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Recovering the Lost World,
A Saturnian Cosmology -- Jno Cook
Part 8: The Old Kingdom and the fall of Absu.

[Table of Contents]

$Revision: 19.28 $
Contents of this chapter: [Horus on his Mountain] [The Palermo Stone] [The Pyramids of Egypt] [Barrows after 3100 BC] [Henges after 3100 BC] [The Midnight Sun] [Written Histories] [The Temple Cultures] [Something is Missing] [Developing Consciousness] [Bicameral Kingdoms] [The Flood of Noah] [A Second Strike] [Endnotes]

This chapter starts after the flood of 3114 BC. The first civilizations and the first kingdoms appear in Sumer and Egypt. Horus (Mars) makes regular visits over a period of 300 years. Humans start building pyramids when Horus fails to return. The era concludes with events resulting from several close passes by Venus -- the "Flood of Noah," the fall of Egypt's First Kingdom, and the demise of the Akkadian Empire.

Brief Chronology

-- 5800 BC: Saturn above Earth -- Saturn shows up above Earth and starts a plasma discharge to Earth. Earth is in a close orbit around the Sun, as are all the other planets. The stars are not seen for the next 1700 years. Saturn is mostly obscured, and only near the end of this period starts to show as a giant egg in the sky. This is the era before creation.

-- 4186 BC: Saturn lights up -- Saturn goes through a nova event -- a mass discharge which creates its rings and Venus -- and Saturn lights up. This is the moment of 'Creation.' The arc at the point of contact with Earth creates massive cloudbanks and glaciation. Venus is in orbit around Saturn and Mars hangs below. The "Age of the Gods" begins. Mars makes eight 'descents' to Earth.

-- 3114 BC: The Gods leave -- Saturn is in a near collision with Jupiter. The "Age of the Gods" ends with the "Flood of Gilgamesh." Plasma discharges between Jupiter and Saturn are seen as the "battle of the Gods." Earth, Mars, and Venus escape to eccentric orbits. Mars, on a slightly larger orbit, partly coincides with Earth's orbit and is seen visiting Earth as Horus ten times for 300 years after 3000 BC. The Gods leave as both Saturn and Jupiter move to orbits farther removed from the Sun. Jupiter stays active and develops a coma. He becomes the chief God in almost all societies.

-- 2300, 2200 BC: Noah's Flood -- - 2349 BC: Venus passes above Earth at a close distance causing "Noah's Flood" and changing Earth's orbit; the fall of the Absu. The Moon appears in orbit around Earth soon after. - 2247 BC: A sudden extinction of Jupiter's coma. The death of Yâo. The Burning Tower, an event told worldwide in legends recalling how people lost language or memory. - 2193 BC: (156 years after 2349 BC) Venus again passes close to Earth (the fourth time in this period). The Old Kingdom of Egypt ends and the Akkadian empire falls. The Earth changes orbits again.

-- 1500 BC: Exodus -- - 1492 BC: Venus passes close to Earth during the Exodus of Moses. An arc is struck which circles Earth at about 30 degrees latitude. The Earth's orbit changes. Skies are obscured by heavy clouds for 40 years. - 1440 BC: (52 years later) Venus again comes close to Earth. The Middle Kingdom of Egypt ends. The sun stands still for Joshua. Mesoamerica is destroyed.

-- 8th, 7th Century BC: The Start of History -- - 776 BC: A simultaneous visit is made by Venus and Mars (the "ball game"). There continue to be repeated close calls by Mars over a period of 60 years. - 747 BC: Mars jars Earth. The Earth's orbit changes. Calendar reforms are made worldwide. - 686 BC: Mercury jars Earth. - 685 BC: Venus goes nova. Jupiter bolts the Sun (the death of Quetzalcoatl). The polar axis and the equinox shift. - 670 BC: Earth's orbit becomes circular.

Image: Bronze Age (ca 800 BC) petroglyph, Denmark. The 'Sun' is carried through the sky on its ship. Note the oars. The boatmen are holding celts aloft. A figure is falling in from above. The other two figures are thought to be elk or horses. The composite is based on Mars and its two satellites, but probably reflects Jupiter as the Midnight Sun.

Horus on his Mountain

When the Gods leave after 3114 BC, the "Age of Kings" starts. It starts with the devastating flood which the "King List" tersely recounts as, "and then the flood swept over."

But recovery after the flood was quick -- less than two hundred years in northern Mesopotamia and much less time in Egypt -- and ushered in the seminal age of the civilizations of remote antiquity. In Mesopotamia and Egypt we see a development of agriculture, the scope of which goes beyond anything seen in the preceding centuries. Writing develops rapidly, and possibly independently, in the two regions. Work starts on larger and larger monumental structures, culminating (400 years later) in the giant pyramids of Giza. This is related to a sudden elaboration of certain graves -- those of rulers. The age of kingdoms has started. The graves of the first pharaohs of Egypt date from the same century as the flood. Graves of kings show up in Mesopotamia at about the same time. [note 1]

Loosened from the grip of Saturn in 3114 BC, Earth and Venus were cast off on nearly identical elliptical orbits, Earth with a year of 240 days and Venus following Saturn's old orbit with a year of somewhat more than 225 days (perhaps 230 to 240 days). In aphelion Venus extended past the orbital location of Earth, but it came closer to the Sun at perihelion than Earth did.

Mars was not released until 80 years after 3080 BC (the actual end of the "Age of the Gods," see Chapter 13), thus in 3000 BC. At this time Saturn entered the first of the asteroid belt, and loosened its grip on Mars. Mars' orbit thus initially started much further from the Sun. At aphelion the orbit grazed the edge of the asteroid belt; at perihelion Mars rode over the orbit of Earth. Mars first showed up close to Earth in ca 3000 BC.

The evidence for the orbits of the inner planets after 3114 BC consists of the fact that these orbits represent the conditions most likely to allow the series of approaches which will happen over the next few millennia. See Chapter 14, "The Celestial Mechanics," for additional details. Year counts and dates are developed Chapter 13, "Chronology."

The "King List" notes, for the first king after the flood, that "Kingship again descended from Heaven." This was the coincidental appearance of Mars close to and above the Earth ca 3000 BC. Mars would continue to visit Earth at intervals averaging 30 years as long as the inclinations of the orbits of Earth and Mars were favorably aligned. [note 2]

The Egyptian priesthood was suddenly vindicated in its belief in resurrection. The suddenness with which the concept of a life after death takes hold in Egypt after 3114 BC, is astounding. Initially limited to a further existence among the stars and planets (the home of the Gods) for the pharaoh, by the time of the first dynasty (3050 or 3000 BC) the privilege of participation had spread already to the elite of the court, and would eventually be extended to everyone.

Today, of course, the idea of a life after death is nearly universal among contemporary religions, with Theravada Budhism and Judaism being, for example, exceptions. The concepts had spread only slowly in Europe with the introduction of Christianity, although there were ideas about resurrection extant among the Celtic tribes at that time, but not among the Greeks and Romans.

The only tie to a more remote antiquity for these ideas would seem to be concepts derived from the parades of animals seen in the skies and recorded by the first Cromagnon in southwestern Europe, and, of course, seen and pondered upon by everyone else, everywhere else, over the next 30,000 years.

Thus when, in about 3000 BC, Mars first approached Earth, the temple priests of Egypt recognized what was happening. The dead Osiris (Saturn), wrapped like a mummy with its rings, had disappeared from view as it lost much of its coma on entering the asteroid belt, but Horus (Mars), as the resurrected Osiris, appeared from the same location in the ecliptic of the south sky at the same time, looming larger and larger until it was obvious that it would reach the Earth's orbit.

Mars would have seemed to slow, since both planets were at that point about the same distance from the Sun and traveling at nearly the same speed. As Mars reached closer to Earth, standing above the Earth (toward the north), a plasma stream connected the two planets. Earth held the surplus charge, since it is a much larger globe, and it was Earth which now bolted Mars. Because Mars is much smaller than Earth, the stream of plasma would have looked like a triangular mountain, leaving the Earth's ionosphere and converging to a much smaller truncated cone on reaching the southern half of Mars.

This was the sacred mountain so frequently referenced in ancient literature. (The concept of the sacred mountain will be transferred to Jupiter, as 'Re,' after the start of the Egyptian Fifth dynasty, ca 2550 BC.) Differing from the earlier plasma stream 'mountain' of Saturn, which had been seen in the northwest and on which was planted the 'tree to heaven,' the mountain of Mars was seen in the north, discribing a circumpolar path, and was peaked or shaped as a truncated cone, not bell shaped. Over the course of the ten visits, the plasma stream arriving at Mars may have pockmarked the entire southern hemisphere of Mars with anode burns. [note 3]

Mars might show up anywhere above and near Earth over the next 300 years and the effect would be nearly the same. During the visitations, Mars would sit above the Earth for a period on the conically shaped 'mountain' of plasma streaming from the Earth's ionosphere. The rotation of the Earth would make it look as if Mars rose and set, that is, moving from the east horizon and downward at the west horizon. The movement from the east to the west on a daily basis (perhaps lasting only a few days) would continue at night as the cone was lighted by the Sun from the daylight side of Earth. Temples were no longer oriented northwest to the apparent strike points of the arc of the previous era, but were aligned to the true geographic north, the center point of the traveling mountain of Horus. [note 4]

The plasma connection explains the strangely worded Egyptian appellation of Horus, "rising on your mountain" -- when there were no mountains to be seen from Egypt. This truly was Horus, as the resurrected Osiris, coming to sit on his Earthly throne and rule Egypt. The tale of Osiris, resurrected as Horus, will stand for more than 3000 years. By the time of the first pyramid texts, which quote from what will eventually be known as the "Book of the Dead," the spells and prayers which invoke Osiris and Horus are already 700 years old and firmly established. They change very little over the next 2500 years. Except for a very few of the pre-dynastic kings and one of the pharaohs of the second dynasty, all the kings or pharaohs have 'Horus names.' [note 5]

It can be assumed that Mars returned with some regularity, since the visits depended only on the regularity of planetary orbits and the precession of Mars' and Earth's elliptical orbits. The positioning of Mars over the Earth might last a few days, but the visits which came close enough to induce the plasma contact occured only at about thirty year intervals. [note 5a]

I would suggest that these infrequent 'visits,' at thirty year intervals, were caused by the fact that the orbit of Mars came to just within or just without the orbit of Earth. Because Earth and Mars traveled at different speeds, both planets would only be in the same location after long intervals.

As Mars then approached Earth it would be gravitationally attracted. Since the mass of Mars is only 1/10th of the mass of Earth, it would be Mars that was moved significantly (and thus changing its orbit slightly). Earth would not relocate by any significant amount.

Approaching closer, the Earth's plasmasphere would contact and merge with Mars' plasmasphere (or its surface), producing a stream of plasma from Earth to Mars, and resulting additionally in a sudden (but temporary) electrical repulsive force, which would move Mars away from Earth (thus changing its orbit again), and breaking the plasmasphere connection as Mars gained some distance from Earth. The previous sequence would then repeat before the Earth, moving slightly faster than Mars, would pull away and the remaining gravitational attraction would reduce to an insignificant amount. [note 6a]

Because Earth was on an inner orbit, and thus traveling somewhat faster than Mars, and because Mars has only one tenth the mass of Earth, the connections and disruptions of Mars' orbit were caused by Earth. Mars was moved in its orbit much more than the Earth was. The forces would have been of sporadic values, since each gravitational attraction would be followed by an electrical repulsion impulse, followed by a repetition, but never operating from the exact same distance between the two planets during the repeated visits.

The changes in the orbit or the period of Mars can be seen in the variation of the number of years between close approaches, as shown by the fact that the reigns of kings in Mesopotamia (at Kish) and Egypt (the first two dynasties) last for periods which only average 30 years, but are as short as 24 years and as long as 36 years. The ten patriarchs of the Bible born after Noah (from Shem through Abraham) were each sired when their father was 29, 30, 32, or 35 years old.

