The ancients worshiped "Male" and "Female" Power of Regeneration aspects that they perceived in Nature and the Divinity, which the Nature is part of it. Like fashion, language, culture, values, science, and art changes with time, religious and ideas on God change, and I will bet you that in future the idea of God will change and the symbols used to represent Him. Please read my other postings.
If you look at the symbol of Lingam and Yoni, from the top, it looks like an Electric Terminal of a Circuit Depicted in an Electrical Circuit Diagram, which conveys the same principle, of Positive and Negative Energy Forces. Here the Shiv Lingam is the symbol of Male Principle and Yoni is the Female Principle.
They ancients would treat Sun as the Male or Father Principle of Divinity. And the Earth as Female or Mother Principle of Divinity. When the Sun would go away to the Tropic of Capricorn, the ancestors being Farmers and heavily depended on the mercy of the powers of Nature and specially Sun (read they were very scientific in this understanding), they would envisage that their God, was so merciful that it would come back like a Father in Spring Equinox and Summer Solstice, and shower rains (make love to mother earth) and Earth with it's Female Principle would bring forth its produce and life here on earth would revive. They needed symbols and they were not vulgar like the today's modern mind and man is (see even today the tribal women are still not shy of revealing their breasts) and were very simple and had no guilt or complex as taught by the Judea Christian Theology on this issue. So the ancients developed the symbol denoting the Male and Female Principles. So this aspect was prevalent all over the world, specially in the Middle East, Europe, India, Greece, Crete, Egypt, Italy, and even Americas. Also people would like to have an Eternal Life and Snake was the symbol of that (because it would shed its skin every year - thus rejuvenate itself). As usual, the symbols sometimes get mixed and true meanings get lost.
So with this background, lets proceed with what other scholars have said.
Myths of Crete and Pre-Hellenic Europe: Introduction
Demeter of the Grecian Phigalia--the Black Ceres--lived in a cave, which is still regarded as sacred. This deity, who is believed to be a form of the Cretan Great Mother, was also associated with stone circles. Pausanias, writing of the town of Hermione in the Peloponnese, says that near it "there is a circle of huge unhewn stones, and inside this circle they perform the sacred rites of Demeter".
Wonderful Ethiopians of the Ancient Cushite Empire
Alexander the Great said that Arabia was inferior to no country of the earth. He referred to the once famous town of Oman, which had been a harbor of the ancient commerce. It was in the day of Alexander a wilderness. His estimate of these Cushites was, "Taking them all in all, they are the richest nation of the world." Alexander lived in the declining days of Ethiopian power. Himyar was the son of Seba, the son of Cush. These were the people of Yemen and the Sabaeans of the Greeks. Lenormant called them related to the Accadians of Shinar and the Ghez of Abyssinia. Himyar became the head of the dynasty of Himyarites. These Cushite Arabians were a fine race of remarkable stature, and dark complexion. The Semitic Arabians are brown, thin, small, well formed and of opposite traits from the Cushite Arabian. The Omanee kingdom attained a latter great splendor at the beginning of the Nineteenth Century. The conquering Mohammedan tribes of the north in idol-destroying mood have effaced all the pagan temples that once covered Arabia. Several enormous stone circles like those of some parts of Europe, built as a form of primitive religion, still remain.
The Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky, vol 2, part 1, Cyclopean
"Bones are found in them (the tombs)," he says, "and Mr. Hillwell tells us that some of these are enormous, the natives (of Malabar) calling the tombs the dwellings of Rakshasas (giants)." Several stone circles, "considered the work of the Panch Pandava (five Pandus), as all such monuments are in India, so numerous in that country," when opened by the direction of Rajah Vasariddi, "were found to contain human bones of a very large size." (T. A. Wise, in "History of Paganism in Caledonia," p. 36).
In both America and Egypt the pyramids were used as places of sepulture; and it is a remarkable fact that the system of earthworks and mounds, kindred to the pyramids, is found even in England. Silsbury Hill, at Avebury, is an artificial mound one hundred and seventy feet high. It is connected with ramparts, avenues (fourteen hundred and eighty yards long), circular ditches, and stone circles, almost identical with those found in the valley of the Mississippi. In Ireland the dead were buried in vaults of stone, and the earth raised over them in pyramids flattened on the top. They were called "moats" by the people. We have found the stone vaults at the base of similar truncated pyramids in Ohio. There can be no doubt that the pyramid was a developed and perfected mound, and that the parent form of these curious structures is to be found in Silsbury Hill, and in the mounds of earth of Central America and the Mississippi Valley.
We find the emblem of the Cross in pre-Christian times venerated as a holy symbol on both sides of the Atlantic; and we find it explained as a type of the four rivers of the happy island where the civilization of the race originated.
