Genesis 11: Part 4 Rectangular Model

In my last post, I looked at the way we could lay at Genesis 11 in a half-circle model.

Another way would be to look at it as a rectangle. If we take the table below, we can overlay this onto a curcus.

Ancient Curcus

Curcus was a term coined by William Stukeley, an early archaeologist who worked on the Stonehenge site. He found a rectangular area north of Stonehenge and suggested it was used as a Roman chariot racing track or curcus.

We see these curcuses at Neolithic sites all over the World. Notable examples are in the Arabian peninsula and at Carnac in northern France.

[a site from Arabia]

[Carnac, northern France]

I believe the way the ancients used this was to start counting from one direction, get to the end and then return back to the beginning. Thereby completing the cycle. I’m not sure whether they used these numbers in Genesis 11, but it at least they gives us some indication about how it could have been used.

Stone Counting

I believe the Neolithic people would use stones to count the days and therefore keep count of where they were in an astronomical calendar.

On the first day of the calendar, they’d place a stone in the beginning of each cycle. They add stones after each day, and when they eventually got to the end of the cycle, the next day they’d start removing a stone each evening.

They would continue this until there were no stones left. And at which point the planet would be back to the same point in the sky.

This was probably part of their cultural life and probably tied into festivals.

The next post will look at Solar and Lunar eclipses.