Recovering the Lost World,
A Saturnian Cosmology --Jno Cook
Part 11: The eighth century BC and Quetzalcoatl.


[Table of Contents]

$Revision: 20.30 $
Contents of this chapter: [The Ballgame] [The Ragings of Mars] [The Twins] [Calendar Reforms] [A Blast From Heaven] [The Death of Quetzalcoatl] [The Tablets of Ammizaduga] [The Golden Throne] [The Blazing Star] [The Bolt from Jupiter] [The Planets in the Sky] [The Last Changes] [Endnotes]

This chapter deals with events during the 8th and 7th centuries BC: a visit from Venus, repeated close calls by Mars and Mercury, the death of Quetzalcoatl (Venus), and the circularization of the Earth's orbit. After this we are in the 'modern' period of history.

The Ballgame

Between 2349 BC and 2193 BC, in the age of Noah, Venus had made four close approaches to Earth, each 52 years after the previous visit. Only during the first and last of these was an electrical contact made with Earth, in both cases increasing the orbit, and, as detailed in Chapters 8 and 9, destroying the Absu with the first 'contact' of 2349 BC. The approaches at 50 to 52 year intervals likely continued, but without interfering with Earth. We know the close calls continued because some 800 years later, in 1492 and 1440 BC, during the age of Moses, two destructive electrical contacts were again experienced, and again nearly 52 years apart. In Mesoamerica these last two disturbances might have been more severe than they were for the Middle East. After 1440 BC Mesoamerica continued to expect complete destruction at 52 'Tun year' intervals. That fear continued to the time of the Spanish invasion of Mexico, 3000 years later. [note a]

These close calls might have repeated yet again another 700 or 800 years later, but Earth and Venus were then on considerably different orbits. With the electrical contact of 1492 BC the orbit of Earth had increased by a large amount, so that the Earth's orbit fell entirely outside the orbit of Venus. When Venus, 700 years after the Exodus date of 1492 BC, again came close, it was inside the orbit of Earth. Venus would have been seen streaking across the daytime skies. This was recorded in one instance, apparently in 776 BC, but only because Mars appeared near Earth at the same time.

But with the enlarged orbit of Earth after 1492 BC, the Earth had started to cross the path of Mars. Earth's orbit had changed to fall partially inside and partially outside the orbit of Mars. This would be of little concern, for eccentric (elliptical) orbits precess only slowly, and it might have taken a very long time before Mars and Earth would come close to each other on their intersecting orbits. [note 1]

Not until the eighth century BC did Mars start to cross Earth's orbit close to the location of Earth. Not only did Mars come close to Earth, but on at least one occasion, as I noted above, this happened at the same time that Venus was near Earth. Thus both Venus and Mars were seen on the day-side of Earth, and the two planets seemed to chase each other across the sky towards the west, passing Earth at a distance of one quarter to one half million miles -- Mars looking like the size of the Moon and Venus perhaps four times that size and still trailing a mane (although foreshortened as seen from Earth at this location).

It has been suggested, by Velikovsky, that the Earth's Moon seemed to cross the path of the two planets in its normal rotation around the Earth, but in the opposite direction. It may have started to change its orbit in response to gravitational forces from three directions, although I doubt this. This was identified as the "ballgame" between Venus and Mars, with the Moon playing the part of the ball. One problem with this identification is that the idea of a "ballgame" is a Mesoamerican notion, which is here being transferred to the eastern Mediterranean, where there was no such thing as a "ballgame."

Additionally, it is much more likely that Mercury played the part of the ball, although from Greek sources (the "Odyssey") the Moon certainly was involved. Traveling somewhat faster than the Earth, Venus and Mars eventually disappeared into the west. (This is as seen from the day side of the rotating Earth. In actuality the two planets moved to the east.) [note 2a]

The "Popol Vu" records the interactions as the 'ballgame' of One-Hunahpu and Seven-Hunahpu, the father and uncle of the celestial twins, Hunahpu and Xbalanque. The father and uncle were Venus and Mars, most likely using Mercury as their ball. In the "Popol Vu" the brothers (as with the later Hunahpu and Xbalanque) are said to travel west to reach the ballcourt of the Gods of the Underworld. The exact year in the eighth century BC of this race between Venus and Mars (or the ballgame involving Mercury) has never been certain, although a date (780 or 776 BC) can be inferred from the date of the first Olympic Games in Greece. See below. [note 2]

During the encounters, plasma interactions occurred between Venus and Mars, and between Mars and the Earth's Moon. These are described in the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey." The "Homeric Poems," which follow closely in time to Homer's epics, have similar descriptions. The "Iliad" retells the events of the 8th and 7th century BC as the interaction between the Olympian gods in the skies above Troy. The action is between the warrior goddess Athena (Venus), and the blood-stained god of war Ares (Mars), with Aphrodite (the Moon) as a bystander. To keep Ares from aiding the Trojans in the battle over Troy, Athena drives a spear into Ares' "lower belly, below his belt." The scar still shows as a 3000 mile long gash below the Martian equator. As Aphrodite approaches to help Ares, Athena bashes her in the breast. "And her heart bled [or melted]," reads the "Iliad." [note 3]

Roman historians for the 8th century BC record wildly wildly erratic 'months' which remain unresolved for a century. Despite the descriptions from the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey," it is unlikely that the orbit of the Moon changed because of plasma strikes. Plasma strikes will wear away the crust of a planet before 'moving' it in space. [note 4]

In the Odyssey, Demodocus, one of the fictional characters (and a poet), recites a poem dealing with a tryst of Ares (Mars) and Aphrodite (the Moon in this case). In this poetic interpretation, Ares' repeated arc mode plasma discharges to the smaller Moon are his ejaculations. Ralph Juergens mentions that, as Mars closed in, the display would have changed from long range single arcs to much smaller arcs encompassing the whole sphere of the Moon. This is the net devised by the smith Hephaestus (played by Venus) which falls on the lovers and holds them captive. [note 5]

It appears that the Olympic Games in Greece were instituted in 772 BC to commemorate the chases between the planets Venus and Mars four or eight years earlier. Originally the games consisted of just one foot race. With each of the following Olympics at 4 year intervals (originally at 8 year intervals), the activities were expanded to include additional foot races. Other types of athletic contests did not enter the Olympics until many decades later. [note 6]

In Mesoamerica the 'ballgame' event receives an entirely different interpretation from the 'foot race' in Greece. The Olmecs engaged in a game involving a large rubber ball. In Mexico the ballcourt comes into use, although possibly not until some 800 years later. The shape of the ball court seems to be based on the look of the south night sky, the Absu, before 2349 BC. It will feature the religious re-enactment of the adventures of the ball-playing twins mentioned in the "Popol Vu" -- mimicking the planets Venus and Mars playing ball with the much smaller Mercury (or a similar event in 685 BC; see later text). The ball court is a feature which came to be in near-universal use throughout Mexico and the game, in typical Mesoamerican style, was a deadly affair -- it is today suspected that the loser (or the winner, some say) was decapitated. It is also, as ever and everywhere in antiquity, in imitation of what was seen in the sky. [note 7]

The Ragings of Mars

Starting in 747 BC with an Earth shock, and for 60 years thereafter, Mars crossed Earth's orbit and passed close to Earth five times. The prophets of Israel start their warning long before 747 BC, however, and from the archaeological records of destructions of citadels in the Middle East, it could be suggested that the first strike by Mars was in 806 BC. The complete period of the ragings of Mars thus probably extended over 120 years. [note 9]

Prayers and pleadings to Mars proliferate in Mesopotamia and India during this period. The Book of Joel (in the Bible) also records the threat of Mars. A troop of warriers travel with Mars, called Maruts, the "Terrible Ones," in Vedic sources, carrying gleaming spears and throwing fire, lightning bolts, and bolides to Earth. Joel, of course, identifies them as the "hosts of the Lord." He also calls them Ariz, "Terrible Ones," the name for Mars adopted by the Greeks, Ares.

These are the companions of Mars, asteroids which had accompanied Mars since the time of the first dynasty of Egypt, when the Egyptians duly counted them as the herds of small and large cattle of Horus. They will now also show up in the tales of Hercules, as his stolen cattle or as the armies he raised for various exploits. [note 8]

All nations watched Mars during these years with great anxiety. Most notable among the destructive effects of these close passes are the frequency of earthquakes, due to gravitational and electrical forces on the crust, and a moving electrical arc which burned forests -- and lifted the material along with soil ahead of itself. In an era of city walls, built as a measure against rampaging tribes, and most frequently built on hilltops, Mars becomes known as the "stormer of walls." In many locations the seven to ten foot cover of burnt matter and soil, which buried fortified hilltop citadels, far exceeds the amount ever deposited by any forest fires or volcanic eruptions, which are seldom over a few inches.

Alfred de Grazia, in "The Disasterous Love Affair of Moon and Mars" (1984), notes both the imagined devastations by Mars and the archaeological record. He has reference to the event of 767 BC, the ballgame, but it probably more accurately reflects any of the events from 806 BC through 687 BC. De Grazia describes the destruction of Pylos, one of the destroyed locations, one of hundreds...

"Tidal waves wipe out nearly all coastal settlements (where perhaps 80% of the Greek-speaking population was contained in 800 B.C.). Chasms are opened; volcanoes are created and activated. Surface soils are ripped off by winds traveling at hundreds of miles per hour. Communities are obliterated or disrupted by showers of ash and debris, winds, water, fire, and famine."

"The Palace [of Nestor at Pylos] was destroyed in a 'holocaust' which 'consumed everything that was inflammable within it, and even melted gold ornaments into lumps and drops of metal.' The flames melted brick and stone into 'a solid mass... as hard as rock.' In one room two large pots were fused 'into a molten vitrified layer which ran over the whole floor.' Everything that a human invader might desire was reduced to shapelessness. Stone was burned into lime. No human hands and hand-set fires could have wreaked such ruin. Only blasts from the sky-electrical, gaseous or both."

He follows this with an exploration of Greek society in mainland Greece and Asia Minor, based partially on the content of the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey." His analysis of Homer is without a doubt the most cogent I have encountered. The reader should be aware that, along with many others, I hold that the "dark ages" of Greece do not exist. Mycenaean Greece came to an end between 806 BC and 687 BC, not in the 400 year gap of the Greek "dark ages" following 1200 BC.

"The Homeric heroes, Odysseus and Achilles among them, typified the bands of survivors of the extensive Mycenaean civilization that was largely destroyed in the catastrophic interventions of the planets Mars and Venus in the Earth-Moon system in the 8th century. The plots of the Iliad and Odyssey, despite 2700 years of trying to make something else of them, clearly point to the skies as the source of the disruptive and awful events that produced the crazed heroes of the dark times. Western civilization has treasured and imitated the posturings of these mad warriors, hardly ever realizing what they were and how the docile mind of later generations would be affected when this madness was presented to it as normality and for inspiration."

Greece and Anatolia represented the epicenter of the repeated destructive close passes of Mars after 806 BC. Although Venus was seen near Earth in 776 BC, Venus was not involved in the destructions. De Grazia continues as follows. I have abbreviated the text and added in some of his quoted sources.

"The heroes boasted in the names of their parents, some of their grandfathers, and usually stopped at this point; some lapsed into claims of divine forebears in the second generation. ... The absence of 'family trees' among self-assertive 'nobles' raises doubts that they either knew their ancestors or, if they did, could claim any distinction on their behalf. ... This is exceedingly strange. It is not at all like 'primitive peoples' whose lives are bound into communities of blood served by totems. Nor like a bureaucratic society."

"The warriors stayed away from their 'homes' so long that we could question whether they had any. They remind us of Vandals and Vikings who left home never to return. Of all of Ithaca's warriors, only Odysseus ever reached home. Odysseus played the pirate -- looting, killing, raping. Marauding was frequent, if not from one's neighbors then from pirates and foreign warriors."

"It was a society where every man's hand was raised against his neighbor. ... 'The bearing of arms, particularly lance and sword, on all solemn occasions of civil life, was the distinguishing feature which, more than any other, marked the separation of classes in Homer's time.'"[Emile Mireaux "Les Poems Homériques et l'Histoire Grecque" (1948)]

"In battle one encounters a frenzied behavior whereby fear is whipped up in order to gain courage. Eliade's words apply to the heroes: 'The frenzied berserker, ferocious warriors, realized precisely the state of sacred fury... of the primordial world.'"[Mircea Eliade. "Cosmos & History: The Myth of The Eternal Return" (1959)]

"A frank, hollow, extreme braggadoccio characterized the best and the worst of the fighters. The glorification of destructiveness seems interminable. ... There is a pervading sense of splendors of the past being gone and citations of armies, cities, and wealth appear to be grossly exaggerated. This pretentiousness is not that of nobles, [but] of a people who had lost something they once knew, did not own, but had given them their character." [note 9a]

"They depended upon the seas but were bad sailors. There was no class of specialized sailors. Everyone was a 'sailor.' Maritime ventures were not materially distinguishable from piratical excursions."

"They were meat-eaters: cattle, sheep, and wild game, animals of the uplands. 'For Homer fish is a detestable food, while Hesiod does not even deign to mention it. Never is fish eaten at the Homeric repasts.'"[Mireaux]

"Gift-giving was often a spectacular affair. ... The things given seem often to be for re-giving, to be untouched and unused, even homely objects like linens, and the metal gifts seem all too frequently to have semidivine or divine 'makers' which, as false pedigrees conceal humble origins, may have concealed their origins in loot and theft. Their description, too, conveys an awesomeness, as if they were not familiar objects to the childhoods of the gift exchangers. They are described as pirates would speak of their misunderstood loot of pots and laces."

"Chariots are used, not as battle-wagons, but to convey warriors to places where they would descend and fight. Their use was partly forgotten or had not been familiar to the types who owned them."

"The Greeks of Homer, to conclude, did not come as an invasion from afar. They consisted of all kinds of Greeks. They were survivors, largely from the rural areas and the interior high lands. From personal experience and hearsay, they knew of the centers of their societies that had been destroyed. They often lacked kith and kin; they lacked communal security; they lacked law and order; they lacked education; they trembled upon the trembling earth."

The analysis by Alfred de Grazia covers only Homer, and the collapse of the Mycenaean Civilization. De Grazia thus places the composition of the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey" after 650 BC.

"For a grandly disciplined, informed, and stylized poet like Homer to write so sympathetically of his subjects, he had to be of their age, and to be of their age required that their age be the eighth century." [note 9b]

But despite the destruction and dislocations, the Olympic Games continued. Attempts at rebuilding destroyed cities (as for example, at Troy) continued. The period of 750 BC to 600 BC also saw the largest overseas colonization by the Greeks. The ravaging of cities and societies may not have been quite as extensive as de Grazia paints it.

If Homer was "of their age," as de Grazia suggested, then, first, the poetic response might have been to conditions localized and particular to himself, and, second, the attacks by Mars would have been experienced in his lifetime. Although de Grazia suggests a composition date of 650 BC, I would place the composition before 685 BC, based on the fact that there is no mention of Phaethon in the "Iliad" -- which I will discuss further below.

There were five close passes by Mars between 747 BC and 687 BC, with 15 year periods in between. There were an additional four passes before 747 BC, also at 15 year intervals. Additionally, except for earthquakes, conditions of a gigantic arc traveling across the surface of the Earth would have been distinctly localized, although the fall of airborn debris could have covered large areas. What is peculiar is that in some instances the same locations were struck repeatedly. [note 10b]

It should be pointed out that the traveling arc probably did not come directly from Mars, but might have come from the upper atmosphere, stratosphere, or the region of the ionosphere. The presence of Mars between the Sun and Earth would have induced a change in the part of the Earth's atmospheric envelopes in the region facing the Sun (and Mars). This is "electrical induction" -- the migration away of electrons when experiencing a nearby (negative) electrical field -- thus creating a local positively charged condition. The induced electrical field would propagate through the layers of the ionosphere, the upper atmosphere, and the Earth's surface. This is exactly how lightning occurs under 'normal' conditions: negatively charged clouds chase away electron at the ground below the clouds, resulting in a high potential difference, which leads to lightning strikes.

The lightning strikes of the 8th and 7th centuries BC traveled west across the surface of the Earth (because Earth rotates to the east). The lightning strikes may have ignited, extinguished, and restarted numerous times, preferring high ground to land on. The lighting bolts must have been enormous and mostly continuous, and might have traveled in groups. They could probably be seen coming from over the far horizon, for in a number of instances we have evidence of people evacuating hilltop locations only minutes before being struck. At Pylos we have written (clay tablet) records of "watchers" posted at the shoreline.

As a continuous arc, the bolts would have left behind a path of incinerated trees and grasses and upturned soil. The arc would have resulted in tornado-like forces which would have lifted loose soil and ashes into the air. If a bolt extinguished on a hilltop, the suspended material would have been dropped. [note 10a]

Mars came close enough to Earth to have its two peculiar satellites observed and described. Both are very small and they circle Mars on extremely tight orbits. To Homer they are Ares' dogs of war, Deimos and Phobus -- Fear and Panic -- rushing madly about his chariot. They are the horses of his chariot, says Hesiod. Dean Swift describes the satellites of Mars quite accurately in "Gulliver's Travels" in 1726, apparently on the basis of sources from antiquity, for they are only discovered by telescope one hundred and fifty years after its publication, and 2400 years after they were first seen. [note 10]

In the "Iliad," Ares, "the bloodied stormer of walls," always loses. Yet a number of belligerent nations take Mars as their primary God. Mars is the chief God of Rome. Their calendar year starts with the month of March in his honor and the founding of Rome is dated to the middle years of the eighth century BC -- coincident with a major disturbance of Earth by Mars in 747 BC which altered the length of the year. The Cimmerians and Scythians, an eastern European steppen people, also take Mars as their chief god and start destructive raiding expeditions into Anatolia in the 8th century BC. In the middle of the 8th century BC, coinciding with the return of Mars, Assyria, a small nation in northern Mesopotamia, models its army after Mars's 'horsemounted' hordes, and with similar tactics of speed and utter destruction, expands its conquests over a region from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean and to Aswan in Egypt. [note 11a]

The Aztec's chief god is Huitzilopochtli, "destroyer of cities and killer of people," and the Aztecs proceed (at a much later date) to terrorize the other nations of Mexico. Huitzilopochtli is Mars. (There are other Mesoamerican gods associated with Mars, such as the "flayed god" and the "scarfaced god.") [note 11]

Mars came close enough to Earth to cause a disturbance of the Earth's orbit on February 26th in 747 BC. Every 15 years thereafter Earth and Mars closed in on each other. A second significant disturbance probably happened in 686 BC, on March 23 (some sources suggest 702 or 701 BC). [note 12]

The events of 747 BC and 686 BC, stand out, for the Earth experienced a seismic shock and the axis of the Earth was disturbed. During the gyroscopic reaction which swung the axis through a loop, the day was temporarily lengthened or shortened. In the "Iliad," Hera sends the Sun unwillingly into the ocean, that is, she is shortening the day. In the "Odyssey," Athena holds back the dawn at the edge of the ocean, thus lengthening the night. [note 14b]

[Image: Two planets in line with the Sun]
Image: Two planets in line with the Sun. When the inner planet's plasmasphere tail, directed away from the Sun, touches the leading edge of the other planet's plasmasphere there will be an electrical interaction.