The 'visits' by Horus, as seen from Earth, were thus seen as an approach of Mars, followed by a seating on the plasma mountain, a circumambulation of the Earth, during which Mars would be seen racing around the Earth, followed by a second closing of the distance between the planets and again creating the mountain, after which Mars heading for the deep reaches of space. [note 6]

It seems that the 'Sed festival,' which required the pharaoh to race along a course and to be twice recrowned as king, was suggested from this behaviour of Mars. Predynastic ceremonial objects, dated to before 3000 BC, already suggest the Sed festival. The engraved images are recognized today because the iconography remained the same for the next 3000 years. By the third dynasty, ca 2639 BC, separate buildings and plazas were constructed for this purpose as part of the pharaoh's funeral temple, so the festival could also be performed after death. [note 7]

"One of the most important elements in the heb-sed was a re-enactment of the coronation. In this ceremony a procession led by a priest would enter those of the chapels surrounding the heb-sed court in which were gathered the gods of the nomes of Upper Egypt. Having obtained from each god consent to renew his kingship, the king would be conducted to the more southern of the two thrones, placed on a dais beneath a canopy, in order to be crowned with the white crown of Upper Egypt."

"A similar ceremony would be repeated in the chapels of the gods of the Lower Egyptian nomes before the king ascended the northern throne to receive the red crown of Lower Egypt. The unification of the two kingdoms would be symbolized at a later stage by lacing lotus (or lily) and papyrus flowers around a stake driven in the ground."

"The significance of another ceremony in the heb-sed is not so apparent. The king, carrying a flail, would run a fixed course, accompanied by 'the priests of the souls of the Nekhen'."

-- I.E.S. Edwards "The Pyramids of Egypt" (1972).

The 'nomes' are the separate districts of Egypt, some 20 of them in Upper Egypt and an equal number in Lower Egypt, each with their own Gods, temples, and temple administration. The 'nekhen' are the previously deceased pharaohs. Notice the double enthroning, or as Edwards calls them, "coronations." I suspect the course was run between the coronations. As always, the ceremonies of the humans were those first performed by the Gods.

The previous pharaohs -- the Nekhen -- were also Gods. They were known, into the 5th dynasty, as "the followers of Horus." More on this below.

Egyptian records (the Turin Papyrus, and the writings of Manetho) give Horus a total life span of 300 years, which would mean that Horus would have returned 10 times between 3000 and 2700 BC, if a 30 year interval held for all of that time period. The Sumerian list of the "Kings after the Flood" adds up to 300 years and includes 20 'long-lived' kings up to about 2700 BC. But, counted in sets of two, these reduce to some 10 distinct pairings of periodic crossings of earth's orbit or close approaches by entities in the sky, which average to 30 years, but vary by 4 to 5 years in both directions. My suspicion is that the other deity whose appearances was being recorded by the Sumerians was Mercury. [note 8]

The Palermo Stone

The orbital period of Mars (its synodic period), as seen from Earth, was probably about one and a half years to two years. This implies a considerably different orbit for Mars that today, although even today Earth passes by Mars every two years. But in the period directly after 3114 BC, Earth was on considerably smaller orbit, and Mars on a larger orbit extending to the region of the asteroid belts. [note 9]

To appear the same size as the full Moon of today, Mars would have to approach within 500,000 miles of the Earth -- 250,000 miles beyond the Moon. To appear as one half the size as the full Moon, Mars would have to approach only to within 1,000,000 miles of the Earth. Mars would show as a red disk in the south sky at night. After Earth passed Mars, Mars would have disappeared from view for most of the next two years. A similar display would have happened when Mars periodically approached closer to the Earth's orbit and sat on his mountain seat.

Image: Palermo Stone, partial record of King Den of the first dynasty, ca 2950 BC. The text reads from right to left; each block is introduced with a 'year glyph.' The lower register records the height of the Nile at flood time. A few hieroglyphs stand for whole words; the rest represent sounds. (1) Striking the bedouin. (2) Appearance of the power (king) of Upper and Lower Egypt; Sed festival. (3) Counting of the people (of the four directions). (4) Second feast of Djet. (5) Plan of a temple called "Thrones of the Gods," feast of Sokar.

The Palermo Stone records the yearly appearances and visits of Mars. The Palermo Stone is a carved basalt block from the Fifth Dynasty (ca 2550 BC) of the Old Kingdom, unfortunately shattered and badly worn, and reduced to seven fragments. The Palermo Stone records the Gods, the "Followers of Horus," and the pharaohs of the first five dynasties, in that order. For each of the pharaohs there is a catalog of years, with each year named after an important event, for example, "The Year of the Cattle Count."

There are some six distinct events which are recorded repeatedly on the fragments we have -- plus military excursions into the region adjacent to the delta, the acquisition of desirable materials like honey or lumber, the building of ships, plans for new temples, and other mundane activities. The frequently recorded events (for which years are named) are..

• "The Appearance of the King of Upper Egypt"
• "The Appearance of the King of Lower Egypt"
• "The Followers of Horus"
• "Union of the Two Lands" followed by
  "The Circumambulation of the Wall"
• "The Counting of Cattle"

The "Counting of Cattle" at later dates is often recorded as "The 'nth' Counting of Cattle." The height of the Nile at flood time was also recorded for each year.

The year-names listed above should actually be translated somewhat differently, for archaeologists have rendered the original phrasing into terms more familiar to us. "The Appearance of the King of Upper Egypt" should read as "The Appearance of the King of the Upper Land" or even as "The Appearance of the Power of the Upper Land." The Egyptians called their country "The Land;" the Greeks called it "Egypt."

The "appearances" of the King of the Upper Land or the Lower Land happen regularly every two years, although not always at exactly two year intervals. At times we read of both events happening in the same year. Interspersed at two year intervals is the year-name "The Followers of Horus."

What exactly are these events? Archaeologists have suggested that the "appearances" were visitations of the pharaoh to the delta (Lower Egypt) and up-river (Upper Egypt), perhaps as celebrations or as gift giving opportunities. That is, "appearances" were made by the pharaoh to the two separate sections of the country. The pharaoh otherwise resided at Memphis, the city at the apex of the delta, and thus exactly between Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt. Memphis had been founded by the first king of the First Dynasty. Memphis controlled traffic between Lower and Upper Egypt, and in effect constituted the 'unification' of Egypt.

Similarly the "Union of the Two Lands" was thought to be a celebration of peace (after another rebellion had been squashed), done with a walk (some original texts are translated to "race") around the outer walls of Memphis. Memphis had massive walls in antiquity to keep the Nile from flooding the city. Memphis was known as "White Walls."

The "Union of the Two Lands" with the "Circumambulation of the Wall" is always shown as the first year-label for a pharaoh. It might be suggested that the "circumambulation" is the Sed festival. It might also be suggested (and I suspect this) that the pharaoh was replaced when Mars again showed up near Earth.

Image: A cattle count of large and small animals, and other activities. Scenes from the Narmer Macehead, ca 3050 BC.

A scene depicted on the Narmer Macehead (ca 3050 BC), shows Narmer's name tag on the upper left. On the top right is a depiction of the temple at Buto in the delta. Three running figures between triple lunates are suggested as representing a Sed Festival. The lunates are boundary markers. Poles carried by four figures at the top are supposedly the standards of four of the nomes of Lower Egypt. From other sources it is clear that these are the "Followers of Horus" instead. An animal counts are shown at the bottom. The seated figure with his arms up in the air denotes a 'million.'

The "The Cattle Count" has drawn archaeologists' remarks to the effect that this must have been a complete fiction, based on the actual numbers listed on some predynastic objects, like the macehead described above, showing, for example, 400,000 cattle, 1,422,000 goats, and 120,000 bound captives. One million eight hundred and twenty two thousand herd animals exceeds what the population of Egypt, estimated at well under a million people at this time (probably 500,000 to 800,000), could have managed or supported. One hundred and twenty thousand captives would have represents twenty percent of the estimated population of Egypt. The rounded numbers of the count also suggest estimates rather than actual counts. But I think we are not dealing with animals and captives here.

Lastly we have the "Followers of Horus." Most texts simply avoid mention of the "Followers of Horus" for no one can even imagine what that year-name could mean.

Image: Mars and Earth on intersecting orbits with four or five follower asteroids in the same orbit as Mars. Six still exist today. The debris in the wake of Mars may represent the cattle.

What I suggest is that these entries record celestial displays of close passages of Mars. However, it is not the Mars we know today, but rather an assembly consisting of the planet Mars and other objects. I suggest that Mars was followed (and probably preceded) by a huge cloud of debris consisting of millions of rock fragments of asteroids, and followed, probably at a somewhat greater distance, by a number of larger asteroids. [note 10]

Later descriptions in the 8th century BC suggest that Mars was still accompanied by hundreds or thousands of asteroid-like bodies. We have only limited clues that these existed, and no indication of the number, the sizes, or the exact location with respect to the planet. And located some distance away along the orbit of Mars there followed some four or five larger asteroids. [note 11]

Gary Gilligan, in "An Ancient World in Chaos" (2008), demonstrates that with very few exceptions, the hundreds of battles that Egypt fought over a 3000 year period, always led by the Pharaoh and always won by the Egyptians, never happened on Earth, but were observed to happen in the skies. He point out that of the complete lack of archaeological evidence. For example, at the Battle of Kadesh in ca 1287 BC, probably the most famous battle of antiquity, 20,000 Egyptians engaged 40,000 Hittites. Yet not one bone or war artifact has been found despite the inscriptions by Ramesses II telling of tens of thousands of dead soldiers (nor, for that matter, has Kadesh been found).

Similarly at Megiddo, where some 34 battles were supposedly fought, including 18 by Tuthmose III (1479 - 1425 BC). "Yet," Gilligan writes, "no corroboratory archaeological evidence exists." [note 12a]

"To put this into some kind of context, Megiddo is a location where hundreds of thousands of soldiers engaged in numerous battles over a period of 3,000 years -- i.e. thousands of chariots, battle axes, spears, bows and arrows, the carnage, dead soldiers, etc, etc, and yet no archaeological evidence remains to corroborate them as ever taking place - nothing. We have an abundance of written documentation but -- NO CRIME SCENE! This despite the fact that archaeologists have been digging there for decades."

-- Gary Gilligan [http://www.gks.uk.com]

The battles were fought entirely above the Earth. [note 13a]

Image: The Narmer Palette of 3050 BC, Egypt. This is a dedicatory cosmetic palette found buried beneath the floor of the temple of the Falcon at Heirakonpolis (Nehken) in Upper Egypt. The front side is shown. This was at one time thought to represent the unification of predynastic Egypt.

When Mars and the asteroid swarmed neared Earth, a parade of objects would move from west to east, but seen daily or nightly as moving to the west -- first the dead prisoners, followed by the cattle, large and small, then the Followers of Horus, and finally Horus himself, followed by his sandle-carrier, Mercury. This is the order depicted on the top register of the Palette of Narmer (ca 3050 BC). The cattle are not shown. If any action by the Gods would suggest processions to humans, it would have been this parade. The parade of animals (along with forms of the Followers of Horus) had been recorded before in Egypt, before the first kings, on cosmetic palettes. [note 12]

I became aware of Mercury while sorting out the details of the Maya "Chilam Balam." It looked as if Mercury showed up near Earth at the same time as Mars in the 8th and 7th century BC, but not on the same orbit, for in the "Chilam Balam" Mercury is recorded 9 times during the period when Mars shows 5 times. At the time I was doing an analysis of the "Chilam Balam" I had already surmised that Mercury would have been one of two planets seen close to Earth in the period of 3000 to 2700 BC (the other being Mars, of course).

Thus in the procession of Horus on the Palette of Narmer the inclusion of Mercury, may not have a specific reality in terms of being within close proximity to Mars, just like the form of Mars wearing the enclosing plasma stream which only existed before 3114 BC, holding Venus as a club, and grabbing Uranus by the hair, were only historic references at the time the Palette of Narmer was engraved.

Of course we can't be certain about any of this, but it seems reasonable, first of all in light of the record of the Palermo Stone, and secondly from what we know from later descriptions of Mars, even though some of these will date to after 800 BC. Immanuel Velikovsky, in "Worlds in Collision" (1950), collected many Vedic and Biblical recollections of the companions of Mars in the 8th century BC -- the "Maruts" of India, the "hosts of the Lord" from the Bible.

This Horus (Mars) is listed in the geneology of the Gods as the second Horus. The first Horus (also Mars, but before 3114 BC) is known as "Horus of the Gods." Mars would have been recognized at close quarters by its pockmarked lower surface and smooth upper half (the 5000 mile scar came much later), and certainly by its red face.

