By Ronnie Gallagher
In the Spring 2003 edition of Azerbaijan International an article was presented about ‘Stone Age’ rock carvings called ‘cup marks’. These were enigmatic examples of ancient 'rock-art' thought to be contemporary with the more famous rock carvings or petroglyphs of Gobustan, which according to archaeologists may date back some 6000 years. While cup marks vary in size and appearance their meaning remains a mystery.
However as much time and effort went into carving them, they no doubt held deep cultural significance to the ancient inhabitants.
Some of the rock carvings found were regular in appearance and had repeating geometric patterns. This suggests they had a specific function involving most likely counting, and unlike the other mysterious rock carvings which defy interpretation, it was suspected that meaning could be extracted from the geometric arrays. This called for further study and has proved to be an interesting journey with fascinating results. This article explores one of these carvings, - a horseshoe shaped array, and makes tentative suggestions about its purpose and its significance.
1. Shuvalan Petroglyph Array
It is thought that the array shown in Picture 1 could be a calendar, and because of its intricacy is almost certainly a counting tool of sorts. Interestingly, a connection was also made to other archaeological finds in the Near East region showing that the Azeri rock carvings were almost identical to a board game found in tombs as ‘grave goods’ and are known as ‘Hounds and Jackals’. More of this below.
2. Shuvalan Stone Circle with petroglyphs and Abbas pointing out the H&J array locations.
The array was found on a flat rock next to a megalithic stone circle site at Shuvalan, - a village on the Apsheron peninsula near Baku. It is a curious horseshoe shape made of small indentations or pits which are interconnected with channels. The channels were not immediately obvious to us due to a thin carpet of encrusting lichens. Indeed, two horseshoe arrays were actually found within a few feet of each other. Picture 2 shows their proximity to the stone circle.
3. Shuvalan Array
Picture 3 shows the array highlight to show the indentations, channels, and orientation. The horseshoe section of the array is made up of 39 indentations or pits, with the twentieth or mid point pit slightly enlarged. Two internal lines each have 11 indentations. In total this makes 60 regular sized pits plus the slightly larger one. As can be seen from the diagram, two channels connect the 5th, 10th and 15th pits on both halves of the horseshoe shape. Internally two transfer channels on the parallel lines connect the 3rd and 5th holes.
A Possible Calendar?
Dr. Idris Aliyev of the Azerbaijan Institute of Archaeology confirmed that the array may indeed be a type of calendar. Idris told us of a similar array on a limestone tablet that could be seen at the Gala museum which was found at a burial mound (or ‘Kurgan’) on the Absheron peninsula. Picture 4. Interestingly, a second tablet was later found at another kurgan in September 2004 near to the village of Yeni Turkan, again on the Apsheron Peninsula. Picture 5 shows the tablet and Picture 6, the Kurgan. With two similar tablets found as ‘grave goods’, and two arrays carved near a stone circle, this suggested that the objects might not be uncommon, and that they were important cultural artifacts.
4. Gala Museum Array
Working on the basis that the array could be a calendar the idea was explored further. This involved looking for relevance in the number of indentations to see if they might relate to solar or lunar cycles, and to check if they stone circle arrays pointed in any significant direction. Using the parallel lines of indentations within the horseshoe shape it was noted that both arrays pointed in a north west/south east direction so indicating a possible alignment with the rising sun at the winter solstice. This is a universally celebrated event, when the sun appears to stand still in the sky to observers and marks the beginning of a new year and suggests linkage to a solar calendar. Many other carvings have been found showing similar alignments.
However, before discussing the use of the calendar in a solar context, it is worth mentioning the possibility that the Shuvalan array might also be a lunar calendar. Lunar calendars are very old and the Sumerians, from ancient Iraq were probably the first to develop one based on the recurrence of lunar phases, (lunations). However lunar calendars quickly fall out of step as they drift with the passing seasons and so are of limited use. Even so, such calendars still remain in use among certain religious groups today. For example, the Jewish calendar, which supposedly dates from some 3,760 years ago consists of 12 months alternating between 29 and 30 days.
