Worlds in Collision
by Immanuel Velikovsky
CHAPTER 7
[ Stones Suspended in the Air ]
"The hot hailstones which, at Moses' intercession, had remained suspended in the air when they were about to fall upon the Egyptians, were now cast down upon the Canaanites."1 These words mean that a part of the meteorites of the cometary train of the days of Exodus remained in the celestial sphere for about fifty years, falling in the days of Joshua, in the valley of Beth-boron, on the same forenoon when the sun and the moon stood still for the length of a full day.
The language of the Talmud and Midrash suggests that the same comet returned after some fifty years. Once more it passed very close to the earth. This time it did not reverse the poles of the earth, but kept the terrestrial axis tilted for a considerable length of time. Again the world was, in the language of the rabbis, "consumed in the. whirlwind," "and all the kingdoms tottered," "the earth quaked and trembled from the noise of thunder"; terrified mankind was decimated once more, and carcasses were like rubbish in this Day of Anger.2
On the day when this took place on the earth, the sky was in confusion. Stones fell from the heavens, sun and moon stopped in their paths, and a comet must also have been seen. Habakkuk describes the portent in the sky on that memorable day when, in his words, "the sun and moon stood still in their habitation": it had the form of a man on a chariot drawn by horses and was regarded as God's angel.
In the King James version the passage, read:
"His glory covered the heavens . . . and his brightness was as the light; he bad horns coming out of his hand . . . burning coals went forth at his feet . . . [he] drove asunder the nations; and the everlasting mountains were scattered. . . . Was thine anger against the rivers? Was thy wrath against the sea, that thou didst ride upon thine horses and thy chariots of salvation . . . 'l Thou didst cleave the earth with rivers. The mountains saw thee, and they trembled: the overflowing of the water passed by: the deep uttered his voice. . . . The sun and moon stood still in their habitation: at the light of thy arrows they went, and at the shining of thy glittering spear. Thou didst march through the land ln indignation, thou didst thresh the heathen in anger. . . . Thou didst walk through the sea with thine horses, through the heap of great waters!' 3
Since the texts of the Scriptures have, for some psychological reason rooted in the readers, the quality of being easily misread, misunderstood, or misinterpreted, I give also some of the passages of the third chapter of Habakkuk in another, modernized reading:
His splendour over all the sky,
his glory filling an the earth,
his radiance is a lightning blaze,
on either side flash rays, . . .
At his step the earth is shaken,
at his look nations are scattered,
the ancient hills are shattered,
mountains of old sink low . . . .
Art thou wrathful at the sea,
that thou art storming on the steeds,
upon the chariots in triumph . . . ?
The hills writhe at thy sight . . .
the sun forgets to rise,
the moon to move,
before the flashes of thy darting arrows,
before the sheen of thy lightning, thy lance.
Thou trampest earth in fury,
thou art threshing the peoples in thine anger.4
With the earth disturbed in its spinning on its axis, the mechanical friction of displaced strata and magma must have set the world on fire.
The world burned. The Greek story of Phaethon will be introduced here because of the interpretation heard by Solon during his visit.to Egypt.
[ Phaethon ]
The Greeks as well as the Carians and other peoples on the shores of the Aegean Sea told of a time when the sun was driven off its course and disappeared for an entire day, and the earth was burned and drowned.
The Greek legend says that the young Phaethon, who claimed parentage of the sun, on that fatal day tried to drive the chariot of the sun. Phaethon was unable to make his way "against the whirling poles,"· and .. their swift axis" swept him away. Phaethon in Greek means "the blazing one."
Many authors have dealt with the story of Phaethon; the best known version is a creation of the Latin poet Ovid. The chariot of the sun, driven by Phaethon, moved "no longer in the same course as before." The horses .. break loose from their course" and "rush aimlessly, knocking against the stars set deep in the sky and snatching the chariot along through uncharted ways." The constellations of the cold Bears tried to plunge into the forbidden sea, and the sun's chariot roamed through· unknown regions of the air. It was "borne along just as a ship driven before the headlong blast, whose pilot has let the useless rudder go and abandoned the ship to the gods and prayers." 5
.. "The earth bursts into flame, the highest parts first, and splits into deep cracks, and its moisture is all dried up. The meadows are. burned to white ashes; the trees are consumed, green leaves and all, and the ripe grain furnishes fuel for its own destruction. . . . Great cities perish with their walls, and the vast conflagration reduces whole nations to ashes."
"The woods are ablaze with the mountains. . . Aetna is blazing boundlessly . . . and twin-peaked Parnassus. . . . Nor does its chilling clime save Scythia; Caucasus burns . . . and the heaven-piercing Alps and cloud-capped Apennines."
The scorched clouds belched forth smoke. Phaethon sees the earth aflame. "He can no longer bear the ashes and whirling sparks, and is completely shrouded in the dense, hot smoke. In this pitchy darkness he Call.not tell where he is or whither he is going."
"It was then, as men think, that the peoples of Ethiopia became black~skinned, since the blood was drawn to the surface of their bodies by the heat."
"Then also Libya became a desert, for the heat dried up her moisture. . . . The Don's waters steam; Babylonian Euphrates burns; the Ganges, Phasis, Danube, Alpheus boil; Spercheios' banks are aflame. The golden sands of Tagus melt in the intense heat, and the swans . . . are scorched. . . . The Nile fled in terror to the ends of the earth . . . the seven mouths lie empty, filled with dust; seven broad channels, all without a stream. The same mischance dries up the Thracian rivers, Hebrus and Strymon; also the rivers of the west, the Rhine, Rhone, Po and the Tiber . . . Great cracks yawn everywhere . . . Even the sea shrinks up, and what was but now a great watery expanse is a dry plain of sand. The mountains, which the deep sea had covered before, spring forth, and increase the number of the scattered Cyclades."
How could the poets have known that a change in the movement of the sun across the firmament must cause a world conflagration, blazing of volcanoes, 'boiling of rivers, disappearance of seas, birth of deserts, emergence of islands, if the sun never changed its harmonious journey from sunrise to sunset?
The disturbance in the movement of the sun was followed by a period as long as a day, when the sun did not appear at alt Ovid continues:. "If we are to believe report, one whole day went without the sun.6 But the burning world gave light."
