Ancient Astrologers board found in Illyrian Cave Ivory fragments of a Hellenistic astrologers board. The find was recovered from a cave in southern Croatia that was sealed off towards the end of the first century BCE after having been used as a sanctuary by the local Illyrians. The board is the oldest such object known to exist. A research team has discovered what may be the oldest astrologers board, engraved with zodiac signs and used to determine a persons horoscope. Dating back more than 2,000 years, the board was discovered in Croatia, in a cave overlooking the Adriatic Sea. The surviving portion of the board consists of 30 ivory fragments engraved with signs of the zodiac. Researchers spent years digging them up and putting them back together. Inscribed in a Greco-Roman style, they include images of Cancer, Gemini and Pisces. At some point it may have been put on a ship heading through the Adriatic Sea, an important route for commerce that the cave overlooks. The people who lived in Croatia at the time were called Illyrians. Although ancient writers tended to have a low opinion of them, archaeological evidence suggests that they interacted with nearby Greek colonies and were very much a part of the Mediterranean world. Another possibility is that the Illyrians traded for or stole the astrology board from someone, not fully understanding what it was used for. The board, along with the drinking vessels, would then have been placed as an offering to a deity worshipped in the cave whose identity is unknown. According to Stašo Forenbaher, a researcher with the Institute for Anthropological Research in Zagreb whose former girlfriend (now wife) tunneled her way into the sealed-off chamber in 1999, the broken artifacts around the stalagmite suggest the chamber was a sacred space which the locals used to sacrifice to a deity. “There is definitely a possibility that this astrologer’s board showed up as an offering together with other special things that were either bought or plundered from a passing ship,” Forenbaher said. He pointed out that the drinking vessels found in the cave were carefully chosen. They were foreign-made, and only a few examples of cruder amphora storage vessels were found with them. “It almost seems that somebody was bringing out wine there, pouring it and then tossing the amphora away because they [the amphora] were not good enough for the gods, they were not good enough to be deposited in the sanctuary,” Forenbaher said.
Posted on: Tue, 09 Sep 2014 22:44:10 +0000