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Recovering the Lost World,
A Saturnian Cosmology -- Jno Cook
Chapter 20: The Flood of Noah.


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Contents of this chapter: [The Flood Reconsidered] [The Fall of the Absu] [The Moon on Fire] [The Flood from the Sky] [The Lifetime of Abraham] [The Extinction of Jupiter] [The Career of Jupiter] [Endnotes]

The Flood Reconsidered

The shock of the disturbance of 2349 BC was entirely equivalent to the shock of 10,900 BC in North America, except that it was on a smaller scale. So I will not repeat the order of events involved here, details of which are, at any rate, to be found in Appendix B, "The Celestial Mechanics." There were differences. A different planet was involved, the latitude of the impact was lower in 2349 BC, the tilt of the earth was less, the direction of the leading edge of the impact area was different, and the high plateau where the mountains were removed was wider.

Most significant was the fact that there was no lightning strike to the Earth's surface, but instead a plasmoid traveling from Venus impacted the Absu, rather than the Earth's surface. No massive forest fires were started, and no nanometer dust levitated into the stratosphere to cause hundreds or a thousand years of shadow.

I think the "flood of Noah" never happened. At least, not on Earth as a flood, although certainly Earth sustained water damage from rain, storms, and hurricanes. I suspect that what was thought to be the "flood" by everyone was, in fact, the disintegration of the Absu, the rings surrounding the Earth -- which in antiquity was universally understood to be an ocean.

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

Venus, the Moon, and Mars do not have magnetic fields and do not have rings. Mercury also does not have rings, probably because it has only a very weak magnetic field. Astronomers think that the rings of Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune are fading and that the rings of Saturn will also fade over time. Saturn, which has the brightest and most extensive rings, is, however, a very electrically active planet. At closer distances, as reported by NASA in the 1980s, the rings of Saturn were seen to be composed of "spokes, braids, waves ... and spiral shapes." Twenty years later, in AD 2000 to 2008, during a less active period of the Sun, they have smoothed out. [note 1]

When the Mesopotamians start mapping the sky, they name the southern section of the sky, below the equatorial, "the path of Ea." Ea is the Babylonian God of the waters, the Akkadian god of the Absu. He is the Sumerian Enki, also God of the Absu. In Akkadian "Ea" is written with the Sumerian glyphs "EN.KI" -- "water house." "En" translates as "home," "house," or "temple." Houses in Sumer were initially constructed of reeds and with semi-circular (domed) roofs. This is what was seen in the south, a dome of reeds extending from the east to the west, located somewhat below the level of the equatorial in the sky, but with all the rings or sections of rings coming together at the east and west cardinal compass point. There is no question about the location of the Absu. [note 2]

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

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

China, at about 35 to 40 degrees latitude, would have seen the rings stand about 50 degrees up from the southern horizon. China, like most locations further north than Egypt and Sumer, reported 9 rings. [note 3]

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

Because of the way the rings merged at the horizon in the east and west, they are often represented as a 7-headed or 9-headed serpent. The heads of this snake were caused by the shadow of the Earth extending completely from the southern horizon to beyond the highest rings. This only happened at the time of the equinoxes. The penumbra of the Earth's shadow would make the gap wider at the top.

There are similar notions from Mesoamerica, where the rings stood considerably higher in the sky, that "the world" constituted a flat plane (a gap) between two giant step-pyramids. This was the view at the time of the year near the equinoxes. At or near the equinoxes, the view of the separate rings, each higher one in the sky ending at a distance further from the center of the gap, would certainly have made it look like the gap was bordered by two step-pyramids or inclines. Mesoamerican ballcourts almost always are built as 6 steps, but also as just a sloped plane.

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

Most obvious are many spells dealing with travel in the ship of Ra. The spells were written and augmented over a period of more than 3000 years (and the imagery certainly dates back as far as 8347 BC). Some of the earliest spells speak of a crescent ship traveling around the "river" at the edge of the globe of Saturn in the north sky. But after the breakup of the Polar Configuration in 3147 BC, the planet Gods were seen to travel along the river of the southern sky. Ships were still required.

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

One phenomenon which is clearly difficult to associate with the polar apparition in the north is the "door to the underworld." But it is readily explained by the shadow of the Earth moving from east to west across the Duat every night. The Earth is illuminated by the Sun at an angle to the equatorial which varies with the time of the year. During most of the year, except at the time of the equinoxes, the shadow would have looked like an arched doorway (referred to in one spell from the Book of the Dead as a cave). In between the times of summer and winter, the shadow would have progressively lengthened to become infinite at the time of the equinoxes. [note 4]

When the shadow fell all the way across the rings and formed a gap, it would have been more or less shaped like an inverted trapezoid. The gap at the top would widen with the distance from Earth, since the penumbra of the Earth's shadow widens with distance. The "half shadow" of the penumbra would have considerable density since it is located relatively close to Earth (unlike in a lunar eclipse, where the penumbra is markedly faint). But it would also decrease in darkness with distance, so that at a considerable distance above the Earth it would have fallen off noticeably.

During the day the Sun would have lighted the Absu from behind. The Sun would travel above the equatorial circles during most of the year, but would shine through the Absu in the winter months. I have no idea what the effect would be exactly. It might not have looked different from today's Sun located behind a haze. In that the Sun is the largest and brightest object in the sky, it would be certain that during the winter months the image of the Sun would be preceded and followed by other amorphous forms, which would show local motion because they were imbedded in the equatorial rings which moved incessantly. Today, during dusty atmospheric conditions, these show up and are called sun dogs. In antiquity they were held to be the horses of the Sun. In the 13th-century Icelandic Prose Edda the forms which follow are held to be wolves chasing the Sun. Even nearly 2000 years after the Absu had disappeared, the horses of the Sun remain in place: in 685 BC it is Phaethon who loses control of the horses of the Sun.

[Image: Sundogs]
[Image: Sun dog images, Fargo North Dakota.
After Wikipedia. Note the start of a circular form.]

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

To recap: every night a gap appeared in which the rings were not visible, and which moved from the east to the west. The Egyptians called it "Naarutf." "The meaning of the word is 'it never sprouteth'," wrote E. A. Budge (1895), "and is defined as 'a section or door of the Duat which lies to the north of Re-stau.'"

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

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

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

There is a lack of early Egyptian visual references to the Duat or the doorway to the Duat. Perhaps this is because the spectacle in the sky never varied or showed any activity and came to a sudden end in 2349 BC. Later depictions of the sun god Re, however, frequently show disembodied arms extending up from a baseline (representing the horizon) to the red disk representing Re. These might be representations of the penumbra seen at the edges of the "doorway" shadow (although I doubt that). Two arms extending up from a baseline is the hieroglyphic for "ka" also, the meaning of which might be translated as "soul."

Late depictions in the New Kingdom show Ra as a huge red ball suspended in a valley between two mountains (or what looks like mountains). Tomb texts place the uplifted arms in the south, in the Duat, "The Aten [the globe of Re] is in the Tuat [Duat]. The arms of the Mysterious Face come out and lift it up." I have wondered if this last is a reference to the smiling face formed by the first ball plasmoid, where the arms would be two of the lines of electrons. This was something which could only have been seen two thousand years earlier by people close enough to the equator to get an unobscured view beyond the equatorial rings. (The snake-haired smiling face shows up regularly in Australia and South America where a clear view would be had. The Egyptians originated from Ethiopia, where the face of the southern ball plasmoid might have been seen clearly.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Fall of the Absu

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

Let me suggest that the Absu disappeared suddenly, in 2349 BC, perhaps in a matter of days, because of an electric interaction with Venus and a temporary change in the tilt of the Earth's axis. At the same time the Earth moved further away from the Sun and to the established orbital path of the Moon.

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

If we can give any credence to some of the "flood stories," the Absu fell in a few days. The fall was also probably rapid because the contact by Venus caused radical changes in the electric field which kept the rings suspended. The electric repulsive impulse force from Venus seems to have struck in the northern hemisphere in Asia north of India -- north of the Himalayas in Tibet.

The Himalayas at the edge of the northern border of India (Kashmir, Nepal, Bhutan) form a circular arc some 1,600 miles long (2,500 km), which has all the looks of a compression shock. Similar semicircular arcs of compressed mountains exist in Mongolia, Iran, and the continental USA.

