Sunday, April 4, 2021

Part 4 : Worlds in Collision...East and West.."Shadow of Death"

Worlds in Collision

by Immanuel Velikovsky

CHAPTER 5 

[ East and West ] 


Our planet rotates from west to east. Has it always done so? 

In this rotation from west to east, the sun is seen to rise in the east and set in the west. Was the east the primeval and only place of the sunrise? 

There is testimony from all parts of the world that the side which is now turned toward the evening once faced the morning.  

In the second book of his history; Herodotus relates his conversations with Egyptian priests on his visit to Egypt some time during the second half of the fifth century before the present era. Concluding the history of their people, the priests told him that the period following their first king covered three hundred and forty one generations; and Herodotus calculated that, three generations being equal to a century, the whole period was over eleven thousand years. The priests asserted that within historical ages and since Egypt became a kingdom; "four times in this period (so they told me) the sun rose contrary to his wont; twice he rose where he now sets; and twice he set where he now rises."

This passage has been the subject of exhaustive commentaries, the authors of which tried to invent every possible explanation of the phenomenon, but failed to consider the meaning which was plainly stated by the priests of Egypt, and their efforts through the centuries have remained fruitless. 

The famous chronologist of the sixteenth century, Joseph Scaliger, weighed the question whether the Sothis period, or time reckoning by years of 365 days which, when compared with the Julian calendar, accumulated an error of a full year in 1,461 years, was hinted at by this passage in Herodotus, and remarked: "Sed hoc non fuerit occasum et orientem mutare" (No reversal of sunrise and sunset takes place in a Sothis period).2 

Did the words of the priests to Herodotus refer to the  slow change in the direction of the terrestrial axis during a period of approximately 25,800 years, which is brought about by its spinning or by the slow movement of the equinoctial points of the terrestrial orbit (precession of the equinoxes)? So thought Alexander von Humboldt of "the famous passage of the second book of Herodotus which so strained the sagacity of the commentators." 3 But this also is a violation of the meaning of the words of the priests, for during the period of spinning, orient and occident do not exchange places. 

One may doubt the trustworthiness of the priests' statements, or of Egyptian tradition in general, or attack Herodotus for ignorance of the natural sciences,4 but there is no way to reconcile the passage with present-day natural science. It remains "a very remarkable passage of Herodotus that has become the despair of commentators." 5 

Pomponius Mela, a Latin author of the first century, wrote: "The Egyptians pride themselves on being the most ancient people in the world. In their authentic annals • • • one may read that since they have been in existence, the course of the stars has changed direction four times, and that the sun has set twice in the part of the sky where it rises today." 6 

It should not be deduced that Mela's only source for this statement was Herodotus. Mela refers explicitly to Egyptian written sources. He mentions the reversal in the movement of the stars as well as of the sun; if he had copied Herodotus, be would probably not have mentioned the reversal in the movement of the stars (sidera). At a time when the movement of the sun, planets, and stars was not yet regarded as the result of the movement of the earth, the change in the direction of the sun was not necessarily connected in Mela's mind with a similar change in the movement of all heavenly bodies.7 

If, in Me!a's time, there were Egyptian historical records which referred to the rising of the sun in the west, we ought to investigate the old Egyptian literary sources extant today.

The Magical Papyrus Harris speaks of a cosmic upheaval of fire and water when "the south becomes north, and the Earth turns over." 8 

In the Papyrus ipuwer it is similarly stated that "the  land turns round [over] as does a potter's wheel" and the "Earth turned upside down." 9 This papyrus bewails the terrible devastation wrought by the upheaval of nature. In the Ermitage Papyrus (Leningrad, 1116b recto) also, reference is made to a catastrophe that turned the "land upside down; happens that which never yet had happened." 10 It is assumed that at that time-in the second millennium-people were not aware of the daily rotation of the earth, and believed that the firmament with its luminaries. turned around the earth; therefore, the expression, "the earth turned over," does not refer to the daily rotation of the globe. 

Nor do these descriptions in the papyri of Leiden and Leningrad leave room for a figurative explanation of the sentence, especially if we consider the text of the Papyrus Harris-the turning over of the earth is accompanied by the interchange of the south and north poles. 

Harakhte is the Egyptian narpe for the western sun. As there is but one sun in the sky, it is supposed that Harakhte means the sun at its setting. But why should the sun at its  setting be regarded as a deity different from the morning sun? The identity of the rising and the setting sun is seen by everyone. The inscriptions do not leave any room for misunderstanding: "Harakhte, he riseth in the west." 11 

The texts found in the pyramids say that the luminary "ceased to Jive in the occident, and shines, a new one, in the orient." 12 

After the reversal of direction, whenever it may have occurred, the words "west" and "sunrise" were no longer  synonyms, and it was necessary to  clarify references by  adding: "the west which is at the sun-setting." It was not mere tautology, as the translator of this text thought.13 

Inasmuch as the hieroglyphics were deciphered in the nineteenth century, it would be only reasonable to expect that since then the commentaries on Herodotus and Mela would have been written after consulting the Egyptian texts. 

In the tomb of Senmut, the architect of Queen Hatshepsut, a panel on the ceiling shows the celestial sphere with the signs of the zodiac and other constellations in "a reversed orientation" of the southern sky.14 

The end of the Middle Kingdom antedated the time of Queen Hatshepsut by several centuries. The astronomical ceiling presenting a reversed orientation· must have been a venerated chart, made obsolete a number of centuries earlier. "A characteristic feature of the Senmut ceiling is the astronomically objectionable orientation of the southern panel." The center of this panel is occupied by the Orion-Sirius group, in which Orion appears west of Sirius instead of east. "The orientation of the southern panel is such that the person in the tomb looking at it has to lift his head and face north, not south." "With the reversed orientation of the south panel, Orion, the most conspicuous constellation of the southern sky, appeared to be moving eastward, i.e., in the wrong direction." 15 

The real meaning of "the irrational orientation of the southern panel" and the "reversed position of Orion" appears to be this: the southern panel shows the sky of Egypt as it was before the celestial sphere interchanged north and south, east and west. The northern panel shows the sky of Egypt as it was on some night of the year in the time of Senmut.

Was there no autochthonous tradition in Greece about the reversals of the revolution of the sun and stars? 

Plato wrote in his dialogue, ''The Statesman" (Politicus): "I mean the change in the rising and the setting of the sun and the other heavenly bodies, how in those times they used to set in the quarter where they now rise, and used to rise where they now set . . . the god at the time of the quarrel, you recall, changed all that to the present system as a testimony in favor of Atreus.'' Then be proceeded: "At certain periods the universe has its present circular motion, and at other periods it revolves in the reverse direction. . . . Of all the changes which take place in the heavens this reversal is the greatest and most complete." 16 

Plato continued his dialogue, using the above passage as the introduction to a fantastic philosophical essay on the reversal of time. This minimizes the value of the quoted passage despite the categorical form of his statement. 

The reversal of the movement of the sun in the sky was not a peaceful event; it was an act of wrath and destruction. Plato wrote in Politicus: "There is at that time great destruction of animals in general, and only a small part of the human race survives." 

The reversal of the movement of the sun was referred to by many Greek authors before and after Plato. According to a short fragment of a historical drama by Sophocles (Atreus), the sun rises in the east only since its course was reversed. "Zeus . . . changed the course of the sun, causing it to rise in the east and not in the west." 17

Euripides wrote in Electra: "Then in his anger arose Zeus, turning the stars' feet back on the fire-fretted way; yea, and the sun's car splendour-burning, and the misty eyes of the morning grey. And the flash of his chariot wheels back-flying flushed crimson the face of the fading day. The sun  turned backward  with the scourge of his wrath in affliction repaying mortals." 18 

Many authors in later centuries realized that the story of Atreus described some event in nature. But it could not have been an eclipse. Strabo was mistaken when be tried to rationalize the story by saying that Atreus was an early astronomer who "discovered that the sun revolves in a direction opposite to the movement of the heavens." 19 During the night the stars move from east to west two minutes faster than the sun which moves in the same direction during the day.20 

Even in poetical language such a phenomenon would not have been described as follows: "And the;. sun-car's winged speed from the ghastly strife turned back, changing bis westering track through the heavens unto where blushburning dawn rose," as Euripides wrote in another work of his.21 

Seneca knew more than his older contemporary ·strabo. In his drama Thyestes, he gave a powerful description of what happened when the sun turned backward in the morning sky, which reveals much profound knowledge of natural phenomena. When the sun reversed its course and blotted out the day in mid-Olympus (noon), and the sinking sun beheld Aurora, the people, smitten with fear, asked: "Have we of all mankind been deemed deserving that heaven, its poles uptorn, should overwhelm us? lo our time has the last day come?" 22 

The early Greek philosophers, and especially Pythagoras, would have known about the reversal of the revolution of the sky, if it actually occurred, but as Pythagoras and his school kept their knowledge secret, we must depend upon the authors who wrote about the Pythagoreans. Aristotle says that the Pythagoreans differed between the right- and the left-hand motion of the sky ("the side from which the stars rise" is heaven's right, "and where they set, its left" 23), and in Plato we find: "A direction from left to right-and that will be from west to east." 24 The present sun moves in the opposite direction. 