The reaction to having the plasmaspheres of two planets touch would be a sudden experience of each other's electrical fields. This would result in an instantaneous repulsive force -- an Earth shock. As the planets would both move away from each other (in the direction radial with the Sun), the force would decrease, and stop as suddenly when the planet with the larger negative charge would have induced an opposing charge in the facing hemisphere of the second planet. Since this involves the movement of electrons through the crust, it would take some time. The increased localized difference in charge would, of course, result in arcing from one planet to the other in an attempt to achieve charge equalization. [note 14a]

Because of the initial repulsive electrical force, the crust would be depressed over a large area, resulting in an uplift at the margins. As the Earth rotated, the center of the compressive forces would rotate toward the west but would diminish very rapidly with the change of the induced charge and as the planets distanced from each other.

The shock would be transmitted to all of the globe of the Earth, and both move the Earth in space, and, if the center of the impact was off-center to the Earth's equator, tilt the rotational axis. A gyroscopic reaction torque would result if the Earth's axis were tilted -- a second twist which would attempt to bring the Earth's axis back to its original position. Additionally, the Earth's crust would attempt to make corrections for the sudden change in the direction of the surface of the Earth. The crust would attempt to slide over the mantle to follow the new direction of rotation, crumpling mountains as it did. Mesopotamian records indicate earthquakes on an almost daily basis during these two centuries and, even four hundred years later, Rome still records over 50 earthquakes per year. Hurricanes and tsunamis would sweep the Earth. (See Appendix B, "Celestial Mechanics," for the mechanics of the interactions.) [note 14]

The Twins

The mythological and quasy-historical tales from this era are obsessed with twin celestial Gods. With the Greeks they are the Dioscuri, Castor and Polydeuces (Pollux). Castor is a tamer of horses and mortal, Pollux is a boxer and immortal. Homer places them in Sparta. The Spartans, in fact, hold them to be the younger twin brothers of Helen. (Homer's Helen in this may be equated with Venus.) Both travel with the Argonauts at one time. They steal cattle in Arcadia and drive them east to Sparta. At the conclusion of some fights and pursuits, Zeus kills one of the pursuers with a thunderbolt. This last conflates the last shock by Mercury in 686 BC and the flare-up of Venus and Mercury in 685 BC, events which will be fetailed over the next two chapters.

In Italy the twins are the founding patrons of the city of Rome, Romulus and Remus, sons of Mars. Remus was killed by Romulus in a dispute. Romulus founded and ruled the city of Rome, and is then taken up into heaven.

The constellation Gemini is generally held to be the Dioscuri twins, but Hyginus (ca AD 200) says the twins are Apollo and Heracles (Mercury and Mars). Santillana and von Dechand mention twin deities of China, and there are without doubt others. Twins would earlier have been needed to populate the realm of the older gods, and the concern with twins may have entered the rewriting of older mythology. Victor Clube and Bill Napier, in "The Cosmic Serpent" (1982), mention a frequent phrasing among Babylonian astrological texts (apparently from the "Enuma Anu Enlil") of such things as, "If Ishtar appears in the East in the month of Airu and the Great and Small Twins surround her, all four of them. and she is dark, then will the king Elam fall sick and not remain alive."

I cannot explain the use of "all four of them," but in that 'Ishtar' is Venus, the twins are likely Mercury and Mars, matching "Apollo and Heracles" mentioned by Hyginus. This becomes fairly certain if the ball-playing twins of the Guatemalan "Popol Vu" are considered (See Appendix K). In the "Popol Vu" two sets of twins are identified, first One-Hunahpu and Seven-Hunahpu (the appearance of 776 BC), and then Hunahpu and Xbalanque (the four Long Count documented appearances after 747 BC).

What this suggests is that Mercury had been a companion of Mars since remote antiquity. I had already considered that Mercury was likely the 'other planet' which showed up along with Horus/Mars in the period of 3000 to 2700 BC to constitute the twenty-some first pharaohs of the first and second dynasty of Egypt and similarly the 20 early kings of Kish in Mesopotamia. The two planets show up along with the 'Followers of Horus' and the large quantities of cattle and dead people in the skies which were recorded by the Egyptians in the first and second dynasty. I have also suggested that the 'sandle bearer' shown following the pharaoh on the 'Palette of Narmer' is not his son, but Mercury.

Going by the depiction of the 'Palette of Narmer' Mercury would precede Mars in its orbit, and Mars would be followed by the 'Followers of Horus' and the cattle of Horus. Seen from Earth, rotating toward the east, the order would have been reversed, as is shown on the 'Palette of Narmer.' Of course it is not certain if Mercury always followed the orbit of Mars, or if it were perhaps on an orbit in resonance with the orbit of Mars so that in the 8th and 7th century it would show up near Mars at each of the 9 instances when Mars cruised close to Earth on 15 year intervals in addition to other times. The 16th century AD "Chilam Balam" lists "Nine Fragrances" who descended when "it was that the word of Bolon Dzacab [Mars] descended to the tip of his tongue."

"With it descended Bolon Mayel [Nine Fragrances]; sweet was his mouth and the tip of his tongue. Sweet were his brains."

The 'nine' of 'Nine Fragrances' represents, as these numeric prefixes do throughout the "Chilam Balam," nine appearances of Mercury. This matches the nine appearances of Mars between 806 BC and 687 BC. By coincidence the nine appearances of Mars is the same number assigned to him before 3114 BC ("this first Bolon Dzacab"). The giant jade or greenstone mask-shaped floors at Olmec La Venta, apparently buried as a means of warding off or appeasing Mars, represent the face of a Jaguar in the form of the glyph for 'nine.'

The mouth, tongue, and brains (top of the head?) of Bolon Mayel probably describe the plasma plumes above and below Mercury, and are, as a matter of fact, described in the "Chilam Balam" as flowers.

If today Mercury still has an externally induced magnetic field, due to the fact that on its (current) orbit it travels to a distance twice as far from the Sun between perihelion and aphelion, then previous to the 7th century BC, traveling on an orbit which took it well beyond the orbit of Earth, it would have had a considerable greater magnetic field. Mercury also, gaging from the remaining thin atmosphere, might have held a considerable gaseous envelop, able to support a shaped plasma.

The fragrances are recorded in Vedic sources also. Velikovsky mentions them, although he assigns them to the era of 1500 BC. The exterior of the plasmasphere of Mercury (the 'double layer') would have included gasses in ionized forms from its remnant atomosphere. Close passes to Earth would have transfered many of these to Earth's plasmasphere, and eventually to the earth's atmosphere. If Mercury had flamed up at an earlier time -- in effect caught on fire -- as the legends of the 'Burning Tower' suggest, then these would have included combustion products, and, as I have suggested earlier, likely as the sweat smells we produce today by burning diesel fuels.

The combined appearances of Mercury and Mars came to an end in 686 BC, when Mercury came close enough to cause an Earth shock and was, as I have supposed, jolted into an orbit much closer to the Sun.

Calendar Reforms

After the Earth shock of 747 BC, the year lengthened by five days, six hours, and 20 minutes to become 365 1/4 days -- nominally a change of 5 and 1/4 days. Calendar reforms were instituted worldwide, some in 747 BC but a few much later. Egypt attempts an additional correction to the calendar in 239 BC when the priests issue a decree which adds one day to the civil calendar every four years. [note 15]

"... that the case shall not occur, that all the Egyptian festivals, now celebrated in winter, shall not be celebrated some time or other in summer, on account of the precession of the rising of the Divine Sothis by one day in the course of 4 years."

-- Canopus Decree, 239 BC, found at Tanis.

However, the Egyptian Venus calendar, based on the heliacal rising of Venus (Sothis in this case) every 8 years, remained in use until Julius Caesar's calendar was introduced 200 years later under Roman occupation. [note 16]

Between 2193 and 1492 BC there probably were ten lunar months of about 28 days in the year. Shang dynasty oracle records indicate months of 27 and 28 days. I have used a year of 270 or 280 days for this earlier period, but think it was probably 273 days. This is reason enough why Shang records seem to use both 27 day months and 28 day months.

In the following era, from 1492 BC to 747 BC, the year was 360 days, and the Moon in an orbit of 30 days. Both of these periods are well established.

When, after 747 BC, the period of the Moon (the month) was no longer a whole number interval of the year, the previous religious feast days started to wander around the year, and efforts were made throughout the world to rectify this. Here is a list of how the ancients took notice of the new celestial order of 365 and one quarter days...

Before 747 BC there had been 12 lunar months of 30 days during a year of 360 days. Since, during this period, an exact multiple of lunar months coincided with the solar year, a lunar calendar was in use to govern the dates when religious observations were to be held. The phases of the Moon would represent a very visible public calendar, which everyone could understand.

The change to a new year of an odd number of days, with a fractional day left over, and with a month no longer composed of an even fraction of the year, brought religious observances into total confusion. Attempts at corrections were made worldwide, resulting in many very complex calendars. All of these reforms are obvious attempts to bring a lunar religious calendar into conformity with a new solar year, because following a strict lunar calendar during the new era would continuously displace all celebrations by many days over the year.

It should be noted that there is worldwide disagreement on which day constituted the start of the new era. As Hera sent the Sun into the ocean, shortening the day in the Mediterranean region, the Indians of Mesoamerica experience a night which lasted four nights -- thus equal to two full days. Just as in the Mediterranean region we have the Era of Nabonassar starting on February 26th and the Roman calendar starting after February 28th (the changes to new calendars were independently arrived at), so in Mesoamerica we have a similar disagreement over when the new era started.

In the case of Mesoamerica, the question of dates has become an issue among scholars, and deals with the initial date of the Maya (Olmec) Long Count. John E. Thompson first suggested in 1927 that the Maya Long Count of days starts on August 13, 3114 BC. In 1935 Thompson revised his calculation to August 11, validating the opinion of another scholar who also arrived at the date of August 11, 3114 BC.

This last date (the "August 11" correlation) has become the accepted archaeological standard and is generally used today, although any number of researchers think that the date of August 13, 3114 BC, is more likely to be correct, because a calendar based on August 13 correctly dates many known recorded eclipses. A calendar based on August 11, however, is still used by some people in Mexico and Guatemala. [note 24]

There have been suggestions that the Maya made a two day correction at some time in the past, but this assumes an absolute and uniform use of the calendar since remote antiquity. Considering the widespread adoption of the Olmec religious practices among the diverse tribes of southern Mexico, the Yucatan, and Guatemala, as well as the universal use of the 2000 year old Tzolkin calendar, it can be assumed that in 747 BC, when the Long Count was devised, there were some diverse regional opinions on the concept of where one era ended and another started, as well as questions about the existence ("completion") of two days which had not been seen in progress. [note 25a]

A Blast From Heaven

Another strange incident at the time of the disturbance of 687 BC was widely known in the Middle East. In 687 (or 686) BC the Assyrian army of Sennacherib, on its way to quell a revolt in Egypt, camps some distance from Jerusalem and demands its capitulation on threat of a seige. The prophet Isaiah urges Hezekiah, the king of Jerusalem, to resist, telling him that Sennacherib's army would never arrive. Apparently Sennacherib had been similarly warned by his advisors. [note 25]

"The very same night God sent his angel to their camp. He destroyed every man of valour, every commander, and chief man in the Assyrian army. The next morning there were found 185,000 dead men. After this Sennacherib shamefully broke camp and returned into his own land to rest at Nineveh. Isaiah 37:36-38 2-Kings 19:35-37 2-Chronicles 32:21 All this was foretold by the prophet. Isaiah 38:1-22 31:8,9"

-- paraphrased by Bishop Ussher

Since antiquity there has been endless speculation as to what really happened, starting with Herodotus (fifth century BC), who attributes it to mice. Josephus (first century AD), along with modern historians, suggested a plague. But Biblical and Egyptian sources plainly state that it was Ignis Coelis -- "a blast of fire from the heavens." Such would be one of the effects of a close pass of another planet. [note 26]

There are two independent records of this event from China. The following is quoted from the Bamboo Books..

In the tenth year of the Emperor Kwei, ".. the five planets went out of their course. In the night, stars fell like rain. The earth shook."

-- "Annals of the Bamboo Books"

The "Bamboo Books" were found in China in a grave in AD 279. The "Spring and Autumn Annals," compiled for the state of Lu by Confucius and completed about 480 BC, reads almost identically, but does not recognize the Earth shock.

"In the seventh year of the Duke [Chwang] ... In summer, in the fourth month, on Sin-maou, at night, the regular stars were not visible. At midnight, there was a fall of stars like rain.

-- James Legge, translator, "The Ch'un Ts'ew and The Tso Chuen" (1872)

The seventh year of the Duke Chwang of Lu is identified as 686 BC by Legge. The quote from the "Bamboo Books" lists the date (-687) in astronomical notation, which is equivalent to 686 BC, Julian.

These terse Chinese historical notes, which have been dated to March 23, 686 BC, can be interpreted as a swing of the spin axis of the Earth as it underwent a gyroscopic reaction to an external torque induced by the Earth's plasmasphere contact with the plasmasphere of another planet. The other planet, in this case, was Mercury.

The first effect of the sudden electrical repulsive forces experienced from Mercury, as the plasmaspheres connected, was a shock felt worldwide. The stars would seem to fall, or, on the day side of Earth, the Sun would move away from its normal path.

Sennacherib returned to Assyria, did not record this disasterous campaign among his records, and spent the next 8 years in seclusion. Two of his sons kill him while he is at prayers in the temple of Negral (Mars).

There was an Egyptian monument in the eastern delta (at Letopolis, "Mouse City," also known as the "City of the Thunderbolt") to a 'mouse god' (per Herodotus), erected in commemoration (apparently) of the defeat of Sennacherib's army which had left Egypt in 686 BC (or never reached Egypt). There are also extant temple inscriptions bearing on this.

I would suggest that it was Mercury which was involved in the incident of 686 BC. Mercury is Hermes among the Greeks, but known as Smintheus ("mouse god") in Asia Minor at the time when Mercury was still known as Apollo, the Archer God, among the Greeks, as in the "Iliad." The name Apollo is transferred to the Sun at a later date.

Mercury, which is only a little larger than our Moon, certainly might have looked like a mouse with its plasma tail, just as it might have looked like a bow and arrow with the bow shock and tail. Although the date, March 23, 687 BC (Julian), would seem to argue for Mars as the agent, this second Earth shock by Mars is not at all well supported. (The first shock was experienced 61 years earlier, in 747 BC.) I would opt for Mercury as the agent, and I would place the event in 686 BC. For more information bearing on this see Appendix B, "The Celestial Mechanics."

The Earth shock event was experienced at night in Peking and Jerusalem. Chinese sources read "at night" and "at midnight," as does the Bible. Although Mercury was not seen during the daytime in Asia or the Middle East, it was seen by North American Indians in the day-time. To paraphrase from various legendary American Indian sources, this is what transpired:

The Sun was in the day sky a few hours before or after noon when it turned black and started to move down, that is, moving directly toward the horizon and additionally toward the southeast. The Sun was choking, and as it dipped down in the sky, the sky darkened and Coyote (Mars) was noticed in the east. Coyote had just crossed over the Earth's orbit in the last few days. Obviously Coyote had snared the Sun, and was dragging it backwards. Only after an hour did the Sun brighten again and return to its path across the sky. Then it was seen what had happened. A mouse had chewed through the lasso. It could still be seen just west of the Sun, with its tail pointing away. [note 27a]

The Death of Quetzalcoatl

Soon after the encounter with Mercury, Earth seemed to have moved (rotated) its orbit away from intersecting the orbit of Mars and removed the threat of Mars. Shortly after Earth is removed from the vicinity of Mars, Venus, too, fell from the sky. [note 27]

"How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer!"
-- Isaiah. [note 28]

What happened to Venus? From what little we know, it looks like Venus was suddenly involved in a massive plasma discharge. The flare-up also involved Mercury. But less notice was taken of Mercury, for at the start of the nova event Mercury was very close to Venus in the sky. Most peoples recognized Venus, but not Mercury. Mesoamerica may have thought that the other planet in flames was Mars, which stood in the day sky a little west of Mercury. (The starting and ending dates of this event are developed in Chapter 12, "Modern History," and Appendix A, "Chronology Notes")

In Mesoamerica, Quetzalcoatl, who is Venus, is represented as the bearded man or God, who had come from the east to deliver all the benefits of civilization. In their recycling of all history, the Mesoamericans make Quetzalcoatl into the last king of the abandoned and famed city of Tula, already an ancient ruin at the time of the Mesoamerican authors of the 15thcentury AD. To paraphrase, "Quetzalcoatl, the last King of Tula, traveled east, and set himself on fire. Eight days later he arose in the sky as the Morning Star (Venus)." Both the "Popol Vu" and the "Annals of Cuauhitlan," two documents independently written a thousand miles apart, agree on this. In the "Codex Borgia" the mythical hero Quetzalcoatl is burned while his heart ascends to heaven as the Morning Star. [note 29]

The "burning of Quetzalcoatl" happened far from Earth, since it did not involve any noticeable geological disturbance on Earth, although we have many notices of the "Ignis Coelis" during this period. It may very well be that the condition of electric charge for Venus had mounted to the point where only a plasma discharge or a mass ejection could balance forces. At any rate, after its last passage behind the Sun, Venus seems to have undergone a massive plasma discharge, and, at some later time, assumed a circular orbit. It must have been an enormous energy outpouring, for Venus lost its coma, its talons, its feathers, and the tail or flowing hair. It assumed the looks of a star. But it took months.