5. H&J Array Yeni Turkan Kurgan
The Islamic faith also uses a lunar calendar. While the numbers in the arrays are not exact, it may be that the 61 indentations may represent two lunar months, with perhaps the enlarged hole on the horseshoe representing a ‘full moon’. This is speculative, but perhaps worth further consideration and is further discussed below in the context of a similar H&J array, but with two fewer holes. As regards the Shuvalan array, linkages to a solar calendar seem to be more evident.
Let’s look at the number sixty as it is very useful in recording the 360 days of the year. Here, it would simply be a matter of keeping track of the days by using some sort of a counter, and advancing it along the array with each new day. Six revolutions of the array, plus of course an extra five days would make a full year. This may sound contrived, but here we may note that the ancient Egyptians developed a solar calendar of 360 days, plus an extra 5 days in honour of their gods Osiris, Isis, Nephthys, Set and Horus some 6000 years ago!
The Egyptians also help provide an explanation for the presence of the 61 indentations or holes for this possibly reflects the ‘sidereal’ or star year, which has an extra day in it when compared to a solar year. (Note: the earth’s revolution in its orbit causes the sun to drift eastwards approximately one degree per day with respect to the stars so giving 366 days in a year, unlike the solar year which is 365 and a quarter days).
6. View of Yeni Turkan Kurgan facing East.
By daily advancing a counter along the array, six revolutions of sixty one pits (days) would give 366 days.
Again, it may be coincidence, but it is known that the sidereal year was used by ancient Egyptians who used Sirius, the Dog Star and brightest star in the sky as their astronomical marker. For them, when the sun rose directly above Sirius, this marked the first day of the month of Thoth, the Egyptian New Year and was measured when Sirius appeared annually directly above obelisks as viewed from ground observation points. It also marked a time of celebration as it heralded the onset of the Nile flood.
For the Egyptians the sidereal year also allowed them to keep an accurate solar calendar which drifts by about four minutes per day. Such an error accumulates with time causing the seasons drift making the 365 day solar year unreliable. This is why today we need to have the leap year. However, Egyptian astronomers long ago realized the discrepancy between solar and sidereal year and overcame this by adding a quarter day to the solar year. This was a revolutionary discovery and brought the Egyptian year to within 11 minutes of the true solar year. But for practical purposes, the solar calendar is perhaps the most useful tool for community life, as is the use of the number sixty. Interestingly, archaeologists also know that the Sumerians made use of a 360 day solar calendar.
And further afield, it is also intriguing to note that the Chinese, before the invention of written characters, had developed a combined lunar and solar calendar which integrates 10 and 12 day cycles to generate a 60 day cycle. Readers will be aware of the twelve year Chinese calendar where each year is designated to an animal (e.g. snake, monkey, tiger…etc). This is related to a larger 60 year cycle which the Chinese called the ‘Heavenly Stem and Earthly Branch’. In this system there are 10 Stems and 12 Branches with the cycle beginning with the ‘Wooden Rat’ and end with ‘Water Pig’. With the indentations and channels reflecting units of 5, 6 and 60 in the Azeri array, it is tempting to think that the Chinese calendar may have had a similar origin to the array. Could it be that the array is a combined solar and lunar calendar? More of this below.
Stone Circle Connections and Religion.
Because the Shuvalan arrays were found at a stone circle, it is relevant to consider potential connections with other megalithic sites, such as the most famous example of Stonehenge. Stone circles are increasingly recognized by archaeologists and many eminent scientists to be astronomical observatories and sophisticated calendars. Carnac in France, Callanish in Scotland, and of course Stonehenge in England all are believed to have been constructed to monitor the sun and moon and the changing seasons. While is perhaps not surprising that such circles are to be found throughout western Europe were they are relatively common, it may come as a surprise to learn that they are also present in the Middle East where one of the last great but barely known wonders of the world sits atop of Israel’s Golan Heights, called Gilgal Refaim, (i.e. the Circle of the Refaim) in Hebrew. Another more ancient assembly of stone slabs was found in southern Egypt’s Sahara Desert at Nabta that date from 6,500 to 6,000 years ago, making it around 1000 years older than the earliest constructions at Stonehenge, and 2000 years older than the pyramids. Indeed, the Nabta circle has been confirmed by scientists to be the oldest known astronomical alignment of megaliths in the world.
