=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
THE VELIKOVSKY AFFAIR / THE TRILOGY OF TRUTH
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
The following is a lengthy extract from 'Worlds in Collision' by
Immanuel Velikovsky, followed by a few brief extracts from "Earth In
Upheaval" and "Mankind In Amnesia" by the same author.
These pages concern mainly the changes in the calendar on every
continent about 2,700 years ago, which prove beyond any doubt that the
orbits of the planets periodically become unstable, as only the
presence of another large planet very close to the earth about 2,700
years ago could have caused such significant alterations in the orbits
of the earth and of the moon. This essential fact of human existence
is so terrifying that it has been 'bowdlerised' out of the historical
and geological records by unspoken common consent, under the veil of
collective scotoma-amnesia.
The purpose of issuing this compilation is to invite the reader to
investigate further.
Awareness of The Forbidden Subjects comprises the bedrock on which the
edifice of healing must be built. As long as we continue to avoid the
Forbidden Subjects, all our efforts at betterment will continue only
to lead us around in circles, or worse.
------------------------------------------------------------------
RE COPYRIGHT:
The publishing house Victor Gollancz does not seem to exist any more.
If Dr Immanuel Velikovsky were here today he would warmly applaud my
efforts to promote the truth about our solar system and about our
collective scotoma / amnesia, which conceals the true nature of our
world and conceals the true emotional state of humanity.
Copyright laws allow for reproduction of scholarly texts to be
exchanged among students for study purposes on a non-profit basis.
These three titles are still obtainable via the inter-library loan
system in Britain.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Note: for the readers' convenience I have inserted the terms BC and AD
to indicate the dates.
Being Jewish and writing in the 1940s, Dr Velikovsky, preferred not to
use the terms BC and AD.
(The modern terms, CE and BCE, are only useless politically correct
euphemisms for BC and AD.)
------------------------------------------------------------------
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transcript beginning at page 316 / Worlds In Collision by Immanuel
Velikovsky:
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
Chapter VIII
THE YEAR OF 360 DAYS
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
Prior to the last series of cataclysms, when, as we assume, the globe
spun on an axis pointed in a different direction in space, with its
poles at a different location, on a different orbit, the year could
not have been the same as it has been since.
Numerous evidences are preserved which prove that prior to the year of
365 and a quarter days, the year was only 360 days long. Nor was that
year of 360 days primordial; it was a transitional form between a year
of still fewer days and the present year. In the period of time
between the last of the series of catastrophes of the fifteenth
century BC and the first of the catastrophes of the eighth BC, the
duration of a seasonal revolution appears to have been 360 days.1
In order to substantiate my statements, I invite the reader on a world-
wide journey. We start in India. The texts of the 'Veda' period know a
year of only 360 days. 'All Veda texts speak uniformly and exclusively
of a year of 360 days. Passages in which this length is directly
stated are found in all the Brahmanas.' 2 'It is striking that the
Vedas nowhere mention an intercalary period, and while repeatedly
stating that the year consists of 360 days, nowhere refer to the five
or six days that actually are a part of the solar year.'3
This Hindu year of 360 days is divided into twelve months of thirty
days each.4 The texts describe the moon as crescent for fifteen days
and waning for another fifteen days; they also say that the sun moved
for six months or 180 days to the north and for the same number of
days to the south.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Footnotes to page 316:
1=2E W. Whiston, in 'New Theory of the Earth (1696), expressed his
belief that before the Deluge the year was composed of 360 days. He
found references in classic authors to a year of 360 days, and as he
recognized only one major catastrophe, the Deluge, he related these
references to the antediluvian era.
2=2E Thibaut, "Astronomie, Astrologie und Mathematik," 'Grundriss der
indo-arischen Philogie und Alterthumskunde (1899), iii, 7.
3=2E Ibid.
4=2E Ibid.
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page 317 / Worlds In Collision by Immanuel Velikovsky:
The perplexity of scholars at such data in the Brahmanic literature is
expressed in the following sentence: 'That these are not conventional
inexact data, but definitely wrong notions is shown by the passage in
'Nidana-Sutra,' which says that the sun remains 13 and a half days in
each of the 27 'Naksatras,' and thus the actual solar year is
calculated as 360 days long. 'Fifteen days are assigned to each half-
moon period; that this is too much is nowhere admitted.'1
In their astronomical works, the Brahmans used very ingenious
geometric methods, and their failure to discern that the year of 360
days was five and a quarter days too short seemed baffling. In ten
years such a mistake accumulates to fifty-two days. The author whom I
quoted last was forced to conclude that the Brahmans had a "wholly
confused notion of the true length of the year." Only in a later
period, he said, were the Hindus able to deal with such obvious facts.
