Recovering the Lost World,
A Saturnian Cosmology --Jno Cook
Part 12: The seventh century BC and the start of History.

[Table of Contents]

$Revision: 23.5 $
Contents of this chapter: [Dating The Events] [Hour of the Thunderbolt] [The Start of History] [A New Order of the Sky] [The Sky in Disarray] [A Change in the Equinox] [The Star in the Crescent] [The Sibylline Star Wars] [Hezekiah and Babylon] [Philosophy, Religion, Science] [The new Religions] [Philosophy and Science] [Holding on to the Past] [Endnotes]

This chapter deals with the world following 120 years of electrical contacts between Earth and Mars, from 806 BC to 687 BC, and the subsequent flare-up of Venus in 685 BC. This is an era which will see the start of history, science, and philosophy, and the genesis of contemporary religions. All four are the direct result of the events of 685 BC. The quieting of the skies after 685 BC affected how humans saw the world, and we see immediate attempts to reach a new understanding, a science not based on the willful and arbitrary actions of the Gods. At the same time, a much larger religious conceptualization comes forward, based on a power beyond the observable Universe. But first, dates for the year 685 BC.

"From the first, humanity had to be religious. It is still so.
Further, it will be religious so long as it will exist.
Religion is ultimately hope, and humans live on hope."
-- Alfred de Grazia "The Divine Succession" (1983)

Dating the Events of 685 BC

I'll briefly describe the four dates of the events of the year 685 BC and how these were derived. A more extensive derivation will be found in Chapter 16, "The Chilam Balam books" and Chapter 18, "Olmec Alignments." This requires a familiarity with the Mesoamerican calendar, described in Chapter 15, "The Maya Calendar," and Mesoamerican thinking, some of which is discussed in Chapter 14, "Language and subjective consciousness". The dates can all be derived from Mesoamerican site alignments, which is discussed in Chapter 18, "Olmec Alignments," and partially verified from information from the eastern Mediterranean region. The dates, on the Gregorian calendar, are as follows..

• Venus and Mercury start to blaze, June 15
• Jupiter develops a coma, July 9
• Jupiter releases a plasmoid bolt, July 14
• Jupiter's plasmoids lands at the Sun, July 25

In the later Chapter 18, "Olmec Alignments," I have determined the three previous dates when the world was destroyed and recreated (in 2349 BC, 1492 BC, and 747 BC), from site alignments in Veracruz and the Valley of Mexico. (Alignments of the sites to mountains or vocanoes.) For 13 sites which were considered, 20 alignments can be assigned to Sep 8, 2349 BC (or the later equivalent for the setting of the Pleiades), 16 alignments can be assigned to April 19, 1492 BC, and 10 alignments can be assigned to February 28, 747 BC. This is an astounding series of coincidences.

Thus when I started to find additional alignments to July 9 (4 or 5 instances), July 14 (5 instances), and July 25 (7 or 8 instances), they could not be ignored. Additionally, August 12 started to show up. August 12th or 13th was a retrocalculated date for the "second creation," probably first used at La Venta, and then by the very influencial city of Teotihuacan, where it was achieved with an alignment of the primary axis of the site. There may be other alignments like that, but I do not have axis information on other sites. The additional alignments, by the way, occur at sites dating in their construction to after 600 BC. Details below.

The following lists the dates in reverse order, for once the concluding date is found, the other dates can be found in reference to that.

... ending date, July 25th

The first inkling that July 25th may have been an important date in Mesoamerica was the fact that the Maya celebrated the following day as 'new year's day' at the time of the Spanish invasion. The date is mentioned by Landa, and was apparently set at the Maya site of Edzna in the eastern Yucatan, where a vertical gnomen has been found, set to show the overhead passage of the Sun on July 25th. Edzna is at the same latitude as the city of Teotihuacan in the Valley of Mexico, where one of the site alignments (to a mountain) is also for July 25th. July 26 was the start of a seasonal (agricultural) calendar. There was also an annual 'Haab' calendar, which, however, moved a day backward in time every four years.

The importance of the date of July 25th can also be suggested from the fact that Book 10 of the "Chilam Balam" makes only one error in the recollection of the 7000 year history of celestial events, and that is to force the assignment of July 26th to the event of 2349 BC (which we know as the flood of Noah), by reassigning the event to an incorrect year (actually to an incorrect Katun and Tun). The 'flood' of 2349 BC, known to the Maya as the "third creation," was very important, as can be shown from the continued iconographic references in sculptures 3000 years later. Having experienced the end of an era on July 25th, 685 BC, it became necessary to prove that all previous eras had also ended on July 25th.

If July 25th is accepted as the day that the plasmoid from Jupiter landed at the Sun, and brought quiet to Venus and Mercury, ending, in fact, a 120 year period of high planetary activity, then other dates and time spans will segue easily into the event dates of 685 BC. Some of these involve the changes undertaken at the Mesoamerican site of Monte Alban, which I will not relate here (but see Chapter 18).

One item I should mention, as additional verification for July 25th, is a cryptic remark found in Book 10 of the Maya "Books of the Chilam Balam," even though this depends on a familiarity with Maya philosophical concepts with respect to time (Chapter 14) and requires a knowledge of the Long Count calendar (Chapter 15). The "Chilam Balam" reads..

"(After) three years was the time when he said he did not come to create Bolon Dzacab [Mars] as the god in [of] hell."

The "three years" is here misunderstood from the original glyphic book sources. It is not a 'Tun' (a 360 day period), nor a Haab round (a 365 day period), but a Tzolkin round (a 260 day period). Additionally the interval is counted inclusively from the completion of a Tzolkin round to the completion of two additional rounds, resulting in the statement that three 'years' had passed, not two. In actuality, of course, it was 2 times 260 days. In all four instances in the "Chilam Balam" where intervals of time are presented, the counting is inclusive.

The three years are thus two Tzolkin cycles of 260 days, so that the actual interval is 520 days. July 26, 685 BC on the Gregorian calendar is 6.3.4.5.16 9-Yax 1-Cib on the Long Count calendar. Two Tzolkin cycles earlier falls on February 22, 686 BC (Gregorian), on the Long Count date of 6.3.2.15.16 14-Uo 1-Cib. Checking an ephemeris program reveals that Mars and Earth are in line with the Sun on that day (March 1, Julian), except, of course, the ephemeris shows Mars outside the orbit of Earth, whereas, as I have presumed, Mars would have shown up on the day-side of Earth. This is the fifth time Mars closed in on Earth's orbit since (and including) 747 BC. (I am here using the concept of 'completion' of an event, and have thus selected July 26th, not July 25th.)

There would be no other near contacts with Mars, for as Mars appeared near Earth this fifth time, Jupiter ("he") commanded that Mars was to be removed from the neighborhood of Earth.

Mesoamerica had understood that the plasmoid lightning bolt from Jupiter had been destined for Mars, which had stood in the sky just west of the Sun on July 15th, and remained there through July 25th. The above quoted lines from the "Chilam Balam" certainly go to prove this. The actual landing at the Sun had not been seen. What we see in the quoted lines is a scribe delighted at the fact that the planetary Gods adhered to the cycles of the Tzolkin. The exact measure of two Tzolkin cycles between the last sighting of Mars and the delivery of the lightning bolt, went to prove the effectiveness of the high science of the Tzolkin calendar once again. [note 1]

... starting date of the flare-up of Venus, June 15th

The starting date of the nova event of Venus in 685 BC can be found by collation of some disparate data. My first clue was a comment by Dennis Tedlock, translator of the Quiche Maya "Popol Vuh." He is commenting on a passage where the hero twins of the "Popol Vuh," Hunahpu and Xbalanque, willingly jump into the oven of the lords of Xibalba (the underworld). In the "Popol Vuh" the lords attempt to trick the twins into jumping into an oven. The twins see through the trick, and respond as follows..

"You'll never put that one over on us. Don't we know what our death is, you lords? Watch!" they said, then they faced each other. They grabbed each other by the hands and went head first into the oven.

Little did the lords of Xibalba know that in sacrificing themselves, the twins were destined to become the Sun and the Moon. Mesoamerica understood that both the Sun and the Moon had made their first appearances in the remote past, the Sun in 4200 BC, the Moon in 2349 BC. Connecting an event of 685 BC to events thousands of years earlier was not a problem to the Maya, especially in a popular narrative which had already existed since the Classical period (AD 400 to AD 900), as can be ascertained from depictions on vases from this period. [note 2]

In the "Popol Vuh" the twins Hunahpu and Xbalanque are understood to be Venus and Mars. This much is certain from the story of their birth, and can be collaborated from comments in the "Chilam Balam." But this is not correct. In actuality the two planets which were seen in flames in 685 BC were Venus and Mercury. Hunahpu definitely is Venus. As Tedlock notes, he is named after the first day of the five periodic cycles of Venus as Morning star and Evening star. Xbalanque, on the other hand, is not as easily identified. His name could be translated as "little jaguar of the night" where "X" is a diminiative. Xbalanque is always 'little,' whereas the term "little" is only applied to Hunahpu in a few instances. In the "Popol Vuh," Hunahpu always acts in the daytime, Xbalanque acts at night. This would seem to correctly reflect on what side of the Earth Mars (and in the last instance, Venus) and Mercury were primarily seen during the 60 year period after 747 BC.

In the last instance, when two planets go up in flames, the two planets are Venus and Mercury. Venus is large, and seen as large, especially with a coma, whereas Mercury is definitely small (or at least smaller), even with a coma.

I am making this identification, because the confusion of the planets existed already in antiquity, as, for example, in the eastern Mediterranean region where it was assumed that the flare-up of 685 BC only involved Venus. Mercury travels so close to the Sun that it could easily be confused with the Sun if it (or both) were seen blazing in the sky, and Mercury (normally) could not be located in the skies during the day, unlike Venus, which was visible day or night because of its coma and tail. In Mesoamerica the blazing of Mercury might even have been thought to be Mars on fire. Mars was in the skies at this time, close to the Sun and close to Mercury for most of the month-long period.

Identifying Xbalanque as Mercury allows following up on the comment by Tedlock which comes some pages later after the following text in the "Popol Vuh" which reads..

And then the boys ascended this way [leaving Xibalba], here into the middle of the light [that is, this world], and the sun belongs to one and the moon to the other.

Tedlock writes..

It is not stated literally that they became the sun and moon. ... The nature of Xbalanque's lunar role is fortold by the fact that he is face-to-face with Hunahpu when they burn together, this being the position of the moon when it is full.

The comment is revealing, but the statement is wrong. This imposes our knowledge of how the Moon and Sun revolve, and the cause for the a full Moon. For a people to whom the Earth was flat, only a new Moon would fulfill the condition of the Sun and Moon facing each other. They had to be in the sky at the same time, and close together.

I thus started to look at new Moon dates in the year 685 BC. From the equinox, when Venus might have first returned to view from behind the Sun, through the beginning of July, before the concluding day of the nova event, there are five new Moons. The additional condition I was looking for was the close proximity of Venus and Mercury in the sky.

The following are the new Moon dates, and the location of the planets with respect to the Sun, shown in Right Ascension (hours and minutes of left-right location): A minute is 0.25 degrees. I have only listed the two instances where Venus and Mercury are close together, May 23 and June 22 (Julian).

From east to west in the sky at noon siderial time, Mexico City.
Right Ascension in hours:minutes. Dates shown as Julian.

May 23 --

Mercury, Venus, Sun, Moon, Mars
4:50, 4:40, 3:25, 3:23, 3:05
Mercury and Venus are close together in Gemini.
The Sun and Moon are close together at the east end of Taurus.

June 22 --

Venus, Mercury, Moon, Sun, Mars
7:20, 7:08, 5:15, 5:26, 4:29
Mercury and Venus are close together in Leo.
The Sun and Moon are close together between Cancer and Gemini.

The above dates of May 23 and June 22 qualify. In both instances Venus and Mercury are grouped close together, one above the other, but slightly displaced. In effect Xbalanque and Hunahpu are facing each other, almost holding hands. The Sun and Moon are nearby and in a almost identical position with respect to each other.

June 22, Julian, is June 15, Gregorian. The choice of June 15 was made on the basis of information from the other end of the world, from the "Tishtar Yasht" hymn to Venus, of the Zend-Avista. Tishtrya (Venus) battles deamons in the sea (sky) for 34 days before victory is achieved. I have noted the details in the previous chapter. Thirty four days fits the span of time from June 15 to July 25 (Gregorian), with a few days left over, which may also be accounted for in the hymn, but not clearly.

But more convincing is the description of the flareup of Venus in 685 BC recorded in the "Sibylline Oracle Books," composed at a much later date in Alexandria, Egypt. The "Sibylline Oracle Books" clearly places Venus in Leo at the start of the event. In fact, as others have noted, Venus riding on the back of a lion (the constellation Leo) was regarded as a symbol of disaster in the eastern Mediterranean.

Does this date, June 15, show up in Mesoamerican site alignments? No. I almost wrote, "of course not." It does not show up because it is the start of an event; the structure of Mesoamerican languages recognize only the completion of events, and pays little attention to beginnings.

However, the "Chilam Balam" records a period of time when "it came about that the sun in Katun 3-Ahau was moved from its place for three months." The complete period is made note of because it was a celestial disaster of immense scope. Katun 3-Ahau includes the year 685 BC. The three months (of 20 days) are here counted inclusively (again), as are all other intervals of time mentioned in Book 10 of the "Chilam Balam." The interval of 40 days (two 20 day months) exactly spans June 15th to July 25th.

... the release a the plasmoid bolt, July 14

This date is based on an interval of 12 days which was put to use in a reconstruction of Monte Alban in 275 BC, the fact that it is used by five sites as an alignment, and the suggestion of possible selection of the "day of Kan" associated with the end of an era -- the delivery of the plasmoid on July 25th. Additional nuances with respect to Mesoamerican attempts to forge a science from the numerology of the Tzolkin calendar, including the elusive search for the "day of Kan," are discussed in Chapter 18. July 14th also represents a reasonable interval of time for a plasmoid from Jupiter to travel the 480 million miles to the Sun. I develop the reasoning for this date in Chapter 19, "The Day of Kan."

... Jupiter develops a coma, July 9

This date is based solely on the fact that it first shows up at Tres Zapotes, recurs 4 times elsewhere, and represents an adequite interval for Jupiter to have been seen with overhead plasma plumes and a lower bifurcated or trifurcated body -- so that these shapes would enter Olmec iconography. This date is thus not well supported. Although the site alignments associated with this date are within two degrees of solstice alignments, it is unlikely that this is what they represent. The later Maya (and Aztecs) had no ceremonies or festivities associated with the solstices.

Selection of this date for a sunset alignment is somewhat problematic, for 'beginnings' are seldom held as significant in the Mesoamerican worldview. What could make the date of July 9 significant is the consideration of the flare-up of Jupiter as a return from the dead (and thus the conclusion of a 'death' period) of what would have been, at the time, the primary God, in a manner similar to the return from the dead of Jupiter in 2349 BC. This previous event was certainly remembered, and had been recorded in glyphic books, for the iconography of the split mountain (the Absu at the autumnal equinox of 2349 BC) with an emerging resurrected God, continues well into the future. The ball court imagery is based on this also.

The primacy of a chief God passes to Quetzalcoatl, or to the ball-playing twins of the "Popol Vuh," after July 25th, however. I think we need to see the July 9th alignment as one of the religious interpretations of the events of 685 BC which did not take hold in any measure.

Hour of the Thunderbolt

Mesoamerica did not see the plasmoid hit the Sun, for it happened two hours after sunset in Mexico. In the eastern Mediterranean the flash happened two or three hours before sunrise. But in Australia it happened in full view an hour after sunrise in the morning.

The time of day in Australia derives from an Australian Aborigine legend, recorded by William Ramsary Smith in "Myths and Legends of the Australian Aborigines" (1930), called "Kirkin and Wyju." It appears to be about Venus (Kirkin) and Jupiter (Wyju) in the winter (in the southern hemisphere) of 685 BC.

The story portrays Kirkin as very conceited and self centered. He combs his long blond hair daily, facing the Sun, and tosses it over his head to the front at times in a vain display. Wyju, on the other hand, is characterized as "a humble man, who did many wonderous acts." The story tells of his rescue of a child who was swallowed by a God Snake. Wyju has to coax the snake into an upright position, for otherwise the local water supply will disappear. Standing on the tip of its tail, Wyju slices the snake open along its back to remove the swallowed child.

This will be recognized as an image of the polar plume, with the swallowed child as the ball plasmoid near the end. The timimg is wrong, but for the sake of a moralizing story, that does't matter. There will be a later image in terms of a column of white smoke.

"The story of his wonderful deed reached even the conceited Kirkin, who became very jealous, and decided that if Wyju should come within the bounds of his hunting ground he would endeavour to slay him."

Kirkin, in fact, invites Wyju to be his guest. During the evening meal Kirkin suggests they go hunting the next day for Wallows -- kangaroo rats. While Wyju sleeps, Kirkin prepares to a nearby Wallow nesting ground and places pointed sticks in the ground around a dead Wallow, with a hidden string tied to the grass and leading away from the location. Kirkin recommends to Wyju..

"To procure this most coveted prey no spear, boomerang or nulla-nulla is required. You simply walk cautiously into the nesting-ground, and when you see the grass moving you know that beneath it lies the wallow, and with a mighty leap into the air straight above the prey you come down and let your feet land right upon it."

The next day, during the hunt, Wyju does exactly that..

"Wuju jumped with all his might, and came down with both his feet upon the sharp spikes, which pierced them deeply."

Wyju faints in pain, and when he comes to, Kirkin tells him..

"Oh my friend, when you walk upon your feet please don't forget to look me up. The sign by which you will find me is a white smoke column that rises on a still, clear day."

Kirkin leaves, leaving Wyju to suffer and bleed.

"From new moon until next new moon did Wyju, overcome with pain and suffering, weep and cry unto the All Father Spirit."

He requests having the Winjarning brothers sent. They appear at the second new moon and heal his feet.

"Wyju went in haste far away into the northern land, and saw a white smoke column rising straight into the clear blue sky. [He walks until] .. he came within sight of Kirkin, who was walking round and round the fire."

After sunrise the next day, armed with a warrior's boomerang, Wyju closes in on Kirkin, who is facing east.

"He raised his weapon, and with a mighty stroke severed the head with the golden hair from the trunk. He then commited Kirkin's body to a fire. The spirit of Kirkin rose out of the flame and entered the body of a small hawk-like bird."

