Search

I will attempt to demonstrate that the ‘sacred triangles based on the solar angle’ hypothesis cannot be regarded as a serious scientific proposition because it seems uncorroborated by any solid evidence. It is more an example of circular reasoning, which entails supporting the idea that the ancient Slavs knew about the obliquity of the ecliptic by pointing to the purported existence of ‘sacred triangles’, while also proving the existence of these ‘sacred triangles’ by demonstrating the ancient Slavs were familiar with the value for the obliquity. Certain structures portrayed as gnomons in ancient Slavic contexts are shown to have been overzealously interpreted by modern scholars. This is revealed in a detailed analysis of several of these ‘gnomons’. Finally, it is observed that the ‘sacred triangles’ scholarship engages with neither the modern history of science nor modern studies of myth, the very disciplines that could provide the scholars involved with a better perspective on the subjects to which they are so passionately committed.

A number of interconnected scholarly publications discussing the phenomenon of the so-called sacred triangles have appeared lately. The authors who believe in the existence of this phenomenon argue that such triangles are based on a precisely determined value of the obliquity of the ecliptic. However, a detailed analysis of some of the key tenets discussed in their publications has revealed the gratuitous nature of this hypothesis, as well as its fundamentally unscientific character and the methodological flaws inherent in its overall development. Especially worrying is the falling into the pitfall of circular argumentation (circulus vitiosus) by the authors adhering to this hypothesis, their avoidance of any dialogue with relevant scholarly literature and their questionable understanding of fundamental phenomena upon which their hypothesis is built. A glaring example of the lattermost is the misunderstanding of the obliquity of the ecliptic on the part of the adherents of the so-called sacred triangles hypothesis.