To the same effect wrote another German author: "The fact that a long
period of time was necessary to arrive at the formulation of the 365-
day year is proved by the existence of the old Hindu 360-day Savana-
year and of other forms which appear in the Veda literature."2
Here is a passage from the 'Aryabhatiya,' an old Indian work on
mathematics and satronomy: "A year consists of twelve months. A months
consists of 30 days. A day consists of 60 nadis. A nadi consists of 60
vinadikas."3
A month of thirty days and a year of 360 days formed the basis of
early Hindu chronology used in historical computations.
The Brahmans were aware that the length of the year, of the month, and
of the day changed with every new world age. The following is a
passage from 'Surya-siddhanta,' a classic of Hindu astronomy. After an
introduction it proceeds: "Only by reason of the revolution of the
ages, there is here a difference of times." The translator of this
ancient manual supplied an annotation to these words: "According to
the commentary, the meaning of these last verses is that in successive
Great Ages... there were slight differences in the motion of the
heavenly bodies." Explaining the term 'bija,' which means a correction
of time in every new age, the book of 'Surya' says "time is the
destroyer of the worlds."
------------------------------------------------------------------
Footnotes to page 317:
1=2E Thibaut, "Astronomie, Astrologie und Mathematic," 'Grundriss der
indo-arischen Philologie und Alterthumskunde (1899), III, 7.
2=2E F. K. Ginzel, "Chronologie," 'Encyklopadie der mathematischen
Wissenschaften (1904-1935), Vol VI.
3=2E 'The Aryabhatiya of Aryabhata,' an ancient Indian work on
mathematics and astronomy (transl. W. E. Clark, 1930), Chap. 3,
"Kalakriya or the Reckoning of Time," p. 51.
4=2E 'Surya-siddhanta: a Text Book of Hindu Astronomy' (transl.
Ebenezer Burgess, 1860).
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Page 318 / Worlds in Collision by Immanuel Velikovsky
The sacerdotal year, like the secular year of the calendar, consisted
of 360 days composing twelve lunar months of thirty days each. From
approximately the seventh pre-Christian century on, the year of the
Hindus became 365 and a quarter days long, but for temple purposes the
old year of 360 days was also observed, and this year is called
'savana.'
When the Hindu calendar acquired a year of 365 and a quarter days and
a lunar month of twenty-nine and a half days, the older system was not
discarded. "The natural month, containing about twenty-nine and a half
days mean solar time, is then divided into thirty lunar days
('tithi'), and this division, although of so unnatural and arbitrary a
character, the lunar days beginning and ending at any moment of the
natural day and night, is, to the Hindu, of the most prominent
practical importance, since by it are regulated the performances of
many religious ceremonies, and upon it depend the chief considerations
of propitious and unpropitious times, and the like."1
The double system was the imposition of a new time measure upon the
old.
The ancient Persian year was composed of 360 days or twelve months of
thirty days each. In the seventh century BC (meaning about 2,700 years
BP, before present), five 'Gatha' days were added to the calendar.2
In the Bundahis, a sacred book of the Persians, the 180 successive
appearances of the sun from the winter solstice to the summer solstice
and from the summer solstice to the next winter solstice are described
in these words: "There are a hundred and eighty apertures ('rogin') in
the east, and a hundred and eighty in the west... and the sun, every
day, comes in through an aperture, and goes out through an aperture....
It comes back to Varak, in three hundred and sisty days and five Gatha
days."3
Gatha days are "five supplementary days added to the last of the
twelve months of thirty days each, to complete the year; for these
days no additional apertures are provided... This arrangement seems to
indicate that the idea of the apertures is older than the
rectification of the calendar (begin page 319 of "Worlds In
Collsion") which added the five Gatha days to an original year of 360
days."1
------------------------------------------------------------------
Footnotes to page 318:
1 'Surya-siddhanta: A Text Book of Hindu Astronomy (transl. Ebenezer
Burgess, 1860), comment by Burgess in note to p. 7.
2 "Twelve months... of thirty days each.. and five Gatha days at the end
of the year." "The Book of Denkart," in H. S. Nyberg, 'Texte zum
mazdayasnischen Kalender (Uppsala, 1934), p. 9.
3 'Bundahis (transl. West), chap V.
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Page 319 / Worlds In Collision by Immanuel Velikovsky
The old Babylonian year was composed of 360 days.2 The astronomical
tablets from the period antedating the Neo-Babylonian Empire compute
the year at so many days, without mention of additional days. That the
ancient Babylonian year had only 360 days was known before the
cuneiform script was deciphered: Ctesias wrote that the walls of
Babylon were 360 furlongs in compass, "as many as there had been days
in the year."3
The zodiac of the Babylonians was divided into thirty-six decans, a
decan being the space the sun covered in relation to fixed stars
during a ten-day period. "However, the 36 decans with their decades
require a year of only 360 days."4 To explain this apparently
arbitrary length of the zodiacal path, the following conjecture was
made: "At first the astronomers of Babylon recognized a year of 360
days, and the division of a circle into 360 degrees must have
indicated the path traversed by the sun each day in its assumed
circling of the earth."5 This left over five degrees of the zodiac
unaccounted for.