Worship of the Serpent: Chapter III. Serpent-Worship in Europe
The learned Celtic scholar, from whose translation the above poem is taken, explains it in these words:--"These ceremonies are performed at a public and solemn festival, whilst the sanctuary, or assembly of priests and votaries, invoke the dragon king. The place of consecration is on the sacred mound, within the stone circle and mount which represent the world, and near the consecrated lakes 1. At this time the huge stones of the temple were covered with a veil, on which was delineated the history of the dragon king. There seems also to have been a living serpent as a symbol of the god, who is gliding from place to place, and tasting the drink-offerings in the sacred vessels 1."
Joseph Anderson, in his book Scotland in Pagan Times, in chapter on Bronze Age Burial, mentions of Urns found in the stone ring sites in Europe, sometimes with signs of burial and sometimes with signs of cremation, just like the Hindus keep their "asthis" or "rakh" of their deceased dead ones in an urn till an opportune time comes to dispose them off in a favourable manner. Usually it is immersing them in some sacred river, but sometimes it is buried in a memorial site meant for the deceased person. Similarly, for famous saints and spiritual leaders, their bodies is not cremated but buried. Sometimes children would also not be cremeted. (My Note 1).
My Note 1. The word Pagan comes from Latin which was used to denote the rural people who stuck to their ancestral religions in the times of christian conversions and it was used to deride their religion, as it today, by the Christian Zealots. Knowing the linguistic connections, the root word is "pak" comes close, and it means pure, orthodox, cooked, solid, inflexible. If root is taken as "paGk", it means related to "mud" or "slush", which is related to rustic or rural context.
(My Note 2).
Page 9 From this I infer that when the blade was placed among the burnt bones of its owner, it had not, like them, passed through the fire, but laid been deposited ...
Page 21 The burnt bones had been collected, and placed in a shallow excavation in the sandy eminence, with a large flowerpot-shaped urn of baked clay ...
Page 23 The burials were of burnt bodies, the incinerated bones deposited in urns. The blade was found with the burial marked ...
Page 26 They are vaguely stated to have been found " in two urns, mixed with burnt bones." One of these four articles is a bronze socketed axe-head ...
Page 43 It was found at one side of a deposit of burnt bones from 3 to 4 inches in thickness, placed about 2 feet under the surface, and covering an area of about ...
Page 45 ... mass of ashes and burnt bones of very small size, which were determined from the presence of a milk molar to be those of an infant. ...
Page 49 In the bottom was a layer of burnt bones 2 inches thick, among which was ...
Page 57 There was no urn observed, but the deposit was not carefully examined, and the only things that seem to have attracted attention were the burnt bones which ...
Page 63 It lay close to two of the burnt burials that were first discovered, and on the flat stone cover of the cist which contained the skeleton were two ...
Page 67 In the cist was a deposit of burnt bones, and at one corner on a piece of flat stone lay four discs of thin gold, and a necklace of beads of amber. ...
Page 69 We find this characteristic feature associated alike with burnt and with unburnt interments ; with burials in cairns, and with burials in natural mounds, ...
Page 70 two are found associated with burnt burials, and two with burials unburnt :— First Group.—Cinerary urns, containing or covering the ...
Page 90 We have frequently found the burnt interments and the interments unburnt in close juxtaposition in the same group of burials, and in point of fact the two ...
Page 91 filled with burnt bones. One was inverted over the bones, the position of the other was not ascertained. Both were simply set in the ...
Page 92 It is probable that this case at Tealing was a similar one, and that the two overlying burnt bodies were laid there at the same time as the unburnt body. ...
Page 104 The interments are burnt, and associated with cinerary urns of the same typical form and ornamentation, and with the same characteristic thin flat blade of ...
Page 116 128), which was found filled with burnt bones, was subsequently sent to the National Museum. It is of the cinerary form, and more than usually ornate in ...
Page 117 From the fact that they contain interments, burnt and unburnt, it is obvious that they were in when both these customs were practised, while the occurrence ...
Page 132 One of the cairns, which contained a central cist, 4 feet long, in which was a burnt interment and some beads of jet, had a circle of stones set at ...
Page 171 An arrow-head of flint was found with a burnt interment in a barrow at Wilsford, also in South Wilts, with which there was a bronze dagger and a whetstone. ...
Page 240 Beads of Lignite compacted clay and ashes, fully 6 inches in thickness, intermixed with charcoal, and burnt bones, human and animal. ...
Page 252 This layer of burnt bones and ashes, which formed the floor of the chamber, was from 9 inches to a foot in thickness. Imbedded in it were a considerable ...
Page 253 On the floors Mr. Rhind found bones, unburnt, and in the floors burnt bones and pottery, but he met with no flint chips or implements of any kind ; and his ...
Page 260 The whole floor of the principal chamber and the inner part of the entrance passage consisted of an accumulation of ashes and broken and burnt bones, ...