A prolonged night in one part of the world must be accompanied by a prolonged day in another part; in Ovid we see.. the phenomenon related in the Book of Joshua, but from another longitude. This may stimulate surmise as to the geographical origin of the Inda-Iranian or Carlan migrants to Greece.
The globe changed the inclination of its axis; latitudes changed, too. Ovid ends the description of the world catastrophe contained in the story of Phaethon: "Causing all things to shake with her mighty trembling, she [the earth] sank back a little lower than her wonted place."
Plato recorded the story beard two generations before from Solon, the wise ruler of Athens.7 Solon, on his visit to Egypt, questioned the priests, versed in the lore of antiquity, on early history. He discovered that "neither he himself nor any other Greek knew any thing at all, one might say, about such matters." Solon unfolded. before the priests the tale of the deluge, the only ancient tradition he was aware of. One of the priests. an old man, 8 said:
"There have been and there will be many and diverse destructions of mankind, of which the greatest are by fire and water, and lesser ones by countless other means. For in truth the story that is told in your country as well as ours, how once upon a time Phaethon, son of Helios, yoked his father's chariot, and, because he was unable to drive it along the course taken by his father, burnt up all that was upon the earth and himself perished by a thunderbolt-that story, as it is told, has the fashion of a legend, but the truth of it lies in the occurrence of a shifting of the bodies in the heavens which move around the earth, and a destruction of the things on the earth by fierce fire, which recurs at long intervals." 9
The Egyptian priest explained to Solon that in these catastrophes the literary works of many peoples and their learned men perished; for that reason the Greeks were still childish, as they no longer knew the true horrors of the past. These words of the priest were only an introduction to a revelation of his knowledge about lands that were erased when Greece also and the entire world were visited with heavenly wrath. He told the story of a mighty kingdom on a great island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean that submerged-and sank forever into its waters.
[ Atlantis ]
The story narrated by Plato of the island of Atlantis that ruled Africa as far as the border of Egypt and Europe as far as Tuscany on the Apennine peninsula and that in one fatal night was shattered by earthquakes and sank, never ceased to occupy the imagination of the literati. Strabo and Pliny thought that the story of Atlantis was an illusion of the elderly Plato. But to this day the tradition, as revived by Plato, has not died. Poets and novelists have exploited the story freely; scientists have done so with caution. An incomplete catalogue of the literature on Atlantis in 1926 included 1,700 titles.10 Although Plato said clearly that Atlantis was situated behind the Pillars of Hercules (Gibraltar}, in the Atlantic Ocean, as is also indicated by the name of the island, travelers and other guessers have placed Atlantis in all parts of the world, even on dry land, as, for example, in Tunisia,11 Palestine,12 and South America. Geylon, Newfoundland, and Spitsbergen have also been considered. This was . due to the fact that traditions of inundations and submersion of islands exist in all parts of the world.
Plato set down what Solon bad beard in Egypt from the learned priest. ''The [Atlantic] ocean there was at that time navigable; for in front of the mouth which you Greeks call, as you say, 'the Pillars of Heracles' [Hercules], there lay an island which was larger than Libya and Asia [Asia Minor] together; and it was possible for the travellers of that time to cross from it to the other islands, and from the islands to the whole of the continent over against them which encompasses that veritable ocean. . . . Yonder is a real ocean, and the land surrounding it may most· rightly be called, in the fullest and truest sense, a continent. Now in this island of Atlantis there existed a confederation of kings, a great and marvelous power, which held sway over all the island, and over many other islands also and parts of the continent; and, moreover, of the lands here within the Straits they ruled over Libya as far as Egypt, and over Europe as far as Tuscany."13
In the nineteenth century ships sailed the Atlantic Ocean to explore its bed in search of Atlantis, and before the Second World War scientific societies existed for the sole purpose of exploring the problem of the sunken island. 159s
Much speculation was offered, not only on the whereabouts of Atlantis, but also on the cultural achievements of its inhabitants. Plato, in another work of his (Critias), wrote a political treatise, and, as no real place in the world could have been the scene of his utopia, he chose for that purpose the sunken island. Modern scholars, finding some affinity between American, Egyptian, and Phoenician cultures, think that Atlantis may have been the intermediary link. There is much probability in these speculations; if they are justified, Crete, a maritime base of Carian navigators, may disclose some information about Atlantis as soon as the Cretan scripts are satisfactorily deciphered.
One point in Plato's story about the submersion of Atlantis requires correction. Plato said that So]on told the story to Critias the elder, and that the young Critias, Plato's friend, heard it from bis grandfather when he was a ten year-old boy. Critias the younger remembered having been told that the catastrophe which befell Atlantis happened 9,000 years before. There is one zero too many here. We do not know of any vestiges of human culture, aside from that of the Neolithic age, nor of any navigating nation, 9,000 years before Solon. Numbers we hear in childhood easily grow in our memory, as do dimensions. When revisiting our childhood home, we are surprised at the smallness of the rooms-we had remembered them as much larger. Whatever the source of the error, the most probable date of the sinking of Atlantis would be in the middle of the second millenium, 900· years before Solon, when the earth twice suffered great catastrophes as a result of "the shifting of the heavenly bodies." These words of Plato received the least attention, though they deserved the greatest.
The destruction of Atlantis is described by Plato as he heard it from his source: "At a later time there occurred portentous earthquakes and floods, and one grievous day and night befell them, when the whole body of your [Greek] warriors was swallowed up by the earth, and the island of Atlantis in like manner was swallowed up by the sea and vanished; wherefore also the ocean at that spot has now become impassable and unsearchable, being blocked up by the shoal mud which the island created as it settled down." 14
At the time when Atlantis perished in the ocean, the people of Greece were destroyed: the catastrophe was ubiquitous.
As if recalling what had happened, the Psalmist wrote: "Destructions are come to a perpetual end: and thou hast destroyed cities,. their memorial is perished with them."15 He prayed also: "God is our refuge and strength, therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed and· though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; though the waters thereof roar and be troubled.16
[ The Floods of Deucalion and Ogyges ]
The history of Greece knows two great natural catastrophes: the floods of Deucalion and of Ogyges. One of them, usually that of Deucalion, is described by Greek authors as having been simultaneous with the conflagration of Phaethon. The floods of Deucalion and Ogyges brought overwhelming destruction to the mainland of Greece and to the islands around and caused changes in the geographical profile of the area. That of Deucalion was most devastating: water covered the land and annihilated the population. According to the legend, only two persons, Deucalion and his wife-remained alive. This last detail must not be taken more literally than similar statements found in descriptions of great catastrophes all around the world; for example, two daughters of Lot, who hid with him in a cave after the catastrophe of Sodom and Gomorrah, believed that they and their father were the only survivors in the land.17
The chronologists among the Fathers of the Church found material for assuming that one of the two catastrophes, the flood of Deucalion or that of Ogyges, had been contemporaneous with the Exodus.
