The Ancient Astronomy of Easter Island: Venus and Aldebaran

On a boulder at Mataveri (a crucial area of bird-man rituals) some lines were incised; most of them were the directions of the setting sun according to Liller (1989). I have calculated the corresponding days for the year 1775 A.D. (Rjabchikov 2014: 5, table 2;2015: 2, table 1). Here and everywhere else, I use the computer program RedShift Multimedia Astronomy (Maris Multimedia, San Rafael, USA) to look at the heavens above Easter Island. For the date of November 12 one can realise that ancient priestsastronomers observed the appearance of Venus before dawn.

Table 1. The Dates Calculated (with the interpretation for November 12):

June 22 (the azimuth of the sun = 296.2°): one day after the winter solstice; July 21 (292.5°): the star Capella (α Aurigae) before dawn; August 11 (286.7°): the star Pollux (β Geminorum) before dawn; September 2 or 3 (277.9°): the star β Centauri [Nga Vaka] before dawn; September 21 (270.1°): the day before the vernal equinox, the key moment of the bird-man feast; September 24 (268.7°): the new moon; September 27 (267.4°); the fourth night: the measure of the visible dimensions of the moon; October 1 (265.9°); the eighth night: the measure of the visible dimensions of the moon; October 3 (264.7°); October 22 (256.8°): near the new moon; November 8 (250.7°): the star Spica (α Virginis) before dawn; November 12 (249.3°); Venus as the Morning Star before dawn; November 14 (248.7°); November 23 (246.3°): the new moon; December 20 (the azimuth of Aldebaran = 339.1°): the star Aldebaran (α Tauri) at night; December 21 (the azimuth of Aldebaran = 322.1°; the azimuth of Canopus = 177.5°): the stars Aldebaran (α Tauri) and Canopus (α Carinae) on the same night (Rjabchikov 2013: 7); the day of the summer solstice.

I would like to examine the whole rongorongo text associated with the chant “E rua nga uka” (Two girls), see figure 1. It was a record in a textbook from the school of king Nga Ara. Fundamentally, I use the drawings of the classical rongorongo inscriptions published by Barthel (1958). When I visited the General Archives of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary (Rome) in 2015, I carefully studied the signs on that tablet. The second glyph in the third segment is a human figure without the “eyes” = without the head. So, it is a variant of glyph 99 mi. A hole on the “neck” of this sign can be a score made by king Nga Ara himself with a shark"s tooth. Remember that he organised special readings of rongorongo inscriptions and corrected mistakes of the orators (Routledge 1998: 245-246).

Thus, the interpretations of the terms Pu(a) and Romi for Aldebaran offered by Popova are true. In the Polynesian archaic astronomy Tahitian Ana-muri [‘Ana-muri] “the pillar to blacken or tattoo by” applied for the Aldebaran"s designation (Henry 1907: 102) is a possible lexical parallel. Tahitian muri (behind) is a symbolic meaning of the shade and disappearance. The name 7 25 Tuu Hu(a) “Aldebaran” (Rjabchikov 1993a: 6) signifies “The star of the water,” cf. Samoan sua “liquid” and Tongan hū “wet.”

Furthermore, Old Rapanui Tuu Hi(a) “The Star of the Sunbeams” (Venus as the Morning Star) can be compared, in my opinion, with Marquesan Hetu ao “star-of-dawn” or “Morning Star” (Makemson 1941: 207;Handy 1923: 352).

According to Mulloy (1973), the ceremonial platform Ahu Huri a Urenga was a real solar observatory. I have culled a report about this scientific centre in the record on the Aruku-Kurenga tablet, see figure 3. An important point is that the monument standing on that platform has two pairs of hands. I believe that the surplus hands denote glyph 53 Maru (Maro; the month of the winter solstice; the season of rains; it began in the new moon of June as a rule).

Consider the following parallel records on the Great St. Petersburg (P), Great Santiago, Small St. Petersburg (Q) and Aruku-Kurenga tablets, see figure 4. The conjunctions of the moon and Venus occurred, for instance, (1) on June 23, 1672 A.D., at 05:43 (the moon"s azimuth: 59°03'43’’; the rising sun: 07:07, its azimuth: 63°51'09’’);

(2) on June 26, 1715 A.D., at 04:54 (the moon"s azimuth: 65°46'31’’; the rising sun: 07:07, its azimuth: 76°54'55’’);

(3) on June 26, 1726 A.D., at 04:17 (the moon"s azimuth: 63°41'54’’; the rising sun: 07:07, its azimuth: 63°57'41’’).

So, the rising moon and sun were seen in some cases from the environs of the platform Huri a Urenga in the direction of the platform Taha roa (the symbolism of the winter solstice?). In compliance with a Rapanui myth, the moon goddess (Nuahine = Hina) lived at the bay Hanga Taha roa on the northeastern coast of the island (Felbermayer 1973: 79-84).

A New Rongorongo Record about Aldebaran and Venus Wieczorek and Horley (2015: 138, figure 7) have