Solstice

Have you ever wondered how festive Chinese culture truly is? China’s culture has always been very festive, and a place where tradition is valued greatly. China celebrates many festivals as the year passes; festivals such as: Spring Festival, Winter Solstice Festival, Lantern Festival, and many more. These festivals are celebrations for things such as the seasons changing or other events. These celebrations call to wear traditional clothing most of the time, and are usually full of color, music,…

sacred grounds and after Stonehenge was abandoned (History.com Staff). A more accurate theory of what Stonehenge’s purpose was is that it was used as a complex computer, to predict eclipses. /////. The henges built facing the summer solstice sunrise and winter solstice sunset support this theory (Davidson). Based on what is known of Stonehenge, it seems that it was used for many religious ceremonies by diverse cultures including: Saxons, Danes, Romans, Greeks and Egyptians (History.com Staff).…

Saturn is the sixth planet from the sun and the second largest planet in the solar system. Saturn is the farthest planet from Earth and not visible to the naked human eye, but it is through a telescope that the planet’s most outstanding features can be seen: Saturn’s rings. Although the other gas giants in the solar system, Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune, also have rings, those of Saturn are without a doubt the most extraordinary. Saturn is a gas giant made up of mostly hydrogen and helium gas,…

Seasons are what make life fascinating. If we just stuck to one season all year life would be very blank and quiet predictable. We have four seasons in a year, spring, summer, autumn and winter. The most commonly acknowledged seasons would be summer and winter, probably being people’s favorites too. Summer and winter have very different climates, one reaching extremely hot temperatures while the other reaches extremely cold temperatures. Both seasons have their own benefits or disadvantage when…

megaliths which is the huge stones that create the passageway are held in place by their own weight as well as the dome of stones. On some of the megaliths are decorated with either circular shapes or rectangular forms these are visible on the winter solstice, the entire chamber is lit. The Megalithic monument Stonehenge, Europe 3,000-2,000 BCE (figure #4) is the most famous Megalithic structure. Stonehenge is made up of two different stones the bigger stones are called rough-cut sarsen it is a…

afterlife. Stonehenge is also considered a burial ground for some people but also a place of worship for sun worshippers. It is unknown what type of rituals took place in prehistoric times, but today visitors flock to witness the sunrise on the summer solstice. These places will always be viewed as a wonder because of how they were…

Thales is believed to have anticipated the eclipse of the Sun on the 28th of May B.C. While it is unknown how Thales got to his conclusion of solstices, he was mentioned to be the first to have determined the course of the Sun from solstice to solstice. Presumably with the exploration of solstices and equinoxes, the length of a solar year was simultaneously recognized by Thales. Although the Egyptians have known about the seasons for millenniums, Thales was the first…

There have been many prehistoric structures found by archeologists all over the world, one of them being the megalithic temples of Malta. Archeologists have dated the temples from 4000- 2500 BC, making it older than the pyramids and Stonehenge. The temples were made out of stone and consisted of an incomplete dome and horizontal arch and post and animal hide coverings. Most of the temples had a basic floor plan of a variable number of hemispheric chambers branching off from a narrow entrance…

for a lifetime. What better way to begin the mythic journey than to immerse yourself in the atmosphere of mystery and reverence at Newgrange? Prehistoric ritual center, passage tomb and solstice marker, it is the iconic site of prehistoric Ireland. The passage tomb is aligned to the rising sun on the winter solstice. Megalithic burial sites like Newgrange are the…

Many people create bucket lists of historic places they’d like to visit on dream vacations and adventures that span the globe, or seek to soothe a sense of wanderlust created by travel books and geographic television shows. Many people include on their list the Parthenon in Greece, to get a feel for how life was for a culture so influential on so many in our modern day and age. Or perhaps some people prefer the mystique surrounding Stonehenge in England, a relic of times past and shrouded in…