Recovering the Lost World,
A Saturnian Cosmology --Jno Cook
Part 9: The Career of Jupiter.


[Table of Contents]

$Revision: 21.54 $
Contents of this chapter: [The Flood Reconsidered] [The Fall of the Absu] [The Flood from the Sky] [The Extinction of Jupiter] [24th and 23rd Century BC] [The Fall of Akkad] [The Career of Jupiter] [The Ten Suns] [The Day of the Dead] [The Twin Peaks] [The Tower of Babel] [Return of the Axis Mundi] [The First Histories] [Endnotes]

In the previous chapter the period from 3147 BC to 2193 BC was described. During this period many changes of the sky happened, especially between 2400 to 2000 BC -- the supreme rulership of Jupiter, the 'Flood of Noah,' and the disappearance of the Absu. At this point I want to reconsider the Flood of Noah, and some of the other events of the period of 2400 BC to 2000 BC. I'll add the bloodbath by Kali, Hathor, and others, the intervention by Jupiter, the world-wide celebration of the Day of the Dead, and a note on the Tower of Babel story.

The Flood Reconsidered

I do not think the "Flood of Noah," as related in the previous chapter, ever happened. At least, not on Earth, or, not as a flood, although certainly Earth sustained damage. I suspect that the 'flood' represented the fall of the Absu, the rings surrounding the Earth.

That the Absu (or the Egyptian Duat, or the Maya "House of Nine Bushes") was real, I have no doubt. The rings of Saturn had been known and seen since the invention of the telescope. But then, in the 1990s, as space probes approached Jupiter, rings were found, like the rings of Saturn, but fainter. Then rings were discovered for Uranus and Neptune also. All four planets have magnetic fields. So does the Earth. [note 1]

Venus, the Moon, and Mars do not have magnetic fields and do not have rings. Mercury also does not have rings, probably because it is a small planet and has a very weak magnetic field. Astronomers think that the rings of Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune are fading and that the rings of Saturn will also fade over time. Saturn, which has the brightest and most extensive rings, is, however, a very electrically active planet. At closer distances, as reported by NASA in the 1980s, the rings of Saturn are seen to be composed of "spokes, braids, waves.. and spiral shapes." Twenty years later, in AD 2000 -- 2008, during a less active period of the Sun, they have smoothed out. [note 2]

When the Mesopotamians start mapping the sky, they name the southern section of the sky, below the equatorial, "the path of Ea." Ea is the Babylonian God of the waters, the Akkadian god of the Absu. He is the Sumerian Enki, also God of the Absu. In Akkadian "Ea" is written with the Sumerian glyphs "EN.KI" -- "water house." "En" translates as "home," "house," or "temple." Houses in Sumer were initially constructed of reeds and with semi-circular (domed) roofs. This is what was seen in the south, a dome of reeds extending from the east to the west, located somewhat below the level of the equatorial in the sky, but with all the rings or sections of rings coming together at the east and west cardinal compass direction. There is no question about the location of the Absu. [note 3]

It is certain that the Earth had rings, that they were clearly visible in the southern hemisphere of the sky (from a northern vantage point), and that the rings included constantly moving "spokes, braids, waves, and spiral shapes." The Egyptians also called the Duat "a field of rushes." It might have looked to them like cultivated marsh land.

It certainly would also have looked like a sea, especially to people who lived some distance from the world's real oceans. In the Yucatan, closely surrounded on three sides by real oceans, the Maya were not fooled, however. The rings also stood 10 degrees higher in the sky as seen from the Yucatan, reaching to about 60 degrees up from the southern horizon. It was a 'celestial house' instead, a "house of bushes" created by the Gods.

China, at about 35 to 40 degrees latitude, would have seen the rings stand about 50 degrees up from the southern horizon. China, like most locations further north than Egypt and Sumer, reported 9 rings.

The Earth's clouds, which were obviously part of Middle Earth, for they could be seen rising from rivers and forests at dawn, could be seen passing in front of the Absu. That alone would be enough to make the Absu look like a real and solid object and as an extension of the land at the horizon. When the clouds passed, the Absu was still there.

Because of the way the rings merged at the horizon in the east and west, they are often represented as a 7-headed or 9-headed serpent. There were notions also from Mesoamerica, where the rings stood considerably higher in the sky, that 'the world' constituted a flat plane between two giant step pyramids. The view of the separate rings (as seen at the time of the year near the equinoxes) each higher one in the sky ending at a distance further from the center of the gap, would certainly have made it look like the gap was bordered by two step pyramids or inclines.

It is obvious that many of the spells from the Egyptian "Book of the Dead" (first recorded as tomb texts in 2345 BC), which guaranteed entry to the afterlife for the dead, are better explained if referenced to the image of the Egyptian Duat rather than the Saturnian polar apparition before 3147 BC.

Most obvious are many spells dealing with travel in the ship of Ra. The spells were written and augmented over a period of more than 3000 years (and probably date back as far as 4200 BC). Some of the earliest spells certainly speak to a crescent ship traveling around the 'river' at the edge of the globe of Saturn in the north sky. But after the breakup of the Polar Configuration in 3147 BC, the planet Gods were seen to travel along the edge of the southern sea in the sky. Ships were still required.

The gods and planets identified with the Egyptians continue to travel by boat for the next 3000 years, as they do nearly everywhere in the world. The temple Gods are ferried up and down the Nile to visit Gods at other temples. Statues were carried or dragged in ships in processions. The spells still speak of ships, but after 3147 BC the journey is no longer along the blazing circular river at the circumference of Saturn, but along the river of the ecliptic and the edge of the sea in the southern sky.

One phenomenon which is clearly difficult to associate with the polar apparition is the "door to the underworld." But it is readily explained by the shadow of the Earth moving from east to west across the Duat every night. The Earth is illuminated by the Sun at an angle to the equatorial which varies with the time of the year. During most of the year, except at the time of the equinoxes, the shadow would have looked like an arched doorway (referred to in one spell from the "Book of the Dead" as a cave). The Sumerian God Enki is often depicted with water and fish streaming from his shoulders, representing an image of the shadow as an arch, which would represent the shortest shadow of the Earth on the rings. In between the times of summer and winter, the shadow would have progressively lengthened to become infinite at the time of the equinoxes. During the day time in winter, the rings would have obscured the daytime Sun also. [note 4]

Thus a gap appeared every night which showed no rings, and moved from the east to the west. The Egyptians called it "Naarutf." "The meaning of the word is 'it never sprouteth'," wrote E. A. W. Budge (1895), "and is defined as 'a section or door of the Duat which lies to the north of Re-stau.'"

"It never sprouteth" indicates the missing image of spokes and 'rushes' which 'grew' everywhere else where the shadow did not fall. "Re-stau" originally was the cemetery at Abydos, and came to mean, wrote E. A. W. Budge, "the passages in the tomb which lead from this to the other world". The phrase in the paragraph above, "north of Re-stau (Abydos)," might also be rendered as "Abydos lies south of the Duat," and thus the "other world" was located beyond the doorway of the Duat. The view through this doorway must have been obscured, for although some bright stars would have shimmered through the unlit portion of the rings, the dust and gasses of the ring would have blocked most starlight from passing through. (Sirius and Canopus, the two brightest stars were the exception. See a later chapter on the effect of seeing both of these stars, one above the other.)

The concept of a doorway is completed when it is realized that when the shadow took on its longest shape at the equinoxes, and extending beyond the end of the rings, the shadowed gap would be capped by a lintel -- a beam -- stretching across the shadowed portions of the Duat and extending beyond it to the east and the west (although at an angle). This is the bright "path of the Gods" -- the ecliptic -- so far removed from Earth that the shadow would not reach. This is the post and beam gates seen as free-standing structures in China and Japan. But of course to the people of Earth the ecliptic was no further away than the edge of the rings. [note 5]

At the east and west edges of the shadow, the penumbra, the partialy lighted area surrounding the dark full shadow of the Earth, would have fallen on the rings. This would be an area which widened with the distance from the Earth, although becoming fainter further from Earth. Seen from Earth this would constitute an edge which bent away from the center, thus making all of the Duat look more like two mountains with a valley in between. This effect would have been most prevalent at the time of the equinoxes. [note 6]

There is a lack of early Egyptian visual references to the Duat or the doorway to the Duat. Perhaps this is because the spectacle in the sky never varied or showed any activity and came to an end after 2349 BC. Later depictions of the sun god Re, however, frequently show disembodied arms extending up from a baseline (representing the horizon) to the red disk representing Re. These might be representations of the penumbra seen at the edges of the 'doorway' shadow (although I doubt that). Two arms extending up from a baseline is the hieroglyphic for "ka" also, the meaning of which might be translated as "soul." Late depictions also show Ra as a huge red ball suspended in a valley between two mountains (or what looks like mountains). Tomb texts place the uplifted arms in the south, in the Duat, "The Aten [the globe of Re] is in the Tuat [Duat]. The arms of the Mysterious Face come out and lift it up."

Since the doorway moved from the east to the west, it was the west which became the location of the underworld, as Budge explained, about the Duat...

" ..it must be distinctly understood that the Egyptian word does not imply that it was situated under our world, and that this rendering is only adopted because the exact significance of the name Duat is unknown. The word is a very old one, and expresses a conception which was originated by the primitive Egyptians, and was probably known to their later descendants, who used the word without troubling to define its exact meaning"

One of the spells of the "Book of the Dead" is titled...

Sailing to the east over the sea of the Duat (or possibly the river of the ecliptic) would result in missing the entrance to the 'Land of Life,' which was in the west. Almost uniformly all the Egyptian graves were located west of the Nile in the western desert.

If the shadow on the rings was understood as a doorway, then we would also expect references to a doorway among the spells of the "Book of the Dead," and as a matter of fact, these exist, as in the following examples (I have only listed their titles)...

And, from the "Papyrus Ani," a hymn pointing to the travels of Re through the skies..

This again points out that Ra (Re), the chief God whose worship had started some time after the close of the "Age of the Gods," was always first seen in the east after an absence of many months. This is Jupiter with a lower coma tail, it is not Ra as Saturn when he stood still at the north pole, nor is it the Sun. Jupiter would, after the course of some months, disappear again in the west. The "land of life" was located in the west, the location to which the rings, the doorway, and Re moved. [note 7]

The Sumerians held that the city of the Gods or the dead, Dilmun, was located in the south. Dilmun is an island in the Persian Gulf, called "al-Bahrein," a name which translates as "two oceans," the meeting place of the salt sea and the sweetwater ocean of the sky. Before 3147 BC Dilmun had probably been the island of the Gods (or the God) in the south, the plasmoid seen at the end of the Peratt column of remote antiquity, seen in the ocean of the Absu. The name "Dilmun" may translate (some have suggested) as "mountain." Bahrein is not mountainous, although it is a mountain top rising out of the Persian Gulf. In remote antiquity a tunnel was dug from the mainland under the ocean floor to supply fresh water to the island. [note 8]

The Fall of the Absu

What happened to the Sumerian Absu, the sweetwater ocean which had spanned all of the southern skies? There seems to be no unequivocal notice about its disappearance. That may be because it was so gradual as to be unremarkable. Or, more likely, we cannot read the references to it, couched, as they are, in language not at all familiar to us. The Absu is obviously gone by 2200 BC. In the "Enuma Elish," written somewhat later (probably after 1800 BC), the Absu has become deified as a God to become an actor in a narrative of the creation of the world.

The Absu disappeared suddenly, in 2349 BC, perhaps in a matter of days, because of an interaction with Venus and a change in the orbit of Earth. This also moved the Earth further away from the Sun and to the established orbital path of the Moon.

Moved further from the Sun, to a new location of lower potential in the electrical field of the Sun, the Earth would have started discharging to the surrounding space. Such a discharge would normally be very slow, in dark mode (except at the poles), and lasting thousands of years. However, the disruption caused by Venus was rapid, with the nearby Moon provided an additional electrical path into the space facing away from the Sun.

If we can give any credence to some of the 'flood' stories, the Absu fell in a few days. The fall was also probably rapid because the contact by Venus caused radical changes in the electrical field which kept the rings suspended. As I mentioned in the previous chapter, the electrical repulsive impulse from Venus seems to have struck in the northern hemisphere, perhaps in Asia north of India. As a result the axis of the Earth went into a swing, with the northern part initially moving away from the direction of the Sun. The equatorial rings would have swung up at a steep angle to the Earth's orbital plane, placing them directly between Venus and Earth (as the Earth kept rotating). The particles, gasses, and ionized atoms held in suspension were disturbed or neutralized and departed when the plasmoid from Venus hit the Absu almost broadside. [note 9]

The main disturbance came with the arrival of a plasmoid thunderbolt -- a disconnected electrical arc -- from Venus. The untold billions of electrons arriving and smashing into the rings of the Absu would have neutralized most of the ionized gasses. It looked like the arrival of a dragon which smashed into the rings. The dragon bled for three days. The 'blood' seen in the sky could have been constituted by any number of diffuse common atmospheric gasses, ionized or excited.

[Image: Earth's magnetosphere and Van Allen belts.]
Image: Earth's magnetosphere and equatorial Van Allen belts. The rings are shown here as a dark line at the equatorial near Earth. The location of the Sun is to the left.

Much of the coulomb charge of the Earth is normally tied up in the toroidal belts of the magnetosphere at the equator. This is the source of hurricanes -- when this belt arcs over to the atmosphere in the tropics. I would expect the 'discharge' of the Earth to have happened in both directions, towards Earth and out to space via the rings. An outward movement of charged particles (plasma) would disrupt the rings by neutralizing the electrostically suspended particulate matter and also by lessening the electrical field of the Earth which held the particles suspended above the equator.

The loss of the electrical charge of the Earth would have destroyed the Absu. The particulate matter could no longer be suspended in rings around the Earth. It fell in or moved out into space. We can assume that some particles simply drifted down to Earth, and that much of the particles and larger rock-sized chunks started to move away from Earth. This reflects the current thinking of NASA concerning what they foresee as the ultimate dispersal of the rings of Saturn (http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/ February 12, 2002).

... the snake Apep

As the gasses and particulate matter moved away from Earth they would visually approach the equatorial, a plane coincident with the Earth's equator located as a circle in the sky from directly east to directly west and set at an angle equal to the compliment of the latitude. Visually, even as the dust and rock kept moving further from Earth, they would never seem to move higher into the sky than the location of the equatorial. Over time, as the distance from Earth continued to increase, they would simply disappear.

There remained, however, a last ring, at a considerable distance above the equator. This last ring might be equated with the lapis-lazuli necklace of the Goddess Inanna, mounted up in the sky as a sign from the Gods to never again bring such a flood, except that the ring was red, not blue. It would, however, match the effect suggested in the Maya "Chilam Balam" which describe that, after the flood, the "roof beams" of the sky became visible -- the ecliptic and the last ring of the Absu below the equatorial. The two rings rose in the night sky, surrounding the earth. In the Yucatan the last ring of the Absu stood high up in the southern sky, stretching from directly east to directly west. The ecliptic, a wobbling hoop which intersected the red equatorial ring at the two locations of the equinoxes. The rings crossed (at that time) just below the Pleiades at the vernal equinox.

The Earth still cast a shadow on the last outer ring of the Absu, but because of the increasing distance (the dust and particles seem to have drifted out to about 6000 miles from Earth), the shadow would only show as the Earth approached the equinoxes. Then the shadow of the Earth, of the same width as previously at this location, would fall across the ring. The ring with this gap would look like a giant snake whose head moved up from the east and slid across the southern sky to the west each night, closely following its own tail. At other times of the year only the long body of the snake would be seen, since the shadow of Earth would not reach out far enough. [note 10]

The glowing band of the ecliptic would also be seen. The ecliptic crosses the equatorial at the location of the equinoxes. Since the Earth's shadow would not reach or be seen on the ecliptic, it would remain lighted where the shadow of Earth fell on the equatorial at the time of the equinoxes. The equatorial thus looked like it passed behind the ecliptic -- certainly a confusing visual presentation, since we know that just the opposite is true.

In Maya iconography the crossing of the two sky bands is used in representing the sky or the sky band (the ecliptic), with a symbol known as the Saint Andrew's cross. This symbol is not simply an "X" figure, but always has one of the bars cross in front of the other. (The vernal equinox is designated by having the bar which starts at the top left pass in front of the other; the autumnal equinox reverses this.)

This last outer ring of the Absu lasted a long time, well into the current era. This last equatorial ring has entered mythologies worldwide as a celestial snake -- called Apep by the Egyptians and Apophis by the Greeks. It adds to the utter confusion of monsters, dragons, snakes, and serpents.

"Comparative investigation confirms that every well-documented culture possessed its own names and images of the serpent or dragon of chaos -- the monster whom the Babylonians called Tiamat, the Greeks knew as Typhon or Python, and the Hindus called Vritra or Ahi. In Australia it was the Bunyip-monster, sometimes identified as the 'Rainbow Serpent,' that once decimated the earth. And in North America remarkably similar stories were told of the 'Great Horned Serpent.'"

-- David Talbott, Thoth newsletter (2002), draft text for the book "Thunderbolt of the Gods" (2005)

I cannot speak to Australian sources, although I find "Rainbow Serpent" quite revealing. But with the background of the historical sequence of events presented in this text, backed by some reasonable mechanics, it will be recognized that the Babylonian Tiamat is Venus in 2349 BC, the Greek Typhon is Venus in 1492 BC, and Python (Phaethon) can be placed in 685 BC. These last two will be presented in later chapters. The 'Great Horned Serpent' is distinct from these. It is probably the north polar plasma plume which appeared each time the orbit of the Earth increased, complete with horns, as I have illustrated previously. Apep, on the other hand, is the last remaining ring of the Absu, also to be placed after 2349 BC, and remained in the sky into the current era, probably as late (I suspect) as AD 400 or AD 600.

Apep, in fact, does not appear in Egyptian mythology or depictions until after 2200 BC. Spells to ward off the evils of Apep are only added to the "Book of the Dead" very late. A chapter of spells in a papyrus dating from Greek times (after 300 BC), called the "Book of overthrowing Apep, the Enemy of Ra, the Enemy of Un-Nefer [Osiris]," gives directions for "preventing storms, and dispersing rain-clouds, and removing any obstacle, animate or inanimate, which could prevent the rising of the sun in the morning, or obscure his light during the day," as paraphrased by E. A. Budge, in "Legends of the Gods" (1912). The Egyptians were at this time, after 300 BC, transferring the title of "Ra" to the day-time Sun.

Near the dates of the equinoxes, the head of the snake would be seen nightly rising in the east as its tail disappeared in the sky in the west. It seemed to be chasing its own tail. As the year moved away from the time of the equinoxes, Apep would catch up to its tail and swallow it. The image of a snake swallowing its own tail, called the Ouroboros, still appears among Medieval alchemical documents. Of course it did not have a distinct head -- snakes do not have distinct heads. Among the later Maya it was merely a cord in the sky. [note 11]

"... there was a road suspended in the sky, stretching from Tuloom and Coba [ie, the east] to Chich'en Itza [which is only halfway] and Uxmal [ie, the far west]. It was in the nature of a large rope supposed to be living and in the middle flowed blood. For some reason this rope vanished forever. This first epoch was separated from the second by a flood."
-- Alfred Tozzer, "A Comparative Study of the Mayas and the Lacandones" (1907), from verbal sources.

The above account is quoted by Schele and Freidel in "Maya Cosmos" (1993). This is a recollection of the lowland Maya (the northern Yucatan). The road will be recognized as the last outer ring of the Absu. The flowing blood, also, is an aspect of the last ring of the Absu, for it can be determined to be red from the look of Sirius before AD 950, among other things (see a previous endnote). All of the Absu turned red in 2349 BC when it was hit by a plasmoid from Venus, and then disappeared except for this one remaining ring. Although a flood (the 'flood' of 2349 BC) separating two eras is incidentally mentioned in the quote above, there is no causal connection made with the disappearance of the red rope, which actually happened at a much later date. At the time of this flood, the red rope first appeared.

The story also reflects on the Maya road which was built in AD 800 to 850, between the city of Coba in the east and Yaxuna directly west of Coba, 62 miles long, and representing the largest construction project ever undertaken in the Yucatan. This is less than halfway the total distance from Coba to Uxmal. The industry and enthusiasm with which this project was undertaken may reflect the fact that the red road in the sky had recently disappeared. There are a number of other, much shorter, causeways like this, also running east-west (some are processional roads to outlying shrines). Schele and Freidel (in "A Forest of Kings") think that this road, too, functioned as a processional way.