If, as I have suggested, Mercury was involved in the March 23, 686 BC, plasma contact with Earth, then it might also be suggested that we are not seeing Venus involved in a nova event, but that this was a nova-like event of the Sun, involving both Mercury and Venus. When Mercury changed its orbit it disturbed electrical conditions close to the Sun. Today the Sun still reacts to comets which come close by hurling coronal mass ejections toward them into space. That would make more sense of the description, from China, that two suns were seen battling in the sky at this time. The two Suns do not imply that one of them was the actual Sun. But since Mercury remains close to the Sun because of its much smaller orbit, it is certain that for many observers the display involved only Venus and the Sun. The sudden brightening of Venus was recorded in extensive references to "a prodigy in the sky" and of Venus "blazing through the day sky brighter than the Sun," as well as references relating the changes in the sky. [note 31]

We do not know exactly when this happened, but my suspicion is that it occurred during the year 680 BC in eastern Mediterranean chronology, which is 685 BC in absolute astronomical chronology (to be discussed below). There are a number of reasons why we have no certain date for this event. First, because the flare-up of Venus spanned a considerable amount of time. It was not an event lasting only a day. In fact, it lasted a month and a half, 40 days. Second, the event was not associated with any cataclysmic changes on Earth. And third, the effects were not noticed until the following year, or later. Only later were the lasting changes recognized: Spring started a week later, the constellations had moved in the sky, and the polar axis no longer pointed to a location in Ursa Major. When later attempts were made to understand the changes, it came as a massive shock to ideas about the Gods, about knowledge, and about the workings of the Universe -- which will be the subject of the following chapter.

The flare-up must have represented a cataclysm equivalent to a supernova. The event should have been noted in Chinese records as a nova. It was not. The earliest Chinese record of a supernova (a "guest star") is for AD 185. The flare-up of Venus was not considered a "guest star" because the display was immense and happened during day time. It was not a star, it was obviously the planet Venus, which, because of its coma and tail, would have readily been seen in the daytime in antiquity.

For both the Mediterranean region and Mesoamerica, the blazing of Venus became the end of mythical and divine history. No new Gods enter the pantheon after this -- with the exception of the personification of Venus as the saviour of mankind (as Quetzalcoatl, Mazda, Mithra, and Christ). Saved, that is, from 120 years of harrasment by planets and planetary Gods. Mars shows up nine times during this period, delivering a shock the fifth time, which changed the orbit of the Earth, and landing continuous lightning strikes the other times. Mercury closed in on Earth nine times, delivering a shock to Earth the last time, which may have altered the Earth's orbit slightly. (For the Earth shock by Mercury see Appendix B, "Celestial Mechanics." For the nine visits of Mercury, see Appendix F, "The Chilam Balam Books.") In addition the region of Mesopotamia, the Near East, and Egypt were subjected to constant warfare, as was China during this time. These would have effectively masked the records of visits by Mars.

When Venus and Mercury started to blaze in the skies, it must have seemed as if the end of the creation was at hand. But it ceased, on July 25th, 685 BC, suddenly, when a massive plasmoid lightning strike by Jupiter stopped the blazing planets. I'll discuss this further below.

The Tablets of Ammizaduga

For such significant events, we have surprisingly few accurate written records. From Mesoamerican we have the story that Quetzalcoatl set himself on fire. We do have a date from late Maya sources (the "Books of the Chilam Balam"), which can be verified against the alignments of Mesoamerican ceremonial centers (detailed in Appendix H, "The Olmec Crisis"). Other than that we have the Phaethon legend from the Mediterranean and a few other curious documents. I'll discuss dates in the year of this event in the next chapter. First I need to establish the year.

Among Mesopotamian sources we have, almost as a coincidence, the most curious and frequently misread, "Venus Tablets of Ammizaduga" -- a 21 year Babylonian record of the appearances and disappearances of Venus. Velikovsky used the information from the "Venus Tablets of Ammizaduga" to demonstrate the erratic behaviour of Venus in the era of the Exodus of Moses in 1492 BC. The "Venus Tablets of Ammizaduga" have traditionally been assigned to 1900 to 1000 BC. But an investigation by Lynn Rose and Raymond Vaughan in 1994 determined that the "Venus Tablets of Ammizaduga" belonged to the 7th century BC, as others have also suggested. Additionally, despite claims by other that the tablets represent completely confusing and erroneous data, Rose and Vaughan revealed the data for Venus to be inherently consistent.

The "Venus Tablets of Ammizaduga" are clay tablets found in the library of Assurbanipal of Nineveh, which burned down in 612 BC. Some 20 copies have been found (including some at other locations). Assurbanipal was a king of Assyria, the grandson of Sennacherib, and a collector of ancient literature. The tablets record the first and last visibility of Venus in the east and in the west (what we today call the Morning Star and Evening Star). They read (for example), "Venus disappeared in the east on ... remained absent ... months and ... days and reappeared in the west on ...." [note 34]

Dating these tablets has been a problem. The only clue has been an insertion on a line of the tablet which should show the record of the second half of the cycle of year 8 of the observations. "Venus was not observed for a period of nine months and four days." The data is missing and instead we find the words "The Golden Throne." [note 34a]

" ... this phrase meant "year of the golden throne," ... a year-formula that had been used to refer to the eighth year of the reign of Ammizaduga, the next-to-last king during the first Babylonian dynasty [ca 1500 or 1900 BC] ... it is located in the space that would originally have contained the rest of the observational material for the eighth year. As it is now, we have only the date of Venus' disappearance [in the east], not the interval of invisibility and not the data of reappearance [in the west]." [note 34b]

-- Lynn Rose and Raymond Vaughan (1994)

The tablets are at times dismissed as 'omen tablets' because the data for each year are annotated with what is thought to be omen information, like ".. and there is war in the east" or, "the harvest is good." But omens traditionally read as 'if-then' phrases, like, "if earthquakes last all day, then there will be destruction in the land." The "Venus Tablets" do not read like this. Of course there are also problems distinguishing tenses, but the few I have seen read like contemporaneous observations.

Separate tablets have small errors of a day or so between them, as if we are looking at a collation of separate observations. But the tablets had to be important. They may have been used in a scribal school, which generally copied only important documents. And they are unique. No other planets were observed closely at that time. The movements of Venus must have been regarded as very significant.

But the biggest problem with the tablets has been the fact that the data -- the times of visibility and invisibility -- do not match the observations of today. That has been very disconcerting to astronomers who expect that the orbits of the Earth and all the planets have remained the same since the beginnings of the Solar System, 4 billion years ago. If the orbits had always remained the same, the risings and settings of Venus could be calculated back to the eighth century BC or even earlier, but backwards calculations do not match the Babylonian data for Venus. This is disconcerting because the same Babylonians plotted the stars accurately to within a few seconds of a degree, measured the length of each day of movement of the Sun against the stars during the year, kept detailed records of the travels of other planets, knew the length of the year to within 20 minutes, and could measure the latitude of cities to within a fraction of a degree. Something was wrong. [note 35]

The "Tablets of Ammizaduga" have been investigated and discussed in archaeological and astronomical literature repeatedly since AD 1865. A number of these studies held that the data was in error, or suggested that it was made up. The studies all assumed that the orbits of Venus and Earth were nearly perfect circles in the past, as they are today.

In the early 1990's the tablets were investigated again by Lynn Rose and Raymond Vaughan, but without the bias of academic astronomy which, over a century of investigations, had simply removed data which did not fit (Kronia Conference, Portland, 1994).

Rose and Vaughan hold the data to be from the eighth century BC, not from the reign of Ammizaduga nearly a thousand years earlier as had previously been assumed, although exact dates were not determined. Rose and Vaughan use the fact that the orbits of Venus and Earth did not intersect.

Schiaparelli in 1906 also dated the tablets to the 8th century BC, based on mention of an invading Asiatic tribe which can with certainty be dated to the eighth century BC.

What Rose and Vaughan did was to normalize the data with respect to planetary orbital eccentricities. (Eccentricity is a measure of how much an orbit deviates from the circular.) That process removed the variations in actual day counts, yielding dimensionless units related to planetary eccentricities. In 'normalized' form, the data tells very little about actual orbits, but it does tell of changes in eccentricities, and changes in perihelion. There are changes in eccentricities after years 9 and 19 and a change in the aphelion of Earth's orbit after year 9. Normalized, the data looks little different from today's observations. The large remaining discrepancy is the missing data of year 8, and the insertion of the phrase "The Golden Throne." [note 36]

The Golden Throne

I think the tablets record planetary events surrounding the destruction of the temple of Marduk at Babylon in 689 BC, and its subsequent restoration in 680 BC. To point up the disruptions of the seventh century, Velikovsky had written that Babylon "did not celebrate New Year's day for a twenty year period" from 687 BC to 669 or 667 BC. "Eight years under Sennacherib, twelve years under Esarhaddon," Velikovsky quoted from the records from Nineveh, a sum of twenty years. He fit this period to what he thought to be the Earth shock of 687 BC as the starting date and the death of Esarhaddon in 668 BC as the end date -- also a difference of twenty years. However, it adds up to 21 years if different end points are counted -- 689 BC -- the destruction of the temple at Babylon -- instead of 687 BC, the suspected second Earth shock of Earth, through 668 BC, the crowning of a new king of Babylon. Velikovsky never connected the 20 year hiatus of New Year celebrations with the 21 year record of the Venus tablets which he had quoted earlier in his book.

Additionally, Velikovsky does not mention that Babylon, occupied by Elam, was destroyed under an Assyrian seige in 689 BC, the temple compounds at the center were razed and left unoccupied for eight years, and not rebuilt until 680 BC. No wonder there were no New Year celebrations.

In about 695 BC, Sennacherib, king of Assyria, who later lost an army in the seige of Jerusalem (686 BC), had attacked the kingdom of Elam on the Persian Gulf, by sending ships and troops down the Tigris river from Syria. Elam, although an Iranian nation, at that time held most of Babylonia (Mesopotamia) from south of the city of Babylon to the Persian Gulf. Elam struck back with an overland expedition which took the city of Babylon from Assyrian control.

By 693 BC the Assyrian army had made its way back north to Assyria, having defeated the Elamites (in six campaigns) throughout Babylonia, except for the city of Babylon. Sennacherib spent the next 4 years on other punitive expeditions throughout the Assyrian empire, and finally in 689 attacked Babylon, then still held by the Elamites.

Babylon was taken and sacked. Some 60,000 lives were lost in the seige, according to the records of Sennacherib. The city fortifications were destroyed and the temple compounds leveled. The God Marduk was removed to Ashur in Assyria. A canal off the Euphrates was rerouted to flood the central area of the city. The center of Babylon, where the temple had been, stood empty for eight years.

Babylon had become important a thousand years earlier, in the time of Hammarabi (1792 -1750 BC), and, although at different times under the rule of different tribes, Babylon represented all of Mesopotamia. The whole region, once known as Akkad and Sumer, had became known as "Babylonia." The city God of Babylon, Marduk, had become the "King of the Gods," replacing the much older Mesopotamian God Enlil of Nippur as the regionwide God who would approve kingships and settle border disputes. Marduk had originally been a god of thunder and lightning, and can be identified with Jupiter.

Kingship in Mesopotamia had been secular since the very beginning and the concept of a "King of the Gods" was an attempt by the priesthood to impose some control over the city states of Mesopotamia and their individual kings. The priests of Enlil at Nippur had attempted to gain control over the kings of the individual cities at an earlier time. When Hammarabi unified the country after ca 1800 BC and made Babylon the most important city, the priests again saw an opening. They elevated Marduk to the status of a region-wide God and wrote a new creation epic, the "Enuma Elish," around the exploits of Marduk -- based on the celestial events of 2349 BC.

At the time of Sennacherib, Marduk had been the primary God of Mesopotamia for a thousand years. He was recognized throughout Babylonian Mesopotamia, in Elam in the south, and even in Assyria in the north. Even later, Cyrus, the Persian, paid homage to Marduk when he took Babylon in 539 BC. All the Gods of Mesopotamia came to Babylon ("The Gate of the Gods") to honor Marduk, reminiscent of the state councils often employed by the earlier earthly kings of Sumer and Akkad. The "Enuma Elish" related this new theogony, with Marduk even elevated as Creator God. On New Year's day (Spring Equinox) the "Enuma Elish" was recited at the temple of Marduk. The celebration of New Year was the most important festival of Babylon, in which the king himself participated, playing the role of Marduk.

Sennacherib's very long struggle against the Elamites, and his failures at Jerusalem three years later, added to his growing unpopularity among the Assyrians. His kingdom apparently suffered from crop failures also. His removal of Marduk from Babylon was seen as the cause of his misfortunes.

"Even many Assyrians were indignant at this, believing that the Babylonian God Marduk must be grievously offended at the destruction of the temple and the carrying off of his image."

-- Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th edition

Attempts were made by the Assyrian court to rewrite the "Enuma Elish" to show Marduk at fault. The politics came to a head in 681 BC. There was a revolt and Sennacherib was killed by two of his sons. The two sons had to flee the country and were pursued by Esarhaddon, the son of Sennacherib's surviving wife. He was subsequently crowned as King.

Esarhaddon immediately made amends for his father's behaviour and in 680 BC rebuilt Babylon and the temple compounds, although the statue of Marduk remained in Ashur. He continued to maintain good relations with Babylon, spending part of the year there, but calling himself only the "Governor of Babylon." In 677 BC he installed one of his own sons, Shamash-shum-ukin, as Crown Prince of Babylon, but the prince did not assume kingship of Babylon during Esarhaddon's lifetime. [note 37]

Esarhaddon spends the remainder of his reign maintaining his father's kingdom. He worried much about his failing health and, at times of impending lunar eclipses, installed temporary substitute kings of Assyria so the Gods could not find him. Esharhaddon died in 669 BC while on a punitive expedition to Egypt, which was then in revolt.

In 668 BC his third son, Ashurbanipal, took the crown of Assyria and Shamash-shum-ukin was crowned king of Babylon. In the following year the Babylonian New Year festival was again celebrated. The statue of Marduk had been returned. It had been twenty-one years since the destruction of the temple. It is in Ashurbanipal's archives at Nineveh that the "Venus Tablets of Ammizaduga" were found 2500 years later. [note 38]

There is a remarkable coincidence between the 21 years of observations recorded by the "Venus Tablets of Ammizaduga" and the 21 years without a New Year celebration in Babylon. If we place the end points of the 21 year record at the beginning and end of the period when no New Year celebrations happen in Babylon, then the year of "The Golden Throne" falls in 680 BC, the year the temple of Marduk was rebuilt.

It was the phrase, "The Year of the Golden Throne," which caused the initial researchers of the 19th century to date the tablets to 1900 or 1500 BC. However, what the insertion "The Golden Throne" strongly reminds me of is not Ammizaduga, a minor king in the declining days of the First Babylonian empire in 1500 BC, but the "Lowering of Kingship" at the start of time before the Flood and again with the first king after the Flood. As always, the Mesopotamians look backwards to the beginnings. [note 39]

After the ... [missing text] ... of kingship had descended from heaven, after the exalted crown and throne of kingship had descended from heaven, the divine rites and the exalted powers were perfected, the bricks of the cities were laid in holy places ...etc.

-- Ziudsura tablets, segment B, (some parts missing) ca 2700 BC.

To the Babylonians the rebuilding of the temple of Marduk must have seemed like the "Kingship of God" had again descended to Earth, and in the same manner as at the beginning of time. Most likely the Venus data was compiled to these tablets for the sole purpose of declaring how the "Kingship of God" had returned to Babylon by the will of the Gods. The data for Venus was used because the sudden blazing of Venus in 680 BC (astronomical year -685) clearly declared the event.

The beginning point of the Venus Tablets follows the destruction of the temple precincts by Sennacherib in 689 BC. A central panel which recorded the phrase "The Golden Throne" corresponds to the rebuilding of the temple in 680 BC. The end point of the data follows the coronation of Shamash-shum-ukin as king of Babylon in 668 BC and the return of Marduk.

The long delay in celebrating the New Year was due to the fact that there was no acknowledged king of Babylon until Shamash-shum-ukin was crowned and because Marduk was missing. Esarhaddon, son of Sennacherib, had taken the title of "Governor of Babylon," for political reasons, and his son had remained the "Crown Prince of Babylon." Only after 668 BC was there again a "King of Babylon." [note 40]

The Blazing Star

What was the year of the Golden Throne like? The account from Mesoamerica, that Quatzalcoatl "set himself on fire," suggests an absolutely astounding sight. After having set in the east early in the year and a month late (about mid-February of 685 BC), as noted by Rose and Vaughan, Venus became visible after having passed from behind the Sun and started to appear in the day sky, following the Sun across the sky for some 60 days (but flaring up only 40 days), before disappearing again in the west. It was as if Venus was on fire, an apparition as bright as the Sun, climbing up with the Sun on rising in the east, blazing through the day skies, initially trailing the Sun and progressively distancing from the Sun, until it "lit up the western night sky" at dusk after the Sun had set. This would have been a year when no conventional settings or risings of Venus could be recorded. Additionally so because Venus did indeed not disappear behind the Sun, but rode through the skies above the Sun from the perspective of Earth, an unusual condition. At some point, after setting in the west, and after an eight day 'canonical' disappearance from view (which probably did not happen), it would rise again in the east, no longer in flames, as the Morning Star. [note 41]

Sources describing the flare-up of Venus abound, although most cannot be dated. A Greek 'legend' has Phaethon (Phaëthon) (another name for the planet Venus) steal the chariot of his father the Sun to go on an uncontrollable ride through the sky. His ride ends when he is struck by a thunderbolt from Jupiter (Zeus) and placed among the stars as the Morning Star. Augustine notes the same as a secondary recollection from other sources, relative to Venus. [note 42]

Once we understand the stupendous flareup of 680 BC (685 BC), we should be able to recognize other mentions of this event. As a matter of fact, Isaiah, who had asked, "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!" continues on with ...

"For thou hast said in thy heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God"

-- Isaiah 14:12-13

Isaiah does not recognize Venus (Lucifer) as a deity, but only as a self-willed animate phenomenon. His text recognizes that the apparition rose high in the sky (as also noted by other sources) and expresses his contempt for a spirit who would rival God by setting up a throne above the stars. These lines would have been written after 680 BC.

Here is Ezekiel's vision, which may have been recalled from an earlier account. Ezekiel lived a generation later, during the time of the Israelites' captivity in Babylon, 597 BC -- 536 BC:

"... upon the throne, a form in human likeness. I saw what might have been brass glowing like fire in a furnace from the waist upwards; and from the waist downwards I saw what looked like fire with encircling radiance. Like a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day was the sight of that encircling radiance; it was like the appearance of the glory of the Lord. When I saw this I threw myself on my face ... "

-- Ezekiel 1:27-28

I should add a note about the "Golden Throne." A 'throne' in antiquity is not the high-backed arm chair we think of. It is, after all, a coma and plasma tail we are looking at. It would perhaps look like the presentation of the mountain of Horus between 3100 BC and 2700 BC -- a vertical section of a truncated cone in profile and perhaps with distinct legs, depending on how the Sun illuminated the coma and the plasma outpouring.