In the language of a symbolic and philosophical astronomy, probably of Pythagorean origin, Plato describes in Timaeus the effects of a collision of the earth "overtaken by a tempest of winds" with "alien fire from without, or a solid Jump of earth," or waters of " the immense flood which foamed in and streamed out" : the terrestrial globe engages in all motions, "forwards and backwards, and again to right and to left, and upwards and downwards, wandering every way in all the six directions." 25 

As the result of such a collision, described in a not easily understandable text which represents the earth as possessing a soul, there was a "violent shaking of the revolutions of the Soul," "a total blocking of the course of the same," "shaking of the course of the other," which "produced all manner of twistings, and caused in their circles fractures and disruptures of every possible kind, with the result that, as they [the earth and the "perpetually flowing stream"?] barely held together one with another, they moved indeed but more irrationally, being at one time reversed, at another oblique, and again upside down." 26 In Plato's terminology, "revolution of the same" is from east to west, and "revolution of the other" is from west to east. 27 In The Statesman, Plato put this symbolic language into very simple terms, speaking of the reversal of the quarters in which the sun rises and sets. 

I shall return later to some other Greek references to the sun setting in the east.28 

Caius Julius Solinus, a Latin author of the third century of the present era, wrote of the people living on the southern, borders of Egypt: "The inhabitants of this country say that they have it from their ancestors that the sun now sets where it formerly rose." 29 

The traditions of peoples agree in synchronizing the changes in the movement of the sun with great catastrophes which terminated world ages. The changes in the movement of the sun in each successive age make the use by many peoples of the term "sun" for "age" understandable.

"The Chinese say that it is only since a new order of things bas come about that the stars move from east to west." 30 "The signs of the Chinese zodiac have the strange peculiarity of proceeding in a retrograde direction, that is, against the course of the sun."31 

In the Syrian city Ugarit (Ras Shamra) was found a poem dedicated to the planet-goddess Anat, who "massacred the population of  the Levant" and who "exchanged the two dawns and the position of the stars." 32 

The hieroglyphics of the Mexicans describe four movements of the sun, nahui ollin tonatiuh. "The Indian authors translate ollin by 'motion of the sun.' When they find the number nahui added, they render nahui ollin by the words 'sun (tcinatiub) in his four motions!" 33 These "four motions" refer "to four prehistoric suns" or "world ages," with shifting cardinal points.34 

The sun that moves toward the east, contrary to the present sun, is called by the Indians Teotl Lexco.35 The people of Mexico symbolized the changing direction of the sun's movement as a heavenly ball game, accompanied by upheavals and earthquakes on the earth.36 

The reversal of east and west, if combined with the reversal of north and south, would tum the constellations of the north into constellations of the south, and show them in reversed order, as in the chart of the southern sky on the ceiling of the Senmut tomb. The stars of the north would become stars of the south; this is what seems to be described by the Mexicans as the "driving away of the four hundred southern stars." 37 

The Eskimos of Greenland told missionaries that in an ancient time the earth turned · over and the people who lived then became antipodes.38 

Hebrew sources on the present problem are numerous.39 In Tractate Sanhedrin of the Talmud it is said: "Seven days before the deluge, the Holy One changed the primeval order and the sun rose in the west and set in the east." 40 

Tevel is the Hebrew name for the world in which the sun rose in the west. 41 A r:abot is the name of the sky where the rising point was in the west.42  

Hai Gaon, the rabbinical authority who flourished between 939 and 1038, in his Responses refers to the cosmic changes in which the sun rose in the west and set in the east. 43 

The Koran speaks of the Lord "of two easts and of two wests," 44 a sentence which presented much difficulty to the exegetes. Averroes, the Arab philosopher of the twelfth century, wrote about the eastward and westward movements of the sun.45 

References to the reversal of the movement of the sun, that have been gathered here do not refer to one and the same time: the Deluge, the end of the Middle Kingdom, the days of the Argivc tyrants, were separated by many centuries. The tradition heard by Herodotus in Egypt speaks of four reversals. Later in this book and again in the book that will deal with earlier catastrophes, I shall return to this subject. At this point, I leave historical and literary evidence on the reversal of earth's cardinal points for the testimony of the natural sciences on the reversal of the magnetic poles of the earth. 

[ The Reversed Polarity of the Earth ] 


A thunderbolt, on striking a magnet, reverses the poles of the magnet. The terrestrial globe is a huge magnet. A  short . circuit between it and another celestial body could result in the north and south magnetic poles of the earth exchanging places. 

It is possible to detect 'in the geological records of the earth the orientation of the terrestrial magnetic field in past ages. 

"When lava cools and freezes following a volcanic outburst, it takes up a permanent magnetization dependent upon the orientation of the Earth's magnetic field at the time. This, because of small capacity for magnetization. in the Earth's magnetic field after freezing, may remain practically constant. If this assumption be correct, the direction of the originally acquired permanent magnetization can be determined by tests in the laboratory, provided that every detail of the orientation of the mass tested is carefully noted and marked when it is removed." 46 

We would expect to find a full reversal of magnetic direction. Although repeated heating of lava and rocks can change the picture, there must have remained rocks with inverted polarity. Another author writes: 

"Examination of magnetization of some igneous rocks reveals that they are polarized oppositely from the prevailing present direction of the local magnetic field and many of the older rocks are less strongly magnetized than more recent ones. On the assumption that the magnetization of the rocks occurred when the magma cooled and that the rocks have held their present positions since that time, this would indicate that the polarity of the Earth has been completely reversed within recent geological times.''47 

Because the physical facts seemed entirely inconsistent with every cosmological theory, the author of the above passage was cautious not to draw further conclusions from them. 

The reversed polarity of lava indicates that in recent geological times the magnetic poles of the globe were reversed; when they bad a very different orientation, abundant flows of lava took place. 

Additional problems, and of a large scope, are: whether  the position of the magnetic poles bas anything to do with the direction of rotation of the globe, and whether there is an interdependence in the direction of the magnetic poles of the sun and of the planets. 


                             The Quarters of the World Displaced 

The traditions gathered in the section before last refer to various epochs; actualIty, Herodotus and Mela say that according to Egyptian ; the reversal of the west and east recurred: the sun rose in the west, then in the east, once more in the west, and again in the east, 

Was the cosmic catastrophe that terminated a world age in the days of the fall of the Middle Kingdom and of the Exodus one of these occasions, and did the earth change the direction of its rotation at that time? If we cannot assert this much, we can at least maintain that the earth did not remain on the same orbit, nor did its poles stay in their places, nor was the direction of the axis the same as before. The position of the globe and its course were not settled when the earth first came into contact with the onrushing comet; in Plato's terms, already partly quoted, the motion of the earth was changed by "blocking of the course" and went through "shaking of the revolutions" with "disruptors of every possible kind," so that the position of the earth became "at one time reversed, at another oblique, and again upside down," and it wandered "every way in all six directions." 

The Talmud and other ancient rabbinical sources tell of great disturbances in the solar movement at the time of the Exodus and the Passage of the Sea and the Lawgiving.48 In old Midrashim it is repeatedly narrated that four times the sun was forced out of its course in the few weeks between the day of the Exodus and the day of the Lawgiving.49 

The prolonged darkness (and the prolonged day in the Far East) and the earthshock (i.e., the ninth and the tenth plagues) and the world conflagration were the result of one of these disturbances in the motion of the earth. A few days later, if we follow the biblical narration, immediately before the hurricane changed its direction, "the pillar of cloud went from before their faces and stood behind them''; this means that the column of fire and smoke turned  about and appeared from the opposite direction. Mountainous tides uncovered the bottom of the sea; a spark sprang between two. celestial bodies; and "at the turning of the morning.50 a the tides felt in a cataclysmic avalanche. 