The Egyptians represented Apep as pierced with knives. These likely are lightning bolts reaching this last ring from lower regions of the equatorial. Such lightning has been observed today within the established rings of Saturn. For the Egyptians the knives would be reason for the snake Apep to be bleeding, that is, colored red. Much later Maya iconography shows the "vision serpent" with patches of flayed skin, another reason for bleeding. The vision serpent, as depicted by the Maya, is used to reveal the head of an ancestor appearing from the mouth of the serpent during a trance.

... The Moon

The sudden appearance of the Moon after 2349 BC probably made it look as if the Moon swept the Absu clean. But the Moon, although given credit for the cleanup after the flood (as the Chinese Legendary Emperor, or God, Shun), could not have dispersed the rings physically, for the Moon today is 250,000 miles away, and probably has always been at an orbit on that order. The rings probably only reached, at most, about 8000 miles out. Both the initial as well as the eventual dispersal was electrical. The eventual dispersal, however, happened via the plasma tail of the Earth, which, even today, reaches well beyond the orbit of the Moon. Probably very little of the contents of the Absu drifted down to the atmosphere below, or fell to Earth. [note 12]

Within a decade (or sooner) after meeting up, the Earth and the Moon would have started to revolve around each other on the same orbit around the Sun, as they do today. It may have taken some time before the period of the Moon became regular. At any rate, we can now clarify the contemporary quotation from Columbian sources in the previous chapter..

"When the Moon did not yet exist, a bearded old man named Botschika taught the arts of agriculture, clothing, worship and politics to the people. His beautiful but malevolent wife was Huythaca. She caused a flood in which most people perished. Botschika then turned her into the Moon."

Now we realize why the Moon was held responsible for the flood; the Moon's flood is here confused with the flood of 3147 BC. The bearded old man can still be identified as Saturn. If, however, this quotation actually recalls details from the 'celestial flood' of 2349 BC, then the bearded old man is Jupiter, with his mountain identified as a beard.

At the end of Book 2 of the Maya "Chilam Balam," is a short disconnected section which obviously recalls the event of the 'flood of Noah.' It includes the line..

"And the face of the sun was corroded, and its face became darkened and was put out. And then, above, they became frightened. 'It has burned up! Our god has died!' their priests said. And they were beginning to think about making a picture of the figure of the sun, when the earth shook and they saw the moon."
-- Antonio Mediz Bolio, "Books of the Chilam Balam of Chumayel" (1930)

The shock may have referred to the contact with Venus, or it may indeed have represented a touching of the Earth's plasmasphere and the plasmasphere of the Moon. The shock might account for an alteration in the orbit of the Moon which would start it falling around the Earth. [note 13]

The Flood from the Sky

There was no "Flood of Noah" in terrestrial terms. It all happened in the heavens, although the destruction of the Absu must have caused endless hurricanes, storms, rains, and thunder -- perhaps for years, but certainly for weeks or months. [note 14]

In 2349 BC as Venus started to pass Earth on an inner orbit, as both Earth and Venus lined up with the Sun, the plasmaspheres would have touched, and suddenly the crust of the Earth, which accounts for most of Earth's electrical charge, would have experienced a repulsive force. The force would have been experienced on the hemisphere facing Venus, since the spherical distribution of the electrical charge in effect makes the interior of the Earth (and thus the other hemisphere) opaque to the external electrical field.

Because of the sudden onset, a stupendous siesmic shock would have traveled around the world. At the location facing Venus, the crust would have been depressed, resulting in an uplift of the crust in adjacent areas. As the Earth continued to rotate, the region of the depression would have continued to move toward the west, although the force would very rapidly diminish as a condition of apposing electrical charges were induced at the facing sides of both planets.

The effect of the forces at the crust would be mechanically transmitted to the mass of the Earth, in a direction away from the Sun, thus relocating Earth to a different orbit.

Unlike gravitational forces, which act through the center point of the Earth and therefore have no effect on the Earth's spin, if the electrical forces were even slightly offset from the center, the Earth would have reacted like a gyroscope to the externally applied torque -- swinging the Earth's axis through a circle.

Venus, because of the extremely heavy atmosphere which carries its electrical charge, would react very differently, obsorbing and distributing the repulsive forces around the planet. Venus' orbit might not be significantly effected. (I have expanded on this and added some approximate calculations in Appendix B, "The Celestial Mechanics.")

There are indications of undetermined catastrophes in this era in many locations in the world. I think these can be attributed to the earthquakes due the electrical shock from the approach of Venus, the swing of the Earth's axis, and the following electrical contact (lightning bolts) from Venus, followed by torrential rains and hurricanes. But the crisis in religious concepts and the loss of a world view cannot be neglected. For a second time, the structure of the Universe had been radically altered. The removal of the Gods would be nearly complete when Jupiter, who had stood in the sky as the Midnight Sun, was "taken away" a hundred years later. [note 15]

As I noted in the previous chapter, some time after about 2400 BC construction stops on barrow graves and (mostly) on henges. Stonehenge is interrupted for 200 years after 2400 BC, a date which should probably be equated to 2349 BC. But there is no interruption of activity in Egypt or Mesopotamia -- not until a 156 years later, after 2193 BC. [note 16]

We know with certainty that in 2193 BC, 156 years after the 'flood of Noah,' a world-wide catastrophe brought the civilisations of Egypt and Akkad to a halt and caused the eventual demise of the Harappan culture in the Indus valley by 1900 BC. Malta stopped all construction, and the island was completely depopulated after ca 2200 BC. Malta may have fallen directly in the strike path of Venus in 2193 BC. But for the date of "Noah's Flood" political events in the eastern Mediterranean region do not reflect a problem. It seems there was no damage in Egypt or Sumer, despite the best efforts of chronographers to locate a 'flood of Noah' at that time.

... the Conquests of Sargon

There is no evidence for a flood in 2349 BC in Mesopotamia. This is underscored by the conquest undertaken by Sargon of Akkad almost directly after the 'flood' event of 2349 BC. His conquests produce the largest empire seen in the world to that time, comprising the subjugation of Sumer, Elam, southern Anatolia (Syria), and the coastal cities of the northern Levant -- an empire extending from the Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf.

Considering that the later event of 2193 BC caused the collapse of political systems worldwide, lasting 200 years, we could suggest that Sargon started his armies on the march almost directly after the 'flood' of 2349 BC. Had there been a worldwide flood or catastrophe, would not Akkad, located directly north of Sumer, also have been effected? Instead, Sargon seems to have taken advantage of the jolt by Venus and the religious paralysis of Sumer. His patron Goddess was Ishtar, Venus.

We have no contemporaneous records of Sargon, only tales and legends recalled in Babylon a thousand years later. We do know, however, that he appointed his daughter as priestess of the Moon god Nana of the Sumerian city of Ur. Hymns by her have been preserved.

... the Flood in China

The Chinese Flood is mentioned in the first book of the "Annals of Shu," the Chinese historical record dating to 2357 BC. It speaks of a flood which "stood above the mountains." This cannot be anything other than the Absu. What waters will stand up above the mountains? The rains and storms, however, were real.

A person named Khwan, during the reign of Yao (Yâo), spent 9 years on the project of draining the waters from the valleys. His son Yu was hired and in turn spents 9 years on drainage. Yu is possibly a real person, and is the first king of the Xia dynasty which started about 150 years later, in 2205 BC.

The second book of the "Annals of Shu" recalls the work of Yu. Among the records of his assigned task of gathering an inventory of the resources of the land, is the following note..

"Being sent to the great plains at the foot of the mountains, notwithstanding the tempests of wind, thunder, and rain, he did not go astray."

Chinese history does not deal with the weather. It is unusual to find this anecdote.

Yao existed, it was estimated in ca 200 BC, from 2357 BC to 2255 BC, thus spanning what would be the date of Noah's flood -- 2349 BC. Yao is Jupiter. Yao shares the throne with Shun during his last 30 years. Shun clearly is the Moon, spending all of his time on monthly inspection trips, as described in the "Annals of Shu," which even records that his inspection tours all start on the first day of the month.

The ending date for the reign of Shun, the Moon, is 2205 BC. This is 110 years after the Moon's birth, 144 years after the 'Flood of Noah,' thus suggesting the first appearance of the Moon some 34 years after the 'flood.' When Shun (the Moon) 'dies' in 2205 BC, Yu, who had been employed by him in the administration of the land, becomes the first king of the Xia dynasty -- in time for the dry spell starting in 2193 BC. [note 17]

The much earlier flood of 3147 BC, which had come from the north polar seas and the north Pacific, would have been much less severe to China, because it traveled through a widening Pacific. It was, at any rate, not remembered. Siberians remember a flood from the north, though, which spread over the land and then rolled back to the polar sea.

For China it is the 'flood' of 2349 BC which stood out, and although this 'flood' was celestial in nature, it would have been accompanied by severe hurricanes and heavy rains. Chinese history started with the aftermath of this 'flood' when organized reclamation (needed because of the rains) was initiated by Khwan and later by Yu.

... the Temple Inscriptions at Palenque

The Maya temple inscriptions at Palenque in the Yucatan (ca AD 700) are one of only three Maya references to world history. The inscriptions place the birth of Venus, Mars, and Jupiter in 2360 BC. The Moon is their mother. The suggestion is that these planets became clearly visible at about this time, as half of the ecliptic no longer dipped into the Absu to be obscured by the rings.

The date of 2360 BC (based on the Long Count) is earlier than the start of the 'Flood of Noah' in 2349 BC. The dates of the carved texts for the birth dates of the three planets (November 8, October 21, and October 25) were selected to have a congruence of qualities so that they 'matched' later dates used to argue the legitimacy of the ruler who erected the temples. They are not to be considered as dead accurate. However, the era (Baktun) and double-decade (Katun) were most likely correct. From this the Long Count dates were retrocalculated in AD 700 based on a year of 365.24 days. To correspond to a true solar year (which is the 'calendar' used throughout these pages), rather than a calendar year, the Long Count dates of Palenque should be moved forward in time by about 22 years. Thus 2360 BC of the inscriptions, which precedes the flood of Noah, becomes 2337 BC which follows the flood of Noah. [note 18]

The Moon "lets blood" in 2325 BC (corrected to 2302 BC). So say the carved inscriptions. Blood letting is a trance ceremony of the Maya, used to commune with ancestors. Is this a plasma display of the Moon? A parallel Chinese legend has it that Khwan, who was engaged by Yao to clear the inundation, was "sacrificed on a mountain" when he failed to accomplish his task. His son Yu, who completed the work, rose from the fire. Han dynasty historians speculated that Yu was born in 2300 BC.

The Palenque inscriptions next claim that in 2305 BC (corrected to 2283 BC) the Moon crowns herself ruler. The inscriptions at Palenque were used to establish the legitimacy of the claim to rule by the Ahau of Palenque, who had attained his position through a matriarchal line. The inscriptions were meant to show that there was ancient precedent for this, for the celestial Gods also trace their ancestry through a woman ruler, the Moon.

The "rulership" probably suggests that at this time (2283 BC) the Moon fell into a well-regulated orbit about the Earth. The "Annals of Shu" claim 2287 BC as the year in which Shun (the Moon) joins Yao on the throne. [note 19]

... the "Chilam Balam"

There are also two mentions of the arrival of the Moon in the 16th century AD Maya "Books of the Chilam Balam of Chumayel." The texts were transcribed from much older glyphic bark books. In Book 10 there is mention of the fall of the Absu, as the water which fell from the "center of the sky." Mention is made of the establishment of the intersection of the ecliptic and the equatorial (the last outer ring of the Absu), and that the Pleiades first showed above this intersection. Importantly, the arrival of the Moon is mentioned, although obliquely, in Book 10. On the last page of Book 2 (quoted above) the first sight of the Moon is mentioned directly. (I will elucidate the Chilam Balam in Chapter 16, "The Chilam Balam," and Chapter 17, "The Olmec Record.")

The events of the "Chilam Balam" are listed by the names of Katuns, thus dating events to spans of 20 years. (We have to supply the corresponding Baktun, that is, we have to guess the longer era of 400-Tun periods that a Katun falls in.) All except one of the Katun dates of the "Chilam Balam" match the records from other sources. The dates need to be corrected in a different manner than the dates from Palenque. The text clearly recounts (among other celestial events) the 24th century BC. [note 20]

The Extinction of Jupiter

I estimate that Jupiter extinguished some time in the era after the "Flood of Noah," by suddenly flaring up (changing to arc mode) and then reducing to the size of a star.

The large coma of Jupiter would, at any rate, have come to an end as the planet slowed its retreat from the Sun on reaching its final orbital destination and, once at that destination, its electric potential started to match the electrical field of the Sun at that remote distance. At first the glow mode discharge would have simply diminished as the flow of plasma decreased. Then Jupiter would have experienced a sudden change from glow mode to dark mode plasma discharge, as plasma flows do when switching between modes. Because this involves a sudden decrease in current flow, the driving voltage would have risen suddenly and could be accompanied with a brief return to a higher current rate -- a brief change to arc mode.

The flare-up is recorded in the "Chilam Balam." The text of Book 10 reads, as a concluding line to a description of Jupiter...

"Suddenly on high fire flamed up. The face of the sun was snatched away, taken from earth."

"This was his garment in his reign. This was the reason for mourning his power, at that time there was too much vigor."

The "face of the sun" is Jupiter, the Midnight Sun -- "Lord Sun" of the Maya. The "excess vigor" might be translated as "commotion" as if to suggest that the effects were experienced on Earth. They were not, except for the religious changes, and the sudden start on writing histories and creation texts throughout the world. The "Chilam Balam" dates the extinction of Jupiter to a Katun 7-Ahau (using corrected dates) between 2287 BC to 2267 BC.

As mentioned, the flare-up may have been caused by the sudden change in the driving potential (voltage) as Jupiter attempted to change from glow-mode to dark-mode, causing the planet to go to arc mode for a final spasm. This is regularly seen elsewhere in the Universe where stars repeatedly flare up and subside in brilliance as they switch from arc mode to glow or dark mode. After this Jupiter would all but disappear from view, for in the previous glow mode it would have had a luminescent coma thousands of times larger that the physical diameter of the planet, but in the final dark mode nothing would be seen of the coma. The possibility that this was an actual planet-wide fire is discussed further below.

The Midnight Sun had stood in the sky for over 800 years, and with a huge coma for most of the last 300 years, but for all that time without any interaction with the Earth, except to disappear at times and return after some months. Then suddenly it flared up and died. The Midnight Sun would have suddenly shrunk from a Moon-sized brilliant globe which lit up the night skies, set on a mountain, to just a bright star. Exactly when that happened we do not know from Mesopotamian or Egyptian sources. However, I will attempt to bring together some hints from three other sources, below.

Chronology of the 24th and 23rd Century BC

At his point we can collate some dates. Only the records of Mesoamerica accurately record dates, which in deep antiquity probably consisted of Baktuns (periods of 400 solar years) and Katuns (periods of 20 solar years). The dates both from Palenque (based on the Long Count) will require conversion to solar years (equivalent Gregorian years.

The Bible recorded births and deaths, which were collated by Ussher (and earlier by many of the Christian churchmen) into tabulations in solar years.

The Chinese recorded reign lengths, although many are missing. Dates were estimated in about 200 BC by Chinese historians. If we equate the date of 2357 BC from the Chinese "Annals of Shu", the date Yao takes the throne, to the date of 2349 BC (the 'flood of Noah'), then all of the first few dates of the Chinese "Annals of Shu" should be moved 8 years into the future. [note 21]

The dates below concern four events, (1) the fall of the Absu, (2) the appearance of the Moon, (3) the death or crowning of the Moon, and (4) the extinction of Jupiter. We have the following dates from (1) the "Annals of Shu," (2) the "Chilam Balam," (3) Ussher's chronology, and (4) the inscriptions at Palenque. I have added the four suspected passes of Venus, assuming an interval of 52 years. (See Appendix B for the validity of the 52 year cycle during this era.) In the following, read "sb" as "should be," that is, the corrected value.

Fall of the Absu, appearance of Jupiter (Yao)

The Moon (Shun) appears in orbit

The Extinction of Jupiter (Yao)

Fall of Akkad and the Old Kingdom

[note 22]

... A few comments

There may be better concordances of the dates than what I have presented here. One of the really suspect dates is Ussher's Tower of Babel event, which he casually places a hundred years after the completion of the 'Flood of Noah' at "after 2247 BC."

To adjust the dates derived from the records of various peoples, I am using Ussher's date of 2349 BC for the 'Flood of Noah' as an anchor. This is the fall of the Absu which happened because of the electrical contact by Venus and may have been augmented by the change of the Earth's orbit to near the Moon. The change of the orbit of the Earth is noted in the Bible when it is suggested that men's lives were shortened after the flood -- the year had become longer. In the Annals of Shu, Yao takes on the task of calendar reform at this time. In the Babylonian "Enuma Elish," Marduk (Jupiter) also establishes a calendar after battling Tiamat. [note 23]

The date for the fall of Akkad is archaeologically well-established as 2193 BC, 156 years after the 'flood.' The period of 156 years is three times the 52 year interval between approaches by Venus -- an interval still seriously observed at a later age by Mesoamerica in AD 1500. [note 24]

The dates from the inscriptions at Palenque, which record the "birth" of Venus, Jupiter, and Mars, are here listed as 22 years later to account for a discrepancy between Long Count dates and the presumed existence of older records in Baktuns and Katuns of solar years.

The Moon is the mother of the planets, born before 3147 BC, and Saturn is their father, also dating from before the current era. (The inscriptions at Palenque state this.) The "birth" probably means that the three planets first show up clearly, which would happen once the rings in the south sky had been removed, and the lower half of the ecliptic would no longer be occluded.

The retrocalculations made in Palenque in AD 700 were made by people who were unaware of the fact that the Long Count, which had been instituted by the Olmecs 1400 years earlier, was based on a previous year of 360 days, not 365.24 days. Palenque did not know this, although what they doubtlessly knew was the location of events in time by Baktun and Katun. The retrocalculations are too early by 5.24 days per year since before 747 BC. Thus, for example, 2360 BC should be 2336.8 BC.

Although the records at Palenque have their own purpose of justifying kingship at a later date by example of a matriarchal lineage, the events had to conform to known history. The visiting chiefs of other Maya ceremonial centers were literate and knew the recorded history of the world from their own sources.

The Noachian Flood event, the "second baptism," of the "Chilam Balam," was apparently purposefully misdated by the Maya before AD 900, to match the July 26 "new year day" celebration of the Maya Classical era. See Chapter 16, "The Chilam Balam," and Chapter 19, "The Day of Kan," for a discussion of this.

Initially I was concerned about Jupiter. Why would Jupiter be newly discovered (born) at this time, when it had formed a giant coma between 2600 and 2500 BC? Possibly there was no longer a coma or the mountainous tail at the time the Moon showed up (when the Earth's orbit increased). This would allow the records at Palenque to claim Jupiter was newly born in 2336 BC. Note that this is a dozen years after the 'flood of Noah.'

The mountainous tail of Jupiter may have disappeared earlier, for during the closing time of the fifth dynasty of Egypt, Unas (2375 to 2345 BC) builds a pyramid aligned to the southwest (facing northeast), changing the established tradition of facing pyramids to the north. Had Jupiter disappeared at this time, before the 'flood of Noah?'

It is perhaps the case that Jupiter had lost its tail some time before the 'Flood of Noah,' for there is also a passage in the Babylonian "Enuma Elish," also placed before the 'flood' of Noah, which tells the same story. The express purpose of the "Enuma Elish" was to establish Jupiter (Marduk) as the chief God and to resolve a religious crisis in Babylonia. In the "Enuma Elish" Marduk is installed by the other Gods and invested with power in order to fight common enemies of the Gods, among them Tiamat ("chaos") and Absu ("the abyss"). Marduk asks only that..

".. an 'unchangeable command' might be given to him -- that whatever he ordained should without fail come to pass, in order that he might destroy the common enemy. [...] The testing of his newly acquired power followed. A garment was placed in their midst:"

"He spake with his mouth, and the garment was destroyed,
He spake to it again, and the garment was reproduced."