Page 263 No relics of any kind were discovered in the examination of these chambers, but the floors still afford indications of the presence of charcoal and burnt ...
Page 314 It is supposed to have been washed out of a cairn of stones in which an un- burnt burial was subsequently found ...
Often, the burial sites were associated with Stone Rings, where worship and religious activities were associated. It is not common to have the burial places of saints and spiritual leaders become places of worship in all parts of the world, including India, and among Hindus, specially the Swamis who have taken samadhi. Stone Rings are often found associated with Standing Stones, and if often the symbol of union of Male and Female Principle. This is my conjecture that the ancients believed in life after death, and in re-incarnation, and would epitomize the stone ring as "mother's womb", and for protection after life, a burial in a chamber would often be present. For those taking the reincarnation literally, or choosing to preserve the remains of their divine saints, would choose burial. Those believing in the subtle sense of reincarnation and understand the deeper meaning of "from ashes to ashes", would choose cremation. (My Note 2).
My Note 2.
Page 97 ... externally by overground erections or stone-settings, such as are known in this country by the names of Stone Circles, or groups of Standing Stones. ...
Page 101 They differ from those previously described in one respect only,—they are marked above ground by the presence of a stone-setting of peculiar character, ...
Page 103 CIRCLES, AND SETTINGS OF STANDING STONES. equally characteristic. Close by the stone which stood to the west of the north point in the circumference of the ...more »
Page 105 122). 11 s base was formed of flat slabs, the inner edges of which .¡1 and 122.—Ground-plan and Section of Stone Circle at Crichie, ...
Page 107 CIRCLES, AND SETTINGS OF STANDING STONES. its outlines, but deeply hollowed on the two sides at the orifices of the perforation for the handle, ...
Page 108 ... within such circles as have one of the spaces between two of the standing stones filled by a great recumbent stone or slab, usually placed on its edge, ...
Page 109 ... diameter, which had consisted apparently of twelve stones— the pillar-stones from 5 ...
Page 111 From these examples it is clear that whatever may be the variation in the constructive character of the stone-setting, or in the general nature of the ...
Page 114 The larger of the two interior circles is remarkable, as presenting the same feature which has been already remarked as characteristic of the external ...
Page 115 ... 5 feet high and 3 feet thick. A cavity shows where the corresponding upright had stood at no distant date. ...
Page 117 There may be stone circles which have yielded no conclusive evidence of inter- .ent, but the want of evidence in a few cases (to whatever ...
Page 118 In other words, we have so many stone circles which, upon proper investigation, have proved themselves burying-places, that it is impossible for us to ...
Page 119 The highest stone standing is 14 feet, the lowest about 6 feet. Of the twenty-three stones which are either erect ...
Page 121 A line of five stones extends from the circumference to a distance of 96 feet to the south ; a similar ...
Page 123 ... come to deal with the chambered cairn as the typical form of the Stone Age burial structure, we shall find them ...
Page 124 For instance, although stone circles occur in considerable numbers in Scandinavia,1 and although in that area they are also found enclosing burials after ...
Page 125 At present we are unable to define with any degree of accuracy the limits of the area over which stone circles are found, and equally unable to say within ...
Page 133 ... the stones of these groups of parallel rows, and the stones of stone circles, are set with their long faces in the line of the direction of the rows, ...
Page 134 We have previously seen that the same thing was fully demonstrated with regard to the circles. It appears therefore that whatever may be the form assumed by ...
Page 135 By the recognition of this, as the legitimate result of their scientific investigation, the stone circles of Scotland are certainly divested of much of the ...
Page 136 In point of fact, there is nothing which is of the nature of evidence by which the stone circles of Scotland can be 1 It is a most suggestive and ...
Page 139 ... stone circles. There is no example of a dwelling or a stronghold which can be assigned with certainty to the Bronze Age in Scotland ; and the remaining ...
Page 229 I now proceed, in the three Lectures which follow, to deal similarly with the remains and relics of the Age of Stone,— in other ...
Page 301 In form and character they closely resemble the cinerary urns found in the circles and cemeteries of the Bronze Age, as described in the previous Lectures. ...
Page 302 ... of these cairns have now been published in a very interesting paper on the Stone Circles of Strathnairn by Mr. J. Fraser, CE, Inverness, in Proc. Soc. ...
The following pictures would make it clear that the stone circles are also worshipping the union of male and female principle.
We know a lot of these circles were aligned to the four cardinal directions, and/or, to the direction of solar and/or lunar rising and setting in winter and summer equinox and winder and summer solistice. So one can conclude that the ancients had the need to estimate the arrival of these events and a need to mark the days, months, and years. Lets see if the stone circle reveal this and if the Stonehenge is the panecca of this principle, which has not been discussed so far by anyone. (To be continued in next posting of the blog)