The Midrashim speak of a disturbance in the solar movement on. the day of the Passage: the sun did not proceed on its course.51 On that day, according to the Psalms (76:8), "the earth feared and was still." It is possible that Amos (8:8-9) is reviving the memory of this event when he mentions the "flood of Egypt," at the time "the earth was cast out of the sea, and dry land was swallowed by the sea," ·and "the sun was brought down at noon," although, as I show later on, Amos might have referred to a cosmic catastrophe of a more recent date. 

Also, the day of the Lawgiving, when the worlds collided again, was, according to numerous rabbinical sources, a day of unusual length: the motion  of the sun was disturbed.52 

On this occasion, and generally in the days and months following the Passage, the gloom, the heavy and charged clouds, the lightning, and the hurricanes, aside from the devastation by earthquake  and flood, made observation very difficult, if not impossible. "They walk on in darkness: all the foundations of the earth are out of course" (Psalms 82:5) is a metaphor used by the Psalmist. 

The Papyrus Ipuwer, which says that "the earth turned over like a potter's wheel" and "the earth is upside down," was written by an eyewitness of the plagues and the Exodus.53 The change is described also in the words of another papyrus (Harris) which I have quoted once before: "The south becomes north, and the earth turns over." 

Whether there was a complete reversal of the cardinal points as a result of the cosmic catastrophe of the days of the Exodus, or only a substantial shift, is a problem not  solved here. The answer was not apparent even to contemporaries, at least for a number of decades. In the gloom that endured for a generation, observations were impossible, and very difficult when the light began to break through. 

The Kalevala relates that "dreaded shades" enveloped the earth, and "the sun occasionally steps from his accustomed path." 54 Then Ukko-Jupiter struck fire from the sun to light a new sun and a new moon, and a new ·world age began. 

In Voluspa (Poetic Edda) of the Icelanders we read: 

No knowledge she [the sun] had where 

her home should be, 

The moon knew not what was his, 

The stars knew not where their stations were. 

Then the gods set order among the heavenly bodies. 

The Aztecs related: "There had been no sun in existence for many years. The chiefs began to peer through the gloom in all directions for the expected light, and to make bets as to what part of heaven he [the sun] should first appear in. Some said 'Here,' and some said 'There'; but when the sun rose, they were all proved wrong, for not one of them had fixed upon the east." 55 

Similarly, the Mayan legend tells that "it was not known from where the new sun would appear." "They looked in all directions, but they were unable to say where the sun would rise. Some thought it would take place in the north and their glances were turned in that direction. Others thought it would be in the south. Actually, their guesses included all directions because the dawn shone all around. Some, however, fixed their attention on the orient, and maintained that the sun would come from there. It was their opinion that proved to be correct." 56

According to the Compendium of Wong-shi-Shing (1526-1590), it was in the "age after the chaos, when heaven and earth had just separated, that is, when the great mass of cloud just lifted from the earth," that the heaven showed its face.57 

In the Midrashim it is said that during the wandering in the desert the Israelites did not see the face of the sun because of the clouds. They were also unable to orient themselves on their march.58 

The expression repeatedly used in the Books of Numbers and Joshua, "the east, to the sun rising," 59 is not tautology, but a definition, which, by the way, testifies to the ancient origin of the literary materials that served as sources for ' these books; it is an expression that has its counterpart in the Egyptian "the west which is at the sun-setting." 

The cosmological allegory of the Greeks has Zeus, rushing on his way to engage Typhon in combat, steal Europa (Erev, the evening land) and carry her to the west. Arabia (also Erev) kept its name, "the evening land," 60 though it lies to the east of the centers of civilization-Egypt, Palestine, Greece. Eusebius, one of the Fathers of the Church, assigned the Zeus-Europa episode to the time of Moses and the Deucalion Flood, and Augustine wrote that Europa was carried by the king of Crete to his island in the west, "betwixt the departure of Israel out of Egypt and the death of Joshua." 61 

The Greeks, like other peoples, spoke of the reversal of the quarters of the earth and not merely in allegories but in literal terms. 

The reversal of the earth's rotation, referred to in the written and oral sources of many peoples, suggests the relation of one of these events to the cataclysm of the day of the Exodus. Like the quoted passage from VisuddhiMagga, the Buddhist text, and the cited tradition of the Cashinahua tribe in western Brazil, the versions of the tribes and peoples of all five continents include the same elements, familiar to us from the Book of Exodus: lightning and "the bursting of heaven," which caused the earth to be turned "upside down," or "heaven and earth to change places." On the· Andaman Islands the natives are  afraid that a natural catastrophe will cause the world to turn over.62 

In Greenland also the Eskimos fear that the earth will tum over.63 Curiously enough, the cause of such perturbation is revealed in beliefs like that of the people of Flanders in Belgium. Thus we read: "In Menin (Flanders) the peasants say, on seeing a comet: 'The sky is going to fall; the earth is turning over!' " 64 

[ Changes in the Times and the Seasons ] 

Many agents collaborated to change the climate. insolation was impaired by heavy clouds of dust, and the radiation of beat from the earth was equally hindered.65 Heat was generated by the earth's contacts with another celestial body; the earth was removed to an orbit farther from the sun; the polar regions were displaced; oceans and seas evaporated and the vapors precipitated as snow on new polar regions and in the higher latitudes in a long Fimbulwinter and formed new ice sheets; the axis on which the earth rotated pointed in a different direction, and the order of the seasons was disturbed. 

Spring follows winter and fall follows summer because the earth rotates on an axis inclined toward the plane of its revolution around the sun. Should this axis become perpendicular to that plane, there would be no seasons on earth. Should it change its direction, the seasons would change their intensity and their order. 

The Egyptian papyrus known as Papyrus Anastasi IV contains a complaint about gloom and the absence of solar light; it says also: "The winter is come as (instead of) summer, the months are reversed and the hours are disordered." 66 

"The breath of heaven is out of harmony . The four seasons do not observe their proper times," we read in the Texts of Taoism.67 

In the historical memoirs of Se-Ma Ts'ien, as in the annals of the Shu King which we have already quoted, it is said that Emperor Yahou sent astronomers to the Valley of Obscurity and to the Sombre Residence to observe the new movements of the sun and of the moon and the syzygies or the orbital 'points of the conjunctions, also "to investigate and to inform the people of the order of the seasons." 68 It is also said that Yahou introduced a calendar reform: he brought the seasons into accord with the observations; he did the same with the months; and he "corrected the days." 69

Plutarch gives the following description of a derangement of seasons: "The thickened air concealed the heaven from view, and the stars were confused with a disorderly huddle of fire and moisture and violent fluxions of winds. The sun was not fixed to an un-wandering and certain course, so as to distinguish orient and occident, nor did he bring back the seasons in order." 70

In another work of his, Plutarch ascribes these changes to Typhon, "the destructive, diseased and disorderly," who caused "abnormal seasons and temperatures." 71

It is characteristic .that in the written traditions of the peoples of antiquity the disorder of the seasons is directly connected with the derangement in the motion of the heavenly bodies. 

The oral traditions of primitive peoples in various parts of the world also retain memories of this change in the movement of the heavenly bodies, the seasons, the flow of time, during a period when darkness enveloped the world. As an example I quote the tradition of the Oraibi in Arizona. They say that the firmament hung low and the world was dark, and no sun, no moon, nor stars were seen. "The people murmured because of the darkness and the cold." Then the planet god Machito "appointed times, and seasons, and ways for the heavenly bodies." 72 

Among the Incas the "guiding power in regulating the seasons and the courses of the heavenly bodies" was Viracocha, "The sun, the moon, the day, the night, spring, winter, are not ordained in vain by thee, 0 Viracocha." 73 

The American sources, which speak of a· world colored red, of a rain of fire, of world. conflagration, of new rising mountains, of frightening portents in the sky, of a twenty five-year gloom, imply also that "the order of the  seasons was altered at that epoch." "The astronomers and geologists whose concern is all this  should judge of the causes which could effect the derangement of the day and could cover the earth with tenebrosity," wrote a clergyman who spent many years in Mexico and in ·the libraries of the Old World which store ancient manuscripts of the Mayas and works of early Indian and Spanish authors about them.74 It did not occur to him that the biblical narrative of the time of the Exodus contains the same elements. 