-- Theophilus Pinches, "The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria (1890)

The Akkadians (and Babylonians) changed their dress after ca 2500 or 2400 BC from skirts to shoulder-hung robes. The climate had become colder. (Or we are seeing a change in fashion.) The Babylonian priests did not spin tales out of whole cloth. The reference to the disappearing and reappearing garment -- it was Marduk's own -- was remembered by everyone, or talked about by their grandfathers. "Mountain" and "skirt" are the same word in Akkadian. The reappearance of Marduk's mountainous plasma tail coincided in time with the arrival of Venus and the subsequent fall of the Absu and arrival of the Moon. Tiamat, who Marduk is to battle, is Venus.

The exploits of Marduk are briefly related as follows..

"Neither An nor his son Ea knew words of power strong enough to subdue Tiamat, but Ea's son Marduk, the patron god of the city Babylon, took on the task of fighting Tiamat in return for his being proclaimed king of the other gods."

"They gave him power to destroy things with a word and made him their king."

"He, in turn, took his bow, the rainbow that arches across the sky, and his lightning arrows and made a great net to ensnare Tiamat, and riding the winds of seven great storms he went to do battle with her. When he threw his great net upon her, she opened her jaws to swallow him, and the winds that Marduk controlled rushed into her mouth and swelled her belly until it burst."

"Then Marduk cut Tiamat's body in half and raised up one half to make the sky, leaving the other half as the restless oceans."

-- L.C. Geerts at http://Earth-history.com

Tiamat is not an Akkadian or Sumerian God (or Goddess). Tiamat is an invention of the Babylonians, but identified as a dragon. This replays the battle of Jupiter with a lion-headed snake dragon. Here Tiamat is the first plasmoid from Venus in 2349 BC. The Absu, of which nothing more is heard of in the "Enuma Elish" after initial mention, becomes one of Marduk's weapons, 'the net,' along with another, called 'the flood.'

Marduk at this telling of the "Enuma Elish" has become a creator God. The relationship of the "Enuma Elish" to the time period of 2349 BC is also indicated by the tasks undertaken by Marduk after defeating Tiamat. Theophilus Pinches writes, in "The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria" (1890),..

"Then came the ordering of the universe anew. Having made a covering for the heavens with half the body of the defeated Dragon of Chaos [Tiamat, Venus], Merodach [Marduk, Jupiter] set the Abyss [the Absu], the abode of Nudimmud, in front, and made a corresponding edifice above --the heavens -- where he founded stations for the gods Anu, Bel, and Ae."

"Stations for the great gods in the likeness of constellations, together with what is regarded as the Zodiac, were his next work."

"He then designated the year, setting three constellations for each month, and made a station for Nibiru [Venus] -- Merodach's [Marduk] own star -- as the overseer of all the lights in the firmament."

"He then caused the new moon, Nannaru, to shine, and made him the ruler of the night, indicating his phases, one of which was on the seventh day, and the other, a /abattu/, or day of rest, in the middle of the month."

These activities duplicate what the Chinese Legendary Emperor Yao accomplishes in the same era: adjusting the calendar, revealing the planets and stars (now that the equatorial rings had fallen), and setting the Moon in place.

The "Annals of Shu" were subjected to chronography by the Han between 200 BC and AD 200, and possibly earlier by the Taoists (there are comments about estimates by Confucius' disciples). But many of the names on the lists of kings had missing reign lengths, so that averages were used. Dynastic lengths seem to have been better established.

The story of the mortals Khwan and his son Yu forms a parallel to the story of the gods Yao and Shun. We are only told that Khwan started drainage of blocked waters on a commission by Yao. The "Annals of Shu" record that in failing to accomplish this, he is kept prisoner on a mountain until his death. His son likewise is hired by Shun for the same purpose and additional tasks; he is appointed to the throne by Shun and survives him to becomes the first king of the Xia.

... Recap and Reactions

The 24th century BC was important. The second break with the elder Gods took place during this time, and it happened in the course of a hundred and fifty years. To recap..

From the mix of these four records -- the "Annals of Shu," the Bible Chronology of Bishop Ussher, the inscriptions at Palenque, and the "Books of the Chilam Balam" -- it is clear that there is little agreement on when the Moon first showed near Earth, or when it was considered to be established on a regular orbit. There is closer agreement on a date for the fall of the Absu, although the "Chilam Balam" places the event, mistakenly, a hundred years later, to coincide with another dramatic event, the burning of Jupiter. There is more agreement on the date of this last event, the 'burning tower.' This concludes a century busy with celestial events.

Different people interpreted the events differently, but all of them needed stories and histories to reflect what they had experienced and how things had changed. Most of the 'legends' came forth in the years following 2200 BC, although some were delayed by the 200 year drought which followed immediately.

... Egypt

The Egyptians remained faithful to the elder gods, although they no longer confused celestial apparitions with rulership of their lands as they had for the 300 years (and two dynasties) immediately after 3147 BC. The pharaohs of the 5th and 6th dynasty institute a worship of Re, then seem to drop it after 2349 BC, to be picked up again later. After Jupiter extinguishes, a new supreme God is added in Egypt, or rather, renamed, Amun-Ra -- "Hidden Ra" or "the hidden sun." [note 26]

Unas, at the end of the 5th dynasty (2345 BC), and at the time of the fall of the Absu, not only aligns his pyramid to the southwest, contrary to the older traditions of facing northwest or facing north, perhaps to point in the location where the gate to the Other World disappears (or northeast where Jupiter would reappear after an absence). To our benefit, he is also the first pharaoh to add text of the "Book of the Dead" to the interior of his pyramid, perhaps being no longer convinced that the recitation by the priests will suffice (as do the following pharaohs). In 2193 BC the Old Kingdom will fall. When it is reconstituted as the Middle Kingdom 200 years later, it is as if nothing had happened. Egyptian religious practices continue with the old traditions of Horus, Ra, and Osiris. [note 27]

If the dates for Unas are correct, then he witnessed the fall of the Absu in 2349 BC. It is in Unas's tomb that we have the description "The Aten [the globe of Re] is in the Tuat [Duat]," even though at this time the Duat had ceased to be. What is even more interesting is the continuation of this inscription as, "The arms of the Mysterious Face come out and lift it up." Presumably 'the face' was a temporary phenomenum, or needed to suspend Re in the air, whereas before he had traveled in a boat or on a mountain rising out of the sea of the Duat.

Furthermore, Re had become Osiris in the liturgy. In that there are no literary references to Osiris before this time, it could be suggested that the texts of the pyramid of Unas are meant to promote Osiris. As Jane Sellers, in "The Death of Gods in Ancient Egypt" (1992), writes..

"At the beginning of the Sixth Dynasty another change took place. The religious fervour honouring the sun god [Re] which had marked almost all the efforts of the Fifth Dynasty, shifts its emphasis to the worship of Osiris. It is in the pyramid of Unas, last ruler of the Fifth and in the pyramids of rulers of the Sixth Dynasty, that texts were now inscribed, and it in these Pyramid Texts that the role of Osiris is predominant."

"Sir Alan Gardiner has written that the Pyramid Texts had the sole aim of insuring the deceased ruler's identity with Osiris and insuring that the king would fare as Osiris had."

The reference is to Sir Alan Gardiner, "Egypt of the Pharaohs" (1961). There are other references in the pyramid texts of Unas to the bloodbath of 2349 BC, although not directly. [note 28]

Sellers sums up..

"In the Fifth Dynasty some of the kings began a use of a name compounded with that of Re [Note: this actually started during the Fourth Dynasty], and the nomen was now used less often on the monuments; concurrently the building activities now centered on sun temples. By the end of the Fifth Dynasty, however, the worship of Osiris (as evidenced in the Pyramid Texts [of Unis]), appear to rival the worship of Re. From these changes Egyptologists have concluded that competing groups worshipped Re and Osiris."

Sellers quotes J. Gwynn Griffits, from "The Origins of Osiris and His Cult" (1960), as..

"While there is every likelyhood that the Osirian material in the Pyramid Texts derives in part from a much ealier date, so far it has proved not possible to track down the god or his symbols tangibly to the First or Second Dynasty."

Osiris is always shown as a mummy, but consistently colored green. This is the same green that describes the mountain form of Jupiter in the "Popol Vu" -- where he is simply known as "Mountain." Osiris thus is Jupiter, but in a form only recalled or recorded by one or more of the Egyptian temple domains, the form assumed until Jupiter entered the asteroid belt in ca 2940. The mummy form of Osiris also recalls (or is) Min, the delta God from ca 3100 BC. Both are shown as ithyphallic.

I am pointing out the sudden interest in Osiris, because in a way, it was not new at all, and interestingly, the recollection from an earlier time is correct. But the Osiris tale can certainly be tied to the reappearance of Jupiter directly after the arrival of the plasmoid from Venus. At a later time a date in the calendar is designated as the commemoration of the death of Osiris, with a day three days later as the date Isis brought him back from the dead, although temporarily. There is an inversion of sorts of closely related events, as is not untypical of a number instances in antiquity. There seemed to have been an interval of three days (or two days and a night) between the sky turning blood red and the sudden reappearance of Jupiter with a lower plasma mountain. But Jupiter probably lost its coma, that is, 'died,' much earlier. Thus in the narrative 'legend' of Osiris there is a temporal connection for which there is only a tenuous claim in reality, based on what we know or have been told. All the same, this particular claim, the death of God followed by his resurection three days later, will resound in other legends and in religious claims throughout the ages.

Unas, whose tomb walls were inscribed with the texts and spells of the "Book of the Dead," most likely witnessed the fall of the Absu and the blood in the sky. E. A. Wallis Budge, in his introduction to the translation of "The Egyptian Book of the Dead" (1895) notes a section of the Pyramid Text from the tomb of Unas which is totally out of character with the other texts dealing with the material and spiritual enjoyments of the deceased. He writes..

"But the most remarkable passage in this connection is one in the pyramid of Unas. Here all creation is represented as being in terror when they see the deceased king rise up as a soul [ba] in the form of a god who devours 'his fathers and mothers'; he feeds upon men and also upon gods. He hunts the gods in the fields and snares them; and when they are tied up for slaughter he cuts their throats and disembowels them. He roasts and eats the best of them, but the old gods and goddesses are used for fuel. By eating them he imbibes both their magical powers, and their 'khu's.' ... "

Budge quotes the actual passage, of which I will only reproduce the opening line..

"The heavens drop water, the stars throb, the archers go round about, the bones of Akeru [mythological guardians of sunrise and sunset] tremble, and those who are in bondage to them take to flight when they see Unas rise up as a soul, in the form of the god who liveth upon his fathers and who makes food of his mothers...."

Unas has here been transformed into the plasmoid of Venus at the fall of the Absu, just as, in other retellings, Hathor had appeared as the lion-headed goddess Sekhmet in the form of the eye of Horus. Unas here also wades in blood and gore, while the sky fills with water and fire, and arrows are launched (as also on a page on the "third creation" of the "Chilam Balam"-- See Chapter 17, "The Olmec Record of the Past"). There is little doubt that the priests took advantage of the event of 2349 BC to offer an additional spell to be added to the texts. It is also certain that the sudden change in religious emphasis -- especially in the worship of Osiris -- was marked by this absolutely stupendous cataclysm.

... Babylon

The priests of the city of Babylon, under the dynasty which included Hammurabi, and probably after 2200 BC, wrote the "Enuma Elish," a creation account which raises Marduk (Jupiter) to the status of chief God, by agreement (says the text) of the elder Gods of Akkad and Sumer. The text relates events which had been witnessed recently as proof of the change: the disappearance of Marduk's garment and its reappearance at his command, the battle with the dragon Tiamat (Venus), the removal of the Absu (the net), the clearing of the skies, the sighting of the southern stars, the delineation of the zodiac, the placement of the Moon, and the realignment of the calendar.

For the Babylonians, and for the older land of Akkad and Sumer, to recognize Marduk as chief of the Gods resolved a crisis in faith, and gave proof that the moon-sized red globe in the south, standing on a mountain of plasma, along with the Moon which had now appeared, were there by destiny and in agreement with older traditions. Marduk became the most widely recognized God in Mesopotamia, from Assyria to Elam, and retained his status as chief God for two thousand years. Not a little of his status was due to the central political position assumed by Babylon after 2200 BC -- but also because he was seen in the skies.

... Bible texts

In the Bible texts Jupiter has become Abraham, who receives a son, the Moon, only in old age, and then nearly sacrifices him on a burning mountain. The Bible attributes the fall of the Absu and the burning of Jupiter to a God punishing disobedient humans. Similarly to the "Annals of Shu," Jupiter is held up as the model of good behaviour. [note 29]

... Mayan texts

The "Chilam Balam" certainly is the most strangely different from the other texts mentioned above. Even though relating events from 4000 years earlier, it is also consistently the most accurate. It is mostly different in not having an obvious didactic agenda. We are presented instead almost solely with natural history, and a few complaints about the kings and leaders of the past. The "Chilam Balam," in the face of the new Christian religion, only seeks to prove that the older worship of "these stones" might simply have been a mistake.

"Very rightly they worshipped as true gods these precious stones."

"These stones" were volcanic concretions, noted in the "Popol Vu," which were held to be the spirit containers of the earlier Gods which had roamed the skies. One section of the "Chilam Balam" even equates the planetary Gods before 'creation' as stones inhabited by the spirits of the Gods.

... China

The Chinese would recall Yao and Shun as exemplary figures who instituted good government. Nothing is said of the burning of Jupiter. The Xia dynasty, which followed the reign of Yao and Shun (after 2205 BC), took control of the land and the people, and made it through the period of a bad climate.

China turned secular, although it remained nominally monotheistic, but never again concerned itself with signs in the sky. All the subsequent rulers were 'kings.' The title of 'emperor' -- a ruler over all the Earth -- was not used again in China for the next 2000 years.

The Fall of Akkad

In 2193 BC Venus passes Earth again, the last time in this era, and, as I noted in the previous chapter, both Akkad and the Old Kingdom of Egypt come to a close. There is very little else we hear from the eastern Mediterranean region, or nearly anywhere else, about this event, except for the failure of agriculture.

We have only very slim chronological data which point to what actually happened. The contact by Venus was not accompanied by impressive celestial events, and nothing was recorded in legends and stories, unlike the earlier contact of 2349 BC. What I believe happened in 2193 BC, is that Venus, made a compressive contact in (perhaps) the Pacific Ocean and produced a plasma arc which traveled around the world mostly through oceans, lifting stupendous clouds which remained overhead for years, reducing sunlight.

The Earth's orbit again increased, to 270 or 280 days (I suspect 273 days). At the same time the Moon relocated further from Earth, taking 28 days to complete one rotation (month) around the Earth. The recorders of the Xia dynasty removed the Moon (Shun) from Earth at the conclusion of his tasks.

"In the thirtieth year of his age, Shun was called to employment. Thirty years he was on the throne (with Yâo). Fifty years afterwards he went on high and died."

"Going on high" is not the sudden disappearance of the coma of the Moon. I do not think the Moon ever supported much of a coma, being a small rocky planet without an atmosphere or a magnetic field, and having spent perhaps millions of years at the same distance from the Sun. If, in effect, the Moon became smaller, it would be because it moved further up into the sky. Adding the 30 plus 50 years to the date when Shun was called to employment, 2277 BC (corrected from 2287 BC), places the "going on high" of the Moon in 2197 BC. This is four years before 2193 BC, but, given the guesswork at chronology by the Han dynasty, it is close enough to suggest that this can be linked to the fourth approach by Venus in this era.

The reason for suggesting a year of 270 or 280 days with ten months of 28 days, is that a ten month year and a 28 day month start to show up in this era. The Shang dynasty of China (although after ca 1700 BC) records 28 day months and 27 days also. I suspect, from this, that the year may thus have been 273 days, so that the ten lunar months would shift by seven days each year. We have less information on the ten month year, except that even today some people count only ten months in the year, stretching the last month of each year to 90 days. In India the sky was mapped to 28 'lunar mansions' a concept still in use today. (For additional information see Appendix A, "Chronology.")

In the following few hundred years the southern stars were mapped, calendars were adjusted, commerce and trade were expanded, histories were created, and an alphabetical script was devised. Politics changed and developed as they always had, but the relationships with the Gods remained stable.

The Career of Jupiter

At this point we can describe the complete career of Jupiter from 3147 BC to its last flare-up and diminuation in size in about 2250 BC. The complete career of Jupiter, from the first time he was noticed in the skies is as follows:

Before 3147 BC, the end of the "Age of the Gods," Jupiter was certainly seen during the "Age of the Gods," alternately like a moon-sized egg shape when Earth and Saturn were inside the orbit of Jupiter, and as an up-turned crescent shape when Earth and Saturn were outside Jupiter's orbit. The distortion in both instances were due to the fact that Earth was probably some three million miles below Saturn, and thus Jupiter was seen from a much lower perspective (Saturn's orbit additionally dipped 1.3 million miles below Jupiter's orbit.)

The egg-shape shows up in pottery decorations during this period; the crescents less so. As I have pointed out previously, a painted pot of the Classical Maya era, depicted in "Maya Cosmos" by Freidel and Schele present the imagery of six Gods in council with a seventh and elder God. They are advising the seventh god to start creation.

The elder God (God L) is easily identified as Jupiter as well as First Father. The six Gods have various names, of which some are easily identified. God "Three Born Together" is obviously the three plasmoids of the south and God "Nine Footsteps" is Mars. Subtracting God "Three Born Together" of the south leaves five Gods all associated with the polar configuration of the north in the "Popol Vu."

The image on the pot illustrates, in somewhat different form, the conferences had between the three gods of the south and the five gods of the north as related extensively in the "Popol Vu." What is different here is that a seventh god is invoked the old God L, who is without doubt Jupiter, as can be derived from Classical Era iconography. And what is amazing about this also is the fact that the Maya, from their own sources, or from books derived from the Olmecs, would recall the primacy of Jupiter, dating back to before 8300 BC or 4200 BC.

In the sculptures at Palenque (AD 700) Jupiter is also identified as one of the gods holding up the 'bleeding dragon' bar in the Temple of the Sun (a sculpture also called the "War Stack"). The Maya of Palenque were certainly aware of Jupiter as well as Saturn -- as specks in the sky -- as shown by the inscribed note (at Palenque) of a close conjunction on July 23, AD 690, of Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, and the Moon.

In 3147 BC Saturn and its companion planets initially passed behind Jupiter: that is, Jupiter was between Saturn and the Sun. It was Jupiter who caught up with Saturn, and was initially gravitationally displaced. Once the plasmasphere of Jupiter touched the enclosing plasmasphere of the Saturnian planets, electrical interactions would have caused a series of interactions consisting of a massive repulsive shock, followed by electrical arcing. The small planets Earth, Mars, and Venus, were not involved in the interactions, probably because the reformed combined plasmasphere of the giant planets locked them out. [note 30]

Certainly this involved the flow of plasma as gigantic interplanetary lightning bolts spanning millions of miles, but the most violent interaction would have been the electrical repulsion initiated as soon as the planets could first sense each other's electrical fields. This would not have lasted long, for after receiving an impulse which disturbed the orbits of the four large planets, changes in the induced charge levels of the planets would have reduced and obviated the repulsive electrical forces. As the planets separated, the individual plasmaspheres would have formed again, in effect isolating them from each other.

Jupiter, now under electrical stresses because it was moving away from the Sun, produced a coma and a gigantic tail. Unlike comets, Jupiter's plasma flow appeared mostly at the south geographic pole (the location of the north magnetic pole), with lesser plumes at the north pole. The lower plasma tail became the mountain to which the people of Earth see Noah's ark moored. As we know from Egyptian sources (and the Mesoamerican "Popol Vu"), the mountain of Jupiter was colored green initially.

The first view of Jupiter after the flood is recorded in both Sumerian flood stories, in the Bible, and hundreds of other 'flood' myths. The Earth, traveling with Saturn, had passed behind Jupiter while located some three million miles below both planets. (The initial vertical locations are discussed in Appendix B, "The Celestial Mechanics.")