Julius Africanus wrote: "We affirm that Ogygia [Ogyges] from whom the first Hood [in Attica] derived its name, and who was saved when many perished, lived at the time of the Exodus of the people from Egypt along with Moses." 18 He further expressed his belief in the coincidence of the catastrophe of Ogyges and the one that occurred in Egypt in the days of the Exodus in the following words:
"The Passover and the Exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt took place, and also in Attica the flood of Ogyges. And that is according to reason. For when the Egyptians were being smitten in the anger of God with hail and storms, it was only to be expected that certain parts of the earth should suffer with them." 19 Eusebius placed the Flood of Deucalion and the conflagration of Phaethon in the fifty-second year of Moses' life.' 20
Augustine also synchronized the Flood of Deucalion with the time of Moses;21 he assumed that the Flood of Ogyges · took place earlier.
A chronologist of the seventh century. (Isidore, bishop of Seville) 22 dated the Flood of Deucalion in the time of Moses; chronologists of the seventeenth century likewise calculated that the Flood of Deucalion took place in the time of Moses, close to but not simultaneous with the Exodus.23
It would seem to be more probable that, if the catastrophes occurred one shortly after the other, the catastrophe of Ogyges took place after that of Deucalion which practically destroyed the land, depopulated it, and erased every memory of what had happened up to that time. In the words of Plato, who quoted the Egyptian priest speaking to Solon, the catastrophes must have escaped the notice of the future generations because, as a result of the devastation, "for many generations the survivors died with no power to express themselves in writing." The memory of the catastrophe of Ogyges would have vanished in the catastrophe of Deucalion if Ogyges had preceded Deucalion. 24
Apparently, the truth is with those who placed the catastrophe of Deucalion in the days of Exodus; but those who reckoned that Ogyges was a contemporary of Moses were also correct, except that Moses did not live until the Flood of Ogyges-it took place in the days of Joshua.
In commemoration of the Deucalion flood, the people of Athens observed a feast in the month of Anthesterion, which is a spring month; the feast was called Anthesteria. On the thirteenth of the month, the main day of the feast, honey and flour were poured into a fissure in the earth as a sacrifice. 25
The date of this ceremony-the thirteenth day of Anthesterion in the spring-is revealing if we remember what was said in the section entitled "13." It was on the thirteenth day of the spring month (Aviv) that the great planetary contact occurred which preceded. by a few hours the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt.
The offering of honey and flour as the main ceremony of the feast is also revealing if we recollect that manna, or heavenly com, tasting like honey, fell on the earth after the contact of the earth with a celestial body.
As to the provenance of the name Deucalion, scholars admit that it is not known.26 For the name and the person of Ogyges we have some concrete information. Although Ogyges was a king, the Greek annalists who wrote of the "flood of Ogyges" as one of the outstanding events of the past of their country, at the same time did not know any- - thing about a king of that name in Greece.27 Who was Ogyges?
We can solve this problem. When the Israelites under Moses approached the border of Moab, Balaam in his blessing of Israel used these words: "His king shall be higher than Agag [Agog]!'28 Agog must have been the most important king of that time in the area: around the eastern Mediterranean.
In my reconstruction of ancient history, I shall put forward proofs that the Amalekite king, Agog I, was identical with the Hyksos king whose name the Egyptologists tentatively read Apop I, and who, a few decades after the invasion of Egypt by the Amu (Hyksos), laid the foundation of Thebes, the future capital of the New Kingdom in Egypt.
In conformity with this assertion, I can point to the fact that Greek tradition, which does not know of any activities of King Ogyges in Attica, occasionally places the domicile of Ogyges in Egyptian Thebes, and Aeschylus calls Thebes of Egypt "the Ogygian Thebes," to differentiate it from the Greek Thebes in Boeotia. Ogyges is aiso credited with founding Thebes in Egypt.29
Agog was a contemporary of the aging Moses; he was a f. ruler who, in his time, had no equal in the region bordering the eastern Mediterranean; 30 the catastrophe in the time of Joshua, successor to Moses, was called by his, Agog's, name.
The assertion of Solinus, the ·author of Polyhistor, that the flood of Ogyges was followed by a night of nine months' duration does not necessarily signify a confusion with the darkness that ensued after the cataclysm of the Exodus; as the causes were similar, similar results must have followed. The eruption of thousands of volcanoes would suffice to produce this darkness, of a shorter duration than that which followed the cataclysm of the Exodus.31
Thus, the Greek traditions of the floods of Ogyges and Deucalion contain elements which, though interchanged, can be traced to two great upheavals in the middle of the second millennium before the present era.32 165s
CHAPTER 8
[ The Fifty-two Year Period ]
The works of Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl, the early Mexican scholar (circa 1S68-1648) who was able to read old Mexican texts, preserve the ancient tradition according to which the multiple of fifty-two-year periods played an important role in the recurrence of world catastrophes.1 He asserts also that only fifty-two years elapsed between two great catastrophes, each of which terminated a world age. · ·
As I have already pointed out, the Israelite tradition counts forty years of wandering in the desert; between the time when the Israelites left the desert and started the difficult task of the conquest, and the time of the battle at Beth-boron twelve years may well have passed. The conquest of Canaan took fourteen years, and the entire duration of Joshua's leadership amounted to twenty-eight years.2
Now there exists a remarkable fact: the natives of pre-Columbian Mexico expected a new catastrophe at the end of every period of fifty-two years and congregated to await the event. "When the night of this ceremony arrived, all the people were seized with fear and waited in anxiety for what might take place." They were afraid that "it would be the end of the human race and that the darkness of the night may become permanent: the ·sun may not rise anymore." 3 They watched for the appearance of the planet Venus, and when, on the feared day, no catastrophe occurred, the people of Maya rejoiced. They brought human sacrifices and offered the hearts of prisoners whose chests they opened with knives of flint. On that night, when the fifty-two,fear period ended, a great bonfire announced to the fearful crowds that a new period of grace had been granted and a new Venus cycle started.4 .