With the end of the Middle Kingdom in Egypt, when the Israelites left that country, the old order of seasons came to an end and a new world age began. The Fourth Book of Ezra, which borrows from some earlier sources, refers to the "end of the seasons" in these words: "I sent him [Moses] and led my people out of Egypt, and brought them to Mount Sinai, and held him by me for many days. I told him many wondrous things, showed him the secrets of the times, declared to him the end of the seasons. "75 

Because of various simultaneous changes in the movement of the earth and the moon; and because observation of the sky was hindered when it was hidden in smoke and clouds, the calendar could not be correctly computed; the changed lengths of the year, the month, and the day required prolonged, unobstructed observation. The words of the Midrashim, that Moses was unable to understand the new calendar, refer to this situation; "the secrets of the calendar., (sod ha-avour), or more precisely, "the secret  of the transition" from one time-reckoning to another,. was revealed to Moses, but he bad difficulty in comprehending it. Moreover, it is said in rabbinical sources that in the time of Moses the course of· the heavenly bodies became confounded.76 

The month of the Exodus, which occurred in the spring, became the first month of the year: "This month shaU be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you." 77 Thus, the strange situation was created in the Jewish calendar that the New Year is observed in the seventh month of the year: the beginning of the calendar year was moved to a point about half a year away from the New Year in the autumn. 

With the fall of the Middle Kingdom and the Exodus, one of the great world ages came to its end. The four quarters of the world were displaced, and neither the orbit nor the poles nor, probably, the direction of rotation remained the same. The calendar had to be adjusted anew. The astronomical values of the year and the day could not be the same before and after an upheaval in which, as the quoted Papyrus Anastasi IV says, the months were reversed and "the hours disordered." 

The length of the year during the Middle Kingdom is not known from any contemporaneous document. Because in the Pyramid texts dating from the Old Kingdom there is mention of "five days," it was erroneously concluded that in that period a year of 365 days was already known. 78 But no inscription of the Old or Middle Kingdom has been found in which mention is made of a year of 365 days or even 360 days. Neither is any reference to a year of 365 days or to "five days" found in the very numerous inscriptions of the New Kingdom prior to the dynasties of the seventh century.79 Thus the inference that "the five days" of the Pyramid Texts of the Old Kingdom signify the five days over 360 is not well founded. 

There exists a direct statement found as a g1oss on a manuscript of Timaeus that a calendar of a solar year of three hundred and sixty days was introduced by the Hyksos after the fall of the Middle Kingdom 80 the calendar year of the Middle Kingdom apparently had fewer days. 

The fact I hope to be able to establish is that from the fifteenth century to the eighth century before the present era the astronomical year was equal to 360 days; · neither before the fifteenth century, nor after the eighth century was the year of this length. In a later chapter of this work extensive material will be presented to demonstrate this point. 

The number of days in a year during the Middle Kingdom was less than 360; the earth then revolved on an orbit somewhat closer to the present orbit of Venus. An investigation into the length of the astronomical year during the periods of the Old and Middle Kingdoms is reserved for that part of this work which will deal with the cosmic catastrophes that occurred before the beginning of the Middle Kingdom of Egypt. 

Here I give space to an old Midrashic source which, taking issue with a contradiction in the scriptural texts referring to the length of time the Israelites sojourned in Egypt, maintains that "God hastened the course of the planets during Israel's stay  in Egypt," so that the sun completed 400 revolutions during the space of 210 regular years.81 These figures must not be taken as correct, since the intention was to reconcile two biblical texts, but the reference to the different motion of the planets in the period of the Israelites' stay in Egypt during the Middle Kingdom is worth mentioning.

In Midrash Rabbah, 82 it is said on the authority of Rabbi Simon, that a new world order came into being with the end of the sixth world age at the revelation on Mount Sinai. "There was a weakening (metash) of the creation. Hitherto world time was counted, but henceforth we count it by a different reckoning." Midrash Rabbah refers also to "the greater length of time taken by some planets." 83 

CHAPTER 6 

[ The Shadow of Death ] 


An entire year after the eruption of Krakatoa in the East Indies in 1883, sunset and sunrise in both hemispheres were very colorful. Lava dust suspended in the air and carried around the globe accounted for this phenomenon.

In 1783, after the eruption of Skaptar-Jokull in Iceland, the world was darkened for months; records of this phenomenon are found in many contemporary authors. One German contemporary compared the gloomy world of the year 1783 with the Egyptian plague of darkness.

The world was gloomy in the year of Caesar's death, 44. "After the murder of Caesar the dictator and during the Antonine war," there was "almost a whole year's continuous gloom," wrote Pliny.3 Virgil described this year in these words: "The sun  veiled his shining face in dusky gloom, and godless age feared everlasting night. Germany heard the clash of arms through all the sky; the Alps rocked with unwanted terrors, and spectres, pale in wondrous wise, were seen at evening twilight."

On September 23, in 44, a short while after the death of Caesar, on the very day when Octavian performed the rites in honor of the deceased, a comet had become visible at daytime; it was very bright and moved from north to west. It was seen for only a few days and vanished while still in the north.5 

It appears that the gloom which enveloped the world the year after Caesar's death was caused by the dust of the comet dispersed in the atmosphere. The "clash of arms" heard ''through all the sky" was probably the sound that accompanied the entrance of the gases and dust into the earth's atmosphere. 

If the eruption of a single volcano can darken the atmosphere over the entire globe, a simultaneous and prolonged eruption of thousands of volcanoes would blacken the sky. And if the dust of the comet of  had a darkening effect, contact of the earth with a great cinder-trailing comet of the fifteenth century before this era could likewise cause the blackening of the sky. As this comet activated all the volcanoes and created new ones, the cumulative action of the eruptions and of the comet's dust must have saturated the atmosphere with floating particles. 

Volcanoes vomit water vapor as well as cinders. The heating effect of the contact of the globe with the comet must have caused a great evaporation from the surface of the seas and rivers. Two kinds of clouds-water vapor and dust were formed. The clouds obscured the sky, and drifting very low, hung as a fog. The veil left by the gaseous trail of the hostile star and the smoke of the volcanoes caused darkness, not complete, but profound. This condition prevailed for decades, and only very gradually did the dust subside and the water vapors condense. 

"A vast night reigned over all the American land, of which tradition speaks unanimously. in a sense the sun no longer existed for this ruined world which was lighted· up at intervals only by frightful conflagrations, revealing the full horror of their situation to the small number of human beings that had escaped from these calamities." 6 

"Following the cataclysm caused by the waters the author of the Codex Chimalpopoca, in his history of the suns, shows us terrifying celestial phenomena, twice followed by darkness that covered the face of the earth, in one instance for a period of twenty - five years." "This fact is mentioned in the Codex Chimalpopoca and in most of the traditions of Mexico." 7 

Gomara, the Spaniard who came to the Western Hemisphere in the middle of the sixteenth century, shortly after. the conquest, wrote: 8 "After the destruction of the fourth sun, the world plunged in darkness during the space of twenty-five years. Amid this profound obscurity, ten years before the appearance of the fifth sun, mankind was regenerated." 

In the years of this gloom, when the world was covered with clouds and shrouded in mist, the Quiche tribe migrated to Mexico, crossing a sea enveloped in a somber fog. 9 In the so-called Manuscript Quiche it is also narrated that there was "little light on the surface of the earth  the faces of the sun and of the moon were covered with clouds." 10 

In the Ermitage Papyrus in Leningrad previously mentioned there  are lamentations about a terrible catastrophe, when heaven and earth turned upside down ("I show thee the land upside down; it happened that which never had happened").  After this catastrophe, darkness covered the earth: "The sun is veiled and shines not in the sight of men. None can live when the sun is veiled by clouds. None knoweth that midday is there; the shadow is not discerned.  Not dazzled is the sight when he [the sun] is beheld; he is in the sky like the moon." 11 

In this description the light of the sun is compared to the light of the moon; but even in the light of the moon objects cast a shadow. If the midday could not be discerned, the disc of the sun was not clearly visible, and only its diffused light made the day different from the night. The gloom gradually lifted with the passing years as the clouds became less thick; little by little the sky and the sun appeared less and less veiled. 

The years of darkness in Egypt are described in a number of other documents. The Papyrus Ipuwer, which contains the story of the plagues of Egypt, says that the land is without light [dark].12 In the Papyrus Anastasi IV the years of misery are described, and it is said: ''The sun, it hath come to pass that it riseth not." 13 

It was the time of the wandering of the Israelites in the desert. 14 Is there any indication that the desert was dark? Jeremiah says (2:6): "Neither said they, Where is the Lord that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, that led us through the wilderness, through a land of deserts and of pits,' through a land of drought, and of the shadow of death, through a land that no man passed through, and where no man dwelt?" 