The view of Jupiter seen from Earth initially was of a bright crescent on the bottom of the globe, caused by the back-lighting of the Sun. A widening (green) plasma discharge in glow mode extended down from the crescent (from the south pole of Jupiter). From the perspective of Earth the cresecent looked like the ship of Noah placed on the mountain where he had landed. Both the 'ship' and the 'mountain' seen at the end of the flood are an almost ubiquitous elements of the 500 or more flood legends throughout the world. [note 31]

The huge horned shape which had been seen approaching was identified in Egypt as the celestial bull who wrecked the city of the Gods -- he is shown as such on the Palette of Narmer, but, significantly, not on earlier palettes. He had been known from earlier times, for Jupiter was without a doubt sighted repeatedly in the past as an inner planet, and probably mostly from Earth's lower perspective. Jupiter also appears as the "bull of heaven" in the Mesopotamian Gilgamesh legend. This was the view first seen on the daylight side of Earth, and seen in the northern skies. Humans at this time had no concept of the extended space away from the Earth. The concept of Earth and all the surrounding space was that of a land mass enclosed by an 'ocean' in the south (the equatorial rings), and another region in the north where the river from paradise (the real 'Earth') had been seen to flow toward the land of Middle Earth. It was like living at the bottom of a bowl.

As the Earth traveled further along its orbit, the view of the battling planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, and Uranus) changed from an initial view from below (with the planets in the north sky) to a side view of the same planets in the southern skies. The rings of Saturn were now seen edge-on as Earth's orbit lifted past the equatorial of the Sun. Immediately after being released from the electrical field of Saturn, the Earth would have changed its orbit, to have the Sun again as one focus. The new orbital inclination to the equatorial of the Sun would be at a steep angle -- 7 degrees to the equator of the Sun. Within a half year the Earth would pass to above the equator of the Sun, and the people of Earth would get a new point of view on the receding giant planets.

The Maya "Chilam Balam" reads that Saturn was thrown on his back by Jupiter. This was the new view which saw the rings of Saturn edge on. The first 'pyramid texts' of Egypt state the same thing, that Osiris (Saturn) fell on his side and died -- at the riverbank. The riverbank is understood by later Egyptians as the bank of the Nile, but obviously the riverbank is the edge of the ecliptic.

Both the Bible and the Sumerian flood legend record birds being released to test the abatement of the flood waters. In the Sumerian version, the first two birds return. These were the bright Venus (the dove), and Mercury (a swallow). Because these are planets on inner orbits, they returned, and it was assumed that the Earth has not dried up yet. The third bird to be released is Uranus, as a raven. On an outer orbit, Uranus does not return. The interpretation is different from the Bible story, where the raven is released first, but only the later return of the dove with an olive branch signifies that the Earth had dried up. To Utnapishtim (the Sumerian 'Noah'), it is actually the travels back and forth of the raven (Uranus) that signals that the waters had ebbed. Noah is not convinced until the dove (Venus) returns with an olive branch -- the green tail it had developed in taking its first turn around the Sun.

Note that, in both flood stories, it is only a matter of weeks before the Earth has dried up and Noah and Utnapishtim would exit their arks. (Fourteen days in the Sumerian version, 40 days in the Bible.) The flood from the north polar seas of the Earth was a singular event, sweeping across the land like a tsunami, and rolling back at once. The duration of the flood, as presented in the legends, is in agreement with the fact that Jupiter would soon be seen from a much greater distance (half way across the orbit of Earth, rather than only a few million miles), frontally lighted by the Sun, but now looking much smaller. To both Noah and Utnapishtim this sight is a fire lighted for a sacrifice to the Gods. Seen from upward to one half AU away from the scene of the 'collision,' the planet Jupiter would have looked about half the size of today's Moon, lighted by the Sun, and red, still standing on its mountain, with wisps of white plasma extending above the sacrificial fire lit by Noah or Utnapishtim. The satellites of Jupiter orbited the fire.

"I made an offering on the peak of the mountain:
The gods smelled a savour,
The gods smelled a sweet savour,
The gods gathered like flies over the sacrificer."

-- Theophilus Pinches, "The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria" (1890)

Over the next few years Jupiter and Saturn, traveling at different orbital speeds, would be seen to pass each other as both planets receded from the Sun. It is possible (but doubtfull) that Saturn developed a plasma tail but this could only be seen as extending away from the Sun, and would not appear to be located sideways along the ecliptic. The engagement of the two planets could not have lasted all that long, as they would soon become separated by their new individual orbits. We do know from early depictions and late literary sources sources that there were frequent plasmoid thunderbolts between Jupiter and Saturn and the other Titans, launched like missiles which landed with explosive effects. It may have lasted 80 or 90 years, although it is uncertain how much of this time period (assigned by the Egyptians) was occupied with 'battle' and how much by 'negotiations.'

The 'negotiations' were the constant ranging of planets around the ecliptic followed by yearly regrouping near the slowest planets, Jupiter and Saturn, something never seen before by humans. To the Egyptians, the planets were having meetings. For the Egyptians it was most important to again have a celestial king assigned as ruler of the lands, and thus they describe the 'negotiations' in detail. The claims between Seth and Horus are described in details encompassing the plasma interactions of the objects of the asteroid belt, described by the Egyptians as a swamp. [note 32]

The remaining career of Jupiter can be followed with some confidence. This is not true of Saturn. Saturn must have been unremarkable looking, except that its rings were still seen, and Saturn just seems to disappear from active mythology, although the planet was watched and tracked throughout all of antiquity -- in Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Mesoamerica. Saturn soon would have been a tiny speck of light among other stars (and moving very slowly). That Saturn apparently never was seen with a coma is perhaps not surprising, since Saturn's electrical charge probably matched the electrical conditions of deep space, even though Saturn had been carrying on a charge equalization for thousands of years while near the Sun. [note 33]

[Image: Asteroid belt and path of Jupiter]
"Histogram of the semi-major axis of asteroid objects; and path of Jupiter between 3147 BC and 2250 BC. The left ordinate represents both the number of asteroids and also the date, as BC, in the previous era." (Data: ftp.lowell.edu/pub/elgb/astorb.html. Plotted at case.edu/sjr16/; additional graphics for Jupiter added. Information for 336,341 asteroids.)

Jupiter, because of its mountainous lower plasma outpouring, would have looked gigantic until it reached the first objects of the asteroid belt at about 1.75 AU. That would have taken perhaps 200 years after 3147 BC. A period of 200 years is a calculation based on a linear regression of Jupiter from the Sun. It is likely that, if other factors are taken into account, this should be reduced to 150 years.

On reaching the asteroid belt the coma did not need to be particularly large and its lower mountain form would have shrunk to a plasma pouring sideways from the bottom of the globe, since constant electrical contact could be made to the 300,000 or more asteroids (some suggest millions) which occupy the belt between 2 and 3.5 AU, plus all the dust already in place because of the passage of three other giant planets. [note 34]

Initially, on reaching the asteroid belt, Jupiter would have discharged via plasmoid thunderbolts. This is the second battle of Zeus described by Hesiod, where various monsters are attacked. The asteroid belt initially consisted mostly of rock fragments with some dust intermingled. Only after considerable additional dust had been created by the first massive plasmoids lightning bolts of Jupiter, would this activity subside to a more continuous stream of plasma. In the meantime, the dust and the asteroid objects must have taken on monsterous shapes. The dust remained for some 4900 years, lit by the Sun, and defined the ecliptic as the road of the Gods until recent times.

Jupiter would have entered the asteroid belt shortly after about 2950 BC. Its electrical discharge at this time moved 'sideways' from Jupiter -- from the north magnetic pole at the bottom of the planet, to the nearby asteroids and the clouds of particulate matter created in earlier discharges. The plasma in glow mode would follow the magnetic field lines and be directed to the dust of the asteroid belt from the south geographic pole. (This would have primarily been an inflow of electrons directed to Jupiter, but also an outflow of protons and other disassociated ions.) Jupiter has a magnetic field ten times as strong as the Earth.

Seen from Earth, Jupiter thus would have looked like a disk seated on a flat plane while within the asteroid belt. A symbol for this, first dated from the third dynasty (after ca 2850 BC), is the 'shen,' a circle placed on a line, often made to look like a rope, that is, with a set of knots at the bottom. The same symbol is used from the end of the third dynasty as the 'cartouche' used to write the names of pharaohs.

[Image: Shamash holding a shen, Egyptian shen]

"Left Image: Shamash holding a shen; Mesopotamian seal.
Right Image: Egyptian carved shen symbol.

Images similar to the 'shen' are found in Babylonia (above). Some Egyptian variations of the 'shen' have 'hairs' at the top and bottom of the circle. This completes the look of a plasma discharge from the magnetic poles, with the north geographic pole supporting a much lesser amount.

The Egyptian crown of Re (Jupiter) and Amun-Ra ("the hidden sun," Jupiter) is depicted as a red globe above nearly horizontal twisted ram's horns. A frequent depiction of the 'shen' is with the circle filled in solid red, which would represent the actual planet and its coma. The "Chilam Balam" states that Bolon-ti-ku (Jupiter) was red when he "sat" in rulership.

"Red was the mat on which Bolon-ti-ku [Jupiter] sat. His buttock is sharply rounded, as he sits on his mat."

Notice that Jupiter has changed color. He was green originally (or the tail was), as the mummified body of Osiris, which moved into the south skies after 3147 BC. After entering the asteroid belt, Jupiter was red.

Redness is also associated with the fall of the Absu in 2349 BC. The blood-red condition shows up in tales of the destruction of mankind recorded in New Kingdom tombs (Tutankhamun, 1327 BC; Seti I, 1279 BC; plus others down to 1136 BC), where Hathor (Venus), as the lion-headed goddess Sekhmet, wades in the blood of men and in red beer.

These texts replicate the written style of the Middle Kingdom, that is, the era in Egyptian history after the demise of the Old Kingdom in 2193 BC, and would thus seem to date from long before the time when they were recorded. Most likely they date from 2349 BC, the same event (the 'flood of Noah' and the fall of the Absu) which were hinted at when Unis, shortly after 2349 BC, cuts the throats and disembowels the celestial gods -- according to his Pyramid Texts.

When Hathor starts to destroy humans and drink their blood, Ra (Jupiter), who had ordered the destruction, managed to stop Hathor when she went out of control, by ordering the manufacture of 6000 jars of beer, dyed red with hematite (red iron oxide), to be poured out over the land. The Goddess drinks the beer, gets drunk, and ceases the killings. Ra retires soon after (which would have been 200 years later in 2247 BC).

The story is recorded as the "Legend of the Celestial Cow," so called because Ra orders the creation of a celestial cow on whose back he then sits. I have introduced Hathor as a cow earlier, in Chapter 7, related to the change in the electrical field of the Sun. I suggested that the Van Allen belts would change to a glow-mode display (or even brighter) from the excess electrons spiralling back and forth along the magnetic field lines. Next Ra orders the creation of the cow's legs. All this happens on the third day after Hathor's bloodbath. In this last detail the "Legend of the Celestial Cow" parallels other descriptions of the same events, as in the fact that Ra then creates the southern stars. [note 35]

The Hindu Goddess Kali (Venus) similarly went on a blood-soaked killing rampage. Another God (Shiva) has to intervene to stop her. Kali is portrayed as black with black hair and black garments, if any. The same occasional hag-like appearances can be found among other descriptions of Venus as a raging mad-woman in Mesopotamia and Mesoamerica. Venus would be a dark shape if the planet passed Earth during the day time. Since both Earth and Venus would be traveling at about the same speed, the rotation of the Earth would make it look as if Venus raged across the sky -- from the east to the west -- a number of days.

Kali is black because she (Venus) was back-lighted by the Sun as it moved into a position of having the Sun, Venus, and Earth all in a line. The plasma tail directed away from the Sun would then points at the Earth. In that Venus has no magnetic field, the tail probably consisted of separate spikes diverging from the centerline of the Sun-Venus axis, as is also seen in cometary tails. If these streams moved about in adjusting to the Earth's plasmasphere after the electrical contact was made, Kali would be seen with flaying arms and legs -- in effect Kali was dancing. The compressive contact was made, I suspect, with a region north of India, which would have tipped the equatorial rings up to move Kali into the midst of the blood-red rings (although the red color may have developed the next day). The gyroscopic reaction torque would have moved Russia into the face of the Sun, shortening the day in India and southern Asia. This probably accounts for the fact that the plasmoid 'dragon' from Venus was seen in the Middle East, but not noted in India. That suggests perhaps six hours of travel for the plasmoid. That would place Venus at a distance of 12 million miles from Earth during this incident, if the plasmoid traveled, similar to the Solar Wind, at a rate of 2 million miles per hour. Gyroscopic reaction torque to an external force applied off-center to the equator is discussed in Appendix B, "Celestial Mechanics."

In the Levant, the Goddess Anath of Ugarit goes on a "drunken rampage" extending from the location of sunrise to the Mediterranean sea. Here, too, the local chief God (Baal) has to intervene. Baal, of course, is Jupiter.

The association of what would be the smell of alcohol with some of the legends, and the association of the color red with all three of the tales, might suggest an analysis of the possible chemistry of the gasses and particulate matter of the Absu. It may also have been a smell associated with brewing or fermentation. There will be similar suggestions of world-wide odors at much later dates, but these are widely recognized as sweet smells like flowers, or, as I would suggest, like diesel exhaust, and thus the burning of hydrocarbons like crude oil.

I should note that the 400 Lost Boys, recorded in the "Popol Vu," who become the Pleiades (at the time of the 'flood of Noah,' as will be suggested below), are also "dead drunk" at the time they are blasted into the heavens by Zipacna, the mountain giant (Jupiter). [note 36]

There is thus a close association between the arrival of Venus in 2349 BC and blood and alcohol, as well as an intervention by the chief God. The "Enuma Elish" records this last also. It could therefore be suggested that Jupiter again assumed its giant coma and tail very shortly after 2349 BC (probably within days) to remain as the chief God.

Plutarch notes, from Zoroastrian sources, that Jupiter tripled in size (presumable after being of a certain size for a very long time) and subsequently reduced its coma to the size of the Moon. We can date these events. The tripling in size probably happened as Jupiter exited the far end of the asteroid belt, in about 2600 BC, and a large coma was again needed to carry on the additional adjustments to the field of the Sun at this far location where there was no local dust. The eventual reduction of the size of coma to the diameter of the Moon is due to the increased distance from Earth as Jupiter moved from 3.5 AU out to 5.2 AU in 2250 BC.

I have estimated in an endnote that, when Jupiter exited the asteroid belt in about 2600 BC, the size of the coma could have looked about twice the size of the Moon, based only on a calculated estimate. Since Plutarch states that Jupiter tripled its size (and would then be equal to my estimate of twice the size of the Moon), he in effect suggests that Jupiter had a coma visually equal to 2/3rd of the visual diameter of the Moon while in the asteroid belt. The tripling of size would have happened in about 2600 BC or 2550 BC (I estimated 2589 BC), when the Egyptian pharaohs, during construction of the Giza pyramids, add "Re" to their names. The sudden increase in size would have been reason enough to suddenly pay attention to this God.

Some time later, the plasma tail seems to have disappeared and then reappeared in 2349 BC. The disappearance may represent the passage through one of the last clumps of objects in the asteroid belt (at about 4 AU). Jupiter then became electrically re-energized with the launching of plasmoids by Venus as it aligned with Earth, Venus, and the Sun in 2349 BC. Or possibly the electrical field of the Sun changed in value with the release of the plasmoid of Venus.

With the return of the mountain-shaped plasma, Jupiter became the undisputed leader of the Gods worldwide, as demonstrated by the "Enuma Elish" written in Babylon and as recorded in the Chinese "Annals of Shu." The condition of the 'shen' plasma display had lasted some 350 years, from 2950 to 2550 BC (2938 BC to 2589 BC). The condition of the following mountainous plasma display lasted (with one or more interruptions) for 300 years, from 2550 BC to 2250 BC.

Cylinder B of Gudea, governor of Lagash in the 22nd century BC (ca 2141-2122 BC), reads that Ningirsu "rose in overwhelming splendor", "in the land it became day", and "he changes darkness into light." Ningirsu has been identified as Shamash ("sun") and is thought to be Saturn, but Saturn had disappeared long ago. This is a description of Jupiter, although a recollection.

Quoting from an unpublished document by Velikovsky..

"Zedek was the name of Jupiter, and we read that in the days of Abraham the planet underwent some visible changes. Rabbinical sources relate that when Abraham was on an expedition against Cherdlaomer, king of Elam, and his allied kings -- who had captured and despoiled Sodom, and taken Abraham's nephew Lot into captivity -- the star Zedek illuminated the night, thereby ensuring the expedition's success."

Abraham is variously dated anywhere from 2026 BC (534 years before the Exodus of 1492 BC) to 1271 BC (1876 years after the flood of 3147 BC). Traditional bible chronology dates Abraham from 1812 BC to 1637 BC. In Appendix A, "Chronology Notes," I equate Abraham with Gilgamesh, but for the purposes of equating Abraham with Jupiter, this is too early (ca 2650 BC). Some scholars have equated Abraham with the Moon, or Moon-worship, also. The "Annals of Shu" probably provide the best dates for an active Moon. He is born in 2317 BC (or 2312 BC) and 'dies' in 2207 BC, 110 years later. But these dates are far too early for comparison with the life of Abraham.

In 2250 BC (or 2246 BC), the Chinese 'legendary emperor' Yao (Jupiter) dies, or as the "Chilam Balam" reads, the face of the Sun was suddenly taken away. Jupiter flared up and then reduced itself to the brightness of a star. Today it is still the brightest star-object in the sky. We can assume that this was the end of its travels, that is, that the last flare-up represented a final spasm as (or after) Jupiter reached its destination. It took 897 years to travel -- in a spiral -- from about 0.7 AU to 5.2 AU, 484 million miles from the Sun.

Because we know that Jupiter flashed brightly once before disappearing from view in 2250 BC, we could also make some suggestions on what the plasma mountain below Jupiter would have looked like before disappearing altogether. What I would suggest is that as the flow (current) of ionized particles decreased, the plasma would repeatedly cross the threshold between glow mode and dark mode.

[Image: Plasma modes]
Image: Plasma in dark, glow, and arc mode. Current density as a function of voltage.

The electrical transition is not at all linear. As the current drops, the voltage needed to drive the flow goes up steeply. (This happens at the high current region between glow mode and arc mode also.) It is likely that Jupiter intermittantly dropped to dark mode a number of times, returning each time to glow mode after an interval. This would make the lower plasma mountain look like a stepped structure, not unlike a multi-storied ziggurat -- in effect a tower constructed by humans. When, before turning permanently to dark mode, Jupiter flashed briefly into arc mode, it looked as if the tower burned.

The Ten Suns

Having been introduced at this point to the black Kali of India, the dragon Tiamat of the Babylonian "Enuma Elish," Anath of Ugarit, and Hathor of Egypt -- all wading in the blood of slaughtered humans -- it is perhaps appropriate to tie together these 'legends' and attempt to establish a sequence of events for the days of the 2349 BC event which are otherwise known as the 'flood of Noah.' Details are scant, but the following sequence seems reasonable.

India saw the approach of Venus, initially as a black mass occluding the Sun. The details of a bloodbath are only added the next day when the Absu had broken up into a confusion of red.

Some three hours later the plasmasphere of Venus made contact with the plasmasphere of Earth. The initial compressive Earth shock, due to the electrical fields of the planets, was instantaneous. This was followed within minutes by a propagated seismic shockwave traveling (mainly) southeast and east toward the occupatiob sites from the Caucasus through Anatolia and across Greece. There would have been later damages resulted from an different effect, for the surfaces of both planets facing each other would have rapidly changed to apposing charge, so that a large difference in voltage would have been induced. The effect was probably mostly felt by the ionosphere. This would have resulted in massive lightning strikes from the ionosphere or upper atmosphere to Earth's surface (under the same conditions of the upper atmosphere or ionosphere inducing an apposite voltage at ground level).

The seismic upheavals and surface lightning strikes to Earth were thus not directly from Venus. There were, however, also 'lightning bolts' directly from Venus, one very large plasmoid, and some nine additional smaller ones. Except for the damage done to the Absu by the first plasmoid, it is difficult to determine if these bolts landed and where and what the damage would look like. More on this further below.

The date of the event can be established as occurring near (or at) the autumnal equinox. This will be discussed in the following section. If the date was near the fall equinox, the axis of the Earth would have been inclined forward -- in the direction of travel of Earth along its orbit. The jolt to the Earth, above the equator, would have caused the spin axis to tilt away from the Sun, followed immediately by a reaction torque twisting the axis toward the leading position of Earth's orbit. The effect would have been to bring the equatorial rings up to face Venus and the Sun, a condition probably accomplished within a few hours. The travel of the Earth's axis in this loop would have kept the broadside of the rings of the Absu facing Venus for about a half a day or a day. [note 37]

The twisting of the axis may have kept the Earth from being incinerated, for the next event after the initial shock was the release of a plasmoid by Venus. The people of the eastern Mediterranean saw the approach. This was not instantaneous, this took time. Leonard King wrote..