I was not entirely convinced until I ran into Jupiter suffering from the spikes in his feet from one new moon to the next new moon, and then a few additional days to hunt down Venus. That matches my deduced timetable, which goes from one new moon (June 15, Gregorian) to the next (July 14, Gregorian) plus 11 more days.

The spikes in Jupiter's feet must be the "long fire-flames [which] rebelled against the Sun," as the "Sibylline Star Wars" text has it.

The Winjarning brothers seem to be the Australian version of the various celestial twins and brothers of Greece, Italy, and Mesoamerica: the Dioscuri, Romulus and Remus, Apollo and Heracles, and Hunahpu and Xbalanque of the "Popol Vuh." Wow! That places the legend in the era of 800 through 685 BC. In Australia the boys are busy with "righting wrongs." The evil wrought in the northern hemisphere was absent in the south.

Wyju was initially a "half day's journey toward the rising Sun." That is about right, Jupiter stood a half day toward the east in 685 BC.

The column of white smoke (!) from Kirkin's fire is the northern plasma plume, which would have shown up soon after the Sun's nova event started. Even Nonnos recalled this 1100 years later. Kirkin has a fire going, which matches the various polar plasma plumes given out as "the fires of the four directions" -- the braziers of the Egyptians. Kirkin's circumambulation is the apparent traversal of the north cardinal direction at about noon during most of the 40 days when Venus and Mercury appeared during daylight hours.

The blood of Wyju is likely the last red ring which would be back-lighted by the 'spikes' of Venus and Mercury, which were certainly bright enough to shine through it. At Perth (the likely location of the source for this tale) the Sun, Moon, Venus, Mercury are all below the equatorial at the second new Moon, and the condition of a back-lighted red ring could have been seen (the red ring would not otherwise be seen in the daytime). By July 25 (Gregorian), when the skies were closer or identical to today, Venus was probably within that band, but Jupiter never is.

In the eastern Mediterranian the reverse was true. Jupiter may have been high enough at culmination (36 degrees at Cairo) to be behind the red ring (at 42 degrees). But the Sun, Venus, and Mercury ride high above the equatorial, and are thus clear of the red ring.

After the spikes are removed, Wyju travels away from his trap to the northern land where Kirkin normally resides -- "in haste." Was the plasmoid mistaken for Wyju? This actually happened in India and with Mazdaism -- the bolt is a separate god. I think a substitution was made. This allows Wyju to move "in haste" and to "sneak up" on Kirkin. As the plasmoid passed Earth it would have been moving rapidly. Then it slowed down, sneaking up on Kirkin.

The time of the decapitation is interesting; Wyju selects the "early morning hours of the rising Sun." If correct, this could serve as an anchor for other estimates.

In western Australia near the end of July of 685 BC, Mercury rises at 6 AM, the sun rises about 7 AM, Venus rises two hours later at 9 AM. (The southern hemisphere is in winter.) Jupiter will not be in sight until late in the day, near 3 PM.

If the blast at the Sun happened at 9 AM in Australia, it would be sensed at 3 AM in the eastern Mediterranean, which would be an hour before Mercury rises, and two hours before the Sun appeared. If the landing of the boomerang was seen an hour later in Australia, then the last travels of the plasmoid was likely seen in the eastern Mediterranian as it hit the Sun and certainly engulfed Mercury (being near the Sun).

I had originally estimated the night as the time of the event for the eastern Mediterranean, based on the fact that the Phaethon legend shows no clear idea of what entity in the sky was blasted by the thunderbolt.

Mesoamerica experienced the event at 9 PM. The Sun and Venus had set. Mesoamerica had no clear idea of what object in the skies was hit. Only knowing the location of Mars just to the west of the Sun would give a clue. Venus has set at the western horizon a half hour earlier. It might have been obvious that Venus was not the target. The plasmoid had bypassed Venus. The splashdown would first show as a flash at the western horizon, where the Sun was below the horizon, having set about two hours earlier. But if the blast had lasted longer than 9 hours (my estimate of the splashdown time) it would have been seen in the east in the morning hours. Thus did Quetzalcoatl "go east and set himself on fire".

The rise of Venus after "8 days" is equated to a canonical 8 days (for the westerly disappearance of Venus) because the skies were obscured for 5 days and this is what Venus was expected to do if it had been properly observed. The "Popol Vuh" mentions five days during which Hunahpu and Xbalanque appear as catfish ("seen in the river"). But these are likely smaller plasmoids from Jupiter which kept the turmoil at the Sun alive for these five days.

I may need to use a later hour (like 10 AM), for Wyju definitely sees Kirkin preening himself before launching the boomerang. Wyju comes up from behind, with Kirkin "facing the Sun." This is indeed the situation if Kirkin is Venus. Kirkin is east of the Sun, with its major plasma tail facing away from the Sun, and Jupiter much further east, and thus sneaking up behind him, but Jupiter remained below the horizon. It is now the plasmoid itself, as the warrior's boomerang, who plays Wyju.

If we wait for Jupiter to show above the southeast horizon, it will be after 2 PM. That invalidates any estimated times for different longitudes. I'm inclined to move the person of Wyju from Jupiter to the thunderbolt on these last few days.

Burning Kirkin's body is interesting also. It recalls the Mesoamerican Quetzalcoatl. That would also make me believe that the decapitation probably started at 9 AM or 10 AM. That way we have an all-day cremation event. It is over (most of it) in a few days. The fire is likely the north polar column (in arc mode -- a fire -- at the lower portion), which remained in the same location for days. Also, the rising of the "spirit of Kirkin" duplicates the rising up of Venus as a star as recorded in Mesoamerica. (The "Chilam Balam" holds that Mars was hit.)

Some things remain unresolved, but then, I think that everywhere in antiquity there was an immediate confusion of who was burned, who was struck by lightning, and who Phaethon was. Hesiod's brief description, along with Hyginus (as pointed out by van der Sluijs), has Mercury as Phaethon, the same as Nonnos and Ovid. Others have Venus. The eastern Mediterranian actually has it more correct than Mesoamerica, for by positing Mercury as Phaethon, there was no need for a "rising into the sky" as Mesoamerica had. After the plasmoid was delivered Mercury was no longer seen in the day skies, and was seen only at night within a few degrees of the Sun at sunrise or sunset.

The flash most likely occluded the planets near the Sun, Mercury and Mars. Venus was some 35 degrees east (about 2.5 hours) of the Sun. It probably disappeared in the flash too. The Sun was never the suspected target.

If the eastern Mediterranean had seen the affair in the day sky, it would have been obvious that the plasmoid traveled past Venus (and that was seen on the previous day). And, by the same token, not past the Sun, except that the splashdown happened at night. But that the boomerang came to a halt at the Sun should have been noted in Australia. But it was Venus which had lost its tail and coma. And, of course, the Sun just went on as if nothing much had happened.

Mercury was a peculiar object in that it only showed in the day skies for 40 days, and then was never again seen rising that high. It had, in fact only taken up its regular station of the true morning and evening star in the previous year.

The last piece of discrepant information is the fact that Kirkin, in addition to facing the Sun, is said to face east -- both on the last day. Only Mercury, west of the Sun could have been in a position to do both of these. Mercury was close to the Sun, about 15 degrees west. The plasmoid, coming from the east, would, of course, hardly sneak up on Mercury.

But now consider also the fact that between about July 8, Julian, and July 11, Julian, Mercury moved from a position just west of the Sun to a location just east of the Sun. Since Mercury during these two days rode above the Sun (by 5 degrees), the effect would have been to see its plasma tail "hair" being tossed from his back over the top and to the front of his face. This matches the description of Kirkin..

"Every morning he would mount a high boulder and comb his hair. Then with both hands he would bring the golden shower from the back of his head to hang in front.."

Thus Kirkin may be the planet Mercury. If so, then the delivery of the plasmoid at the Sun would have happened between 8 AM and 9 AM. In either case, 9 AM is probably a close approximation of the delivery time of the plasmoid.

The Start of History

What stands out in the period after about 600 BC, and increasingly over the following centuries, is a sudden intense interest in history, which shows up, not only in the Middle East, Greece, and Ptolemaic Alexandria, but also in China. Why this sudden flurry of research and speculation on events, and specifically only events of the recent past?

There had been over 600 years of a quiet sky, from 1440 BC to 800 BC. Then, within a span of a hundred years, Venus, Mars, and Mercury closed in on the Earth. The length of the year changed, Mars repeatedly cruised close enough to Earth (five or nine times) to cause massive earthquakes and interplanetary lighting strikes which traveled across wide areas and were accompanied by hurricanes. Then, just as suddenly, after the nova event of Venus in 685 BC, which surpassed the Sun in brilliance and dropped fire from heaven over wide areas, ending with a lightning bolt from Jupiter directed at the Sun, it all stopped.

During the 8th and 7th century BC, and periodically a hundred years earlier, endless wars had raged in the whole region of Mesopotamia and the Levant, mostly involving the states of Assyria and Babylonia feuding with encroaching tribes and kingdoms from the north. Starting in about 750 BC Assyria expanded to conquer all of Babylonia, Syria, the city-states along the Mediterranean coast, and eventually Egypt.

The physical and political changes required an explanation, and the first line of inquiry was to sort out the events. A change in perspective on the progress of time took place, which resulted in the increase of the number of chronicles and records. This is seen especially with the Assyrians, who start to record all their activities -- in effect, they start to write history.

This was followed soon by philosophical speculation, which we will eventually understand as the start of science. It should be recognized that the people of this era were technologically quite proficient. They could measure and map the stars and planets as well as the geography of the region, solve quadratic equations, undertake massive building and irrigation projects, and institute effective bureaucrasies.

Bronze metalurgy was supplanted by the technology of iron after 800 BC. The smelting methods were apparently imported from regions north of the Caucasus. The Assyrians start producing iron weapons. They also adapt the horse to warfare, forging an effective and fast moving cavalry. The same Assyrians, by their own reports, model their warfare after 750 BC on the strikes of Mars and its hordes of companions, absolutely devastating their enemies with a cruelty unequaled in all previous history.

Later historians will divide world history into two parts, the era before 747 BC, and the era after 747 BC. The year 747 BC had seen a change in the length of the year, had thrown the lunar month out of sync with the year, and had initiated 60 years of geological and climatic disturbances (or 120 years from 806 BC). However, a more important date was 685 BC, when it all stopped.

A New Order of the Sky

Image: The Change in polar axis in 685 BC. The path shown is an approximation. The initial travel was probably limited to about half the dashed line, and further counterclockwise. The path of the polar precession describes a 30 to 32 degree circle about the location of the Sun's axis in space.

In the seventh century BC, as noted in the previous chapter, the spin axis (polar axis) of Earth changed to point to a new location in the sky. Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Chinese, and Indian sources, without being specific about a date, all extrapolate to the 8th or 7th century BC as the date when the axis of the Earth changed from Ursa Major to another location -- today at the tail of Ursa Minor. But both the new location and the actual cause for the change elude us. Did the nova condition of the Sun effect the Earth's axis in 685 BC? I think it probably did. The plasmoid thunderbolt from Jupiter in July of 685 BC might also have been at cause. The mechanics of these events, their timing, the Mesoamerican philosophical concerns, and the differences in iconography on the two sides of the Atlantic were discussed in the previous chapter, with further details to be presented in Appendix B ("Celestial Mechanics"), Chapter 13 ("Star Wars"), Chapter 15 ("Maya Calendar"), Chapter 16 ("Chilam Balam"), Chapter 18 ("Olmec Alignments"), and Chapter 19 ("The Day of Kan"). This chapter is reserved for a discussion of the social and philosophical changes.

Seneca and others claim that the Earth's axis of rotation, that is, the place in the dome of the stars to which it pointed (today at the star Polaris in Ursa Minor), was located in Ursa Major before the 7th century BC. Velikovsky quotes Seneca as, "And the Wain [Ursa Major], which has never bathed in the sea, shall be plunged beneath the all-engulfing waves." But this is hyperbole from the first century AD play by Seneca, Thyestes. The Wain did not plunge below the waves of the Mediterranean sea at the latitude of Rome (42 degrees north) before or after the change in the sky. It still does not do so today. The tail started to just touch the ocean (the north horizon) after AD 200 at the latitude of Cairo. All the rest of Seneca's description is just to make drama of a transformed sky. It is the use of a "changed sky" as a metaphor in his play which speaks to the fact that the changes were common knowledge. [note 3]

There are many other references in Roman, Greek, and Indian sources which note that the Earth's rotational axis had at one time been located in Ursa Major. There is even an old reference among the Pyramid texts, "the king looks among the stars of [Ursa Major, The Wain], to determine true north." [note 4]

"The Chinese perceived Heaven to be round. It had nine levels; each of which was separated by a gate and guarded by a particular animal. The highest level, the Palace of Purple Tenuity, was where the Emperor of Heaven lived in the constellation we call Ursa Major."
-- http://www.astro.virginia.edu/class/chevalier/astr341

The spin axis (polar axis) of the Earth points today to the star Polaris, at the end of the handle of the Little Dipper, the constellation Ursa Minor. Over the course of time the axis is understood to move slowly on a circular path to point to different locations in the northern sky, but always angled 23.5 degrees away from a line perpendicular ("normal") to the orbital plane of the Earth. This circle in the sky is known as the 'precessional path' of the Earth's axis, like the circle described by the top of the axis of a wobbling top. By today's observations, it takes 26,000 years to complete the wobble. [note 5]

The movement along the precessional path of the Earth's spin axis is counterclockwise as seen from Earth when facing north. If the current path of the wandering axis of Earth was established by 685 BC, then, at that time, the axis would have been located between Ursa Minor and Ursa Major, some 15 degrees above the pan of Ursa Major -- still not very close to "among the stars of Ursa Major" as the ancients claimed. Only if the polar axis shifted location -- if the tilt of the Earth to its orbit changed -- could the location of the polar axis ever by found "among the stars of Ursa Major."

I will propose that the spin axis moved directly and quickly from a location "among the stars of Ursa Major" to a new location in the sky closer to Ursa Minor, to the current precessional path, and then halted. I think this happened in 685 BC during the 40 days when Venus blazed in the sky. The 'nova event of Venus' would have represented an absolutely gigantic electrical storm capable of twisting the Earth's rotational pole. I will also suggest that the blazing of Venus and Mercury, and the simultaneous change in the location of the Earth's spin axis, were caused by a mass expulsion from the Sun -- a nova event. This was not a single hit, it was an expulsion that lasted more than a month. [note 6]

Image: The comet NEAT in 2003, meeting up with a coronal mass ejection (CME) from the Sun, a minor nova event. The larger disk blocks the Sun's corona. The smaller diameter circle represents the size of the Sun [note 7]

Placing the cause at an electrical storm from the Sun does not seem so far fetched. I would find this an acceptable hypothesis because the effect would have represented relatively low forces extended over a long period of time. The Earth's axis, although experiencing a bending torque, did not react in the typically violent manner that a gyroscope exhibits on the application of an exterior force of short duration -- an impact force. It is, of course, possible that there were geological effects but these remained completely hidden among the constant earthquakes experienced since the Earth shock by Mars in 747 BC. Earthquakes continued at a high frequency for a long time. Eight hundred years later Rome reports 57 earthquakes in a single year (V). [note 8]

It could also be suggested that the current precessional path of the spin axis -- the wobble which we still experience -- is the last remnant of the event of 685 BC. A 'wobble' is what gyroscopes experience, but only if the applied torque persists. But since there is currently no applied force, and precession has not stopped, it is more likely that precession is caused by the Moon's travel around the Earth on a path which each month moves the Moon out of and back into the Earth's plasmasphere (on the Sun side of Earth). The Moon is the only satellite of any planet which does this. All other satellites of all the other planets travel within their planets's plasmaspheres, except for a few satellites which remain completely outside of planetary plasmaspheres. [note 9]

This happens because the Moon is on an orbit much further from its parent planet (Earth) than any other other satellite of any planet, excepting the few really distance satellites of Saturn (at 6 and 11 million miles). At an orbit of 250,000 miles, the path of the Moon extends beyond the boundary of the Earth's plasmasphere away from the night side. The plasmasphere extends only to 80,000 to 160,000 miles, except on the night side (the 'shadow' of the Sun's electrical field). Thus the Moon does travel within the Earth's plasmasphere on the night side. [note 10]

The entry and exit of the Moon into and out of the Earth's plasmasphere would result in electrical effects at the boundary. This would effect the boundary of the plasmasphere locally with each entry and exit. The electrical effects would be experienced by Earth, just as a general reshaping of the Earth's plasmasphere with the arrival of Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) from the Sun will slow the rotation of the Earth temporarily. The Earth always regains its rotational speed as the plasmasphere reshapes after the CME. The effect of the Moon's entry and exit from the plasmasphere, however, is unlike the effect of a CME, for the disturbance is localized and always offset from the center of the rotational axis of the Earth. All exits are always at the leading edge of the Earth's orbital path.

Since precession was not noticed by the astronomers of antiquity until after 400 BC, we could reason backwards and suggest that the Earth's plasmasphere was more extensive (larger) before that time (before 685 BC) such that it would contain the Moon in its travels around the Earth. This would imply that the nova event in 685 BC reduced the size of the plasmasphere to where the Moon, since that time, would cut across the plasmasphere boundary. Since the extent (size) of the Earth's plasmashere is determined by the electrical field of the Sun, it suggests also that, along with the fact of the charge equalizing plasmoid from Jupiter, the Sun's electrical field was reduced in 685 BC.

Most likely the relocation of the Earth's axis in space had a relatively quick onset and then a rapid exponential decline, so that the change was accomplished within the period of 40 days, but never so suddenly that the Earth would have been jolted -- as had happened frequently in the past. We have to posit these conditions because we know the change happened, and most likely happened at this time, but went unrecorded, lacking violent physical effects impinging on the Earth. The flaring up of Venus and Mercury and the lightning bolt from Jupiter was seen by anyone who looked up at the day sky. The rotation in the dome of the stars was noted, especially by astronomers. I do not consider it even a remote possibility that the rotational axis of Earth shifted geographically in any significant manner. The axis of rotation before 685 BC was at exactly the same location (the 'north pole'), as today. [note 11]

Velikovsky mentions a Vedic source which tells that the Earth "receded 100 yojanas" from its place. This is an interesting and significant data point, and turns out to be wholly correct when compared to other astronomical sources. The measurement most likely dates from after the 7th century BC, when the oral Vedic traditions were transferred to writing in India and emendated with contemporary historical events. One hundred 'yojanas' is 720 km, or 447 miles, and would represent a change of 6.5 degrees in the latitude of stars which passed directly overhead.