With the use of calendars from a very ancient period, it indicates the ancients were very aware of his environment. Counting lunar cycles and marking the passing of time and seasons would be important to hunter gathering and pastoralist communities who were in tune with natural cycles. It would be fundamental for dispersed communities to meet from time to time and this could be done by counting phases of the moon. With the spread of agricultural practices the need to be able to count and judge the seasons was even more essential for seed planting and harvesting. It is partly for these reasons that stone circles and calendars are thought to have been developed. Counting time was important, and in doing so it is thought that the ancient man relied on three calendars: a sidereal calendar which is important for agriculture, the lunar calendar is important to tell the tides and for religious purposes, and the solar calendar is needed to know the length of the day and to tell feast days.
7. Yeni Turkan Kurgan Burial Cist.
From observations and research it also seems certain that there are religious connections between calendars, stone circles and burial sites. The religious dimension and the importance of the heavens to ancient people, is displayed in the tombs (kurgans) which were constructed with reference to the cardinal points. For example, kurgans and the human remains interred follow a consistent orientation plan. Human remains are often laid to rest with their heads facing the west, presumably in reference to the setting sun and a belief in the afterlife, while burial chambers or cists orient north to south and entrances or antechamber to the circular kurgans consistently face the south west. (Picture 7) While this is all very intriguing, even more remarkable and as if to emphasize the point, the circular burial mound (kurgan) at Turcan even has marker stones at the cardinal points North, East and South! Picture 8 shows the north pointing marker stone. Within this kurgan the calendar array shown in Picture 6 was found. While it can be expected that stone circles were built to observe the heavens, it is harder to see why a burial mound should be so precisely aligned to cardinal points.
8. Yeni Turkan Kurgan showing north marker stone.
In the days before the invention of the compass, knowledge of the movement of the heavens was essential to accurately align monuments and to establish calendars. This mystery seems to hints at a strong belief in an afterlife and the need for the deceased’s souls somehow to travel to and from their mortal resting place. A more famous example of this practice may be seen in the great pyramid of Cheops or Khufu in Egypt, which is accurately aligned to the cardinal points, and has two internal shafts pointing towards the northern celestial pole and the constellation of Orion. While we cannot be sure what this all means, it strongly implies that the movement of the heavens played an important role in ancient belief system and that his ‘scientific’ knowledge of astronomy had mixed with it, elements of religion and belief about his position in the universe. Calendars, stone circles and burial chambers therefore all seem to be culturally connected.
Given the antiquity of calendars and circles and their important for both religious and secular reasons, this hints to a common belief system and likelihood of ancient megalithic connections across the Near East to Azerbaijan. All of this suggests that ancient knowledge and the use of calendars spread throughout Europe, the Near East and the Nile valley from a very early time, demonstrating the robustness and value of the knowledge to the ancients. While calendars could have evolved independently, it is perhaps more likely that this and other knowledge was spread by travelers and ancient traders, - perhaps even along that early ‘Silk Road’ to and/or from the Far East.
With regard to the Far East ancient knowledge transfer is a possibility for here it is interesting to note that dozens of Caucasian mummies have been found dating back some 3000 to 4000 years BCE at Urumchi and Loulen in the Xinjiang province of Western China. These tall fair skinned people lived and were buried in a salt flat in the Tarim basin and became naturally mummified. An example, the ‘Cherchen Man’ was so remarkably well preserved, that his woven woolen clothing still showed vivid colours and patterns demonstrating proficient textile skills which may have been absorbed by the Chinese. Cherchen Man’s and older mummies from Loulen are believed to be Celtic in origin. This indicates that China and the East were not isolated some 4000 years ago, but was in contact with Neolithic Europe.