"We have long possessed part of another local version of the Dragon myth, which describes the conquest of a dragon by some deity other than Marduk; and the fight is there described as taking place, not before Creation, but at a time when men existed and cities had been built. Men and gods were equally terrified at the monster's appearance, and it was to deliver the land from his clutches that one of the gods went out and slew him."

"Tradition delighted to dwell on the dragon's enormous size and terrible appearance. In this version he is described as fifty bêru in length and one in height; his mouth measured six cubits and the circuit of his ears twelve; he dragged himself along in the water, which he lashed with his tail; and, when slain, his blood flowed for three years, three months, a day and a night. From this description we can see he was given the body of an enormous serpent."

-- Leonard King, "Legends of Babylon and Egypt" (1918)

The "bêru," a footnote mentions, was the space that could be covered in two hours' travelling. The apparition is thus held to be 400 miles long (assuming 4 miles are covered in an hour's walking), and 8 miles in width. The head of the plasmoid may have looked larger, in that it was closer to the observers. The size of the object in the sky might have been estimated by comparison to distant mountains.

The Goddess Anath of Ugarit is described as extending in size from the location of sun-rise to the sea. This is similar to what is suggested above for the dragon. Here, as in other tales, the dragon or goddess is described as "wading" in blood or gore (and in other descriptions as slapping her tail through the 'waters').

[Plasmoid lightning bolt]
Images: Left: Plasmoid lightning bolt shown in its full extent. Right: The end form is based on viewing the denser edge of the cup-like form and a dense central core. After David Talbott and Wallace Thornhill, "Thunderbolts of the Gods" (2005).

The dragon apparition was not Venus, since Venus would have blocked the Sun, being in a direct line with the Sun. This dragon with its enormous head was a plasmoid launched from Venus, an object lighted by its own arc-mode plasma. As the Earth rotated toward the east the 'head' of the dragon, a round ball of plasma with tentacles hanging from the mouth (the classical depiction of a dragon in China and in Mesoamerica), would first be seen in the south and then pass by, headed toward the west with the 'tail' following behind it in the east.

The whole apparition, being brilliant enough to shine through the dust and particles of the Absu, had the appearance of being within the rings, "in the sea." It would have happened in the course of a half a day, for the delivery of the plasmoid would not have lasted more than 6 hours. The Earth shock happened north of the region of the eastern Mediterranean from which we have reports (or more likely, north of India). The contact with Venus would have been made as the Sun, Venus, and Earth were all in a line -- at local noon time. The plasmoid would have been launched immediately after the Earth shock, and was seen arriving by the people of the eastern Mediterranean before night fell -- about 6 hours or sooner. (This was a time near the equinox, so that the day would have been about 12 hours long, but the reaction torque would have reduced the length of the day.) If the plasmoid traveled at a rate of two million miles per hour (which is the speed of the Solar Wind after leaving the Sun), then Venus would have been at a distance of about 12 million miles from Earth at the time the plasmoid was launched.

The tail would have grown in size as the plasmoid was viewed at an increasing angle. As it closed in on Earth, the rear tines of the plasmoid would become distinct and look as if they were slashing through the rings of the Absu. The slashing tail is the collapse of the main body of the plasmoid delivered almost broadside onto the rings of the Absu, and exploding on reaching the electrical field surrounding the Earth. For this reason Chinese dragons are depicted as contorted and twisted snakes.

The dragon, as Tiamat, opened its mouth and swallowed the winds, where upon she burst. So reads the Babylonian "Enuma Elish." The winds were real, for as the axis of the Earth twisted north and east, the atmosphere of the Earth would have resisted the sudden change in direction and driven hurricane winds to the south and the west. The explosive blast, followed later by additional plasmoids, would have sent scorching waves of heat to the Earth's surface.

Where did the plasmoid land? I suspect that it never reached the surface of the Earth. I think that it dissipated at the equatorial rings, but not without massive return strokes of lightning from the Earth's toroidial belts (the Van Allen belts, located above the atmosphere at the equator) into the equatorial ring system.

The people of the eastern Mediterranean saw the explosion, which most likely happened over North Africa or the Atlantic. But, at this time, the eastern Mediterranean was turning away from the Sun and Venus at a faster rate than normal, and it was in Central America where the next phase of the spectacle was witnessed.

As the day dawned in Mesoamerica, the arrival of secondary plasmoids was witnessed and recorded by the Olmecs, to be transcribed to garbled narrative texts some 3900 years later on separate pages of the "Books of the Chilam Balam." The last page of Book 2 reads..

"'Our gods have grown!' their priests said (those from [of] the Sun). And then days of the year were introduced."

"'Behold abundant suns come,' they said. And the hoofs of the animals burned and the edge of the sea burned."

"'This is the sea of bitterness!' they said."

"And the face of the sun was corroded, and its face became darkened and was put out. And then, above, they became frightened. 'It has burned up! Our god has died!' their priests said. And they were beginning to think about making a picture of the figure of the sun, when the earth shook and they saw the moon."

-- Antonio Mediz Bolio, "Books of the Chilam Balam of Chumayel" (1930) [note 38]

The page obviously refers to 2349 BC, with its reference to a new calendar ("days of the year were introduced"), the disturbance of the Absu ("the edge of the sea burned"), and the arrival of the Moon ("the earth shook and they saw the moon"). The first line may refer to the initial plasmoid from Venus, seen in the east, but the phrase, "behold abundant suns come," describes the secondary plasmoids of lesser intensity which followed on the heels of the initial dragon-sized bolt. [note 39]

The darkening of the face of the Sun can be attributed to the fact that the Sun (if not already blocked by Venus) would have sunk below the horizon as the Earth's axis tilted away from the direction of the Sun, a condition particular to the latitude of about 20 degrees north. On the remainder of this page of the "Chilam Balam" a war ensues, with whole armies being shot down with arrows. This likely represents the lightning bolts traveling up through the Absu on following days. [note 40]

Except for the clear reference to 2349 BC, some of this text would have remained inexplicable, if it were not for the fact that an almost identical description exists in China, as the legend of the "Ten Suns" which were shot down with the arrows of the celestial archer Li and which is placed "in the time of Yao." Both the Mesoamerican text and the Chinese text mention the multiple Suns, the heat felt on Earth, and the arrows directed up through the Absu. Li might be the Moon or a narrative fiction.

In China, daylight would normally arrive nearly a half day after it was daylight in Mesoamerica. But as the Earth's axis spun away from the direction of the Sun and simultaneously started to lean in the leading direction of the Earth's orbit, daylight, and the view of Venus and the secondary plasmoids, would have appeared hours earlier than normal. Otherwise it would be difficult to maintain that secondary plasmoids from Venus continued for as much as a day. The many suns were seen as rising, that is, in the east, and likely followed each other. The lightning bolts were launched individually. Nine were shot down. The last, the real Sun, remained.

And then it stopped, except for the bleeding of the sky. In India black Kali was now wading in blood. It stopped, observers noted, because another God had interfered. A sudden reappearance of the coma of Jupiter was the sign that this had happened. The timing of this is not at all clear, though. In Babylon, in the "Enuma Elish," written hundreds of years later, the rescue of Earth is attributed to a complete plan devised by Marduk before the onset of the plasma contact. But in India, the Levant, and Egypt, the God who quells the raging goddess acts shortly after the start of the killings. If the plasma expulsion of Venus also traveled past Earth, down the extended tail of the Earth's plasmasphere facing away from the Sun, it would have reached Jupiter (Jupiter was more or less in line) in about 6 days and caused it to flare up. This assumes a speed of about two million miles per hour.

It could have been sooner, however, for Coronal Mass Expulsions (a plasma) from the Sun have been known, in recent times, to travel on occasion at a rate of 200 million miles per hour, rather than 2 million miles per hour. At a somewhat higher speed of six million miles per hour, it would have reached Jupiter (at that time located at 4.5 AU) in two and a half days. From the fact that worldwide celebrations of the "Day of the Dead," which will be introduced below, almost uniformly last two and a half days, I would suggest that it indeed took only two or three days before Jupiter flared up. [note 41]

If Jupiter blazed, suddenly, two days after the Earth shock, after receiving the plasmoids from Venus, with the Absu of the southern sky still in disarray, but as the tremors from the shock lessened and the sweeping hurricanes abated, Jupiter would have been understood as the saviour of the Earth. Only the blood in the 'ocean' remained.

The bleeding of the dragon lasted, as noted by one source, above, for 3 years, 3 months, one day and one night. The time for the complete fall of the Absu can be compared to the various times that flood survivors spent floating in their various boats and arks, which, of course, is nowhere near three years. In most myths the extent of the flood is much shorter, although these tales represent references to the flood of 3147 BC. Noah, in the Biblical story, which represents the 'flood' of 2349 BC, spends a much longer time afloat, but not three years.

I do not know if the Absu was originally colored red, although it could be suspected that at least part of the rings may have been. Some low density gasses will glow in red when ionized and under electrical discharge, as is seen today in the Aurora (and in the rings of Saturn). If the Absu had always been red, we would never have heard anything about it. More likely, it was a condition of 2349 BC due to a continual plasma discharge via the equatorial rings. The "Chilam Balam" claims that the whole world turned red at this time, and attributes the condition to Jupiter. Another page of the "Chilam Balam" claims that the condition only lasted past the ending of one Katun, and partway into the next - 18 or 20 years.

Initially it was daylight and near the fall equinox. The Absu would have been divided by the long shadow of Earth. But at night, after the Earth had at first tilted away from the Sun, the full Absu was seen, without the Earth's shadow. Blood would have been everywhere in the sky. As the Earth continued to spin to return the rotational axis to its initial position, the Absu would have been divided again by the Earth's shadow. I suspect, mainly based on Maya iconography, that it was at this time that Jupiter flared up, and by coincidence appeared in the center of the gap in the remnant of the Absu. (Which is correct for an alignment of the Sun, Venus, Earth and Jupiter.)

The Day of the Dead

Moe Mandelkehr, in "The 2300 BC Event" (2006), assumes that the events of 2349 BC and 2193 BC can be represented as a fall of meteorites in about 2300 BC and the subsequent creation of a series of circumpolar rings which lasted some months. The book, in three volumes, includes a wealth of information, of which the details of a worldwide celebration of a "Day of the Dead," centering on the culmination of the Pleiades in the south sky, is the most interesting and which bears on the topic of this chapter. (A culmination is when a star reaches the highest point in the sky directly above the south horizon.) He opens with a quotation from W. T. Olcot which effectively sums up the information he presents. [note 42]

"Memorial services to the dead at the season of the year when the Pleiades occupied a conspicuous position in the heavens are found to have taken place, and to have been a feature in the history of almost every nation of the earth, from remote antiquity to the present day."

"The universality of this custom may well be considered one of the most remarkable facts that astronomical history records.... A great cataclysm ... is in some way associated with the Pleiades, and some reference to such an event can be traced in many of the legends and myths surrounding these stars that have come down to us from nations far removed from each other."

-- W. T. Olcott "Star Lore of All ages" (1911)

Mandelkehr provides details spanning all continents and both hemispheres. He records the festivals worldwide as celebrating new-year, fire-lighting, and commemorating the dead. He lists details for Britain, Scandinavia, continental Europe, Greece, the Middle East, Israel, Africa, Egypt, Iran, India, Central Asia, China, Japan, the Pacific islands, North America, Mexico (Aztecs), Central America, South America, and Peru. Not all the references are solid and convincing, and some have nothing to do with the topic at hand, but there are certainly enough to build a case for a "Day of the Dead" celebration worldwide which had its genesis in remote antiquity. Today this festival is institutionalized in the Christian world as "All Saints Day" and "All Souls Day," and celebrated in other forms, as "Halloween," for example, and as the "Day of the Dead" in Mexico. [note 43]

Mandelkehr associates the Pleiades with the autumnal equinox in 2300 BC, based on a retrocalculation from the current constitution of the heavens. As the Sun sets in the west, the Pleiades rise in the east. Six hours later, at midnight (siderial time), the Pleiades will stand at their highest point in the sky, a culmination.

I have already mentioned that this same information is found in Book 10 of the "Chilam Balam," which mentions that after the fall of the Absu ("the baptism from the center of heaven") the ecliptic and equatorial became visible (as "the crossroads") with the Pleiades ("precious things") above these. (See Chapter 16, "The Chilam Balam Books.")

The fact that an ephemeris will show the Pleiades culminating in the south skies at the autumnal equinox in 2300 BC, is actually a nagging coincidence, for my supposition (developed in later chapters) is that the skies were invariant before 685 BC. However, the condition of the sky before 685 BC can be simulated (except for the zero longtitudinal line and the horizon) by selecting the year 2000 BC with an ephemeris. This is very close to the retrocalculated conditions for 2300 BC, so that the Pleiades indeed stand at their highest point in the south skies on our equivalent date of September 21 on a Gregorian calendar -- the autumnal equinox by our accounting. [note 44]

The festivals noted by Mandelkehr for earlier ages occur near the expected culmination of the Pleiades in the sky at midnight in late October or early November. These dates have drifted away from the equinox because the culmination of the Pleiades moved later into the fall of the year after 685 BC due to precession of the equinoxes. The dates for some of the celebration thus do not recognize the equinox, but only the dates at which the Pleiades stand highest in the sky.

Yet it is also curious that many of these festivals, where they are still celebrated today, start about 15 days early -- 15 days before the Pleiades reach their highest location in the sky. However, as I will develop in Chapter 12, "Modern History," the equinoxes moved 15 days into the future after 685 BC. Before 685 BC the fall equinox fell on about September 6th. (This agrees with the earliest Mesopotamian records which inexplicably place the equinoxes in the constellations Taurus and Scorpio.)

This probably accounts for the approximately 15 day discrepancy between when many of the "Day of the Dead" festivals are observed today and the actual calendar date of the culmination of the Pleiades. But whereas some people used calendar dates for the celebrations (15 days early), others followed the changing dates of the culmination of the Pleiades, and yet others kept the celebration at the date of the equinox, and in some cases, apparently, returned to the equinox (noted by Mandelkehr). [note 45]

The information to be gleaned from Mandelkehr's book is unfortunately insufficient to make any determination of how these various dates for the celebrations may have developed historically. Although he points to festival dates "around the end of October and beginning of November," he almost never makes note of when in the past these were celebrated. At best this might suggest that the festivals seemed to have kept pace with the changing date of the culmination of the Pleiades over the last 3900 years.

It is, however, clear that at various times in the past some of the the festivals were codified, that is, tied to a certain calendar date rather than continuing to follow the changing date of the culmination of the Pleiades. We see this in the Christian "All Saints / All Souls" days. These were set as a church feastday in about the year AD 700 or AD 1000, purposely coinciding with the "Day of the Dead" celebrations of the European tribes, celebrated, at that time, at the culmination of the Pleiades on October 31, Gregorian. Once tied to the church calendar, this feastday remained locked to October 31 and November 1. The pagan Halloween kept pace with the church calendar.

A similar codification can be seen in Mesoamerica before the Spanish arrive. Mandelkehr, quoting Bernadino de Sahagún from a secondary source, notes that a "Day of the Dead" celebration occurred on October 20 in the 16th century AD. I would think that this date may have been established by the priests at Teotihuacan at about AD 200, when the city was built. At that time the Pleiades culminated between October 20 and October 22, Gregorian (October 20 to 21, Julian). Teotihuacan was the undisputed primary religious center until ca AD 700, and set the standard for most of Mesoamerica. Its influence lasted into the Aztec era. The Aztecs still celebrated the "Day of the Dead" on October 20 or 21 in about AD 1550. [note 46]

Interestingly, the primary God of the Aztecs, Huitzilopochtli, celebrated his 'birthday' on November 9 (Gregorian), when the Spanish arrived in the 16th century AD, which was the actual day of the culmination of the Pleiades at that time. Huitzilopochtli is generally equated to the planet Mars, but the coincidence with the date of the culmination of the Pleiades would suggest that Huitzilopochtli may need to be equated with Jupiter, or that he was originally equated with Jupiter -- who, 3900 years earlier had reappeared from death on the day of the culmination of the Pleiades.

All the festivals honor the dead, light fires, include torch-light parades. Many at one time mark new-year day. Invariable the celebrations last three days, or two days preceded by an evening festivity (in Mexico of the 16th century AD also). I think this is important in pointing to a series of closely related events, and I would suggest that the fall of the Absu, which was an absolutely terrifying event, would have been closely followed -- in fact, by three days -- by the reappearance of Jupiter in his full mountain size. "After three days he rose from the dead." [note 47]

The question remains, "Who died?" As I have suggested above, it may have been Jupiter who died and rose from the dead. The giant coma of Jupiter had disappeared from the sky, as noted in the "Chilam Balam", some time before 2349 BC. Although Mandelkehr assumes millions died from comet fragments (ice?) falling from the sky, I think few people died, excepting those in the regions struck by the electrical repulsive shock, the traveling seismic disturbances, and the following lightning strikes upheavals devastated the landscape, which, of course effected a large portion of the Earth. And, considering that continued lightning strikes may have happened perhaps four times, some regions of Earth would have been absolutely devastated, as Claude Schaeffer has pointed out. But the 'blood' seen in the 'ocean' would have convinced the rest of the world that indeed millions of people had died.

The Twin Peaks

The appearance of Jupiter three days after the dragon had arrived and turned the sky to blood, formed an image which entered religions worldwide and is retained to this day, although today only the concept is still honored.

The image is one of Jupiter suddenly appearing, when he had been held as dead at an earlier time (so suggests the "Chilam Balam"). He appeared in the center of the gap of the Absu, shortly after the fall equinox. Jupiter was at this time three times the diameter of the Moon (so says Plutarch), with plumes flaring from the top of the coma, and an absolutely gigantic plasma outpouring below, also as the three leaves of a flower, but much denser.

Because it was the time near the fall equinox, the Absu at this point had opened up and split into two mountains. The umbra of the Earth's shadow extended accross the rings, becoming less wider further from Earth. But the penumbra widened with distance from Earth, in effect rounding the left and right halves of the Absu from the center. The result was to have two mountains -- twin peaks -- next to each other, with Jupiter centered on the valey between the mountains. Since this was the time of the fall equinox, Jupiter (on the ecliptic) would rise above the equatorial in the following weeks and months.

[Shamash rises from between the two mountains]

Image: Shamash rises from between the two mountains.

In the print of an Akkadian cylinder seal, dated to slightly after 2349 BC, an absolutely giant Shamash (Jupiter) is seen stepping out of the gap between twin mountains, the left and right halves of the Absu. The symbols on both sides of Shamash are partially schematic and partially in script. The right symbol of a star, meaning "heaven" or "holy," placed on a pole rising out of the glyph for "mountain." Schematically it represents the earlier polar configuration. The left symbol is something similar.

The rays rising from the upper arms of Shamash may represent the upper triple plasma plume of Jupiter, or, more likely, resulted visually when the planet dipped below the top level of the Absu and its light was diffracted by the structure of the rings. It thus signified the brilliance of the planet. The same rays show in depictions of Venus, for the same reason.

Flanking the twin mountains are flag standards (with small lions on top), held in place by two gods. The two flags are what was seen of the equatorial plasma toroid surrounding the Earth (the Van Allen belt), which probably only showed whenever it was energized to glow mode. This was thus a temporary phemomenon, and represents two of the four posts holding up the heavens. These would rise up from the east and west cardinal directions of the horizon, follow the curvature of the equatorial and truncated by the shadow of the Earth at the time of the equinoxes. It thus reached considerably above the rings of the Absu, which everywhere appeared below the equatorial, except in the east and west. These two forms did not move significantly, except that they may have fluctuated in density so that they seemed to waver, which would cause them to be represented as flags, just like in Mesoamerica they are held to be trees.

The lion shown on top is an interpretation of the cross-section of the toriod where the Earth's shadow fell across it. At later instances a circle is shown, which is closer to being correct, because the equatorial toroid would be densest at its outer edges. Because of this ring at the top, these forms were identified as door posts (the ring forming the upper 'hinge'), and texts describing the appearance of Shamash refer to the 'doors of heaven opening.'

[Ishtar (Venus) aids in the resurrection of Shamash (Jupiter)]

Image: Ishtar (Venus) and Ea (sumerian Enki) aid in the resurrection of Shamash (Jupiter); ca 2308 BC.

