Skyscapes and Landscapes
Out in the field, furthering our investigations for ‘Staverton pt 2 – Skyscapes and Landscapes of the Wuffing Kingdom’. Exploring the sky ground correlations of an ancient green road in Suffolk. We believe this was once a processional routeway, targeting specific celestial and solar targets in the dawn and night sky on key dates of the ritual year.
The four old Gods in the Indo-European ritual year were Heaven, Sky, Earth and Sea. [1] In the history of human civilisation it was the pre-ancestral entities of the Earth and Sky that generated the world through their sensual and intense embrace. [2]
Sacred landscapes do not exist without skyscapes. Horizon calendars have been used since prehistory, with wooden totems or megalithic stones exploiting the natural contours of the landscape, suitably placed highlighting significant points on the horizon. [3] The points marked against the horizon dominated spatiotemporal places in the cosmos, be these the path of the zodiacal belt, the milky way, or path of the sun and moon. [4] Harmonizing this cosmovision with the Earth led to the development of precise ritual landscapes wedded to the heavens.
To our ancestors, it was not enough to simply witness timed celestial events in the night time sky but to participate within the event. [5] Landscapes became structured according to symbolic and cosmological principles, where the hermetic maxim ‘as above, so below’ became exemplified, forming what have become known as ‘sacred geographies.’ [6] The goal was the marriage of earth, humankind and the sky through active participation within the event, aided by being able to control the event and shift ones observation point, thereby creating constructed and not always natural horizons. For the horizon acts as a mediator, between the skyscape and the landscape, between the earth and the sky. [7]
References
1. Lyle (2015)
2. Dimitriadis (2000)
3. Orlando (2017)
4. Rappengluck (2015)
5. Fisher (2016)
6. Ruggles (2005)
7. Silva (2015)