The cratered surface of Mars, which extends across the lower half and crosses its equator at an angle, may have been the model for the distinctive dress of priests, shamans, and kings in Asia, Egypt, Africa, and Mesoamerica. The wearing of spotted leopard or jaguar skins -- over the shoulder -- is certainly a feature of later history. Hercules of Greek mythology wears a lion's skin. The "distinctive dress" of the pharaohs depicted on predynastic ceremonial mace heads may represent animal skins worn over the shoulder, as does the pharaoh depicted in the Sed Festival sculpture at Djoser's pyramid complex, built in 2650 BC, and thus 50 years after Mars had last come close. At later dates in Egypt, however, only priests wear leopard skins. The African leopard was virtually driven to extinction in antiquity

What is more suggestive of the imitation of Mars is the 'flail' carried by the pharaoh in running the course of the Sed Festival. Archaeologists call the hand-held object a 'flail' because that is what it looks like on close inspection. Why this needed to be carried while running is completely unknown.

But it seems obvious that what we are seeing here are the two tiny satellites which circle Mars at very close distances -- but in plasma discharges, and, typically for plasma, with wildly flailing forms as they move throught the disturbing overlapping electrical fields of Earth and Mars. Much later descriptions of the satellites of Mars (from Egypt, India, Greece, the Americas) make them out to be snakes and scorpions, spears and spear throwers, feathered staffs, as well as chariot wheels (but this last was recorded 1500 years later, when chariots had been invented).

If Mars was released when Saturn had already entered the asteroid belt, as I have assumed, it probably would have swept innumerable asteroids with it into the new orbit around the Sun. Jupiter also seems to have done this, for there are thousands of asteroids in Jupiter's orbit, now displaced about 60 degrees in front of and behind Jupiter. The dispersal away from the proximity of Jupiter must have happened within the last 5000 years. These asteroids are known as the 'Greeks' and the 'Trojans.' The first 'Trojan' asteroid of Mars was discovered in 1994. Six are known today. [note 13]

It is unlikely that all the companion asteroids of Mars would have relocated to the same 60 degree nodal points of the orbit of Mars during the first 300 years. In fact, from the records of the near passes of Mars some 2000 years later (in the 8th century BC), it seems that at least some of the 'cattle' of Mars still remained close to the planet to that time. During the predynastic times of Egypt (and perhaps during the first and second dynasty) the count, as mentioned above, ran into numbers over a million.

The "Followers of Horus" are probably larger asteroids, the Trojans located 60 degrees away from Mars along its orbit. And it is probable that they are represented by the standards shown carried in the predynastic Palette of Narmer and the Macehead of Narmer. One later depiction adds one additional standard. N. B. Millett wrote in 1990, comparing predynastic macehead to much later fifth dynasty (after 2500 BC) inscriptions,

"From the fragments of a similar scene from the Abu Gurab sun-temple we know that the four standards [together] represent 'the followers of Horus, the gods, the souls [of the city of] Pe [Buto],' that is to say, the ancestral kings of Lower Egypt

-- N. B. Millett, "The Narmer Macehead and Related Objects" Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt (1990).

The heroics of Mars are recorded as the ten labors of Hercules by the Greeks, although reduced to narratives only after 600 BC. These adventures certainly reflect the ten visits between 3000 and 2700 BC. Hercules is almost always herding cattle, stealing herds of cattle, retrieving stolen cattle or horses, or gathering armies to attack some region of Greece. Similar travel tales exist in India (Indra), and Mesopotamia (Inke and Gilgamesh). The travels of Mars become the literary model for the quest sagas of later ages. The dramatic travels of Hercules were repeated with the five close contacts by Mars in the 8th and 7th century BC. It is these last appearances which form the core of the tales of Hercules dating from late antiquity. [note 14]

Whatever happened in the skies was duplicated on Earth. However, even after the celestial events no longer occurred (by around 2700 BC), the ceremonies continue on Earth. This makes it difficult to separate the celestial events from the ceremonies instituted by the priesthood and the pharaohs. In the meantime, Egypt had probably instituted earthly cattle counts, which start to appear every other year by the fourth or fifth dynasty. The Sed Ceremony remains celebrated at odd intervals far into the future.

The "Upper Land" becomes equated with the Nile river valley south of the delta (up river), just as the "Lower Land" becomes the land of the Nile delta. This reflects the flow of the river Nile. But another location of the "Upper Land" is revealed in a striking statement for year 2 of the Palmero Stone record for the pharaoh Djoser of the third dynasty (2667 to 2648 BC), which reads, "Passing of the Upper Egypt King by the two Pillars." The King of Upper Egypt (the Upper Land) is Mars on its orbit on the ecliptic at a time of year when the ecliptic dipped below the upper edges of the Absu. The pillars which are passed by the King of the Upper Land are the sides of the gates to the otherworld seen at night in the south, the left and right edges of the shadow of Earth cast upon the Absu.

Image: Rotation of the orbit of Earth and Mars after 2700 BC due to precession of the second nodal point.

Certainly by ca 2700 BC, it is over. Mars no longer visits Earth. This was perhaps predictable, since the orbit of Mars would have been adjusted with each repeated approach to Earth, so that the two planets would not remain in sync. Just as likely is that the normal precession of the orbits of Mars and Earth caused them to diverge from each other so that the aphelion of Earth's orbit (the furthest location from the Sun) moved away from the perihelion of Mars' orbit (the closest location from the Sun). The precession of an orbit is the slow rotation of the second node of an elliptical orbit around the Sun.

Orbits are ellipses, and have two centerpoints, called nodes. One node of an orbit is always located at the Sun. The second node of an elliptical orbit is located away from the Sun, and slowly relocates in a circle around the Sun. That's orbital precession. Today the precession of the Earth's second node takes 40,000 years to revolve once around the Sun, so that the orbit today moves only a half minute of a degree per year. With both the Earth and Mars on considerably more elliptical and, at that time, dynamically unstable orbits 5000 years ago, precession would have been greater than today.

The Pyramids of Egypt

At this time, when Mars no longer comes close to Earth, humans start attempts to induce the return of the God. The graves of the pharaohs change from mastabas to pyramids in the likeness of Horus' mountain. The first step pyramid is built by Djoser (3rd dynasty, ca 2667 - 2648 BC) at Saqqara. The pyramid is surrounded by an astoundingly beautiful and complex set of out-buildings and courts. Half of the buildings are fake or present only façades, a good indication of the status of intent -- rather than action -- in the theology of Egypt at that time.

The pyramid of Djoser is totally different from the earlier mastabas. Djoser's pyramid is aligned north-south, facing the center of the travels of Mars/Horus about the north pole of Earth after 3000 BC, unlike the earlier mastabas which were aligned to the northwest -- the strike point of the plasma stream from Saturn before 3114 BC.

Image: Pyramid of Djoser, ca 2655 BC.

Two or three additional step pyramids are constructed before Seneferu (4th dynasty, ca 2613 - 2589 BC) builds the first true pyramids, one at Meidum and two at Dahshur. The three Seneferu pyramids together exceed the immediately following pyramids of Giza in size.

Seneferu's direct successors build the three pyramids at the plateau of Giza (between ca 2590 and 2500 BC). This was the largest construction projects ever undertaken in the world, and reflect the extraordinary efforts by the pharaohs to restore previous conditions. The Giza pyramids have fascinated visitors for over 4500 years. The location at the apex of the Nile delta, the surrounding level plateau raised above the countryside with the river sliding past below, and the rectilinear placement of the three pyramids, together are a major design feat. The location and design speak of uncommon power and majesty, reiterated by the sheer size of the structures.

The Giza pyramids are cenotaphs, that is, empty 'fake' graves, and it is absolutely amazing to consider the astounding amount of effort which went into graves which were meant to remain empty from the first moment of their design. We need to look for a significance beyond the simple political pressure to have separate graves for the pharaohs in Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt. [note 15]

The size of the three Giza pyramids and their relationship to each other have caused no end of speculation. Newton awaited measurements of the base of the main pyramid before publication of his theory of gravity on the assumption that it would be a significant fraction of the Earth's diameter. This was based on a belief in 'the wisdom of the ancients,' still current in the 17th century AD. A contemporary theory equates the three pyramids with the three stars in the belt of Orion. Aside from the fact that Orion has no relationship to anything in Egypt, they do not correspond in placement. A more reasonable recent suggestion has been that they represent (in order) the planets Earth, Venus, and Mars. This was then 'proven' with inscribed circles, sight lines, and various geometrical manipulations. [note 16]

I think that the pyramids most likely represent, in order from north to south, the graves of Ra (or Re), Osiris, and Horus. That is, the planet Saturn (Ra) as originally seen as the creator God -- the egg -- at the north pole, Saturn as Osiris the son of Ra seen as the blazing globe which had sprung from the egg, and Mars as Horus, the reincarnated Osiris. Isis was not represented with a grave, for the planet Venus still stood in the skies at that time. The first two pyramids were faced in brilliant white limestone. The third pyramid is smaller and has the lower half faced in unpolished red granite -- all three appropriate for Saturn as Ra, Saturn as Osiris, and the red planet Mars as Horus, even to the point of duplicating the roughly cratered southern hemisphere of Mars. [note 17a]

These pyramids are religious concepts about the death of the Gods expressed visually and brought within the provisional reponsibility of mankind. Egypt was providing the graves for the dead Gods.

The pyramids are staggered because each had to face north. The second pyramid is smaller than the first, but sits on a rise in the plateau, making it nearly the same height as the first, appropriate for Osiris as the son of Ra. The third pyramid is considerably smaller. This is the new youth, Horus, as the resurrected Osiris. The addition of a gold plated cap to the first pyramid, which archaeologists presumed existed, would likewise be befitting to the earlier fiery condition of Ra after Saturn went nova.

The whole of the elaborate grand passage rising within the first pyramid, rising at a slope of 26 degrees, and never duplicated in any other pyramid, represents the plasma stream connection, with the multiple roofs above the "King's Chamber" reproducing Saturn and the upper rings surrounding it. I cannot place the symbolism of the uncompleted "Queen's Chamber" although it might have been intended for Mars in its earlier location below Saturn. [note 17]

Thus all the construction at the Giza plateau comes together in the final product, based on an initial grand design, and not as three pharaohs competing for national resources and building progressively smaller pyramids as the original impetus faded over the course of 80 years. [note 18]

Colin Reader has suggested that the construction of the three Giza pyramids show a design which encompasses all three pyramids from the very start.

"Under the conventional chronological scheme 'Khafre's causeway' [leading to the second pyramid to be constructed] did not exist at the time of Khufu's [Cheops] quarrying [for the first pyramid]. If this had been the case, why was the extent of the quarrying limited by a feature (i.e. the causeway) which was only conceived in Khafre's reign? The conventional sequence of development requires us to accept that Khufu's workmen went to the trouble of opening up a second quarry, leaving an intact limestone ridge - which we now know as Khafre's causeway - between the two quarries. Why did they not simply extend the northern quarry southwards by removing the linear body of limestone which, at the time, served no apparent purpose?"

"The positioning of the two quarries clearly suggests that, like the excavation of the Sphinx and the construction of the Sphinx Temple, the alignment of 'Khafre's causeway' was established some time before Khufu's work at Giza. Under this revised sequence of development, interpretation of the spatial relationship between the causeway and Khufu's quarries becomes quite straightforward, with the existing causeway limiting the extent of the later quarrying work."

-- Colin Reader, "Giza Before the Fourth Dynasty" JACF (2002)

This may be the only hint at a complete plan, outside of the final results. The Giza pyramids are the only grouping of graves in Egypt with a unitary design. [note 19]

The significance of the giant Giza pyramids is easy to understand. The Gods of old now lie in state in Egypt at the apex of the Nile delta, the very entrance to Upper Egypt. Egypt had become the home of the Gods. This should not be seen as a symbolic representation. These structures were intended as the actual graves for the actual Gods. Nothing less could be so important.

The pharaohs after Khufu added 'Re' to their names. Re was, at that time, Jupiter blazing as the midnight sun. Jupiter had exited from the asteroid belt in ca 2595 BC and again stood in the night skies with a coma three times the size of the Moon and a gigantic plasma mountain. It had happened shortly before Khufu took the throne. All subsequent pharaohs use 'Re' as part of their name also. This may have been understood as a religious crisis for Egypt. But as likely it would look like Re was giving his blessing to the construction efforts.