The above impression of a somewhat later cylinder seal (2300 BC) shows what really happened. Here the Goddess Ishtar (Venus) and Ea (Mercury) attend the resurrection of Shamash. The script at the left reads "place of purification." That puts a different twist on the event of 2349 BC, as if Jupiter is being baptised. The seal still represents the event of 2349 BC, because at this time the Absu has long since disappeared. The flag standards are gone also.

Within the next few hundred years the Babylonians will spin a new theology with the writing of the "Enuma Elish," which will bring Jupiter forward as the main character in the event of 2349 BC, under the name of Marduk. The "Enuma Elish" retains the attack by the dragon (Tiamat) and the blood in the skies, but removes the resurrection of Jupiter. Despite the importance of this new retelling of the drama, the fact that Jupiter (Shamash, Zeus, Jove), the most important God of antiquity, had returned from the dead in three days was long remembered -- for over a 1000 years (1700 BC through 600 BC).

In Egypt Ra, Jupiter as the midnight Sun, is always shown as a giant red globe, at times depicted in the saddle between two mountains, or hovering in a valey between two mountains. The mountains, in turn, are shown covered by what looks like rows of reeds. Such depictions are quite late, during the New Kingdom (after 1500 BC), and thus a thousand years removed from 2349 BC. Ra is shown without his lower mantle or the three-pronged plumes at the top -- just a red sphere.

[The Corn God rises from a crack in a turtle carapace, attended by Xbalanque and Hunapuh]

Image: The Corn God (the First Father, Jupiter) rises from a crack in a turtle carapace, attended by Xbalanque and Hunapuh. After Freidel and Schele, "Maya Cosmos." [note 48]

Although in Mesoamerica the depictions are 3000 years removed from the actual event, the sculptures and engravings are based on very old records extant at the time of the Classical Era (AD 400 to 900), and at times uncannily accurate. The image of the resurrection of Jupiter is, however, a mixture of events separated by thousands of years. This follows from the Mesoamerican notions of the cyclical nature of time. Thus when Jupiter, as the Corn God or the First Father, is shown rising from the crack of a turtle carapace, it combines the 'image of the turtle,' which happened in 8347 BC, with the first appearance of Jupiter in 3147 BC, his resurrection in 2349 BC, and the adventures of Hunapuh and Xbalanque in 685 BC.

A portion of the commemorative stelae which have reference to the start of creation reads, ".. on 4-Ahau 8-Cumku was (first) seen the image of the turtle." This is a reference to the start of the previous calendar round, in 8347 BC, when the southern plasmoid first appeared. The appearance of First Father ("Hun-Nal-Ye," Jupiter) is dated (here) to the beginning of the current calendar round in 3147 BC, when Bolon-ti-ku, Jupiter, seized the reign from Oxlahun-ti-ku, Saturn -- as told in the "Chilam Balam."

Other references to the creation on the date 4-Ahau 8-Cumku point instead to the placing of the three hearth stones in the sky. Since these are identified with certainty to be three stars in the constellation Orion, which could not be seen before 2349 BC (being obscured by the Absu), the references here is to the "third creation" of 2349 BC, not the "second creation" of 3147 BC, or the "first creation" of 8347 BC.

Hunapuh and Xbalanque, on the other hand, show up in the 120 years between 806 BC and 687 BC, as Mars and Mercury, except in the last instance when they are Venus and Mercury. Since the celestial twins, as told in the "Popol Vu," attemp to raise their father from the dead (although without success), an association is had here to the resurrection of First Father. This also parallels the temporary resurrection of Osiris by Isis.

The "Popol Vu" does not allow success in the efforts of the twins to revive their father, but the theology of other Maya centers speak differently, as is shown by this imagery.

The Tower of Babel

An incident, following 100 or 300 years after the fall of the Absu, generated the "Tower of Babel" stories throughout the world. The Tower of Babel story is interesting because it occurs everywhere in the world. A 'Tower of Babel story' was told to the invading Spanish in Central America in AD 1500. Around the world, the stories all have the same three elements: a burning (or collapsed) tower whose construction is attributed to humans, a confusion of languages or loss of memory, and the dispersal of peoples. There is little question that the Tower of Babel event was the last spasm of Jupiter before diminishing to just a star-like pinpoint of light.

However, quite a few of the stories attribute the burning tower to the planet Mercury. This might be correct, and the possibility of Mercury flaring up is discussed in a separate file in these texts. (Consideration of the involvement of Mercury with the "Tower of Babel" event can be found in a separate [file].)

There are, however, only hints in mythology that it might have been Mercury. Surely the "Chilam Balam" would have had reference to Mercury, since the story is widespread. But, of course, the "Chilam Balam" misses a few other events also.

Although in the text above I have suggested that the burning of Jupiter was a switch from a failing glow mode plasma to arc mode, there is certainly a good possibility that it did indeed involved a planetary fire. A single location of an impinging plasma in arc mode could have set off the ignition of an absolutely massive fire as methane burned, engulfing the largest planet in the Solar System. It would have been spectacular.

That this had not happened earlier could be attributed to the fact that the surface of Jupiter was probably not at any time near the ignition point of methane. The fact that Jupiter had a red coma and plasma since the asteroid belt could be significant of low level oxygen in an excited state, but also of hydrogen or methane. Then the statement in the "Chilam Balam," that "suddenly on high fire flamed up," should be taken at face value. This is not a coma in arc mode, it is flames. The same, of course, was said about the Tower of Babel.

The Second Return of the Axis Mundi

Since the Earth in 2349 BC increased its orbit, it would again have to equalize its charge to match the new orbital location. And again this would be accomplished through an influx of electrons at the magnetic poles. The plume of plasma in glow mode which had appeared directly after 3147 BC, would return, and again at both poles. It is possible that the north pole still had a plume extending up into the sky. But the south pole did not, or it had shortened to where it could not be seen.

After the battle with Tiamat, Marduk sets his bow (identified as a "rainbow," above) up in the heavens as a sign of triumph. The bow is the south polar plasma plume. It is a bow standing up, not hung horizontally across the sky like a rainbow.

[Image: Shamash (Jupiter), Babylonian of the 9th century BC.]
Image: Shamash (Jupiter) with his banded head wrap, seated on his temple seat and holding a 'shen.' The 'shen' dates the iconography to after 2938 BC. The south polar plume rises above Jupiter (and thus the ecliptic), dating the image to after 2349 BC. A small figure at the end of the plume controls the rotation of the southern stars. The terminating plasmoid of the plume is here interpreted as a manikin. The table and pillar likely are architectural details, like the God's seat. Babylonian of the 9th century BC.

The Maya "Chilam Balam," which lists the four trees which hold up the heavens in each instance after a recreation of the world, speaks directly to the tree of the south as part of the event of 2349 BC, what we call the 'flood of Noah,' and what the Maya called the "third creation."

"The planted timber was set up. Perishable things are assembled at that time. The timber of the grave-digger is set up at the crossroads, at the four resting places."
-- Ralph L Roys "The Book Of Chilam Balam Of Chumayel" (1933)

The text is not exactly lucid, but see Chapter 16, "The Books of the Chilam Balam," were this is further explicated. The first "planted timber" may be the plasma plume at the north pole. The second one, set up at the "crossroads" is then the plume of the south. The "crossroads" is the intersection of the ecliptic and the equatorial. The "perishable things" are the Pleiades, held to be celestial seed corn to the Maya. The "grave-digger," Roys notes, can also be understood as "hider," someone who hides objects. I would suggest this as applicable to the Absu. Note the phrase "at that time." A new condition is being described. From the further context of the "Chilam Balam," it is, without a doubt, the event of 2349 BC.

It is further of some interest to recall that this event, the sudden appearance of a southern plasma plume, is described in the "Popol Vu" as the attempt by the Four Hundred Boys to impale the mountainous figure Zipacna, maker of mountains, in a grave he has inadvertently dug to hold the centerpost to their house. Zipacna is Jupiter. He appeared in the depression of the Absu on about September 8th (two nights after the fall equinox). Once the Four Hundred Boys are thoroughly drunk, Zipacna enlarges himself and "blows up the house." The Four Hundred Boys become the Pleiades. See Chapter 20, "The Popol Vu." The rising or resurrection of Jupiter from a cleft in the Earth -- the old Absu at the time of the equinox -- reappears as an image in Maya iconography, where Jupiter becomes the God of Maize.

[Flames of the cardinal directions]

Image: Flames of the four cardinal directions; brazier glyph detail.

References to the polar plasma plumes show up among the spells of the Egyptian "Book of the Dead," first rendered in text form in the carved texts in the pyramid of Unas, directly after the 2349 BC, the fall of the Absu.

"Who then is it?"
"Those above their braziers -- it is,
the image of the Eye of Re, together
with the image of the Eye of Horus."

"Others say:
It is the two mighty and great cobras
on the brow of thy father Atum."

"Others say:
It is his two eyes which are lacking in his head."

"Who then is he?
It is Horus with the Two Eyes."

-- E. A. W. Budge, "The Egyptian Book of the Dead" (1895)

This describes the two ball plasmoids (as eyes), which I suspect were placed at the ends of the polar plumes. These likely are also the two ostrich feathers used on the headdresses of some of the gods. Sycamore trees seem to have been used for the 'plumes' of the east and west cardinal points, at times as dual trees. The guardians of the east and west, the Akeru, are depicted as lions (not only in Egypt, but also in Akkad). Notice the implication of these texts that the chief God of the Egyptians is absolutely gigantic in size; he spans all of the heavens.

"Lacking from his head," refers to Jupiter in his later form, when the 'eyes' formed by the equatorial toroid are no longer visible -- after leaving the asteroid belt.

The flaming braziers, with smoke which curves back to point down, are usually presented as four in number, but at times as six. There are depictions of six braziers at the edges of a rectangular 'lake of fire.' This last, the lake of fire, remains as an obstacle to reaching the underworld throughout all of the Book of the Dead.

In southern Mesopotamia a depiction of the east and west plumes appear on cylinder seals as flags (vertical banners), mounted to poles which are bent back somewhat, with a circle at the top (called "ring-topped standards" by archaeologists). These forms appear regularly, and have also been called 'door posts' both in original Akkadian texts and by archaeologists.

Cylinder seals, by the way, are small cylindrical stones carved in intaglio, used to roll across a clay slab to be used as a marker of ownership on trade materials. These appear after 2350 BC, although there are depictions dating to shortly after 3000 BC.

[Mesopotamian circle plumes]
Image: Mesopotamian circle plumes, depicted on a vase. After H. W. F. Saggs, "Babylonians" (2000).

On one cylinder seal the plumes are depicted adjacent (left and right) with a reed hut with rays eminating from its roof. They are "associated" with Innana (Venus) in that the cuniform symbol for "Innana" has been added. The house is likely the Absu, so that in this case the 'circle plumes' represent the plumes of the east and west cardinal directions. There is a third plume depicted at the opposite end of the seal.

The circles at the tops of the east and west poles or plumes are the visual intersection of the charged toroid above the Earth's equator (the Van Allen belt) and the extended shadow of the Earth at the time of the equinoxes. The Van Allen belts are far enough from Earth so that they would be seen (when they were seen) at the geometric position of the equatorial -- a location which would not be reached by the rings around the Earth, except at the east and west cardinal points.

Depending on the density of the charge level in the Van Allen belts, assumed to be in glow mode after a transition of Earth to a new orbit, the left and right edges might show distinctly. This would account for the fact that the east and west plumes at times are listed as two at each cardinal direction, like the dual Sycamore trees.

The First Histories

The actual date for the 'tower of Babel' event, if it happened at all, does not matter much. The event falls at a watershed in historical consciousness for it is followed soon by a profusion in the writing of legends and records everywhere. The legends and records of the past date from after the fall of the Absu (2349 BC), and the extinction of Jupiter (2245 BC). It may have been the loss of these last images of the "Age of the Gods" which created the impetus to start an historic literature.

The script of Akkad and Sumer, which had been used only for the most mundane record-keeping for a thousand years, is suddenly, after 2200 BC, used to record older extant stories like the "Epic of Gilgamesh," to compose (almost out of thin air) the "Enuma Elish" creation myth, and for lengthy declaratory texts like the Code of Hammurabi (ca 1700 BC). Although the texts of the narratives are often attributed to much earlier times because of their contents, they all date from within a few hundred years of 2200 BC to 2000 BC.

In Egypt, vernacular narratives about previous earth-shaking events also appeared after 2200 BC. These narratives only show up in texts on tombs walls during the New Kingdom (1327 BC through 1136 BC), rendered as fashionably 'old,' that is, in the style of the Middle Kingdom (2000 to 1500 BC), the period following the events of the fall of the Absu. They are stories of previous destructions of mankind, not unlike the epics being written in Sumer, but unlike any text created in Egypt up to that time.

The composition of the earliest Hindu scripture, the Rig-Veda, can be placed before 1900 BC from geographic references to a location in northwestern India adjacent to the Sarasvati river, which is said to have dried up over a period of 300 years after 2200 BC. The Sarasvati is held as the center of civilization in the Rig-Veda, although it may have been a mythological river.

The records of China were collated ca 550 BC as the "Annals of Shu," transcribed from older sources. Only the first two sections of the "Annals of Shu" are recollections, dating back to 2357 BC. These start with, for example, "Examining into antiquity, we find that..." All the remaining sections of the "Annals of Shu" were written contemporaneously with the events they describe, and all these date to after 2200 BC. The first record is "The Speech at Kan" which can be dated to perhaps 2188 to 2160 BC.

With the composition, in about 1750 BC (or earlier), of the Babylonian "Enuma Elish," Jupiter became the first conceptional -- philosophical -- God. Except, of course, that he could still be seen, and remained the brightest star-like object in the sky. [note 49]

And now we jump 700 years forward.

Endnotes

Note 1 --

Since there is no record from antiquity for rings of Jupiter or the Titans, it seems likely that the current rings of these planets were acquired from dust in the asteroid belt. This might also explain why Mercury has no rings, since I do not think Mercury ever entered the asteroid belt, although its original orbit extended that far.
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Note 2 --

It is suspected that the magnetic field of Mercury is induced in its travels between perihelion and aphelion, which doubles its orbital radius in each circuit around the Sun. This would move it alternately into two considerably different regions of the electric field of the Sun.
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Note 3 --

To have the rings come close together at the east and west cardinal direction would depend on having an unobstructed view of the horizon at near sea level. Of course the rings were seen to move differentially with respect to each other. This would certainly take away from the image of the house of a God as a stable object.
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Note 4 --

In summer, at the solstice, with the Earth tilted at 23.5 degrees toward the Sun, the shadow will be found to extend 6000 miles onto the disk of the rings from the equator, 4000/sin(23.5/deg) - 4000 = 6031 mi, using 4000 miles as the radius of the Earth, and be oval shaped. In winter the shadow is actually cast on the bottom of the rings, but visually the results would be the same.

[Earth shadow on the Absu]
Image: Distance that the Earth's shadow would fall on equatorial rings at summer solistice.

This is the minimum dimension for the portal. As the spring or fall equinox approached the shadow would lengthen to become infinite. If the rings extended less than 6000 miles from the surface of the Earth at the equator, there would always be a gap (rather than an oval shadow). However, I have shown in an earlier chapter that I would expect the rings to extend about 8000 miles above the Earth's equator.

As a gap, the shape of the shadow would have been more or less shaped like an inverted trapazoid. The gap would widen with the distance from Earth, since the penumbra of the Earth's shadow widens with distance. The 'half shadow' of the penumbra would have considerable density since it was located close to Earth (unlike in a lunar eclipse, where the penumbra is markedly faint). But it would also decreases in darkness with distance, so that at a considerable distance above the Earth it might have fallen off noticably.

During the day the Sun would have lighted the Absu from behind. The Sun would travel above the equatorial circles during most of the year, but would shine through the Absu in the winter months. I have no idea what the effect would be exactly. It might not have looked different from today's Sun peering through clouds.

In that in a later chapter I develop the idea that the Earth's axial inclination (to the normal of the orbital plane) was 30 degrees until 685 BC, I should note the results here. At an axial inclination of 30 degrees, the shadow will be found to extend only 4000 miles onto the disk of the rings of the equator, 4000/sin(30/deg) - 4000 = 4000 mi in mid summer and mid winter. Again, the shadow would extend infinitely at the time of the equinoxes.

Seen from the southern hemispere, the Absu would have looked the same as in the lands of the eastern mediterranean, Mesoamerica, North America, and Asia, except that the rings would have been placed above the north horizon. In Peru (for example, at Lima) the rings would have stood up at an angle of 60 or 70 degrees from the north horizon. The existence of the Earth's shadow on the rings might be acknowledged in the U-shaped ceremonial centers which dot the countryside in the deserts, and which date back to ca 2500 BC.
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Note 5 --

The beam of the ecliptic would connect the left and right edges of the Absu or Duat only at the time of year near the equinoxes. The ecliptic would dip into the rings at the autumnal equinox and rise out of the rings at the vernal equinox. The portion of the ecliptic behind the shadowed rings was likely obscured. In summer (at night) the ecliptic would be placed above the Absu, and in winter disappear behind the upper portion of the Absu.

The post and beam 'gates' in China are said to be imported with Buddhism after AD 200.
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Note 6 --

The construction of a ball court -- a flat plane between stepped pyramids or inclined embankments -- is derived in Mesoamerica from descriptions recorded in ancient glyphic books, not from directly remembered experiences. It is a view of the trapazodal gap in the Absu at the time of the equinoxes, which disregards the fact that the left and right embankments were not visible at the same time. The horizontal space in front of the embankments and the central playing field is, however, accurately rendered as the top and bottom bars of the I-shaped plan of the ballcourts.
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Note 7 --

The name "Ra" or "Re" was probably transfered to Jupiter without hesitation by some of the Egyptians temple domains after 3147 BC, for the later apparition of the red globe of Jupiter (originally colored green and identified as the mummy of Osiris) in the south sky was nearly identical in size and in other aspects to the earlier view of Saturn at the north horizon. Only the fact that Jupiter soon reached the edge of the asteroid belt and lost much of its coma and all of its tail, at a time when Horus had been appearing regularly in the skies above Earth, kept Jupiter from being accepted universally as chief of the Gods.
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Note 8 --

Ancient references to Dilmun also place it "in the east" or "where the Sun rises." It could be assumed that "in the east" means "at the location of dawn." This would be the northwest before 3147 BC. But in that Dilmun is also identified with the land of the resurrected dead, it would be suggested that perhaps there is a very old association with the ball plasmoid at the end of the Peratt Column in the south. Then the "sun rise" would be the daily or nightly rising of the plasmoid out of the southern ocean.
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Note 9 --

The Himalayas at the edge of the northern border of India (Kashmir, Nepal, Bhutan) form a circular arc some 1,600 miles long, which has all the looks of a compression shock. Similar semicircular arcs of compressed mountains exist in Mongolia, Iran, the continental USA, and Mexico.

[Image: Himalayas]
Image: "Himalayan Mountains at Cashmir, Nepal, and Bhutan.
Hand-drawn map, 1968, Rand McNally."

Typical of the fact that the Earth would have angled away from the site of the impact, the opposite arc is missing. This is unlike the Moon's Orientale basin, or the Caloris basin of Mercury, which are also clearly compression shocks. The Himalayas today are held to be very young, having reached their current height after the ice age, and often suggested to have done so in historical times. The mechanics are discussed in Appendix B, "The Celestial Mechanics."
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Note 10 --

In the second century AD Ptolemy reports the star Sirius as red, as do others in late antiquity. After AD 900, however, Sirius is listed as white by the Arab (Persian) astronomer Al-Sufi in about AD 950 ("Book of fixed Stars" -- AD 964). Both Ptolemy and Al-Sufi were very competent astronomers.

But at a much earlier time Sirius was clearly recognized as white. As the brightest star in the sky, ancient records appropriately speak of Sirius as "the star of Venus," where Venus was the brightest planet in the sky. This would not make much sense if Sirius were inherently red. The differences between these three periods are as follows:

Ptolemy, Alexandria (Cairo), AD 200 ...