Typical of the fact that the Earth would have kept rotating (while tilting away from the Sun), the opposite arc is missing. This is unlike the Moon's Orientale basin, or the Caloris basin of Mercury, which are also clearly compression shock sites, but of planets which rotated only slowly. [note 8]

[Image: Himalayas]
[Image: Himalayan Mountains between
India and China. After imgarcade.com.]

As a result of the sudden repulsive shock, the axis of the Earth went into a swing, with the northern part initially moving away from the direction of the Sun. The equatorial rings would have swung up at a steep angle to the Earth's orbital plane, placing them directly between Venus and Earth (as the Earth kept rotating).

The main disturbance of the rings came with the arrival of a plasmoid thunderbolt -- a disconnected electric arc -- from Venus. The particles, gases, and ionized atoms held in suspension in the Absu were disturbed or neutralized and departed when the plasmoid from Venus arrived and slammed into the Absu.

The Absu turned red and then disappeared except for one remaining ring. It looked like the arrival of a dragon which smashed into the rings. The untold billions of electrons arriving and smashing into the rings of the Absu would have neutralized most of the ionized gases and particulate matter. The dragon bled for three days. The "blood" seen in the sky could have been constituted by the ionization of any number of diffuse common atmospheric gases.

Much of the coulomb charge of the Earth is normally tied up in the toroidal belts of the magnetosphere at the equator. This is the source of hurricanes -- when this belt arcs over to the atmosphere in the tropics. I would expect the "discharge" of the Earth to have happened in both directions, towards Earth from the rings and out to space via the Moon. The arrival of the plasmoid would disrupt the rings by neutralizing the electrostatically suspended particulate matter and also by altering the electric field of the Earth which held the particles suspended above the equator.

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

... the snake Apep

As the gases and particulate matter moved away from Earth they would visually approach the equatorial, a plane directly above the Earth's equator, the far edge of which is seen as a circle in the sky located from directly east to directly west but set at an angle equal to the complement of the latitude (90 degrees less the viewing latitude). Visually, even as the dust and rocks kept moving ever further from Earth, it would never seem to move higher into the sky than the far location of the equatorial. Over time, as the distance from Earth continued to increase, it would simply disappear.

There remained, however, a last ring, at a considerable distance above the equator. This last ring might be equated with the lapis lazuli necklace of the Goddess Inanna, mounted up in the sky as a sign from the Gods to never again bring such a flood, except that the ring was red, not blue. It is the Uoroboros. It would, however, match the effect suggested in the Maya Chilam Balam which describes that, after the flood, the "roof beams" of the sky became visible -- the ecliptic and the last ring of the Absu below the equatorial, crossing each other at an angle. The ecliptic had not been seen earlier when it was behind the Absu.

The two rings rose in the night sky, surrounding the Earth. In the Yucatan the last ring of the Absu would be seen as standing very high up in the southern sky, stretching from directly east to directly west (but at an angle). The ecliptic consisted of a hoop which intersected the red equatorial ring at the two locations of the equinoxes. At that time the Pleiades stood above the intersection at the vernal equinox.

[Image: Bunyip water monster]
[Image: Bunyip, Australian water monster.
After "Illustrated Australian News " (circa 1890)]

The Earth still cast a shadow on the last upper ring of the Absu, but because of the increasing distance (the dust and particles of the red ring seem to have been located at about 6000 miles, 9,600 km, from Earth), the shadow would only show as the Earth approached the equinoxes. Then the shadow of the Earth, of the same width as previously at this location, would fall across the ring. The ring with this gap would look like a giant snake whose head moved up from the east and slid across the southern sky to the west each night, closely following its own tail. At other times of the year only the long body of the snake would be seen, since the shadow of Earth would not reach out far enough. [note 9]

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

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

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

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

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

I cannot speak to the Australian Bunyip-monster, although it is said to lurk in swamps and waterholes -- an association, I presume, with the Absu. I find "Rainbow Serpent" quite revealing, not because of the implied coloration, but for the form of an arch across the sky. This would seem to be Apep of the Egyptians, except that the serpent has horns. This last feature would equate the Rainbow Serpent with a polar plume.

With the background of the historical sequence of events presented in this text, it will be recognized that the Babylonian Tiamat is Venus in 2349 BC, and the Greek Typhon is Venus in 1492 BC. Then, not included above, there is Phaethon, which can be placed in 685 BC as Mercury. These last three will be presented in later chapters. The "Great Horned Serpent" is distinct from all three of these. It is probably the north polar plasma plume which appeared each time the orbit of the Earth increased, complete with horns, as I have illustrated previously. Apep, on the other hand, is the last remaining ring of the Absu, also to be placed after 2349 BC, and remained in the sky into the current era, probably as late (I suspect) as AD 600.

Apep, in fact, does not appear in Egyptian mythology or depictions until after 2200 BC. It did not exist earlier, and since then was seldom noted because the red ring, like the Absu, never did anything significant except to color some bright stars. Spells to ward off the evils of Apep are only added to the Book of the Dead very late, as a matter of impressing the Greek (Ptolemaic) overlords after 300 BC. A chapter of spells in a papyrus dating from these times, called the Book of overthrowing Apep, the Enemy of Ra, the Enemy of Un-Nefer (Un-Nefer is Osiris), gives directions for:

"preventing storms, and dispersing rain-clouds, and removing any obstacle, animate or inanimate, which could prevent the rising of the sun in the morning, or obscure his light during the day," -- paraphrased by E. A. Budge, in Legends of the Gods (1912)

The Egyptians were at this time, after 300 BC, transferring the title of "Ra" to the daytime Sun. (It was about time!) The Egyptians had also run out of visible celestial monsters, and thus promoted the Apep ring to the status of a vicious snake. He was depicted in Egyptian illustrations as pierced with knives to color him red with blood. This is quite alike to the Maya depiction, where the celestial snake has patches of flayed skin.

Near the dates of the equinoxes, the head of the snake would be seen nightly rising in the east as its tail disappeared in the sky in the west. It seemed to be chasing its own tail. As the year moved away from the time of the equinoxes, Apep would catch up to its tail and swallow it. The image of a snake swallowing its own tail, called the Uoroboros, still appears among medieval alchemical documents. Of course it did not have a distinct head -- snakes do not have distinct heads. Among the later Maya it was merely a cord in the sky. [note 10]

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

Another story (legend) concerning St. Patrick and a snake is retold by Philip Coppens:

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

Croagh Patrick is a sacred mountain in Ireland, where St. Patrick stayed 40 days to prove the superiority of Christianity. You will recognize the "triple goddess" as the southern ball plasmoids appearing between 10,900 BC and 8347 BC, especially when she turns into a snake.

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

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

The action retells the event of 2349 BC -- 2800 years later for Patrick, 4300 years later for Coppens. It includes the "two days and two nights" common to all the retellings, plus the "water" turning red with blood. The "Red Lake" is as appropriate to the event of 2349 BC as the "lake of the cave" is in signifying the Absu with its doorway.

The Younger Edda of circa AD 1200 relates, as one of the subjects (constructs) of bardic epic poetry, the disposition of one of Loki's evil children, Jormungand the Midgard-serpent, which Odin the Alfather threw into the ocean:

"When they came to him he threw the serpent into the deep sea which surrounds all lands. There waxed the serpent so that he lies in the midst of the ocean, surrounds all the earth, and bites his own tail."

The snake swallowing its own tail is Apep again.

From Alfred Tozzer, A Comparative Study of the Mayas and the Lacandones (1907), from verbal sources, we have the following:

"... there was a road suspended in the sky, stretching from Tuloom and Coba [that is, the east] to Chich'en Itza [which is only halfway] and Uxmal [that is, the far west]. It was in the nature of a large rope supposed to be living and in the middle flowed blood. For some reason this rope vanished forever. This first epoch was separated from the second by a flood."

