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For millennia , solar eclipse have inspired awe , wonder and concern . After all , it ’s not often thattwilight descends in the middle of the day . And just as we contrive for and anticipate their happening — like the totalsolar eclipsethat will be visible to millions of North Americans onApril 8 — ancient cultures across the Earth , from the Mayans to the ancient Greeks , developed their own mythologies and traditions around eclipse .
So what did these people recollect when they saw the sun darkening during the daylight ?
Solar eclipses have inspired fear and wonder in humans for thousands of years.
On a airfoil level , multitude from ancient cultures live exactly what they were look at . " Anybody who pays attention to the sky would be well aware that the moon is block the sun,“Anthony Aveni , a professor of anthropology and astronomy at Colgate University in New York , say Live Science . But the significance of that event would have been very different to ancient people . " Cultures other than our own , both present and preceding , had a very unlike take on the natural domain , " Aveni add .
Many ancient civilisation believed what materialize in the sky chew over past , present and future events on Earth . That was particularly reliable forthe Maya — a civilization that reached its point in Central America during the first millenary A.D. and whose descendants live throughout the populace today . The ancient Maya viewed length in outer space and length in time as one in the same , explained Aveni . In other words , gaze far into the cosmos acted as a kind of portal to the yesteryear .
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An etching by French artist Pierre Brebiette (c. 1615 - 42) depicting two ancient philosophers contemplating an eclipse.
When the ancient Mayans viewed occultation , they saw what looked like the Sun Myung Moon eating the sun , Aveni said . They interpreted that as a prospect into the cannibalistic practices of their ancestors , which had long since been eliminated by Mayan laws . " So for the Maya , the eclipse , which happens in cosmic blank , becomes a admonisher that the social order is always in peril of start out out of balance , " Aveni explain in a recent talk at Colgate University ’s Ho Tung Visualization Lab .
The Maya were n’t the only the great unwashed who thought they saw the Dominicus being eaten . In ancient Chinese mythology , solar eclipsesoccurred when a dragon attempt to devour the Sunday . In response , people would crowd together into the streets , sleep together drum to scare the dragon away , grant toNASA . One ancient Chinese record — likely advert to a solar eclipse that occurred in 2134 B.C. — reported that " the sun and the Moon did not touch harmoniously . " harmonize toNASA , the cacophony on the street alerted the emperor to what was happening up above . infuriate that the two court astronomers had failed to predict the event , he had them both beheaded .
For the ancient Greeks , eclipses were a sign of the god ' displeasure with humans ; in revenge , the Lord’s Day would abandon Earth . The word occultation in reality comes from the Greek word " ekleipsis , " meaning " desertion " or " a forsaking , " according toMerriam - Webster . In response to a solar eclipse in 647 B.C. , the poetArchilochus pen : " There is nothing beyond hope , nothing that can be sworn impossible , nothing grand , since Zeus , father of the Olympians , made dark from mid - day , hiding the light of the shine Sun , and tender fear came upon men . "
A total solar eclipse visible over the Greek Temple of Apollo in Turkey on March 29, 2006.
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Modern science serve us understandhow and when eclipses hap , but ancient cultures near the cosmos with a fundamentally dissimilar lens than us . They were turn to nature to understand human society . " What ’s nonsense to you , may not be nonsense to another culture , " Aveni say .
And in many way , our reaction today may not be so different . Even today , Aveni see people respond to eclipses with a mix of curiosity and fear : " Fear because this is something extraordinary — this weird twilight in the day . "
