Can you believe it? The moon in ancient times probably did not exist, because it is difficult to find traces of the moon in numerous myths and ancient books. For example, the moon described in the "Classic of Mountains and Seas" dates back to after the Xuanyuan Yellow Emperor, while the chronicles of the Mayan civilization record Venus and Mars, but magically skip the bright moon. Why is it that the moon in the sky is so obvious, the big and bright, the ancients did not mention it, but the fainter Mars and Venus became the focus of their writings? What's going on here? Ask for attention in a circle and three times, and please share this ** with more friends. The story begins right away.
In the legend of the Yao people in China, there are only the sun and stars in the sky, and the earth at night is immersed in inky black. People and animals took refuge for fear of the darkness, until one day, a blazing boulder appeared in the night sky, which the Yao people likened to a strangely shaped mountain. Digging deeper into these descriptions, we may arrive at a chilling conjecture that the Moon may have been so close to Earth in ancient times that it could be reached by building a tower.
The Yao people's description of the moon can only be observed at close range. Imagine magnifying the Moon, located 380,000 kilometers away, to clearly see its valleys and jutting mountains – isn't that what the Yao people call "seven edges and eight corners"? The ancients did not have modern observation equipment, so it was obvious that they could not see the topography of the lunar surface.
Modern people know that the moon is spherical, but if the moon was once very close to the earth, it would be difficult for people to visually perceive it as a spherical shape, but instead feel like a mountain. This further led to the interesting hypothesis that the "heavens" in ancient people may have referred to the moon. In ancient expressions of "heaven", the "big" and "human" in the oracle bone inscriptions, whether on the side or front, often carry an object on their heads. Although some people believe that this symbolizes the sun, there is a clear point in the word "day" in the oracle bone inscription, so it is likely that this image refers to the moon. If we integrate the moon into the interpretation of the word Tianzi, we may be able to unravel more ancient secrets.
Looking at the oracle, we seem to have discovered the ancient trajectory of the Moon: at first it was so close to our Earth, and then slowly began to move away. In this transition, there is a significant connection point. As the junction disappeared, the Moon became more and more distant, eventually forming the globular objects we now know.
This process is strikingly consistent with human historical observations. When the Moon is so close, people can only recognize it as a vast expanse of land; However, as it gradually moved away, people gradually realized that the moon was originally a sphere. So, this change is finally recorded in a circular symbol.
The mythical Gonggong hitting the mountain and Nuwa mending the sky can be understood as an ancient interpretation of the gradual estrangement of the moon and the earth after it lost its point of contact. The anomaly on the moon may have prompted Nuwa to come forward to "repair", which is the well-known story of mending the sky.
There is a saying that the sky has fallen, but if the sky is the atmosphere and there is nothing, how can it fall, and it is only possible when the day is indeed the existence of an entity.
Perhaps there really was a huge thing in the sky in ancient times.
With the increase of the distance between the moon and the earth, the moon gradually moved away from the earth, and when people stood on the earth and looked up, they found that the sky that people had been accustomed to at that time no longer existed, that is, the sky became empty, so there was the word sky. Myths around the world have similar records. According to the legend of the Indian tribes of Colombia, the moon did not exist in ancient times, and the fear of the night drove a chieftain to fly into the night sky, eventually turning into the moon and bringing light to mankind. In the southern part of ancient Greece, there was a kingdom called Ankatia, where legend has it that there was only the sun in the sky, and it was not until after a great flood that the moon first appeared in the sky.
Connecting these scattered myths, we can construct a similar hypothesis: in ancient times, the moon, which the ancients called "heaven", was given a new name - the moon because certain anomalies began to move away from the ground until it stabilized in its current position. However, because these stories are so exaggerated, they are considered myths by modern people. Is this the real history? Although there is no scientific confirmation of these contents, let's enjoy them with the mentality of a story for the time being. So do you think the moon suddenly appeared in the night sky?