The "shadow of death" is related to the time of the wanderings in the desert after the Exodus from Egypt. The sinister meaning of the words "shadow of death" corresponds with the description of the Ermitage Papyrus: "None can live when the sun is veiled by clouds." 

At intervals the earth was lighted by conflagrations in the desert. 15 

The phenomenon of gloom enduring for years impressed itself on the memory of the Twelve Tribes and is mentioned in many passages of the Bible: "Thou hast  covered us with the shadow of death" (Psalms 44:19). The people that walked in darkness in the land of the shadow of death" (Isaiah 9:2). The Israelites "wandered in the wilderness in a solitary way hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them," and the Lord "brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death" (Psalms 107),  "The terrors of the shadow of death" (Job 24: 17). 

In Job 38 the Lord speaks: "Who shut up the sea with doors [barriers], when it brake forth?  When I made the cloud the garment thereof, and thick darkness a swaddling band for it  and caused the day spring to know his place; that it might take hold of the ends of the earth, that the wicked might be shaken out of it?" 16 

The low and slowly drifting clouds enshrouded the wanderers in the desert. These clouds dimly glowed at night; their upper portion reflected the sunlight. The glow being pale during the day and red after sunset, the Israelites were able to distinguish between day and night.17 They were protected by the clouds from the sun during the wandering in the desert, and according to the Midrashic literature, they saw sun and moon for the first time only at the end of the wandering.18 

The clouds that covered the desert during the wandering of the Twelve Tribes were called a "celestial garment" or "clouds of glory." "He spread a cloud for a covering; and fire to give light in the night.''  "And the cloud of the Lord was upon them by day." 19 For days or months the cloud tarried in one place, and the Israelites "journeyed not"; but when the cloud moved, the wanderers followed it, and revered it because of its celestial.origin. 20 

In Arabic sources, too, we read that the· Amalekites, who left Hedjaz because of plagues, followed the cloud in their wandering through the desert.21  

On their way to Palestine and Egypt they met the Israelites, and in the battles between them the screen of clouds played an important part.22 

Nihongi, a chronicle of Japan from the earliest period, refers to a time when there was "continuous darkness" and "no difference of day and night.'' It describes in the name of the Emperor Kami Yamato an ancient time when "the world was. given over to widespread desolation; it was an age of darkness and disorder. In this gloom Hiko-hono-ninigi-no-Mikoto fostered justice, and so governed this western border." 23 

In China the annals telling of the time of the Emperor Yahou refer to the Valley of Obscurity and to the Sombre Residence as places of astronomical observations.24 

The name "shadow of death" expresses the influence of the sunless gloom upon the life processes. The Chinese annals of Wong-shi-Shing, in the chapter dealing with the Ten Stems (the ten stages of the earth's primeval history), relate that "at Wu, the sixth stem, darkness destroys the growth of all things;" 25 

Buddhist scholars declare that with the beginning of the .sixth world age or "sun," "the whole world becomes filled with smoke and saturated with greasiness of that smoke." There is "no distinction of day and night." The gloom is caused by a "cycle-destroying great cloud" of cosmic origin and dimensions.26 

On the Samoan islands the aborigines narrate:  "Then arose smell, the smell became smoke, which  again became clouds.  The sea too arose, and in a stupendous catastrophe of nature the land sank into the sea. The new earth (the Samoan islands) arose out of the womb of the last earth." 27 In the darkness that enveloped the world, the islands of Tonga, Samoa, Rotuma, Fiji, and Uvea (Wallis Island), and Fortuna rose from the bottom of the ocean.28  

Ancient rhymes of the inhabitants of Hawaii refer to a prolonged darkness:  

The earth is dancing 

let darkness cease  

The heavens ai:e enclosing. 

Finished is the world of Hawaii.29 

The Quiche tribe migrated to Mexico, the Israelites roamed in the desert, the Amalekites migrated toward Palestine and Egypt, an uneasy movement took place in all corners of the ruined world. The migration in Central Polynesia, shrouded in gloom, is narrated in the traditions of the aborigines of this part of the world about a chief named Tu-erui who "lived long in utter darkness in Avaiki," who migrated in a canoe named "Weary of Darkness" to find a land of light, and who, after many years of wandering, saw the sky clearing little by little and arrived at a region "where they could see each other clearly." 30 

In the Kalevala, the Finnish epos which "dates back to an enormous antiquity," 31 the time when the sun and moon disappeared from the sky, and dreaded shadows covered it, is described in these words: 

Even birds grew sick and perished, 

men and maidens, faint and famished, 

perished in the cold and darkness, 

from the absence of the sunshine, 

from the absence of the moonlight. 

But the wise men of the Northland 

could not know the dawn of morning, 

for the moon shines not in season 

nor appears the sun at midday, 

from their stations in the sky-vault.32 

An explanation which would rationalize this picture as the description of a seasonal long night in northern regions will stumble over the second part of the passage: the.seasons did not return in their wonted order. The dreaded shadow covered the earth when Ukko, the highest of the Finnish deities, relinquished the support of the heavens. Hailstones of iron rained down furiously, and then the world became shrouded in a generation-long darkness. 

This "twilight of the gods" of the Nordic races is but the "shadow of death" of the Scriptures. The entire generation of those who left Egypt perished in the lightless desert. Vegetation died in the catastrophe. The Iranian book of Bundahis says: "Blight was diffused over the vegetation, and it withered away immediately." 33 When the sky was shattered, the day became dark, and the earth teemed with noxious creatures. For a long time there was no green thing seen; seeds would not germinate in a sunless world. It took many years before the earth again brought forth vegetation; this is told in the written and oral traditions of many peoples. According to American sources, the regeneration of the world and of humankind took place under the veil of the gloomy shadows, and the time is indicated as the end of the fifteenth year of the darkness, ten years before the end of the gloom.34 .ln the scriptural narration it was probably the day when Aaron's dried twig budded for the first time.35 

The eerie world, dark and groaning, was unpleasant to all the senses save the sense of smell: the world was fragrant. When the breeze blew, the clouds conveyed a sweet odor. 

In the Papyrus Anastasi IV, written "in the year of  misery," in which it is said that the months are reversed, the planet-god is described as arriving "with the sweet wind before him." 36 

In a similar text of the Hebrews we read that the times and seasons were confused, and "a fragrance perfumed in the world," and the perfume was brought by the pillar of smoke. The fragrance was like that of myrrh and frankincense. "Israel was surrounded by clouds," and as soon as the clouds were set in motion, the winds "breathed myrrh and frankincense." 37

The Vedas contain hymns to Agni which "glows from the  sky." Its fragrance became the fragrance of the earth. 

That fragrance of thine 

which the immortals of yore gathered up.38 

The generation of those days, when the star conveyed its fragrance to men on the earth, is immortalized in the tradition of the Hindus. The Vedic hymn compares the fragrance of the star Agni to the scent of the lotus. 

[ Ambrosia ] 

In what way did this veil of gloom dissolve itself? 

When the air is overcharged with vapor, dew, rain, haiJ, or snow falls. Most probably the atmosphere discharged its compounds, presumably of carbon and hydrogen, in a similar way. 

Has any testimony been preserved that during the many years of gloom carbohydrates precipitated? 

"When the dew fell upon the camp in the night, the manna fell upon it." It was like "the hoar frost on the ground." It had the shape of coriander seed, the yellowish color of bdellium, and an oily taste like honeycomb. It was called "corn of heaven" and it was ground between stones and baked in pans. 39 The manna fell from the clouds.40 

After the nightly cooling, the carbohydrates precipitated and fell with the morning dew. The grains dissolved in the beat and evaporated; but in a closed vessel the substance could be preserved for a long time.41 The exegesis have endeavored to explain the phenomenon of manna and were helped by the naturalists who discovered that a tamarisk in the desert of Sinai sheds its seeds during certain months of the year. But why should this seed be called  "corn of heaven," "bread of heaven,"42 or why should it be said it "will rain bread from heaven?"43 It is also not easy to explain how a multitude of men and animals could have existed' for many years in a wilderness on the scarce and seasonal seeds of some desert plant. Were such a thing possible, the desert would be preferable to tillable land that yields bread to the laborer only in the sweat of his brow. 

