Today is the December Solstice, the day on which the sun reaches its southernmost excursion on the celestial sphere.
In the Northern hemisphere, where it marks winter's dawn, people have observed the solstice for 10,000 years. In a 02013 paper, a group of archaeologists found that the Warren Field site in Scotland served as a lunisolar calendar synchronized to the solstice. DOI:10.11141/ia.34.1
Other neolithic solstice monuments include Newgrange in Ireland and Stonehenge in England, both of which began their construction around 3100 BCE.
A millennium later, the builders of the Precinct of Amun-Re at the Karnak Temple complex in Egypt also designed their space with deference to the Winter solstice.
In the Americas, many petroglyphs are connected to the solstice, with the Sun Dagger drawn by the Ancestral Pueblo people in Chaco Canyon being the best known example.
Winter solstice feasts are some of the oldest still-celebrated rituals around the world. In Iran, Yaldā Night commemorates the longest night of the year with poetry & food, while in China the Dongzhi Festival celebrates the solstice with colorful rice balls & large family meals.
Whatever you do to mark the solstice, you are connecting with a human lineage of time-keeping that stretches back ten thousand years. Here’s to many more solstices to come.
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