Orion, Ophiuchus, the Silver Gate & the Journey of Souls
Astronomical phenomena as tracked through millennia of myth
The astronomical mythos around Orion is known to be many millennia old and impossibly muddied to us in the 21st century. The story starts a surprisingly long time ago. A study on a 35,000 year-old ivory carving — a man with upraised arms on one side and 86 notches in columns on the other — tells a lucid potential background story. The man’s figure is strikingly similar, though notedly not identical, to the constellation’s, even sporting either a natural or manmade vertical groove where Orion’s Sword would be, and possibly holding a torch or another tall object in one hand. But the best evidence comes from the 86 notches on the back of the carving. 86 corresponds to the number of days that Betelgeuse, Orion’s most famous star, would’ve been visible in the sky at the time.
Coincidence, of course, is never outside possibility, and many say that the figure seems to be portraying a salute or worship rather than a precise star chart. But the historical connections only begin there. In France’s Lascaux Cave, a 17,000 year-old depiction of a bull features several dots corresponding to the positions of major stars in Taurus. Behind the bull, a small dot cluster seems to mirror the Pleiades. Facing it, a faded figure with apparent…