If the Vedic source noted that "the Earth receded 100 yojanas from its place," it would indicate a noticeable single change in the skies. The wording seems consistent, because later Roman authors agree that the Earth had sunk towards the south. Pliny called it, "a slackening of creation." But this would only be noticed with a comparison of the night skies before and after 685 BC. The question becomes, "What in the skies stood higher up after the change?"

The position (or height) of the Sun would be an indication as would a change in the background stars of the polar axis. This change can only be accounted for with a change in the inclination of the spin axis to the Earth's orbital plane.

Allowing that the Indians were competent mathematicians (and they certainly were), it could be suggested that the 6.5 degrees (100 yojanas) represented the shift in the Earth's axial inclination in 685 BC. The axial inclination can be easily measured from the difference (before and after) of the elevation of the Sun at the winter or summer solstice. That would suggest that the axial inclination of the Earth before 685 BC was 6.5 degrees different from the present 23.5 degrees. [note 12]

The location of stars with respect to each other in the dome of the stars would not change with a relocation of the polar axis (or even a new orbital inclination). Additionally, as far as the geography of the Earth is concerned, north would still be north, and the other cardinal directions would still be where they were expected to be. The north pole location in the sky, also would not assume a different elevation above the north horizon. Latitudes would remain the same. (Although they would have to be recalculated.) The Sun and the planets would still travel on the ecliptic, against the same background of stars. None of the stars would shift with respect to each other. Only the relationship of the stars to the horizon and the equatorial would change, plus the intersection of the equatorial with the ecliptic (the location of the equinox). This is what I have proposed in the previous chapter and from comparison with other data, this seems to be the case. I'll describe the changes in skies further below.

A clear indication of the changes in the axial inclination probably remains obscured as yet among Babylonian records. Velikovsky brings some of the confused records forward, but he uses these in support of other events, and nothing can be gleaned from their perusal.

The fact that the earth's axial inclination was 30 degrees at an earlier time was verified when I started to look at alignments of Mesoamerican ceremonial centers with the surrounding mountains and volcanoes. See Chapter 18, "Olmec Alignments," for details. Chapter 16, "The Chilam Balam" includes another clear numeric instance. [note 13]

The Sky in Disarray

Even if I can only suggest the mechanism involved in these changes, I can be more certain in identifying the location in the sky to which the axis of the Earth originally pointed. There is a Lakota Indian myth or legend which states that, upon death, people enter heaven through a hole in the sky where there once was a star, located within the four stars known as "the stretcher" or "man-carrier" -- the box or pan of Ursa Major.

Image: San Jose rock showing Ursa Major and Ursa Minor

Physical evidence for this, notably far from the Mediterranean where we find most of the mythology and later records of the event of the change in the skies, is an undated hand-sized smooth stone found in California by Keith Snyder. The stone had drilled holes which exactly match the stars of Ursa Major and Ursa Minor. The size of the holes which pockmark the stone are proportional to the brightness of the stars in the two constellations. There is one additional hole in the pan of Ursa Major which is not included in contemporary star charts of the Big Dipper. It is inside the pan (the "stretcher") and just below the line connecting Megrez to Dubhe and closer to Megrez than Dubhe (noted with the arrow in the above image). [note 14]

Going by the Lakota lore, Keith Snyder thinks it is a missing star which is now a mythological hole in the sky. Going by the Saturnian lore, I think it is the previous center of the sky before 685 BC and perhaps the location of the axis mundi before the departure of the Gods in 3147 BC. This spot is no longer the center of the sky.

We can plot a line, from the old location in Ursa Major to the current precessional path of the north pole, to suggest the path of the pole in the last 2700 years. On this basis the center of the sky shortly after 685 BC, after the change of the polar axis, was most likely located about six to eight degrees above the line connecting Megrez to Dubhe, and perhaps some distance west (counterclockwise). [note 15]

This new location was between constellations -- which is why none of the sources describe the new location to which the pole moved. At the end of Ursa Minor, opposite from Polaris, closest to Ursa Major, there is a star named Kochab, which translates as "star" from Arabic, but has been referred to in ancient sources as the "pole star." This is the one star of Ursa Minor nearest to Ursa Major, and also the star closest to the most likely new location of the polar axis (as, for example, when today's skies are retrocalculated to 685 BC). [note 16]

When the polar axis relocated, the equatorial would have relocated. The equatorial is a projection of the Earth's equator into space. It is thus a flat plane extending above (out from) the equator. Seen from Earth it is a circle in the sky connecting the east and west horizon which is tilted at an angle above the south horizon equal to the complement of the latitude where it is observed (90 degrees less the latitude). A new equatorial cut a new path through the dome of the stars. The Universe had been defaced and the constellations had moved, claimed the ancients. But what moved, or seemed to have moved most significantly, was the relationship of all the constellations and the zodiac to the equatorial and the horizon. [note 17]

The path of the zodiac, the ecliptic, is a circle in the sky which wobbles on a daily basis, and differently during different times of the year (because of the tilt of the Earth's axis). The overhead part of the zodiac moves up and down over the course of the year, traveling some 47 degrees up from its lowest position. The intersection of this circle with the eastern and western horizon shifts from north to south (and in the reverse) in the course of each night, only standing still on the two nights of the equinoxes. (The location where the zodiac dips below the horizon changes much less in the tropics.) But one quickly gets used to this, even today, without the 'zodiacal glow' which had clearly defined the ecliptic up to the early 19th century AD; the location of the ecliptic in the sky can readily be found by spotting one or two of the planets or the Moon which move along the path, and knowing where the Sun had set at the western extreme of the ecliptic.

If you live where the night sky is unaffected by electric lights or the polution which enshroud our cities today, you become familiar with the stars. When these are identified in groups, the familiarity extends to the ability to recognize a constellation on a partially clouded night from as little as two stars. As the sky rotates each night, it seems to move constellations up and down in the sky, expanding and contracting them. Changes happen also because at different times of the year we see different portions of the dome of the stars. But, despite these distortions, constellations can be easily recognized because the changes from night to night are minor.

However, when you move to a different latitude from where you grew up, it is initially very difficult to locate the constellations with which you were familiar. Nothing looks right; all the stars are in the wrong places. And that is what happened when the night sky was "defaced" in the year 685 BC. This rearrangement of the dome of the stars was noticed even as the changes were happening. [note 18]

These were not minor changes. If, as Hindu records suggest, Ursa Major slid down 6.5 degrees, we are talking about some constellations changing their location with respect to the horizon by 13 diameters of the Moon. Constellations directly below Ursa Major (Leo) would have seemed to move down and constellations 180 degrees removed (Aquarius) would have seemed to move up. The changes would not be consistent, for constellations east or west of these two locations moved less.

There are numerous references to the changes in the dome of the stars, a "defacing of the Universe." Velikovsky notes many of them, but inevitably applies them to the wrong events, or places them in the wrong era. The very fact that the changes in the dome of the stars were remembered are a clear indication that they refer to a late era. I would propose that all these references date from after 685 BC.

The following are some of the references to the altered sky, from Velikovsky's "Worlds in Collision:"

The Bundahis is quoted, "The planets, with many demons, dashed against the celestial sphere, and mixed the constellations; and the whole creation was as disfigured as though fire disfigured every place and smoke arose over it." (page 263)

See below for a note on the "demons," which Velikovsky believed to be meteors. The same text states that this happened (that is, started) on the day of the equinox, at noon, and that ..

"an intruder ... stood upon one-third of the inside of the sky, and he sprang, like a snake, out of the sky down to the earth."

That this started at noon on the equinox (which is not correct), even if misreported for the sake of drama, shows the connection to the change in the equinox. In fact, on the equinox in 685 BC, Venus stood at an altitude of 57 degrees in the dome of the sky at noon (at Baghdad / Babylon) and maybe 4 degrees lower by the old order of the sky. This is just slightly under one third of the 180 degrees of the dome of the sky.

The Zend-Avista, describing the battle of Tistrya [Tishtrya], "The leader of the stars against the planets," refers to worm-stars that "fly between earth and heaven" (page 193)

Velikovsky suggests that the "worm-stars" signify meteors. I doubt it. Meteors pass by, they do not "fly between earth and heaven." I think we are seeing mass ejections from Venus or the Sun.

In the Book of Job, the Lord asks him: "Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season ...? Knowest thou the changes of heaven?" (page 209)

The Book of Job is one of the oldest in the Bible, but it is doubtful if it dates from before 600 BC. Mazzaroth is Venus; Velikovsky establishes that. Page 207, and following pages, all deal with the fear of Venus. I think all of the information deals with the events of 685 BC, not 1492 BC as Velikovsky maintained.

Velokovsky quotes from a Chinese text concerning the era of the emperor Kwei: "At this time the two suns were seen in battle in the sky. The five planets were agitated by unusual movements." (page 260)

The text is from the "Soochow Astronomical Chart," which was compiled in the 12th century AD, by Huang Sheng, to serve as an instructive text on astronomy for the son of an emperor of China. The reign of the emperor Kwei, mentioned above, started in 697 BC. [note 19]

Quoting a Taoist text by Wen-Tse: "When the sky, hostile to living beings, wishes to destroy them... [here follows a long list of calamities]... the aspect and the order of the sky are altered..." (page 261)

The first instance of "sky" should probably read as "Heaven." I will note below the relationship of Taoism to the events of 685 BC.

And lastly, also from the "Soochow Astronomical Chart," we have the additional curious note ..

"[..in the past] Venus was visible in full daylight and, while moving across the sky, rivalled the Sun in brightness." (page 174)

These recollections can be added to the description of the year when Venus blazed through the day-time skies with the Sun, as described in the previous chapter.

A Change in the Equinox

As the polar axis drifted, so did the intersection of the two great circles in the sky -- the celestial equatorial and the ecliptic. The two locations where these cross determine the rising of the Sun directly east on the vernal and autumnal equinoxes.

In 129 BC Hipparchus measured an annual 'drift' of the vernal equinox, based on an 80 year record from a contemporary source. He found that the vernal equinox moved 46 seconds (of a degree) west each year -- west, that is, along the ecliptic, so that each later year the Sun would rise slightly further along the zodiac. This slippage has remained consistently at the same value. Today the accepted value is 49.6 seconds per year. [note 20]

As the polar axis moves, so does the equinox, slowly moving westward from one constellation of the zodiac to the next. Today the Sun rises at the vernal equinox near the beginning (the west end) of the constellation Pisces. If we calculate 2700 years back we find that the Sun rose at 15 degrees of Aries in 685 BC, which is at the center of the constellation Aries. (The "15 degrees of Aries" above is with respect to the delineation of the Zodiac in antiquity, which places zero degrees of Taurus, 30 degrees of Aries, at a location directly between the constellations Aries and Taurus.)

Today the division of the ecliptic into 12 segments has no relationship to the original constellations or the measurements used in antiquity. Today 'zero degrees of Aries' is arbitrarily assigned to where the ecliptic and the equatorial cross. This defines the first day of spring for us; this is done for time keeping and celestial navigation. Today this is not in the constellation Aries, it is actually near the west end of the constellation Pisces. In AD 150 Ptolemy already suggesting placing "zero degrees of Aries" at the location of the equinox -- for the purposes of astrological charts.

Image: The equinox after 685 BC at 15 degrees of Aries as measured in antiquity. Looking directly east. The horizon, equatorial, and ecliptic are marked. The date is on the Julian Calendar.

I contend that before 685 BC (the shift in the polar axis), the equinox was located directly between the east end of Aries and the west end of Taurus -- at the start of Taurus. There are a number of indications which all point to this. The change happened in 685 BC and was spread over 40 days. Instead of the record of a single event, we have recollections and contemporary commentary which concern a series of celestial events spanning a long period. The "Chilam Balam" notes the Sun "left it path" for 40 days. The most notable record from the eastern Mediterranean is a section of the "Sibylline Oracle Books." Although written 800 years later, it recollects events spanning the movement of Venus and the Sun over a number of constellation which would account for the same period of time. [note 21]

But what I find more convincing, is that the Pleiades were held to be the start of spring universally throughout the world, and if not associated with the start of spring, then the autumnal equinox, when the pleiades culminated at midnight -- rose to the highest point in the sky, and thus also rose when the Sun set. After 685 BC it was discovered that the Pleiades no longer signalled the start of spring and that Taurus no longer started the cycle of the year. The fall culmination of the Pleiades had moved 15 days also.

The Pleiades are an easily recognized cluster of stars located directly between the constellations (and zodiac houses) Aries and Taurus. But if we retrocalculate the skies on the basis of today, then in 685 BC the Pleiades did not start spring, nor, for that matter, and again by retrocalculation, for thousands of years earlier. [note 22]

Image: The equinox before 685 BC. The horizon line should be rotated 15 degrees counterclockwise, which will place the Pleiades almost directly above the rising Sun.

Zero degrees of Taurus is also the only location in the whole of the zodiac which falls exactly between two constellations. This is peculiar, but, as I surmise, it was purposeful. The constellations of the zodiac do not occupy equal 30 degree spaces, and the constellations assigned to any of the 12 segments ('houses') are very arbitrary. The division of the 360 degrees was probably made long before 747 BC, when the year consisted of 360 days and the Sun would move one degree each day throughout the year. The sky of 360 degrees had been divided into 12 segments to match the 12 revolutions of the Moon during the year at that time.

The zodiac had been established in Babylon probably since 1000 BC, or earlier, since in the "Enuma Elish," written in 1700 or 1600 BC, Marduk had ordered the constellations of the zodiac when he recreated the world -- when they became visible after removal of the Absu. Although originally consisting of 18 constellations, and thus of 20 degrees each, these had been reduced to 12 constellations. [note 23]

The Pleiades are seen as a cluster of seven stars located at the leading horn of the constellation Taurus -- just east of zero degrees of Taurus. The location directly at the start of Taurus places the Pleiades just above the horizon at the vernal equinox. With the equatorial (and thus the horizon also) cutting through different stars before 685 BC, the Pleiades would, in fact, rise directly above the Sun. [note 24]

The Pleiades had been held by almost all people of antiquity (including India, China, Mesoamerica, and South America) as the first index of spring. For people throughout the world, the sight of the Pleiades in the east just before sunrise -- when they had not been seen in the skies for six months -- signified the coming of spring and the start of the new year.

We can be certain that at one time the rising of the Pleiades, or their appearance above the horizon, preceded the vernal equinox, and that this did not date from remote antiquity, but from directly before 685 BC. If it were not for the sudden change in 685 BC, this condition would have last been experienced in about 2000 to 2400 BC. But it just does not make sense that people throughout the world would insist that the Pleiades would signal spring when this had not happened for one or two thousand years. Hindu calendar reforms after 600 BC mention that "the people wanted to have the year start [again] at the first showing of the Pleiades." [note 25]

I would thus suggest that, long before 685 BC, a system of measurements had been imposed which had purposefully placed zero degrees of Taurus (which is 30 degrees of Aries) exactly at the midpoint between the constellations Taurus and Aries, and almost directly below the Pleiades. This lines up with the edge of the first horn of the bull Taurus, and will show the Pleiades above the horizon at the equinox -- and in line with the rising Sun. I suggest this was done because this location had been the start of the year for thousands of years, and was the location from which everything else on the zodiac was measured -- in 30 degree increments, each representing 30 degrees of movement of the Sun. [note 26]

After the change in the heavens in 685 BC, the zodiac sign in which the Sun rose on the first day of spring was significantly different. An ephemeris program which keeps track of precession will show that, after 685 BC, the Sun rose at the equinox as the constellation Aries was at the horizon, rising at the center of Aries. This is at 15 degrees of Aries, as measured in antiquity.

By the accounting of the ancients, in 200 to 100 BC the Sun rose at the equinox on the longitudinal line for Mesartim in Aries. This was identified in antiquity as "8 degrees of Aries." Retrocalculation to 685 BC, shows that the Sun rose 7 degrees east of Mesartim. Thus after the displacement of the pole in 685 BC the Sun rose at (7+8=) 15 degrees of Aries, as was also suggested above. [note 27]

The nova event of Venus in 685 BC moved the equinox 15 degrees. The vernal equinox thus rapidly shifted from the Sun rising at the beginning of the constellation Taurus to rising in the center of Aries. Before the changes of 685 BC, the constellation Taurus was already partially above the horizon as the Sun rose at the equinox and this had been so for centuries. The "Age of Taurus," with all the connotations attendant to the horned deities of antiquity, did not gradually slip into the "Age of Aries" -- the age of lambs and shepherds -- a thousand years before the Classical Era. The change came suddenly in 685 BC.

The change in the location in space to which the rotational axis of the Earth pointed is a change in the inclination of Earth's axis with respect to the orbit. After 685 BC the Earth was differently inclined toward the Sun, the climate would have changed. However, the change in the axial inclination would not significantly move the tropics or temperate zones, although it would move the arctic circle with respect to the pole. It would also not change the seasonal variation in climate. Climatic disturbances and fluctuations have been noted, however. [note 28]

The orbit of Earth also remained the same. Only the starting date of the year shifted -- by two weeks. A relocation of the vernal (and autumnal) equinox did not alter the calendars and would not have been noticed by farmers. Farmers do not use calendars to determine the time for planting, they use the weather. [note 29]

Although the altered sky was noted by everyone, the change in the equinox was only noticed by the astrologers and philosophers of the Middle East, Europe, China, and Mesoamerica. The sky had not really been thrown into disarray, but it had been moved -- suddenly twisted -- and, as was later observed, the equinox continued to rotate ever so slowly through the constellation Aries and further away from Taurus. It invalidated the tables which were used in Babylon to determine the start of the year and the predictions of lunar eclipses. The paths of the planets were confused and those tables also had to be redone. Comments have been made by 19th century researchers about the records left by the Chaldean astrologers from this period, mostly suggesting that the astrologers were making things up and paid no attention to the actual skies. But one 19th century German wrote simply, "The solstitial and equinoctial points on the ecliptic lay 6 degrees too far to the east." That agrees with what I have pointed out. [note 30]

At Nineveh, the principal city of the Assyrian kings, Ashurbanipal founded a library in the 7th century. The library collected copies of temple records throughout Assyria and Babylonia, which included topics ranging from literature to mathematics and many letters of the kings of Assyria. When the combined forces of the Medes, Persians, and Chaldeans attacked Assyria in 612 BC, and leveled Nineveh, the library burned down, turning the clay tablets to fired clay.