The clouds brought the heavenly bread, it is also said in the Talmud. 44 But if the manna fell from clouds that enveloped the entire world, it must have fallen not only in the Desert of Wanderings, but everywhere; and not only the Israelites, but other peoples, too, must have tasted it and spoken of it in their traditions. 

There was a world fire, says the Icelandic tradition, followed by the Fimbul-winter, and·only one human pair remained alive in the north. "This human pair lie hidden in the bolt during the fire of Surt" Then came "the terrible Fimbul-winter at the end of the world age; meanwhile they feed on morning dew, and from them come the folk who people the renewed earth. "45 

Three elements are connected in the Icelandic tradition which are the same three we met in the Israelite tradition: the world fire, the dark winter that endured many years, and the morning dew that served as food during these years of gloom when nothing budded. 

The Maoris of New Zealand tell of fiery winds and fierce clouds that lashed the waters into tidal waves that touched the sky and were accompanied by furious hailstorms. The ocean fled. The progeny of the storm and hail were "Mist. and Heavy-dew and Light-dew." After the catastrophe "but little of the dry land was left standing above the sea. Then clear light increased in the world, and the beings who had been hidden between [sky and earth] before they were parted, now multiplied upon the earth." 46 

This tradition of the Maoris has substantially the same elements as the Israelite tradition. The destruction of the world was accompanied by hurricanes, hail (meteorites), and sky-high billows; the land submerged; a mist covered the earth for a long time; heavy dew fell to the ground together with light dew, as in the passage quoted from Numbers 11:9. 

The writings of Buddhism relate that when a world cycle comes to an end with the world destroyed and the ocean dried up, there is no distinction of day and night and heavenly ambrosia serves as food. 47 

In the hymns of Rig-Veda,48 it is said that honey (madhu) comes from the clouds. These clouds originated from the pillar of cloud. Among the hymns of the Atharva-Veda there is one to the honey-lash: "From heaven, from earth, from the atmosphere, from the sea, from the fire, and from the wind, the honey-lash hath verily sprung. This, clothed in amrite (ambrosia), all the creatures revering, acclaim in their hearts." 49 

The Egyptian Book of the Dead speaks of "the divine clouds and the great dew" that bring the earth into contact with the heavens.50 

The Greeks called the heavenly bread ambrosia. It is described by the Greek poets in identical terms with manna: it had the taste of honey and a fragrance. This· heavenly bread has given classical scholars many headaches. Greek authors from Homer and Hesiod down through the ages continually referred to ambrosia as the. heavenly food which in its fluid state is called nectar.51 But it was used also as ointment 52 (it had the fragrance of a Jily); and as food for the horses of Hera when she visited Zeus in the sky.53 Hera (Earth) was veiled in it when she hurried from her brother Ares (Mars) to Zeus (Jupiter). What could it be, this heavenly bread, which served also as a veil for a goddess-planet, and was used as an ointment, too? It was honey, said some scholars. But honey is a regular food for mortals, whereas ambrosia was given only to the generation of heroes. 

Then what was this substance that served as fodder on the ground for horses, as a veil for planets, bread from the sky for heroes, and that also turned fluid for their drink, and was oil and perfume for ointments? 

It was the manna that was baked into bread, had an oily taste and also a honey taste, was found on the ground by man and beast, wrapped the earth and the heavenly bodies in a veil, was called "corn of heaven" and "bread of the mighty," 54 had a fragrant odor, and served the women in the wilderness as ointment.55 Manna, Jike ambrosia, was compared with honey and with morning dew. 

The belief of Aristotle and other writers 56 that honey falls from the atmosphere with the dew was based on the experience of those days when the world was veiled in the carbon clouds that precipitated honey-frost. 

These clouds are described as "dreaded shades" in the Kalevala. From these "dreaded shades," says the epos, honey dropped. "And the clouds their fragrance sifted, sifted honey  from their home within the heavens." 57  

The Maoris in the Pacific, the Jews on the border of Asia and Africa; the Hindus, the Finns, the Icelanders, all describe the honey-food being dropped from the clouds, dreary shades of the shadow of death, that enveloped the earth after a cosmic catastrophe. All traditions agree  also that the source of the heavenly bread falling from the clouds with the morning dew was a celestial body. The Sibyl says that the sweet heavenly bread came from the starry heavens.58 The planet-god Ukko, or Jupiter, is said to. have been the source of the honey that dropped from the clouds.59 Athena covered other planet-goddesses with a "robe ambrosial," and provided nectar and ambrosia to the heroes.60 Other traditions, too, see. the origin of the honey• dew in a celestial body that enveloped the earth in clouds. For this reason ambrosia or manna is called "heavenly bread." 61

[ Rivers of Milk and Honey ] 

The honey-frost fell in enormous quantities. The haggadic literature says that the quantity which fell every day would have sufficed to nourish the people for two thousand years.62 All the peoples of the East and the West could see it.63 

A few hours after the break of day, the heat under the cloud cover liquefied the grains and 'volatilized them.64 The ground absorbed some of the liquefied mass, as it absorbs dew. The grains also fell upon the water, and the rivers became milky in appearance. 

The Egyptians relate that the Nile flowed for a time blended with honey.65 The strange appearance of the rivers of Palestine. in the desert the Israelites saw no river caused the scouts who returned from a survey of the land to call it the land that "floweth with milk and honey" (Numbers 13:27). "The heavens rain oil, the wadis run with honey," says a text found in Ras-Shamra (Ugarit) in Syria.66 

In the rabbinical literature it is said that "melting of manna formed streams that furnished drink to many deer and other animals." 67 

The Atharva-Veda hymns say that honey-lash came down from fire and wind; ambrosia fell, and streams of honey flowed upon the earth. "The broad earth shall milk for us precious honey  shall pour out milk for us in. rich streams." 68 

The Finnish tradition narrates that land and water were covered successively by black, red, and white milk. "The first and second were the colors of the substances, ashes and "blood," that constituted the plagues (Exodus 7 and 9); the last one was the color of ambrosia that turned into nectar on land and water. 

A memory of a time when ''streams of milk and streams of sweet nectar flowed" is also preserved in Ovid.69 

[ Jericho ]

The earth's crust trembled and cracked again and again· as its strata settled after the major. displacement. Chasms opened up, springs disappeared, and new springs appeared.70 When the Israelites approached the river Jordan, a slice of one bank fell, blocking the stream long enough for the tribes to cross over. "The waters which came down from above stood and rose up upon a heap very far from the city Adam, that is beside Zaretan: and those that came down toward the sea of the plain, even the salt sea, failed, and were cut off: and the people passed over right against Jericho." 71 

A similar occurrence took place on the eighth of December, 1267, when the Jordan was dammed for sixteen hours, and again following the earthquake of 1927, when a slice of one bank fell into the river not far from Adam and blocked the water for over twenty-one hours; at Damieh (Adam) the people crossed the river on its dry bed.72 

The fall of the walls of Jericho at the blast of the trumpets is a well-known episode, but" it is not well interpreted. The horns blown by the ·priests for seven days played no greater natural role than Moses• rod with which, in the legend, he opened. a passage in the sea. "When the people· heard the sound of the trumpet," it happened that "the wall fell down flat." 73 The great sound of the trumpet was produced by the earth; the Israelite tribes, believing in magic, thought that the· sound of the earth came in response to the blowing of the rams' horns for seven days. 

The great walls of Jericho--they were twelve feet wide -have been excavated.74 They were found to have been destroyed by an earthquake. The archaeological evidences also prove that these walls collapsed at the beginning of the Hyksos period, or shortly after the close of the Middle Kingdom. 75 

The earth had not yet recovered from the previous world catastrophe, and reacted with continuous tremors when the hour of a new cosmic disaster approached: the event we described at the beginning of this book only to go back to the cataclysm of the Exodus-the upheaval of the days of Joshua, when the earth stood still on the day of the battle at Beth-boron. 

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Stones Suspended in the Air 154s

notes Chapter 5

1. Herodotus,,Bk. ii, 142 (transl. A. D. Godley, 1921). 

2.Joseph Scaliger, Opus de emendatione temporum (1629), III, 198. 