The above account is quoted by Schele and Freidel in Maya Cosmos (1993). This is a recollection of the lowland Maya (the Northern Yucatan). The road in the sky will be recognized as the last remaining ring of the Absu. The flowing blood, also, is an aspect of the last ring of the Absu, for it can be determined to be red from the look of Sirius before AD 950, among other things. The "flood" is the flood of 2349 BC, separating two eras, as mentioned in the quote above. The actual world flood of 3147 BC has no causal connection with the the red rope, which happened at a much later date. But it was at the time of the celestial flood of 2349 BC that the red rope first appeared.

The story also reflects on the paved Maya road which was built in AD 800 to 850, between the city of Coba in the east and Yaxuna directly west of Coba, 62 miles long (84 km), and representing the largest construction project ever undertaken in the Yucatan. This is less than halfway the total distance from Coba to Uxmal. The industry and enthusiasm with which this project was undertaken may reflect the fact that the red road in the sky had recently disappeared. There are a number of other, much shorter, causeways like this, also running east-west (some are processional roads to outlying shrines). Schele and Freidel (in A Forest of Kings) think that this road, too, functioned as a processional way.

... the Falling Rings

As I have mentioned, the Moon was thought to have been seen since the remotest period in antiquity, but this was most likely the planet Jupiter seen at close quarters when fully lighted by the Sun. Thus, as presented with the sculptures of the Maya site of Palenque (AD 700), as well as in Hesiod's Theogony (circa 650 BC), the Moon precedes any of the Gods. She is the mother of all the gods.

The sudden clear appearance after 2349 BC probably made it look as if the Moon swept the Absu clean. But the Moon, although given credit for the cleanup after the flood (as the Chinese Legendary Emperor, or God, Shun), could not have dispersed the rings physically, for the Moon today is 250,000 miles (400,000 km) away from Earth, and probably has always been on an orbit of 250,000 mile radius. The rings probably only reached, at most, about 8500 miles out.

Both the initial as well as the eventual dispersal of the equatorial rings was electrical. An outward dispersal, however, could have happened via the plasma tail of the Earth, which, even today, reaches well beyond the orbit of the Moon. But probably most of the contents of the Absu drifted down to the atmosphere below, and fell to Earth.

Charles Raspil, in an article "Spatters and Planetary Iconography" (The Velikovskian, 1994), details the recording of "spatters" from the middle of the second millennium BC through the 18th century AD. The spatters look like raindrops and rosettes, placed in artworks almost randomly surrounding depictions of gods or humans in any scenery.

Raspil identifies the spatters as astrological iconography, rather than to think of them as representing physical phenomena. But the spatters make more sense if understood as representations of minute dust particles drifting to Earth, carrying an electric charge from the far upper region of Earth. On nearing the surface of the Earth, the spatters would disintegrate electrically. This would suggest that dust from the Absu rained down for nearly 4000 years. If, as Raspil claims, the depiction of random spatters only started in the second millennium BC, then perhaps it was the change in the Earth's electric field after 1492 BC which made a difference. There is, however, little if any artwork from before even the first millennium BC to inspect.

[Image: Spatters]
[Image: Spatters. After Raspil.]

Raspil has made a career of finding strange anomalous forms interspersed with pictorial forms in artworks dating from antiquity to the 18th century AD. The spatters seem like fillers of graphical space, but at the same time look as if they were objects regularly seen in the sky, or near ground level. He writes:

"In their portrayal of the spatter, artists distribute it randomly within the confines of any particular artwork. It is small, taking up little space within the borders of any particular opus, and is multiple, appearing in pluralities. Its random distribution and appearance, along with its nonuniform configuration, suggest that it is a natural phenomenon and not an artistic symbol."

"The basic spatter configuration consists of one large ringlet surrounded by many smaller ringlets (eight, usually). Variations exist: small square- or diamond-shaped ringlets may surround the central ringlet. On occasion, only a few nascent dots, not ringlets, will arrange themselves in significant spatterns (patterns of spatters)."

Raspil illustrates a Rhodian plate (above) which highlights action from the Trojan War, and comments:

"Both the basic and more sophisticated spatters appear: the former to the immediate right of the first soldier's nose and between his legs, as well as above and on the second soldier's shield; the latter on the extreme right and left of each opponent, and in the centre of the diagram, between their two shields."

"The sophisticated spatters appear to be 'petaled.' Two of these spatters are cut off by the borders of the plate. If these spatters were symbolic, not natural, why would the artist cut them off and treat them as if they were mere background, like clouds in a photograph?"

This suggests dust particles falling to Earth, and igniting briefly in the blaze of plasma (a switch to glow mode or arc mode), as suddenly as firecrackers and perhaps with an explosive sound.

As Raspil points out, the spatters occur on all continents and with the graphics of all civilizations. Raspil traces the spatters into the 18th century AD, whereas I claim that the "snake" Apep disappeared before AD 800. But even though Apep was not seen, it is possible that the dispersal of dust to Earth's surface continued for another 1000 years.

... the Moon on Fire

Let me propose that the Moon, which joined Earth in 2349 BC, initially had an atmosphere, which caught fire a hundred and fifty years later in 2193 BC.

There are some disconnected Australian legends of the Moon alternately growing hair and trimming it. That would be the sight of the Moon's plasma tail seen from an angle from Earth, and shortening as the angle between the Moon and the ecliptic changed throughout the year. There are also Greek and other references to a bearded Moon, which is the same image.

If the Moon initially had an atmosphere, it would likely have consisted of hydrogen, methane, carbon dioxide, and oxygen -- if it was at all like any of the other planets. That represents a condition which could ignite massive fires if any impinging plasma changed to arc mode on contact with the Moon. We will see this condition for Jupiter in 2150 BC, and for Mercury in 686 BC.

The Moon may have been very active electrically after it joined the Earth in a nearly equal orbit. But I would also suggest that if the Moon initially had an atmosphere then plasma strikes from Earth impacted in glow mode at the Moon -- which means that nothing of particular note was seen, and only a few scars remained behind.

I am proposing this because at some point, there is a spectacular fire at the Moon. Everyone noticed, and all peoples incorporated the fire into their tales and legends.

When might a fire have happened, and in what order? Probably not initially after 2349 BC (Noah's flood), because the Earth only moved further from the Sun, and thus had to increase its own negative charge. However, this was not the case for the Moon. Then in 2193 both the Earth and the Moon moved to a new location, and both would have been subjected to an influx of electrons. For the Earth this would have shown as polar plumes (at each pole), but nothing like that would have resulted for the Moon, which has no magnetic field.

The glow mode display might have stopped after 2283 BC (Palenque, corrected from 2305 BC) or 2285 BC (according to the Annals of Shu). The texts would suggest a sudden change from glow mode to arc mode, and therefore noticed by humans, which would account for the assigned dates.

At Palenque the Moon becomes ruler in 2283 BC; in China, Shun joins Yao on the throne in 2285 BC. These dates might reflect another electric contact with Venus, which would most likely have happened in 2297 BC, although 2297 BC falls 14 years short of 2283 BC.

Interestingly, the two clear "legends" of a fire at the Moon indicate that an event happened on a mountain. The mountain image associated with Mars between 3067 and 2750 BC consisted of a plasma stream extending from the Earth's ionosphere to the surface of Mars. The mountain of Jupiter was the plasma plume extending from below the lower hemisphere into space. The tower (rather than a mountain) associated with Mercury in 686 BC was plasma streaming from Earth to Mercury (to be presented in the next chapter).

A streaming of plasma from Earth to the Moon (like for Mars and Mercury) would be unlikely, since the electric conditions would not have existed. For a long time, like today, Earth and the Moon have been at nearly the same electric potential for the region exterior to the Sun where they both travel. It is more likely that the mountain shape is a plasma tail of the Moon in glow mode, which it certainly would have had if an atmosphere still existed. The reason this was seen (and understood as a mountain) is because the nighttime Moon rises 5 degrees above the ecliptic, and thus the extension of its plasmasphere away from the Sun would have been visible from Earth.

After a fire on the Moon the plasma in glow mode would never again have been experienced. It has to be presumed that the remaining atmosphere would have disappeared over the course of the following thousands of years. Very little atmosphere is left today on Mercury after the planet fire of 686 BC. That was only 2600 years ago. Thus is it would be unlikely that the Moon would show any atmosphere at all, because the fire happened 4300 years ago.