Because Venus orbits between the Earth and the Sun, during the part of the time when Venus was more in line with the Sun, the plasma tail would be directed toward Earth, and foreshortened, and the planet with its plasma would have looked more like an inverted bucket than a blazing ball with a tail stretching halfway across the sky. The rationalization of the image, of course, depends entirely on expectations. Once you see a throne in the celestial display, it will remain a throne through any amount of distortion.

The Persian Zend-Avista (written contemporaneously, or within a generation) is filled with offers of supplication and sacrifices to Tristrya (Venus), and also evokes an image of light similar to Isaiah's text ... [note 43]

"For ten nights ... Tishtrya, the bright and glorious star, mingles his shape with light, moving in the shape of.. [a boy, a bull, a horse]". [this phrasing is repeated three times]

"We sacrifice unto Tishtrya, the bright and glorious star who from the shining east moves along his long winding path, along the path made by the Gods."

-- Zend-Avista II, "Khorda Avesta" Section 8, "Tishtar Yasht" James Darmesteter, translater (1880)

The description matches what we would expect. The "long winding path" is the loop normally traveled by Venus above the east or west horizon as the Morning Star or Evening Star. But at the time when Venus was regularly seen in the daytime skies, the "long winding path" actually describes the loop traveled around the Sun in the daytime. It is "long" because Venus extends some 40 degrees from the Sun as seen from Earth. The "path made by the Gods" is of course the ecliptic. Despite the "winding path" Venus stayed mostly on the ecliptic. The ten nights (actually, days) are repeated for three different shapes. This is a total of thirty days. In the "Khorda Avesta," after a lapse of 30 days, Tishtrya engages a daemon in battle, but loses during the first three days. An appeal is made to Ahura Mazda [Jupiter] for intervention -- a sacrifice to give Tishtrya strength. This happens, and on the last day, Tishtrya proves stronger. Thirty four days have passed (there may be additional days at the end of the hymn). The time span is close to being correct. I will get back to this. [note 44]

There are similar descriptions of a blazing apparition among Hindu sources, describing it as a "horse without hips." Assurbanipal, the king of Assyria who reinstalled Marduk to the temple at Babylon, also witnessed the event, and wrote about Ishtar (Venus),

"... who is clothed with fire and bears aloft a crown of awful splendor, raining fire over Arabia."

The "raining fire" is noted in a number of other contemporaneous sources. It is the "Ignis Coelis" which will continue to fall sporadically on regions of Earth far into the future.

With this display in the sky in 685 BC, we should find similar activities among humans -- as ever in imitation of the spectacle in the skies. And we do. There are two recorded instances, dated to the seventh century, of kings in western Anatolia committing suicide in their burning palaces -- Rusas I of Urarta, and Midas of the Phrygians, both after attacks by the Cimmerians. In Mesopotamia we have two Assyrian kings who are reported to have gone up in the smoke of their beseiged palaces -- Sin-shar-ishkun in 611 BC, after a seige by the Medes under Cyaxares, and Shamash-shum-ukin in 648 BC, after a three year seige of Babylon by his brother Ashurbanipal. Ussher writes about Shamash-shum-ukin (under the identity of Sardanapalus)..

"... he made a huge pile of wood in his palace court and set it on fire, which burned himself, his concubines, his eunuchs and all his riches. The palace itself was also burned to ashes."

-- James Ussher "The Annals of The World" (1650)

Croesus is reputed to also have been burned to death when Sardis was taken by Cyrus in 546 BC, although Herodotus has it that he was taken prisoner by the Persians.

I have not found earlier instances of this. As always, a touch of the supernatural is added to history.

In China the last emperor of the Shang dynasty is said to have similarly set himself on fire. The Shang ends in 1125 BC, but the report is from the Chou dynasty, and may be apocryphal, in which case I would presume it was created by the Chi or Eastern Chou, and dated after the eighth century BC, when extensive historical records first appear.

Lastly, Hercules of Greek and Roman mythology, who represents an earlier Mars (before 2800 BC), but also the later wanderings of Venus (he battles Mars in one instance), and especially the destructive visits by Mars in the 7th and 8th century BC, similarly seeks deification through self-immolation. [note 45]

The bolt from Jupiter

Having established the year of these events, I should at this point indicate the likely dates, the sources for which I will discuss in the next chapter in more detail. The following seems like the most likely sequence of events for the year 685 BC. I'll embelish the chronology with some quotations from various sources, which I will cover in more detail later.

The lightning bolt from Jupiter was, as I will show below, 1.5 million miles in diameter -- twice the width of the Sun -- and 15 million miles long. It would have taken some 9 hours to complete the landing at the Sun. It would have lit up both the day and night sky. The "Popol Vu" suggests that the planets near the Sun, Venus and Mercury, were not seen for the next five days.

With that the blazing of Venus and Mercury apparently came to an end. At least, in Mesoamerica July 25 was held as the end of the event. It is possible that the arc mode plasma displays of Venus and Mercury simply diminished, switched to glow mode, and then to dark mode. Jupiter may have continued with its glow mode display longer, since a single spark will not likely to 'discharge' a massive planet. There may have been additional, lesser, plasmoids released by Jupiter. [note 48a]

The "Popol Vu" relates that Hunahpu and Xbalanque, after they jump in the oven of the Xibalbans, are seen by people in the river where their ashes were deposited. The river is the ecliptic, which was still aglow certainly at this time (it lasted to AD 1840), and, as will be recalled from Egyptian predynastic history, the catfish are plasmoids. They "looked like catfish." These are likely the lesser bolts from Jupiter.

When I first came to a realization of the above events, I simply could not believe it, and was reluctant to put together this narrative. It is absolutely unimaginable that a planet could have bolted its star with an electrical arc which had to travel 480,000,000 miles to reach its destination. I was familiar with the plasmoid imagery of Rome and Babylon, as well as the numerous 'model plasmoids' in Asia, depicted in "Thunderbolts of the Gods" (2005) by David Talbott and Wallace Thornhill. The plasmoids are depicted on coins also. These images were from late antiquity, none from before 600 BC. That was a troubling fact, for the previous depiction of a plasmoid was nearly 3000 years earlier, the predynastic Egyptian king "Catfish-drill."

I was also familiar with the 'rigid bar' insignia of Maya rulers in the Classical Era (AD 400 to AD 900), but it was only when I started to look at the iconography of the Olmec site of La Venta, which can be clearly dated to directly after 650 BC (see Appendix G), that I was forced to accept the fact that I was obviously looking at a depiction of Jupiter in glow mode plasma discharge (easily recognizable because of Jupiter's reversed magnetic field), and a massive plasmoid lightning bolt shaped exactly like the classical laboratory forms. The diverse imagery suddenly came together to explain the connection between what the Greeks considered the 'mythological past' and what they and we consider the 'modern world.'

The plasma bolt launched from Jupiter is the "lightning bolt of Zeus" which toppled Phaethon from his father's chariot. The myth of Phaethon is thus the last 'mythology' from antiquity. In 685 BC, before releasing the plasmoid, Jupiter must have flared up and assumed the size of a mountain. The bolt traveled over 480 million miles to the Sun. It is little wonder that Jupiter, despite its diminished visual display since 2200 BC, continued to be held as the chief God everywhere in the world.

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

We have to ask how this could have happened. What would normally happen to cause lightning between planets, is that a conductive path has to pre-exist and that the voltage difference has to be sensed. That would happen if the plasmaspheres of two planets touched. Although the existence of a long tail would have furnished the electrical path for a return lightning strike, it is just not likely that the plasmasphere tail of Venus (or Earth) would have reached 500 million miles into space, through the Asteroid Belt, to Jupiter. But there is an entirely different condition which fulfils the need for a conductive media between Jupiter and the Sun, and for sensing the voltage difference.

[Image: Plasmoid lightning bolt]
Image: The Plasmoid lightning bolt depicted as the "Rigid Serpent Bar" in Maya illustrations, meant as a token of office. Two Gods are coming out of the distended mouths of the serpent. The two Saint Andrew's crosses on the body denote the 'vernal equinox' and 'autumnal equinox' of the ecliptic. After Linda Schele and David Freidel "A Forest of Kings" (1990).

It already was my suspicion that the "Venus nova event" was in actuality a month long coronal mass expulsion of the Sun. It lit up Venus and Mercury like suns. It was at this time that both planets ended up becoming pockmarked with craters and electrical scars. It altered the spin axis of the Earth.

And it provided a highly conductive path between the Sun and the far reaches of space, certainly to the location of Jupiter -- a distance of 5.2 AU. A continuous plasma expulsion of the Sun would extend the high voltage drop, the voltage inversion layer which is normally relatively close to the Sun, far out into space. Rather than having to breach 500 million miles of a very large voltage difference, Jupiter was suddenly in almost direct electrical contact with the Sun. The voltage difference between Jupiter and the Sun would be sensed by the plasmasphere of Jupiter which, like those of the other planets, actually travels within the plasmasphere of the Sun.

Earth, Venus, and Mercury were not involved in the bolt from Jupiter. Earth and Venus remained invisible to Jupiter, protected by their own plasmaspheres. Earth and Venus were also well away from the line connecting the Sun and Jupiter.

[Image: Planets about the Sun, July 26, 685 BC]
Image: Planets about the Sun, July 26, 685 BC, seen from 'above.' Orbital rotation is counterclockwise.

Scaled from the diagram above, it would appear that Earth was some 30 or 40 million miles from the path of the lightning bolt. The plasmoid from Jupiter aimed directly at the Sun. The people of Earth witnessed the travel of the plasmoid through the night and daytime skies. Even if the bolt was only 1/10th of the diameter of Jupiter, it would have been the diameter of the Earth. It is even possible that the plasmoid bolt from Jupiter, passing by Earth, influenced the inclination of Earth's axis, but both the "Chilam Balam" and the "Sibylline Oracle Books" insist that the process started earlier.

In November of AD 2003 the Sun sent a number of Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) into space. These usually travel at a speed of about 2 million miles per hour by the time they reach the Earth's orbit (as does the Solar Wind). The CMEs of 2003 traveled across the 93 million miles between the Sun and Earth in 30 minutes, averaging 200 million miles per hour -- a quarter of the speed of light. There is no reason to believe that the lightning bolt from Jupiter in 685 BC could not have traveled at a wide range of possible speeds.

From a comparison of the depictions of plasmoids in Europe and Asia with Mesoamerica, it is clear that Europe and Asia saw the bolt when it was released from Jupiter, saw it travel for 10 or 12 days and may have entirely missed the splashdown, but understood it as headed for Venus. The bolt was traveling 40,000,000 miles per day. Mesoamerica also saw the startup of the event, but had the privilege of seeing the plasmoid pass by Earth during the daytime, visually extended to its full size. Mesoamerica likely did see it reach its target, but the explosion at the Sun would have been large enough to make it look like the nearby planet Mars was struck. [note 48]

The plasmoids depicted in Mesoamerica are longer than the short hand-held objects depicted in Europe and Asia. The Mesoamerican plasmoid, depicted as carried in the arms of figures, look to be 5 or 6 foot long object.

[Image: Dragon]

Image: Chinese depiction of the dragon.

China saw more of the plasmoid than Europe or most of the rest of Asia. China understood the plasmoid as a dragon approaching from the east, and records dragons in exactly the manner in which the plasmoid was seen in the sky (in a somewhat contracted form), head first, with an open mouth, long feelers attached to the mouth parts, and what looked like legs attached further away along the body.

[Image: Plasmoid lightning bolt]
Image: The Plasmoid lightning bolt depicted as the "Rigid Serpent Bar" in Maya illustrations. Two planetary Gods are coming out of the distended mouths of the serpent. After Linda Schele and David Freidel "A Forest of Kings" (1990).

Mesoamerica also recorded a dragon, but it had no legs. Instead it had heads at both ends of the body, but also with the wide open mouth and the tendrils attached to the mouth parts as in China. What was understood as legs in China, was properly attached to the rear mouth of the dragons of the Maya.

Mesoamerican chiefs carry a rigid bar in their arms as an emblem of office, with triple tines at both ends. A bar like this is first shown held by a person (actually the God Jupiter) on stela 2 of La Venta and on a number of engraved dedicatory celts at the same location. By the time of the Classical Maya (AD 400 to AD 900), the bar is four times as thick as in Olmec times of 600 BC, and it is conceived of as a tube, a rigid snake, or a dragon with a head at each end. The tines have become mouth and jaw parts of the dragon, and Venus and the Sun are shown emerging from the two mouths.

Short hand-held 'model' plasmoids, dating from this era, are found today in Tibet, India, and Japan, nearly identical to European sculptural and mural depictions. All of them mostly follow the shape of laboratory plasma discharges: a twisted body with balls at both ends, from which emerge three tines like flower petals.

[Image: Plasmoid model, Tibet] [Image: Plasmoid model, India] [Image: Plasmoid model, Japan]
Images: Plasmoid models from Tibet, India, Japan. After David Talbott and Wallace Thornhill, "Thunderbolts of the Gods" (2005).

The same triple tined objects with a twisted center are shown as being held in the hand of Zeus in Roman statues. The trident arrow appears (as the weapon of Marduk) in wall sculptures in Mesopotamia after 600 BC.

The Roman naturalist Pliny, in the first century AD, still discusses lightning bolts from planets, and distinguishes between various types. If the plasmoids had last been seen shortly after the end of the "Age of the Gods" (3114 BC) it would have been unlikely to suddenly reappear in the last few centuries of the previous era to become the object of philosophical speculation.

[Image: Plasmoid lightning bolt] [Image: Plasmoid lightning bolt] [Image: Plasmoid lightning bolt]
Images: Short Plasmoid lightning bolt depicted as vase paintings, statues, and murals (Greek, Roman, Babylonian). All dated after ca 600 BC.

It seems clear that the difference in the images between Europe and the Americas is entirely due to seeing this object in different stages of its travel. If Mesoamerica had seen the plasmoid bolt in the day sky (with Asia and Europe turned away to the night side of Earth) just as it passed Earth, then the bolt would have been seen in full profile. From this the size could be estimated.

[Image: Plasmoid lightning bolt]  [Image: Plasmoid lightning bolt]
Images: Left two: Long Plasmoid lightning bolt depicted on two celts from La Venta, ca 650 BC. The second figure, with the crocodile legs, is carrying a bar in the shape of snake or cayman. Right: Stela 11 at Seibal, dated 10.1.0.0.0, AD 849. After Linda Schele and David Freidel "Maya Cosmos" (1993), and "A Forest of Kings" (1990).

I would suggest that, as seen from Mesoamerica, it probably subtended an angle of about 30 degrees in the sky -- understood as a five or six foot long object held by a God. With the Earth 30 million miles from the path of travel of the plasmoid, it must have been about 15 million miles long (30,000,000 * s(30/deg) = 15,000,000 miles).

In early depictions in Mesoamerica the object looks to have a diameter of about 1/10th of its length. That would make the lightning bolt 1.5 to 2 million miles in diameter. This is certainly larger by far than the diameter of the planet Jupiter (80,000 miles), but the plasmasphere of Jupiter, under normal conditions, is on the order of 20 planet diameters, thus 1.6 million miles wide. Plasmoids also tend to shrink on cutting loose from their cathode, and thus thicken.

Europe saw the plasmoid again as Earth turned back to the day side, but the plasmoid had passed by. Mesopotamia and Greece were certain that Venus was hit, visually some 15 or 20 million miles further west in the sky, for a day later Venus had quelled its blazing. Europe probably never saw the plasmoid reach the Sun, which would have required another 30 million miles of travel (about a day of travel). Mesoamerica, on the other hand, probable saw the plasmoid contact the Sun (it would have caused a stupendous flare-up), but assumed it was destined for Mars, which stood in the sky just past the Sun in the west.

From these rough estimates it could be suggested that the plasmoid was traveling at a rate of about 20 to 30 million miles per half day -- or 1.5 to 2.5 million miles per hour. These estimates are in line with what we know of the solar wind and CMEs traveling from the Sun.

How long did it take to travel from Jupiter to the Sun? Assuming that the gradient of the electrical field between Jupiter and the Sun was low enough that acceleration during travel could be neglected, and at an average rate of 1.5 to 2.5 million miles per hour, it would take 8 to 13 days. (Based on (5.2 * au) / (2500000 * 24) = 8.06 days and (5.2 * au) / (1500000 * 24) = 13.4 days.) The people of Mesoamerica seem to claim it took 12 days. It would thus have been traveling at a rate of 5.2 * AU /12 = 40,000,000 miles per day.

The Planets in the Sky

During much of the last half of the eighth and much of the seventh century BC the skies of Earth were crowded with unwanted planets. Then, after 685 BC, they all disappeared. Venus was finally held to be a planet by the Babylonians. A hundred years later much had been forgotten. Noone remembered, or wanted to remember. History was turned into mythology.

... Venus

Venus already had a coma and a plasma tail since remotest times, as did Mercury. I will describe these below, but what is of especial interest here is the increased activities of the planets the 8th and 7th century BC.

Venus, without a magnetic field, would not likely have produced the tri-lobe shape, but only the tail of its surrounding coma, directed away from the Sun, and splitting into two parts which would diverge. This is still seen in comets today (which also do not have a magnetic field). Additionally there would have been long wisps of plasma from its polar regions. These would seem to be coherent plasma streams, bent to the direction of the Sun, but not organized into tri-lobed plumes. The streamers, if they existed, are readily identified in the imagery of Maya celestial dragons, where they attach at the mouth, looking almost identical to depictions of dragons in China, although, as I have pointed out, it is more likely that these were observed with the travel past Earth of the giant plasmoid from Jupiter.

In 685 BC Venus brightened enormously, and any of these features, which had been seen for ages, suddenly increased in intensity. Assurbanipal described Ishtar (Venus) as "... who is clothed with fire and bears aloft a crown of awful splendor."

... Jupiter

The tri-lobed plasma formation, describe above, would also appear at the poles of a planet with a magnetic field when in glow mode plasma discharge. Jupiter did this in 685 BC. Jupiter has a very strong magnetic field (ten times that of any other planet), and it produced a giant three-lobed flower form extending from its north pole above the coma surrounding the planet. The surrounding coma probably looked the size of the Moon.

The same strong magnetic field produced another tri-lobed form, much larger than the top, at its south pole (the 'north' magnetic pole), making it look as the 'body' of the planet, although, and as noted by the Olmecs, the body looked like the open jaws of a crocodile, the central tongue of which might have been missing or not observed. Crocodiles have only a short tongue.