The period of fifty-two ,years, regarded by the ancient Mexicans as the interval between two world catastrophes, was definitely related by them to the planet Venus; and this period of Venus was observed by both the Mayas and the Aztecs. 5
The old Mexican custom of sacrificing to the Morning Star survived in human sacrifices by the Skidi Pawnee of Nebraska in years when the Morning Star "appeared especially bright, or in years when there was a comet in the. sky." 6
What had Venus to do with the catastrophes that brought the world to the brink of destruction? Here is a question that will carry us very far, indeed.
[ Jubilee ]
I shall postpone only a little giving the answer to the question just posed. First, I should like to find an explanation for the institution of the jubilee year of the Israelites.
Every seventh year, according to the law, was a sabbatical year during which the land had to be left fallow and Jewish slaves set free. The fiftieth year was a jubilee year, when the land not only had to be left fallow, but had to be returned to its original proprietors. According to the law, one could not convey his land for ever; the deed of sale was but a lease for whatever number of years remained until the jubilee year. The year was proclaimed by the blowing of horns on the Day of Atonement. "In the Day of Atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land. And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubilee unto you, and ye shall return every man unto bis possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family." 7
Ever since, exegesis have labored over the biblical •statement that the jubilee~ year was to be observed every fiftieth year. The seventh sabbatical year is the forty-ninth year: "And the space of the seven sabbaths of years shall be unto thee forty and nine years. . . . And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year." 8 To ]eave the land fallow for two consecutive years was too great a demand and cannot be explained by the need of the soil under cultivation for rest. The festival of the jubilee, with the return of land to. its original owners and the release of slaves, bears the character of an atonement. and its ·proclamation on the Day of Atonement emphasizes this stilt further. Was there any special reason why fear returned every fifty years? The Jubilee of the Mayas must have had a genesis similar to that of the jubilee of the Israelites. The difference lies in the human character of the festival of the Jews and its inhuman character among the Mayas; but with both peoples it was a year of atonement, repeating itself every fiftieth year in the one case and every fifty-second year in the other.
Comets do not return at exact periods because of perturbations caused by larger planets.9 The Mayas expected the return of a catastrophe every fifty-second year because that was the interval between two cataclysms that had taken place. It may be that the comet was actually seen again at such intervals. The Jews fasted and prepared themselves for the Day of Judgment on the earliest possible date of its return; the Mayas had their festival when the dreaded time had passed without harm.
On the Day of Atonement the Israelites used to send a scapegoat to "Azazel" in the desert:10 It was a ceremony of propitiation of Satan. In Egypt the goat was an animal dedicated to Seth-Typhon.11 Azazel was a fallen star or Lucifer. It was also called Azzael, Azza, or Uzza. 12 According to the rabbinical legend, Uzza was the star angel of Egypt: it was thrown into the Red Sea when the Israelites made their passage.13 The Arab name of the planet Venus is al-Uzza. 14 Arabs used to bring human sacrifices to alUzza; Mohammed, too, in his early days, worshiped it, and even today the Arabs seek its help.15 '"
On the day on which the jubilee year was proclaimed, the Israelites dispatched a placating offering of the scapegoat to Lucifer. But what had, Venus to do with the Jubilee and the atonement?
[ The Birth of Venus ]
A planet turns and revolves on a quite circular orbit around a greater body, the sun; it makes contact with another body, a comet, that travels on a stretched out ellipse. The planet slips from its axis; runs in disorder off its orbit, wanders rather erratically, and in the end is freed from the embrace of the comet.
The body of the long ellipse experiences similar disturbances. Drawn off its path, it glides to some new orbit; its long train of gaseous substances and stones is torn away by the sun or by the planet, or runs away and revolves as a smaller comet along its own ellipse; a part of the tail is retained by the parent comet on its new orbit.
Ancient Mexican records give the order of the occurrences. The sun was attacked by Quetzalcoatl; after the disappearance of this serpent-shaped heavenly body, the sun refused to shine, and during four days the world was deprived of its light; a great many people died at that time. Thereafter, the snakelike body transformed itself into a great star. The star retained the name of Quetzalcoatl [Quetzalcoatl]. This great and brilliant star appeared for the first time in the east.16 Quetzalcoatl is the well-known name of the planet Venus.17
Thus we read that "the sun refused to show itself and during four days the world was deprived of light. Then a great_ star appeared;_ it was given the name Quetzalcoatl : the sky, to show its anger ... caused to perish a great number of people who died of famine and pestilence." 18 The sequence of seasons and the duration of days and nights became disarranged. "It was then that the people [of Mexico] regulated anew the reckoning of days, nights, and hours, according to the difference in time."19
"It is a remarkable thing, moreover, that time is measured from the moment of its [Morning Star's] appearance. Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli or the Morning Star appeared for the first time following the convulsions of the earth overwhelmed by a deluge." It looked like a monstrous serpent. "This serpent is adorned with feathers: that is why it is called Quetzalcoatl, Gukumatz or Kukulcan. Just as the world is about to emerge from the. chaos of the great catastrophe, it is seen to appear." 20 The· feather arrangement of Quetzalcoatl "represented flames of fire." 21
Again, the old texts speak "of the change that took place, at the moment of the great catastrophe of the deluge, in the condition of many constellations, principal among them being precisely Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli or the star of Venus." 22
The cataclysm, accompanied by a prolonged darkness, appears to have been that of the days of the Exodus, when a tempest of cinders darkened the world disturbed in its rotation. Some of the references may allude to the subsequent catastrophe of the time of the conquest by Joshua, when the sun remained for more than a day in the sky of the old world. Since it was the same comet that on both occasions made contact with the earth, and at each of the contacts the comet changed its own orbit, the relevant question is not, "On. which occasion did the comet change its orbit?" but first of all, "Which comet changed to a planet?" pr "Which planet was a comet in historical times?" The transformation of the comet into a planet began on contact with the earth in the middle of the second millennium before the present era and was carried a step further one jubilee period later.
After the dramatic events of the time of Exodus, the earth was shrouded in dense clouds for decades, and observation of stars was not possible; after the second contact, Venus, the new and splendid member of the solar family, was seen moving along its orbit. It was in the days of Joshua, a time designation meaningful to the reader of the sixth book of the Scriptures; but for the ancients it was "the time of Agog." As I explained above, he was the king by whose name the cataclysm (the Deluge of Ogyges) was known, and who, according to Greek tradition, laid the foundations of Thebes in Egypt.