South of Giza are the three earlier attempts at giant pyramids at Meidum and Dahshur (60 and 30 miles south of Giza). These were started in 2600 BC by Seneferu, and in aggregate exceed the Giza pyramids in size. It is interesting that here we also have three pyramids -- all constructed by a single pharaoh, the father of Khufu. These are the first true pyramids (as opposed to two earlier step pyramids) and all three look like experiments in building techniques culminating in a final design at Giza. The supporting ground surface at Meidum and the construction methods and materials caused major faults and the partial collapse of one. They certainly do not match the majesty of the group at Giza. [note 20]

The start of pyramids after 2600 BC in Egypt is duplicated elsewhere in the world -- in China (undated), in the Andes on the Peruvian coast (2630 BC), and in Mesopotamia as high ziggurats (2600 BC or later).

"Silbury hill rises out of the landscape south and in view of Avebury henge. The hill has no content except a small dedicatory offering at the center at the bottom."

Silbury Hill near Avebury in England is interesting. It is the largest man-made hill of antiquity -- composed entirely of chalk with a sod covering, and without monuments or burials. It is 120 feet high, 520 feet at the base and surrounded with a ditch 20 feet deep. It looks like a somewhat later effort at inducing the return of Mars. Silbury hill was started in 2490 BC, with completion in 2340 BC. (I have another, much earlier, starting date of 2660 BC.)

Expectations of the return of the Gods last for thousands of years. The much later 300 foot-high temple of Marduk at Babylon (built prior to 1800 BC, expanded in ca 700 BC, rebuilt in 680 BC) was called "Etemenanki" which transliterates as "The Temple [House] of the Receiving Platform between Heaven and Earth" (Jaynes). The living quarters of the God had been replaced with a landing pad.

A constant in all the construction (especially later in Mesoamerica) is the need to periodically enlarge existing monuments or build new ones, like Horus had rebuilt his mountain 10 times, and to be always ready for the next coming of the God, who never again appeared after ca 2700 BC.

Barrows after 3100 BC

After about 3000 BC the barrows and henges of Western Europe seem to take on a new meaning among the coastal tribes of Brittany, England, and Ireland. The barrows and henges start proliferating, with concentrations in Brittany and England completely out of proportion to any need for interments or meeting places. As an extreme example, there are single village locations in Brittany with hundreds of barrows.

As I have pointed out before, it may be an error to call these constructions 'grave barrows.' None of the early examples seem to have had anything to do with the dead. Only after 3000 BC are some converted to ossuaries. Even most of the late barrows are seldom used for interments.

The barrows, especially, are associated with a people who are thought to be newcomers to the region, as is demonstrated by new forms of pottery and tools which show up. The coastal lands had been scoured clear of life with the flood of 3114 BC, but repopulated within the next hundred years. The extant barrows, henges, and causeways must have been an amazing sight. These gigantic structures, some of which had already been in place for thousands of years, would certainly have represented an ancient order of power to the new tribes who had recently migrated into the region. I suspect that new constructions soon became the expression of status and power among individual clans.

Certainly the return of Mars after 3000 BC must have been reason to reactivate the monuments which had stood idle for over a hundred years and to build new ones. And perhaps the regular visits of Mars were also seen as conferring authority on the local clan chiefs, similar to what occured in Mesopotamia and Egypt during this period.

What we are seeing after 3000 BC is the ability of leaders and chiefs to muster greater resources to accomplish the additional new constructions. This is the result of an increase in population density and a more settled way of life based on farming rather than hunting.

Seen as part of the aggrandizement of individual clans and their leaders, the profusion of these later barrows is more easily explained, even if there were also underlying religious purposes. This would explain the later fake burrows which have a doorway but no interior. There was a shifting in alignments also, from a west-north-west direction (the earlier orientations to the strike point of the plasma) to a north-south direction (the center of the movements of Mars on his visits, and the center of the rotating sky).

Even into the first millennium AD, people were still transporting and setting up single standing rocks -- for forgotten commemorative purposes -- which adds to the confusion.

I would not suggest such mundane motives for these constructions were it not for the documented experience at Easter Island. Easter Islanders did not stop carving the 800 giant statues of their ancestors until they had cut down the last tree needed to move the statues. Nearly 400 were never completed or placed as a result. In Easter Island the 'form' remained fixed, like the form of the barrows and henges. [note 21]

There are many other examples of this type of repetitive construction. The Yucatan Maya stelae come to mind, as do the late temple pyramids which start to appear in Mesoamerican villages with frequency. Other examples are the mounds of the Ohio Hopewell culture and the gothic cathedral craze of 12th century Western Europe.

In some of these examples, the evidence for religious motivation is more obvious. Henry Adams attributes the construction of the gothic cathedrals to a desperate longing for hope in the face of a repressive religious atmosphere. Religious motives, like the guarantee of a leader's intercession with the Gods, were very likely the reason behind any of these obsessive constructions of the past which became region-wide cult practices. If religiously based, the design for the construction would have been mandated by sacred forms, which would have remained inviolate even if their original purposes were forgotten. The empty barrows and the passage graves, where the side rooms are no longer in pairs, both seem to be examples where the form has been retained after the original vision had been lost. [note 22]

Religious motivation most certainly underlies the building of barrows also. These late barrows were constructed during the 300 year period when Mars (Horus of the Egyptians) regularly overflew the Earth. Mars would have shook the northern hemisphere with earthquakes and whipped the coastal lands with hurricanes and high tides. It is possible that the Celts of this time period considered the barrows as a means of transport to the land -- paradise -- which had stood in the sky overhead only a few hundred years earlier. But it could also be suggested that perhaps the barrows were meant as shelters from the capricious God. [note 23]

Henges after 3000 BC

New henges were built after 3000 BC also, up to as late as 2000 BC. Many of the 100 henges of England are wood henges, all built after 3000 BC, involving hundreds of tree trunks, often replaced by standing stones at a later date. The circular form is retained and often expanded to many concentric circles.

I should highlight the giant Avebury henge, one of the largest in the world, which was started soon after 3000 BC, and is located directly north of Silbury hill. Avebury henge clearly represented Saturn, complete with a causeway extending southeast (with a number of bends) and ending in a much smaller henge, known today as the "Sanctuary." The Sanctuary is reminiscent of the Egyptian valley temples (the mortuary) located at the southwest end of a pyramid's causeway. [note 24]

If the purpose of the original henges was to imitate, commemorate, or ward off the plasma column seen above the Earth, then, in the absence of the plasma stream after 3100 BC, a new purpose has to be assumed for their continued construction. It would not be unrealistic to assume a 'religious' purpose. These new constructions, in effect, are temples, although not in the manner of the eastern Mediterranean, where temples are understood as a 'house' of the God.

Stonehenge might serve as an example of how the basic form is retained even if many aspects of the earlier design are changed or neglected. Stonehenge is the most studied henge of antiquity. It is also anomalous in being unlike the earlier forms of henges and in that no other henge had as much time and effort dedicated to it -- 1500 years of building and remodeling. [note 25]

In the final design, Stonehenge is aligned to the midsummer sunrise -- the summer solstice. I seriously doubt that Stonehenge was ever intended as a celestial observatory for determining aspects of the calendar, as others have claimed. Farmers know when the soil is ready for planting and don't use calendars. They also do not need to be notified of eclipses and, even less, to know the location of stars. Neither of these have anything to do with plantings or harvests. The only thing that makes sense is for the site to have been used in religious festivals. A midsummer festival would fall in the lull between planting and harvest.

The earliest structure built at Stonehenge, dating from before 3100 BC (some claim 2900 BC), is a circle of 56 post holes (for wooden posts) with a surrounding ditch and embankment. The embankment is built inside the ditch. Every previously built henge has the bank located outside the ditch. This already suggests a disconnection of the first builders from earlier forms and purposes, and suggests a late start, perhaps around 2900 BC. At this time there was also no causeway. The 56 posts were removed and the holes were backfilled with chalk in 2400 BC, when the stone construction started. Eighty 'blue stone' blocks were transported from 250 miles away, each weighing up to 4 tons. The construction was then delayed 200 years, and taken up again (involving additional remodeling) about 2100 BC, when most of the blue stone blocks were removed and replaced by much larger local sandstone blocks (weighing up to 50 tons). There was additional remodeling in about 1600 BC.

Stonehenge is the only henge using capped stones. This is the most impressive feature of the site. The capped stones were constructed from the later (larger) stones. These large stones were dressed, which has suggested a Mediterranean influence to some, but stones used for other projects in the same region were roughly dressed or carved as much as 2000 years earlier -- long before the first use of dressed stone construction in the eastern Mediterranean region. Stonehenge had a causeway added during one of the late reworking of the site when 19 of the blue stones were also returned or repositioned.

Stonehenge kept the form alive for over a thousand years, but the ideas were fractured. It is too small of a circle compared to earlier henges. The bank was built on the wrong side of the ditch. The ditch was never seriously excavated; it is shallow, and debris, left behind in the ditch, marks it as not being considered a serious part of the structure. The causeway was added late and, while the causeways of all earlier henges are on the southeast side of the circles, the causeway of Stonehenge leads off from the northeast opening in the circle -- aligned with the midsummer sunrise. Appropriately, it includes a bend in the path. The idea is there, but the assembly directions are a little muddled.

In the end, after 1500 years of changes, Stonehenge remains a monument to the Sun -- but, over its long period of use, the dedication changes from the creator Sun, Saturn, to the Midnight Sun, Jupiter, and eventually to the new Sun, our Sun, and the newly arrived Moon. More on those topics below.

The Midnight Sun

Image: Jupiter with a banded head-dress on a throne of a temple glyph. From the stele of Hammurabi.

After the visits of Horus had ceased, and as the pyramids at Giza were under construction (about 2590 or 2550 BC), Jupiter became the most spectacular object in the sky. The planet had at that time completed its movement through the asteroid belt in receding from the Sun, and again developed a coma, as comets do today when changing their distance from the Sun. It sported a gigantic coma, much larger than the diameter of the Moon, and a massive mountainous plasma plume from its south pole. Saturn, on the other hand, had probably distanced even further, and may already have become just a mere speck in the sky.

I suspect that Jupiter took about 830 years to finalize its orbit. The 'collision' between Saturn and Jupiter had slowed the orbital speed of both and as a result assigned them to orbits much further away from the Sun; in effect, the movement of Jupiter and Saturn were spirals.

The title of "Sun" was transferred from Saturn to Jupiter virtually everywhere in the world. The Egyptians simply relocated their original creator God, Ra ("sun"), from the north pole to the ecliptic. The title "Sun" for Jupiter was deserved, for after Jupiter left the asteroid belt, it would have lit up the night sky brighter than the Moon and, as Plutarch suggested in ca AD 200 ("Isis and Osiris"), was seen as a globe three times the diameter of the Moon.

The tail of Jupiter, a plasma in glow mode, might have extended a half billion miles away from the south pole. Because Jupiter has a very strong, but reversed, magnetic field (unlike comets), most of the plasma expulsion would leave the planet at the location of its north magnetic pole -- at the south geographic pole, the bottom. This tail is the mountain that Marduk rose on, "in the center of the sky," or, as the Egyptians describe, "in the primordial waters," (the Duat). The few depictions we have show the plasma as a steep mountain.

A lesser portion of the plasma discharge would impinge at the south magnetic pole, located at the north geographic pole (and thus at the top), and would broaden like plumes away from the planet. This is shown in Mesopotamian images as rays eminating from the shoulders in depictions of Marduk (Jupiter). The identification of Jupiter in Akkadian depictions is certain from the banded headdress he wears, which represents the banded atmosphere of the planet.

Jupiter would indeed have blazed like a sun once it left the asteroid belt. In historic times the comas of comets have managed to light the night sky to the point of blotting out the stars. Comets are only a few miles in diameter; Jupiter is 89,000 miles in diameter. The Maya of classical times (AD 400 to AD 900) still called Jupiter "the Midnight Sun," as did many other peoples in historical times.

The coma surrounding the planet itself traveled on the ecliptic, for there is where all planets travel. The mountain tail, however, would seem to rise seemingly out of the 'water' of the sea in the southern sky, the Duat. How much of the mountain tail would be seen would depend on the time of year, for during more than half the year the ecliptic rose above the upper limit of the Absu. It would also depend on how bright the tail was.