Before 685 BC, as I will develop in a later chapter, Sirius was located only a few degrees below the equatorial, rising almost directly east and setting almost directly west. It would have traveled above the Absu, which nowhere reached the height of the equatorial in the south skies. For example, at Cairo, at 30 degrees latitude (0.13 degrees south of Alexandria), Sirius would reach its highest point in the south sky at an elevation of about 58 degrees before 685 BC. My estimate of the limit of the intact Absu was 8000 miles above the surface of the Earth at the equator, which would be seen at about 48 degrees above the south horizon at Cairo. At this time Sirius would have been white, since it did not shine through the Absu or the remaining ring after the fall of the Absu.

In 685 BC the location of the equatorial shifted, so that at Cairo Sirius was lowered to 43 degrees at its highest point in the south sky. It now rose in the east by southeast, and set in the west by southwest. Sirius was now reported as 'red,' which means it appeared behind the last remnant ring of the Absu. From this information at Cairo we can locate the last red ring. At Cairo the angle between a radius line from the center of Earth and the elevation of the ring is..

90 + 43 = 133 degrees

Thus the angle that the sightline makes with the plane of the equatorial is..

180 - 30 - 133 = 17 degrees.

[Image: Sight line to red ring]
Image: "Sight line to red ring."

diagram ...

The elevation of the red ring above the equator of the Earth can be found from the relationship..

a / sin(A) = b / sin(B) = c / sin(C).

From the diagram above, the location of the ring above the Earth's equator can be found from the radius of Earth and the two adjacent angles, where angle A is the latitude of Cairo, angle C is between the sight line and the extension of a radius line at the equator. Angle B is 90 degrees plus 43 degrees, which equals 133 degrees. The angle at C then is..

C = 180 - B - A = 180 - (90 + 43) - 30 = 17 degrees.

In the following b is the heigth of the ring from the center of the Earth and c is the radius of the Earth. Thus..

b = c * ( sin(C) / sin(B) ),
b = 4000 * ( sin(133/deg) / sin(17/deg) ) = 10,005 miles.

The last red ring is thus located 10,005 - 4000 = 6,000 miles above the equator.

Ptolemy, I should note, actually could have had it both ways. For although Sirius would have been seen as red when it stood high in the sky, it rose in the southeast, away from from the red snake in the sky (which touched the eastern horizon directly east), and set in the southwest, also away from the red ring. At these times it would have been white. But in rising higher in the sky Sirius crossed the remaining red ring. At the latitude of Cairo I would presume that Sirius spend most of its travels behind the red ring.

Maya, Yucatan, AD 800 ...

After about AD 800, when the Maya start the construction of a 61 mile causeway running from east to west across the northern Yucatan, this last red ring had most likely disappeared. It may, in fact, have been gone before AD 600. In the 20th century AD, the Maya still recalled the 'cord in the sky,' through which blood flowed, but which had disappeared in the past. The 16th century AD "Popol Vu" calls it the "river of blood." It can be assumed that the "river of blood" was like the "river of puss" (the ecliptic, as in the "Popol Vu") and that the "river" probably did not subtend more than a few degrees in the sky. An investigation by George Jones in about AD 1910 at Quito, Peru, determined a width of the ecliptic as 2 to 3 degrees. The earliest iconography of the Olmecs at La Venta, dating to around 600 BC, also show the "Saint Andrew's Cross," the crossing of the ecliptic and equatorial in the night skies at the time of the equinoxes, as two bands of nearly the same width.

Gregory of Tours, Tours, AD 550 ...

In about AD 560 - 590, Gregory of Tours still calls Sirius 'reddish,' although he may have copied that information from Ptolemy. Tours is at 47.38 degrees north latitude. At Tours the equatorial would be seen at an elevation of 90 degrees less the latitude, 90 - 47.38 = 42.6 degrees. In AD 550 Sirius would be seen at an angle of about 16 degrees below the equatorial (this is true everywhere for this date and for the early part of the first millenium AD), thus at 26.6 degrees.

Using the same geometry as before, we can find the distance between the observer and the intersection of the equatorial at the location of the remaining ring from..

a = sqrt (b^2 + c^2 - 2 * b * c * c(A))
a = sqrt (10000^2 + 4000^2 - 2 * 10000 * 4000 * cos(47.38/deg)).

This is 7863 miles. The angle C can be found from..

sin(C) = (c / a) * sin(A)
sin(C) = (4000 / 7863) * sin(47.38/deg) = 0.3743.

The corresponding angle (from sine tables) is 22 degrees. Subtracting this angle and the latitude from 180 degrees yields 110.6 degrees. Now subtracting 90 degrees (the angle between the Earth radius and the horizontal), determines that the red ring would have been seen at an elevation of 20.6 degrees.

This is a considerable span -- 4.6 degrees -- below the culmination of Sirius. The path of Sirius would thus cross the red rings, and Sirius would turn red twice a night.

Al-Sufi, Isfahan, AD 900 ...

When, after about AD 900, the Arab astronomer Al-Sufi catalogues stars, he lists Sirius as 'white,' as it still is today. Al-Sufi worked from Isfahan at 33.63 degrees north latitude. At Isfahan the elevation of the equatorial is at 56.4 degrees, and Sirius travels (at about AD 900) at 15.4 degrees below the equatorial, and thus culminates at an elevation of 41 degrees above the south horizon.

Using the same geometry as above, the distance from the observer to the location of the rings at the plane of the equatorial can be found from..

a = sqrt (10000^2 + 4000^2 - 2 * 10000 * 4000 * cos(33.6/deg)).

This is 7026 miles. From this the angle of elevation to the rings can be found as..

sin(C) = (4000 / 7026) * sin(33.6/deg) = 0.315.

This represents an angle of 18.3 degrees. The elevation is thus 180 -33.6 -18.3 -90 = 38.1 degrees. This is only 2.9 degrees below the culmination of Sirius in the south sky. It suggests that, although at this location Sirius would have crossed the red ring if it still existed, by AD 900 the ring had disappeared. Of course, this is also suggested from the Maya construction project in AD 800.

Sima Qian and Yu Ji-cai, Bejing, AD 100 and 200 ...

This change of color shows up in Chinese documents, as, for example, in the "Book of Asterisms" by Sima Qian, dating from about 100 BC, which reads..

"If Wolf [Sirius] shows horns or changes colour, then there will be much banditry,"

or, from "Secret Garden of the Observatory" by Yu Ji-cai, of ca AD 200..

"If the Wolf Star shows rays or horns, or shakes about, or changes colour, then there will be war."

This information is from Jiang Xiao-yuan, in "The colour of Sirius as recorded in ancient Chinese texts" (Chinese Astronomy and Astrophysics, 1993), which sets out to prove that Sirius is noted as being white in four records, each dealing with color standards for stars, dated between 100 BC and AD 650, which were judged by the author to be more reliable than the astrological texts quoted above. Jiang admits, however..

"Although ancient Chinese writings always had a tradition of copying what previous authors had said, so that the four items listed [in the article] are probably correlated to some degree, we should not therefore deny ancient Chinese astrologers of any originality whatever. That [the "Jinzhou Book of Prognostication" of ca AD 100] lists both Sirius and Vega as standards for white star is worth noting. These two are indeed white bright stars of the same type."

The "shaking," "horns," and "changes in color" would be explained if Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, traveled behind a portion of the last remaining ring -- "shaking" being caused by the passage of the moving ring in front of the star (equatorial rings move at rotational speeds different from their planet), "horns" caused by refraction by the striation pattern of the intervening ring (the rings of the Absu had been described as reeds growing in a swamp and as bushes), and a "color change" caused by entry and exit of Sirius from behind the ring. This last is caused, as noted above, by the fact that Sirius is "attached" to the dome of the stars and thus travels in a circle with the polar axis as its center, whereas the rings are an artifact of the Earth, forming a crescent shape in the sky, which gathers together at the east and west cardinal points, and spreads apart at its high point in the south skys.

A look at where Sirius and the red ring were located in the sky when seen from Bejing might help, although the astrology of the shaking, horned, and color-changing Sirius may have come from different latitudes. Bejing is at 39.5 degrees north latitude. Thus the equatorial rose 50.5 degrees up from the south horizon. With Sirius placed at a declination of 16.3 degrees (ca AD 150), it rose to a maximum height of 34.2 degrees.

As before, the length of the sight line is..

a = sqrt (10000^2 + 4000^2 - 2 * 10000 * 4000 * cos(39.5/deg)).

This is 7367 miles. From this the angle of elevation to the rings can be found as..

sin(C) = (4000 / 7367) * sin(39.5/deg) = 0.345.

This represents an angle of 20.2 degrees. The elevation is thus 180 -39.5 -20.2 -90 = 30.3 degrees. This is 3.9 degrees below the highest location of Sirius in the south sky.

Summary ...

Let me summarize the data. These should probably be presented in historical order, but a listing by latitude make more sense of the intersection of the path of Sirius and the location of the ring. 


               Intersection of Sirius with the red ring

                                   Sirius     Sirius    ring     
location era latitude equatorial declination elevation elevation diff
-------- --- -------- ---------- ----------- --------- --------- -----  
Cairo    200 30.0 deg  60.0 deg   16.3 deg    43.0 deg  43.0 deg 0 deg
Isfahan* 950 33.6      56.4       15.4        41.0     (38.1)    2.9
Bejing   150 39.5      50.5       16.3        34.2      30.3     3.9
Rome     200 41.9      48.1       16.5        31.6      27.3     4.3
Tours    570 47.4      42.6       16          26.6      22.0     4.6
     *-- Sirius listed as white at this time

The path of Sirius through the sky always starts and ends south of directly east and west by about 19 degrees. Thus the semi-circle described by the path of Sirius could fall completely within the semi-circle of the rings, but would cut through the band of the red ring and perhaps rise above it when directly in the south. Only at Cairo does the upper portion of the path of Sirius coincide with the ring -- but that is how I have defined this condition. It is, of course, arbitrary, but justified in that many other authors from late antiquity note the redness of Sirius, including Babylonian cuniform tablets after about 650 BC (33.3 degrees latitude) and Roman authors (41.9 degrees north latitude). The results for Rome in about AD 200 are much the same as for Bejing at the same date. I have added Rome to the list above.

Since Rome is at 41.9 degrees latitude, it could be suggested that the red band in the sky in ca AD 200 extended across 4 degrees in the sky. It is possible, except that this is contradicted by at least two data. First, the records of planetary actions in Babylonia after 650 BC seem to indicate rather sudden changes in refractive patterns, suggesting a tight band of red. Second, the record of the adventures of the ball playing twins in the Quiche "Popol Vu" call the red band a "river." The details of the story are synchronous and are contemporaneous with the plasma event of 685 BC. A band which subtends 4 degrees is not going to be seen as a river.

I would expect Al-Sufi at Isfahan to have seen a red-colored Sirius, for the latitude of Isfahan falls between Cairo and Rome, except that the date is obviously too late. A hundred years earlier the Yucatan Maya were rebuilding the red cord in the sky -- which almost guarantees that the red ring had disappeared within the previous hundred years or more.

In Bejing, Sirius could have been the measure for white, for it is very bright, but could also legitimately described as changing color -- since it would have traveled behind the red ring in reaching its culmination.
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Note 11 --

The outer ring may have lasted a long time after the fall of the Absu, and along with the bright ecliptic become known as one of the roads or rivers of the sky. In the "Popol Vu," Hunahpu and Xbalanque reach the domain of the underworld by crossing the river of blood (the last equatorial ring) and the river of puss (the ecliptic).

The Classic Era Maya (AD 400 to AD 700) graphic of the Wakah-Chan Tree consists of an upright tree (identified by others as the Milky Way) with a cross bar and with a serpent (called the 'square-nosed dragon') draped over a cross bar. I would identify the draped serpent as the ecliptic and the cross bar as the equatorial, although this identification may be reversed. The cross bar (at times the ecliptic serpent) has heads at both ends of its body, one identified as the Sun, the other as Venus. I think the double headed bar as likely represents a plasmoid lightning bolt directed at the Sun by Jupiter in 685 BC, and seen worldwide, which is discussed in Chapter 11, "The eighth century BC and the Death of Quetzalcoatl."

In Ireland, St Patrick, active to about AD 500, in legend drives Ireland's snakes into the sea. There never were any snakes in Ireland. But there was the celestial Apep which disappeared about this time.

Another story (legend) concerning a snake is retold by Philip Coppens..

"The legend states that Patrick was drawn here [to Station Island] by the triple goddess Corra, a pagan goddess who apparently tried to reclaim Ireland to the pagan gods after Patrick's recent success at Croagh Patrick."

Croagh Patrick is a sacred mountain in Ireland, where St. Patrick stayed 40 days to prove the superiority of Christianity. You will recognize the "triple goddess" as the southern ball plasmoids appearing between 8300 BC and perhaps 4200 BC, especially when she turns into a snake.

"On his flight - indeed - from Croagh Patrick, he looked down, and saw that she had taken the form of a serpent, lying in the water of Lough Derg - the Red Lake, though some recent authorities prefer to read Derg as a form of the Irish deirc, "the lake of the cave". Descending to investigate, she swallowed him whole. It took Patrick two days and two nights to cut himself free, killing her in the process. The water turned red with her blood and her body turned to stone, forming the islands in the lake."

-- from http://www.philipcoppens.com/croaghpatrick.html

The action retells the event of 2349 BC -- 2800 years later for Patrick, 4300 years later for Coppens. It includes the "two days and two nights" common to all the retellings, plus the 'water' turning red with blood. The "Red Lake" may be a legendary afterthought, but the "lake of the cave" is descriptive of the assumed water standing in the gap of the Absu at the fall equinox of 2349 BC.
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Note 12 --

The craters of the Moon are electrical. Much of this scarring was likely accomplished in the era directly after 2349 BC, by plasma discharges from Earth. Most of the Moon's craters are on the side which faces Earth. It is possible that some of the material of the Absu which spun away from Earth after 2349 BC actually impacted the Moon. But it is unlikely that any of this material was sizeable enough to leave a mark. If material impacts happened these would have reached the Moon on trajectories of acute angles, and not leave circular craters. Electrical contacts, on the other hand, always impinge at right angles to the surface. Unfortunately craters cannot be dated, especially when loose dust keeps moving about for thousands of years.

This suggests, at any rate, that the Moon might have been very active electrically during the era after 2349 BC, with a closely held coma (of dust), and with plasma strikes from Earth impacting in arc mode (as happens today on Mars). This display only stopped after 2283 or 2285 BC. The change from arc mode and glow mode would have been sudden, as happens when plasma changes modes, and therefore noticed by humans, which would account for the assigned dates. At Palenque the Moon becomes ruler in 2283 BC; in China Shun joins Yao on the throne in 2285 BC.
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Note 13 --

If the Moon changed its orbit, the force that altered its course might show as the Orientale basin compression scar located at the extreme lower left edge of the Moon as seen from Earth. The Orientale Basin is overlaid with younger craters, and is thought to be one of the 'youngest' craters or basins. It is (of course) held to be 3.9 billion years old. The outer ring of displaced mountains is 200 miles in diameter.

[Image: Orientale basin]
Image: "Orientale basin of the Moon"

The Moon retained its original path around the Sun, which has an inclination to the Sun's equatorial which is different from that of the Earth. The result of this is that the Moon travels alternately some 40,000 miles above and below the Earth. Eclipses only happen at a six month interval, at the time when the Moon is passing from above the Earth to below, and in the reverse direction.
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Note 14 --

John Anthony West in "Serpent in the Sky" (1979) claimed that the excess erosion of the Sphinx is due to rainfalls thousands of years before the construction dates of the Pyramids (2600 to 2500 BC). "The last time Egypt experienced a rainy period capable of producing such weathering effects was the Neolithic Subpluvial, between 5000 and 7000 BC."

However, Colin Reader, in "Giza Before the Fourth Dynasty" JACF (2002), writes that wetter conditions existed in general in Egypt "as late as the end of the 5th Dynasty" (ca 2500 BC). He also suggests that most of the weathering took place before the building of the pyramids, but he dates the Sphinx to the first dynasty (3050 to 2850 BC). He suggests the weathering is also due to seepage from the adjacent areas of the plateau where limestone was removed during construction of the pyramids and backfilled with rubble.

Let me add to the rains of the 5th dynasty the incessant rains during the fall of the Absu (2349 BC) at the end of the 5th dynasty and the initial rains of the years of darkness (1492 BC).
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Note 15 --

In this instance, 2349 BC, the interplanetary lightning strikes consisted of a series of 10 plasmoids following an initial, larger plasmoid. Some of these may have landed in central Asia on the second day.
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Note 16 --

See the website of Timo Niramo for a detailed overview of the 2349 BC and 2193 BC events, at [http://personal.eunet.fi/pp/tilmari/]
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Note 17 --

It would seem to be difficult to disassociate the first showing of the Moon from the events of 2349 BC, with the exception of the life span given to the Moon in the "Annals of Shu," which is only 110 years.

The 'death' of Shun, the Moon, when "he went on high," is likely to be a change in the orbital path of the Moon, coinciding with an increase in the Earth's orbit in 2193 BC. Thus the 110 years since the "birth of Shun" should probably be lengthened to 156 years, if we assume that the Moon showed up at the earlier increase of the Earth's orbit.
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Note 18 --

The correction is based on the assumption that the backward extension of the Long Count by the Olmecs in 747 BC was based on a 360 day calendar. This was done by adding 6 Baktuns to the count of 0.0.0.0. The history of past events was probably a listing of Katuns and Baktuns. When the Maya retrocalculated they would have used a 365.24 day calendar. Our calculation based on the Long Count is also based on the assumption of Gregorian years (365.24 days) in the remote past, and thus places event too far into the past by 5.24 days per year. Thus ({date} - 747) * 5.24/365.24 years need to be subtracted from the Mesoamerican dates. See Chapter 15, "The Maya Calendar."

Dates from Palenque which fall in the 7th century AD, such as mention of a conjuction of Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars on July 23, AD 690, in Libra, need no correction, and are dead accurate.
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Note 19 --

The Egyptians never recognize the Moon. There is a total absence of the crescent of the Moon in depictions. Upturned crescents, as, for example, part of the headdresses of Gods and Goddesses, are based on a graphic simplifications of cattle or ram horns (and as symbols probably date to before 3147 BC), they are not based on the Moon, since the Moon never produces an upturned crescent in Egypt.
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Note 20 --

Since the Katuns (and the implied Baktuns) were retrieved from ancient records, they were not retrocalculated, as at Palenque. If Katuns (and Baktuns) were based on Tun years which were equivalent to solar years, then a different method needs to be used, so that a Baktun would be 400 solar years, and a Katun would be 20 solar years, without regard to the actual length of the year.

Thus the corrections below are based on subtracting 6 Baktuns (2400 years) from 747 BC to arrive at 3147 as the year of the end of the "Age of the Gods." Other correction are thus found numerically as 3147 - 400*{Long Count Baktuns} - 20*{Long Count Katuns}.
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Note 21 --

I based the suggestion to move the date of Yao on the fact that the "Chilam Balam" explicitly states that for the time of the first appearance of the Moon it "was not at the time ... that Bolon-ti-ku [Jupiter] wept." Weeping is a plasma display. Considering the confusing of dates around the fall of the Absu, I took the simplified assumption that the appearance of the Moon noted in the text happened in 2349 BC. This might be in error, for it could be suggested from the worldwide celebrations of the "Day of the Dead" that Jupiter would have suddenly showed with a plasma outpouring within days of the event, in which case there was only a very small time delay after the first appearance of the Moon.

If my estimate of the travel of Jupiter through the asteroid belt is correct, then Jupiter would have entered a 'clump' of asteroids at about 4 AU, in about 2500 BC. A drop of the plasma of Jupiter to dark-mode could have existed after that for a period of 20 years, only to return to glow-mode with the electrical activity of Venus in 2349 BC. But this would be almost too coincidental.

Another likely cause for the sudden flare-up of Jupiter is that the release of the plasmoid by Venus would have altered the electrical field surrounding the Sun, thus inducing a change to glow mode plasma discharge for Jupiter.

It should also be understood that if Jupiter showed at the center of the gap in the Absu at midnight (at the culmination of the Pleiades) at the autumnal equinox, then it would have been directly in line with Earth and Venus (and the Sun). The plasmoid of Venus would have traveled down the extension of the Earth's plasmasphere -- directed away from the Sun and aimed at Jupiter.
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Note 22 --

Listed by 'corrected' dates, events during these two centuries, are as follows. The uncorrected dates are in parentheses or the right. The "second baptism" recorded in the "Chilam Balam" was purposely 'corrected' to the wrong Katun in antiquity.