Ancient abacuses and number system?
Returning to the Shuvalan stone circle and the two arrays, there still seemed to be another puzzle. If we accept that the stone circle and the petroglyph array are considered to be ‘calendars’ of sorts, then it begs the question, - why bother having two arrays side by side? While there may be synergies between a stone circle, as a astronomical observatory measuring relative time and seasons, and the array keeping track of days advancing through the year, to have two separate carved arrays just seemed well - rather odd. Surely one alone would be adequate? With this in mind other explanations were sought.
Due to the intricate arrangement of indentations and interconnecting channels, perhaps there was an application as a counting aid, - to count days and years, or as a sort of abacus or calculator which could have been used for a variety of purposes. But, what stood out as being significant was the number of indentations, - sixty. As we have seen above ‘sixty’ is a very interesting number. It is the foundation of the ancient Sumerian counting system and is believed to have its origins in astronomy and trade. Indeed the sexaguesimal system (base 60) has come down to us through the ages and is the basis upon which today we measure time and space (geometry). Just look at your watch. The 60 minutes is a legacy of the Sumerians, as are the three hundred and sixty degrees that make up a circle. We clearly we owe a great deal to these ancient, imaginative and intrepid people. They are credited as the first people to create great cities and the first civilization, they developed agriculture, the first writing (i.e. cuneiform), gave us the wheel and much more. But curiously their origins remain a mystery.
As noted, the use of ‘sixty’ in astronomy relates to the calendar and time. With trade, its usefulness rests in the fact that it is the lowest number into which the first six integers divide and is also the lowest number divisible by 10 and 12. This makes it very special, so much so that scholars have noted the Sumerians and later the Mesopotamians and Babylonians believe it had magical and religious significance. There are certainly connections between numbers and gods. The most magical number of all for the Sumerians was 3600. This was called sar or saros a word meaning ‘everything’, ‘whole’ and cosmos’. It is from this word that the two Gods Assar and Kisar take their name. These gods in turn gave birth to Anu, - the sky-god, god of heaven and lord of constellations, who is represented by the cuneiform symbol for 60. It seems Anu the great god of the heaven, who was sometimes depicted in art as a jackal, was given the number 60 because of its importance in the Sumerian counting system. Other gods were also given numbers such as the sun god – 20, and the moon god – 30 which no doubt the latter reflects the lunar cycle. An inference here is that the Sumerians did not create their numbers out of their mystical beliefs, but the other way round.
With this insight into the Sumerian counting system, it perhaps sheds some more light on a possible purpose of the Shuvalan array and the stone tablets found at Azeri burial sites, indicating the possibility that the arrays were also of religious significance.
We can see from the map that Azerbaijan is a next door neighbor to ancient Sumer, so it would not be surprising if they shared a similar belief system and had common gods. What is intriguing though, are the relative ages of the Sumerian civilization and the Neolithic cultures in Azerbaijan. Work needs to be done here to date the finds and so explore the potential connections between Neolithic Azerbaijan and Sumer. Who knows, given a similar counting system and presumably similar culture, and if found to predate ancient Sumer then this apparent connection may shed some light on the mystery of the origins of the Sumerians?
Returning to the array again, the arrangement of pits and channels seen in Picture 3 suggests two counting systems. The channels linking the 5th, 10th and 15th holes on the horseshoe, plus the 20th hole suggest the use of base ten numbers. And, if we include the starting and finishing holes on the horseshoe that are connected by channels, and inspect the two inner parallel lines, a pattern emerges grouping units of six indentations together. With the total number of holes being sixty (excluding the enlarged hole) it suggests the possibility of two counting systems so linking base 10 to base 60 numbers. There are strong echoes here then of the Chinese calendar mentioned above. Perhaps mathematicians might care to analyze the dots and interconnecting channels of the arrays to see how best they may be interpreted.