When the ecliptic dipped below the limit of the Absu, the coma of Jupiter would illuminate the Absu from behind. The central coma certainly would be bright enough to be seen shining right through the Absu, for we have later graphical images of the large red disk of Ra placed between twin mountains. The twin mountains could be the Absu at the time of the equinox, but more likely the two rounded peaks adjacent to the coma of Jupiter are the result of being back-lighted by Jupiter.

When Jupiter was seen in the sky, which happened for only a part of each year, it would first be seen in the northeast -- in diminished size -- and would move west during the course of the night. Over the following few months Jupiter would loom larger when first seen at night, and closer to the south. Eventually it would diminish in size again, being first seen closer to the southwest, and then disappear for perhaps 5 or 7 months.

Jupiter became the reigning god of Heaven. How long the coma condition lasted we are not at all certain. I suspect that Jupiter continued to blaze in the night skies for only a few hundred years. In the following chapter, I will suggest that the display ended in 2245 BC.

The descendants of the pharaoh Khufu, builder of the first giant pyramid at Giza, added "Re" to their names after ca 2550 BC, as did all the pharaohs of the following dynasties. "Re" is Jupiter, but "Re" is identified by modern archaeologists with the daytime Sun. ('Re' or 'Ra' translates as 'sun.') The first pharaohs of the following dynasty (after 2490 BC) construct "Sun Temples" on the west bank of the Nile, in addition to their own burial pyramids. The 'Sun Temples' consisted of a squat obelisk mounted on a platform, and looking like the outpouring of plasma from below Jupiter. The obelisk became the symbol for Re. Only six such temples were built by successive rulers of the 6th dynasty.

The 'Sun Temples' are an indication that during this period (2494 BC to ca 2445 BC) Jupiter stood in the sky as a large blazing globe. After some 50 years of these constructions, no additional Sun Temples were built. The coma surrounding Jupiter would have become smaller over time and the view of Jupiter would have diminished in size with increased distance. Eventually the blazing of Jupiter would, at any rate, have come to an end as the planet slowed its retreat from the Sun and its charge balance (electric potential) started to match the electrical field of the Sun at its remote distance. That did not happen until ca 2250 BC. By that time Jupiter had stood as the Midnight Sun, except for one interruption, for nearly 350 years.

In both Mesopotamia and Egypt, the planetary Gods (which still included Venus, Mars, and Mercury) were now understood to travel through the river of the ecliptic and across the ocean of the Absu (Duat) by ship. How else could one travel over a sea? Since the rings of the Absu consisted of only a thin layers of dust and gasses, a bright object behind the Absu, like a planet, would cause a glare to spread from it in the horizontal direction. If not a ship, it would at least have looked as if the planet was being transported on a raft. After the fall of the Absu, the outer ring remained, so that planets would still be seen on a raft where the ecliptic crossed over (fell below) the equatorial. Even in Roman times, all the Gods of Egypt were still shown in ships. It had not only become the proper way to depict gods, but it is very likely that the last ring of the Absu remained in view through the Middle Ages of our era.

In Egypt the Gods were depicted in ships for 3000 years. There are pottery depictions of celestial ships from before 3114 BC, but these portray the ship seen in navigation around the globe of Saturn as its bright crescent. During the time of the three Kingdoms of Egypt, statues of the Gods were ferried up and down the Nile to visit Gods at other temples and carried in processions in boats. The deceased also had to cross and navigate the sea of the southern sky, a concept already established before the first Egyptian dynasty. The later "Book of the Dead," which promises that the dead pharaoh will ride in the "barque of the Sun," is referring to the ship of Jupiter, Re, the Midnight Sun.

"Virtually every mythical form of the sun god's dwelling -- be it mother-womb or world wheel, city, temple or kingdom, egg, throne, or circular serpent -- was declared to be a 'ship' sailing on the cosmic waters."

"It is not surprising, then, to find Scandinavian rock carvings showing the wheel of the sun resting in the cosmic boat, or to discover that -- from Assyria to Britain and from India to Polynesia -- images of cosmic ships either contained wheels or were set on wheels and conveyed around dry land in the rites. As symbols of the sun god's enclosure, ship and wheel merge as one."

-- David Talbott, "The Ship of Heaven" (1988) Aeon

Talbott here relates the disk (wheel) and ship to the crescent seen rotating along the edge of Saturn during the "Age of the Gods." But the ship with a disk or globe is also an image seen in the sky after the close of the "Age of the Gods." To the ancients the Absu or Duat was a "sea," and seeing the planet Gods traveling through this sea on flat skids or in boats was real. This explains the long persistence of the 'ship' imagery.

The 'disk' or 'wheel' is always depicted as very large. Three thousand years of Egyptian illustrations never relinquishes in depicting the image of the 'sun-disk' of Re as disproportionately over-sized. We are not being shown an object with a diameter of the Moon or Sun, but something vastly and impressively larger. The same can be said for the depictions of the 'sun' in his boat in other lands in antiquity. This simply is not the Sun, but an immensely large globe. If seen as three times as large as the Moon before reaching its final orbit, the coma of Jupiter would have had a diameter of four million miles. No other planet ever showed so spectacularly. The inner planets, Venus, Mars, and Mercury, might have been brighter, but never as large, except when they infrequently cruised close to Earth. The inner planets are peanuts compared to the pumpkin size of Jupiter -- both in actual diameter and as seen with a coma from a far distance. [note 26]

It is tempting to suggest that the mountainous shape of the pyramids built after 2686 BC reflects the shape of the plasma tail seen eminating from Jupiter, and that the phrase "rising on your mountain" reflects the rising and setting of Jupiter in the night sky. But the Egyptians are too certain in their identity of Horus (Mars) to have confused this, or to have renamed Horus as "Re" at a later date. Additionally, the Egyptians did not add the name "Re" to the names of pharaohs until after the Giza pyramids construction was under way -- after the reign of Khufu -- as did all the following pharaohs.

The disk of Jupiter was red, as clearly seen in Egyptian depictions. All the renditions of the Egyptian God Re consist of a large red disk. Its redness is also asserted by the 'flood legends' from India, Canaan, and Egypt. The "Chilam Balam" books of the Maya also claim Jupiter was red...

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

Other passages of the "Chilam Balam" claim that the whole world became red during the rulership of Bolon-ti-ku. [note 27]

After an annual disappearance of some months, Jupiter would first be seen again in the east. Many people watched for the appearance of the red star of the east.

The Saturnian researchers have had problems with the identity of a red Morning Star, and have all but suggested that Mars at one time might have had been on an orbit between the Earth and the Sun, similar to Venus. North American Indians paid tribute to a morning star which was red, for which neither Venus or Mars would qualify. (Venus is not red and Mars is not an inner planet.) Mayan sources also identify a brilliant red morning star.

The red morning star can be identified. The progress of Jupiter across the heavens is so slow that Earth catches up with a sighting of Jupiter in the sky. When first seen it is a morning star, appearing just before sunrise. Each following night brings Jupiter higher up into the sky, since the Earth traverses a zodiac house (30 degrees) in a month whereas Jupiter would require a year to do the same. Jupiter rides higher in the sky each night for five months, eventually disappearing in the west. Jupiter is then absent from the skies for a stretch of about seven months every year (on a 13 month cycle). Then it first appears again in the east, just before sunrise.

Jupiter had a calming influence. Over 3000 years he never lost his status as chief God. He also never showed unexpected behaviour, unlike the inner planets -- the other Gods. These secondary Gods visited Jupiter frequently, that is, they were seen in the same sector of the sky, but Jupiter only slowly moved from one zodiac house to the next over the course of the year. He remained on his mountain.

Written Histories

It is from Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Indian, and early Greek and Roman sources that we can extract the most details about the celestial drama and the corresponding human activities. Egyptian sources are primarily from tombs, since texts on papyrus have not lasted (although we have some papyrus texts dating back to 2400 BC). Egyptian sources have a continuity over more than 3000 years, a continuity unequaled anywhere else. This was so because Egypt was the least affected by the world-wide floods accompanying the three major catastrophes, and its land retained productivity in the face of permanent climatic changes elsewhere.

Mesopotamian texts are inscribed on clay tables, more stable than papyrus (or bamboo slivers, as in China) and even more permanent when inadvertently fired to baked clay due to the burning of a palace or town. The clay tablets date back to 2700 BC and earlier.

The remaining sources are textual recollections made after 700 to 500 BC from earlier verbal retellings. Indian sources are plentiful but are poetic representations of past events, recorded for their exemplary religious value and not transcribed to texts until very late. For China almost identical conditions are true. Greek and Roman sources also date exclusively from the period well after 600 BC.

Inca sources in South America are silent. There is some evidence suggesting that literature may have been suppressed before the arrival of the Spanish.

Mesoamerican sources recount the birth of the Gods and their abandonment of Earth but the records are clouded by a displacement of over 2000 years, awaiting the invention of a script by the Olmecs and its full development by the Maya. Yet the Popol Vu, written ca AD 1500 in Central America, and thus 5500 years after 'creation', recounts..

"Like a man was the sun when it showed itself. It showed itself when it was born and remained fixed in the sky like a mirror. Certainly it was not the same sun which we see, it is said in their old tales."

For the rest of the world, however, many of the specifics of the abandonment by the Gods are forgotten and, five thousand years after the Gods leave, we are presented with a confused set of oral histories offered as creation myths and tales of the stupendous deeds of forebears from hundreds of separate and isolated societies throughout the world. The actors in these dramas are varied, and the actions seldom make sense and offer no lessons, but they all involve the same themes, and the consensus in the remaining details, even after the passage of thousands of years, is astounding.

The oldest written records we have are from Egypt and Mesopotamia where the first kingdoms show up after 3100 BC. The kingdoms are manifested in the sudden appearances of distinctly enriched graves for selected individuals, and in the naming of kings identified in later historical records. This is a change from the period before 3100 BC when there seems to have been no elite among people (as determined by grave goods) and the political structure was limited to individual cities in Sumer, or nomes (districts) in Egypt.

The Temple Culture

The "Age of Kings" started with a legacy from the immediately preceding "Age of the Gods" and we can assume that these times started with the initial expectations of the resumption of a good life, order and purpose, and a working economy. However, none of these were initially forthcoming because of the interruption of the flood followed by the absence of guidance by the Gods. Only the temple culture, which had been in charge of the economy in the previous age, provided unifying direction. The priests were called upon to explain what the Gods had done, why they had left, and what could be done in their absence.

The solution to the void left by the departure of the Gods was the installation of a king as the steward of God or as the God himself. This happens simultaneously in Egypt and Mesopotamia. It cannot be stressed enough what a radical change was made in 3100 BC when civilizations with no apparent leadership became kingdoms and theocracies. The need for authentication and authority must have been intense.

The solution in both locations was also to foster a civilization which attempted to recapture the past. The building of cities, city walls, temples, and graves, the construction of canals, production of grain, and the waging of wars, writing, the assignment of kings as the stewards of God, and a hundred other implementations were all believed to have been instituted by the Gods of the previous age. Simplistic as this might seem, all indications are that this was sincerely believed by the people and by the priesthood and the kings. Both Sumer and Egypt used languages with a grammatical structure which looked only to the past and which in effect held that the future was something one backed into. And with such a reversed sense of time and, one suspects, the inability to imagine alternatives, the mandates of the Gods and their earthly representatives were inarguable, and answered questions for the masses, at the same time providing justification for the governing elite. [note 28]

This mindset induced a strong conservativism. It also removed the possibility of mankind claiming for its own the advances made in the past. Despite the extensions in trade and commerce and the growth of cities, civilization remains but an imitation of the original 'Earth,' and virtually nothing new is introduced for the next 2000 years. Everything was, by design, a reflection of 'how things were at the beginning,' and was supported by the languages used throughout Mesopotamia and Egypt, which did not have a future tense. A slave-state mentality had been introduced which would control societies for the next three millennia. [note 29]

Something is Missing

Is this the legacy of the "Age of the Gods," during which humans had learned to manage large farming and trading concerns, and had invented the wheel, bronze metallurgy, irrigation, and writing? You would expect a continuation of new ideas and advances. And, in fact, there are some. For one thing, the politics of the city states evolve. Larger and much more complex irrigation projects are instituted. In Sumer, trade is expanded to include the import of metals from the region beyond the Zagros mountains, wood, stone, and obsidian from Anatolia, and other products from India. Egypt expands its territory to control copper mines in the Sinai, transport basalt blocks from as far south as Aswan, and import honey from Crete and lumber from Lebanon. There are changes and improvements in ceramics and in bronze metallurgy.

