Archaeologia Baltica

A geometrical analysis was performed using CAD (Computer Aided Design) tools on the plans of the nine Tholos Tombs of Mycenae and of the “Treasury of Atreus” in particular. Dedicated parameters were established in order to classify the main common geometrical features of the tombs. The analyses were based on a comparison between the geometrical proportions found on the plans and those of the Squaring Triads. It appears that Mycenaean architects made use of both Perfect (Pythagorean) and Quasi-Perfect combinations of integers. The Treasury of Atreus stands out by exhibiting all the major geometric proportions identifiable with those belonging to a series of Pythagorean Triads reported by Diophantus and known to the Mesopotamians. The unit of length for the Atreus Tholos Tomb coincides with the Lagash Gudea cubit of 0.496 m.

The paper suggests that The Book of Esther contains astronomical and chronological information associated with the reign of Artaxerxes II. It further investigates a play on dates concerning an intercalary 12th Hebrew month and the eve of Passover, and possible mathematical references to Ancient Near Eastern and Jewish calendars.

Ancient cultures of the northern hemisphere created symbols, myths, and rituals that related deer to certain astronomical phenomena, to cosmological and cosmogonical ideas, and to hunting calendars. From their knowledge of the animal’s appearance, behaviour, and phenology they derived conceptions of power, fertility, creation and renewal, life and death, and psychosomatic transformation during a shamanistic seance.