David Brown, in "Mesopotamian Planetary Astronomy-Astrology" (2000), has investigated the astrological (astronomical) texts from this library in light of the extended correspondence between the Assyrian kings and the astrologers and scribes in their employ. John M. Steele, in a review of Brown's book, wrote..

"... he proposes a major revision to the way that scholars have understood the development of astronomy and astrology in Mesopotamia. Brown's central thesis is that there occurred a 'revolution of wisdom' in the eighth and seventh centuries B.C., a change from a paradigm based on divination to one where the accurate prediction of celestial phenomena became important." [note 31]

Steele continues about Brown's book..

"He contends that all of the extant texts that are believed to have originally been written before the eighth century B.C. fit into a paradigm that had no interest in predicting celestial events, and that we should see the period schemes, intercalation rules, etc. found, for example, in Enuma Anu Enlil and MUL.APIN as being aspects of celestial divination, not primitive or inaccurate astronomy."

Writers in the history of science, including Brown, have dismissed document like the "Mul.Apin" by pointing out that it was obviously written around the concept of an 'ideal' year of 360 days and an equinox at the rising of the Pleiades. I would suggest, however, that the "Mul.Apin" (which mostly consists of a chart of constellations) was indeed accurate in the era before 747 BC, despite the purpose, both before 747 BC as well as after, of divination. That does not detract from the Mul.Apin's status as a 'scientific' document.

I suspect that lunar eclipses were not experienced at Babylon before 747 BC. Before that time the Moon's orbit was larger (30 days), and only after 747 BC, when the Moon's orbit shrunk to 29.5 days, did it come close enough to Earth to have the umbra of its shadow show up on the surface of Earth. Even today, because of variations in the Moon's orbit (it has an eccentricity of 0.05), the shadow at times does not show.

This would explain why the first documentation of an eclipse is from 721 BC. When teclipses started to appear some time after 747 BC, they were frightening, especially since the initial solar eclipses were at times caused by Mars -- and inevitably accompanied by earthquakes and electrical bolts from the heavens.

The extensive correspondence between the kings and the astrologers was for the obvious reason that the skies had changed in 747 BC and again in 685 BC. There was a sudden urgency to develop correct methods of predicting lunar and solar eclipses, which showed up two to four times per year, and were totally unpredictable. The Babylonians never did figure out how solar eclipses were caused -- and little wonder, if their data included solar eclipses caused by Mars. Ptolemy, 800 years later also never found a means to predict solar eclipses. But by about 700 BC the lunar eclipses were correctly modeled and became predictable. Then after about 686 and 685 BC the skies changed, and all the calculation had to be started over. [note 32]

There is only a sprinkling of documents from before 747 BC because only the useful documents were retained. The "Mul.Apin" certainly was one of these, even if the year was no longer 360 days. Also retained was the "Enuma Anu Enlil," a record of observations, detailing celestial events, water levels of the Euphrates, and economic indicators (like the price of barley). The "Enuma Anu Enlil" records included the "Venus Tablets of Ammizaduga."

The Star in the Crescent

The "Enuma Anu Enlil" records have been used by the Saturnians as one of the sources for the concept that Saturn was known in antiquity as "the Star of the Sun" and in fact was considered to be the Sun. Cardona and other Saturnians who used the essay by Morris Jastrow, "Sun and Saturn" (1910), have been faulted for ignoring Jastrow's comments, to quote Leroy Ellenberger..

"According to Morris Jastrow, Jr., in his 'famous' and oft-cited article 'Sun and Saturn,' Saturn was not given a specific name until after Venus and Jupiter were named, which is surely strange if Saturn was the primordial deity described by the 'Saturnists.'"

-- Ellenberger, "An Antidote to Velikovskian Delusions" in Skeptic (1995) or at http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/velstcol.html

This sequences of naming, and similar faults, are entirely resolved if consideration is given to the sequence of events for 685 BC as I have proposed in this essay. In the simplest terms, note was made first of Mars and Venus (or Mars and Mercury) because of their interference with Earth after 806 BC. Jupiter was noted next in the records after it flared up in July of 685 BC. Saturn, located almost twice as far from the Sun as Jupiter, would not have been noted until later, when it also flared up, but after Jupiter had become very prominent.

The records in question collate information from the past, but were recopied after 747 BC, when the length of the year changed, and probably all date to after 650 BC, although Jastrow made the unlikely suggestion that some predate the period of Hammurabi (ca 1700 BC). In actuallity, the dates do not matter, for the Babylonian astrologers were attempting to forcast events for their Assyrian overlords on the basis of any available records.

That Saturn is called "sun" (Shamas) is no surprise at all. Saturn indeed was the Sun, and certainly the "sun of the night" until 3147 BC. But after 3147 BC and until 2250 BC (when it flared up and dimmed), with some interruptions, it was Jupiter who assumed the role of the "Sun of the night" and was called Shamas in Akkadian (Utu in Sumerian).

Some 1500 years after Jupiter diminished in size to become a star, the Babylonian astronomers were suddenly pressed into service by the Assyrian kings, because of the destructive close passed of Mars, and then Jupiter -- the night Sun -- flared up again in 685 BC, and was very likely followed soon by Saturn.

The names of the planets to be watched, which included Mars and Venus (and Mercury), were derived from a 3000 year old tradition. In the newly developed astrological database being developed in the 8th and 7th century BC, Venus and Mars were thus named before note was made of Jupiter and Saturn -- and in that order.

Everyone understood that both Jupiter or Saturn should be called a "night Sun" if it flared up. Duplicated use of "Shamas" could be sorted out when seen in context in most cases. Some tablets, however, were annotated with indications of whether the daytime or nightime Sun was meant. The "Enuma Anu Enlil" in this instance is a secondary annotated record of the 7th century BC. Seen in this context, the "Enuma Anu Enlil" is perhaps not the best source for suggesting that Saturn had stood in the sky as a sun before 3100 BC.

I think a greater fault is that none of the Saturnian commentators have done anything to address some of the truly strange wording of the tablets, like...

• "Saturn stands in the halo of the moon"
• "The moon has a halo around it and Saturn stands in it."
• "When the sun stands in the place of the moon.."
• "When a mock-sun stands over the moon (or) under the moon.."
• "If Shamas has a halo around it, there will be rain."
• "When Jupiter [stands] in the sun.."
• "If Venus approaches Shamas, the King will perish." with a note explaining that here by Shamas the Sun in meant.
• A "sun-crown" above Venus...
• "Dilbat [Venus] is decked with two crowns."
• "A 'Shamas' crown above the moon, is explained as 'Lu-Bat [Saturn] [standing] by the moon.'"
• "If a mock-sun stands above the moon or below the moon.."
• "If Mars reaches the road of the sun [the ecliptic] .. there will be a famine."
• "The mock-sun and moon appear together," explained as "on this night Saturn approached (or 'was near') the moon."

On this last note, specifically, Jastrow starts to justify the texts of the tablets in uniformitarian terms, as..

"It would appear, therefore, that the association of sun with Saturn was carried to the extent of using even the term which stands for an image of the sun due to atmospheric conditions to represent Saturn. Naturally a 'mock-sun' or parhelion cannot stand above or below the moon or be seen anywhere near it."

"The term was intended to apply to a "mock-moon" and this phenomenon of a second moon was explained as due to the presence or reflection of Saturn near or standing by the moon."

"I venture to think, that we have in this naive explanation of an atmospheric phenomenon which seems simple enough to the modern astronomer, a suggestion as to the origin and meaning of this interesting association of the sun with Saturn, leading to the wide spread usage of the signs for Samas [Shamas] (An-UT and Amna) to represent Saturn."

"Strange as it may seem to us, the planet Saturn appears to have been regarded as 'the sun of the night' corresponding to Samas as 'the sun of the daytime' and the cause of such light as the night furnishes. It was argued, that since there was a sun furnishing the light of day, so there must be some corresponding power which causes the illuminations of the heavens at night."

Besides the fact that such reasoning degrades the intellectual abilities of the Babylonians, none of these suppositions are necessary. The "crescent of the Moon," seen below, above, even on both the left and right, or seen in multiple units, are simply the diffraction of the light of a very bright planet on approaching the last remaining band of the equatorial rings. This had been the case since 2349 BC when the Absu disappeared, but only at this time -- at the press of the Assyrian kings -- was it necessary to compile all available data.

The refraction pattern would be placed some distance away, probably 1/4 or 1/2 degrees, and thus make it appear as if the planet were placed within a Moon. Mesopotamian "Star and Crescent" images show the star inevitable well within what would be the orb of the Moon, a situation which could not happen if the crescent genuinely belonged to the Moon.

The left and right diffraction, when a bright object were centered on the band of the remaining equatorial ring, would result in an image similar to the 'double axe' of remote antiquity, but on a smaller scale.

Before 2349 BC the ecliptic dipped behind the intact Absu. Jupiter, with its gigantic coma, would at that time have been the candidate for the gigantic double axe imagery (known traditionally as a 'labrys'), refracting its bright disk to the left and right as giant crescents. The refraction of light would be predominantly to the left and right because of the structure of the rings of the Absu which seemed to have a radial component (depicted in Egypt as 'reeds'). The handle of the axe, which is frequently, but not at all times, shown, is probably the south polar plasma plume. The double bitted battle axe is a fantastical invention of the current age. There are representations and models of the labrys from the Bronze Age, but the hafting is much too feeble for them to be of use in felling trees or in warfare.

I should point out, however, that some of these images could indeed date back to before 3147 BC, especially the image of a star within an upturned crescent. At that time the crescent below was the lighted lower half of Saturn and the star form were bundles of plasma in arc mode impinging on Mars. But the identification of specific planets argues against that. These data are the efforts at making sense of the skies in the seventh century BC.

The use of the phrase "mock Moon" implies that the Chaldeans recognized that some of these images were not real. But they were signs in the sky, and had to be accounted for.

Jastrow and others allowed that the situation of Saturn, or another planet, might be seen above or below the Moon because the Moon frequently runs off the ecliptic by some 5 degrees. What has not been accounted for, of course, is to have the Moon's crescent appear on the top or bottom. That does not happen in real life (except at the horizon in the tropics).

It is the same diffraction of any point-source light of a planet or star when behind the last of the equatorial rings which causes the depiction of planets as four and eight pointed figure. The refracted light is as right angles to the pattern of the equatorial ring. It could be suggested that the last ring was structured as lines radially to the Earth (like the description by the Egyptians of the Duat consisting of 'reeds'). In that case refracted light would radiate left and right from the primary planet behind the ring. If the ring was structured granularly, the refracted light would more likely form a "halo."

It should also be pointed out again that the last equatorial ring was red. It caused Sirius to appear as red when the axis of the Earth shifted. The ring was recalled as a rope in the sky by the low-land Maya -- "and blood ran through it." In the "Popol Vuh" it is called the "river of blood." There is no hint of color among the tablets.

The patterns would appear where the ecliptic crossed the ring in the sky. Because in the south the ring was located below the equatorial, these events would not happen directly at the equinox location (the intersection of the equinox and the equatorial), but would have been a month later or earlier.

New Star Charts

What is also significant is how graphical star charts changed. Before 600 BC the constellations are depicted as seen from the vantage point of Earth. There was no other imaginable point of view. After 600 BC we start seeing reversed charts, and eventually globes, which require a vantage point from the outside of the dome of the stars.

In time, the more subtle changes in the sky became public knowledge. It was of special significance because for most people the Earth was fixed in space, and it was the dome of the stars that revolved. The dome had been twisted and the axis had relocated. The effect of knowing that there had been a change in the dome of the stars would have been of much greater importance than any physical effects from the actual change. The change suggested a prime mover acting beyond the largest object in the Universe known at the time, the dome of the stars, which included all the planetary Gods. The concept of an entity which could alter the whole Universe eventually formed the basis of most religions of the world.

The Sibylline Star Wars

The "Sibylline Oracle Books" are texts from the first century AD, composed in Alexandria, Egypt. The last few lines of the fifth volume, known as the "Star Wars text," describe the flareup of Venus in 685 BC and the change in the skies from a perspective of 800 years later. These lines prophesied the end of the world in terms strictly coincident with events of 685 BC. It is probably the most spectacular evidence of the religious and philosophical importance of the events of 685 BC.

Oracle Books were all the rage in the period of 100 BC to AD 400. John's Book of Revelations is an example of one which was accepted into the canon of the New Testament. Oracle books, or collections of visions and oracles, date back to perhaps the fifth century BC. The Roman senate employed a number of persons as keepers of Roman Oracle Books. They were consulted whenever difficult decisions arose. [note 34]

The extant Sibylline Oracle Books which included the "Star Wars" text, were written in lower Egypt (Alexandria), in Greek, between 100 BC and AD 200. They are mostly Jewish in sentiment and philosophy. They use a well-established metonymical style (substituting associated names, like "Babylon" for the Roman Empire) used by the oracle of Delphi and the prophets of Israel. But a close examination establishes without doubt that the descriptions can be matched against the changes in the skies in 685 BC, not only in the movement of the planet Venus, but especially in the details of how the constellations were rearranged after a new equatorial was established. Franz Xavier Kugler examined the Star Wars text in 1927. This has been expanded upon by Malcomb Lowery and Livio Stecchini in the 1970s. An analysis, additional details, and diagrams may be found in the following chapter, "The Sibylline Star Wars."

Hezekiah and Babylon

There is a well known promise delivered by Isaiah from God to Hezekiah, king of Judah, in about 690 BC (probably in early 684 BC). Hezekiah was sick and thought he would die. Isaiah agreed, but the same day changed his mind and told Hezekiah that he would live another 15 years. As a sign, God promised the following...

"And this shall be a sign unto thee from the Lord, that the Lord will do this thing that he hath spoken. Behold, I will bring again the shadow of the degrees, which is gone down in the sun-dial of Ahaz, ten degrees backward. So the sun returned ten degrees, by which degrees it was gone down."
-- Isaiah 38:8

It was a rash promise, but it can be explained. Velikovsky, in an unpublished document (hezekiah.htm at http://www.varchive.org), suggests that "degrees" should be read as such ("maaloth in Hebrew is preferrably 'degrees' and more so when applied to the sundial"). Donald W. Patten and Samuel R. Windsor, in "The Mars-Earth Wars" (1996), however, disagree and suggest it should be taken to mean "measure." I also doubt that the 'ten degrees' can be understood in terms of degrees of a circle as today. We are in an era 800 years before 'degrees' were being measured. Ussher makes the point in his comments that Judah was not even using "hours" to measure the day, even after their return, much later, from Babylonian captivity.

If, as Isaiah suggests, the 'ten degrees' were added earlier, then it might be suggested that the Earth's axial inclination to the normal of its orbit changed from some previous value and returned to 23.5 degrees in 686 BC, with the second earth shock. I really doubt this.

What is likely is that the promise by Isaiah speaks to the measured length of the shadow at the equinox. Before 685 BC the equinox fell 15 days earlier than after 685 BC, as I have related earlier. On this earlier equinox date, March 6th, the Sun at noon reached an angle of 58.38 degrees above the south horizon at Jerusalem (31.78 degrees north latitude).

The first full moon after the equinox had traditionally signalled the celebration of Passover (on the following Sabbath). Thus it was important to know when the equinox was. This could be calculated from the days since the last equinox, or could be found from the lunar calendar. But in the first year following 685 BC, the angle of the Sun at noon on March 6th was only 52.34 degrees above the south horizon. The shadow had lengthened by one fourth of what it was earlier. This is a considerable amount, and reason enough to call it "ten degrees" or ten units of some measure. [note 35]

There was no event which returned the shadow to its proper length, only the realization that the day of the equinox had moved. Isaiah promise held good, for 15 days later, when the 'new' day of the equinox was reached, it was again 58.38 degrees, or very close to it. The shadow on March 21, 684 BC, was again the same length that it was on March 6, 685 BC, for the angle of the Sun at the equinox depends only on the latitude, not on the inclination of the rotational axis of the Earth.

What is interesting is that the sign from God in effect demonstrated how many more years Hezekiah would live, for the difference between the old day of the equinox and the new date was 15 days. This is not mentioned in the Bible, but it is in line with the frequent acting-out by the prophets, as when Isaiah goes naked and shoeless for three years to demonstrate what would happen to the Egyptian after a three year war with the Assyrians. "This intimated that when that time expired, they likewise would be stripped of their clothes and go bare foot into captivity and bondage by the king of Assyria." -- Ussher.

... Jerusalem moves 6 degrees south

Another discrepancy in the 7th century BC, is noted by Donald W. Patten and Samuel R. Windsor, in "The Mars-Earth Wars" (1996). The priests of the temple at Jerusalem permanently close the door through which, at an earlier time, the rays of the Sun would penetrate to the center of the temple on the morning of the equinox. Patten and Windsor conclude that Jerusalem moved south by 6 degrees of latitude in the 8th or 7th century BC, writing...

"On the basis of Kazmann's data [Raphael G. Kazmann, "On the Orientation of Ancient Temples and Other Anomalies" (Aeon, 1990)], the conclusion here is that the latitude of Jerusalem slipped south by a total of 6 degrees between 965 B.C.E. and 701 B.C.E. During this time span there were five Mars flybys, three of the March case and two of the October case."

The date of 701 BC is, of course, from Patten and Windsor's narrative. The date of 701 BC marks, for them, the date when the lenght of the year changed -- which every other revisionist cosmologist has assigned to 747 BC. Patten and Windsor therefore conclude that the temple doors were closed after change in the length of the year. I would suggest, instead that the sudden displacement of the equinox by 15 days in 685 BC was the cause.

"If this interpretation of Kazmann's data is correct, the latitude of Jerusalem shifted southward by some 400 miles. Simultaneously the North Pole (spin axis) shifted some 400 miles in the Arctic Basin. If so, the North Pole net shift was away from Scandinavia and toward Alaska, the Yukon, British Columbia (and Seattle.) As Jerusalem shifted southward 6 degrees, or 410 miles, Seattle, Vancouver, Anchorage, Fairbanks and Point Barrow shifted northward a similar distance and their climates became cooler."

I frankly cannot follow how Patten and Windsor arrive at the difference of 6 degrees. Moving a location south does not change the equinox. From the text it seems to be based on the orientation of the first temple at Jerusalem, which has an axis located 6 degrees north of east.

It is obvious that the temple, in having one axis aligned 6 degrees north of east, and thus with the other axis aligned 6 degrees west of north, was pointing to the north Atlantic -- the much earlier contact point of the plasma contact from Saturn, as well as the location of a number of past polar plasma plumes in the north.