However, there are no changes which do not proceed directly from a previously known process. There is a lack of imagination compounded by the turn to conservatism in the solidification of social structures, reinforced by the rapid rise of a privileged elite and the ever-expanding religious rites and superstitions.

It is this last, the overwhelming obsession with the multiple Gods, spells, ceremonies, and religious practices, which remains foreign to us today. And, as Julian Jaynes notes in his book "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind" (1976), it is completely at odds with the expectation one would have for a people descended from Paleolithic hunters with their ever-expanding production of art and tools, or the ingenious farmer and villagers of the Neolithic who simultaneously developed fishing, herding, and farming. Yet, the preoccupation with the demands of the Gods remains the central issue of the later civilizations for over 3000 years.

Is Jaynes on track? Something certainly was missing in Mesopotamia.

"From its beginnings in Sumer before the middle of the 3rd millennium BC, Mesopotamian science was characterized by endless, meticulous enumeration and ordering into columns and series, with the ultimate ideal of including all things in the world but without the wish or ability to synthesize and reduce the material to a system. Not a single general scientific law has been found, and only rarely has the use of analogy been found."

-- Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th edition

We do have a few examples of analogies. One is the Mesopotamian use of tokens (since 8500 BC) to represent products and the use of bottle seals as signatures. Both of these are metaphorical displacements. But what is astounding is that it took 5000 years to take the next step -- that is, to map these three-dimensional objects to a flat plane and produce a script. The first step was to pictorially inscribe the content on the outside of sealed jars containing the tokens. These were used as bills of lading by trade caravans or ships. The conversion of these pictorial inscriptions to a usable script took much less time, and its development was predictable as an extension of the first efforts. The tokens were eventually discontinued. [note 30]

Describing a similar lack of the ability to conceptualize, I.E. Edwards' book "The Pyramids of Egypt" reads like a comedy of errors when it comes to the details of the construction of the pyramids of the Old Kingdom (Dynasty 4 through 6, 2700 - 2200 BC). One structure after another is obviously interrupted by changes in the plans. What the book describes, over and over again, and over a span of hundreds of years, are obvious changes in construction after considerable work has been completed. Subterranean tombs and access tunnels are frequently re-excavated or moved to a different location. This happens with the exterior buildings as well (the valley building and mortuary temple). Walls and building extensions are added and subtracted almost arbitrarily.

I am not talking about the inferior completion of a pyramid, or failure to complete the pyramid of a predecessor, or the theft of materials from an existing pyramid in order to complete a later structure. And it is not that the Egyptian could not measure accurately. The pharaohs oversaw the work on their graves closely, often relocating to the site of the construction. The crews could locate a tomb room exactly under the apex of a pyramid when required to do so. However, rarely are the first efforts at digging the subterranean structure correct. Everywhere we see changes in direction, blind corridors, abandoned rooms. Although inconceivable to us, it seems that the overseers lacked the imagination to incorporate the details of a structure into a single unit, and frequently could not coordinate the excavation crew with the pyramid crew.

This failure of a complete overview, the inability to simultaneously see the details and the complete picture, extends to art as well. It is apparent in the images of Sumer and also in the standardized Egyptian depiction of the human body on flat surfaces showing a frontal trunk but with the head and legs in profile. This was noted by Jaynes, who adds that this is also especially to be noted among early Greek two-dimensional figures, which are often shown as curiously disarticulated groupings of arms, legs, trunks, and heads. For some reason, however, this does not extend to three dimensional art. Even the earliest Egyptian sculptures in the round were totally realistic, even if somewhat idealized.

Developing Consciousness

The failure in imagination is a lack of subjective consciousness and this shows in the languages of Mesopotamia and Egypt. Julian Jaynes notes that the Sumarian, Akkadian, and Egyptian languages were "concrete from first to last." The languages had no room for analogies, similes, or metaphors. The speakers could not imagine alternatives, perhaps could not imagine themselves. To imagine, one has to take a leap from the concrete. It requires the mental construction of imagined action beyond the exigency of the moment and the needs of the everyday. [note 31]

The method of overcoming this failure in imagination, Jaynes proposes, is through the use of metaphors. Metaphors create other metaphors and thus present ever-expanding possibilities of imagined places, imagined actions in these places, interpretations of the effects of the imagined actions, and even the design of tools imagined as solutions to problems. We, in our age, do this sort of mapping to a mental space with past, present, and future experiences, testing the efficacy of possible actions by stepping through them in our mind. We also lay out time and mathematical concepts as viewable 'spaces' in our mind. Jaynes' concept (in brief) of consciousness -- more precisely, subjective consciousness -- is exactly this placement of an imagined 'I' into imagined spaces in the mind. It is not actually 'you,' but a substitute, an analog. You can look through the 'eyes' of this substitute 'I' or even observe yourself from afar in your mind. If something in real space and time requires your attention, the 'I' will shift to be located directly behind your real eyes. Note that, as so defined, 'memories' (as we imagine recollections) and 'self-awareness' are not 'subjective consciousness.' These are biologically determined and are common to all animals. Jaynes suggests that historically, subjective consciousness was a late and learned acquisition for humans. Subjective consciousness is learned, and is culturally transmitted. Some people never learn it, yet they appear fully functional.

The stupendous advantage of subjective consciousness is the ability of the mind (actually the speech areas in the left rear brain) to be able to analyze the outcomes of multiple alternative actions, to guess what others might think and do, and to understand how others see us. Our subjective consciousness is responsible for our analytical abilities. We use this with such facility that it is almost impossible to recognize the part of us which does things without 'thinking' about them, which includes all rote activities. [note 32]

Just as language is learned by children from their parents, so is subjective consciousness. You can watch parents proposing 'what if' situations to small children. Learning subjective consciousness requires language as a base, the ability to use metaphors as a means, and the examples of others. Additionally, Jaynes places the development of subjective consciousness by individuals at about age 7 or 8. Subjective consciousness involves the ability to recognize yourself as seen by others - an analog 'I' -- which is internalized and placed into the space of the imagination, and which enables you to vault through time. [note 33]

And, if not from parents, how is such subjective consciousness learned? It is also learned from meeting strangers (not friends and familiar faces), an experience which forces upon you the idea that others see you, and thus suggests a narratized space in the mind where you can see yourself being looked at by others. This analog 'I' becomes the first spark to light up the enormity of possible analogical mind-spaces which comprise subjective consciousness.

Subjective consciousness can be learned quickly. The same Inca army which, on November 16, 1532, walked into the trap set by 110 Spanish soldiers and lost 8000 men because there was no Divine Guidance on how to respond to the novelty of metal-clad men on horses, became engaged in guerilla warfare and laid ambushes for the Spanish within months after the death of the Emperor. [note 34]

Jaynes claims that, in the Middle East, subjective consciousness didn't develop until after 1500 BC. In the two thousand years after the "Age of the Gods," which had still looked with certainty towards the beginnings, subjective consciousness simply was not needed. As long as nothing changed, life was predictable and safe. It took a number of world-wide catastrophes, which Jaynes does not address and is not aware of, to force a change.

According to Jaynes, the Middle East started to wake up to consciousness with the arrival of 'strangers.' For Mesopotamia the strangers are the Indo-European invaders from the steppen of Russia and from India and Persia -- the Hittites (1600 to 1200 BC), who settled in Anatolia, but especially the later Medes and Persian invaders of Assyria in 500 BC, followed by Alexander's conquest of Persia somewhat later. Many of the Greeks, in fact, had already passed the consciousness horizon with their wide trade contacts with other peoples, and their near-wholesale rejection of the authority of kings. In contrast, Sparta, a Greek state which remained a kingdom through the Classical era, never produced anything of note except mindless warriers. [note 35]

Their constitution has stood them well for 400 years.

-- concerning Sparta, paraphrased from Herodotus, "The Histories" (ca 400 BC)

We also have to wonder at the myths and legends which have come down to us, since the lack of subjective consciousness precludes detailed memories. We can all verify this for ourselves, for we remember little or nothing from the first few years of life -- when we lack language -- and little from before the age of seven or eight -- when we lack the imagination to embroider remembered experiences. This suggests that mankind would not be able to recall its early history, and further suggests that the myths and legends are fabrications of a later age. But, just as we remember some events from childhood if they are retold to us (or to ourselves), so humans would have been able to recall studendous past events if these were retold or replayed. Retold as myths from generation to generation and acted out in rituals and ceremonies, these past events became concrete tribal memories. The accuracy of the retelling would have been carefully protected. Note how small children will correct you if you diverge from the telling of a story that they already know. Ancient festivals which reenacted the events preserved the memories and, at the same time, fleshed out the stories to fill the memories with details. [note 36]

The stories ('myths' to us) and festivals spoke of the deeds of the Gods, copied their actions, and illustrated their appearance. Mexicans today still play a football game with a flaming ball called "Purepucha," recreating the creation events described in Michoacan myths. Through this dramatization everything displayed in the heavens becomes part of the earthly domain and localizes Gods to specific temples and cities. When mythologists suggest that the Gods of mythology are only human heroes elevated to godly status, they have it backwards. We are seeing the celestial Gods made human. Which is also exactly how most of mythology reads today. [note 37]

Bicameral Kingdoms

The adoption of subjective consciousness seen in the Middle East beginning after 1500 BC is also accomplished in India and China at about the same time, and due to similar causes. Did anything like it happen in the Americas before AD 1500? The problem with finding an answer to that question is that we only know the story from the invaders.

On the one hand, for Mesoamerica, we have a record of the dialog between Aztec philosophers of the Valley of Mexico and Spanish theologians, recorded by the 16th century historian Sahagún, which certainly attests to a developed subjective consciousness. These theological discussions are only now being published. [note 38]

On the other hand, Jaynes noted the striking similarities between the Middle East of 2000 or 1500 BC and the Incas of South America of AD 1500. The parallels between the Inca emperors of AD 1500 and the pharaohs of third millennium BC Egypt are astounding, despite a separation of 4000 years. For the Inca emperor, as for the pharaoh, the purpose of life was reunion with the Gods. When the Spanish threaten one of the Inca cities, the Incas flee, leaving behind their gold, belongings, and food, taking only the mummies of their past god-kings to hide them in the mountains. We see the same in Egypt where the priests frequently remove mummies and hide them elsewhere when threatened by grave robbers at times of unrest.

Julian Jaynes proposes a generalized model of theocratic city states and empires, and calls these civilizations 'bicameral kingdoms.' 'Bicameral' refers to the separation of volition and consciousness in the speech centers of the brain. The start of activities is initiated almost exclusively by the right rear brain. This area of the brain is also responsible for generating speech which was not consciously thought out beforehand. Because of this, the right rear brain seems to be the location of the will. [note 39]

Consciousness, on the other hand, is located almost entirely in the left rear brain, as are also the ability to understanding the speech of others and the ability to produce grammatically correct responses. The left brain is not aware of the right. This is, in fact, extensible to all right cerebral activities, most notable to mental failures, that is, dysfunctions. Oliver Sacks details this in case studies, in "The Man who Mistook his Wife for his Hat" (1970). We live in our consciousness, unaware of the input from the right hemisphere.

Bicameral kingdoms have a number of features in common, including the following.

First, there was either a city God, with the city and surrounding area operated as a theocracy, or a king, who was held to be the God or the Son of the God and was revered as such, even after his death. Theocracies included Sumer and, later, Akkad (in fact, all Mesopotamia remained a theocracy up to Persian times), India, China, and all of Mesoamerica. Societies under the direct rule of God or the Son of God included Egypt, Japan, and the Inca empire.

