to Gemini and Aurigae. An alternative interpretation is that whoever incised these carvings on this stone wanted to develop an artistic decoration using both moon and stars symbolism and not a map of the heavenly skies in those times. This might explain why there is a uniform distribution on every sector coupled with those short lines that might have been used to fill in the gap since there was lack of space to scratch a further star on the stone. It is interesting to note that the 4 planets mentioned by Schildemann could have been observed at the Tal-Qadi temple. The symbols found in this stone have been a continuous debate amongst scholars. Graham Hancock in his book “The Mars Mystery” shows rock carvings of comets from Easter Island. The sun is represented like the ‘star’ symbol found on the Tal-Qadi stone. Since the symbol of the moon is incised on the Tal-Qadi stone, what has been always thought of as symbols for stars may well represent the number of days between one phase of the moon to the next. Considering the more complete sectors, one may argue that the first sector represents seven days; the following sector shows the crescent moon or first quarter moon, while the fourth and fifth sectors represent nine days and eight days respectively. One way to decipher this enigma is to reconstruct the night sky during the Tal-Qadi temple period and observe the movement of the moon, looking for a pattern that fits the above hypothesis. The latitude of the temple, together with its longitude, azimuth and declination were inputted in the astronomical programme. After a thorough investigation of the setting moon for the year 2650 BC, the number of days appearing between one phase of the moon and another was determined. If the purpose of the Tal-Qadi stone was to read off the movements of the setting moon, then the intention was to count the number of days between one phase of the moon and the other. One must not forget that the number of days between one phase of the rising and setting moon and the other is not constant. Thus three alternative proposals will be investigated. Proposal 1: Megalithic man observed and recorded the following rising or setting moon phases due West, crescent, gibbous, gibbous and then crescent and counted the number of days between each phase. Proposal 2: Megalithic man observed and recorded the following rising or setting moon phases due West, first quarter, full, last quarter, and new, and counted the number of days between each phase. Proposal 3: Megalithic man observed and recorded the alignment of the rising moon along the Tal-Qadi temple main passageway and recorded the number of days between each alignment. For the third proposal, the alignments of the setting moon along the main passage of the temple for the year 2650 BC was determined. The interval between alignments of the moon along the main axis of the temple was calculated. The number of days between each alignment is constant, that is nine and seventeen days, except for five occasions only, where there are eight, ten and eighteen days between consecutive alignments. When these numbers are compared to those on the Tal-Qadi stone, one concludes that this was not used to observe and record the rising setting moon alignments along the main passage of the temple. Once again, whether the Tal-Qadi stone was used to record the intervals between the first quarter, full, last quarter and new setting moon or else the crescent and gibbous moon, one will never know. It seems that the observations were made by skipping a moon phase, that is first quarter, full, last quarter and new, or crescent, gibbous, gibbous, and crescent. It is interesting to note, however, that the number of so-called days revealed on the Tal-Qadi stone match closely to one of the proposals identified earlier. Thus it seems that during the temple period a study of the number of days between one phase of the moon and the other was observed. Since this is not always constant a note was taken between the different segments between one phase of the moon and the other. Using this information one may tentatively reconstruct a representation of the original stone. A similar investigation was also performed to determine whether the Tal-Qadi stone was used to observe and record the movements of the rising moon. It seems more likely that the temple is aligned towards the setting moon rather than the rising moon, mainly due to the Wardija hill opposite the temple, and the valley across, between the temple and the hill. If one considers that the temple was aligned towards the rising moon then it must have been looking up-hill, which may be unlikely. It is more likely that the Tal-Qadi temple might have been aligned with the different phases of the setting moon like crescent, first quarter, full moon, gibbous moon and last quarter moon. During the investigations performed on the rising and setting of the celestial bodies, along the main axis of the temple, it was noticed that the sun performs a pendulum motion during its rising and even in its setting. Hence there must also be sun alignments along the main axis of the temple. It is interesting to note that on 20th April 2650 BC and 23rd August 2650 BC, the sun rose along the main axis of the temple, and that on 20th February 2650 BC and 18th October 2650 BC the sun had set along the main axis of the temple. Maybe we shall never know the intent of megalithic man to design the scratchings incised on this Tal-Qadi stone. And maybe we will never know in reality whether the Tal-Qadi stone was used to read the number of days between the different phases of the moon. However, it is interesting to note that the interval of days between the moon phases fits in the Tal-Qadi stone sequence. The alignment of the temple’s main passage with the different phases of the moon and the sun is indeed an intriguing fact and an achievement for the temple period culture. No doubt that further study will reveal more clues. But with nothing comparable in the archaeological record, the complete story of the Tal-Qadi stone is likely to remain a mystery. This does not diminish the importance that this stone possesses, being one of the oldest representation of the stars and moon in the Mediterranean. The Tal-Qadi stone manages to transport us back into an impregnable period of human history. Whatever the interpretation of the Tal-Qadi stone might be, we can only speculate at what other antiquities lie to be unearthed, that will one day bring us closer to the mysterious and enigmatic megalithic inhabitants. |
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