... the latitude of Babylon

It was noted in antiquity that apparently the latitude of Babylon had shifted by about 2.5 degrees south, from 34.95 degrees north latitude to 32.55 degrees latitude, some time after 700 BC or 650 BC. That there were two values for the geographic location, that is, the latitude, of Babylon, which could be derived from recorded measurements of the longest day at midsummer, was noted by Ptolemy (ca AD 150), Arzachel (ca AD 1050), Kepler (ca AD 1600), and Kugler (ca AD 1910). The records date from 700 to 650 BC. Kugler worked from original sources. However, there was no change in latitude; it was an inadvertent misreading at the time the inclination of the Earth's axis changed.

I should point out that, first of all, in antiquity the 'new' latitude of Babylon had no better value than "about 32 and 1/2 degrees." This value is still often quoted today as, "about 32 degrees." But today the ruins of Babylon can be located exactly at 32.55 degrees north latitude.

Secondly, in antiquity the 'latitude' was expressed as the ratio of the longest day to the shortest day, and rather poorly integrated into notions of the angle of the Sun and the inclination of the Earth's axis. Babylon's recorded 'earlier' ratio of longest day to shortest day was 1.50.

We cannot solve this problem with trigonometry as we know it, for trigonometry dates from about AD 300. The Babylonians would not have used trigonometry. The latitude problem has remained unexplained for over 2000 years now. What I will suggest, as a solution, is that the ratio of 1.50 was erroneously derived. It is based on how the Babylonians would most likely have proceeded.

The first date after July 25, 685 BC, that new values would be measured would be the autumnal equinox. This would reveal that the day was still 12 hours long, and that the Sun still rose to 57 degrees above the south horizon (it changed only 0.08 degrees). Had the Babylonians known trigonometry, they would have realized that the latitude can be found as the compliment of the height of the Sun (the angle above the south horizon) at the equinox.

Without this, the Babylonians had to wait until the winter solstice to properly measure a new length of the day. It was now 9 hours and 50 minutes. Taken into a ratio of the longest day at the previous summer solstice, 14 hours and 52 minutes, which had occurred before the change in the heavens, this would yield 1:51 -- and was recorded. Six months later a new ratio of 1.44 was computed, based on the new lengths of both the winter and summer solstice.

---- Babylon, ratio of longest day to shortest day ---- axial incl latitude longest day shortest day ratio notes ---------- -------- ----------- ------------ ----- ------------ 30.0 deg 32.55 14:52 hrs 9:06 hrs 1.63 earlier 23.5 32.55 14:08 9:50 1.44 today ---------- -------- ----------- ------------ ----- ------------ 30.0 deg 32.55 14:52 hrs earlier 23.5 32.55 9:50 h today error 32.55 14:52 9:50 1.51 in error

Considering that the Babylonians were deeply involved in their revised mathematics of lunar eclipse predictions, and additionally kept multiple records of the locations of the planets, even though some were obviously outdated, it seems reasonable that an erroneous value for the ratio of the longest day to the shortest day was also not discarded.

Whatever happened to the ratio of 1.63 recorded before 685 BC? This ratio would have suggested that Babylon was located at 40.3 degrees north, a difference of 7.75 degrees, placing Babylon in the Caucasus mountains between the Black Sea and the Caspian. Noone since Babylonian days would have believed that, and if this value had been recorded it would have been held as totally erroneous. Even the Babylonians of the seventh century BC would have discarded the data.

... the Babylonians visit Hezekiah

The Moon had changed its period after 747 BC, probably to 29 1/2 days, and thus there were now slightly more than 12 1/3 lunar months in the year. This would cause no end of problems, for the lunar months no longer coincided comfortably with dates in the solar year. But after the summer of 685, there was the additional problem that the equinox had shifted.

As a comment on cooperative calendaric efforts in the Middle East, it should be noted that the Babylonians, who had apparently celebrated the new year at the spring equinox based solely on the fact that this coincided before 747 BC with a new Moon, were now at a loss to figure out the date of the equinox, especially since the phases of the Moon now showed up at arbitrary times throughout the year.

Babylon sent observers to Jerusalem, for the Israelites knew the day of the equinox, since Passover was celebrated on the Sabbath following the first full Moon after the spring equinox. Jerusalem knew how to exactly find the day of the equinox, by counting days, or lunar months, or by measuring the shadow of a gnomen. The visit by the Babylonians is recorded in the Bible (2 Chronicles 32:31).

William Whiston, translator (in AD 1737) of Josephus' "The Antiquity of the Jews" (AD 93), writes in a footnote, about the regression of the shadow of a gnomen by ten steps under Hezekiah (in 685 BC)..

"..this wonderful signal was not, it seems, peculiar to Judea, but either seen, or at least heard of, at Babylon also, as appears by 2 Chronicles 32:31, where we learn that the Babylonian ambassadors were sent to Hezekiah, among other things, to inquire of the wonder that was done in the land."

Ussher records this as..

"Now in the beginning of the 15th year of Hezekiah's reign, Merodach, or Berodach Baladan, the son Baladan, the king of Babylon, sent messengers with presents to him. They wanted to know the reason for the miraculous retrogradation of the sun which happened in the world."

We have to recognize (as has already been demonstrated in this text) that the prophets of Israel were competent astronomers.

Philosophy, Religion, Science

Image: A medieval illustration; looking past the dome of the stars. Rather than finding God beyond the dome of the stars, the viewer is confronted with an endless expanse of additional wheels and gears -- the mechanics of the Universe.

Venus lost its tail in 685 BC, and Mars no longer came close to Earth after 670 BC. Mercury also was not seen again in the vicinity of Earth. The flaring coma of Jupiter had probably disappeared before 600 BC. The blackboard in the sky, which had taught mankind all of its conduct, had been erased. The Gods were gone. When Xerxes, in about 484 BC, entered Babylon to destroy its religious hold on the region, he found the statue of Marduk in a coffin. He melted it down.

Despite some continued local "Ignis Coelis" (fire falling from the skies), continued sightings of meteors, which slowly reduced in frequency over the next 1000 years, and the earthquakes which continued for hundreds of years, the lessons from the Gods had come to an end. In the sky only the stars and pin-points of planets were to be found. The band of the ecliptic continued to glow like a highway until AD 1840. In the 20th century references to the "path of the Gods" are identified with the Milky Way instead (to confound 'ancient legends' even further).

Yet plasma contacts between distant planets persisted for a long time after 670 BC. There are dozens of recorded observations in China, Arabia, and medieval Europe. Charles Raspil paraphrases an incident recorded in China in the 10th century AD ...

"On the morning of March 18, [AD] 904, Venus was observed near the Pleiades blazing like fire. The next morning, to observers, Venus appeared to have developed three horns, somewhat resembling a flower, and then began to tremble and shake.

-- Charles Raspil "Planetary observations of the T'ang" 1994 [note 36]

Mars and Jupiter are also noted for anomalous behaviour, but many of the observations find the planets in the wrong location, and thus the anomalies can be attributed to errors in identification. Strange celestial events were frequently noted elsewhere also, as recounted in European records of "fire falling from heaven." But humanity was no longer confronted with large globes looming threateningly above the Earth during the day or night. After 670 BC the planets kept their distance.

The planets, which had previously had been seen as the Gods -- Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars -- had been identified and tracked as they receded in the sky after 3147 BC. But Venus was not added to the "four planets of antiquity" until after 600 BC. And, in fact, the clear identification of Isis, Horus, and Thoth with the planets Venus, Mars, and Mercury often remained uncertain during the prior period when the Gods raged across the skies. They were often misnamed and misidentified, confused with each other, or associated with the names of differing Gods and Goddesses (and stars also). This was to be expected since the planets were on unpredictable orbits, disappearing towards the Sun or deep into the night sky, and then appearing inexplicably close to Earth. As long as that happened, and as long as no 'model' of the Universe existed, the planets retained their anthropomorphic qualities. A science of astronomy, based on the regular traversal of wandering specks across the night sky, does not develop until after the 7th century BC. [note 37]

The suddenly cleared skies caused a second immense change in humanity's perspective on the world, not unlike the change in 3147 BC when the Gods departed, but without the attendent catastrophic physical trauma. Whereas for 10,000 years everything had been explained by the willful and unpredictable Gods, now there was nothing to base life's decisions on.

The New Religions

We can readily trace the development of all of the modern religions to the period following 685 BC, although many have much deeper roots.

.. Zoroasterianism

In the seventh and sixth century BC, Zarathustra (b 628 BC), a Persian, develops a new religion, Zoroasterianism, as a composite of Vedic and Persian religious practices. He retains the essential monotheism, equating the deity Mazda or Ahura-mazda with fire, and adds prohibitions against human and animal sacrifices. He is also the first to suggest the devil as a separate God, forever in conflict with Mazda for control of the world. Zoroasterianism becomes the official religion of the Persians. It is significant not only for its monotheism, but also for the change of worship from anthropomorphic celestial deities to a worship of a conceptual God, here expressed as the element of fire. It seems almost certain that Zoroasterianism had been influenced by the fiery battle of Venus and the Sun.

... Mithraism

One of the (later) minor deities of Persian Zoroasterianism, Mithra (which translates as "contract"), becomes the God of a new religion and contract between humans and a greater God. The concept of a covenant between this new, greater, and impersonal God is offered as a promise of hope, something which will pervade all the new religions except Taoism. [note 38]

Mithraism is first noted in Partia in 272 BC and is well established in Roman regions in Europe and North Africa by the first century AD. In a few hundred years, Mithraism had spread far into Western Europe as a self-contained religion. It was a forerunner of Christianity, especially in the idea of a 'new contract' between God and mankind. Christ preached a new contract with God also, under the metaphor of God as a shepherd.

Mithraism takes on the iconography of a bull (the constellation Taurus) slain by the God Mithra (Perseus, standing above Taurus in the sky), and clearly includes a number of other constellations in the imagery. These are constellations close to the equatorial, not the ecliptic. All represent animals which one by one follow Taurus in appearing above the eastern horizon during the summer night skies.

"In Porphyry [philosopher, 3rd century AD], for example, we find recorded a tradition that the cave which is depicted in the tauroctony and which the underground Mithraic temples were designed to imitate was intended to be 'an image of the cosmos.'"

-- David Ulansey "The Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries" (1989)

The cave as a metaphor for the cosmos is an interesting concept, for this can be extended to having a person -- or a God -- standing outside of the cave, outside the cosmos. We have no clear idea what the real meaning of the Mithraic iconography is, although it could be guessed that it expressed a new order for humanity and the Universe: the old gods were dead, the Son of the Sun (the flare-up of Venus in 685 BC) had slain the horned bull (Taurus) associated with the former Gods, and had moved the whole sky (the cave) to a new starting point for spring -- to the constellation of the Ram. The understanding was that the start of a new world order had been signaled with a sign from a God who exceeded in power all of the old deities, a God who stood outside of the dome of the stars and planets and suddenly moved it one day to a new location. [note 39]

We need to add another set of twins to the list developed in the previous chapter. The iconography of Mithraism always includes twin boys (known as Cautes and Cautopates) on the left and right of Mithra and on each side of a surrounding depiction of the zodiac. The boys are holding torches, one holds his torch high and one with his torch pointed down. Both boys have their legs crossed, with a different leg in the front. Others have noted that the crossed legs might represent the vernal and autumnal equinox -- the St Andrew's cross of the red ring of the equatorial and the yellow band of the ecliptic, as I have noted earlier. We could suggest that the torch held high and the torch held down could represent the location of the Sun along the ecliptic and, although in some cases these correspond correctly to the crossed legs of the vernal and autumnal equinox, in other cases these are reversed, suggesting the act of lighting up the winter and the act of relighting the torch in spring (which is done by grinding the end against the ground). [note 40]

... Taosm

In China, Lao-tse (604-531 BC) develops the philosophy of Taoism. Lao-tse's book, the Tao-te, proposes to explain "the change of the path." The path, which could metaphorically be taken as 'the path of life,' is clearly also the path of the planets. Chinese cosmology had already advanced to imagine the Earth (although conceived of as a flat square of land) surrounded by a rotating dome of the stars. The shift in the heavens in 685 BC must have had a huge impact on the thinking of the Chinese. It was as if some giant external hand had suddenly twisted the dome of the stars. This seemed to have curtailed any further removal of the remaining 'mystical' elements from religion and cosmology which had been initiated by the Chou. The power of a 'heaven' was retained as a certainty, as an external force which would continue to dominate imperial politics, reinforced by later Confucian philosophy. [note 41]

We have to understand the 'new religions' as having the same purpose as the 'new philosophies' (discussed further below). Both sought a moral order independent of the older Gods, and both were meant to democratize thought and religious practices, in effect taking these functions away from a priestly cast. The coincidence of dates is as follows:

• Zoroaster (Zarathustra, northeastern Persia, 628-?? BC), of the tribe of the Magi, developed Zoroastrianism (Mazdaism). Zoroaster understood the events of 685 BC as a battle between good and evil, with good eventually winning the battle, but not without continued support from the people. The Persian kings hired the Magi to officiate at their ceremonies and sacrifices. The monotheism of Mazdaism influenced Judaism during the Babylonian captivity of the Jews (597-536 BC), and spread throughout the eastern portion of the Middle East and into Arabia. It gave rise to Mithraism by perhaps 300 BC, and was a very important model for Christianity and, at a much later date, for Islam. [note 42]

• Lao-tse (China, 604-531 BC) devised the philosophy of Taoism. His existence may be in doubt, but that would serve his philosophy of restraint well. Taoism was discussed above.

• Confucius (China, 551-479 BC) extended to everyone the worship services originally only allowed to the emperor.

• Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, (India, 563-483 BC) founded Buddhism, one of the major influences in the reformation of Hinduism, and later a major philosophical influence in China. About the teachings of the Buddha, H. G. Wells, writes in "The Outline of History" (1961), "It is beyond all dispute the achievement of one of the most penetrating intelligences the world has ever known."

• Vardhamana Mahavira (India, ??-527 BC) was the founder of Jainism, with ideas partially derived from Hinduism and Buddhism.

• The mystery religions of Anatolia and Greece (the worship of Demeter, Orpheus, Dionysus) all seem to date to the 6th century BC, although some elements, as, for example, the Eleusinian rites of Demeter, may be much older and more primitive. [note 43]

• Changes in Mesoamerica are harder to trace. The Olmecs seemed to have worshiped (or feared) Mars in the 8th and 7th century BC (and Venus earlier). Elements of their culture resurface in central Mexico, but with the addition of the cult of Quetzalcoatl, the sacrificed Venus, and a cult of the dead -- actually a cult of the afterlife. New alignments to the setting or rising sun on or about August 12 become a feature of ceremonial centers after 600 BC. The definitive site was the city of Teotihuacan -- "the place where men become Gods." See Chapter 18, "Olmec Alignments."

The new religions were testaments to hope -- hope for a good life on Earth, hope for the abatement of evil, hope for an afterlife, hope for union with God, hope for victory of a nation, hope for the conquest of others. The specifics vary with the politics and philosophy of various peoples. The Christians hope for the return of their saviour. Their hope does not fade until after AD 1200. The Mexicans and Maya hoped for the return of Quetzalcoatl for 2200 years. The promise of a redemption resulting in life after death is almost universal.

I should also point out that the older Gods were not simply put aside. From a look at the history of republican and imperial Rome it becomes obvious that, certainly at the official level, the honors and ceremonies extended to the elder Gods continued unabated for the next thousand years.

Philosophy and Science

Within 100 years after 685 BC, we see the simultaneous rise of philosophy in China, India, Mesopotamia (Chaldea), Israel, and Greece. The coincidence of start-up dates is amazing. The methods of building a philosophical system differ, but everywhere the systems include a sudden interest in history and in physics. About the sudden interest in materials and basic concepts, Kelley L. Ross writes:

"The multiple points of similarity between thought of Greece, India, and China, evident in the simplest terms in their respective treatment of the physical elements, cannot be accounted for by mutual influence, which does not seem to have existed at the earliest period." [note 44]

China will retain the Yin and Yang and the 'five elements' of remote antiquity, and build onto this a political and moral philosophy. Chaldea and India devise a science of astrology. Israel collates the historical facts for the Bible and adds the rituals from antiquity. The Greeks start investigations which will form the core of Western physics, and write the first histories. [note 45]

About the period of 600 to 500 BC, Irving Wolfe wrote, in 1997..

"[There is] evidence for what I call a 'Kultursturz' or cultural crisis in which a large number of cultural elements underwent quick and sharp change within the same short period of time. These include the appearance of secular as opposed to strictly religious art, a host of new religions of a new type, new philosophies of a new type, writing, dynastic upheavals, the quick upsurge and removal of several tyrannical regimes, urbanism, new patterns of consciousness, behaviour, and dreaming, new types of social organizatation, vast pan-Greek ritualistic athletic games, the institution of democracy and the use of money. All of these elements are totally different in spirit from those of the previous (Bronze Age) cultures."

-- Irving Wolfe, "The 'Kultursturz' At The Bronze Age -- Iron Age Boundary" (1997) -- SIS Conference, "Natural Catastrophes during Bronze Age Civilizations"

Wolfe continues with..

"If all of these cultural revolutions can be correlated chronologically among themselves and to scientific evidence for similar upheavals well documented in the geological, archaeological and climatological record, then we have before us the outline of a global natural event which not only ended one historical era, but led to the distinctive cultural characteristics of our modern age. After all, we are the children of this period of upheaval."

The "evidence for similar [geological] upheavals" clearly exists as part of the 8th and 7th century BC, preceding the changes of the 7th and 6th century BC which Wolfe speaks of. But the one single celestial event of 685 BC, which became the definitive opening of the new human cultural era, caused no physical upheavals.

The people of Mesoamerica also acknowledged the change in milieu, even though the written records attesting to this do not appear until nearly 2000 years later. The death of Quetzalcoatl is a concluding event in Mesoamerica, as it was for people elsewhere in the world, and no new celestial Gods are introduced after the 7th century BC. It is at this time, in fact, that we see the demise of the Olmecs and the rise of other Central American civilizations, and a Mesoamerican 'physics' which becomes a system of control over the spiritual world, not unlike that of India and Babylonia. An intense interest in history also develops, soon aided with a fully developed script (after 600 BC) used to elucidate the much older graphical records painted on bark books. The interest in history at this time was worldwide.

"And here ends that interval of time which is termed mythological. From this time on history begins."

-- Varro, first century BC.