Second, the dead in these societies were considered alive in some way, and in need of material goods, especially foods, to accompany them in their graves. This practice actually extends far back into more remote antiquity, but becomes obsessive with the bicameral kingdoms. The new kingdoms initially buried their kings complete with their retinue. This practice seldom lasted more than a few generations in Egypt and Sumer, but continued for 700 years under the Shang dynasty of China (and was only prohibited by the Chou after ca 1000 BC). The 200 year old Inca kingdom still practiced it in AD 1532 when the Spanish arrived. In bicameral kingdoms throughout the world, people (and certainly the elite) were believed to become Gods on their death. The enormous ceremonial center of Teotihuacan in Mexico (200 BC - AD 700), at one time supporting 200,000 inhabitants, was known as "the Place Where Men Become Gods." [note 40]

Third, the kingdoms of the 'God on Earth' were jealous of any competing Gods, including those which had come before, and would destroy all signs of the preceding Gods, just as they would readily attack their contemporaries and haul off the God statues from the temples of nearby cities. The destruction of all previous records by edict of the Emperor of China in 213 BC is a late example. The Aztecs destroyed all the manuscripts of their predecessors in the Valley of Mexico shortly after AD 1400. And, however subjectively conscious we may proudly think ourselves to be, it should be noted that the priests who followed the Spanish invaders into the Yucatan in the following century burned all the books of the Maya.

Fourth, the citizens were incapable of deceit, or more fundamentaly, incapable of imagining the deceit of others. Not that these people could not lie or steal, but they were incapable of mentally 'narratizing' a complex series of deceptive actions either by others or by themselves. This is vividly illustrated with the Inca empire, which had subdued half the South American continent, only to fall due to the deceit of a handful of Spanish soldiers.

As a corollary it should also be noted that these people had no morals -- there was no such thing as good or bad. Actions were ordered and the humans responded like robots. The heroes of the "Iliad" (traditionally placed at 1200 BC) are motivated (if that is the right word) by glory and shame, without regard for their own life, as were the Spartans who held off the Persian army at Thermopylae in 480 BC. In the vacuum left by the departure of the Gods, religion had substituted prescribed duties for individual judgement and assumed the absolutist attitudes understood as the perogative of the earlier Gods. What is absolutely astounding is that these attitudes lasted over 4500 years -- as in the case of the Incas, for example.

What we have in these civilizations are people desperately holding on to the past. They considered themselves "slaves of the Gods," only now it was the local God in residence at each temple who needed to be housed, fed, and adorned. Everyone was employed in the service of the Gods, and surplus produce and products from the countryside surrounding a temple were collected (as a tax) for the upkeep of the temple Gods, for redistribution to temple craftsmen, and for long distance trade for building materials and more exotic needs. All humans were as deeply invested in their assigned tasks as the drones of a bee hive. [note 41]

Population explosions are certainly the mark of each of these empires, including those which did not appear until long after the departure of the Gods and Jaynes proposes that the elements of the bicameral kingdoms arise out of the need to control these large populations. But I question this. There is ample evidence that these kingdoms were voluntary societies where massive public works, whether draining swamps, digging irrigation canals, or monumental construction, were accomplished without coercion. This last becomes obvious with a closer look at the histories of Maya ceremonial centers. These were built with volunteer labor which depended only on the citizens' confidence in the leader's connection with the spirit world. [note 42]

Jaynes suggests that these early civilizations were pre-conscious -- that is, not subjectively conscious. He suggests societies in which control was effected through auditory commands from the 'Gods' -- actually the remembered admonitions of the governing class. This kept everyone to their task, and kept all things in order. Jaynes' use of "hearing the commands of the Gods" is a shorthand for the admonishing voice (which we still hear today) generated by the right hemisphere of the brain. In essence, these people, and perhaps especially the ruling class, were hallucinating. This description has turned some people away from a careful consideration of Jaynes' theories even though it is an accepted fact that the speech center of the right hemisphere acts as a separate but unconscious entity. [note 43]

Pre-subjective people are entirely functional humans. They can learn anything, including any skill, reading, and mathematics, they have the same sense of humor as the rest of us, they experience and express emotions, and that can converse with others in intricate details. It is difficult to distinguish bicameral humans from subjectively conscious humans. You will find yourself persuaded by each of the long soliloquies of the war chiefs of the "Iliad" when they meet in council -- yet no one among them takes action without receiving a command from a God. Bicameral humans seem normal. However, they rely heavily on the learned admonitions of parents and authority figures (blurting things out without any forethought, invariably in the context of 'ought' and 'should') and have difficulty with novel situations. New situations require the ability to imagine a number of alternative actions which might be taken and then to make a selection based on the imagined results. A pre-conscious human especially does not have the ability to imagine the thinking of others, especially reflectively, that is, how other might imagine them as thinking.

The Flood of Noah

There is a disturbance in 2349 BC, 750 years after the flood of 3114 BC. There are changes in climate, noted by many researchers, perhaps to a limited extent in the Middle East, but apparently also in China. This is followed about 150 years later by an extended period of drought and dust storms, starting in 2193 BC. From the interval of 156 years between these two climatic events, we would conclude that Earth was four times involved in a close encounter with Venus, on a cycle of 52 year intervals. The interval of 52 years between disturbances becomes a clear hallmark of disturbances by Venus and both 52 year and 104 year intervals between certain events are remembered by other nations at a later date. The 52 year cycle is assured, even for remote antiquity and even though the Earth's orbit would be different. See Chapter 14, "The Celestial Mechanics," for how this can be derived for various periods in the past. [note 43a]

I would suggest, as others have also, that the planet Venus was the agent of the disturbances in 2349 and 2193 BC. In fact, we can be certain that Venus appeared close to Earth a total of four times during this period. The first appearance of 2349 BC was absolutely spectacular and, at the same time, so psychologically disturbing to people the world over that this single event is frequently recorded as the very start of history -- often as a retelling of the flood of 3114 BC (as in the 'Flood of Noah'), coupled with the first appearance of the Moon. [note 44]

Claude Schaeffer, in "Stratigraphie comparée et chronologie de l'Asie occidentale" (1948), wrote..

"The great perturbations which left their traces in the stratigraphy of the principal sites of the Bronze Age of Western Asia are six in number. The oldest among them shook, between 2400 and 2300, all of the land extending from the Caucasus in the north down to the valley of the Nile, where it became one of the causes, if not the principal cause, of the fall of the Egyptian Old Kingdom after the death of Pepi II."

Note that Schaeffer's estimate brackets 2349 BC, the first strike by Venus. The "traces" extended over a very wide area in the Middle East, from Persia to Greece, and included "violent earthquakes and tidal waves, and other signs of a natural disaster." (paraphrased by Velikovsky.) But it becomes obvious that what we are seeing is a swath of destruction only extending over part of northern Iran, Anatolia, part of the Levant, and Greece, with no evidence in Mesopotamia or Egypt (despite what Schaeffer wrote about "the Nile valley").

It would seem that the event of 2349 BC caused a path of destruction through south central Asia (the source of Indian civilization), through the eastern Mediterranean, and could be continued through southern Europe and parts of north Africa, and then to cross the Atlantic to make contact with America, cross the Pacific, and land in Asia. The destruction caused by Venus seems to describes a path which would have followed a circle around the Earth at the latitude between about 30 or 40 degrees.

Along the initial part of the path of destruction the crust of the Earth would have been subjected to severe compressive forces due to the electrical repulsion between Earth and Venus. Adjacent areas would have experienced an uplift. Along the remaining part of the path the destruction would have been different. The proximity of Venus would have induced a continuous series of lightning strikes following a path which wound around the Earth as it rotated.

From the damage done in the eastern Mediterranean north of about 33 degrees latitude we know that the blow from Venus was delivered north of the equator, and the Earth's rotational axis would have gone into a gyroscopic reaction. Thus the path of destruction would have traveled at an angle inclined to the equator, so that western North Africa could have fallen on the path, followed some time later by Central America or South America. By this time the gyroscopic reaction would have started to carry the equator back 'down' to where it belonged, so that the remaining path of destruction angled up again. I'll develop more details in the next Chapter.

The second appearance of Venus (in 2297 BC) and the third (in 2245 BC) seem to have left no record that we are aware of. Yet it is certain that these happened. People took no note in myths and histories because the results were not spectacular or religiously significant. The last event (2193 BC) will be discussed separately below. Again, as with the previous two, this close passage of Venus was not noted in any records. But in this case we have substantial secondary data available.

The first event, of 2349 BC, marks the traditional Noachian Flood. It involved a close approach by Venus which increased the orbit of the Earth, bringing Earth close to the established location of the Moon. It also resulted in a sudden dispersal of the equatorial rings of the Earth, accompanied by storms, rains, and hurricanes, which became known in the Bible as the 'Flood of Noah,' or, as the Sumerians and Akkadians call it, the "flood after the flood." [note 45]

The story of Noah and the flood is well known from the Bible. But, as I pointed out in a previous chapter, flood stories are ubiquitous. People in all regions of the world have flood stories. Most of these stories show no signs of having been borrowed from other people, yet they all involve the same elements -- a world-wide inundation, survival of a few people with their animals in an ark, a boat, or a canoe, and anchorage at a mountain while waiting for the waters to subside.

When the Sumerian "Epic of Gilgamesh" became available in translation in Europe in the 19th century, it astounded everyone -- for it contained a clear description of the events of the Flood of Noah, including the ark, the animals, and sending out birds to test for dry land. However, both the Flood of Gilgamesh and the Flood of Noah are the conflation of the Black Sea flood of 5600 BC and the worldwide flood in 3114 BC.

In 5600 BC, Noah didn't build an ark. As a Black Sea farmer and fisherman, he had one. He didn't collect all the animals in the world, only his family and farm animals, and as much seed and fodder as possible. He didn't moor at a mountain in northern Iran, but landed at the river Halys or rounded the Anatolian plateau to land in the depression between the Pontic Mountains (bordering the Black Sea in the south) and the Caucasus Mountains (to the east of the Black Sea). From there, his 'survival story' spread south into Iran and Anatolia, eventually to reach the plains of Mesopotamia and the Levant. At that point, after another flood and the passage of nearly two thousand years, the ark -- seen by all -- is the barque of the Sun, as represented by a crescent on Jupiter, and the mountaintop of the anchorage is the lower plasma tail of Jupiter.

But to the Hebrew priests who compiled the books of the Bible after 536 BC, the flood was an actual event experienced in 2349 BC. It was, for them, the only flood ever and the centerpoint of their people's history. However, the date, although widely accepted among Christians since Bible chronologies were established in the 17th century (Ussher and Newton), is backed up by very little physical evidence. (I will return to this in the next Chapter.) It may have been a local event. We are not even certain where in the Middle East Noah was to be found in 2400 BC. It might have been Anatolia, Mesopotamia, or the Levant, or even Arabia (with some scholars suggesting India).

The chronology of Mesopotamia (Akkadia) is only firmly established directly after the putative "Flood of Noah," but there is no mention of a flood. The only strong coincidence is from China, where in 200 BC, long before Christian influences, the catastrophic flooding of China was dated to 2350 BC. Also, the people of Mesoamerica date one of the "creations of the world" to this time. I will return to this in a later chapter. [note 46]

The Jewish world history (the Bible) was compiled some time after 536 BC, when Cyrus allowed the Jews to leave their Babylonian captivity and return to their homeland with orders to rebuild the temple of their God. Cyrus financed the rebuilding and returned to them the "vessels of the temple." We could presume that their books and records were returned also. The earliest of these books, Genesis, which includes the story of the flood of Noah, was held by tradition to have been written by Moses after 1490 BC.

The priests subsequently edited and collated their books into a history of the world -- a creation epic. The editors must have been familiar with the thousand year-old Babylonian "Enuma Elish" creation epic, which at that time constituted the only other recorded history of the world from creation onward. (The "Enuma Elish" retells the flood stories found in earlier Sumerian epics.) But the "Enuma Elish" dealt with multiple Gods, and the Hebrews were monotheistic and perhaps much more secular than their Babylonian hosts had been. I would also assume they knew the "King List" of Sumer, and the epic literature of Akkad. Their sacred book would certainly conform to these oldest known histories of the world, but would be populated with their own patriachs and informed by their own records.

It is generally assumed that the Bible is derived from Mesopotamian records and legends. I do not think this is likely. I think it is a parallel record, perhaps partially oral, which was brought into conformity to known records at this late date. The flood of Noah is, in fact, only one of the world's more than 500 parallel flood stories. We would have to assume that the Bible editors knew that the list of the "Kings before the Flood" was recorded in days, not years. And it would have been known by the editors that in a previous era the year was shorter (having all but witnessed the change in the year's length which happened in 747 BC), and that it was even shorter in earlier times -- or, in their way of understanding, that people lived longer lives. [note 47]

The history of the world as presented in the Bible, at any rate, is unique. It presents a record of creation which parallels the Mesopotamian creation epics (and those of many other people) but conceives of a God outside of the visible domain of this world. This last is the result of a change in humanity's point of view on the Gods seen throughout the world after 600 BC, which will be discussed in a later chapter.

