ABSTRACT

This paper proposes a method to find out the units of length used by the Slavs prior to their Christianization. The method relies on a previous research of the tripartite structure of pre-Christian Slavic sacred sites discovered by Andrej Pleterski. Such spatial structures represent myth in space and are in correlation with the central Slavic myth of the divine battle between Perun and Veles as presented by Radoslav Katičić. By measuring the angles which Sun takes through the year cycle and comparing them with the angles between the sacred sites, the pagan priests had means to accurately determine the days of religious festivals and the calendar in general. The angles likely had an important role, but this article tries to examine weather the absolute values of the distance between the sacred sites were also important. The method relies on the mathematical properties of arithmetic and geometric sequences. If for some of the inital parameters of the sequences the probability function for a given distribution of sacred sites in some area shows to be significantly smaller than the average, then it is an indication that the respective distribution is not random. The parameters in such case may point to the system of measures used during the creation of the structure. The proposed method really detected some common modules, but in this phase it is only experimental and still can not be used as a proof of common Pan-Slavic system of units.

KEY WORDS

myth in space, metrology, archeoastronomy, spatial analysis, probability distribution

CLASSIFICATION

ACM:	D.1.5, G.3, G.4, J.2
JEL:	Z00
PACS:	01.65.+g, 89.65.Lm