In The City of God by Augustine it is.written:
"From the book of Marcus Varro, entitled Of the Race of the Roman People, I cite word for word the following instance: 'There occurred a remarkable celestial portent; for Castor records that in the brilliant star Venus, called Vesperugo by Plautus and the lovely ·Hesperus by Homer, there occurred so strange a prodigy, that it changed its color, size, form, course, which never happened before nor since. Adrastus of Cyzicus, and Dion of Naples, famous mathematicians, said that this occurred in the reign of Ogyges.." 23
The Fathers of the Church considered Ogyges a contemporary of Moses. Agog, mentioned in the blessing of Balaam, was the king Ogyges. The upheaval that took place in the days of Joshua and Agog, the deluge that occurred in the days of Ogyges, the metamorphosis of Venus in the days of Ogyges, the star Venus which appeared in the sky of Mexico after a protracted night and a great catastrophe-all these occurrences are related.
Augustine went on to make a curious comment on the transformation of Venus: "Certainly that phenomenon disturbed the canons of the astronomers . . . so as to take upon them to affirm that this which happened to the Morning Star (Venus) never happened before nor since. But we read in the divine books that even the sun itself stood still when a holy man, Joshua the son of Nun, had begged this from God."
Augustine had no inkling that Castor, as quoted by Varro, and the Book of Jasper, as quoted in the Book of Joshua, refer to the same occurrence.
Are Hebrew sources silent on the birth of a new star in the days of Joshua? They are not. It is written in a Samaritan chronicle that during the invasion of Palestine by the Israelites under Joshua, a new star was born in the east: .. A star arose out of the east against which all magic is vain." 24
Chinese chronicles record that "a brilliant star appeared in the days of Yahu (Yahou]." 25
[ The Blazing Star ]
Plato, citing the Egyptian priest, said that the world conflagration associated with Phaethon was caused by a shifting of bodies in the sky which move around the earth. As we have reason to assume that it was the comet Venus that, after two contacts with the earth, eventually became a planet, we shall do well to inquire: I>id Phaethon tum into the Morning Star?
Phaethon, which means "the blazing star," 26 became the Morning Star. The earliest writer who refers to the transformation of Phaethon into a planet is Hesiod.27 This transformation is related by Hyginus in his Astronomy, where he tells how Phaethon, that caused the conflagration of the world, was struck by a thunderbolt of Jupiter and was placed by the sun among the stars (planets) 28 It was the general belief that Phaethon changed into the Morning Star.29
On the island of Crete, Amnios was the name of the unlucky driver of the sun's chariot; be was worshiped as the Evening Star, which is the same as the Morning Star.30
The birth of the Morning Star, or the transformation of a legendary person (Istehar, Phaethon, Quetzalcoatl) into the Morning Star was a widespread motif in the folklore of the oriental 31 and occidental 32 peoples. The Tahitian tradition of the birth of the Morning Star is narrated on the Society Island in the Pacific,33 the Mangaian legend says that with the birth of a new star, the earth was battered by countless fragments. 34 The Burials, Kirghiz, and Yakuts of Siberia, and the Eskimos of North America also-tell of the birth of the planet Venus.35
A blazing star disrupted the visible movement of the sun, caused a world conflagration, and became the Morning-Evening Star. This may be found not only in the legends and traditions, but also in astronomical books of the ancient peoples of both hemispheres.
[ The Four-Planet System ]
By asserting that the planet Venus was born in the first half of the second millennium, I assume also that in the third millennium only four planets could have been seen, and that in astronomical charts of this early period the planet Venus cannot be found.
In· an ancient Hindu table of planets, attributed to the year-3102 Venus alone among the visible planets is absent.36 The Brahmans of the early period did not know the five planet system,37 and only in a later ("middle") period did the Brahmans speak of five planets.
Babylonian astronomy, too, had a four-planet system. In ancient prayers the planets Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, and Mercury are invoked; the planet Venus is missing; and one speaks of "the four-planet system of the ancient astronomers of Babylonia." 38 These four-planet systems and the inability of the ancient Hindus and Babylonians to see Venus in the sky, even though it is more conspicuous than the other planets, are puzzling unless Venus was not among the planets.
On a later date "the planet Venus receives the appellative: 'The great star that joins the great stars.' The great stars are, of course, the four planets Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn and Venus joins them as the fifth planet."39
Apollonius Rhodius refers to a time "when not all the orbs were yet in the heavens.'' 40
[ One of the Planets Is a Comet ]
Democritus (circa --460 to circa .,;_370), a contemporary of Plato and one of the great scholars of antiquity, is accused by the moderns of not having understood the planetary character of Venus.41 Plutarch quotes him as speaking of Venus as if it .were not one of the planets. But apparently the author of the treatises on geometry, optics, and astronomy, no longer extant, knew more about Venus than his critics think. From quotations which have survived in other authors, we know that Democritus built a theory of the creation and destruction of worlds which sounds like the modern planetesimal theory without its shortcomings. He wrote: "The worlds are unequally distributed in space; here there are more, there fewer; some are waxing, some are in their prime, some waning: coming into being in one part of the universe, ceasing in another part. The cause of their perishing is collision with one another." 42 He knew that "the planets are at unequal distances from us" and that there are more planets than we are able to discover with our eyes.43 Aristotle quoted the opinion of Democritus: "Stars have been seen when comets dissolve."'44
Among the early Greek scholars, Pythagoras of the sixth century is generally credited with having had access to some secret science. His pupils, and their pupils, the so called Pythagoreans, were cautious not to disclose their science to anyone who did not belong to their circle. Aristotle wrote of their interpretation of the nature of comets: "Some of the Italians called Pythagoreans say that the comet is one of the planets, but that it appears at great intervals of time and only rises a little above the horizon. This is the case with Mercury too; because it only rises a little above the horizon it often fails to be seen and consequently appears at great intervals of time." 45
This is a confused presentation of a theory; but it is possible to trace the truth in the Pythagorean teaching, which was not understood by Aristotle. A comet is a planet which returns at long intervals. One of the planets, which rises only a little above the Horizon, was still regarded by the Pythagoreans of the fourth century as a comet. With the knowledge obtained from other sources, it is easy to guess that by "one of the planets" is meant Venus; only Mercury and Venus rise a little above the horizon.
