On Nightfall...

Slavoj Zizek, "When God Cries: Hamlet and the Art of World-Shattering Change"

At the core, ancient myths serve as cosmic allegories, reflecting humanity's attempts to comprehend and chart the movements of celestial bodies. Different cultures, from the Inuit of the Arctic to the Egyptians along the Nile, embedded their understanding of the heavens within their mythological frameworks. These myths encapsulated critical astronomical phenomena, chiefly the precession of the equinoxes—a slow, gradual shift in the orientation of Earth's rotational axis, which significantly influences global climate and the timing of seasons over millennia. The precession of the equinoxes holds paramount significance in ancient cosmology, as its recognition indicates a highly advanced level of observational astronomy.

The ancient scholars knew that the stars do not remain fixed in the sky but shift their positions over extended periods. This knowledge was meticulously chronicled and preserved through myth. For instance, the Great Year, a concept famously associated with Plato, is a reflection of this precessional cycle, illustrating an ancient awareness of astronomical cycles spanning approximately 25,920 years, a period during which the Earth's axis completes a full rotation. In this way, myths from various cultures can be seen as different layers and facets of a unified astronomical science, each story illuminating aspects of celestial phenomena and their impact on human life. Thus, ancient myths are not only cultural artifacts but also sophisticated vessels carrying astronomical knowledge across generations. The true enigma is not if there is a deep cosmic scientific insight beneath the myths but exactly the opposite: why does this scientific insight about planets assume in its mythic appearance a very precise familial form: after a king is killed by his brother, who then marries the queen, the king's son fakes madness to gain time for revenge... As Freud repeatedly pointed out, the true secret of a dream (the unconscious desire staged in it) does not reside in the dream's thought but in the form this thought assumes.