3. Humboldt, Vues des CordIlleres, Il, 0 131 (Researches, II, 30). 

4. A. Wiedemann, Herodotus zweites Buch (1890), p. 506: "Tiefe Stufe seiner naturwissenschaftlichen Kenntnisse." 

5. P. M. de la Faye in Histoire cu fart Egyptian by Prisse d'Avennes (1879), p. 41.

6. Pomponius Mela De situ orbis, I. 9. 8. 

7. Mela, differing from Herodotus, computed the length of Egyptian history as equal to 330 generations until Amasis (died -525) and figured it at more than thirteen thousand years. 

8 H. O. Lange, "Der Magische 

9. Papyrus Harris," K. Danske Videnskabernes Selskab (1927), p. 58. 9 Papyrus Ipuwer 2:8. Cf. Lange's (German) translation of the papyrus (Sitzungsberichte d. Preuss. Akad. der Wissenschaften [1903], pp. 601-610). 

10 Gardiner, Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, l (1914); Cambridge Ancient History, I, 346. 

11 Breasted, Ancient Records of Egypt, III, Sec. 18. 

12. L. Speleers, Les Textes des Pyramides (1923), I.

13. K. Piehl, Inscriptions hilroglyphiques, seconde scric (1892), p. 65: "l'ouest qui est a l'occident." 

14 A. Pogo, "The Astronomical Ceiling Decoration in the Tomb of Senmut (XVIIIth Dynasty)," Isis (1930), p. 306. 

15. Ibid., pp. 30~, 315, 316 

16. Plato, The Statesman or Politician (transl H. N. Fowler, 1925), pp. 49, 53. 

17 The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. by A. C. Pearson (1917), III, S, Fragment 738: see also ibid., I, 93. Those of the Greek authors who ascribed a permanent change in the direction of the sun to the time of the Argive tyrant Atreus, confused two events and welded them into one: a lasting reversal of west and east in earlier times and a temporary retrograde movement of the sun in the days of tho Argive tyrants. 

18. Euripides, Electra (transl. A. S. Way), JL 727 ff.  

19 Strabo, The Geography, i, 2, 15. 

20. Every night stars rise four minutes earlier: the earth rotates 366¼ times in a year in relation to the stars, but 365¼ times in relation to the sun. 

21 Euripides, Orestes (transl. A. S. Way), 11. 1001 ff. 

22. Seneca, Th>•estes (transl. F. 1. Miller), 11. 794 ff 

23. Aristotle, On the Heavens, 11, ii (transl. W. K. C. Guthrie, 1939). Cf. also Plutarch, who, in his The Opinions of the Philosophers, wrote that according to Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle, "east is tho right side, and west is the left side." 

24.Plato, Laws (transl. R. G. Bury, 1926), Bk. iv, 11. 760 D.  

25. Plato, Timaeus (transl. Bury, 1929), 43 B and C. 

26. Cf. Bury's comments to Timaeus,· notes, pp. 72, 80. 

27. Plato, Timaeus, 43 D and E. 

28. See for literature Frazer's note to Epitome II in his translation of Apollodorus; Wiedemann, Herodotsweltes Buch, p, 506; Pearson, The Fragments of Sophocles, III, note to Fragment 738. 

29. Solinus, Polyhistor, xxxii.

30 Bellamy, Mooru, Myths and Man, p. 69. 

31 Ibid .

32 C. Virolleaud, .. La d~ Anat." Mission de Ras Shamra, Vol IV (1938). 

33. Humboldt. Researches, I, 351. See also by the same author, Examen critique.u d'histoire de la géographie du nouveau continent (1836-1839), II, 355 . 

34. Seier, Gesammelte Abhandlungen, n. 799.

35 Seier, perplexed by the statement of the old Mexican sources that the sun mo,·ed toward the east. writes: '"lbe traveling toward the · east and the disappearance io the east . . . must be understood literally. . •. However, one cannot imagine the sun as wandering eastward: the sun and the entire firmament of the fixed stars travel westward." "Einiges Uber die oatOrlichcn Grundlagen mexikanisch(;her Mythen" (1907) in Gesammelte Abhandlungen, Vol III. 

36.Ibid.Also Brasseur, Hlstolre du nations civilisées du Mexique, I. 123. 

37 Seier, "Über die natürlichen Grundlagen." Gesammelte A.bluzndlungen, Ill, 320.

38 Olrik, Ra.i:narok, p. 407. 

39.Seo M. SteinschneiderHebraische Bibliographie (1877), Vol XVIII. 

40 Tractate Sanhedrin 108b. 

41 SteinschneiderHistorische Bibliographie, Vol. XVIII, pp, 61 ff. 

42. Ginzberg, Lc,r:c11ds, I, 69. 

43. Tnam Zekenim 55b, 58b. 

44. Koran, Sura LV. 

45. Steinschneider, Historische Bibliographie, Vol. XVIIL

46. J. A. Fleming, "The Earth's Magnetism and Magnetic Surveys., in Terrestrial Magnetism and Electricity, ed. by J. A. Fleming (1939), p. 32. 

47. A. McNish, "On Causes of the Earth's Magnetism and Its Changes" in Terrestrial Mag11e1lsm and Electricity, ed. by Fleming, p. 326

48. Sec, e.g., the Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Taanit 20; Tractate Avodah Zarah 25a. 

49. Pirke Rabbi Eliezer 41; Ginzberg, Legends, VI, 4S-46.

50.Rashi, the commentator, is surprised by the combination of the words, "at the turning of the morning'' (Ii/not haboker). The word Ii/not (from· pana), when used with reference to time, means "to turn away" or "to go down." The word is applied here, not to "day," which goes down, but to the morning, which rises, changes to day, but does not go down. 

51 Midrash Pesikta Raboti; Likutis Midrash Ele Hadvarim (ed. Buber, 188S). 

52 Ginzberg, Legends, III, 109. 

53 See the Section, "The Red World," note 2. 

54 'J. M. Crawford in the Preface to his translation of Kallala. 

55 Quoted by I. Donnelly, Ragnarok, p. 215, from Andres de Olmos, Donnelly thought that this tradition signified that "in the long continued darkness they had lost all knowledge of the cardinal points"; he did not consider that it might refer to the displacement of the cardinal points. 

56 Sahagun, Historia general de las cosas de Nue"·a Espana, Bk. VU. Chap. 2. 

57 Quoted by Donnelly, Ragnarok, p. 210. 

58 Exodus 14 : 3; Numbers 10 : 31. 

59 Numbers 2 : 3; 34 : 15; Joshua 19 : 12. 

60 Cf. Isaiah 21 : 13. In Jeremiah 25 : 20 the name "Arab" is used to denote "a mingled people." 

61 Eusebius, Werke, Vol. V, Die Chronik (transl. J. Karst, 1911), "Chronikon Kanon"; St. Augustine, The City of God, Bk. XVlll, Chap. 12.

62 Hastings, "Eschatology," Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics. 

63 Olrik, Ragnarok, p. 406. 

64 Revue de:; tradition:; populaire:;, XVII (1902-1903), 571. 

65 Cf. the works of Arrhenius on the influence of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere on the temperature, and J. Tyndall (Heat a Mode of Motion, 6th ed., pp. 417-418) on the influence on the climate of a theoretical layer of olefiant gas surrounding our earth at a short distance above its surface.

66 A. Erman, Egyptian Literature (1927), p, 309. Cf. also J. Vandier, La Famine dans l'Egypte ancienne (1936), p. 118: "Les mois sont a l'envers, et !es heures se confondent" (Papyrus Anastasi IV, 10), and R. Weill, Bases, methodes, et résultats de la chronologie égyptienne (1926), p. 55. 

67 Texts of Taoism (transl. Legge), I, 301.  

68 Les Mémoires historiques de Se-ma Ts'ien (transl. E. Chavannes, 1895), p. 47. 

69 Ibid., p. 62. 

70 Plutarch, "Of Eating of Flesh," Morals (transl "by several hands," revised by W. Goodwin, ed. 1898), 

71 Plutarch, Isis and Osiris, 49.

72 Donnelly, Ragnarok, p. 212. 

73 C. Markham, The Incas of Peru, pp. 97-98. 

74. Brasseur, Sources de l'histoire primitive du Mexique, pp. 28-29. In his later work Quatre lettres sur Mexique ( 1868), Brasseur came to the conclusion that a stupendous catastrophe occurred in America and that migrating tribes carried the echo of this catastrophe to many peoples of the world, 

75 IV Ezra 14 : 4.

76. Pirke Rabbi Eliezer 8; Lcket Midrashim 2a; Ginzberg, Legends, VI, 24. 

77. Exodus 12 : 2. 

78 Breasted, A,History of Egypt, p. 14.

79 The table of the dynasties in Egypt and their chronological order are the subject of the forthcoming Ages in Chaos. 

80 See Bissing, Geschichte Aegyptens (1904), pp. 31, 33; Weill, Chronologie egyptienne, p. 32. But cf. also "The Book of Sothis" of Pseudo-Manetho in Manetho (transl. Waddell), Loeb Classical Library; there the introduction of the reform of adding five days to a year of 360 days is ascribed to the Hyksos King Aseth, who also introduced the worship of the bull calf Apis. 

