NPO: Marine Culture Research Association AGM

The general meeting took place after the lecture at the Ryukyu Shimpo Hall in Naha, but the lecture was much more exciting than the meeting.

Another mystery!

One of the artifacts that turned up from Yonaguni and talked about at the lecture is a pillow-sized rock with a relief carving of what appears to be a water buffalo. Why a water buffalo? They are not now, nor never have been, native to the island.

A prosaic solution: Taiwan is just around the oceanic corner from Yonaguni, and there are water buffalo on Taiwan. Maybe the model for the relief carving came from Taiwan.

A more romantic solution: the model was not a real animal. What if it were modeled after the astrological Taurus?

There is a branch of archeology called archeo-astronomy. This is the study of ancient cultures that had a strong bias toward astrology, from the point of view of references to the constellations in the culture.

For instance, early Christians in the Mediterranean area used fish symbols. At the time of the birth of christianity, the spring equinox occured in the sign of the fish, Pisces. That may be a reason for the use of a fish symbol, and some archeo-astronomers believe that is the reason behind the wrath of Moses when he came down from the mountain and saw his followers worshipping a golden calf. He knew, if the ordinary people didn't, that the sun had moved on from Taurus through Aries to Pisces.

For another example, cows are sacred to the Hindu faith. Bulls are prominent in Hindu sculpture. One reason for this may be that the Hindu faith is believed to have begun some four millennia ago, when the spring equinox was in the sign of the bull, Taurus.

So. Might this water buffalo in relief be a clue to the age of Yonaguni? Or is it just a stone-age postcard from Taiwan?