It thus dispenses with the multiplicity of Gods of the other nearby cultures and remains consistently monotheistic. In itself, this is not unique. The Chinese were monotheistic, at least to the point of acknowleging a single supreme God, as were the Persians. But Genesis, for example, takes the signs in the sky, which the other cultures had equated to distinct Gods, and treats them as humans. One description especially, the creation of Eve, stands out.

Adam is the lonely globe of Saturn in the sky. God -- the God outside of creation -- takes pity on him and creates a woman for him by extracting a rib and subsequently healing the wound. This is clearly the image of the expulsion of Venus from the side of Saturn, still connected with a rib-like plasma appendage. The image was common to the experience of all the tribes of the eastern Mediterranean, but the interpretation by Moses was unique.

The Bible gives no date for the flood of Noah, but notes other events after the flood which can be matched to known dates. A correlation of Biblical events to known dates was attempted by James Bishop Ussher in AD 1650 and still stands as a classic work. Ussher dates the start of the Universal Flood of Noah at 2349 BC and the end at 2348 BC. [note 48]

The 'Flood of Noah' happened as the Earth's orbit increased and it joined the Moon in its previously established orbit. The Earth and the Moon started to 'fall past each other,' with the result that the Moon eventually ended up rotating about the Earth -- not on the Earth's equator, but in the plane of the ecliptic.

The appearance of the Moon probably marks the "sign in the heavens" after the flood of the Bible. It is the end of the "time before the Moon" noted by Plato and others in antiquity. "Sin" ("Moon") becomes popular as a personal name in Akkadian Mesopotamia after 2350 BC. Sargon of Akkad, who conquered Sumer shortly after 'Noah's Flood,' appoints his daughter as priestess of the Moon god ("Nanna" is Sumerian) of the Sumerian city of Ur. His granddaughter held the same position.

A Second Strike

The event of 2349 - 2348 BC is followed by another world-wide disturbance in 2193 BC (three times 52 years, or 156 years later). Again Venus made a close approach to Earth, the fourth in this era. With this event climatic changes are recorded world-wide, with social upheavals and abandonments of settlements spanning two hundred years. With this second event the Old Kingdom in Egypt comes to a sudden end, not to recover for more than 185 years. [note 49]

At the same time the Mesopotamian empire of Akkad collapses. Sumer had been conquered by Sargon of Akkad in 2335 BC, part of an empire of conquest which stretched from Elam on the Persian gulf to the Mediterranean. But his family's brief hold is lost in 2193, coincident with the second disturbance. The empire fails economically and the barbarian tribes of the Zagros mountain descend into the Akkadian plain. A hundred years later the land of Akkad laments...

"The large fields and acres produced no grain
The flooded fields produced no fish
The watered gardens produced no honey and wine
The heavy clouds did not rain"

-- City of Akkad, ca 2100 BC.

Some climatologists have assumed that Mesopotamia and Egypt lacked rains during this 200 year period following 2193 BC. But the laments from Akkad, quoted above, do not speak of a lack of water, but of a lack of growth. This speaks of a turndown in temperature and, more likely, a lack of sunlight. It is very similar to the darkness which envelops the world 700 years later, after 1492 BC, when the Hebrews "walked in darkness" and Mesoamerican recollections claim that a generation of people grew up in darkness. An oceanic strike of an arc from Venus traveling partway around the world could certainly produce enough steam to cause a cloud cover lasting for years. And the increased charge of the Earth's ionosphere after the passage of Venus would ensure a much longer suspension of the clouds than we experience today.

There is other data from this 156 year era. The endless reconstructions of Stonehenge are interrupted for 200 years after ca 2400 BC. Malta, with its underground temples and worship of the Fat Lady, is vacant after 2400 BC. Two hundred years of wind-blown dust and volcanic ash show up in the eastern Mediterranean after 2200 BC. The Indus river fails to produce enough water for agriculture and the parallel Sarasvati river dries up entirely up by 1900 BC. The Harappan culture along the Indus (of over 250 cities and villages) declines slowly and disappears. The Indus river region (lower Pakistan) turns into a desert. China's culture nearly falters. European construction of grave barrows ends for the most part by ca 2000 BC. [note 50]

The strange specificity of the area of destruction in the Middle East has suggested an air blast to some researchers, perhaps a Tunguska meteoric event -- an exploding bolide arriving from space. But most likely the two disturbances of 2349 and 2193 BC, the Flood of Noah, the the later demise of the Old Kingdom of Egypt along with the collapse of Akkad, were caused by the close approaches of Venus. The restricted path of destruction, the damage caused by fires (also localized), the tilting of the axis (which is recorded in legend in China and as history in Mesoamerica), and then the blockage of sunlight for an extended period of time, are all the marks of the close approach of a large planet and its electrical interaction with Earth. I will offer some additional details in the next Chapter.

The two disturbances were 156 years apart, three times 52 years. The period of 52 years will remain as the mark of Venus' interactions with Earth: a 700 year span where nothing significant happens, then two or more close passes at 52 year intervals. In both 2349 BC and in 2193 BC the orbit of Earth changed. The year changed to 260 days in 2349 BC, and to 273 days in 2193 BC. [note 51]

After a few hundred years, Egypt will reorganize as the Middle Kingdom and start in again to build pyramids as grave markers and will do so for another thousand years, spreading ever further south along the Nile. Akkad and China also recover. The Harappan cultivation of the Indus valley is abandoned as its people move into the Ganges region.

In the next era, Mercury will become a prominent God while Venus will continue to lurk in the background. In the next chapter I will turn to some reconsiderations of the events surrounding the 'flood of Noah' -- in effect, that the 'flood' never happened on Earth.

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Endnotes

Note 1 --

The same intense agricultural practice appears in China, the Andes, Mesoamerica, Southeast Asia, and West Africa -- all at about the same time. It might be simplistic to note, but it was likely that in all of these cases it was the farmers who first recovered from the disaster of 3114 BC. Farming became the core for any further development of civilization. About the sudden rise of these farming communities, William Mullen in 1994 noted,

"What these civilizations are all simultaneously emerging from, will ... be the largest question before historians of early mankind."

-- William Mullen "Cenocatastrophysm" Kronia Symposium (1994)
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Note 2 --

To have Horus (Mars) first appear in ca 3000 BC resolves a number of discrepancies in the list of the Kings of Kish, and matches the better dated archaeological records for the first dynasty of Egypt.
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Note 3 --

The cratering of the lower surface of Mars may have been mostly accomplished well before 3114 BC, when Mars was located on the plasma stream between Saturn and Earth.

There was another "sacred mountain" at that time, the mountainous lower coma of Jupiter, which had initially appeared in 3114 BC and probably lasted to about 3000 or 2950 BC, when Jupiter entered the asteroid belt. Jupiter and his mantle, which was colored green at this time, was held to be the mummified Osiris. But the phrasing "coming to sit on his mountain" would seem to have reference only to the periodic approaches of Mars/Horus.

The cone of plasma in glow mode would be much steeper than it appeared to be as viewed from Earth, for the image would be severely foreshortened. In Chapter 14, "Celestial Mechanics," I suggest that during the time of the "Age of the Gods," Mars came no closer than about 70,000 miles. After the "Age of the Gods" Mars would only have slightly increased its negative charge, and thus probably remained away from Earth at least by the same distance.

The mountain form of plasma did not start to glow at the horizon, but more likely some hundreds or thousands of miles above the ionosphere (which is located about 200 miles above the surface of the Earth). In Egypt, at 30 degrees latitude, the cone appeared as a squat mountain with sharp edges (where the plasma looked more dense), and thus approaching the look of the typical later pyramids whose sides rise at an angle of near 60 degrees from the horizontal and are constructed in rectangular shapes. When backlighted by the Sun, the cone might easily have passed for a pyramidical structure. In the absence of pyramids, or any multi-story temples, it would be called a mountain.
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Note 4 --

The mastabas and first pyramids of Egypt continue to face northwest until shortly before the construction at Giza. Tradition dies slowly. With the pyramids of Seneferu and Giza, and all the following pyramids constructed over the next 1000 years, every structure is aligned with the geographic north, with the exception of a few that were built late during the 5th dynasty, when Egypt experienced a religious crisis, and which were built with thier long axis aligned northeast to southwest, probably reflecting the northernmost reappearance of Jupiter at that time.
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Note 5 --

David Talbott had considerable difficulty explaining these symbols, for he assumed the moving mountain to be part and parcel of the original display caused by Saturn. But it is not. Separated from the image in the sky before 3114 BC, and assigned to the 300 year period of the visits by Horus after 3000 BC, it is easily explained.

The cone of plasma extending to Mars could be seen with ease from below the equator and, in effect, become some of the first definitive celestial displays for people living in these regions. This can be verified from their earliest 'mythical' symbols. One instance is the image of the "Staff God" which appears early in Peru. It consists of a globe-like face (or body) which carries a staff in each hand, held vertically. The two staffs would have been the edges of the conical plasma stream to Mars, where it appeared most dense. The Staff God was originally female. The image of this apparition as a God will be reinforced with the later appearances of Mars in the 8th and 7th century BC. Although most of the images of the Staff God are dated to 500 BC, some version of it has been found on a gourd dated to ca 2200 BC, at Norte Chico in Peru.

Egyptian images also show the pharaoh with two staffs, but these are thought to represent the two kingdoms: the shepherd's crook of Upper Egypt, the grain flail of the delta.

The identities of the Gods shift over time, and especially during the confusion of the end of the "Age of the Gods" in 3114 BC. Before 3114 BC, to the Egyptians, Saturn was Ra (the "Sun"), and late in the "Age of the Gods" Venus was possibly already identified as Isis, with Mars in the role of Osiris. After 3114 BC, Saturn is identified as Osiris and Jupiter at first as Seth, and later as Osiris, to eventually be known as Ra. After 3114 BC Venus becomes first Neith and later Isis, but is also identified as Hathor. Mars returns as Horus. After 2500, however, Jupiter will become the main God, as the Midnight Sun, and called Re. His worship may have been instituted in Heliopolis (the city of On) soon after 3100 BC.

The first extensive "pyramid texts" date from 2345 BC. There are earlier snippets of casket markings.

The pharaohs with Horus names extend only to about 2680 BC, through the First and Second Dynasty.
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Note 5a --

It can be assured that the precession of the orbits of the inner planets was much greater at a time where minor gravitational effects had not yet aligned the orbits into a resonant pattern which slowed the precessional rates to their current periods -- about 40,000 years for Earth, 26,000 years for Mercury, for a full rotation about the Sun. See Chapter 14, "Celestial Mechanics."
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Note 6a --

The initial electrical repulsion due to the electrical field of the primary planet would not last, for the field would induce a change in the charge of the hemisphere of the secondary planet which faced the primary.

The sequence described in the text is shown graphically in Chapter 14, "The Celestial Mechanics."
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Note 6 --

This assumes an orbit for Mars with perihelion just inside or outside the orbit of Earth. If the perihelion of Mars had been closer to the Sun, then Mars would have crossed Earth's orbit at an obtuse angle. The effect would have been different. In that event the apparent rotation of Mars around the pole would only be seen once in a passage, since the orbital speed of Mars would increase after crossing Earth's orbit, and chances are that the planet would be lost from sight as the Earth fell behind in its orbital travel.

Note also that under the condition of Mars overriding the orbit of Earth, there would be gravitational attraction, but, considering how much more massive the Earth is than Mars, the Earth would not likely be disturbed significantly. The cone of plasma extending to Mars, however, means that Mars had moved to within the plasmasphere of Earth. Under this condition Mars, because it is so much smaller than the Earth, would be forced away. This may be the mechanism which eventually ended the interactions altogether.
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Note 7 --

The Sed festival obviously celebrated an investure of the pharaoh in the manner of the close approach of Mars (Horus) with Earth. There are Egyptian references to the effect that the festival was held at 30 year intervals, but nothing indicates this was strictly true. The suggestion of the existence of the Sed festival prior to the date of