A planetwide fire would explain the Bible tale of Abraham who is told by God to sacrifice his son Isaac as a burnt offering on a mountaintop. His hand is stayed by God, and a ram is substituted. Isaac thus survived the fire; so did the Moon.

A parallel Chinese legend has it that Khwan, who was engaged by Yao to clear the inundation, was "sacrificed on a mountain" in a fire -- when he failed to accomplish his task of clearing away the waters of the flood. His son Yu rose from the ashes and completed the task. Han dynasty historians speculated that Yu was born in 2300 BC. Yu is assigned also as the first king of the Xia dynasty.

In both cases someone survived the fire. Actually, of course, it is the smaller bare Moon who is the survivor. That would also suggest that all the electric scars of the Moon date to after 2200 or 2100 BC.

The Moon possibly rotated when it first joined Earth, although the very circular look of Mare Orientale basin suggests this was not so. Ralph Juergens, in "Of the Moon and Mars," has suggested that the basins (on the front side) could have happened in a contact with Mars in the 8th century BC. It is possible that the craters on the back of the Moon were formed in 685 BC, when, like Venus and Mercury, Earth and its satellite probably also exploded in flames -- from the stratosphere or ionosphere for Earth, from the surface for the Moon. During the 40-day nova event of 685 BC, the Moon circled the Earth one and a quarter times. So craters would appear on all sides.

Within a few decades after first meeting in 2349 BC, the Earth and the Moon would have started to revolve around each other on more or less the same orbit around the Sun, as they do today. The motion of the Moon actually describes a path today which starts some 20,000 miles (32,000 km) above Earth and over the course of six months spirals to a location an equal distance below Earth, after which it reverses again. (It actually describes the figure of a cycloid, not a series of loops.) Moon eclipses only happen at a six-month interval, at the time when the Moon is passing from above the Earth to below, or in the reverse direction.

We can now also clarify the contemporary quotation from a Columbian source in the previous chapter:

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

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

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

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

-- Antonio Mediz Bolio, Books of the Chilam Balam of Chumayel (1930)

The Moon was noticed. The shock may have referred to the contact with Venus, or it may indeed have represented the first touching of the Earth's plasmasphere and the plasmasphere of the Moon. The shock might account for an alteration in the orbit of the Moon which would start it circling around the Earth. [note 11]

It is possible that all of this is conjecture -- that the Moon never had an atmosphere. But the concept of a planet-wide fire is reinforced by the fact that Jupiter caught fire soon after the supposed fire on the Moon. The fire of the Moon I have here dated to 2205 BC, although it could as likely be in 2193 BC.

The fire at Jupiter I am dating (further below) to 2150 BC. Rockenbach, in De Cometis Tractatus Novus Methodicus (AD 1602), places this event in 2060 BC, a hundred years later, and identifies it as the Tower of Babel incident. The Tower of Babel event which was actually well remembered was the flaming up of Mercury in 686 BC.

The Flood from the Sky

There was no "flood of Noah" in terrestrial terms. It all happened in the heavens, although the destruction of the Absu must have caused violent hurricanes, storms, rains, and thunder -- certainly for weeks or months. And, not to be neglected, we should recognize the flattening and raising of the Tibetan Plateau, and the subsequent path of earthquakes and seismic destruction traced through the Eastern Mediterranean into North Africa. [note 12]

The seismic disturbances were experienced in 2349 BC as Venus started to pass Earth on an inner orbit. As both Earth and Venus lined up with the Sun, the plasmaspheres would have touched, and suddenly the crust of the Earth would have experienced a repulsive force. The force would have been experienced on the hemisphere facing Venus, since the Earth's exterior surface distribution of electric charge in effect makes the interior of the Earth (and thus the other hemisphere) opaque to an electric field exterior to the Earth.

Because of the sudden onset, a stupendous seismic shock would have traveled around the world. At the location facing Venus, the crust would have been depressed, resulting in an uplift of the crust in adjacent areas. As the Earth continued to rotate, the region of the depression would have continued to move toward the southwest, although the force would very rapidly diminish as an opposing electric charge was induced at the facing sides of both planets.

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

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

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

There are indications of undetermined catastrophes in this era in many locations in the world. I think these can be attributed to the earthquakes due to the initial electric repulsive shock (in central Asia) which traveled as a seismic wave around the Earth, plus a following attractive exterior force, applied as the Earth continued to rotate, which would have uplifted the surface in the next sector of Earth to come into alignment with Venus (Tibet). This was followed somewhat later by the arrival of a plasmoid lightning bolt from Venus (one large, nine smaller). It is this last which resulted in the hurricanes and torrential rains which have been identified as the Flood of Noah. [note 13]

But the crisis in religious concepts and the loss of a worldview was much more important and cannot be neglected. For a second time, the structure of the Universe had been radically altered. The removal of the Gods would be nearly complete when Jupiter, who had stood in the sky as the Midnight Sun, was permanently "taken away" 200 years later, in about 2150 BC.

As I noted in the previous chapter, sometime after about 2400 BC construction stopped on barrow graves and (mostly) on henges. Only the single-inhumation Round Barrows continued in use. The Long Barrow and Passage Graves were discontinued. After the fall of the Absu it must have become obvious that the south sky was filled with stars, and there was no place for the mound or the island to where the dead were transported in the past. The southern sky was as empty as the northern sky.

The construction of Stonehenge was interrupted for 200 years after 2400 BC, a date which should probably be equated to 2349 BC. But there is no interruption of activity in Egypt or Mesopotamia -- not until 156 years later, after 2193 BC. [note 14]

For the date of "Noah's flood" political events in the Eastern Mediterranean region also do not seem to reflect a problem. It seems there was no apparent damage in Egypt or Sumer, despite the best efforts of chronographers to locate a "flood of Noah" at that time. What we know with certainty is that in 2193 BC, 156 years after the "flood of Noah," a worldwide catastrophe brought the civilizations of Egypt and Akkad to a halt and caused the eventual demise of the Harappan culture in the Indus valley by 1900 BC. The island of Malta was completely depopulated after circa 2200 BC. Malta may have fallen directly under the strike path of an arc from Venus in 2193 BC.

... the Conquests of Sargon

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

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

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

... the Flood in China

The Chinese flood is mentioned in the first book of the Annals of Shu, the Chinese historical record dating to 2357 BC. It speaks of a flood which "stood above the mountains." This cannot be anything other than the Absu. What waters will stand up above the mountains? The rains and storms, however, were real. (Incidentally, Psalm 104:6 reads, "the waters stood above the mountain.")

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

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

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

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

Yao existed, it was estimated in circa 200 BC, from 2357 BC to 2255 BC, for some 100 years spanning what would be the date of Noah's flood in 2349 BC. Yao is Jupiter, and his initial date of first showing should be set at 2349 BC. Yao shared the throne with Shun during his last 30 years. His "death" in 2255 seems to be off by 100 years from better Bible, Mesopotamian, and Mesoamerican chronology. His reign should be around 200 years, not 100 years.

Shun clearly is the Moon, spending all of his time on monthly inspection trips, as described in the Annals of Shu, which even records that his inspection tours all start on the first day of the month.

The ending date for the reign of Shun, the Moon, is 2205 BC. This is 110 years after the Moon's birth, 144 years after the "flood of Noah." When Shun (the Moon) "dies" in 2205 BC, Yu, who had been employed by him in the administration of the land, becomes the first king of the Xia dynasty -- in time for the dry spell starting in 2193 BC. [note 15]

The much earlier flood of 3147 BC, which had come from the South Pole and the South Pacific, was not recalled by the Chinese, perhaps because of the width of the Pacific adjacent to China. Siberians remember a flood, but it came from the north, spread over the land, and then rolled back to the polar sea. Thus it may have been a rebounding wave.

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

... the Temple Inscriptions at Palenque

The Maya temple inscriptions at Palenque in the Yucatan (circa AD 700) are one of only three Maya references to world history. The inscriptions place the birth of Venus, Mars, and Jupiter in 2360 BC. The Moon, "Lady Beastie," is their mother. The implication is that these planets became clearly visible when half of the ecliptic no longer dipped into the Absu to be obscured by the rings. Or so I would think. There is another, more elegant, solution also.