These features were recorded after 685 BC by the Olmecs on stelae and engraved ceremonial celts. Archaeologists hold that the headdress is to be identified as a corn plant, with two leaves pulled away from an ear of corn. But the figure universally recognized as the "Corn God" in the Classical Maya era does not wear such a hat. The tri-lobed headdress shows up, instead, and from very early times, among the Maya as the "jester hat" of a scepter or headband representing Venus, and known among arhaeologists as the Jester God. [note 17a]

[Image: La Venta celt] [Image: Maya Crocodile tree] [Image: Maya Crocodile tree]
Images: Left: An Olmec celt, ca 685 BC, with the body of a crocodile's head. Shown amid the four trees of the cardinal directions. Middle: Maya crocodile maize plant with a bird at the top. Right: Maya crocodile tree on a blood offering plate. After Linda Schele and David Freidel "A Forest of Kings" (1990), and "Maya Cosmos" (1993).

Jupiter in this condition was also identified as the central (or southern) tree of creation, the World Tree of the Maya. The same World Tree is often shown by the Maya with branches and leaves at the top, but with the head of a crocodile as its base at the bottom.

The tri-lobed crown of Jupiter waved back and forth, since the magnetic poles of planets do not coincide with the rotational axis. At a rotational rate of 9 hours, this would have been seen as a plant waving in the wind. Jupiter was probably also seen during the day. At Teotihuacan the favored headdress of dignitaries and Gods becomes a hat of feathers and plumes. This fashion carried through for a thousand years to the Maya and the Aztecs.

In the eastern Mediterranean region the Gods had already taken human form, and the only strange animals depicted as supernatural beings are the deamons they battle.

... Mars

In Mesoamerica Mars is often depicted as 'smoking' (a cigar) or with a mirror on his forehead. I cannot place the mirror, but obviously the smoking is an unshaped plasma discharge because Mars also has no magnetic field. Olmec sculptures depict Mars with the features of a bat and the snarl of a Jaguar. One wonders if the 'smoking' dates from the lightning bolt suspected to have been delivered by Venus in ca 776 BC. When Mars is depicted with an axe piercing his forehead, recognition is certainly given to some gigantic lightning stroke of the past, which probably excavated Valles Marineris.

At later times among the Maya, Mars (God K), is often depicted with the leg of a snake, signifying a lightning strike. That describes the effect of electrical contacts after 806 BC.

An estimate of the number of visits by Mars after 747 BC can be deduced from the religious monuments at Olmec La Venta, whose monumental construction spans 747 BC to about 400 BC. There are, within the confines of the pyramid and adjacent plazas, five elaborate graves (one of the graves is a coffin shaped as a gigantic caymen), five massive offering caches of serpentine blocks, and four collosal stone heads. The first passage of Mars perhaps did not require a stone head. Or it has not yet been found. The three mosaic tiled floors (two were buried) read "9 Jaguar" -- a bar and 4 dots, shaped like a jaguar face with the characteristic forehead cleft -- which in effect equals the "Chilam Balam's" name for Mars, Bolon Dzacab, "Nine Lives."

Except for this repetition of five, along with the four giant heads, there is no clear record of the number of visits. The only additional suggestion comes from the "Chilam Balam," which records, after the first mention of the appearance of Bolon Dzacab, Mars, in 747 BC, the descent of four "mighty demon bats." (See Appendix F, "The Chilam Balam Books.")

The best reconstruction by Velikovsky from Biblical sources was to suggest appearances of Mars at 15 year intervals. The 60 year time span of 477 BC to 687 BC represents five visits if they were 15 years apart.

... Earth

The Earth, another planet with a magnetic field, would, at various times of excess electrical activity, also have had the same tri-lobed vortexes standing above the Earth's north and south magnetic poles, and extending perhaps 10 or 20 Earth diameters into space. The plasma above the north magnetic pole would have been larger than the plasma of the south magnetic pole. But the southern plasma was most likely visible also in the northern hemisphere, for the plumes would have bent away from Earth into the tail of the magnetosphere.

It is quite likely that the outer shell would be mostly transparent, and only the central spikes were seen. Alternately, as I have detailed in previous chapters, the plumes rose up as a coherent structure (see especially an endnote to Chapter 7, "The Age of the Gods and the Flood," detailing the recent discovery by NASA, in early 2009, of these plumes, in dark mode, and separated as two counter-rotating streams at the northern aurora) -- with ball plasmoids at the end and the plant-like wisps beyond that. A plasma stream above the north and south magnetic poles would answer to the claims of the four trees of the cardinal directions of the Maya, which appeared four times since 3114 BC, according to the "Chilam Balam." Other Mesoamerican sources claim 8 and 9 appearances for the north plume. [note 46a]

... Mercury

The "Chilam Balam" lists nine close calls by a planet in the eighth and seventh century BC (806 BC to 686 BC), described as delivering flowers and fragrances. The "flowers" are curious, because a flower-form (the tri-lobe form) would not be expected for Mars. This would suggest that the planet describes as "Nine Fragrances" was Mercury, instead. Mercury has a minor magnetic field, and still has a strange mix of gasses as a thin atmosphere.

The sweet smells are noted from other sources dating to this time also. If Mercury had a more considerable atmosphere, then the outer layer of its plasmasphere (the double layer) would be composed of ions of atmospheric gasses and electrons. Since Mercury came close nine times during this period, it could be suggested that gasses could be transmitted from one planet to another simply by having the double layer of their plasmasheres come close, or brush against each other.

The repeated destructions of sites in Persia, the Middle East, Greece, Italy, and apparently in Europe, together with the identification of Mars, and lamentations about the followers of Mars, would suggest Mars as the main agent of the destructions of the 8th century BC. But the flower forms and the associated fragrances point to Mercury. These are not mentioned (except for the fragrances) in the Middle East.

The Last Changes

There is another very interesting and related consideration arising from the analysis by Rose and Vaughan. They note a change in the aphelion of Earth's orbit in 679 BC (684 BC), immediately following the year of the "Golden Throne" of 680 BC (actual year 685 BC). The orbit of the Earth had changed its shape. Probably the most important aspect of the change in aphelion is the fact that it immediately removed the Earth's orbit from further interactions with Mars' orbit, by rotating away from the location where it crossed Mars' orbit. Moving aphelion by 10 or 15 degrees within the time of a single rotation around the Sun is not a small amount. This clearly is in conflict with current theories of how orbits might change, which could only happen under the gravitational effects of other planets. Such gravitational tugging is a very small percentage of the effect of the gravity due to the Sun, and would take millions of years to have some effect.

What also happened simultaneously, as a result, was a change in the place in the heavens to which the axis of the Earth pointed. The result would amount to a 10 to 20 degree shift of the vernal equinox (the first day of spring, and the start of the year for most nations), and thus a 10 to 20 day delay in the start of spring. Instead of the Sun rising in the constellation of the Bull, Taurus, as it had for thousands of years, it suddenly started to rise in the constellation of the Ram, Aries. I'll detail this in the next chapter.

Chaldean priests had kept records of the movements of the planets since 747 BC and certainly by 652 BC (we have records from that date), but often on differing coordinate systems. These make no sense to astronomers today. The Vedas mention a sinking of the Earth. Numerous Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Chinese, and Indian sources mention the change in the Earth axis, and even a later Roman playwright incorporates the well known 'change in the heavens' in a play -- specifically in reference to the zodiac. [note 46]

It was as if a power outside the dome of the stars had suddenly shifted the heavens by rotating them away from the horned bull -- the age-old symbol of the celestial Gods. This was a power greater than that of any of the Gods worshipped up to that time. It closed an era.

Although the changes in the night sky were seen immediately, the significance of the change was not initially appreciated. But within a hundred years it had entered religious and philosophical thinking in the Middle East, India, and China. It is almost certain that Budhism can trace its inspiration to this event of 680 BC. The Persian Zoroastrianism similarly dates from this period, and strongly influenced Judaism. In China the concepts are expressed in the philosophy of Taoism. The Tao proposes to explain "the change of the path." The "mystery religions" of the Middle East and Greece date from this period. I will get back to this topic in the following chapter.

Additionally Rose and Vaughan report that 9 years later, in 670 BC, for some unknown cause, the eccentricity of the Earth's orbit changed significantly (from 0.10 to 0.0+). This means the orbit of earth became nearly circular, and no longer overran the orbit of Mars. With that the drama in the skies was over. [note 47]

Endnotes

Note a --

After 2193 BC the repeating period for Venus changed to a smaller value. See Appendix B, "Celestial Mechanics," for details. The 52 year intervals were of course in solar years, not in current years. Mesoamerica counted in 'Tun' years of 360 days until 747 BC, and counted in 'Haab' years of 365 days after that. Today one of the two Sun transit periods of Venus, when the Sun, Venus, and Earth are directly in line, is still a double interval of 52 years.
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Note 1 --

Eccentricity is a measure of how much an orbit deviates from the circular, and thus how elliptical the orbit is. Precession is the slow rotation of an elliptical orbit around the Sun, not to be confused with the precession of the equinox. Orbits, as ellipses, have two centers (a circle has one center). One center is located at the Sun, the other lies some distance away from the Sun. This second center slowly revolves about the Sun.

Earth's orbit today is fairly circular, and takes 40,000 years to revolve around the Sun. But the orbit of Mars is still notably eccentric, and every 30 years Mars passes 30 million miles closer to Earth -- to within about 40 million miles.
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Note 2a --

It had been assumed by Velikovsky that the 'ball' in the celestial ballgame of 776 BC was the Moon. This was partially based on reports from the Romans that the 'month' varied greatly around the time of the founding of Rome, ca 747 BC. But the 'month' was a calendar measure, not the orbital period of the Moon. It was an attempt by the Romans to adjust the calendar to the new length of the year after 747 BC. It is just doubtful that the orbit of the Moon would be effected, especially repeatedly. There is also no information on this from any other sources.

Considering that Mercury shows up repeatedly during the period of 747 BC (or 806 BC) to 686 BC (as it had in 3100 to 2800 BC), it is more likely that it was Mercury which was understood as the ball. Of course only the Olmecs make note of this, because the Olmecs had been playing games with a large rubber ball since perhaps 1400 BC (at San Lorenzo).
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Note 2 --

The Olympic Games were said to have been founded by Hercules (Mars) at Pelop's tomb at Olympia. There is evidence from ephemeris information that a near conjunction of Earth with Mars and Venus happens in 776 BC. Notes on this may be found in Appendix B, "Celestial Mechanics."

The Chinese Book of Shih King, the "Book of Odes," lists a "celestial event" for 776 BC. But it is reputed to only be an eclipse of the Sun, and, as a book of collected poetry, the Shih King is not really concerned with celestial events. But it is the only celestial event which is listed. Since the Moon was on a slightly larger orbit, it is unlikely that the eclipse was caused by the Moon. Thus it might have been a planet on an inner orbit.

Another source for celestial phenomena during this period of time, the "Spring and Autumn Annals," compiled by Confucius and completed about 480 BC, lists some 35 eclipses, almost all of which were verified in the 19th century, but includes no dates significant to conjunctions with Venus or Mars.

Venus and Mars may have met near Earth at other times in addition to 776 BC, for in 742 BC Isaiah declared a prophetic sign "in the height above," to King Ahaz of Israel, saying, "Behold, the Virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. Butter and honey shall he eat.." (Isaiah 7:12-14) "The Virgin" is Venus. "Virgin" is a Greek translation of the Hebrew word "the maid" (Ha'almah), that is, young woman, as Isis/Astarte (Venus) had been known for 2500 years.

Bob Fritzius contends that the "child" is Mars appearing from behind the coma of Venus, and moving though the tail. See the website at [http://www.datasync.com/~rsf1/vel/ha-almah.htm].

A later addition to his webpage sensibly suggests that what may have been seen was an aborted fissioning of Venus. Fritzis believes there is support for this from Greek mythology. This is certainly an interesting notion, and fully in line with my suggestion that in 685 BC Venus went nova. Fritzius is a published astronomer and an electrical engineer.

I would suggest that the "butter and honey" are plasma displays in glow mode which disconnect from the planet, initially as teardrops, and then as round droplet shapes, perhaps to be dispersed to smaller globules. These are flares rising as ejections from the atmosphere of Venus due to cathode plasma sources at the surface, and are thus entrapped gases at high temperatures. Any gases so ejected would be ionized and surrounded by electrons in glow mode. These may also been part of the planetary fissioning which produced the 'child.' The "butter and honey" may also represent the lighted ecliptic and the last equatorial ring of the Earth, although this last ring was colored red.

What Isaiah (7:15) said, was..

"Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good."

Considereing the evil done by Mars during this period, I am more inclined to think that Immanuel is Mercury, who never (as far as we know) made electrical contact with Earth -- until the very last time in 686 BC.

Mars also appears as "Horus the Child" in Egyptian sculpture at about this time (after 747 BC), the inexplicable third Horus. This as well could be Mercury, although it is unlikely that the Egyptians misidentified Mars. The child Horus is originally shown trampling snakes and scorpions, and his image is a charm against snake bites and scorpion stings, but he is soon depicted at the breast of Isis. This 'Mother and Child' image spreads to the Middle East and the Roman empire, and eventually, through Greek influences in Buddhist India, is introduced to China. For the Egyptians of the New Kingdom, the second Horus had been assumed dead since ca 2700 BC when he last passed close to Earth, but at this time Mars is recognized again as Horus.

Seen (initially) in proximity to Venus, Mars is very small and the "Horus the Child" image may have derived from this comparison. The snakes being trampled are described in Vedic literature in the 7th and 8th century BC as contemporaneous companions of Mars. The Vedic hymns, as well as Bible passages and Mesopotamian documents, describe the furious rotation of Mars' satellites accompanied by moving plasma streams, looking like scorpions with waving tails. Vedic literature equates the satellites also with chariot wheels. If this was not Mars, but was the "aborted" fissioned offspring of Venus, the snakes and scorpions are likely to be a plasma phenomena.

At first, Olmec sculptures of the full-sized adult jaguar or were-jaguar (a half human, half jaguar form) carrying the baby was probably Venus. But with the passages of Mars and Mercury in the 8th and 7th century BC, Mars is the jaguar and Mercury is probably the baby.

Although hard to read, the Popol Vu is clear about the directions of travel and whether events happened on the day side or night side of Earth. The difficulty is that the document list events in order by the actors and location, but not in time order. The Popol Vu is a symphony orchestrated to the day-names of the Tzolkin. See the excellent translation by Dennis Tedlock, "Popol Vu" (rev 1996).

The Popol Vu takes liberties with history in order to come up with a smooth narrative. The hero twins, Hunahpu and Xbalanque, are clearly meant to represent Venus and Mercury, although by the story of their birth they would be Venus and Mars. One twin, Hunahpu, is identified by the Tzolkin day-name of the first day of the Venus cycle, the second twin's name, Xbalamque, could be translated from Quiché as "Little Jaguar of the Night." This is a transliteration from the notes of the book by Dennis Tedlock, "Popol Vu" (rev 1996), but not his choice. Xbalamque may be equated to the Egyptian Horus the Child but is most likely Mercury.

The appearance of Venus and Mars a hundred years earlier was understood to represent their father and uncle, who were put to death by the Lords of Xibalba, the Underworld. Both Venus and Mars had simply disappeared into the night sky after the incident of the 8th century BC.

The activities of Hunahpu and Xbalanque are thus modeled both on the simultaneous appearance of Venus, Mars, and the Moon in about 776 BC and on the flaring up of Venus and Mercury in the day sky in 685 BC (see later text) when the Moon also appeared, strangely misshapen, in the sky. The event of 685 BC had a lasting impact on religious philosophy, and needed a narrative explanation. The Popol Vu achieves this by mixing recent events with events dating back 4000 years. It is cohesive to facts, but not to chronology.
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Note 3 --

In the 5th century BC Herodotus placed the Trojan war in 1200 BC, a date later taken up by Eratosthenes. However, the date has been in controversy since that time. The Trojan War should be placed in the ninth or tenth century (800 -- 900 BC) or later, not in the 11th century BC. The testimony of the Asiatic Greeks, who traced their ancestry to the heroes of the "Iliad," agrees on this. Velikovsky also makes a good case for placing the war in the middle of the 8th century BC, after 747 BC.

Following is a footnote from an unpublished document by Velikovsky on the later dating of the Trojan war. The footnote is added by Jan Sammer. The actual document expands on this considerably ...

A. R. Burn, "Minoans, Philistines, and Greeks: B.C. 1400-900" (London, 1930) pp. 52-54: "It cannot be too strongly emphasized that the traditional date of the Trojan War, 1194-84, adopted by Eratosthenes and more or less tentatively accepted in so many modern books, is absolutely worthless" being based on Eratosthenes' "wild overestimate of the average length of a generation." Cf. idem, "Dates in Early Greek History," Journal of Hellenic Studies 55 (1935) pp. 130-146. Cf. also D. Page, "History and the Homeric Iliad" (University of California Press, 1959) p. 96, n. 159: "(the date) given by Eratosthenes is nothing but a guess proceeding from flimsy premises which could not possibly have led to a scientific calculation." Another writer adds: "sober historical judgement must discard the ancient chronological schemes in toto; they are nothing more than elaborate harmonizations of myths and legends which were known in later times and have no independent value whatever for historical purposes." (G. Starr, "The Origins of Greek civilization: 1100-650 B.C." (New York, 1961) p. 67.

-- Velikovsky (Sammer) unpublished document at [http://www.varchive.org]

But the actual dates of the war do not matter. The war was probably a fiction. (See endnotes to Chapter 8, "The Flood.") It is the retelling by Homer and others which weave into the tale the doings of the planets in the 8th century BC that is of interest. Authorship of the "Iliad" can definitely be placed in the 8th century BC, and more likely the composition dates to the second half of the 7th century.

Alfred de Grazia, in "The Disasterous Love Affair of Moon and Mars" (1984), make a cogent case for placing the composition of the Homeric epics to after 650 BC (with no knowledge of the event of 685 BC, which I will propose). He suggests that the characterization of the heroes as beserkers, pirates, and incompetent warriors and sailors correspond to the expected reaction of survivors of calamities of enormous scope, which removed all prior institutions of government, religion, history, and literacy.
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Note 4 --

Velikovsky quotes Roman historians of the era of 200 BC through AD 200. But the quotations speak to the length of the month, not the travels of the Moon. It is more likely that what this records are the attempts of the Latin tribe and their allies to adjust a calendar from a previous era to the new period of the Moon after 747 BC, 29.5 days.