While ancient man had not yet learned how to write, we can clearly see that he clearly knew how to measure and count. With this in mind and as archaeology informs us that stone circles are recognized as ancient meeting places, might it be possible that some trade and perhaps education was conducted there? Perhaps. Indeed it is poignant to think that stone circles also functioned as a Stone Age school where elders or ‘priests’ taught children how to count. Who knows, but stone circles are evidently not uncommon in Azerbaijan for many other examples have been found by Abbas and I.
Arrays and Board Games – Wider Connections.
Having explored the possibilities of the array being a calendar and to an extent a counting device, another consideration was that it might be a sort of board game. After all, the ancients were anatomically modern and no different from his twenty first century descendants. And like us, no doubt, as the Gobustan petroglyphs of dancers tell us, he enjoyed having fun. Exploring this possibility through the internet, I was fortunate to contact Walter Dreiger, a Canadian and an enthusiast of ancient games. He pointed me towards the website of the Petrie Museum in London. What I saw there was fascinating.
9. Theban Board (copyright of the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, UCL)
On display in the museum was a board game that had been found in a tomb at Thebes in ancient Egypt. The game is described Sir William Flinders Petrie, a renowned Egyptologist, as the ‘Game of 58 holes’. Subsequently however it has been called the ‘Hounds and Jackal’ or ‘Dogs and Jackals’ board game, as it was found complete with ten pegs carved to represent five dogs and five jackals. Picture 9 shows the Theban board.
Professor Petrie described in his volume, ‘Objects of Daily Use’, locations where similar boards were found, and how the game might be played. He noted that boards had been found at Thebes in 9th Dynasty Egypt (i.e. 2135 to 1986 yrs BC), at Gezer in modern Israel and at Susa in Iran. The map below shows the location of the finds. These relics have been described as having human and/or a frog shapes and today may also be found in Cairo and in the Louvre in Paris. Pictures 10 shows other examples of this game, including a reproduction board.
Petrie describes the Theban board has having :
‘5 pegs with jackals and 5 with dogs heads, showing that 5 belonged to each player; as the pieces were different in shape they were intended to be intermixed on the board.
The holes are symmetrically arranged, and the board has some resemblance to a human figure. The holes are divided up into groups, each 5th hole being marked. Going up one side at the 10th hole is a cross passage to the 25th hole in the descending middle row. There is also a line linking the 7th and 29th holes. These suggest that on reaching these holes there was a jump forward or backward. The linking lines of the 10th to the 25th seems as if derived from a form where these holes came together, as in the Cairo and Gezer boards and in the Louvre frog. Some boards have a pool at the 20th hole top middle place.
Sadly the actual instructions how to play this game are not known, though it does look like it is a cross between snakes and ladders and backgammon. With so many board games found it suggests H&J was a very popular game, popular enough to be taken into the afterlife.
The points of similarity between the Egyptian board and the carved array’s at the stone circle are remarkable. Though Petrie describes game as having 58 holes, it is evident that the boards are closely related. Inspection of the Theban board in the Petrie museum example shows a larger hole at the top of the board, - which he did not count as a hole. This in effect would make 58 +1 holes, while the Azeri Shuvalan example has 60+1 holes. Other features in common from the Azeri examples and those described by Petrie include:
• the presence of a central enlarged hole,
• a horseshoe or ‘U’ shaped outer series of indentations with 39 holes.
• two parallel straight inner lines.
• a similar total of 60 dots.
• similar sized arrays.
• interconnecting channels between holes.
• examples of the array / game found in tombs as grave goods.
And areas where they differ include:
• the Azeri board is either carved into bedrock or on sandstone tablets and would require the use of counters, not pegs.
• The ornate versions found elsewhere are hand carved in ivory, or made from clay with deeper holes to accommodate pegs. This suggests greater sophistication and /or use primarily as a game.
• The channeling in the Azeri bedrock examples at stone circle is more elaborate and slightly differs from Egyptian example.