The date of 2360 BC (based on the Long Count) is earlier than the start of the "flood of Noah" in 2349 BC. It has been presumed that the dates of the carved texts for the birth dates of the three planets (November 8, October 21, and October 25) were selected to have a congruence of qualities so that they "matched" later dates used to argue the legitimacy of the ruler who erected the temples. They are not to be considered as dead accurate. However, the era (Baktun) and double-decade (Katun) were most likely completely correct. The dates were retrocalculated in AD 700 based on the Long Count and on a year of 365.24 days.

To correspond to a true solar year (which is the "calendar" used throughout these pages), rather than a Gregorian calendar year, the Long Count dates of Palenque should be moved forward in time by 22 years. Thus 2360 BC of the inscriptions, which precedes the flood of Noah, becomes 2337 BC which follows the flood of Noah by 13 years. [note 16]

Another hint that the events of 2360 BC have reference to the flood of Noah, is the transcription of the glyphs of one of the temples, the Temple of the Cross, which transliterates as:

"753 years and 12 months after
[that is, after February 5, 3112 BC]
GI-prime [Saturn] had set the wac chan
[the World Tree house of the north,
mentioned in detail earlier]
and then the matawil person was born."

"On October 21, 2360 BC, the matawil,
the blood of Lady Beastie,
touched the earth."

The first paragraph follows the detail of the displacement of Saturn from the north polar region to the ecliptic of the south. "The World Tree house of the north" is likely the northern polar plume after 3147 BC. The retrocalculated date of February 5, 3112 BC, for the appearance of Saturn in the ecliptic of the south sky, is about right. (It is a year and a half after the end of the era of the Gods, retrocalculated by Palenque as 3114 BC.) And then the "matawil person" was born.

Who or what is the matawil? Freidel and Schele have determined that Lady Beastie is the Moon, or the "First Mother" and this is generally accepted. They have the matawil as Venus. I'm not so sure. They translate the last line into readable English as:

"On October 21, 2360 BC, GI [Venus]
the child of Lady Beastie, was born."

It is a reasonable guess, considering that Freidel and Schele, like all archaeologists, have absolutely no clue as to what is really going on, and just assume the Maya were making up Gods to fill out a creation epic of sorts. Others have suggested that the matawil is a place. Some assume it is the dark space at the center of the Milky Way. Yet others hold that it might be closely associated with Palenque, in being a toponym for Palenque (the Spanish called the site Palenque, fortress).

I would think that the matawil might represent the doorway or gap in the "House of Bushes," as the Chilam Balam calls the Absu. Alternately I would suggest that it may represent all of the Absu. Then "the blood of Lady Beastie touched the earth" represents the fall of the Absu rather than meaning "the child of Lady Beastie" although "touched the earth" commonly is a phrase meaning "was born" in Chol.

Text at the doorways of the three temples reads as follows:

"On October 21, 2360 BC,
GI [Venus], the matawil, touched the earth;"
"On November 8, 2360 BC,
GII [Mars], the matawil, touched the earth;"
"On October 25, 2360 BC,
GIII [Jupiter], the matawil, touched the earth."

GI, GII, and GIII represent Venus, Mars, and Jupiter, following their dates of birth. This does not resolve what "the matawil" is. "The matawil" also follows the naming of Lady Beastie. In fact, we do not know if it should be presented as an ellipsis as in this translation, or if it should be understood as an adjective, a noun, or some other word form. If Lady Beastie is then the Moon, why was she born in the previous era, that is, before 3114 BC?

The Moon certainly would have been visible before 3114 BC, although only periodically, and seen at a considerable distance, often looking more like a star. But, considering that the temple inscriptions at Palenque also place the birth of Saturn, as a pure fiction, in 3122 BC and, like the birth of Lady Beastie, also before 3114 BC, it might be suggested that these two births and the implied marriage are just made up to suit the situation.

Also we cannot neglect that the Greeks, starting with Hesiod, held that the Moon preceded the births of all the other planets. We know that this isn't true. But what would have looked very much like the Moon at the earliest times would have been the lighted face of Jupiter, which was at a distance from Earth to make it look about the size of the later real Moon, or, as I have also pointed out, as an egg (and as recorded in pottery by Neolithic Mediterranean cultures since remotest times, as presented by Marija Gimbutas).

The Moon, as Lady Beastie, "lets blood" in 2325 BC (corrected to 2302.3 BC), a date separate from the 2360 BC event, when her "blood touched the Earth." Bloodletting is a trance ceremony of the Maya, used to commune with ancestors. Is this a plasma display of the Moon?

The Palenque inscriptions next claim that in 2305 BC (corrected to 2282.6 BC) the Moon crowns herself ruler. The inscriptions at Palenque were used to establish the legitimacy of the claim to rule by the Ahau of Palenque, who had attained his position through a matriarchal line. The inscriptions were meant to show that there was ancient precedent for this, for the celestial Gods also trace their ancestry through a woman ruler, the Moon. Frankly, I do not know how the concept of "rulership" might relate to the Moon in physical terms. The Annals of Shu claim 2287 BC as the year in which Shun (the Moon) joins Yao on the throne. At least it is an interesting near coincidence. [note 17]

The date of the Palenque inscriptions can be compared against the estimates listed in the Annals of Shu, as shown in the table below, where corrected dates for Palenque are shown against uncorrected dates from the Shu. 


        Palenque inscriptions              Annals of Shu
      event      inscribed corrected      event          dated
   Moon shows     2360 BC  2336.8 BC   birth of Shun   2318 BC  
   Moon bleeds    2325 BC  2302.3 BC
   Moon rules     2305 BC  2282.6 BC   Shun employed   2287 BC    
                                       Yao dies        2257 BC  
                                       Shun dies       2205 BC

... the Chilam Balam

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

The events of the Chilam Balam are listed by the names of Katuns, thus dating events to spans of 20 years. We have to supply the corresponding Baktun, that is, we have to guess the longer era of 400-Tun periods that a Katun falls in. All except one of the Katun dates of the Chilam Balam match the records from other sources -- or span the dates of these other sources outside of Mesoamerica. The dates need to be corrected in a different manner than the dates from Palenque. The text clearly recounts (among other celestial events) the 24th century BC, although listed wildly out of order. [note 18]

The Lifetime of Abraham

Abraham is variously dated anywhere from 2026 BC (534 years before the Exodus of 1492 BC) to 1271 BC (1876 years after the flood of 3147 BC). Traditional Bible chronology dates Abraham from 1812 BC to 1637 BC. In Appendix A, "Chronology Notes" I equate Abraham with Gilgamesh, but it would be more correct to equate Abraham with Jupiter. Some scholars have also equated Abraham with the Moon, or Moon-worship. Actually, I would suggest that the first orbiting of the Moon might have been used by the Bible editors to establish a 175-year life-span for Abraham. The first showing of the Moon might be 2325 BC. The demise of Jupiter is 2150 BC. This is 175 years, although here the date of 2325 BC is an estimate. However, by Egyptian reckoning, Abraham dates from shortly after 3147 BC, recorded as the first ruler, "Nemes."

Most Bible chronologists placed the birth of Abraham in 1900 or 1800 so that Abraham could have forefathers between himself and Noah, in fact, ten generations. As I mentioned earlier, all except the first and last of these 10 generations (in the Bible) were sired when their father was 29, 30, 32, or 35 years old. These are also my estimates of the intervals between appearances of Mars during the earlier period of 3147 to 2750 BC. The forebears of the Sumerian Gilgamesh (the kings of Kish in pairs) are spaced likewise. The Bible is a mix of events from different eras, which holds the "flood" of 2349 BC as the world flood, but derives all its other information from earlier eras.

It makes most sense to equate Abraham with Jupiter. The birth of Abraham then is in 2349 BC. His death is 199 years later, in 2150 BC. I have used these two dates as anchor points in developing the chronology of Jupiter.

The Assyriologists P.J. Wiseman, in New Discoveries in Babylonia about Genesis (1936), and D.J. Wiseman, in Ancient Records and the Structure of Genesis (1958), proposed that Genesis is a series of separate records, copied and collated by Moses, each ending in a colophonic phrase, like "these are the generations of Noah," called "Toledoth" in Hebrew. These recap what has been written up to that point (this happens 15 times) like a signature by the person who is supplying the record. At each of the 15 colophons, the writer is still alive, but nothing more is heard of him in the following text, except his age at death, which is related by the next writer. There is one notable exception: Abraham.