The new period of the Moon did not fit evenly into a solar year of 365.25 days. In the previous period 12 months of 30 days had equaled a year of 360 days. It is my suspicion that the peoples of Italy were still using a 10 month calendar cycle, left over from the calendar of an earlier epoch. One of the first kings of Rome, Numa, before 747 BC, adds two months, January and February, at the end of the ten month civil year, whose names ended in the series of September, October, November, and December, which translate as seventh, eight, ninth, and tenth.
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Note 5 --

"Of The Moon And Mars, The Origins Of The Lunar Sinuous Rilles" Ralph E. Juergens, Published in Pensee, 1974.

[Image: Travel of Venus during the daylight skies]
Image: Travel of Venus during the daylight skies, known in this instance as Hephaestus. The elliptical orbit is actually quite flat, so that Venus is generally seen only as following or preceding the Sun.

Seen traveling across the skies, and at close range, Venus is here known as the smith Hephaestus, who otherwise cannot be related to a planet. Alfred de Grazia at length discusses what is thought to be the event of 776 BC in "The Disasterous Love Affair of Moon and Mars" (1984) under the assumption that the love affair, which is presented in comic form, is a disguise for the actual terror it produced in the watching humans.
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Note 6 --

There is a clear reference to the Olympic Games in the "Iliad," about a chariot race, recounted by Nestor, which was recognized as an anachronism by the Greek editors in the sixth century BC. This anachronism, one of a number of instances, would date the authorship to after 680 BC, when chariot racing was added.
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Note 7 --

Despite the universal use of the ball game by many diverse societies in Mesoamerica over a 2200 year time span, we do not have a single description of how it was played. All the information which has been gathered is inferential.

The concept of a celestial ball court becomes an architectural feature of some Mesoamerican ceremonial centers, such that the center and the setting location of the Sun along the horizon, become the two bouncing walls of the ball court. The ceremonial centers thus controlled the travels of the Sun.

Early excavators at the Olmec site of La Venta (900 BC to 400 BC) thought they had discovered a ball court (the area between two berms, directly north of the pyramid), but it turned out not to be so. One of the discovered sculptures, however, is still known today as "the football player." They did find rubber balls, to be expected, since the Olmec cultivated the rubber tree. Apparently ball games were played at La Venta and the earlier San Lorenzo (1450 BC to 900 BC), for sculptures of the gear and accessories have been identified. Additionally, the colossal heads found in the surrounding jungles all have "helmet" head wrappings, also suggestive of later ball-court players elsewhere in Mesoamerica (but the original suggestion for this is based on American leather football helmets of the 1920s).

The head wrap may represent a means by which the Olmec people identified themselves with Mars, whose smooth upper half was seen on the close approaches in the 8th and 7th century BC, but this does not explain its use with the 10 heads found at San Lorenzo, which, as I will suggest in Appendix J, most likely represent Venus.

See also Linda Schele and David Freidel "Maya Cosmos" (1993), which discusses three ballcourts at the Maya site of Yaxchilan. The ball courts were named "First Conquest," "Second Conquest," and the "Third Conquest" (or "Creation"), and have, in addition to the dedication date, appended time intervals pointing to earlier (or first) manifestation of events (for which these ball courts are dedicated as commemorations), all of which can be placed, as suggested by Schele and Freidel, in the 7th century BC. As I will point out in Appendix G, the historical references are to 'creation' celebrations involving the large 'altars' found at La Venta, not to ball games.
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Note 8 --

Velikovsky quotes from Vedic hymns and from Joel. Inadvertently many of the descriptions match plasma effect and interactions with Earth's plasmasphere of the asteroids closely following Mars.

Mars was seen on the day side of Earth as many of the descriptions make clear, although the night sky is invoked in some instances.

There are also descriptions of Mars causing solar eclipses during this period -- a phenomenon completely inexplicable to later researchers of Mesopotamian astronomical records. The fact that Mars was repeatedly seen in the day sky, and at times must have blocked the Sun, might explain the obsession of Assyrian kings with lunar and solar eclipses after 747 BC, since these eclipses were accompanied with destructive interactions.

Mercury, which apparently accompanied Mars, and was known at that time as Apollo, also steals cattle.
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Note 9a --

De Grazia has "or of a people" when obviously he meant to write "but of a people." I have corrected the text accordingly.
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Note 9b --

The linguistic analysis by de Grazia and others exemplifies the the impact that Homer's writings and language had in subsequently unifying the geographically widely separated Greeks. Alfred de Grazia writes..

"Homer used metaphors of the clearest and most ordinary kind, to the exclusion of far-flown and fancy comparisons. His poetry seems to be addressing audiences of low verbal ability; or they might have understood a melange of dialects and phrases, a lingua greca like a lingua franca or both. On the other hand, his similes are prolonged and complicated, dealing with rural and pastoral comparisons."

"More significant is the non-use of a sacred, liturgical language. If there had been a Mycenaean dead language, like classical Greek is to modern Greek, or Latin to Italian, then would not that have been the basis for portions of the epic poems? But it was not, not even for prayers. Therefore it did not exist. Mycenaean Greek was probably a living and related set of dialects whose standard expression had disappeared with its ruling class and scribes."

"The linguistic melange (with its numerous catch-phrases of all Greek sub-cultures), which was Homeric Greek, was 'instant prosody.' There had been no time, no more than a couple of generations, to build an epic language. Yet such an epic language would surely have evolved smoothly and uniformly over the several centuries of any 'Dark Ages.' What emerges therefore is a people and culture exploding in space and time, whose language, that of Homer, had not yet caught up with its expanding front."

By 600 BC the Greeks of Asia Minor make a concordance of Homer's vocabulary and are unable to place or define many of his words. It should be noted that Homer probably reintroduced the alphabet to the Greeks, since it seems clear that his works were not recited for 400 years, as conventianally understood, but written down.
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Note 9 --

As mentioned earlier, during the 8th and 7th century over 300 cities in the Middle East were destroyed by earthquakes and fire. The Mycenaean Greek culture (although conventionally dated 1200 BC) came to an end at this time. Mesoamerican farming villages, originally established after 1500 or 1200 BC, also suddenly disappear after about 800 BC.

In "Chaos and Creation" (1983), Alfred de Grazia writes about the book by Claude Schaeffer, "Stratigraphie Comparée et Chronologie de L'Asie Occidentale, IIIe-IIe millénaires" (1948),..

"Certain outstanding events... struck simultaneously a definite number or even the totality of urban centers of Western Asia... Not only is this conclusion persuasive as originally inscribed, but many locations can now be added to the doomsday list."

De Grazia notes the dates of about 2350, 2100, 1700, 1450, 1365, and 1235 BC, and adds..

"all that Schaeffer 'automatically' consigns to the end of the Middle Bronze Age, at around 1750 BC I assign to the same time, but dated at about 1450 BC. The many destructions that he consigns to 1200-1300 BC, I assign to 800-700 BC."

"The results are remarkable. Suddenly, the vast 'hiatus' between '13th century' destruction and 6th century proto-classical times becomes only a brief hiatus. It is clear that the vast movements of 'the peoples of the seas' were a fiction employed by scholars to explain the widespread natural disasters of the 8th and 7th centuries, the Mars disasters of our calendar."

In 1961 de Grazia contacted Schaeffer about updating the 1948 information. The project was cut short by Schaeffer's death.

De Grazia's suggested dates are only 'more or less' correct for the lapses in chronology of the eastern Mediterranean region. Here is what is implied: Schaeffer's date of 1750 BC is 300 years earlier than de Grazia's date of 1450 BC. Schaeffer's dates of 1365, and 1235 BC which de Grazia moves to 806 BC and 686 BC differ by 559 and 549 years

Extending the close passes of Mars backwards from 747 BC (746 BC), give the following set of dates extending to 806 BC, based on the simple supposition of an interval of 15 years. The change in the length of the year in 747 BC would not substantially alter these dates. 


        year    time of the year
        ----    ----------------
        806 BC  spring 
        791     fall   
        776     spring, ball game 
        761     fall   
        747     spring, February 26-28 (Gregorian)
        732     fall
        717     spring
        702     fall
        687     spring, February 22 (Gregorian)

Patten and Windsor, in "The Mars-Earth Wars" (1996), assume that Mars alternately showed up at the spring equinox and in October. I have included the alternations between spring and fall suggested by Patten and Windsor. This series makes much more sense in terms of Bible chronology, and especially the series of prophets who warned of these events. The date of 702 BC also matches the suggestion by Patten and Windsor that the length of the year changed in 701 BC.

The archaeological record at Olmec La Venta only records the last five events, including 687 BC, although this might be the Earth shock by Mercury in 686 BC. The Guatemalan "Popol Vu" also records a mythology of five contacts. It is possible that Mesoamerica was differently affected by the first four or five contacts by Mars, since the Earth's orbit changed in 747 BC, although the archaeology of Central America records the disappearance of many villages in the 8th century BC. Alternately, the lack of day-books based on the Long Count which was instituted in 747 BC, kept the previous four contacts with Mars from showing up in later records.
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Note 10b --

Greek legendary history holds the Dorian invasion of Greece to be the "return of the Heraclids," when the banished third-generation offspring of Hercules returned to lay claim to the Peloponnesus. The dates are very uncertain. Thucydides dates the invasion to 80 years after the Trojan war, although the Trojan war may have happened as early as 1200 BC, or as late as 800 BC, if at all. The invaders included the Spartans, who at best can be dated as an organized community to about 800 or 750 BC. The two ruling families both trace their descent from Hercules (Mars).
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Note 10a --

The iconography of the Maya, as well as the Quiché Popol Vu, describe a direct connection between Mars and Earth by having Mars (K'awil, in Mayan; Tohil in Quiché) stand on a single leg, often a snake (representational also of lightning), reaching down four or five diameters from the bulbous body (or head) of Mars.
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Note 10 --

There is a third companion or satellite of Mars mentioned by Homer ("Discord"), which is missing today. However, the description is closer to a rising aurora or a stream of plasma, reading, "She lifts her head slowly at first, then plants her feet firmly on Earth."

Jonathan Swift wrote the following in "Gulliver's Travels" (AD 1726)..

"They [the Laputans] have likewise discovered two lesser Stars of Satellites, which revolve about Mars, whereof the innermost is distant from the Centre of the Primary Planet exactly three of his Diameters, and the outermost five [Diameters]; the former revolves in the Space of ten hours, and the latter in twenty-one and a half...."

He follows this with some mathematical information. The information is nearly correct, and involves both Keplerian and Newtonian mechanics. Swift knew both Isaac Newton and Edmund Halley. But no telescope could resolve the satellites until 1877. The actual distances are 0.4 and 3.5 diameters and the periods of rotation are 7.5 hours and 30 hours. Patten and Windsor make the following observation in "The Mars-Earth Wars" (1996)..

"At that time, in 1725 and 1726, astronomers did not know the diameter of Mars. Laputans disclosed the distance of Phobos and Deimos from Mars not in English miles but rather in Mars diameters. Astronomers in the early 1700's did not know the accurate value for the length of the astronomical unit, or how far the Earth is from the Sun. And they didn't know how far Mars was from the Sun. This unit of measurement in the satire suggests a very ancient sketch was involved, or a copy thereof from the Catastrophic Era."

Isaac Asimov, in "The Kingdom of the Sun" (1960), dismisses Swift's claims as a lucky guess, but then writes..

"However, his guess that Phobos would rise in the west and set in the east because of its speed of revolution is uncanny, it is undoubtedly the luckiest guess in literature"

Other have suggested that the information came from China or Japan during the 18th century. Swift places Laputa as a small island off the coast of China.
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Note 11a--

Assyria was defeated by combined forces of the Medes, Persians, Babylonians, Arabians, and Bactrians in a three year siege of Nineveh in 747 BC, and Assyria reduced to its original size. Or so it was said to be. The coincidence with the year 747 BC would seem to suggest that in actuality this might have represented an 'attack' by Mars. At any rate in about 740 BC, Ahaz, king of Jerusalem, sponsered the rearming of Asssyria. Ussher relates..

"Ahaz took all the gold and silver that was found in the Lord's house and in the treasury of the king's house. He sent it for a present to Tiglathpileser king of Assyria wishing him to come and deliver him from the kings of Syria and Israel. He [Tiglathpileser] came and took Damascus, and carried away all its inhabitants to Kir and killed Rezin the king of Syria."

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Note 11--

Although the Aztec arrive very late to central Mexico (AD 1100) they derive the qualities of their war God (Huitzilopochtli) from the Toltecs (since ca AD 800) whose war-like God (initially Xipe Totec) had been imported into the region. The people of the earlier classical phase, as at the ceremonial city of Teotihuacan, lasting from ca 200 BC to ca AD 700, had worshipped more benign deities (as far as we know).

It was visitors from Teotihuacan, however, who introduced a magic shield consisting of a flayed human face, to the Maya (along with a somewhat less effective dart thrower). The genesis of the flayed face, as a mask or shield is clearly seen in earlier Olmec sculptures.
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Note 12--

The year 687 BC is four 15-year periods after 747 BC, thus suggesting 5 close passes of Mars. The year 702 BC is three 15-year periods after 747 BC (equivalent to four close passes). Velikovsky was initially uncertain about the date of the second close approach, but in the chapter "The Later Campaigns of Sennacherib," of the later unpublished text "The Assyrian Conquest," Velikovsky notes..

"In the last century scholars became aware that there were two invasions of Palestine by Sennacherib and that it is possible to discern in the scriptural record an early and a late campaign against Hezekiah. The first campaign to Palestine took place about -701. The second campaign is dated by modern historians to -687 or -686."

He sources Henry Rawlinson and, more recently, William Albright (1956) (?), John Bright (1962) and Edwin R. Thiele (1951).

Likewise Donald W. Patten and Samuel R. Windsor, in "The Mars-Earth Wars" (1996), also use 701 BC, based on the chronology developed by Edwin R. Thiele in "The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings" (1965, as 1951 above).

I am not at all convinced if either 687 BC or 701 BC should be used for a second Earth shock. The selection of dates hinges on the supposition that the catastrophe which befell Sennacherib at the gates of Jerusalem needs to be identified directly with an Earth shock by Mars. This is simply not so, since Sennacherib's army obviously was afflicted with a localized Ignis Coelis. Earth shocks are not required for that to happen, as subsequent history -- into the 21st century AD -- testifies. See Appendix B, "The Celestial Mechanics."

The "Chilam Balam" only has reference to the first and the last appearance of Mars. The first appearance of 747 BC produced the Earth shock, and changed the orbit of the Earth. Earlier close passes of Mars (before 747 BC) were not recorded as significant.

Additional text of the Maya "Chilam Balam" states that some planet showed up 9 times ("Bolon Mayel" -- Nine Fragrances), bringing flowers and perfumes. This has to be a planet with a magnetic field. As I point out in Appendix B, "Celestial Mechanics," this was Mercury. I will insist on the date of 686 BC, not 687 BC, and suggest that Mercury, not Mars, was the agent for the second Earth shock. Two independent Chinese sources confirm the date.
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Note 14b --

The episode of the "Illiad" recounts a contact by Mars in northern Asia in 747 BC. The episode of the "Odyssey" recounts a contact by Mercury in North America in 686 BC, and thus experienced at night or dawn in Greece.
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Note 14a --

By the look of the rilles of craters of the Moon, it might only take seconds for electrons to course through crustal material, that is, if (some of) these craters were cause by Mars. See the article by [Ralph Juergens]. Craters caused by Venus would be formed under the condition that both the Moon and Venus would not have rotated much during the time period.
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Note 14 --

I have proposed elsewhere that, from 3100 BC through ca 2700 BC, the orbit of Mars was elongated so that at perihelion it would be at a distance from the Sun which would be coincident with, but elevated above, the (then current) orbit of Earth. Thus 'visits' by Horus lasting some days could be assured. I also suggested that, on the basis of Mesopotamian and Egyptian records, this happened at 30 year intervals, on average, due to the cyclical nature of planetary orbits. This periodicity still exists today.

Coincident orbits do not cause a collision between planets, because planetary orbits are differently inclined to the ecliptic, and easily remain tens of millions of miles apart. Additionally the electrical repulsion of planets would overcome the gravitational attraction at closer distances. It is quite possible that Mars missed coming anywhere near Earth after about 2700 BC just due to some minor tick in its travels -- perhaps coursing along Earth's orbit while Earth was not anywhere near, or at an elevation far above.

When the Earth assumed a larger orbit in 1492 BC, Mars would again cross the Earth's orbit -- an event which would be over in a day or a so. Mars might not have come close to Earth again for hundreds or thousands of years after 1440 BC, but after 806 BC it started to come close at regular intervals. The prophet Amos had already experienced two or more passes and predicted the disturbance of 747 BC by two years.

Mars would have looked like a gigantic orb repeatedly wizzing past Earth at close range on the night side, and then doing the same on the the day side, before diminishing in size to return in reverse order years later on another orbital cycle. The look of repeated passes is caused by the rotation of earth. Predicting a later close passage of Mars would not have been all that complicated for Amos, and could have been done on the basis of minimal records and contemporaneous observations.

Donald W. Patten and Samuel R. Windsor, in "The Mars-Earth Wars" (1996), have noted that the Roman feast days of Tubulustrum (March 20) and Armilustrum (October 24) might have been the dates on which Mars arrived to cross Earth's orbit -- but not in the same year. These dates correspond approximately to the Hebrew "Passover" (originally the vernal equinox) and "Day of the Lord" (a month after the autumnal equinox). Note that these dates are based on an 'equivalent' Gregorian year.

Combining the suggestion of Patten and Windsor with what I have from other sources, the close calls of Mars would have occurred as follows. (I have added the 686 Mercury event, and the 685 Venus and Mercury nova.) 


	year       date        year        notes
       Julian               Gregorian
      --------   ---------  ----------  --------------------
       804 BC     Spring      
       790        Fall
       776        February    780 BC?    the 'ballgame'
       762?       October                lesser impact
       748        Feb 28      747        Earth shock, year changes 
       733        October                lesser impact 
       718        March        
       703        October     702        lesser impact
       688        March       687        Sennacherib?
    additional data:
       687        Mar 23      686        Earth shock by Mercury
       686        Jun-Jul     685        Venus and Mercury in nova 
  [Note: This table needs correction yet.]

As noted earlier endnote, contacts of 806 BC and 791 BC are likely, and have been added. If the last Earth shock involving Mars happened in 747 BC, then the current synodic period of Mars can be used for the dates after 747 BC, since there would have been no further changes in the orbit of Mars, except for a change in ellipticity. That means that the 'contacts' of Mars with Earth before 747 BC would have involved a different orbital period for both Earth and Mars. I have here used a 14 year interval, based on an orbital period of 720 days for Mars (currently 687 days). The 'Sennacherib' event was likely on March 23, 686 BC (Julian). See endnotes of the following chapter for additional details plus Appendix B, "The Celestial Mechanics." .
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Note 15 --

The length of the year was not changed significantly with the second Earth shock in 686 BC, since we have no record anywhere of additional calendar reforms.
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Note 16 --

More details on the Canopus Decree and ephemeris calculations may be found in the file "The Canopus Decree."
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Note 17b --

The "Era of Nabonassar" actually starts on February 27th of the Julian calendar. Ussher relates..

