Wisdom Quarterly: American Buddhist Journal: Massive MOON monument discovered in Israel

Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Massive MOON monument discovered in Israel

Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly; LiveScience.com; Telegraph (telegraph.co.uk)

The sin qua non, not without which, for life would not exist on Gaia without Luna

The Moon deva Sin (also called Nanna and Suen) may be the key to understanding this monument. A lunar crescent served as its symbol, and the Israeli name Bet Yerah suggests the god was revered there. This image shows an ancient Sumerian seal (from another site) mentioning him, the lunar crescent engraved on it (livescience.com).

Luna (Chandra, Freyja, Demeter), the Moon goddess (devi, a "shining one")

Massive 5,000-Year-Old Stone Monument Revealed in Israel

Owen Jarus (LiveScience.com, Sept. 15, 2014)

Satellite image showing monument within larger landscape. Modern road passes near it with several modern towns located nearby (Landsat/DigitalGlobe/Ido Wachtel/livescience.com).

Freyja, Scythian devi (esotericonline.net)

A lunar-crescent-shaped stone monument that dates back around 5,000 years has been identified in Israel.

Located about 8 miles (13 km) northwest of the Sea of Galilee, the structure is massive.

Its volume is almost 500,000 cubic feet (about 14,000 cubic meters), and its length is about 492 feet (150 meters), making it longer than an American football field.

Pottery excavated at the structure indicates the monument dates to between 3050 B.C. and 2650 B.C., meaning it is likely older than [some of] the pyramids of Egypt. It was also built before much of Stonehenge was [previously thought to have been] constructed.

Archaeologists previously thought the structure was part of a city wall, but recent work carried out by Ido Wachtel, a doctoral student at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, indicates there is no city beside it and that the structure is a standing monument.

"The proposed interpretation for the site is that it constituted a prominent landmark in its natural landscape, serving to mark possession and to assert authority and rights over natural resources by a local rural or pastoral population," Wachtel wrote in the summary of a presentation given recently at the International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East. More

PHOTOS: the Crescent-Shaped Monument

"Moon god" monument unearthed in Israel

Inna Lazareva, Tel Aviv (Sept. 17, 2014)

A structure once believed to form part of an ancient town is identified as a 5,000 year old monument believed to have been used to honour the Mesopotamian moon god 'Sin'

About 8 miles (13 km) northwest of the Sea of Galilee, a newly identified crescent-shaped monument was built about 5,000 years ago (DigitalGlobe/Google Earth)

A structure once believed to form part of an ancient town is identified as a 5,000-year old monument believed to have been used to honor the Mesopotamian moon god "Sin."

Crescent Moon on Buddhist observance (wiki)

A 5,000-year-old stone structure in the shape of the crescent moon in northern Israel has been identified to be an ancient monument, predating much of the construction of Stonehenge in England and Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt.

The structure, known as Rujum en-Nabi Shua'ayb or Jethro Cairn, is located near the Sea of Galilee.

It was initially discovered in the early part of the 20th century, and was thought to form part of an ancient city's defensive walls.

But doctoral student Ido Wachtel from Hebrew University in Jerusalem recently made a convincing case that the construction served as a monument in its own right.

“The proposed interpretation for the site is that it constituted a prominent landmark in its natural landscape, serving to mark possession and to assert authority and rights over natural resources by a local rural or pastoral population,” Mr. Wachtel wrote in a paper submitted to an archaeology conference in Switzerland.

Presenting his findings at the International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, Mr. Wachtel said the structure may have been erected to honor the ancient Mesopotamian moon god, "Sin" [Akkadian Su'en].

One of the most important gods in Mesopotamian [Babylonian and Sumerian] mythology, Sin, also known as "Nanna," is symbolized as a crescent moon and is often depicted riding on a winged bull [as a "mount" or vahana in Vedic-Hindu mythology].

The structure was found close to the ancient Israeli town of Bet Yerah [(Khirbet Kerak) Arabic Sinn en-Nabra or Al-Sinnabra], which translates as "house of the moon god" and is believed to have been linked to the town's religious community. The vast structure, which is 150 metres long with a volume of 14,000 cubic metres... More

The Ruins of the Castle

Khirbet Kerak or Tel Bet Yerah (Hanay/wiki)

(WIKI/WQ) Khirbet Kerak (Arabic Khirbet al-Karak, "the ruins of the castle") or Beth Yerah [Hebrew בית ירח ‎, "House of the Moon (god)"] is a tell (archaeological mound) located on the southern shore of the Sea of Galilee in modern day Israel (Eric M. Meyers, American Schools of Oriental Research, 1997, The Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East, Volume 1, Illustrated ed., Oxford Univ. Press. p. 312).

The tell spans an area of over 50 acres -- one of the largest in the Levant -- and contains remains dating from the Early Bronze Age (c. 3000 BC-2000 BC) and from the Persian period (c. 450 BC) through to the early Islamic period (c. 1000 AD) [Ibid.; The Holy Land: An Archaeological Guide from Earliest Times to 1700, Jerome Murphy O'Connor, Oxford University Press, 1980, p.159 Milgrom, Jacob; Wright, David Pearson; Freedman, David Noel; Hurvitz, Avi (1995)].

A form of Early Bronze Age pottery first discovered at the tell but also seen in other parts of the Levant (including Jericho, Beth Shan, Tell Judeideh, and Ugarit) is known as "Khirbet Kerak ware" [Pomegranates and golden bells: studies in biblical, Jewish, and Near Eastern ritual, law, and literature in honor of Jacob Milgrom (Illustrated ed.). Eisenbrauns. pp. 630-632].

Khirbet Kerak culture appears to have been a Levantine version of the Early Transcaucasian Culture [Ian Shaw, Robert Jameson (2002). Ian Shaw, Robert Jameson, ed. A Dictionary of Archaeology (6th, illustrated, reprint ed.). Wiley-Blackwell].