Who would doubt, however, that the most "prominent" individual in the Book of Genesis is Abraham? He, more than all the other great Patriarchs, would be entitled to be named in a Toledoth. ... "Yet", as Wiseman had observed, "it is remarkable that while lesser persons such as Ishmael and Esau are mentioned, there is no such Toledoth phrase as `These are the generations of Abraham'"

-- from California Institute for Ancient Studies

That would present a problem for Bible chronologists, for Abraham needed parentage, being ten generations from Noah and the Noachian flood. The ten generations after the flood is correct, if the flood is understood as the worldwide flood of 3147 BC. The ten generations are the recalled ten appearances of Mars between 3067 BC and circa 2750 BC.

Bible chronologists, using a "flood" set at 2349 BC by Ussher, were thus forced to make Abraham first appear some 300 years later, variously in 1900 BC to 1800 BC. Ussher uses 1976 BC to 1801 BC, 175 years.

The Extinction of Jupiter

I estimate that Jupiter extinguished sometime in the era after the "flood of Noah," possibly in 2259 BC, as the Annals of Shu claims, although I am more comfortable with a date of 2150 BC, the end of the 199-year life span of Abraham (as Jupiter) since 2349 BC. The large coma of Jupiter would, at any rate, have come to an end as the planet slowed its retreat from the Sun on reaching its final orbital destination and, once at that destination, its electric potential started to match the electric field of the Sun at that remote distance. At first the glow mode discharge would have simply diminished as the flow of plasma decreased. Then Jupiter would have experienced a sudden change from glow mode to dark mode plasma discharge, as plasma flows do when switching between modes.

There is a planet fire recorded in the Chilam Balam. The text of Book 10 reads, as a concluding line to a description of Jupiter:

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

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

The "face of the sun" is Jupiter, the Midnight Sun -- "Lord Sun" of the Maya. The "excess vigor" might be translated as "commotion" as if to suggest that the effects were experienced on Earth. They were not, except for the religious changes -- the sense that their god had been removed from near Earth to a far off distance, as it diminished to the size of a star.

The Chilam Balam seems to date the extinction of Jupiter to a Katun 8-Ahau (as seems most likely), placing this event in 2167 to 2147 BC, which matches the extra-Biblical date 2150 BC which I am using from other sources.

Of the other sources, the first is the portion of the Annals of Shu compiled during the Xia dynasty. The Xia dynasty has other records of events noted to be contemporary with the events, that is, not "mythological" (the "mythological" records read, "Looking into antiquity, we find...").

Under the Xia we are getting descriptions from sensible Chinese humans, who could care less of stars and planets, writing, however, that there was "a celestial phenomenon" in about 2153 BC. This is recorded in Book IV, "The Punitive Expedition of Yin," of Part III, "The Books of the Hsia [Xia]." James Legge records that, "This Book is another of the 'Speeches' of the Shu, belonging to the reign of Kung Khang, a brother of Thai Khang, the fourth of the kings of Shang (B.C. 2159-2147)."

The second source is a cuneiform tablet of Gudea (as discussed earlier), governor of the Sumerian city of Lagash in 2144 BC to 2124 BC, concerning a brightening -- the "overwhelming splendor" of Ningirsu, who "changes darkness into light" -- dated to the mid-2100's.

Ningirsu is Jupiter (although the name is also assigned to Saturn). Gudea was dedicated to Ningirsu, building him a temple and supplying weapons of war for the temple (Ningirsu is understood as a war-god, which is not characteristic of Saturn or of Jupiter). The building and dedication activities are probably an indication that Jupiter had disappeared altogether from the skies, and that Lagash was in trouble. The social reforms, return to traditions, and fervor of religiosity initiated by Gudea must reflect attempts to keep Lagash alive under the adverse condition of a disappeared God. This was also 50 years after the start of the agricultural failures of 2193 BC.

Having established that something spectacular happened around 2150 BC, the question next becomes, What happened?

Most likely Jupiter experienced a sudden change from glow mode to dark mode plasma discharge, which is how plasma flows behave. Since this involves a marked decrease in current flow, the driving voltage would have risen suddenly and could have resulted in a brief return to a much higher current rate -- a brief change to arc mode. After the sudden change to arc mode, Jupiter would again have dropped to dark mode, and been reduced to the size of a star.

This is regularly seen elsewhere in the Universe where stars repeatedly explode into brilliance and subside as they switch from arc mode to glow mode or dark mode (a loss of the coma). After the extinction, Jupiter would have all but disappeared from view, for in the final dark mode nothing would be seen of a coma.

The Midnight Sun had stood in the sky for nearly 1000 years, and with a huge coma for much of that time, and certainly the last 200 years. And for all that time there were no interactions with the Earth, except to disappear after some months and return again.

Then in 2150 BC it suddenly brightened and died, while in view of Earth. The Midnight Sun would have suddenly shrunk from a Moon-sized brilliant globe set on a mountain which lit up the night skies to just a bright star (still the brightest planet in the sky today, next to Venus). Since in the text above I have suggested that the burning of Jupiter could have been a switch from a failing glow mode plasma briefly to arc mode, there is certainly a good possibility that it did indeed involve a planetary fire. A single location of an impinging plasma in arc mode could have set off the ignition of an absolutely massive fire as methane and hydrogen burned, engulfing the largest planet in the Solar System. It would have been spectacular. There are problems, of course, with the temperatures near absolute zero. But the striking of an electric arc raises the temperature locally by thousands of degrees.

The fact that the coma of Jupiter was red since leaving the asteroid belt could be indicative of low-level oxygen in an excited state, but it could also be hydrogen or methane. This would be an explosive combination, although not normally at utterly low temperatures. That might explain why this had not happened earlier. Perhaps the statement in the Chilam Balam, that "suddenly on high fire flamed up," should be taken at face value. This was not a coma in arc mode, it was flames. The same, of course, was said for the Tower of Babel.

The Career of Jupiter

The story of the flood of Noah is the story of the death and resurrection of the primary God of antiquity. It is a story which will be repeated and re-represented for the next 4,500 years -- to today. Let me present, then, the career of Jupiter in narrative form, and follow it with some background information.

At this point we can describe the complete career of Jupiter from before 3147 BC to its last flaming and extinction in about 2150 BC. The complete career of Jupiter, from the first time he was noticed in the skies is as follows:

The view of Jupiter seen from Earth initially was of a bright crescent on the bottom of the globe. This was the view seen from far below Jupiter, seen about 45 degrees up from Earth. Only a crescent was seen, even though all of Jupiter's face was lighted by the Sun.

Humans at this time had no concept of the extended space away from the Earth. The concept of Earth and all the surrounding space was that of a land mass enclosed by an "ocean" in the south (the equatorial rings), and another region in the north where the river from paradise (the "real Earth") had been seen to flow toward the land of Middle Earth. It was like living at the bottom of a bowl.

A widening (green) plasma discharge in glow mode extended down from the crescent (from the south pole of Jupiter). From the perspective of Earth the crescent looked like the ship of Noah placed on the mountain where he had landed. Both the "ship" and the "mountain" which were seen at the end of the flood are ubiquitous elements of the 500 or more flood legends throughout the world.

The huge horned shape which had been seen approaching (or seen earlier and known about) was also identified in Egypt as the celestial bull who wrecked the city of the Gods -- he is shown as such on the Palette of Narmer, and one other palette from the same predynastic period, but, significantly, not on earlier cosmetic palettes. Jupiter also appears as the "bull of heaven" in the Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh.

The duration of the flood, as presented in the legends, is in agreement with the fact that Jupiter would soon be seen from a much greater distance (half way across the orbit of Earth, rather than only a few million miles), frontally lighted by the Sun, but now looking much smaller. To both Noah and Utnapishtim this sight is a fire lighted for a sacrifice to the Gods. Seen from upward to one AU (93,000,000 miles, 150,000,000 km) away from the scene of the "collision," the planet Jupiter with its coma would have looked about the size of today's Moon, with the actual globe within the coma lighted by the Sun, and all of this still standing on its mountain, with wisps of plasma extending above the upper part of the coma -- seen as smoke of a sacrificial fire lit by Noah or Utnapishtim. The satellites of Jupiter orbited the fire.