Aristotle disagreed with the Pythagorean scholars who considered one of the five planets to be a comet.
"These views involve impossibilities. . . . This is the case, first, with those who say that the comet is one of the planets . . . more comets than one have often appeared simultaneously • . .. as a matter of fact, no planet has been observed b~sides the five. And all of them are often visible above the horizon together at the same time. Further, comets are often found to appear, as well when all the planets are visible as when some are not."46
With these words, Aristotle, who did not learn the secrets of the Pythagoreans directly, tried to refute their teaching by arguing that all five planets are in their places when a comet appears, as if the Pythagoreans thought that all comets were one and the same planet leaving its usual path at certain times. But the Pythagoreans did not think that one planet represents all comets. According to Plutarch,47 they taught that each of the comets has its own orbit and period of revolution. Hence the Pythagoreans apparently knew that the comet which is "one of the planets" is Venus.
[ The Comet Venus ]
During the centuries when Venus was a comet, it had a tail.
The early traditions of the peoples of Mexico, written down in pre-Columbian days, relate that Venus smoked. "The star that smoked, la estrella que humea, was Sita choloha, which the Spaniards call Venus." 48
"Now, I ask," says Alexander Humboldt, "what optical illusion could give Venus the appearance of a star throwing out smoke?" 49
Sahagun, the sixteenth century Spanish authority on Mexico, wrote that the Mexicans called a comet "a star that smoked." 50 It may thus be concluded that since the Mexicans called Venus "a star that smoked," they considered it a comet.
It is also said in the Vedas that the star Venus looks like fire with smoke.51 Apparently, the star had a tail, dark in the daytime and luminous at night. In very concrete form this luminous tail, which Venus had in earlier centuries, is mentioned in the Talmud, in the Tractate Shabbat: "Fire is hanging down from the planet Venus." 52
This phenomenon was described by the Chaldeans. The planet Venus "was said to have a beard." 53 This same technical expression ("beard") is used in modern astronomy in the description of comets.
These parallels in observations made in the valley of the Ganges, on the shores of the Euphrates, and on the coast of the Mexican Gulf prove their objectivity. The question must then be put, not in the form, What was the illusion of· the ancient Toltec and Mayas? but, What was the phenomenon and what was its cause? A train, large enough to be visible from the earth and giving the impression of smoke and fire, hung from the planet Venus.
Venus, with its glowing train, was a very brilliant body; it is therefore not strange that the Chaldeans described it as a "bright torch of heaven," 54 also as a "diamond that illuminates like the sun," and compared its light with the light of the rising sun.55 At present, the light of Venus is less than one millionth of the. light of the sun. "A stupendous prodigy in the sky," the Chaldeans called it.56
The Hebrews similarly described the planet: ''The brilliant light of Venus blazes from one end of the cosmos to the other end." 57
The Chinese astronomical text from Soochow refers to the past when "Venus was visible in full daylight and, while moving across the sky, rivaled the sun in brightness." 58
As late as the seventh century, Assurbanipal wrote about Venus (Ishtar) "who is clothed with fire and bears aloft a · crown of awful splendor." 59 The Egyptians under Seti thus described Venus (Sekhmet): "A circling star which scatters its flame in fire . . . a flame of fire in her tempest." 60
Possessing a tail and moving on a not yet circular orbit, Venus was more of a comet than a planet, and was called a "smoking star" or a comet by the Mexicans. They also called it by the name of Tzontemocque, or "the mane." 61 The Arabs called Ishtar (Venus) by the name· Zebbaj or "one with hair," as did the Babylonians.62
"Sometimes there are hairs attached to the planets," wrote Pliny; 63 an old description of Venus must have served as a basis for his assertion. But hair or coma is a characteristic of comets, and in fact "comet" is derived from the Greek word for "'hair." The Peruvian name "Chaska'' (wavy-haired) 64 is still the name for Venus, though at present the Morning Star is definitely a planet and has no tail attached to it.
The coma of Venus .changed its form with the position of the planet. When the planet Venus approaches the earth now, it is only partly illuminated, a portion of the disc being in shadow; it has phases like the moon. At this time, being closer to the earth, it is most brilliant. When Venus bad a coma, the horns of its crescent must have been extended by the illuminated portions of the coma. It thus had two long appendages and looked like a bull's head. Sanchuniathon says that Astarte (Ver.us) had a bull's head.65
The planet was even called Ashteroth-Karnaim, or Astarte of the Homs, a name given to a city in Canaan in honor of this deity.66 The golden calf worshiped by Aaron and the people at the foot of Sinai was the image of the star. Rabbinical authorities say that "the devotion of Israel · to this worship on the bull is in part explained by the circumstance that, while passing through the Red Sea, they beheld the celestial Throne, and most distinctly of the four creatures about the Throne, they saw the ox." 67 The likeness of a calf was placed by Jeroboam in Dan, the great temple of the Northern Kingdom.68
Tistrya of the Zend-Avesta, the star that attacks the p]anets, "the bright and glorious Tistrya mingles his shape with light moving in the shape of a golden-horned bull." 69
The Egyptians similarly pictured the planet and worshiped it in the effigy of a bull.70 The cult of a bull sprang up also in Mycenaean Greece. A golden cow head with a star on its brow was found in Mycenae, on the Greek mainland.71 The people of faraway Samoa, primitive tribes that depend on oral tradition as they have no art of writing, repeat to this day: "The planet Venus became wild and horns grew out of her head."72
Examples and. references could be multiplied ad libitum:
The astronomical texts of the Babylonians describe the horns of the planet Venus. Sometimes one of the two horns became more prominent.· Because the astronomical works of antiquity have so much to say about the horns of Venus, modem scholars have asked themselves whether the Babylonians could have seen the phases of Venus, which cannot now be distinguished with the. naked eye; 73 Galileo saw them for the first time in modem history when be used bis telescope.
The long horns of Venus could have been seen without the aid of a telescopic lens. The horns were the illuminated portions of the coma of Venus, which stretched toward the earth. These horns could also have extended toward · the sun as Venus approached the solar orb, since comets were repeatedly observed with projections in the direction of the sun, while the tails of the comets are regularly directed away from the sun.