Varro is actually speaking about history after the 8th century BC, in reference to 776 BC, the first Olympiad. But before Varro Greek chronographers had already divided history up into two eras, the "mythological" and the "historical." The year 747 BC was the dividing line between the two eras. [note 46]

By the first century AD, historians are convinced that there is no sensible history more than a few centuries before their own time. Varro and other historians had never seen any of the wonders that the ancients talked about, nor had Herodotus in 400 BC. They considered the visits of Athena, streaking through the day skies with her long hair, or the attacks on the Earth by Ares, the bloodied stormer of walls, as 'myths' concocted by their ancestors. Their attitude seems entirely modern to us. In the Greek city of Miletos, a new school of philosophy sought to explain the world in terms of what was observed rather than basing explanations on the testimony of the ancients. [note 47]

"Human beings are distributed all around the Earth and stand with their feet pointing to each other"

-- Pliny, first century AD

Pliny's observation is paralleled by Greeks, Mesopotamians, Indians, and Chinese of the same era. "Everywhere upon the globe of the earth, men think their own place to be topmost," reads the Hindu Suyra Siddhanta of about the same date. Many people of this era knew that the Earth was a globe which "hangs suspended and does not fall," as Pliny wrote. Chaldeans knew that eclipses of the Moon were caused by the Earth's shadow, and could predict them. Aristarchus of Samos knew the Earth traveled around the Sun. Hipparchus (129 BC) calculated the minute annual shift in the earth's equinox. Eratosthenes correctly found the circumference of the Earth. [note 48]

I am using these examples of a new physics of the Solar System to demonstrate that a watershed had been reached in subjective consciousness, which over the course of a few hundred years expands to an ability to incorporate observations into narratized mental spaces and explore them profitably. This particular model -- representing the Earth as a globe suspended in space -- could only be seen in the imagination.

The same is seen in China and India at about the same time, where natural history develops into 'sciences,' which depend on imagined mental spaces congruent with reality as observed. To explain everything, without reference to remote antiquity, it was first necessary to describe the physical world.

Not the same can be said for Mesoamerica at first glance, with its detailed congruence of real-world and spiritual-world interactions, based perhaps too much yet on the celestial observations of remote antiquity for our taste. But, considered in detail, the thought system of the Maya, for example, exhibits the same rationality in navigating this intricately detailed imagined spiritual space. It does not involve 'facts' as we understand them, that is, events placed in a continuity of time and a contiguity with other observations, but is instead totally based on firmly believed interactions between the realms of the real and the spiritual. Yet it represents a way of thinking which is far removed from mere acceptance of the world. The Mesoamerican 'philosophy' also dates to after 600 BC. It is widespread and uniform until the Spanish arrive. The histories written at the time of the Spanish, of the ball-playing twins written 2200 years after the events (and the surviving celebrations which still exist today), point to the stability of the underlying philosophy.

Some of the new science went awry, of course. The Babylonians (Chaldeans) had made astronomical observations dating back perhaps to 2300 BC. But only in the seventh century BC does this develop into a 'science' of astrology. This effort was a giant leap into an arena of correlation between observed celestial and earthly events which the same people had been incapable of even imagining during the previous 2000 years. What made this paricular 'science' valid to them was the assumption that the planets, identified with the Gods of old, still regulated the lives of men and controlled events on Earth, just as the Gods had always done.

Holding on to the Past

The ultimate effort everywhere was to explain mankind's existence and formulate a coda of proper behavior. By 500 to 400 BC the Greeks had reached an intellectual level which is modern to us. And yet -- at times -- the past peeks through. The same philosophers who could verbally extract the roots of quadratic equations, held fast to omens and espoused the prophesies of oracles with certitude.

The prophetess at Delphi, in effect, ruled the whole of the Greek political world for 1000 years with her instantaneous answers to questions about colonization, leaders, laws, enemies, and personal fortunes. Thucydides, writing about the Peloponnesian Wars (430 -- 404 BC), details all the human failings in the course of events yet never fails to append his histories with the pronouncements of Delphi to show how the prophesies had been accomplished. The "New Testament" uses prophesies in the same manner, as authentication. Plato, in his otherwise completely cynical writings, holds the Delphic Oracle in high esteem.

Omens, prophesy, and foretelling of the future remained very serious practices lasting well into the current era. (The Sibylline Oracle Books were still in circulation in the 16th century AD.) The concept of 'free will' was developed in Greece in classical times (400 BC), but not widely accepted for another 2000 years. The Greek tragedies hold that 'fate' runs the lives of men, resulting in plot-lines often completely inexplicable to us as modern readers. The idea of 'chance happening' does not take hold in Europe until well after the Middle Ages. [note 49]

The past maintained a particular hold on the people of South America and Mesoamerica. For Mesoamerica, the observation of Venus remained the primary theological obsession, especially for the Maya, who record yearly corrections to a base calculation of the location of Venus which comes closer in estimating its movements and appearances than the Europeans would be able to do for 200 years after they 'discover' the Maya.

For the Aztec, the pacification of the Gods remains at the center of life. Even in the last battle with Cortez's soldiers over possesion of the city of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec warriors take time out from battle to drag captured Spanish soldiers to the top platform of the temple of Huitzilopochtli to rip out their hearts. The sacrifices were necessary measures as long as the return of the unpredictable Gods remained a possibility. The Aztecs, the people of Mars, had successfully kept cosmic misfortune at bay, for hundreds of years, at the cost of many thousands of lives, when the Spanish arrived in AD 1420.

----
Special thanks to S Bourke, AU, for the Kirkin story.

---

Endnotes

Note 1 --

The electrical impact to Earth by Mercury happened shortly after the last sighting of Mars, and may have been attributed to Mars by the Olmecs.
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Note 2 --

A distinction should be kept in mind between popular narratives about the creation of the world and actual events. The "Chilam Balam" relates the sequence of the actual events of the past in four instances. But these were copied from the official records. What we see in the "Popol Vuh" is a reconstructed narrative, made at a time when the Maya considered all of history as repeating itself endlessly, so that sequencing events separated by 4000 years was not a conceptual or philosophical problem, at least not as a narrative of the common people. The authors of the "Popol Vuh" claim they had the official histories at hand, and, in fact, many details slip into the story of the "Popul Vu" which could only have come from the older codexes.
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Note 3 --

In Europe away from the Mediterranean, throughout northern Asia, and in North America the constellation "the Wain" was known as "the Bear," apparently since remote antiquity. Only by considering the Wain as representing a bear with four legs extending below the pan of Ursa Major could this constellation be considered as dipping into the ocean. The Romans, however, did not consider Ursa Major as representing a bear. It was a wagon which endlessly circled the sky at the location of the polar axis.
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Note 4 --

"The Wain" here is translated from the Egyptian equivalent, an ox, a mummified ox, or a mummified ox leg, graphically depicted as early as 1500 BC, with an axis piercing the body of the ox. This suggests that there was no precession of the equinox before the relocation of the rotational axis in 685 BC. (See the description of the iconography of Senmut's tomb, presented as an endnote in Appendix B.)

Attempts in the 19th century to date the first Chinese emperor Yao to 2350 BC, by a retrocalculation based on precession which places the Pleiades at the vernal equinox are baseless, despite the fact that the results agree with the dating estimates made during the Han dynasty. The contemporary retrocalculations are based on information from the "Annals of Shu." (Legge notes this in his commentary on the "Annals of Shu.")

Why the compilers of the "Annals of Shu" would add this information in the 7th or 8th century BC, (which could be suggested from the fact that other astronomical and calendrical information was added at the time of the Chou or Han), is unclear, since, by today's retrocalculations, the Pleiades do not define the vernal equinox in 700 BC, or, for that matter, as early as 1500 BC.

Similar retrocalculations have been made in India in the last century for the start of the current era and for the Bharata battle (and placed variously at 3037 BC and 1432 BC), based on hints from the Vedas.
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Note 5 --

The 26,000 year cycle is based on only a few hundred years of observation, equivalent to watching the passage of about 1 or 2 degrees of the 360 degrees of the path. The rate of precession, a movement of about 0.72 degrees per century, has been known with some accuracy since the first century BC. There have been periods of time when the precession stopped.
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Note 6 --

Electrical effects such as these cannot be neglected. In the thirty years since the spin of the Earth has been measured with atomic clocks, the Earth has slowed down by 30 seconds in its rotation. This is much larger than what can possibly be accounted for under present theories of astrophysics (which excludes electrical considerations).

It could be suggested that the change in the inclination of the Earth's spin axis to the normal of the orbit might have been accomplished with the plasmoid thunderbolt from Jupiter directed at the Sun between July14 and July 25, 685 BC. This certainly was a massive single electrical expulsion, travelling 500 million miles to reach its destination, but I do not think the plasmoid was at the cause. Earth was off the path, as were Venus and Mercury. The passing plasmoid came no closer than some 30,000,000 miles to Earth, and only during a few days. The "Chilam Balam" notes that the Sun "went off its course" for 40 days ending in July 25th. Only during the last few days did the plasmoids move past Earth. Additionally, the earth and the other inner planets were all invisible to Jupiter and the lightning bolt.
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Note 7 --

"The Suns glare prevented observers on Earth from viewing NEAT's approach. But the SOHO spacecraft, stationed between Earth and the Sun, has an instrument called Large-Angle Spectrometric Coronagraph (LASCO), which blocks the Suns brightest light, permitting the satellite to record the comet's dramatic swing around the Sun."

"As NEAT raced through the extended solar atmosphere, a large coronal mass ejection (CME) exploded from the Sun and appeared to strike the comet. The comet responded with a kink that propagated down the tail. The disk in the center is created by the coronograph as it blocks the Suns glare."

-- From http://www.thunderbolts.info MOTD for May 26, 2005. (Image Credit: Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO)/ESA/NASA)
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Note 8 --

It might be suggested that the change in the Earth's axis was due to another approach of Venus, as regularly happened at 52 year intervals (supposedly) in the remote past. Since 1492 or 1442 BC, the '52 year intervals' of close approaches of Venus have been 50 years up to 747 BC, and 52 years thereafter. See Appendix B, "The Celestial Mechanics," where this information is developed.

Adding 50 or 52 years (or multiples) to the dates which could be identified as a previous approach of Venus (776 BC) does not yield a date anywhere near 685 BC. However, an ephemeris shows that Venus reached inferior conjunction in (Julian dates)..

-- March 22 of 689 BC,
-- October 16 of 688 BC,
-- June 1 of 686 BC, and
-- January 7 of 684 BC.

One of these dates could perhaps represent an instance where the elliptical orbit of Venus intersected the eliptical orbit of Earth. Both planets were still on elliptical orbits in 685 BC. Earth's orbit was at an eccentricity of 0.10; today it is 0.016.

Going from 1442 BC, adding 14 multiples of 50 years yields a date 742 BC. Adding 52 years to this yields 690 BC, close to one of the four dates above. The next year would be 638 BC. However, none of these dates would suggest an approach of Venus as the cause for the events of 685 BC.

A sequence of conjunctions of Venus, Mars, and Mercury follows. The dates below are on the Julian calendar (Gregorian dates are 7 calendar days earlier, at this time). The conjuctions were determined visually, and might be off by a day or two from calculated ephemeris tables. An inferior conjuction places a planet between the Sun and Earth. A superior conjunction places a planet directly behind the Sun.

.................. the year 688 BC ...................

• January 24, 688 BC -- Mars at inferior (?) conjunction.
  An ephemeris shows this as a superior conjuction of Earth with Mars. If Mars crossed over Earth's orbit, it would represent an inferior conjunction with Earth.
• April 27, 688 BC -- Mercury at inferior conjunction.
• August 28, 688 BC -- Mercury at inferior conjunction.
• October 16, 688 BC -- Venus at inferior conjunction.
• December 14, 688 BC -- Mercury at inferior conjunction.

  .................. the year 687 BC ..................

• April 6, 687 BC -- Mercury at inferior conjunction.
• Aagust 12, 687 BC -- Mercury at inferior conjunction.
• November 27, 687 BC -- Mercury at inferior conjunction.

  .................. the year 686 BC ..................

• February 27, 686 BC -- Mars at inferior conjunction. ***
• March 19, 686 BC -- Mercury at inferior conjunction. ***
• May 27, 686 BC -- Venus at inferior conjunction.
  ...Jupiter is in line with Venus and Earth.
• July 10, 686 BC -- Mercury and Jupiter in line.
• August 25, 686 BC -- Mars and Jupiter in line.
• October 9, 686 BC -- Mercury and Jupiter in line.
• November 12, 686 BC -- Mercury at inferior conjunction.

  .................. the year 685 BC ..................

• January 9, 685 BC -- Mercury and Jupiter in line.
• January 22, 685 BC -- Venus and Jupiter in line.
• February 29, 685 BC -- Mercury at inferior conjunction.
• March 15, 685 BC -- Venus at inferior conjunction. ***
  ...Venus is behind the Sun.
• April 7, 685 BC -- Mercury and Jupiter in line.
• July 1, 685 BC -- Earth and Jupiter in line.
• July 8, 685 BC -- Mercury at inferior conjunction.
  ...Mercury close to being in line with Jupiter.
• July 19, 685 BC -- Mercury and Saturn in line.
• September 11, 685 BC -- Venus and Jupiter in line. ***
• October 4, 685 BC -- Mercury and Jupiter in line.
• October 25, 685 BC -- Mercury at inferior conjunction.

  .................. the year 684 BC ..................

• January 3, 684 BC, Venus at superior conjunction.
  ...Venus again rises in the east, although still seen in the west because Venus in this instance passes 8 degrees above the Sun.

I have highlighted (***) a few items. Let me point out what these represent.

• February 27, 686 BC -- Mars at inferior conjunction.
  -- This is the last time Mars was seen inside the orbit of Earth.

• March 19, 686 BC -- Mercury at inferior conjunction.
  -- This represents the agent and date of the second Earth shock according to an ephemeris -- which would be incorrect (at best by some days) since the orbit of Mercury changed after this. In fact, the recorded date of the Earth shock is March 23.

• March 15, 685 BC -- Venus at superior conjunction.
  -- This date is from ephemeris information, which does not match anything which Rose and Vaughan extracted from the "Venus Tablets of Ammizaduga." Otherwise this date might represent the initial flareup of Venus since only after this date would Venus reappear from behind the Sun. The "Venus Tablets" do not list an initial appearance of Venus in the west (as it would have in first appearing from behind the Sun). Rose and Vaughan expected Venus to reappear some nine months after disappearing behind the Sun (in the east), which would have been (depending on what they mean by their phrasing of Venus "disappearing a month late") in September at the earliest.
  -- It might be suggested that the disagreement with the data of Rose and Vaughan is due to a change in the orbit of Venus due to an interaction with Mercury when it crossed the orbit of Venus to reach its current orbital location (after March 23, 686 BC).

• September 11, 685 BC -- Venus and Jupiter in line.
  -- If the plasmoid bolt from Jupiter was destined for Venus, this would be the likely date, but Mesoamerican sources insist on August 2, Julian.

The nova event of Venus has to be corrected from 680 BC in eastern Mediterranean Chronology to 685 BC. The nova event of Venus took place between the last two events listed above, between the date that Venus would have first appeared in the west skies and the date the plasmoid landed, or possibly when Venus was again seen rising in the east. There is a gap of nearly six months between these last two. Actual dates of the blazing of Venus and Mercury are resolved in the text.
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Note 9 --

From an essay by Walter Cruttenden, "Comparison of Precession Theories: An Argument for the Binary Model" (2003)...

"It was Sir Isaac Newton, who had just developed his theories of gravity that said if the Earth did wobble it must be due to the mass of the Sun and the Moon, the only bodies considered close enough or large enough to have such an effect. But Newton's equations never did match observed precession rates. Consequently, the equations were substantially revised by Jean-le-Rond D'Alembert who added factors for torque and inertia, but even this effort proved a poor predictor of precession rates. Since then precession calculations have been continually modified and now include many factors beyond the original "lunisolar forces", including the gravitational effect of the inner and outer planets, tidal influences, effects of the 300 largest asteroids, and even a possible elliptical movement of the Earth's soft core. But as is apparent the calculations have become more of a "plug" whereby inputs are gradually added or modified to fit the observation rather than being predictive or resting on solid theory."

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Note 10 --

The orbit of the Moon is 250,000 miles. The plasmasphere of planets extends 10 to 20 planet diameters from the surface, thus 80,000 to 160,000 miles for Earth.

Image: Path of the Moon during a month; showing travel outside of the Earth's plasmasphere.

Additionally the Moon's travel takes it some 40,000 miles alternately above and below the Earth during the year. This effects when eclipses will be seen, but has little effect on its entry and exit from the Earth's plasmasphere.

Image: Path of the Moon during a half year; showing travel above and below the poles of Earth.

The Moon does not have a significant plasmasphere or, perhaps, a tail. (This last from Wall Thornhill, April 2009.)
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Note 11 --

Alfred de Grazia, in "The Lately Tortured Earth" (1983), writes..

"Yet Velikovsky, arguing the case for axis displacement, had earlier discussed a calculation by Weizacker demonstrating that an Earth transaction with a strong magnetic field would affect its axial inclination much more readily than its rotation [13]."

The reference is to an article in Pensée Magazine, William Straka, "Straka: Science or Anti-Science," (1972).

The possibility of a magnetic couple, induced by the extreme Solar Wind passing by Earth, in unlikely, since the magnetic poles do not coincide with the axis of rotation. A constant applied torque is required, which calls for a force applied off-center from the Earth's axis. See Appendix B, "The Celestial Mechanics," for more on this.
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Note 12 --

Although a yojana is a terrestrial land measure (distance), it can be projected to the sphere of the stars which surrounds the Earth as a change in celestial latitude. A north-south distance of 100 yojanas on Earth represents a 6.5 degree change in latitude. The same angular measure would apply to the dome of the stars. A 6.5 degree change in celestial latitude in 685 BC, will place the earlier location of the rotational axis of the Earth directly in the pan of Ursa Major.

By itself, a 30 degree axial tilt will make only a minor difference in climate compared to a 23.5 degree tilt. The arctic circles would move closer to the poles by 6.5 degrees.
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Note 13 --

Book 10 of the "Chilam Balam" includes three instances of spans of time, all given as so many months or years. I have been able to identify each of these to specific dates, but only by recognizing that the original author in each instance counts inclusively (see Chapter 16).

Following the statement, "it came about that the sun in Katun 3-Ahau was moved from its place for three months," quoted in the text is the note, "After three heaps of years it [the sun] will come back into place in Katun 3-Ahau." (The use of future tense is peculiar to the translation into an Indo-European language.)