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

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

Osiris in his casket drifted out to sea, and north to Biblos (which was an Egyptian port of trade in Lebanon), and became lodged in a tree -- the north polar plasma column -- after which not much more of Saturn is seen at all in the sky, having by this time perhaps distanced itself considerably. There are, of course, later tales of Isis removing Osiris from the trunk of this tree.

The remaining career of Jupiter can be followed with some confidence. This is not true of Saturn. Saturn must have been unremarkable looking, except when its rings were still seen, and now known to go also behind the planet. Saturn just seems to disappear from active mythology, although the planet was watched and tracked throughout all of antiquity, everywhere. Saturn soon would have been a tiny speck of light among the stars (and moving very slowly). [note 21]

The Asteroid Belt

Jupiter took on the role of Osiris after Saturn disappeared from view. He is understood as mummified, standing up in the sky, with his mantle reaching down to the horizon. The toroidal equatorial plasma form produced what looked like two eyes staring back to Earth. Jupiter would have looked gigantic until it reached the first objects of the asteroid belt at about 2 AU. That would have taken perhaps 300 years after 3147 BC. A period of 288 years is a calculation based on a linear regression of Jupiter from the Sun (see the chart further below).

[Image: Asteroid belt and path of Jupiter]
[Image: "Histogram of the semi-major axis of asteroid objects; and path of Jupiter between 3147 BC and 2150 BC. The left ordinate represents both the number of asteroids and also the date, as BC, in the previous era." (Data: ftp.lowell.edu/pub/elgb/astorb.html. Plotted at case.edu/sjr16/; Information for 336,341 asteroids. Additional graphics for Jupiter added.)]

Jupiter eventually was displaced to 5.2 AU from the Sun. If Jupiter had started its recession at 0.7 AU (as I will suggest later), it would have moved at a rate of 221.5 years per AU. This is plotted on the chart below. 


                The career of Jupiter

  Note: the locations and dates are approximate, based on
   date = 3147 - (location - 0.7 AU) * rate of recession
        Note: dates revised about 15 percent 2/2011

  event, location        event date     concurrent look   period of time
  --------------------   -----------    ---------------   --------------
  starting location      3147 BC         mountain form     ~288 yrs
    from 0.7 AU

  start of asteroid
    belt, ~2.0 AU        2859 BC        shen form          ~332

  end of main asteroid
   belt, ~3.5 AU         2527 BC        mountain form      ~89

  last set of asteroids
   at ~3.9 - 4 AU      ca 2438 BC       return of shen     ~89

  fall of the Absu
   at 4.3 AU **           2349 BC        mountain form      

  another interruption ?
                      ca 2337 BC        extinguished? Moon shows?
                      ca 2283 BC        Moon in orbit, mountain form?

   at 5.2 AU location ca 2150 BC        end of travel, extinguished

 The linear rate of recession is based on 
 (3147 - 2150)/(5.2 AU - 0.7 AU) = 221.5 years per AU. 
        ** location calculated

In the above chart the date of 2349 BC was set, and the location for this was calculated. The return of the mountain form in 2349 BC was due to the giant plasmoid from Venus. There may be a progressive error in this chart as Jupiter recedes further from the Sun because I have used a constant rate of radial recession. This may not be justified.

The date of 2150 BC, when Jupiter reached 5.2 AU in this linear model, is fairly well supported from a number of sources. The distribution of the semi-major axis of the asteroid objects shown in the graph above represents today's conditions. There is no reason to believe that most of the asteroids were not in approximately the same location from the Sun 5000 years ago as they are today.

The exception certainly are the two sets of asteroids (the Trojans and the Greeks) which are today located at 5.2 AU, in the orbit of Jupiter, and displaced about 60 degrees from the planet. These are thought to have been distributed to these Lagrangian points (gravitational minimums) of Jupiter's orbit through gravitational interactions with Jupiter over the last 4 billion years. Nothing explains why these asteroids are still there and are as widely distributed about these locations, except that they have only recently arrived at these locations.

Their location far removed from the main mass of the other asteroids is also peculiar. It certainly suggests that these are remnants of asteroids from the asteroid belt which were gravitationally removed by the movement of Jupiter through the Asteroid belt. That might also explain the paucity of asteroids near the end of the Asteroid Belt at about 3.9 to 4 AU, for on the basis of "historical" evidence, there should have been considerably more asteroids at the location of 3.9 to 4 AU, since Jupiter seemed to have again lost its coma and tail at this location, corresponding to a time 100 years before the "flood" of Noah in 2349 BC.

Surprisingly, some "Trojan" asteroids have been found for the transjovian planets, suggesting that these also were removed from the asteroid belt with the movement of these planets through the belt. These Trojans are far fewer than the 1500 or more which follow Jupiter. But then, Jupiter has more mass than Saturn, Neptune, and Uranus combined. Six Trojans have also been found to follow Mars, and Trojans are suspected for Earth. (The first Trojan to be associated with Earth was announced in 2011.)


Special thanks to J Brookes for suggestions on the cratered back of the Moon.

Endnotes

Note 1 --

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

Thornhill suspects that the minor magnetic field of Mercury is induced in its travels between perihelion and aphelion, which increases its orbital radius by half in each 88-day circuit around the Sun. This would move it alternately into two considerably different regions of the electric field of the Sun.
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Note 2 --

There was a doorway, caused by the Earth's shadow on the rings.

To have the rings come close together at the east and west cardinal direction would depend on having an unobstructed view of the horizon at sea level. Of course the rings were seen to move differentially with respect to each other. This would certainly take away from the image of the house of a God as a stable object.
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Note 3 --

That the number of rings should increase with high latitudes is a discrepancy I cannot explain. Nine rings are also noted for some Northern European locations, and possibly in India (where the latitude of the observations is not at all clear).
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Note 4 --

In summer, at the solstice, with the Earth tilted at 23.5 degrees toward the Sun, the shadow will be found to extend 6000 miles (9600 km) onto the disk of the rings from the equator, 4000/sin(23.5) - 4000 = 6031 mi, using 4000 miles as the radius of the Earth, and be shaped as a semicircle. In winter the shadow is actually cast on the bottom of the rings, but visually the results would be the same.

[Image: Earth shadow on the Absu]
[Image: Earth's shadow on the equatorial rings at summer solstice. Illustration by J. Cook.]

This is the minimum dimension for the portal. As the spring or fall equinox approached the shadow would lengthen to become infinite. If the rings extended less than 6000 miles (9600 km) from the surface of the Earth at the equator, there would always be a gap (rather than an oval shadow). However, I have shown in an earlier chapter that I would expect the rings to extend about 8500 miles (13,600 km) above the Earth's equator.

In a later chapter I develop the idea that the Earth's axial inclination (to the normal of the orbital plane) was 30 degrees before 685 BC. I should note the results here. With an axial inclination of 30 degrees, the shadow will be found to extend only 4000 miles (6,400 km) onto the disk of the equatorial rings, 4000/sin(30) - 4000 = 4000 mi in mid-summer and mid-winter. Again, the shadow would extend infinitely at the time of the equinoxes.
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Note 5 --

The beam of the ecliptic would connect the left and right edges of the Absu or Duat only at the time of year near the equinoxes. The ecliptic would dip into the rings at the autumnal equinox and rise out of the rings at the vernal equinox. The portion of the ecliptic behind the shadowed rings would be obscured, except for bright planets. In summer (at night) the ecliptic would disappear behind the Absu, and in winter be placed above the Absu -- as with the Moon and planets today, which travel high in the winter night sky and low in the summer. The post and beam "gates" in China are said to be imported with Buddhism after AD 200.
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Note 6 --

The construction of a ballcourt -- a flat plane between stepped pyramids or inclined embankments -- is derived in Mesoamerica from descriptions recorded in ancient glyphic books, not from directly remembered experiences. It is a view of the trapezoidal gap in the Absu at the time of the equinoxes, which disregards the fact that the left and right embankments were probably not visible at the same time. The central playing field of the horizontal space between the embankments is accurately rendered, but notice that the ballcourts vary tremendously in size, as does the slope of the walls, although somewhat less. This suggests that the ballcourts are not modeled on a physical object which could be used as a model for the builders.