When Venus approached close to one of the planets,· its horns grew longer: this is the phenomenon the astrologers of Babylon observed and described when Venus neared Mars.74
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Pallas Athene
notes
1 Ginzberg, Legends, IV, 10; the Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Berakhot 54b. See also Midrash of Rabbi Elieser or, of 32 Midot.
2. Seethe Section, "The Most Incredible Story
3 Habakkuk 3 : 3-15.
4 The Old Testament: A New Translation (transl. "James Moffatt, 1924-1925}.
5 Ovid, Metamorphoses (transl. F. J. Miller), Book. II.
6 "Si modo credimus, unum isse diem sine sole ferunt."
7 Plato Timaeus 11s (transl. R. G. Bury, 1929).
8. According to Plutarch (Isis and Osiris) the name of the priest was Sonchis of Sais.
9. Plato Timaeus 22 C-D.
10. J. Gattefosse and C. Roux, Bibliographie de r Atlantide et des questions connexes (1926).
11. A. Herrmann, Unsere Ahnen 11nd Atlamis (1934),
12. F. C. Baer, L'A1/antiq11e des anciens (183S).
13. Plato Timaeus 24 E-25 B.
14 Plato Timaeus 25 C-D.
15 Psalms 9 : 6.
16. Psalms. 46 : 1-3.
17 Genesis 19 : 31.
18 Julius Africanus in TIie Ante-Nicene Fathers, ed. A. Roberts and J. Donaldson (1896), VI, 132.
19 Ibid., p. 134.
20 Eusebius, Werke, Vol. V, Die Chronik, "Chronikon-Kanon.'•
21 The City of God, Bk. XVIII, Chaps. 10, 11.
22 See J. G. Frazer, Folklore in the Old Testament (1918), I, 159.
23 Seth Calvisius, in Opus chronologic 11m (1629), assigns the year 2429 anno mundi or 1519 before the present era to Phaethon's conflagration, and 2432 (-1516) to the Flood of Deucalion, and 2453 (-1495) to the Exodus. Christopher Helvicus (1581-1617), in Theatrum historic 11m (1662), assigns 2437 anno mundi to the Flood of Deucalion and Phaethon's conflagration, and 24S3 (or 797 a Diluvio universale) to the Exodus from Egypt.
24 But cf. Frazer, "Ancient Stories of a Great Flood," Jo11mal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, XLVI (1916). However, I;uscbius placed Deucalion before Ogyges,
25 Cr. Pausanias, Description of Greece, I, xviii, 7. Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encyclopadie, s. v. "Anthesterion"; also Andree, Die Flutsagen, p. 41.
26 "While the meaning of the legend is clear, the meaning of the name Deucalion is enigmatic." Roscher, "Deukalion," Lexikon d. griech. und romisch. Mythologie. According to Homer, Deucalion was a son of Minos, king of Crete, and a grandson of 1.eus and Europa (The Iliad, xiv, 321 ff; 7.iii, 450 f.). According to Apollodorus (The Library, I, vii), Deucalion was a son of Prometheus.
27 Julius Africanus wrote: "After Ogygia [Ogyges], by reason of the vast destruction caused by the flood, the present land of Attica remained without a king up to Cecrops, a period of 189 years." Fragment of the Chronography in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, VI.
28 Numbers 24 : 7. Cf. the vowels in the name in the Hebrew text of I Samuel 15.
29 Aeschylus, The Persians, 1. 37. See also Scholium to Aristides. Cf. Roscher, "Ogyges, als König des ägyptischen Thebes," Lexikon d. griech. und romische Mythologie, Vol. 31, Col. 689.
30 The rabbinical sources say that Amalek went to conquer "the entire world." Seals of the Hyksos kings were found on Crete, in Palestine, in Mesopotamia, and in other places outside Egypt.
31 Cf. Polyhistor, translated by A. Golding (London, 1S87), Chap. xvi, and the translation by Agnant (Paris, 1847), Chap. xi.
32 It seems that the legend of Deucalion contains also elements of the story of the universal Deluge _(of Noah).
chapter 8
1 Ixtli Xochitl, Obras hist6rlcas (ed. 1891-1892 in 2 vols.). French translation of his annals is Histoire des Chichimiques (1840). In the Codex Yaticanus the world ages arc reckoned in multiples of fifty-two years with a changing number of years as an addition to these figures. A. Humboldt (Researches, II, 28) contraposed the lengths of the world ages in the Vatican manuscript (No. 3738) and their lengths in the system of the tradition preserved by tlilxochitl. Four ages of 105 years arc referred to by Censorinus (Liber de die natali) as having taken place, according to the belief of the Etruscans, between world catastrophes presaged by celestial portents.
2. Seder Olam 12. Augustine speaks of 27 years of Joshua's leadership (The City of God, Bk. XVIII, Chap. 11).
3. B. de Sahagun, Historia general de la cosas de Nueva Espana (French transl. by D. Jourdanct and R. Simeon, 1880), Bk. VII, Chaps. X-XIII.
4. Cf. Seier, Gesammelte Abhandlungen, I, 618 ff.
5. W. Gates in De Landa, Yucatan, note to p. 60.
6. This ceremony was described by G. A. Dorsey. See Infra, the Section, "Venus in the Folklore of the Indians."
7. Leviticus 25 : 9 ff.
8.Leviticus 25 : 8-10.
9. Halley's comet has an average period of 77 years, with single periods as short as 74½ years or as long as 79½ years.
10. Leviticus 16 : 8-26. The priests used to cast lots for two goats: one goat for the Lord and the other as the scapegoat for Azazel.
11. Plutarch, Isis and Osiris, 73; cf. Herodotus ii. 46, Diodorus J. 84,4, and Strabo xvii. 1.19.
12. Ginzberg, Legends, V, 152, 170.
13. Ibid., VI, 293. According to another legend, the fallen angcrUzza is chained to the Mountains of Darkness (ibid., V, 170), the Caucasus,
14. see "al-Uzza," Encyclopaedia of Islam (1913-1934), Vol. IV.
15. J. Wellhausen, Reste arablionz Heidentums (2nd ed., 1897), pp. 40-44; C. M. Doughty, Travels in Arabia Deserta (new ed., 1921), II, 516; P. K. Hitti, History of the A.rahs (1937), pp. 98 ff. 1
16.Brasseur, Histoire des nations civilisées du Mexique, I, 181.