"From twelve o'clock, on the first day of the Egyptian month Thoth, from Wednesday, February 26th, in the evening, in the year 747 BC, all astronomers unanimously start the calender of Nabonassar."

Ussher is here supposedly using the Julian calendar. The date matches the starting date of the Roman calendar (which we use today) as starting on March 1, the day after February 28th. The Olmec Long Count starts on February 28, 748 BC (-747), but on the Gregorian calendar. I suspect that in all these cases the actual dates are on a seasonal calendar, a Gregorian equivalent calendar.
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Note 17 --

Before 747 BC, when the Moon's orbit was 30 days, the Moon would have been on an orbit around the Earth which was considerably larger than today. There would not have been any eclipses (lunar or solar) seen on Earth, for the hard shadow of the Moon, the umbra, decreases in size with distance, and at some distance completely disappears. This happens on occasion today because the distance between Earth and the Moon varies somewhat with time.

Ptolemy does not list all the eclipses which might have been available to him, even though certainly by AD 200 these could have been retrocalculated. Ptolemy lists ten lunar eclipses between 721 BC and 381 BC, from Babylonian sources, 5 eclipses from 201 BC to 141 BC, from Greek sources, and four between AD 125 and AD 136, from his own observations (at Alexandria). The number is certainly much less that the 400 or more eclipses which might have been visible in Mesopotamia (not all eclipses are visible everywhere in the world).

Robert R. Newton, in "The Origin of Ptolemy's Astronomical Tables" (), questions the validity of many of these eclipses. Others are of a different opinion, although John M. Steele, in "A Re-analysis of the Eclipse Observations in Ptolemy's Almagest" in Centaurus 42 (2000), also questions the validity of some dates.

The point, however, is that both in Alexandria and China, records of eclipses start to appear only after 747 BC, although the earliest in both instances are in 721 and 720 BC. Some of the first eclipses of the Sun experienced in the 8th century BC were at times produced by Mars, and would have been associated with the destructive contacts by Mars. These solar eclipses would have struck terror in the people of the Mesopotamian region.
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Note 18 --

In the previous era, 1492 to 747 BC, the year had been 360 days and the period of Venus was 225 days. The synodic period of Venus (the time of an apparent revolution around the Sun as seen from Earth) would be (360*225)/(360-225) = 600 days.

The continued use of a 10 lunar month calendar (from the previous era of 2193 BC to 1492 BC), after the year had changed to 360 days (and 12 lunar months of 30 days), would match the 600 day synodic period of Venus. Two rotations through 10 months would bring the year around to another helical rising of Venus. After six rotations through 10 months the helical rising of Venus (which, I should point out, was absolutely spectacular in antiquity) would again fall on the same solar year day as 5 years earlier, 5*360 - 3*600 = 0. Five 360 day years is 1800 days; six rotations of 10 months of 30 days is also 1800 days.

This explains why after 747 BC, when the period of the Moon no longer divided the Earth's year into equal and repeating segments, the 'Venus calendar' was readily adopted. Even though it fell behind a day every four solar years it was much more useful than a calendar based on the Moon.
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Note 19 --

Ussher states..

"748 BC -- Rome was founded by Romulus according to the reckoning of Fabius Pictor, the most ancient of all Roman writers. This date is confirmed according to the account of the secular games held by the ancient Romans most religiously. This happened shortly before the beginning of the 8th Olympiad, on the feast of their goddess Pales, on the 10th day of April."

Velikovky suggests that the changes in the Roman months were made following 747 BC, but this is not likely to be correct. Because it is certain that before 747 BC there were 12 months of 30 days in the year, the only reason to add two months to the year would be to correct the 10 month calendar held over from the previous era, when there were 10 months in the year.

Before 747 BC, all the months were 30 days, adding up to a 360 day year. In 747 BC the decision was made to start the year (March first) after the 28th day of February, since that day coincided with the disturbance (or the end of the disturbance) by Mars. But with the month of February now short by two days, and the new year five days longer, seven extra days had to be distributed over the 12 months of 30 days.

The extra days of the year were distributed to the first, third, and fifth months of the first five months of the old 10 month calendar (March, May, July) and in the same manner to the second five months (August, October, December), with the last additional day going to January.

Later Roman historians, noting the nearly symmetrical distribution of extra days to alternate months of the 12 month calendar, suggested that the emperor Augustus stole a day from February to be added to the month named after himself (August), so that it would be as long as the month named after Julius Caesar (July). But this makes no sense and does not account for the additional day then missing from February.
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Note 20 --

Assuming a 584 day synodic period for Venus based on the canonical values of the Venus calendar of the Dresden Codex (dating from AD 700), when the Earth's year changed to 365.25 days after 747 BC, the coincidence of an Earth/Venus calendar would have been (5*584) - (8*365.25) = 2 days -- representing a slippage of two days over 8 Earth years. A half period (4 years) would only displace the calendar by one day. This calendar was in use throughout the world -- as for example, among the Egyptians and the Inca. It was used nominally also by the Greeks, who base their 'Olympiads' on 4 and 8 year intervals, starting in 772 BC. Actual local calendars of the Greek city states varied enormously, being based on local religious feasts and later on civil tax collection needs.

The Romans, by the first century BC, had done something similar, repeatedly shifting the start of the year by edict of the Senate so as to increase tax collection. Julius Caesar's reform in 40 BC was welcomed universally as a return to sanity. This is also why he was allowed to move the start of the year from March 1 to January 1, breaking a 700 year old religious tradition.
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Note 21a--

In Mesoamerica only the Zapotecs of Monte Alban in west central Mexico added a leap day. Apparently this was done in 607 BC, when a switch could be made to the Zapotec annual calendar without missing a day of the traditional Tzolkin calendar. See Appendix J, "The Day of Kan," for details.
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Note 21--

The Mesoamerican Long Count calendar "completed a Baktun" on February 28, -747 (Gregorian), going to a count of six Baktuns, zero Katuns, zero Tuns, zero Uinals, and zero days (6.0.0.0.0 in Long Count notation), on day 11-Ahau, 8-Uo.

The year is the astronomical year of -747, which is actually 748 BC on the Gregorian calendar. (Astronomical dates include a "year zero," which is not used in BC/AD calendar notation.) I have quoted (as elsewhere) an astronomical date (like -747) as an historical date (747 BC, instead of 748 BC).

Additionally, because of the Mesoamerican concepts that a day does not exist until it is completed, the Long Count use of "day zero" actually signifies the first day of the new era, so that the actual era-ending date is February 27th. I should also note that I am using the Thompson "August 11" correlation for conversion to the Gregorian calendar in this instance. See Appendix E, "The Maya Calendar," for additional details.
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Note 22--

The "Post Classical" Maya, after about AD 900, reduced their dating to a repeating cycle of 13 Katuns. This is the Maya "Short Count" calendar, where years rotate through a series of 13 Katuns (20 year periods of 360 day years), before repeating again (thus representing about 256 years). The 13 Katun periods are named after the name of the last day of the Katun (on the Tzolkin day calendar). The series rotates, in turn, through the Katun names of 11-Ahau, 9-Ahau, 7-Ahau, 5-Ahau, etc, followed by a decreasing series of even numbered days, and ending in 13-Ahau.

The texts of "The Book Of Chilam Balam of Chumayel," translated by Ralph L. Roys (1933), insistently claims that Maya history starts with Katun 11-Ahau. The "Chilam Balam" is a collection of post-colonial (16th century AD) native manuscripts in the Mayan languages, using European script, which recorded histories and prophesies, many dating back with certainty for hundreds of years, while others recollect events dating back thousands of years before we have any archaeological inkling of the Maya.

A Katun 11-Ahau ended on February 28, -747, Gregorian, thus starting a new era. Although we would hold that Katun 9-Ahau would be the start of the new era, in the languages of Mesoamerica it is the completion of a previous time period which marks a beginning. (See Appendix E, "The Maya Calendar," and Appendix F, "The Chilam Balam," for more details.)
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Note 23--

As a comment on the validity of the date of February 26, 747 BC, for the Earth shock by Mars, Velikovky wrote, "It is worth noting ... that the ancient inhabitants of Mexico celebrated their New Year on the day which corresponds, in the Julian calendar, to the same date [of February 26]." He quotes from J. de Acosta "The Natural and Moral History of the Indies," which was translated in AD 1604 and re-edited in AD 1880. "The Mexicans" are the Aztecs, since the Maya celebrated New Year on July 26th when the Sun passed directly overhead in central Yucatan. However, the quoted date is on the Gregorian calendar, not on the Julian calendar. In about AD 1550 there was a ten day difference between the Julian and the Gregorian calendars. The date may have been converted from Julian calendar notation to Gregorian calendar notation by the translator or editor.

The information attributed to J. de Acosta does not match other sources for the start of the Aztec new year. Vincent Malmström writes, "the Spanish clerics Sahagún and Durán, disagreed: The first cited a beginning Julian calendar date of February 2; the second, March 1."
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Note 24--

Linda Schele and David Friedel used the August 11 correlation in their 1990 book "A Forest of Kings," but switch to the August 13 correlation with the publication in 1993 of "Maya Cosmos."
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Note 25a--

See Appendix H, "The Olmec Crisis," for a resolution of the difference between the 'August 11' and the 'August 13' correlation. My final conclusion is that the 'August 11' correlation was the first in general use both in Olmec Vera Cruz, Guatemala, and Honduras long before 747 BC. The 'August 13' calendar seems to have been initiated in the Valley of Mexico, perhaps after 600 BC, and spread to the Olmec region (it is in use at Olmec Tres Zapotes in 32 BC) and subsequently to the Maya of the Guatemalan Peten region and later to the Yucatan.
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Note 25--

Patten and Windsor quote from Louis Ginzberg, "The Legends of the Jews" (1928)..

"When Rabshakah [the Assyrian commander in chief] heard the singing of the Hallel he counseled Sennacherib to withdraw from Jerusalem, as on this night -- the first night of Passover -- many miracles were wrought for Israel. Sennacherib however did not accept the wise counsel given him."

Egypt had been under Assyrian control for a number of years, an event not much recorded by Egyptians, when a revolt aided by the Sudanese king Tirhaka ousted the Assyrians shortly before 687 BC. Sennacherib's campaign was meant to retake Egypt.
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Note 26 --

More than a "blast from heaven," the incident of this year (held to be either 686 BC or 687 BC) also has to be recognized for simultaneous world-wide earthquakes which again, as earlier in 747 BC, destroyed hundreds of cities.
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Note 27a --

The source is from Velikovsky and attributed to the Menominee Indians of North America. The Menominee are indigenous to Wisconsin, and thus located well away from the area of destruction. Velikovsky has, as an added detail from an original Ute source (S. Thompson "Tales of the North American Indiana," 1929), ".. a huge conflagration enveloped the American prairies and forests as soon as the sun, frightened off by the snarer, returned a little on its way." The timing is absolutely correct. The event was also noted by Hawians and Polynesians, who recall (from their perspective) that at the onset the Sun rose and reversed itself before appearing again.

[Image: Semi-circle of compressed mountains centered on northern Alabama]
Image: Semi-circle of compressed mountains centered on northern Alabama. Source: Google Maps, courtesy of Dennis Cox, http://sites.google.com/site/dragonstormproject/

The particular shape of the compressed mountains follows the form predicted by consideration of the application of the initial compressive forces. The "burning prairies and forests" were due to a path of electrical arcing which traveled west from the 'impact' location, and were thus noted by Plains Indian tribes.

It is quite possible that Venus played the role of Coyote in this tale. Venus was in the day sky west of the Sun. As the skies darkened, Venus would have been seen with the cord of a snare (its plasma tail) in hand, extending away from the Sun.

Consideration of the applied torque (the force due to the electrical contact with Mercury), in the northern hemisphere in North America, and the gyroscopic reaction torque, will support the movements of the Sun and Mars described in the text. (See Appendix B, "The Celestial Mechanics," for additional details.)
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Note 27 --

I will later suggest that the interactions with Mars stopped in 670 BC, when Earth's orbit became nearly circular (as noted by Rose and Vaughan, below), and thus Earth no longer came near the orbit of Mars -- which even today is still quite elliptical. See following text for details.
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Note 28 --

The phrasing of this question by Isaiah suggests not simply that Venus might have risen higher in the sky before this time, but that the coma and plasma tail were lost -- which before this time would have allowed Venus to be readily seen in the day skies. In that manner "fallen" makes sense. The orbit certainly did not change. Venus is still brilliant enough today to be seen in the day skies on occasion.
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Note 29 --

The "Popol Vu" actually shrouds this in a narrative of the ball-playing twins Xbalanque and Hunahpu.

The "eight days" of the inferior conjunction mentioned in the text -- the time after which Quetzalcoatl rose as the Morning Star -- are from the canonical Venus calendar. The Maya values are from the Dresden Codex, and were last recopied in ca AD 1200, from manuscripts dating to AD 700. The Maya values and today's values (from first eastern visibility through the following inferior conjunction) are as follows: 


    236 90 250 8 (Maya canonical values)
    263 50 263 8 (Current Values)

..both add up to a total of 584 days.

The values above represent, in order:
-- the visibility of Venus after first rising in the east
-- the days Venus disappears after setting in the east
-- the visibility of Venus after first rising in the west
-- the days Venus disappears after setting in the west

After setting in the west, venus reappears in the east. Neither the 8 days or the 50 days are hard and fast, since they vary somewhat with the elevation of Venus above or below the Sun, and the relative elevation of Earth. The total, which represents the synodic orbit of Venus, remains the same.

The canonical Venus calendar of Mesoamerica is only marginally different from current observations. Of note is the longer time of the superior conjunction. The finely tuned tables of Venus predictions of the Dresden Codex, for which the Maya have gained some fame as astronomers, consist entirely of observational corrections to this chart. From this we could guess that the canonical values were derived at an earlier time -- before AD 700.

William Douglas, in Kronos (1982), supplied the visibility and disappearance of Venus in the seventh century BC from the the Tablets of Ammizaduga, as follows.. 


    240.2 90 249 7 (total 586.66)  (Section I of Ammizaduga)
    245   90 245 7 (total 587)     (Section II of Ammizaduga)

As the data shows, the synodic period of the orbit of Venus has decreased by 3 days since the 7th century BC. Since at that time the Earth's period was 365.25 days, the orbital period of Venus was only slightly longer than today, 225.1 days, as can be found from the formula for the synodic period, (365.25 * 225.1)/(365.25 - 225.1) = 586.6.

Also note that the Maya canonical values are close to the 7th century BC values. It would suggest that Venus was still on an elliptical orbit at the time when the Maya (or their Olmec predecessors) first collected this observational data.
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Note 31 --

See for instance the collection of references to "a prodigy in the sky," and other notable displays of Venus, by Velikovsky in "Worlds in Collision." Velikovsky, however, often places events in the wrong era and at times he also identifies celestial bodies as Venus and Mars, when it is obvious from the quoted texts that the references are to Venus and the Sun.

If the events of Venus and Mercury flaring up was a massive plasma expulsion by the Sun (as seems very likely from the later reaction by Jupiter), then the Earth also would have ended up flaring up, but because of the Earth's magnetosphere and enclosing atmosphere, the Earth might have been spared the creation of thousands of electrical burn craters. There is the contemporaneous statement by Assurbanipal, king of Assyria, about Ishtar (Venus) "raining fire over Arabia" (quoted in the text). Later Roman writers make the same claim of the Earth burning up because of the close approach of Phaethon, as does Plato.
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Note 34 --

To explain the strange behavior of the planet Venus: Today Venus is mostly seen only at night, and never more than about 40 degrees alternately above the east or west horizon. Once the Sun rises, Venus is (generally) no longer seen.

[Image: Venus as Morning Star and Evening Star]
Image: The loops described by Venus as Morning Star and Evening Star.

Venus is an inner planet. It revolves around the Sun between Earth and the Sun. Its path in the sky describes its orbit around the Sun.

In antiquity Venus was seen also in the day skies. It was seen following the Sun up after rising, or preceding it. In following the Sun, it would distance from the Sun, and then come closer again, to suddenly disappear for 8 days, and then rise before the Sun. In rising before the Sun, it would also slowly distance from the Sun and then return, to then disappear for some 60 days or more, after which it would again rise to follow the Sun.

The Venus tablets stand out as a singular early record not involving any other planets, included with a cache of omen tablets known as the "Enuma Anu Enlil." Hope Anthony, in "A Guide to Ancient Near Eastern Astronomy," writes..

"Enuma Anu Enlil: An astrological omen series comprising some 68 tablets. The tablets themselves were found in the Assyrian king Assurbanipal's library in the ancient city of Nineveh, and were written in the 7th century BC. However, evidence suggests the collection of omens is much older than the tablets found in the library, and the original series probably dates back to the Old Babylonian period at the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC."

"The Enuma Anu Enlil deals mostly with the constellations, or 'fixed' stars, and, to a lesser degree, with the planets. The exception to this is tablet 63, known as the 'Venus Tablets of Ammizaduga'.... Several copies of tablet 63 have been recovered in varying degrees of preservation, but a composite of these reveal the tablet to be a record of rising and setting dates for the planet Venus over a period of 21 years. As with Enuma Anu Enlil as a whole, the "Venus Tablets" also contain omens."

-- See [http://ccwf.cc.utexas.edu/~hope/aneastro.html]

Anthony gives an example of an omen text as..

"If in month I the Demon with the Gaping Mouth (Cygnus) rises heliacally: for 5 years in Akkad at the command of Irra there will be plague, but it will not affect cattle."

The reference to Akkad places the above text to an era well before the era of Babylon or the third Assyrian empire. But by similar references to contemporary events, the Venus tablets themselves can be placed after the 8th century BC.
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Note 34a --

Venus obviously did not disappear for nine months, which might have been from December through September, or from February through November, depending on how a note of Rose and Vaughan about "the 25th day of the last month" (discussed further below) is understood. My estimate is that Venus again showed in the sky on May 23. That would suggest that the aphelion of the orbit of Venus had moved. This may have been the result of the altered orbit of Mercury which occurred the previous year.
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Note 34b --

The "reappearance in the west" applies only if Venus was not generally seen in the daytime. Since Venus likely still had a massive coma and tail, the reappearance would have been in the east with the rising Sun.
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Note 35 --

Velikovsky, in Chapter 10 of "Worlds in Collision," presents a listing of the anomalous spans of time that Venus was visible in the east or west, and the lengths of disappearances, as recorded by the "Venus Tablets of Ammizaduga". Velikovsky uses this information to bolster the notion of an irregular orbit for Venus in 1500 BC. The "Venus Tablets of Ammizaduga" adequately prove that there was no regularity at all. But Velikovsky (or anyone) should have realized that if both the Earth and Venus were on eccentric orbits then this condition would be expected. Today Venus has the most circular orbit of any planet, and Earth nearly so, and the visibility and invisibility of Venus in the sky is thus very regular.

