"Winter solstice" Quotes from Famous Books
... downwards. He had a magnificent temple in insular Tyre, founded by Hiram, to which gifts streamed from all countries, especially at the great feasts. The solar character of this deity appears especially in the annual feast of his awakening shortly after the winter solstice (Joseph. C. Apion. i. 18). At Tyre, as among the Hebrews, Baal had his symbolical pillars, one of gold and one of smaragdus, which, transported by phantasy to the farthest west, are still familiar to us as the Pillars of Hercules. The worship of the Tyrian Baal was ... — Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... sixty days after the winter Solstice the Star Arcturus rose just at Sunset: and thence it follows that Hesiod flourished about an hundred years after the death of Solomon, or in the Generation or Age next after the Trojan war, ... — The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended • Isaac Newton
... determining the new year, and for fixing the dates of certain other ceremonial observances. By the aid of such devices as the native priests have at their command they are enabled to fix the date of the winter solstice with a fair degree of accuracy. Such rude determination of time was probably an aboriginal invention, and may have furnished the motive in other cases for placing stone pillars in such unusual positions. The explanation ... — A Study of Pueblo Architecture: Tusayan and Cibola • Victor Mindeleff and Cosmos Mindeleff
... real enemy, if such an enemy had been approaching. Candles were blazing at all the windows. The public places were as bright as at noonday. All the great avenues were barricaded. More than twenty thousand pikes and muskets lined the streets. The late daybreak of the winter solstice found the whole City still in arms. During many years the Londoners retained a vivid recollection of what they called the Irish Night. When it was known that there had been no cause of alarm, attempts were made ... — The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay |