image: Wikimedia commons (link).
Special thank-you to a colleague on Twitter who sent me a link to this article about the newly-discovered Pylos Combat Agate (pictured above) soon after the incredible artifact was first revealed to the public last month.
Upon seeing an image of this ancient treasure, I immediately realized that the artwork on the gem, which scholars believe dates to 1500 BC, contains constellational references similar to those found in other ancient artwork from ancient Egypt, ancient Mesopotamia, ancient Greece (most of the ancient Greek artwork dating to around a thousand years later than the Pylos Agate, which may be Minoan in origin), and other ancient cultures.
My illustrated article describing these celestial relationships in the figures on the Pylos Agate has just been published in Ancient Origins, here.
The Pylos Combat Agate is a discovery of great significance. The entire stone measures only 3.4 centimeters, or 1.4 inches, in length, according to the University of Cincinnati article linked above -- and the level of detail, and the quality of the artwork, is astonishing. The fact that it depicts a scene which can be decisively linked to specific constellations (namely, Hercules, Corona Borealis, Ophiucus, and Scorpio / Sagittarius) is new and powerful confirmation of a pattern that I have observed in later artwork from ancient Greece (see for example here and here), as well as in artwork from other ancient cultures.
In fact, as the second essay linked in the previous sentence argues (entitled "The predictive power of the Star Myth system"), the ability of a hypothesis to make "predictions" in advance of a discovery is a strong indicator that the hypothesis is correct. The fact that this incredible piece of ancient artwork, which was unknown to the world during the time that I was analyzing the connections of other ancient artwork based on these same constellations, has now surfaced showing some of the very same constellational connections (and on an artifact completely unlike anything else scholars had previously seen from the Minoan and Mycenaean cultures) should have academics looking into the abundant evidence which shows that the world's ancient myths, scriptures and sacred stories -- and the fine art associated with them -- are based upon an even more ancient system of celestial metaphor.
Readers of this blog may recognize that the pattern in the Pylos Combat Agate bears some clear parallels to depictions of the famous scene known as the "Judgment of Solomon" from 1 Kings chapter 3 in the Hebrew Scriptures (also commonly referred to as the Old Testament of the Bible). Here is a blog post I published back in January of 2015 containing numerous paintings by artists down through the centuries incorporating the same celestial references to Hercules and Corona Borealis that I believe form the basis for some of the features in the Pylos Agate.
And here is a link to a post I wrote after an interview from late 2016 with Alex Tsakiris of Skeptiko, showing ancient artwork from around the world that I believe to be based on the outline of the constellation Hercules in the night sky, and which includes an image from ancient Mesopotamia thought to depict Gilgamesh or Enkidu, and an image of the god Hanuman of ancient India.
Hundreds of other discussions of the connections between ancient artwork and the constellations -- and between ancient myth and the constellations -- can be found in previous essays posted in this blog, as well as in my books. For new visitors to this site or those unfamiliar with my work, you can find sample content of the books in the "Books" section of my primary website, as well as discussions of dozens of myths in the "Myths" section of the same website, and numerous videos in the "Videos" section as well. Additionally, this blog is fully searchable (and now contains over a thousand posts, many of them discussing the connections between the myths and the stars).
Scholars involved with the discovery of the Pylos Combat Agate are already saying that it is changing the way we look at history. I believe that the previously unnoticed correspondences between the artwork on the Pylos Agate and the constellations in our night sky -- correspondences which connect this incredible artifact to ancient artwork and ancient myths from other cultures around the world, even as far away as the cultures of Aotearoa (New Zealand) and the cultures of the islands which stretch across the vast Pacific -- should also create a complete paradigm-shift in the way we look at history.
The Pylos Combat Agate is yet another startling piece of evidence that the conventional understanding of humanity's ancient past stands in need of serious and radical reconsideration.