Teotihuacan, one of the three largest cities in the world in about AD 700, did not have a ballcourt. But the orientation of the main street and the Pyramid of the Sun with the horizon in effect turned the whole city into a giant ballcourt, using the Sun as the ball. More on this in a later chapter.
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Note 7 --

The name "Ra" or "Re" was probably transferred to Jupiter without hesitation by some of the Egyptians temple domains after 3147 BC, for the apparition of the globe of Jupiter in the south sky was nearly identical in size and in other aspects to the earlier view of Saturn at the north horizon. Only the fact that Jupiter soon (after about 200 years) reached the edge of the asteroid belt and lost much of its coma and all of its tail, at a time when Horus had been appearing regularly in the skies above Earth, kept Jupiter from being accepted universally as chief of the Gods at that time.
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Note 8 --

The Himalayas today are held to be very young, having "reached" their current height after the ice age, and often suggested to have done so in historical times. The mechanics are discussed in Appendix B, "The Celestial Mechanics".
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Note 9 --

In the second century AD Ptolemy reports the star Sirius as red, as do others in late antiquity. However, Sirius is listed as white by the Arab (Persian) astronomer Al-Sufi in the Book of fixed Stars, published in AD 964. Both Ptolemy and Al-Sufi were very competent astronomers. Details of how Sirius disappeared behind the last red band are presented in the Appendix "The Red Sirius."
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Note 10 --

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

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

If the Moon changed its orbit, the force that altered its course might show as the Orientale basin compression scar located at the extreme lower left edge of the Moon as seen from Earth. The Orientale Basin is overlaid with younger craters, and is thought itself to be one of the "youngest" craters or basins. It is (of course) held to be 3.9 billion years old. The outer ring of displaced mountains is 200 miles (320 km) in diameter.

The Moon retained its original path around the Sun, which has an inclination to the Sun's equatorial which is slightly different from that of the Earth.

[Image: Orientale basin]
[Image: Orientale basin of the Moon. After NASA.]

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Note 12 --

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

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

Let me add to the rains proposed here the following two: first, the incessant rains during the fall of the Absu at the end of the 5th dynasty (2349 BC), and second, the initial rains of the years of darkness after the Exodus (1492 BC).
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Note 13 --

In this instance, 2349 BC, the interplanetary lightning strikes consisted of a series of 9 plasmoids following an initial much larger plasmoid. Some of these may have landed in Central Asia on the second day.
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Note 14 --

See the website of Timo Niroma for a detailed overview of the 2349 BC and 2193 BC events, at [personal.eunet.fi/pp/tilmari]
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Note 15 --

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

The "death" of Shun, the Moon, when "he went on high," is likely to be a change in the orbital path of the Moon, coinciding with an increase in the Earth's orbit in 2193 BC. Thus the 110 years since the "birth of Shun" should probably be lengthened to 156 years, if we assume that the Moon showed up at the earlier increase of the Earth's orbit.
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Note 16 --

The date correction is based on the assumption that the backward extension of the Long Count by the Olmecs in 747 BC was based on a 360-day year. This is clear from the 20-day Uinal "months" which add up to a Tun ("year"). There are 18 of these months to make up a Tun. All other measures rotate at a value of 20 -- Kins, Tuns, and Katuns. (Baktuns rotate at 13.)

This was done by adding 6 Baktuns to the count of 0.0.0.0. The history of past events was probably a listing of Katuns and Baktuns (where a Baktun is a double-decade of Tun years). But when the Maya retrocalculated in AD 700 they would have used a 365.24-day year to arrive at a predetermined Baktun and Katun. Our calculation based on the Long Count is also based on the assumption of Gregorian years (365.24 days) in the remote past, and thus also places events too far into the past by 5.24 days per year. Thus to recalculate the inscribed Long Count dates to the correct chronography, a value of ({date} - 747) * 5.24/365.24 years needs to be subtracted from the Mesoamerican dates. See the chapter "The Maya Calendar."

A date from the Palenque sculpture which falls in the 7th century AD (a conjunction of Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars on July 23, AD 690, in Libra) needs no correction, and is dead accurate. This date falls after 747 BC.
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Note 17 --

The Egyptians never recognize the Moon. There is a total absence of the crescent of the Moon in depictions. Upturned crescents, as, for example, part of the headdresses of Gods and Goddesses, are based on symbols dating to before 3147 BC, and on graphic simplifications of cattle or ram horns, they are not based on the Moon, since the Moon never produces an upturned crescent at the latitudes of Egypt.
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Note 18 --

Since the Katuns (and the implied Baktuns) were retrieved from ancient records, they were not retrocalculated, as at Palenque. The Katuns (and Baktuns) were most likely based on Tun years which were equivalent to solar years. A Baktun would thus be equal to 400 solar years, and a Katun would be 20 solar years, without regard to the actual length of the year. Thus the correction formula (below) is based first on subtracting 6 Baktuns (2400 years) from 747 BC to arrive at 3147 BC as the year of the end of the "Era of the Gods." Other corrections are thus found numerically as 3147 - 400*Baktuns - 20*Katuns.
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Note 19 --

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

It might easily be suggested that the original diameter of the "gravitational sphere of influence" of Saturn shrank in the presence of the mass of Jupiter (which is three times that of Saturn). Shrinking a gravitational sphere of influence released the somewhat distant planets Earth and Venus from being carried along as satellites of Saturn. Away from other large masses, a sphere of influence is generally about 100 times the diameter of the parent planet -- 7 million miles (11 million km) for Saturn.

Mercury and Mars must have continued to travel with Saturn, for they show up near Earth about 80 years late. The Sumerian King List places Mars near Saturn in 3147 BC by virtue of the fact that only 80 years had passed since the last lowering of Mars. That time span is half of the earlier periods between lowering -- thus placing Mars closer to Saturn than to Earth.

With the following appearances after 3147 BC, Mars is accompanied by many asteroids, suggesting an aphelion in the asteroid belt. The movement of Mars and Mercury -- why they returned to the region of the inner planets from the asteroid belt -- was governed by the gravitational attraction of the Sun, expressed as soon as Mercury and Mars fell away from the enclosing plasmasphere of Saturn. It can only be suggested that, like what we will see Jupiter do also, the plasmasphere of Saturn would have shrunk on reaching the asteroid belt. It can thus be suggested that these planets were released when Saturn's gravitational sphere of influence shrank as it entered the asteroid belt.
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Note 20 --

The "tree" at Biblos of the Isis and Osiris story (by Plutarch in AD 100), is the plume of plasma impinging at the north magnetic pole of the Earth, after the change in the Earth's orbit in 3147 BC. The lodging of the coffin of Osiris in the tree is likely a ball plasmoid at the end of the plume. The polar plumes were presented in the text of a previous chapter.

Isis, in the shape of a swallow, flew around the tree which entrapped the coffin of Osiris. The swallow is possibly Mercury, which had polar plumes, because of an atmosphere (partially extant today). It had a split tail which additionally made it look like a swallow. The split plasma tail is typical of a body with only a limited magnetic field. Split tails have regularly been observed for comets over the last 400 years. The visual impression that a swallow was "circling" the tree of the north likely reflects Mercury's close passage to the Sun or the circling of the first northern polar plume.

This does not measure up to my other, later claim that Mercury only appeared with Mars at the end of the 80-year period. So, rather than the swallow being Mercury, it more likely is the planet Venus, who is Isis.

The fire lighted by Isis, where she roasted the baby of the Queen of Biblos, was seen also in antiquity, and is likely the lower portion of the plasma plume in arc mode. At a later date the Egyptians would identify the plumes as the braziers of the four cardinal points.
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Note 21 --

I have only found one reference to a possible plasma discharge associated with Saturn after 3147 BC in the Maya Chilam Balam books, but I think it is a transcription error.
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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( ); tan( )=s( )/c( )
units: million == 1,000,000; billion == 1,000,000,000;
AU == 93,000,000 miles.

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