There are sufficient points of commonality between each of the arrays to suggest that they have a common origin. While the Egyptian H&J board has been dated to around 4000 years old, unfortunately it is not possible at this stage to determine exact age of the Azeri versions. However, we do know that two Azeri examples were found in 'kurgans'. This places them within the ‘Kura-Arax’ culture and possibly provides a tentative dating in the early Bronze Age ca 3500 - 2300BC. To date, insufficient archaeological dating has been done to accurately determine the age of the finds, though pottery found at the grave sites could be dated to resolve this question. As for the two arrays in the bedrock at the stone circle, they may belong to this period though we cannot be certain for they may be a later addition, - like a sort of graffiti. Consequently, without clear archaeological dating evidence, it is difficult to tell relative ages though it would appear that the Azeri finds may be some 1000 years than the Egyptian Theban example.
If so, then it seems reasonable to suggest that the game developed or evolved out of an earlier form such as the megalithic Shuvalan array. In the process of its evolution, the array may have lost two holes from the internal lines, reducing each from eleven to ten indentations each. This is one possibility, however it is important to remain open minded about this as there may be other explanations. For example, it could be that the Near East H&J arrays are not derived from solar based calendars but that they may have a use as lunar calendars. With 58 +1 holes in the array this could be interpreted as two lunar cycles of 29 and 30 days, - a good match. If this is the case then it would mean that two different arrays existed: one of 59 indentations used to track lunar cycles and one of 61 indentations to monitor the solar calendar. Here the similarity between the Azeri and other Near East arrays may be accounted for due to cultural transfer and the remarkable coincidence of both cycles reflecting a number approximating 60.
With both the sun and the moon connected to the number 60, it is no wonder that the ancients considered this number to be special, and perhaps not so surprising that they called their most important god Anu after this number. With Anu sometimes represented in art as a Jackal, this is yet another intriguing coincidence and may well prove with further clue in any search for the potential origin of the Hounds and Jackals board game.
Discussion.
It is evident in this article are that the Neolithic – Early Bronze Age man in Azerbaijan was inventive, highly skilled, numerate and was in contact with neighboring and even more distant countries, sharing aspects of culture and knowledge from prehistoric times. He watched the heavens and was in tune with its cycles and this allowed him perhaps to learn how to count, to make solar and lunar calendars and to build monuments for the dead in such a way that they were oriented to cardinal points.
While many of the observations and interpretations in this article are best guesses, the discovery of the Shuvalan ‘rock-art’ array, which strongly resembles other ancient Near East games, is good evidence of cultural exchange over large distances and time. It is even feasible that through the use of a similar calendric counting systems that a connection to the Far East via the Silk Route is also a possibility. This remains to be seen.
Numeric rock art, and other carvings which consistently demonstrate orientation or alignment, unlike the more artistic and unfathomable carvings we have observed elsewhere, do seem to carry information that is potentially open to interpretation. What the abstract rock art meant to the people who used them we can never be sure. But with further study, meaning and significance could be derived from the numeric type carvings to bring them into mainstream anthropology and archaeology. While carvings are currently regarded as a curiosity by scientists, we feel they have much to offer to enhance cultural heritage. Those in Azerbaijan are from a period right at the beginning of civilization and deserve special study. Other fascinating carvings we have found expand on this theme, and will be the subjects of later articles. However, a key question that needs to be answered is when were the carvings made? Knowing this would help put the finds in context and enable much more meaningful interpretation.
It is our hope that the observations made in this article and the questions raised encourage others to take a greater interest in the archaeological wealth of Azerbaijan. For Abbas and me, as amateur archaeologists it continues to be a fascinating pastime and one that continues to surprise.
One point of caution though that we have repeatedly stressed, - and do so again. Archaeology in Azerbaijan is under threat due to developments and is insufficiently protected. The stone circle at Suveillan which may be described as the Stonehenge of Azerbaijan could easily be destroyed by careless building activity, and much damage has already been done. It has to be emphasized that such important sites are protected for the benefit of future generations and world cultural heritage. Azerbaijan has much to offer and has many untapped archaeological riches. These need to be identified, protected and studied for the benefit of science, education and Azeri if not world heritage.
Ronnie Gallagher