17. Seier, Gesammelte A.behandlungen, I, 625.
18 Brasseur, Histoire des nations civi/is~es du Mexique, I, 311.
19 Ibid., I, 120.
20 Brasseur, Sources de l'histoire primitive du Mexique, p. 82.
21 Sahagun, A History of Ancient Me:x,·co (transl. F. R. Bandelier, 1932), p. 26.
22 Brasseur, Sources de l'histoire primitive du Mexique, p. 48
23 Bk. XXI, Chap. 8 (transl. M. Dods).
24.Ginzberg, Legends, VI, 179.
25. Legge, The Chi11ese Classics (Hong Kong ed., 186S), III, Pt. 1, 112, note. '
26. Cf. Cicero De natura deorum (transl. H. Rackham), ii. 52.
27. Theogony, 11. 989 ff.
28. Hyginus, Astronomy, ii. 42.
29. See Roscher, "Phaethon" in Roscher Lexikon d. griech. und rlJm, Mythologie, Col. 2182. 5
30. Nonnus Dionysiaca xi. 130 f.; xii. 217; xix. 182; Solinus, Poly. history xi.
31. Ginzberg, Legends, V, 170.
32. Brasseur, Histoire des nations civilisées du Mexique, I, 311-31;.
33. Williamson, Religious and Cosmic Beliefs of Central Polynesia, I, 120.
34 Ibid., p. 43.
35 Holmberg, Siberian Mythology, p. 432; Alexander, North American•Mythology, p, 9.
36 J. B. J. Delambre, Histoire de l'astronomie ancienne (1817), I, 407: "Venus alone is not found there."
37 "It is often denied that the Veda-Hindus knew of the existence of the five planets." "The striking fact that the Brahmans .•. never mention five planets." G. Thibaut, "Astronomic, Astrologie und Mathematik" in Grundriss der indoarischen Philo/. und Altertumskunde, III (1899).
38 E. F. Weidner, Handbuch der babylonischen Astronomie (191S), p. 61, writes of a star list found in Boghaz Keui in Asia Minor: "That the planet Venus is missing will not startle anybody who knows the eminent importance of the four-planet system in the Babylonian astronomy." Weidner supposes that Venus is missing in the list of planets because "she belongs to a triad with die moon and the sun." On Ishtar in early inscriptions cf. infra, p. 175.
39 'Ibid., p. 83.
40 Apollonius Rhodius, The Argonautica, Bk. iv, II. 257 ff.
41 "Democritus [says] that the fixed stars are in the highest place; after those the planets; after which the sun, Venus, and the moon, in their order." .Plutarch, Morals (transl "by several bands," revised by W. W. Goodwin), Vol. III, Chap. 'XV. d. Roschers Lexikon der Griech. u. Rom. Myth., col. 2182.
42 Hippolytus, The Refutation of All Heresies, I, Chap. XI. Plato, who was a contemporary of Democritus, similarly described the destruction of the earth and its future rebirth in a far-away region of the universe (Timaeus 56 D).
43 Seneca Naturales quaestiones vii. iii
44. 'Aristotle Meteorologica i. 6.
45.Ibid.
46 Ibid.
47 Plutarch, "Les Opinions des philosophes," in <Oeuvres de Plutarque • (transl. Amyot), VoL XXI, Chap. III, Sec. 2,
48 Humboldt, Researches, II, 174; see E.T. Hammy, Codex Telleriano-Remensis (1899).
49. Humboldt, Researches, II, 174.
50. Sahagun, Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España, Bk. VII, Chap. 4.
51.J. Scheftc!'lowitz, Die Zeit als Schicksalsgouheit in der iranischen Religion (1929), p. 4; Venus "aussieht wie ein mit Rauch versehenes Feuer" ("looks like a fire accompanied by smoke"). Cf. Atharva Veda vi. 3, 15.
52 Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Shabbat 1515a.
53. M. Jastrow, Religious Belief in Babylonia a11d Assyria (1911), p. 221; cf. J. Schaumberger, "Der Bart der Venus" in F. X. Kugler, S1tmku11de und Sterndie,ist in Babel (3rd supp., 1935), p. 303.
54."A Prayer of the Raising of the Hand to Ishtar," in Seven Tablets of Creation, ed. L. W. King. 8
55.Schaumberger in Kugler, Slunkunde und Sterndienst in Babel, 3rd supp., p. 291.
56 Ibid.
57 Midrash Rabbah, Numeri 21, 245a: "Noga shezivo mavik rne sof -haolam ad sofo." Cf. "Mazal" and "Noga" in J. Levy, Worterbuch Ober die Talmudim und Midrashim (2nd ed., 1924). n W. C.
58.Rufus and Hsing-chih lien, The Soochow Astronomical Chart (194S).
59 D. D. Luckenbill, Ancient Records of Assyria (1926-1927), II, Sec. 829.
60 Breasted, Records of Egypt, III, Sec. 117.
61. Brasseur, Sources de l'histoire primitive du Mexique, p. 48, note.
62. H. Winckler, Himmels- und Weltbild der Babylon/er (1901), p.43.
63. Pliny, Natural History, ii.
64. "The Peruvians call the planet Venus by the name Chaska, the wavy-haired." H. Kunike, "Sterrunythologie auf ethnologischer Grundlage" In Welt und Mensch, IX-X. E. Nordenskiold1 The Secret of the Peruvian Qulpus (1925), pp. 533 ff.
65 Cf. Thorndike, A. History of Magic and Experimental Science (1923-1941), I, Chap. X. 111
66.Genesis 14 : S. See also I Maccabee v. 26, 43, and II Maccabees xii. 21-26; G. Rawlinson, The History of Herodotus (1858), 11, 543.
67. Ginzberg, Legends, III, 123.
68. I Kings 12 : 28.
69. The Zend-Avesta (translates Darmesteter, 1883), Pt. II, p. 93.
70. E. Otto, Beiträge a:zur Geschichte der Stlerkulte In )egypten (1938).
71 H. Schliemann, Mycenae (1870), p. 217.
72 Williamson, Religious and Cosmic Beliefs of Central Polynesia, I, 128.
73"It· is well known that not a few passages· in the cuneiform texts on astrology speak of the right or the left horn of Venus. It was deduced that the phases of Venus were observed already by the Babylonians and that Galileo, in the sixteenth century, was not the first to see them." Schlumberger, "Die Horner der Venus" in Kugler, Sternkunde, 3rd Supp., pp. 302 ff.
74 Ibid.
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