A "heap" is probably 5 (elsewhere known as a "bundle") and a "year" is a 260 day Tzolkin year. The fifteen years is another of the instances of inclusive counting for it turns out that the "three heaps of years" represent an interval of 14 Tzolkin years in the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar.

Fourteen Tzolkin years correctly states the number of days it takes for the same day-name and day-number combination to recur for a sunset at the same horizon sunset location of a zenithal passage of the Sun before and after the change from the 30 degree axial inclination to a 23.5 degree axial inclination.

This is the key to understanding, for 14 Tzolkin cycles of 260 days do not bring us back to the same seasonal day in the year. It falls short by about 12 days. The "Chilam Balam" thus says that the Sun set at the same horizon location as in the past, but 12 days earlier. This cannot be achieved except by having the axial inclination of the Earth change.

I should point out also that the information as presented in the "Chilam Balam" probable refers to the setting location of the zenithal passage of the Sun at some location within the range of 15 to 20 degrees north latitude. As I point out in Chapter 18, "Olmec Alignments," zenithal passages of the Sun were important to the ceremonial centers of Olmec Veracruz and the Valley of Mexico. Nearly every center was aligned to have the Sun set at some mountain or volcano after a zenithal passage over the site. The difference of 12 days suggest that the information of the "Chilam Balam" was originally recorded for a latitude of 17.0 degrees (Monte Alban). See Chapter 16, "The Chilam Balam," for additional details. This is one of the clearest indication that there was a change in the axial inclination of the Earth.
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Note 14 --

I am indebted to Keith Snyder, who found and recognized the stone, and mentions the Lakota sources (Ronald Goodman, "Lakota Star Knowledge: studies in Lakota stellar theology" 1990) on his website [http://snyder_kas.home.mindspring.com/Indian_Stones.html]. If the legend is still current, the age of the drilled holes does not matter.

The missing star might not be missing. A star exists at the designated location, although dim, with a magnitude of 6.1.

Interestingly, the centroid of the stone looks to be halfway between between Ursa Minor and Ursa Major, at about the star Kappa in the constellation Draco. This is about where I would expect the axis of the sky to have moved in 685 BC, before eventually settling down near Kochab in Ursa Minor.
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Note 15 --

East and west in the dome of the stars is defined by the direction the stars seem to rotate. Facing south, west is to the right. Facing north, the stars above the pole star move left to the west; the stars below the pole star move toward the right, where the geographic east is located.

The original location of the axis within the pan of Ursa Major would be at 58.5 degrees of elevation, and a Right Ascension (RA) of 11.7 hours. Right Ascension is the number of degrees from the current vernal equinox, expressed as hours, where 360 degrees represents 24 hours.

A pottery Image: Hunahpu shoots Itzam-Yeh (Seven-Macaw). The text reads, "Done by Hun-Ahau; on 1-Ahau 3-Kankin he entered the sky, Itzam-Yeh."
-- From David Freidel and Linda Schele "Maya Cosmos" (1993)

One of the ball-playing twins of the "Popol Vuh," who represent Venus or Mercury in 685 BC, has to shoot down the bird Itzam-Yeh (Seven-Macah), who had perched on top of the central axis of the sky, the World Tree, before a new creation could start. Seven-Macaw today is recognized as Ursa Major, but the bird reference is to Saturn at the polar location before 3147 BC. The scorpion below the tree is the constellation Scorpio at the base of the Milky Way. Scorpio has the same name in Mesoamerica as in the eastern Mediterranean. There is a snake on the left (not shown here) which is the constellation Sagittarius. The north pole is here shown from the perspective of the south horizon, and thus is upside down.

In Classical Maya cosmology the Milky Way has replaced the World Tree, originally the polar configuration from before 3147 BC, but forgotten by the Maya nearly 4000 years later, and only recalled from ancient glyphic books. That the Milky Way is the World Tree, is the opinion of archaeologists. However, the Milky Way does not intersect Ursa Major. See David Freidel and Linda Schele "Maya Cosmos" (1993) and Dennis Tedlock "Popol Vuh" (1985).

The date of 1-Ahau 3 Kankin is curious, for it does not match the Maya retrocalculated date of 4-Ahau 8-Cumku in 3147 BC usually listed for this event. It would correspond to May 28, 3149 BC, two years before before the "second creation" of 3147 BC (Freidel and Schele).
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Note 16 --

The Hindu poem Mahabarhata notes a number of locations for the pole star, which are all below the precessional path of the pole star as understood today. They are correct in Right Ascension for the 8th through the 5th century BC (when the poetry of the Mahabarhata was created), but too far below the path of the pole as described today. These locations would also not hold for a more remote era of antiquity. Backward in time from today, the currently defined path of the pole bisects the region between Ursa Minor and Ursa Major and curves toward the tail of Draco. Scholars who have analyzed the astronomical data of the Mahabarhata have taken note of the Right Ascension (before 685 BC) to place the Bharata war in 1400 BC, but have failed to take the altitude into consideration. See S.P Gupta and K.S. Ramachandran (editors), "Mahabharata, Myth and Reality" (1976).
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Note 17 --

The horizon is probably the most important anchor point in visually recognizing and locating constellations.
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Note 18 --

At age 12 I moved from 55 degrees latitude to 42 degrees latitude. It took years before I could again instantly recognize constellations which I had learned in childhood. And there were new ones.
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Note 19 --

Huang Sheng's information in W. Carl Rufus and Hsing-chih Tien, "The Soochow Astronomical Chart" (1945).
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Note 20 --

The Babylonians (Chaldeans) may have noticed the precession about 50 years earlier than Hipparchus. In China, Yu Hsi noted the precession of the equinoxes between AD 307 to AD 338. John Henderson writes..

"This discovery is traditionally attributed to the fourth-century astronomer, Yu Xi (fl. [AD] 307-338), though astronomers as early as the Han era had noted that the winter solstice shifted with respect to the lunar lodges."
-- John B. Henderson "Cosmology and Concepts of Nature in Traditional China" (essay, nd)

The Han spans 206 BC to AD 220. The 'lunar lodges' are the houses of the zodiac.
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Note 21 --

Patten and Windsor, in "The Mars-Earth Wars" (1996), similarly claim there was no precession of the equinox before 701 BC. I use 685 BC.
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Note 22 --

In the first and second century BC it was universally accepted by all the Mediterranean civilizations that the vernal equinox was located at 8 degrees of Aries. This is actually a peculiar location, and certainly not selected by design at that time. It places the equinox at the west end of the constellation Aries, and actually already within the constellation Pisces.

Image: The equinox in 150 BC, at 8 degrees of Aries. Looking directly east. The horizon, equatorial, and ecliptic are marked. The Moon in this view blocks the Pleiades.

Now, if we move 22 degrees eastward from this location to 30 degrees of Aries, we reach a point directly between Aries and Taurus. Retrocalculating from today, this location could not be reached by turning the wheels of time backward to 685 BC. It would be reached only by going 1500 years into the past from 100 BC.
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Note 23 --

Almost all people everywhere established some sort of division of the night sky into 12 or 13 regions of marked significant stars, all to the purpose of noting the passage of the Moon. The Egyptians at a very early time used 36 notable stars for time keeping at night. India divided the sky up into 28 'mansions' marking the progress of the Moon (dating from a yet earlier era). The Chinese year was divided also into 28 'lunar mansions' -- long before contact with India. We know this from Shang dynasty records at least since 1400 BC.

China reduced the zodiac to 12 constellations in about 100 AD, during calendar reforms. The new Chinese constellation names were both indigenous and received from Indian sources, who in turn copied Babylonian constellation names under Greek influences after 330 BC. The Greeks, and eventually the Romans, did the same, substituting Babylonian names for earlier local names. Thus the entire Asiatic and European zodiac of today derives from, or was modified from, the zodiac in use in Babylonia -- but in all cases long after the constellations were named in Babylon. See calendar notes in Appendix A, "Chronology."

The earliest surviving description of the Mesopotamian constellations is the Mul.Apin (MUL.APIN) tablet series, with the oldest dated example from the 7th century BC. "The Mul.Apin was not a marginal source, but probably forms our most important document for ancient Mesopotamian astrology." -- vd Sluijs. The Mul.Apin marks the vernal equinox and autumnal equinox as follows..

"MUL.MUL (eta-Tauri, the Pleiades) and GIR.TAB (beta-Scorpii) were visible at the East and West points of the horizon and also defined the Vernal and Autumnal Equinoxes."

-- from http://www.lexiline.com/lexiline/lexi171.htm

This has led some to suggest that the tables date from 2340 BC, on the basis of a retrocalculation based on today's skies and today's estimate for the precession of the equinoxes. This is a ludicrous suggestion, not only in terms of the remote date, but also because it assumes that no changes were made in the data for the next 1600 years even though the skies (on the same basis of an implied "the precession of the equinoxes") would have changed continuously. See for instance, Werner Papke, "Die Sterne von Babylon" ("The Stars of Babylon") (nd).

Most researchers have neglected this information, and write about the Mul.Apin as if it represented "an idealized year of 360 days" with an equinox at the rising of the Pleiades, a similar idealization. The Mul.Apin certainly dates to before 747 BC, although the oldest recopied texts date with certainty to 687 BC. By stylistic content of the dozen copies (from Nineveh, Assur, and another location), they date to perhaps 1000 BC.

About the ecliptic, and for a later date of 400 to 300 BC, Robert Powell, in "The Definition of the Babylonian Zodiac and the Influence of Babylonian Astronomy on the Subsequent Defining of the Zodiac," Phd Thesis, Polish Academy of Science (2004), writes..

"According to this original definition the zodiac is defined by the two first magnitude stars Aldebaran and Antares in such a way that each is located exactly at the midpoint (15 degrees) of their respective sign, Taurus and Scorpio. Thereby these two stars define the central axis of the zodiac, which was the primary zodiacal reference axis for all other stars."

The first part of this statement is fact; the second part is supposition. However, selecting Aldebaran as 15 degrees of Taurus places zero degrees of Taurus within two degrees of where I suggest the division of the ecliptic started in antiquity. If Taurus was not meant to be the first constellation to show above the night horizon at the beginning of the year, why was Aldebaran selected as one of the midpoints of the ecliptic? Powell continues with the suggestion of how the sidereal ecliptic was replaced by a tropical (solar) ecliptic -- where the equinox is set at "zero degrees of Aries" -- but has difficulty substantiating his claims (which I won't cover here). He does add a note on the selection of the equinox (apparently at a somewhat later date of 200 BC).

"Note that if there was a perfect correspondence between MUL.APIN's solar calendar and the zodiac, the vernal point would have to be located at 15° Aries, since Aries as the first sign of the zodiac corresponds to month 1 and in the Babylonian solar calendar the vernal equinox was placed on the 15th day of month 1. However, in System A of Babylonian astronomy the vernal point was located at 10 degrees [of] Aries and in System B at 8 degrees [of] Aries."

Changes were made in the Babylonian record keeping, but the reasons for the changes have eluded any contemperary analysis based on a continuation of present conditions into the past.
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Note 24 --

Before 685 BC both the horizon line and the equatorial would be rotated about 15 degrees counterclockwise when viewed directly east. Thus the Pleiades would rotate 15 degrees clockwise with respect to the horizon, placing them almost directly above the rising Sun.
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Note 25 --

The following are possible significant configurations of the Pleiades and the rising Sun on the first day of spring -- when we retrocalculate from today's skies:

• In about 1606 BC the Pleiades rise heliacally (with the Sun) at 26.5 degrees of Aries.
• In about 1860 BC the Pleiades are one degree above the horizon as the Sun rises at zero degrees of Taurus.
• In about 2406 BC the Sun is rising directly below the Pleiades in Taurus, at 4 degrees of Taurus.

But none of these dates make any sense. In 685 BC, it would not have been remembered from 1600 BC, and much less from 2400 BC, that the Pleiades signaled the start of spring. It is most likely that the Pleiades stood in the sky at the start of spring in all the years before 685 BC.
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Note 26 --

Note that the choice of a location from which the circumference of the night sky is measured does not depend on how many zodiacal constellations are identified or the number of degrees assigned to each. Thus, if at an earlier time, the Babylonians identified 18 constellations of the zodiac it makes no difference to the starting point between Aries and Taurus. We know from records of the 4th century BC, that by that time the zodiac had been divided into 12 sectors of 30 degrees each, even though the original reason for a division into 12 houses was no longer valid and the constellations for which the 'houses' of the zodiac are named were a poor fit.

China was not wedded to a system which divided the night sky up into 12 equal segments of 30 degrees. The sectors of the sky were of unequal size, as little as 2 degrees, with boundaries along the longitudinal lines of easily recognized stars. Thus in 747 BC, when the length of the year changed, the Chinese had no reason not to reorganize the night sky over a full circle defined as 365.25 'degrees.' This remained in use until ca AD 1400.
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Note 27 --

If the specifics of the shift in the location of the polar axis were as I have suggested, then the equatorial was 'lifted' considerably at about the location of Leo (which is below Ursa Major), and 'lowered' at the location of Aquarius (located 12 hours of RA later). The location of Leo is at a Right Ascension of 8 hours (using today's RA values). Thus the old celestial equator would have crossed the ecliptic (zodiac) at or about 2 hours RA and 14 hours RA. These would be the locations of the former vernal and autumnal equinox, and are located at Taurus and Scorpio.

In the "Mahabharata, Myth and Reality" in the section "Mahabharata and Astronomy," the authors S.B. Roy and K.C. Varma attempt to place the Bharata battle in time by calculating when the Pleiades would have stood at the horizon at the equinox, presumably after rising heliacally (with the Sun). They arrive at a date of ca 1432 BC by calculating backwards using today's rate of precession of the equinox at a rate of one degree every 72 years. They calculate from AD 499. The result is an easterly displacement of 25.5 degrees. The calculation is accurate, based on present conditions, but not valid, since they did not take into account the sudden shift of the polar axis. Yet this can be used as a check against the estimate I have developed above for the sudden change in the equinox in 685 BC. The shift of the equinox between AD 499 and 685 BC due to precession of the polar axis amounts to 16.3 degrees. That leaves 9.2 degrees to represent the shift in the zodiac in 685 BC. I use a slightly different position for the Sun at the equinox.
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Note 28 --

Velikovsky notes for the the 8th and 7th century BC (in an unpublished document), "Climatic change was again very significant and oscillations of climate marked the ninety years from -776 to -687." This sums up information from his book, "Earth in Upheaval" (1955), where he also writes of the depopulation of regions north of the Alps.

These years include the period of frequent electrical contacts by Mars, concluding in the nova event of 685 BC. Considering that today global weather is largely determined by the plasma coming in from the Sun, it would be expected that variations in global weather during the 8th and 7th century BC were also primarily determined by conditions outside of the Earth.

A depopulation of Europe, for that matter, is matched with similar demographic changes elsewhere. More properly, the demographic changes might be attributed to a combination of causes, involving not only climatic fluctuation, but also the physical devastation due to some nine plasma contacts with Mars during this period, of which we certainly have a clear record for the cities and citadels of the Middle East. The climatic changes were real, they are recorded in the tree pollen found in bogs.
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Note 29 --

The length of the delay in the start of spring, 15 degrees, is equal to about 15 days. A degree is just short of a day. There is a Hebrew source which notes that in the seventh century BC the feast days, which where counted from the equinox, were recalculated. This was not a change in calendars, as had happened in the eighth century BC.

In an abridged version of James Frazer's "The Golden Bough" (Theodor Gaster, editor, 1959), a text entry reads, "The Greeks gather and press grapes in the first half of October." An endnote explains..

"In ancient Greece the vintage seems to have fallen somewhat earlier, for Hesiod ('Works and Days,' 609 ff.) dates it to the time when Arcturus is a morning star, which was on September 18."

This would place Hesiod's composition of "Days and Works" to before 685 BC. The date of September 18 is about correct under the composition of the skies before 685 BC and with a 15 degree displacement of the equatorial.
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Note 30 --

There are lengthy astronomical records made by the Babylonians (Chaldeans), starting in the eight century BC directly after 747 BC (and other records supposedly since ca 2500 BC), involving the planets, the Moon, and the path of the Sun. The equinoxes, the shortest and longest days of the year, the distance traveled by the Sun each day against the background of stars, were all noted. Most of the records we have date from after 650 BC, however. It looks like in most cases the data from before 650 BC was discarded.

Velikovsky wrote that, at times, as many as three differing records were kept of the path of the Sun and planets, suggesting changes in the Earth's orbit during the 8th and 7th centuries BC. This is true in that multiple records were kept in this era, in sets of three, by the Chaldians, as well as the Indians and Jews.

But Velikovsky also added information from the Mul.Apin which he misunderstood. He refers to the Enlil path, the Anu path, and the Ea path as if they were separate trajectories of the Sun. The Mul.Apin 'paths' are sectors of the sky concentric about the polar axis, representing the constellations rising, roughly, in the northeast, the east, and the southeast. They are named after appropriate gods, so that the Enlil region represent the 'air' above the ecliptic, Anu represents the central region of the sky which includes most of the 'river' of the ecliptic, and Ea represents the 'waters' south of the central region.
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Note 31 --

The period Brown has reference to is 750 BC to 621 BC. The correspondence with the astrologers was generated by the last kings of Assyria, Tiglath-Pileser III (745-727), Sargon II (721-705 BC), who took up residence at Nineveh, Sennacherib (705-681 BC) who rebuilt Nineveh, Esarhaddon (681-668 BC), and Ashurbanipal (668-626 BC), who built the library which burned down in 621 BC.
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Note 32 --

The records of Babylon were translated into Greek in antiquity (on Alexander's orders), but apparently everything before 747 BC may have been discarded at an earlier date as being unreliable, or there simply were no detailed records. In fact, there is also a notable absence of records until about 650 BC.

A number of people have pointed out that solar eclipses were not experienced in the region of Babylon during this era.

One reason that there were no attempts to keep records of lunar eclipses might be that there were no eclipses seen in Mesopotamia until after 747 BC. For one thing, it is not unusual for some regions of the Earth to not witness an eclipse for hundreds of years. London did not experience a solar eclipse for over 800 years.