I should note that the idea of "visible in the east" and "visible in the west" is an erroneous notion, since in antiquity, because of its bright coma, Venus moved completely across the skies with the Sun in the day time (and would show at night after sunset or before sunrise). What was even stranger was that Venus would disappear altogether in passing behind the Sun and in front of it. At these times the tail would shrink and also disappear, for the plasma tail would be directed away from the Sun. This strange behaviour, in fact, is why Venus was watched. It was such a peculiar object that it was not classified as a planet until after 600 BC.
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Note 36 --

Normalization involves dividing data points by an associated variable, which in effect removes its influence on the data. In this case the data could be investigated without having to know (for example) the synodic period of Venus or Earth. Normalization did not supply missing data, it only allowed Rose and Vaughan to test the data against various assigned eccentricities for Earth and Venus.
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Note 37 --

"When the family of the Babylonian kings died out, after 8 years of no kings, Esarhaddon the king of Assyria conquered them and held that kingdom for 13 years. (Ptolemy's, Can. Reg.) It appears Assaradinus is the same person as Esarhaddon. This is from the similarity in the names and by the word of the Holy Scripture. It intimates that he was king both of Assyria and Babylon at the same time. 2Ki 17:24 19:37"

-- James Ussher "The Annals of The World" (1650)

Kingship in antiquity was not assumed arbitrarily. Kings were appointed by the Gods, and kingship stayed in a family. This was recognized even by the conquerors of nations.
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Note 38 --

Ashurbanipal is the third son of Esarhaddon, and is installed as king of Assyria apparently through the intrigues of his grandmother (who was Sennacherib's surviving wife, a Caananite princess), and selected as the most able of the three sons of Esarhaddon.

By a proclamation in 672 BC, his father Esarhaddon, had ordered that on his death Ashurbanipal should be crowned king of Assyria, and Shamash-shum-ukin as king of Babylon. Thus the (older) crown prince (installed in Babylon) was skipped over for kingship of Assyria. He, of course, revolts at a later date.

Under Persian rule, after another revolt in Babylon, Xerxes melted down the statue of Marduk in 482 BC. When the historian Herodotus arrived in Babylon a generation later, he climbs the 360 stairs of the ziggurat to find the chapel at the top empty.
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Note 39 --

The suggestions of a world-view for the Mesopotamians is developed in Appendix D, "Language and Subjective Consciousness," under a discussion of languages and their influence on the conceptual point of view of reality for a people.
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Note 40 --

The story of the Assyrians and Babylon recounted here is an abbreviated version. For greater detail see the last chapter of H. W. F. Saggs, "Babylonians" (2000).

A time-line of secular and celestial events in Babylon in the 7th century BC follows.

time-line of secular and celestial events

Data below in the eastern Mediterranean chronology. 


 tablet year  nny  tablet  events  (nny = no new year)
 ------ ----  ---  --------------------------------
        689        Babylon destroyed
        688   1    New Year not celebrated (see 'nny' 
                      series at left)
  ....... first series of the Venus Tablet data ...
  1     687   2    (Earth's eccentricity at 0.10)  
  2     686   3    (Earth shock recorded) 
                   (Sennacherib at Jerusalem ?) 
  3     685   4      
  4     684   5      
  5     683   6      
  6     682   7      
  7     681   8    Sennacherib assassinated  
                      (8th year of no temple)
  8     680   9    Sennacherib's son Esarhaddon 
                      becomes king of Assyria.
                   Venus' disappearance in the east
                      delayed one month
                   Babylon rebuilt -- 
                      "Year of the Golden Throne"
                   (possible Mars approach ?) 
   ....... second series of the Venus Tablet data ...
  9     679   10   (Earth's eccentricity at 0.10, 
                      but aphelion moved)
 10     678   11    
 11     677   12   Esarhaddon's son Shamash-shum-ukin
                      moves to Babylon
 12     676   13   
 13     675   14    
 14     674   15   
 15     673   16   
 16     672   17   
 17     671   18   
 18     670   19   (possible Mars approach ?)         
  ........ third series of the Venus Tablet data ...
 19     669   20   Esardahhon dies, 
                   (Earth's eccentricity at 0.0+)
 20     668   21   Esardahhon's son Shamash-shum-ukin
                      becomes King of Babylon; Marduk
                      returned to the temple.
                   This is year 21 without 
                      a New Year celebration
 21     667        New Year celebrated again
  ........ end of the Venus Tablet data ...

Note that the year of the earth shock, 686 BC, falls in this period, but is not an instrumental part of the calculation.

There are a number of discrepant dates, being off by one year, which may follow from the fact that Assyrian years were counted from the spring equinox, and the fact that I use astronomical years as calendar years without numeric conversion. This may also suggest that the flare-up of Venus may have happened directly before the rebuilding of the temple compounds. Celestial data for 680 BC shows up correctly as ephemeris information for 685 BC. This corrects for the four year difference between eastern Mediterranean chronology and actual years (the error of four years by Dionysius Exiguus), and the fact that I seem to be off by a year in the above chart. [return to text]

Note 41 --

Even if the records of Venus were indeed copied from much older sources, it would not invalidate their application to the period of the missing temple compound in Babylon in the seventh century, when the record could then be presented as a prophesy. However, the changes in orbits and eccentricities noted by Rose and Vaughan would make no sense when placed in 1900 BC.

The data surrounding the period of the "Golden Throne" match the records of Mesoamerica, which read "Quetzalcoatl disappeared in the east. He set himself on fire and rose as the Morning Star after eight days." On first reading this makes no sense, for Venus would not rise in the east after setting in the east.

"An outstanding problem with the analysis is the eastern disappearance [of Venus] on the twenty-fifth day of the twelfth month of the eighth year. Our model requires that the invisibility ought to have begun at least a month earlier than that."

-- Rose and Vaughan

The month delay (before the period of the "Golden Throne") suggests that Venus had changed the shape of its orbit, perhaps moving its perihelion to a different location along its orbit, although Rose and Vaughan claim that the orbit of Venus did not change during this period (a change in the shape of the orbit would not change the orbital period). They do note a "slight" change in the orbit of Earth. A cause for the late disappearance of Venus might be the fact that Mercury made electrical contact with Earth a year earlier (March 23, 686 BC), had changed its orbit radically. Mercury twice passed Venus since that time (August 6 and December 19), and would have crossed the orbit of Venus at least once.

Using an ephemeris program adjusted for the error of four years by Dionysius Exiguus we can check the year 685 BC. The "twenty-fifth day of the last month" would have been in February, for the new year (in Babylon) started at the vernal equinox in March. Using the current orbit of Venus, it should have disappeared behind the Sun in the east on about March 12. This is not the 25th day of the last month. In that I hold that the equinox shifted 15 days into the future, it could be suggested that February 26th (on our calendar) would represent the "twenty-fifth day of the last month." Rose and Vaughan also suggest that in this case the "Venus Tablets of Ammizaduga" might have misspelled the name of a month, another hint at a change in orbit.

Normally after disappearing in front of the Sun in the west, Venus remains out of view, caught in the glare of the Sun, for about 8 days. After disappearing behind the Sun in the east, however, Venus remains invisible for an extended period of time. This is both because of a longer path it has to travel behind the Sun, and because the Earth keeps moving, making the disappearance even longer. Today Venus remains hidden for about 50 days (it varies somewhat with the inclination of its orbit). At the time of the "Venus Tablets of Ammizaduga" it varied wildly and inexplicably. Velikovsky quotes some figures from the "Venus Tablets" which range from 2 months to 9 months. Even the passage in front of the Sun is at times far too long. With both the Earth and Venus on elliptical orbits, this is to be expected, especially of the second nodal point of the ellipses revolved around the Sun faster than today. But under the concept that the orbits of Earth and Venus were the same in the 7th century BC as today, this becomes inexplicable. Records from Hindu sources of about the same dates, or somewhat later, show the same inexplicable variation.

Today Venus is on a nearly circular orbit. We do not know when the orbit changed, for over the next 1000 years, the Babylonians had stopped looking, the Europeans had no interests, and the Arabs had not started observations yet. Only in Mesoamerica were observations made. These show up in the Maya Dresden Codex, a 13th century AD document which uses observational values dating to AD 700. The Dresden Codex list the disappearance of Venus behind the Sun as lasting 90 days, not the 50 days of today.
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Note 42 --

Augustine quotes a lost document by the Roman Varro of the first century BC, but places the event at the time of the Exodus.

Homer makes no mention of Phaethon (except as an epithet for Helios), unless we were to understand the pouting of Achilles as the unwillingness of Jupiter to act in response to the destructiveness of Mars (Ares) for 120 years. Hesiod mentions the parentage of Phaethon, but he is not the one of the wild ride. Apollodorus does the same in the second century AD. Hyginus in the same century does mention the ride. In most instances Phaethon is equated with Saturn and, more often, Jupiter.

The retelling of the Phaethon legend by Ovid (43 BC -- AD 17) is correct in detail for the nova event of Venus in 685 BC, except for the timing. Ovid has the whole of the ride of Phaethon happen in one day. But see Appendix C, "Star Wars," for more, which describes the movement of Venus through the skies in accurate detail.

When Ovid and other Roman writers describe, "the Earth was burned up," as a detail of the retelling of the legend of Phaethon, they do so correctly. Other flareups have sent "the fire of God" (Ignis Coelis) to large regions of Earth, as late as AD 900. The "Great Chicago Fire" of AD 1871 has even been attributed to Ignis Coelis. Large forest fires happened in northeastern Wisconsin near Green Bay (the "Great Peshtigo Fire") and in Upper Michigan on the same date and on the same evening as the Chicago fire.

More recently, the patchwork of simultaneous fires in southern California in October 2007, looks, from maps of the effected areas, to be distributed in a fashion very similar to the Great Chicago Fire of AD 1871 -- locations separated by many miles, but all along a north-south line.

Of course a long rainless season and dry tinder is a prerequisite. But the lightning strikes, which are thought to cause the ignition, were absent. Most of the fires, 170, started up simultaneously on July 15. Arson has been suggested, but that would involve an amazing coordination of efforts. Similar north-south directed strings of fires happened in Greece during 2007 (June 28 and July 15) and Croatia (July 27).
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Note 43 --

The Zend-Avista are the sacred books of the Parsis of India, the remnants of the scriptures of Zoroastrianism (Mazdeism) at an earlier time in Persia. In 500 BC Herodotus makes indirect references to Zoroastrianism in his discussion of Persian religion.

The quotations are from the translation by James Darmesteter in 1880, and are abridged. The translater (or a later editor) notes, "Tishtrya is the angel of the star Sirius." This is a fictional association established long ago in Mesopotamia and Egypt. Each person had a star associated with their 'spirit.' Other quotations make clear that we are not talking about Sirius, as, for example..

"We sacrifice unto Tishtrya, the bright and glorious star, that afflicts the Pairikas, that vexes the Pairikas, who, in the shape of worm-stars, fly between the earth and the heavens, in the sea Vouru-Kasha, the powerful sea, the large-sized, deep sea of salt waters. He goes to its lake in the shape of a horse, in a holy shape; and down there he makes the waters boil over, and the winds flow above powerfully all around."

The sea here is in the cloud bearing sky. James Darmesteter, in the introduction, writes..

"The scene of the fight is the sea Vouru-kasha, a sea from which all the waters on the earth fall down with the winds and the clouds; in other words, they fight in the sea above, in the atmospheric field of battle."

The Vouru-Kasha is in effect the Absu, imported into the hymn to Tishtrya from much older sources, not untypical of the remainder of the Zend-Avista, where older 'mythological' elements are incorporated in the text. Internal literary consideration would suggest that the actual written texts date from the Sassanian period of Persia, AD 200 to AD 600.

"He makes the waters boil over," is generally attributed to the star Sirius, when it would be seen at the east horizon where its path merged with the last remaining ring of the Absu. This would also be true of any bright planet found on the ecliptic at the point where it crossed the equatorial. This is thus not a condition for planets in June or July.
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Note 44 --

Velikovsky uses these descriptions as suggestions for the events of 1500 BC, but the composition of the Zoroastrian Avista dates from well after 600 BC. He notes that editors other than James Darmesteter have described the hymn as a battle of Venus and the stars against the planets. I did not read that into the hymn, but it would be of revealing significance, since indeed the stars end up in complete disarray (see Chapter 12 for this).

Astronomical information compiled by Huang Sheng (AD 1146 to 1194) includes the statement that "Once T'ai-P'ai [Venus] suddenly ran into Lang Hsing [Sirius], though it is more than 40 degrees south of the Yellow Road." But to have Venus move this far off the ecliptic (the Yellow Road), and then return, is physically impossible and is a complete fiction. The text, as it has come down to us, has to represent an emendation of earlier sources. Most likely the phrase "ran into" is an interpretation of "at the same time," not "at the same place." It is amazing that this text was copied without thought from one author to another in antiquity, including the detail of the 40 degrees between Sirius and the ecliptic (the actual separation is 37 degrees in latitude).

The "astounding event" in question is the simultaneous heliacal setting of Venus and the heliacal rising of Sirius in AD 350 (about July 10 or so) when they are only 30 degrees apart at the horizon, and after a day or so could be mistaken for each other. This is a very rare event (to be so close together just as the Sun rises), which only happens at 730 year intervals. Since this is a heliacal rising, Sirius had not been seen for months, while Venus had been moving closer to the east horizon. Just as Venus disappears behind the Sun, Sirius first shows as rising heliacally. Venus is at this point occluded by the rising Sun, and thus Sirius might easily have been misidentified for Venus, making it look as if Venus indeed ran off the zodiac. It happened again in about AD 1080, a century before the time of Huang Sheng's compilation, but this event went unrecorded.

Jan Sammer writes of an earlier notice of the same event,

"The same ancient tradition was [also] referred to by the early eighth-century AD Chinese astronomer Y-hang. As told by Gaubil, Y-hang wrote that 'in the time of Tsin one saw the star Sirius eclipsed by the planet Venus.'"

This is the event noted above which happened in AD 350. The Tsin dynasty dates from AD 265 to AD 420.
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Note 45 --

Hercules sets himself on fire to escape a skin disease brought on by donning a poisoned garment. Mars was seen at close range through portions of the 8th and 7th century BC, and before the flare-up of Venus, but did not come close to Earth again thereafter. The sightings were close enough that the Martian landscape is seemingly describes by Hesiod in his composition "The Shield of Hercules" (a title mistranslated from "The disk of Ares"). The sight of the pockmarked and scarred lower hemisphere might have been evidence enough that the planet was suffering from some terrible disease. The later nova event of Venus constituted his funeral pyre. The garment might have been global duststorm, which still obscures Mars today after it passes Earth and is subjected to increased plasma impinging on its surface. (Last noted in AD 2001.)
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Note 17a --

See for example a summary of archaeological sources and iconography bearing on this in a paper by Virginia M. Fields, "The Iconographic Heritage of the Maya Jester God" (Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1991).
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Note 46a --

Almost universally all the retellings of the legend of Phaethon, from 500 BC to AD 500, add the curious detail that after Phaethon dies and falls into a western (or celestial) river 'Eradanus,' his seven or three sisters, who mourn his death, are turned into Poplar trees along the river, and their tears drop as amber beads into the water. The Poplar is a very slim tall tree of the Mediterranean region, and perhaps apt as a representation of plasma plumes. The amber beads have their source in a play on words, but accurately reflect their source in trade from the Baltic. Amber washes up at the shores of the Baltic. The change in the axis of the Earth in 685 BC moved the arctic circle further north, perhaps bringing the region of the Baltic into the European trade circuit.
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Note 46 --

Chaldea was a nation from Caanan which ruled at Babylon after 625 BC. Bishop Ussher records for 261 BC:

"Gerosus (Pliny l. 17. c. 56.) published the observations of the Celestial Motions among the Babylonians for a period of 480 years. This is the number of years from the beginning of the Epoch of Nabonassar's account as other learned men understand this."

Others have pointed out that there are no records for the period of approximately 750 BC to 700 BC, with the exception of the Venus Tablets of Ammizaduga.
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Note 48a --

James Darmesteter, in his introduction to the translation of the Zend-Avista, also makes note of the lightning bolt in Zoroastrian and Vedic literature..

"Sauru, which in our texts is only the proper name of a demon, was probably identical in meaning, as he is in name, with the Vedic 'S'aru,' 'the arrow,' a personification of the arrow of death as a godlike being."

"The same idea seems to be conveyed by Ishus, 'the self-moving arrow,' a designation to be accounted for by the fact that Saru, in India, before becoming the arrow of death, was the arrow of lightning with which the god killed his foe."

Neither the "Popol Vu" nor the "Chilam Balam" have any reference to the initial plasmoid from Jupiter as events. In the "Popol Vu," however, the "bundle" is identified as in the possesion of the Quiche tribe by the time they receive their tribal Gods. Considering the 120 year period when the Earth was constantly subjected to lightning strikes from Mars, perhaps it could be understood that a lightning bolt from another planet might have been accepted as matter of fact. But it seems unlikely.
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Note 48 --

I am basing this on timing developed in Appendix F, "The Books of the Chilam Balam," and Appendix H, "The Olmec Crisis," that is, that it took 12 days to travel 484 million miles. Thus the bolt was only seen in the daytime sky as it passed Earth for two and a half days. During two half day periods of this time the Pacific Ocean faced the traveling plasmoid. During the other times Asia, Europe, and America saw parts of the flyby.
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Note 47 --

From the data of the eccentricities, Rose and Vaughan come to the conclusion that the ratio of the synodic periods of Earth and Venus was 1.63. (A synodic period is the time a planet takes to complete one orbit as seen from Earth.) This is close to today's ratio of 1.625.
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Calculations are in Unix bc notation, where ^ denotes exponentiation; the functions (a)rctangent, (s)ine, and (c)osine use radians; angle conversions to radians or degrees by the divisors rad=.017+ and deg=57.2+; other functions are shown as f( );
units: million == 1,000,000; billion == 1,000,000,000;
one AU == 93,000,000 miles.

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