Our Unknown Ancient Past

The Pleiades is the most obvious cluster to the naked eye in the night sky. This Greek name, according to the Oxford dictionary, probably derives from plein ("to sail") because of the cluster's importance in delimiting the sailing season in the Mediterranean Sea: "the season of navigation began with their heliacal rising". The earliest-known depiction of the Pleiades is the Nebra sky disk, a Northern German Bronze Age artifact of 1600 BC. According to Greek mythology the Pleiades were seven sisters, whose father was the Titan Atlas. Those were Maia (mother of Hermes), Electra, Taygete, Alcyone, Celaeno, Sterope and Merope, the youngest of the Pleiades who faded away because she was becoming mortal as a result of having married Sisyphus. In my book I discussed how these seven daughters of Atlas "gave birth to prominent sons, others of which became founders of nations and others founders of cities", as Diodorus Siculus put it. I also noted the suspiciou