Ptolemy lists 721 BC as the first lunar eclipse seen in Babylon. The first recorded lunar eclipse in China falls in 720 BC. The Chinese "Spring and Autumn Annals," spanning the years 722 BC to 481 BC, records 37 eclipses.
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Note 34 --

"Revelations" is based entirely on contemporaneous astrological concepts of the first century AD. The letters to the seven churches, which open the text, are addressed to the seven planetary Gods. The sign of the beast, 666, represents the number of years needed for a change of the equinox of one decan -- ten degrees -- along the ecliptic. The number 666 is one of the measures for the precession of the equinox current in the first century AD (0.666 degrees per year; Hipparchus calculated 0.766 degrees per year; the value today is 0.720 degrees per year). The 'beast' refers to the bestiary of the zodiac.
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Note 35 --

At a latitude of 31.68 degrees north, the Sun at the equinox assumes an angle of 58.34 degrees with the horizon (58.38 before 685 BC). After 685 BC, the Sun culminates at 52.34 degrees on March 6th -- the old day of the equinox.

The reciprocal of the tangent, cos()/sin(), measures the shadow on the ground as a fraction of a gnomen of unit height. Thus the shadow on March 6 (on the equivalent day of March 21), before 685 BC, was..

cos(58.38/deg) / sin(58.38/deg) = 0.615.

On March 6, after 685 BC, it was..

cos(52.34/deg) / sin(52.34/deg) = 0.771.

The fractional difference in the shadow is..

(0.771 - 0.615) / 0.615 = 0.25,

..representing a lenghtening of the shadow by 1/4th of the original length.
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Note 36 --

Charles Raspil "Planetary observations of the T'ang" (1994 International Velikovsky Symposium). The base information is from Edward Schafer "Pacing the Void, T'ang Approaches to the Stars" (1977). Raspil supplements it with information from European, Byzantine, and Islamic sources. Raspil writes...

"Probably because of his shock at finding so many incredible astronomical observations (for e.g., fixed stars that blink on and off, or disappear for awhile, or appear with horns or other appendages; or planets that give off ribbon or flag-like emanations), Schafer attributes to T'ang astronomers talents that suggest that their greater competence is as whimsical poets."

Raspil could not deduce a consistent pattern, except to suggest that many anomalies happened during 'conjunctions.' Kepler is quoted as an example of the thinking of medieval astronomers (astrologers)...

"experience shows that all sorts of meteors were seen when the planets were configured in aspects, whereas the air was undisturbed otherwise."

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Note 37 --

I should note that Velikovsky may have "Venus not added" wrong. In an address by Abraham Sachs at Brown University on March 15, 1965, Sacks noted..

"In 'Worlds in Collision', p. 161, Dr. Velikovsky says that Babylonian astronomy at one time had a four-planet system, with Venus missing. For this, he refers to a book written in 1915. Not being a cuneiformist, Dr. Velikovsky cannot inspect the original text referred to in his 1915 source. I have read the text and I can report that it is quite true that Venus is missing in the text-- but so are the other four planets. Dr. Velikovsky's 1915 source mistranslated the names of four fixed stars as planets."

A transcript is at http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/vsachs.html.

Marinas v d Sluijs in "gods-and-planets.htm" at [http://mythopedia.info] provides an extensive critique of the ready willingness with which the Saturnians (Talbott, Cardona, and Cochrane) assign the Gods of the Polar Configuration to various planets (as I have done as readily). He writes, about the Babylonian astronomy after 600 BC:

"The fact stands that the Babylonians often employed the same divine names for various planets." [And, it should be noted, also mixed them with the names of stars and constellations.] "Why they did so is far from clear to us. It seems unlikely that the Babylonians of the first millennium BCE could not properly distinguish between the various planets. David Brown [see the text] argues that a name applied to more than one planet in the period he studies has nothing to do with confusion or unclarity on behalf of the Babylonians, but is indicative of a system whose rationale escapes us today."

"The 'logical problem' introduced with the realization that myth communicates with us through symbols, simply forbids us to take the mythical or folkloristic statement that the gods were planets literally. If we accept that a god was Mars or Saturn because the myth says so, we ignore the principle that myth speaks through symbols. What we ought to suggest, acknowledging both the planetary association and the symbolical nature of myth, is that a certain visual prototype was symbolised by the myth-makers as the planet, because of certain similarities the planet had in common with the remembered prototype."

Van der Sluijs conceives of myths and legends as "symbolism and displacement metaphors." I think this is a mistake. I have been at pains to explain that the ancients were incapable of abstract metaphorical reasoning and symbolic notions in earlier times, and certainly did not 'think' in the manner understood by us. Van der Sluijs' insistence on "symbol and metaphor" introduces an unwarranted and unneeded contemporary point of view when applied to concepts which have their sources in remote antiquity. Yet by the 8th and 7th century BC, the use of metaphors and symbolic reasoning was certainly in use.

By his own admission, Van der Sluijs argues exclusively from the mythological point of view, not, as he states, from an interdisciplinary perspective (which would include the hard sciences), although he will readily admit that the legends and myths have their genesis in the visual effects of the polar display. Additionally he quotes extensively from older sources, none of which have considered earlier celestial catastrophes or the confused night sky up to the seventh century BC as influencing the identification and naming of the planets.

In my point of view, the primary Gods to the ancients were real persons who could be seen in the sky -- as globes which today we call planets. Only after 1200 BC or so do they start to acquire spiritual qualities. To the Chaldean (Babylonian) prognosticators of the 7th century BC, the Gods had become physical entities, which moved across the sky like chess pieces to determine the fate of nations and individuals, and had to be treated yet with respect, for the priests were in the employ of the pre-conscious Assyrians to whom the Gods were still very real personages. Contemporaneous with the Assyrians and Chaldeans, Homer treated the Gods in mockery.

Lastly, it has been noted that the names of the Egyptian Isis, Osiris, Horus, and Seth, the Greek Athena, Kronos, Aries, and Zeus, the Sumerian Inanna and An, the Canaan Ishtar, and Babylonian Marduk (and more) do rotate somewhat haphazardously among the planets Venus, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, and Mercury. The correct identities are not always certain. The best test is to use the insight of the Greeks during classic times, that is, if two Gods have similar histories and characteristics, they are the same even though they might be known by different names in different lands.
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Note 38 --

Mithra is also one of the Hindu pantheon, representing the shining Sun disk of daytime, and was also known among the Hittites of Anatolia in ca 1500 BC, as well as among the Zoroastrians. His popularization is likely due to the influence of Mazdaism at the time of the Persian Empire.
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Note 39 --

See David Ulansey "The Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries" (1989). Most of what we know about Mithraism is from the writings of the Church Fathers -- Jerome, Tertulian, and others, plus a number of Greek and Roman authors. Ulansey comes to the same conclusion as I do, that is, that Mithraism is in response to a change in the equinox. Ulansey bases his theory on the suggestion that a knowledge of the precession of the equinox came to light in the third or fourth century BC, despite the fact that the iconographic references of Mithraism are to Taurus and Scorpio as the constellations of the equinoxes. Using today's estimate for the precession of the equinox, and assuming that the precession of the equinox had always been the case for Earth, this would place this configuration in about 2000 BC. This is unlikely as a remembered condition, and cannot be related to any significant event. There are just too many intervening myths, legends, and religious rethinkings to make sense of this.

Ulansey equates the stance and gesture of Mithra in sculptures to the depiction of Perseus after decapitating Medusa (the Gorgon), that is, looking away. He also draws parallels between the Gorgon and the frequent depiction of a lion-headed God entwined by a snake and standing on a globe representing the Earth, or, more likely, representing the globe of the stars as seen from a remote exterior. This apparently became a standard depiction in the Middle East and Greece. The globe, interestingly, shows both the equatorial and the ecliptic as encircling bands.

I could add to the confusion of associated imagery by noting that the Gorgon is Venus blazing in 685 BC with plasma streamers as hair. The lion-headed God is the Sun in the constellation Leo on July 25th, when the plasmoid from Jupiter landed early in the evening and the northwestern evening sky blazed for hours. The entwining snake is (likely) the plasma plumes appearing at the north and south poles under the conditions of a radical change in the field of the Sun.

What confirmed for me the common core of this diverse and unfamiliar imagery was the depiction of the lion-headed God as item 312 in Maarten Vermaseren's "Corpus Inscriptionum et monumentorum religionis mithriacae" (1956), where the statue wears a plasmoid bolt on its chest, rather than the usual Gorgon head. This is illustrated on page 33 of Ulansey's book.
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Note 40 --

Although I guessed at this, as I found out later, David Ulansey also agreed that the boys with the torches represent the vernal and autumnal equinox, and Ulansey also admits that the symbolism is at times reversed.

The crossing of the equatorial and the ecliptic is also notable in Mesoamerican iconography. The same symbol is used, the Saint Andrew's cross, where one of the diagonal bars crosses the other, a different configuration for the spring and fall equinox. For the vernal equinox the bar starting at the upper left crosses in front of the other. The autumnal equinox reverses this.
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Note 41 --

The event of 685 BC had happened 80 years before Lao-tse was born. Reading 'Tao' as the road, meaning the zodiac, and 'Thien' as heaven, meaning the dome of the stars, the text, although with obvious strong philosophical rather than scientific overtones, becomes immensely elucidated. See especially the introduction of James Legge in the "Sacred Books of the East, Volume 39" (1891) and the comments on translations by Kelley L. Ross at [www.friesian.com/taote.htm].

A typical interpretation of Taoism was made by Sze-mâ Khien, writing, in the first century BC, "Lâo-dze [Lao-tse] cultivated the Tao and its attributes, the chief aim of his studies being how to keep himself concealed and remain unknown" (quoted by Legge). This represents seeking a high moral order by imitation of the still-standing and unknown quantity -- eventually identified as 'Heaven' even by the Confucianists -- behind the dome of the stars which had made such a sweeping change in 685 BC.

Confucius, born in 551 BC, must have been aware of the change, even though it happened 100 years before his time. However, it is not mentioned in any of his writings. To us, the most important works of Confucius were his compilation of ancient records, his preservation of a thousand years of poetry, and his annotation of the "I Ching." But to Confucius himself, his most important work was the compilation of a year-by-year political record of his home state of Lu, the "Spring and Autumn Annals," covering the years 722 BC to 481 BC. He specifically noted the importance of the "Spring and Autumn Annals," working on it until shortly before his death. This period was also a time of internecine struggles among the nearly independent states, and the Confucian Annals have given their name to this period of Chinese political history -- the "Spring and Autumn" period.

His students and followers knew how Confucius felt about the "Spring and Autumn Annals" and elevated the book to the status of one of the five Confucian Classics. Yet the contents lack any philosophical observations and the entries relate activities which are all too terse and mundane to be of any interest.

If Confucius was searching among historical data for the effect of the change in the zodiac, it does not show. An inspection of the "Spring and Autumn Annals" yields nothing of note during the years spanning 685 BC. Some 37 eclipses of the Sun are listed for the complete period, of which all except two were verified in the 19th century. Five floods are listed, four earthquakes, three comets, three lightning strikes, and many rains of excessive magnitude.

The "Spring and Autumn Annals," and the commentary by Tso Kew-ming, the "Tso Chuen," are instead totally absorbed with the human failings of the leaders -- issues of honor, insults, and reputations.

China at that time was an inland nation, with the coastal regions held by 'barbarian' tribes. Thus China did not use the stars for navigation, as the eastern Mediterranean did. Little attention was paid to the stars or the planets, which to the Chinese did not represent earlier Gods. For example, when a large comet appeared in 524 BC the recommendation by the priests and court historians to perform extra sacrifices to avoid disaster were ignored. An earlier solar eclipse in the same year was accompanied by similar recommendations and response (from the "Tso Chuen").
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Note 42 --

From the introduction to the "Vend-Avesta," by James Darmesteter, in "Sacred Books of the East, Volume 4" (1880)..

"The world, such as it is now, is twofold, being the work of two hostile beings, Ahura Mazda, the good principle, and Angra Mainyu, the evil principle; all that is good in the world comes from the former, all that is bad in it comes from the latter. The history of the world is the history of their conflict, how Angra Mainyu invaded the world of Ahura Mazda and marred it, and how he shall be expelled from it at last. Man is active in the conflict, his duty in it being laid before him in the law revealed by Ahura Mazda to Zarathustra. When the appointed time is come, a son of the lawgiver, still unborn, named Saoshyant, will appear, Angra Mainyu and hell will be destroyed, men will rise from the dead, and everlasting happiness will reign over the world."

The Persians only used open fires as altars. Fire altars were in use for sacrifices to the Gods since remote antiquity in China, Central Asia, and India. These are modeled on the 'fire on a platform' seen in the sky after 4200 BC when Saturn went nova. In western Asia, eastern Europe, Mesopotamia, and Egypt the image of Saturn in the sky is understood as a house instead, and temples are built as houses for the Gods.
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Note 43 --

The celebration of Dionysus formed the basis of Greecian theater. As is noted by Alfred de Grazia in "The Disasterous Love Affair of Moon and Mars" (1984), it consisted of the introduction of a folk art form into an unformed society of survivors of the destructions of the 8th and 7th century BC.

The theory of causation seeks evidence of abrupt takeover of a destroyed culture by marginal survivors who cast aside, or employ ceremonially, practices they do not or cannot use or understand. Then they proceed to draw from every source their new synthetic culture.

...when the Greek theater appeared [writes Giovanni Patroni], we find the rustic god Dionysus, with a goat-cult of dancers cloaked in skins. The poverty of the means, the few actors, the vagabond origins of the Thespian theater, all showed still, according to Patroni, that the primitive real Greek theater was not receiving the subsidies of princes, not the interest or participation of Mycenaean high society; it was left to the rural folk. ... In the general destruction of societies, the art of the survivors made its way quickly forward. The elite and its sophisticated art forms were destroyed; folk art (not primitive art) dominated the scene.

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Note 44 --

See Kelley L. Ross at [http://www.friesian.com/upan.htm]. He continues with the following (describing the transfer of ideas some 700 to 900 years later)..

"The undoubted transfer of ideas between Greece and India in the Hellenistic Period, and the export of Buddhism from India to China beginning in the Han Dynasty, provides us points of comparison with what, the uninfluenced traditions, came before."

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Note 45 --

For a development of Greek philosophical systems from about 500 BC to about AD 200, see the first half of Charles Freeman's book "The Closing of the Western Mind" (2005). Later chapters detail the rise of Christianity after Constantine, up through the time of Aquinas.
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Note 46 --

Livio Stecchini reports that a change to a differing dating system was initiated in Greece and Rome after 747 BC without reference to concurrent changes in Mesopotamia. See "The Velikovski Affair" (1966).
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Note 47 --

"It [the Miletian school of philosophers] set about to explain these phenomena [lightning, earthquakes] in terms of the same elemental processes ... as it invoked to explain the orderly arrangement of the earth and the heavenly bodies. In so doing, it implied the baselessness of the traditional Olympian religion which attributed lightning and earthquakes to whims of Zeus and Poseidon and world-destructions to battles of the sky-gods."

-- William Mullen, "The Agenda of the Milesian School" (1997) -- SIS Conference, "Natural Catastrophes during Bronze Age Civilisations."

Thales of Miletus (640 -- 546 BC) is traditionally held as the first Greek rationalist investigator, based on his total rejection of the role of the Gods in creation, and his conclusion that everything was made from water (attributed to Thales by Aristotle). We see this as the first primitive atomist science. But consider the fact that, with this statement, Thales is repeating the oldest creation myths, which hold that everything indeed was made from water.

The measurement of the year and the rationalization of the periods of the Moon is also attributed to Thales. Apochryphally, to Thales is attributed the advice to navigators to steer by Ursa Minor, rather than the traditional Ursa Major.
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Note 48 --

The circumference of Earth was found by Eratosthenes by measuring the length of a shadow in Alexandria at noon on the solstice, when it was known that, at the same date, the Sun was directly above Syene (Aswan). The distance between the two locations, at almost the same meridian, was known from Egyptian surveying records. The most generous estimate of his estimate for the circumference, 252,000 'stadia,' and based on an appropriate selection of a 'stadia' (there are three differing measures for a 'stadia'), is 24,662 miles, which is within 198 miles of being correct -- and despite the fact that Syene and Alexandria are not at the same meridian, and that Syene is not located exactly at 23.5 degrees north. See Justin Pollard and Howard Reid, "The Rise and Fall of Alexandria" (2006). This book is a wonderful compendium of ancient science and philosophy, covering 330 BC to AD 650.

Robert Crease, a historian of science, writes in "The Prism and the Pendulum" (2003) about Eratosthenes,

"Eratosthenes' picture of the cosmos was critical to the success of the experiment. Without this particular picture, measuring the shadow would not yield the earth's circumference. For example, an ancient Chinese cartographic text, the 'Book of the Masters of Huainan' [139 BC], notes that gnomons of the same height but at different (north-south) distances from one another cast shadows of different lengths at the same time. On the assumption that the earth is essentially flat, the author attributed this difference to the fact that the gnomon casting the narrower shadow is more directly under the sun, and argues that the difference in shadow length can be used to calculate the height of the sky."

This would have worked, but would not have resulted in a useful model, for the statements above are based on the concept of Earth as a flat plane.

The "picture of the cosmos" in Eratosthenes' time was derived from Aristotle. It is one of the "narratized mental spaces" mentioned in the text, and it need not be a valid point for point representation of reality, as many models of physics will testify. Appropriate results from the exploration of this mental space are the only criterion for usefulness.
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Note 49 --

For elements of statistics and probability theory in the context of their historical development which parallels common attitudes toward chance, see Michael Kaplan and Ellen Kaplan, "Chances Are" (2006)

The Greeks also developed the concept of the soul as a separate entity, which leaves the body on death and continues a life of its own. The concept was taken up by a number of writers and philosophers in Greece, first used in the sense of a transmigration of the soul. The idea of the existence of the 'soul,' unlike the idea of 'free will,' quickly spread to other cultures, introducing itself into the thinking of the Middle East and Alexandria, and was readily adopted by Christianity.

'Life after death' was not a common Roman or Greek concept in the period before the current era. It was apparently, however, already an accepted concepts among the tribes north of the Alps for many centuries before Roman times (if we go by the Medieval legends of the Celts). A 'land of the dead' was (presumably) interpolated into both the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey" (after 500 BC), and achieved its modern definition with Plato after 400 BC.
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Special thanks to Joe Brookes for suggesting the Moon as the cause for precession.

Calculations are in Unix bc notation, where ^ denotes exponentiation; the functions (a)rctangent, (s)ine, and (c)osine use radians; angle conversions to radians or degrees by the divisors rad=.017+ and deg=57.2+; other functions are shown as f( );
units: million == 1,000,000; billion == 1,000,000,000;
one AU == 93,000,000 miles.

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