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Note 23 --

Although I here tie the first appearance of the Moon to 2349 BC, it seems certain that it took time before a regular orbit was established. In fact, from some sources it seems that the Moon did not show up until 13 years later, 2336 BC.
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Note 24 --

Velikovsky originally established the 52 year interval. This interval has been confirmed by many researchers from other sources, at times as 104 year intervals. In Mesoamerica the interval is confirmed not only from the '52-year celebrations' recorded at the time of the Spanish invasion, but specifically from the apparent dates when the 'primacy' of religious centers passed from one location to another after about 1400 BC. The interval of approaches of Venus did not remain the same since 2349 BC. After 2193 BC, it became shorter by a few years. Mesoamerica celebrated the '52 years' as an interval based on a Tun year of 360 days, not solar years. This has caused some confusion among researchers.
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Note 26 --

Amun (Amen) first appears at Thebes after 1985 BC, in the Twelfth Dynasty during the Middle Kingdom. Amun appears to be a reconfiguration of Ra as the Midnight Sun, who had disappeared from view over 200 years earlier. Only after ca 1550 BC (at the beginning of the New Kingdom) does Amun become widely recognized in Egypt (as Amun-Ra). After this time he starts to assume the attributes of the older Gods. He was called, "the king of the Gods," by the Thebans.
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Note 27 --

The long axis of Unas' pyramid complex is aligned to the southwest with the entrance on the northeast. Southwest would be the location of the 'other land.' The next pharaoh, Seti of the sixth dynasty, does the same.

Of course with the axis pointed in the southwest direction, the pyramid complex also points to the northeast, which is where Jupiter would first show up after an absence from the skies, although only for a run of some years, as the first sighting of Jupiter would slowly move to the southeast, and then again to the northeast.
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Note 28 --

The "Book of the Dead" is a collection of unrelated spells which never follow the same order, and are often unique. These include the spells engraved in pyramids from Unas's time on, spells painted on coffins, and written scrolls included with coffins.
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Note 29 --

With the fall of the Absu the "gate to the other world" is removed. At a later date, both Hercules (Mars) and Samson (of the Bible) in legends carry away the gates of a city.
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Note 30 --

Venus was probably orbiting the mass centroid of Saturn, Neptune, and Uranus, and thus somewhere at the level of Neptune. Venus could easily have been locked out of the reformed combined plasmasphere if its location managed to avoid the extension of the new plasmasphere in the direction away from the Sun, or, alternately, if it passed through this space in rotating around the Saturnian planets, and subsequently passed out from the combined plasmasphere. That would place it, in 3147 BC, behind Jupiter from the somewhat later point of view from Earth. This conforms to the notion of the Greeks that Venus had been born from the head of Jupiter (Zeus), first seen passing from behind Jupiter to the east.

Mercury and Mars perhaps continued to travel with Saturn, for they show up near Earth about 80 years late (although they could have entered the space of the inner planets sooner). Mars is also accompanied by many asteroids and apparently had a aphelion in the asteroid belt. Their movement -- why they returned to the region of the inner planets from the asteroid belt -- was governed by the gravitational attraction of the Sun as soon as Mercury and Mars fell away from the enclosing plasmasphere of Saturn. It can only be suggested that, like what we will see Jupiter do also, the plasmasphere of Saturn would have shrunk on reaching the asteroid belt.
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Note 31 --

During this initial period it might have looked like Jupiter was on fire, but I would suspect that, because of its size, Jupiter never went into arc mode plasma discharge. Jupiter has about 1 1/2 times the surface area of Saturn.
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Note 32 --

Egyptian legends, admittedly late, have the body of Osiris (Saturn) floating down the Nile river -- the ecliptic -- in a casket to end up lodged in a tree in the far north, located by the Egyptians in the northern city of Biblos. Biblos had been a port of trade for Egypt since pre-dynastic times. This suggests that Saturn moved around the ecliptic away from the location of Jupiter after the initial engagement. It may be that the movement of the coffin to a tree in the north and its disappearance happened only once during the first rotation of Saturn around the Sun after 3147 BC. The travel of Saturn around the Sun would have taken much more time than the Earth's rotation around the Sun.

The 'tree' of the "Isis and Osiris" story, is the plume of plasma impinging at the north magnetic pole of the Earth, after the change in the Earth's orbit in 3147 BC. The lodging of the coffin of Osiris in the tree is likely a ball plasmoid at the end of the plume. The polar plumes were presented in the text of a previous chapter.

Isis, in the shape of a swallow, flew around the tree which entrapped the coffin of Osiris. The swallow is probably Mercury, which probably had a bow shock, possibly because of a low level atmosphere (extant today). The split plasma tail, like the tail of a swallow, is typical of a body with only a limited magnetic field. Split tails have regularly been observed for comets over the last 400 years. The visual impression that the swallow was 'circling' the tree of the north likely reflects Mercury's close passage to the Sun.
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Note 33 --

I have only found one reference to a possible plasma discharge associated with Saturn after 3147 BC in the Maya "Chilam Balam" books, but it is clearly a transcription error.
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Note 34 --

Jupiter eventually was displaced to 5.2 AU from the Sun. If Jupiter had started its recession at 0.7 AU, it would have moved at a rate of 199.3 years per AU. This is plotted on the chart below. 


                The career of Jupiter

  Note: the locations and dates are approximate, based on
   date = 3147 - (location - 0.7 AU) * rate of recession

  location, event        from 0.7 AU    concurrent looks  period of time
  --------------------   ---------      ---------------   --------------
  starting location      3147 BC        mountain form	   ~200 yrs

  start of asteroid
    belt, ~1.75 AU       2938 BC        shen form          ~350

  end of main asteroid
   belt, ~3.5 AU         2589 BC        mountain form      ~300 

  last set of asteroids
   at ~3.9 - 4 AU        2509- 2489 BC  return of shen     (~20)

  another interruption; fall of the Absu
   at 4.71 AU *          2349 BC*       mountain form      

  at 5.2 AU location     2250 BC        last flare-up       

 The linear rate of recession is based on 
 (3147 - 2250)/(5.2 AU - 0.7 AU) = 199.3 years per AU. 

        * location calculated

The date of 2349 BC has been set, and the location of this was calculated. There is a progressive error as Jupiter recedes further from the Sun because I have used a constant rate of radial recession. The return of the mountain form in 2349 BC was due to the plasma discharge by Venus.

The distribution of the semi-major axis of the asteroid objects shown in the graph in the text represents today's conditions. There is no reason to believe that most of the asteroids were not in approximately the same location from the Sun 5000 years ago as they are today.

The exception might be the two sets of asteroids (the Trojans and the Greeks) which are today located at 5.2 AU, in the orbit of Jupiter, and displaced about 60 degrees from the planet. These are today thought to have been distributed to these La Grangian points (gravitational minimum points) of Jupiter's orbit through gravitational interactions with Jupiter over the last 4 billion years. It does not explain why these asteroids are still as widely distributed about these La Grangian points.

Their location far removed from the main mass of the other asteroids is peculiar. This location might be better explained as consisting of the remnants of asteroids which were gravitationally removed by the movement of Jupiter through the Asteroid belt. That might also explain the paucity of asteroids near the end of the Asteroid Belt at about 3.9 to 4 AU, for on the basis of 'historical' evidence, there should have been considerably more asteroids at the location of 3.9 to 4 AU, since Jupiter seemed to have lost its coma and tail at this location, corresponding to a time some 150 years before the 'flood' of Noah in 2349 BC.

'Trojan' asteroids have been found for the transjovian planets, but far fewer than the 1500 or more which follow Jupiter. (Jupiter has more mass that Saturn, Neptune, and Uranus together.) Six Trojans have also been found to follow Mars, and Trojans are suspected for Earth.

The peculiar gaps in the Asteroid belt are due entirely to the action of gravitational forces of Jupiter over the span of 5000 years, but the same gaps would also result if Jupiter had been on an inner orbit since the breakup of most of the asteroids about 3.2 million years ago. This is discussed in Appendix B, "Mechanics."

The asteroids represent an estimated total mass of 2 x 10 exp 21 kg, about 3 percent of the mass of the Moon. The majority of asteroids are of the chondrite variety, that is, they are rocky, and have a break-up date of 3.2 million years ago. The rocky composition suggests a smaller planet rather than a planet large enough to have had a metallic core.

If the parent planet broke up in a spherical explosion, then (very roughly) perhaps about one steradian (a cone of about 30 spherical degrees) would end up on trajectories which would keep the fragments in orbit around the Sun. The rest would be on parabolic orbits or greater, and would never return. The remaining material would thus represents about 15 percent of the original (there are 6.28 steradians in a sphere). If similar explosions were experienced by the fragments with the passage of Saturn and Jupiter through this remaining material, then only about 2.2 percent (15 percent of 15 percent) would still be in orbit today.

This suggests, as other have noted, that the original planet was about the size of Mars or the Moon, since the remaining 2.2 percent of the objects represent 3 percent of the mass of the Moon. But this also suggests that, at the time Saturn and Jupiter passed through the asteroid belt, there would still have been six times as much material as remains today.

Additionally, every plasma contact with an asteroid object would generate additional fine dust launched into space between the asteroids. The fireworks must have been spectacular. It should be apparent that soon the fine dust would have supported a continuous plasma flow from Jupiter.

The asteroids were part of the original Solar System, although there might have been fewer and they might have been larger before 3147 BC, dating back millions of years, as can be ascertained from the break-up ages of meteorites ('meteorites' are asteroids which have fallen to Earth) -- 3.2 million years for the Chondrite meteorites, 100 and 700 million years for the iron meteorites. The various meteorites have a creation date (as apposed to their 'breakup' age) of 4.4 and 4.6 billion years ago. As planets these may have orbited the Sun since the remotest times.

Jupiter was not likely the cause of the original breakups, first of all because the asteroids were in their location long before Jupiter passed through after 3147 BC, and secondly because the pre-asteroid planets would have been at a charge level appropriate for their location from the Sun if they had been orbiting the Sun since their creation 4.4 to 4.6 billion years ago. Saturn, however, when repeatedly entering the Solar System at the potential (charge level) of deep space, would have been quite capable of causing the breakups. But because Saturn would have traveled on a steep trajectory, the 20 entries into the Solar System would have done consideably less damage than the movement of the four planets away from the Sun after 3147 BC, which were on spiral paths -- resulting in much greater contact with the asteroid belt. As noted above, the most recent breakup age for asteroids is 3.2 mya. This corresponds to what I have assumed to be the last entry of Saturn into the Solar System, and suggests the last entry into the Solar System on a less steeper entry trajectory.
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Note 35 --

There is a 1000 year gap between the event of 2349 BC and its retelling in 1350 BC and after. But the appearance of Hathor as the Celestial Cow had happened again in 1492 BC and 1440 BC.
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Note 36 --

From the Sumerian "King List" we have..

"After kingship was brought back to Kish again, Ku-Bau, the innkeeper, she who made firm the foundations of Kish, ruled for 100 years as `king' before Kish was defeated."

Her occupation is also translated as "prostitute" or "barmaid" -- the last as another association with alcohol. She is probably Venus, but cannot be dated with certainty to the destructive appearance of the planet in 2349 BC, although her 'reign' seems to predate Sargon's conquest of Mesopotamia, which is listed somewhat later in the "King List."

"In Kish, Puzur-Sin, son of Ku-Bau, reigned 25 years as king; Ur-Zababa, the son of Puzur-Sin, reigned 400 years."

Archaeologists date Ku-Bau at ca 2400 BC. Puzur-Sin ("Moon"), the son, is estimated by archaeologists at ca 2360-2340 BC, and Ur-Zababa, the grandson at ca 2340 BC.

Grendel, the she-dragon battled by Beowulf under the sea, is yet another version of Kali, Tiamat, Anath, Sekhmet, and Ku-Bau. The 'sea' is the Absu.
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Note 37 --

The reaction of the spin axis of the Earth to a torque applied off-center to the equator is discussed in Appendix B, "Celestial Mechanics," and illustrated with diagrams.
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Note 38 --

I am using the translation to English by Suzanne D. Fisher from the Spanish original by Bolio made in 1930. This text, along with a later translation of the Mayan original to English made in 1933 by Ralph Roys, is discussed in Chapter 16, "The Chilam Balam Books." In this instance the text by Bolio makes more sense of the original than the more secular interpretation by Roys.
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Note 39 --

The words "and" and "then" of the phrase "and then days of the year were introduced" are both from the same base Mayan word, and do not imply the time-order of words as in Indo-European languages, where "then" means "after" and "and" implies simultaneous (and its use as a connective between the translated phrases). I hope this will hint at why the quotation from the "Chilam Balam" are often so choppy.
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Note 40 --

Warfare weapons in Mesoamerica included spears, halberds, and dart throwers, not arrows. Only game animals were hunted with arrows. This war, however, uses arrows.
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Note 41 --

If the plasmoids from Venus traveled at 6 million miles per hour, Venus would have been within a distance of over 20 million miles from Earth in order for the arrival of the first plasmoid to have been delayed 6 hours. The travel delay to Jupiter, at 6 million miles per hour would be (4.5-1)*AU/(6000000*24) = 2.26 days. The flareup of Jupiter would have been seen on Earth about 30 minutes later.

The distance of 20 million miles may be an overstatement. If the eccentricities found by Lynn Rose and Raymond Vaughan for Venus and Earth for the 7th century BC, 0.15 and 0.10 (details of which are presented in Chapter 11), can be applied to the era before 2349 BC, the difference between the perihelion of Venus and the aphelion of Earth is 17.5 million miles, under the assumption that both orbits were 0.75 AU before 2349 BC; 0.75 * (1-0.15) = 0.6375 AU and 0.75 * (1-0.10) = 0.825 AU.
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Note 42 --

I cannot agree with the circumpolar rings, for a number of reasons. First, a circumpolar ring of dust or ionized gasses would be electrically unstable. Mandelkehr assumes that these would be ice particles, following the "snowball" notion of meteor composition.

Second, there is the standing problem of needing to radically change the speed and motion of material (whether asteroids or icy meteors) coming in from outside planet Earth in order to be 'captured.' In all of recorded history, while millions of asteroids are intercepted by the Earth each year, not a single object has ever been 'captured.' The Moon is not a captured satellite, but a planet sharing Earth's orbit.

Third, Mandelkehr suggests that the rings would only have lasted some months. I have no opinion on that. What strikes me as strange, however, is his compilation of some 450 gods and their attributes, gathered from mythological sources from around the world. All of them, even sets of a half dozen from a single culture, are all "associated" (to use his phrasing) with rings, circles, fires, horns, bows, mountains, and streams and serpents surrounding the Earth. I find most of this severely decontextualized from the mythologies I am familiar with, and I would suggest that it is very unlikely for 450 gods and goddesses to align themselves with the iconography of a celestial phenomenon which lasted only a few months.

Fourth, although Mandelkehr's rings are nominally circumpolar, he places them at an angle of about 70 degrees to the equator, so that they pass between Ursa Major and Ursa Minor (as seen from Earth) above the Earth's north pole. This conclusion was apparently reached on the basis of frequent references to Ursa Major in antiquity. But this location, between these two constellation, happens to be the location of the Earth's rotational axis if this is retrocalculated on the basis of todays' conditions -- using the 'precession of the polar axis' -- to 2300 BC. This would not define a set of rings at an angle of 70 degrees to the Earth's equator, but a set of rings at an exact circumpolar position, at right angles to the equator. This seems like an oversight.

The rings were seen and noted by the people of antiquity. But the rings had always been there, but below the Earth's equatorial in the south sky, not circumpolar. After 2349 BC, this was reduced to a single ring at a great distance from Earth but still below the equatorial in the sky -- which seems to have lasted to AD 400 or 600.
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Note 43 --

Alfred de Grazia made note of the ubiquity of the Pleiades in mythology in "Chaos and Creation" (1984), writing..

"Many places around the world mark the beginning of November as the Day of the Dead; it is All Saints Day; Halloween; All Souls Day; etc. The time is associated with the Pleiades for reasons not clearly understood yet. The coincidences of time, mood, ceremony, and stellar assignation is so great as to exclude independent invention except in particulars and to insist upon a common experience of explicit quality."

De Grazia follows this by some comments on the possibility of diffusion, but diffusion is negated by the existence of a "Day of the Dead" festival in Mesoamerica before the invasion of the Spanish. De Grazia could not date or place the event.
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Note 44 --

In addition to the invarient skies before 685 BC (the lack of a precession of the equinoxes), I will develop in a later chapter that the equinox moved 15 days forward in 685 BC. Thus the autumnal equinox happened earlier. This is born out with data from the horizon setting angles of the Sun for Mesoamerican ceremonial center, where 6 alignments, out of 13 that were checked, point to a equivalent Gregorian calendar date of September 8th, two days after the earlier autumnal equinox date of September 6. See Chapter 18, "Olmec Alignments."

But the Pleiades probably did not show directly after the equinox of 2349 BC, for Jupiter may have been in the way, although the Pleiades would have been about 6 degrees in elevation above Jupiter. If the coma of Jupiter was as large as Plutarch suggested in AD 200, "three times the diameter of the Moon," then the upper plumes above the coma might have obscured the Pleiades. Only after Jupiter moved west (in 10 or 20 days) did the Pleiades show up. The date of September 8th is thus the horizon location of the appearance of Jupiter, not the appearance of the Pleiades. But certainly by the following year the Pleiades were recognized as standing above the intersection of the equatorial and the ecliptic in the south skies, that is, directly after the equinox.
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Note 45 --

Mandelkehr notes that the Pleiades culminate on about November 1 today. They do not. Culmination happens on November 14th today.
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Note 46 --

Bernadino de Sahagún recorded his observations of Aztec culture from native sources after AD 1527 in "Historia de las cosas de Nueva España" (tr AD 1829).

The culmination of the Pleiades for Mexico City, equivalent to the ceremonial center of Teotihuacan, is as follows. 


 Culmination of the Pleiades -- Mexico City, 19.25 deg n latitude

                               midnight     --westerly setting--
  year      Julian  Gregorian  culmination  azumith   deg n of w  

  original  Oct 9*   Sep 22*   76.1 deg     275.6 deg   5.6  <--
   685      Oct 15   Oct  8    83.5         283.3      13.3  <--
   600      Oct 16   Oct 10    83.8         284.6      13.6  
   200      Oct 17   Oct 14    86.5         285.8      15.8
   100      Oct 18   Oct 16    86.2         286.7      16.7  <--
  AD 100    Oct 19   Oct 18    87.3         287.1      17.1  
   200      Oct 20   Oct 20    87.7         288.1      18.1  <--
   400      Oct 21   Oct 22    88.1         288.7      18.7  <--
   700      Oct 23   Oct 27    89.5         290.7      20.7
  1000      Oct 25   Oct 31                 292.0      22.0    
  1550      Oct 30   Nov 9                  294.2      24.2
  2008               Nov 14                 295.3      25.3

  * -- using the current location of the equinox.

-- The entry 'original' can be used for all years before 685 BC, where the dates should be reduced by 15 days to reflect the earlier location of the equinox.
-- The westerly settings of the Pleiades marked '<--' appear with great frequency among the significant alignments at Olmec and Valley of Mexico ceremonial sites.

More details, such as the basis for the use of 5.6 degree and 13 degrees, are found in Chapter 18, "Olmec Alignments."
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Note 47 --

Ussher paraphrases from the New Testament as follows: "He told them it was necessary for Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day." This is attributed by Jesus to "Moses and the prophets" and thus from very old sources. In Mark 12:26 Jesus speaks of the Books of Moses, and, speaking of God, says, "Yet it is of living men, not of dead men, that he is the God." This is in distinction from Osiris, the Egyptian God of the dead.
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Note 48 --

The front of the turtle is on the left. Hunapuh and Xbalanque appear as headdresses of two monsters or gods peering out of both ends of the turtle, not unlike the heads showing out of the two mouths of the celestial serpent bar. The face on the side (center) of the turtle names the crack as "Precious Torch Death." A footnote (48 on pg 465) in Freidel and Schele, "Maya Cosmos," suggests an extended name of "Yellow Torch Death Skull" from another source. "Yellow" is the south directional color; the "torch" might be a reference to the plasmoid of 685 BC (see Chapters 11 and 12).
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Note 49 --

The "Enuma Elish" has no precedent among older Akkadian or Sumerian texts except for the retelling of a flood event.
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----
Special thanks to Joe Brookes for questioning the red look of Sirius.

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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