81 An unknown Midrash quoted in Shita Mekubctzet, Nedarim 31b; see Ginzberg, Legends, V, 420.

82 Midrash Rabbah, Bereshie (ed. Freedman and Simon), ix, 14. 

83 Ibid., p. 73, footnote of the editors.

Chapter 6

1 The Eruption of Krakatoa: Report, ed. by G. J. Symons, pp. 40 f. 

2 ibid., p. 393; W. J. Phythian-Adams, The Call of Israel (1934). p. 16S. 

3 Natural History, Bk. ii, 30. 

4 Virgil, Georg/cs (transl. H. R. Fairclough, 1920), i, 466. 

5 Dio Cassius, Roman History, xiv. 7; Pliny ii. 71.93; Suetonius Caesar 88; Plutarch Caesar 69.3. It is remarkable that a new world age was proclaimed by an Etruscan diviner named Voclanius as having begun with the approach of the comet of --44. Cf. "Komet," by Stegemann in Handwörterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens (1927)

6 Brasseur, Sources de l'histoire primet live du Mexique, p. 47. 

7 Ibid., pp. 28-29. 

8 Gomara, Conquista de Mexico, II, 261. See Humboldt, Researches, ll, 16.

9 Brasseur, Histoire des nations civilisées du Mexique, I, 11. 

10 Ibid., p. 113.  

11 Papyrus 1116b recto, published by Gardiner, Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, I (1914).  

12 Papyrus ipuwer 9 : 8, 

13 Erman, Egyptian Literature, p. 309. 

14 See the Section, "The Red World," note 2.

15 Numbers 11 : 3; 16 : 35. 

16 Cf. also Job 28 : 3 and 36 : 3l. 

17 Baraita de Mclekhet ha-Mishkan 14; Ginzberg, Legends, V, 439, Cf. also Job 37 : 15. ,.. 

18 Ginzberg, ,Legends, VI, 114.

19 Psalms 105 : 39; Numbers 10 : 34. 

20 Numbers 9 : 17~22; 10 : 11 ff. The names Bezalel and Rafael mean "in the shadow of God" and "the shade of God." 

21 Kitab-Al Ghaniyy (French transl. F. FresneL, Journal asiatique, - 1838. Cf. El-Ma~oudi (Mas'udi), Les Prairies d or, III, Chap. 39. In Ages 111 Chaos these events will be synchronized with the Exodus. 

22 Sources in Penzberg, Legends, VI, 24, n. 141. 

23 Nihongi (transl. W. G. Aston), pp. 46 and 110. 

24 Les Mémoires historiques de Se-ma Ts'ien (transl. Chavannes, 1895), I, 47. 

25 Donnelly, Ragnarok, p. 211  

26 warren, 'Buddhism in Translations. pp. 322-327.

27 Williamson, Religious and Cosmic Beliefs of Central Poly11esia, I, 8 

28 Ibid., I, 37. 

29 Ibid., I, 30 

30 Ibid., I, 28-29. 

31 Crawford, in the Preface to the English translation of the Kalevala, refers the poem to a time when Hungarians and Finns were still united as one people, "in other words, to a time at least three thousand years·ago.''

32 The Kalevala, Rune 49. 

33 The Bwrdalris, Chap. 3, Sec. 16. 

34 Gomara, Co11q11is1a, cxix. 

35 Numbers 17 : 8. The cover of clouds remained over the desert until after the death of Aaron. Cf. Ginzberg, Legends, YI, 114.

36 Erman, Egyptian Literature, p. 309. 

37 Ginzberg, Legends, Ill, 158 and 235; VI, 71. According to Tar• gum Yerushalmi, Exodus 35 : 28: "The clouds brought the perfumes from paradise and placed them in the wilderness for Israel." 

38 Hymns of the Atharva-Veda (transl. M. Bloomfield, 1897), 201- 202. 

39 Exodus 16 : 14-34; Numbers 11 : 7-9. 

40 Psalms 78 : 23-24.

40 Exodus 16 : 21, 33-34. 

41. See A. P. Stanley, Lectures on the History of the Jewish Church (1863), Pt. I, p. 147: "The manna ••• according to the Jewish tradition of Josephus, and the belief of the Arab tribes, and of the Greek church at the present day, is still found in the dropping from the tamarisk bushes." However, Josephus, in his Antiquities, III, 26 ff., does not speak of tamarisks but of dew which looked like snow and still falls in the desert, being a "mainstay to dwellers in these parts." 

An expedition of Jerusalem University in 1927 investigated the tamarisk in the Sinai Desert. See F. S. Bodenheimer and 0. Theodor, Ergebnisse der Sinai Expedition (1929), PL III. 

A German professor suggested also Blattlaus. "Blattl Iuse wie Blattsauger schwitzen zuweilen auch aus dem After einen honigartig cn Saft in solcher Menge aus, dass die Pflanzen, besonders im Juli, damit g]eichsam iiberfirnisst sind" (W. H. Roscher, Nektar und Ambrosia (1883 ), p. 14). But where are forests in a desert where lice would ' prepare on the leaves of the trees three meals a day for a myriad of migrants? 

42 Psalms 78 : 24 and 105 : 40. 

43 Exodus 16 : 4. 

44 Tractate Yoma 75a. 

45 J. A. MacCulloch, Eddie Mythology (1930), p. 168,

46 Tylor, Primitive Culture, I, 324. 

47 Warren, Buddhism in Translations, p. 322. u 

48.Roscher, Nektar 1111d Ambrosia, p. 19.

49 Hym,rs of the Atharva.J/ eda, p, 229, Rigveda I, 112. 

50 E.W. Budge, The Book of the Dead {2nd ed., 1928), Chap. 98; cf. 

51. G. A. Wainwright, Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, XVIII (1932), 167."

52 Roscher, Nektar und Ambrosia, 

53 Iliad xiv. 170 ff. 

54 Iliad v. 368 ff.; see also ibid., v. 775 ff.; xiii. 34 ff., and Ovid, Metamorphoses ii. 119 ff. 

55 Tractate Yoma 75a 

56 Ginzberg, Legends, III, 49. 

57 Aristotle, Historia Animalium ("Generation of Animals"), v. 22. 32; Galen (ed. by C. G. Kilhn, 1821-1823), VI, 739; Pliny, Natural History, xi. 30; Diodorus, The Library of History, xvii. 75. 

58 The Kalevala (transl. Crawford), p. xvi and Rune 9. 

59 Ginzburg, Legends, VI, 17. 

60 The Kalevala, Rune 15. 

61 Iliad xiv. 170 ff. Cf. Plutarch, On the Face (De facie quae in orbclunac apparet). 

62 Midrash Tehillim to Psalm 23; Tosefta Sotah 4, 3. 

63 Tractate Yoma 76a. 

64 Exodus 16 : 21. 

65 Manetho refers this phenomenon to the time of Pharaoh Nephercheres. See the volume of Manetho in the Loeb Classical Library, pp. 35, 37, 39. I 

66 C. H. Gordon, The Loves and Wars of Baal and Anal (1943), p, 10. 

67 Midrash Tannaim, 191; Targum Yerushalmi on Exodus 16 : 21; Tanhuma, Beshalla 21, and other sources. 

68 "Hymn to Goddess Earth," Hymns of the Atharva-J/eda (transL Bloomfield), pp. 199 f. .  

69 Metamorphoses (trans]. F. J. Miller, 1916), i. 111-112. 

70 Numbers 16 : 31-35; 20 : 11; Psalms 78 : 16; 107 : 33-35, 

71 Joshua 3 : 16. A correct translation requires: "very far at the city Adam." 

72 J. Garstang, The Foundations ol Bible History (1931), p. 137. 

73 Joshua 6 : 20. 

74 E. Sellin and C. Watzinger, Jericho: Die Ergebnisse der Awgrabzmgen (1913), 

75 J. Garstang and G. B. B. Garstang, The Story of Jericho (1940). 

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