The old Babylonian year consisted of twelve months of thirty days
each, the months being computed from the time of the appearance of the
new moon. As the period between one new moon and another is about
twenty-nine and a half days, students of the Babylonian calendar face
the perplexity with which we are already familiar in other countries.
"Months of thirty days began with the light of the new moon. How
agreement with astronomical reality was effected, we do not know. The
practice of an intercalary period is not yet known."6
It appears that in the seventh century BC (2,700 years BP) five days
were added to the Babylonian calendar; they were regarded as
unpropitious, and people had a superstitious awe of them.
The Assyrian year consisted of 360 days; a decade was called a
'sarus;' a sarus consisted of 3,600 days.7
------------------------------------------------------------------
Footnotes to page 319:
1 Note by West on p. 24 of his translation of the Bundahis.
2 A. Jeremias, 'Das Alter der Babylonischen Astronomie' (2nd ed.,
1909) pp. 58 ff.
3 'The Fragments of the Persika of Ktesias' (Ctesiae Persica), ed. J.
Gilmore (1888), p. 38; Diodorus ii. 7.
4 W Gundel, 'Dekane und Dekansterbilder' (1936), p. 253.
5 Cantor, 'Vorlesungen uber Geschichte der Mathematik, I, 92.
6 "Sin" in Roscher, 'Lixikon der griech und rom. Mythologie, Col.
892.
7 Georgius Syncellus, ed. Jacob Goar (Paris, 1652), pp. 17, 32.
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Page 320 / "Worlds In Collision" by Immanuel Velikovsky
"The Assyrians, like the Babylonians, had a year composed of lunar
months, and it seems that the object of astrological reports which
relate to the appearance of the moon and sun was to help to determine
and foretell the length of the lunar month. If this be so, the year in
common use throughout Assyria must have been lunar. The calendar
assigns to each month thirty full days; the lunar month is, however,
little more than twenty-nine and a half days."1 "It would hardly be
possible for the calendar month and the lunar month to correspond so
exactly at the end of the year."2
Assyrian documents refer to months of thirty days only, and count such
months *from crescent to crescent* .3 Again, as in other countries, it
is explicitly the *lunar month* that is computed by the Assyrian
astronomers as equal to thirty days. How could the Assyrian
astronomers have adjusted the length of the lunar months to the
revolutions of the moon, modern scholars ask themselves, and how could
the observations reported to the royal palace by the astronomers have
been so consistently erroneous?
------------------------------------------------------------------
The month of the Israelites, from the fifteenth to the eight century
BC, was equal to thirty days, and twelve months comprised a year;
there is no mention of months shorter than thirty days, nor of a year
longer than twelve months. That the month was composed of thirty days
is evidenced by Deuteronomy 34 : 8 and 21 : 29, where mourning for the
dead is ordered for a "full month," and is carried on for thirty days.
The story of the Flood, as given in Genesis, reckons in months of
thirty days; it says that one hundred and fifty days passed between
the seventeenth day of the second month and the seventeenth day of the
seventh month.4 The composition of this text apparently dates from the
time between the Exodus and the upheaval in the days of Uzziah.5
------------------------------------------------------------------
Footnotes to page 320:
1 R. C. Thompson, 'The Reports of the Magicians and Astrologers of
Nineveh and Babylon in the British Museum, II' (1900), xix.
2 Ibid., p. xx.
3 Langdon and Fotheringham, 'The Venus Tablets of Ammizaduga,' pp.
45-46; C. H. W. Johns, 'Assyrian Deeds and Documents,' IV (1923), 333;
J=2E Kohler and A. Ungnad, 'Assyrische Rechtsurkunden (1913), 258, 3;
263, 5; 649, 5.
4 Genesis 7 : 11 and 24 ; 8 : 4.
5 The other variant of the story of the Flood (Genesis 7 : 17; 8 : 6)
has the Deluge lasting 40 days instead of 150.
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page 321 / Worlds In Collision by Immanuel Velikovsky
The Hebrews observed lunar months. This is attested to by the fact
that the new-moon festivals were of great importance in the days of
Judges and Kings.1 "The new moon festival anciently stood at least on
a level with that of the Sabbath."2
As these (lunar) months were thirty days long, with no months of
twenty-nine days in between, and as the year was composed of twelve
such months, with no additional days or intercalated months, the Bible
exegetes could find no way of reconciling the three figures: 354 days,
or twelve lunar months of twenty-nine and a half days each; 360 days,
or a multiplex of twelve times thirty; and 365 and a quarter days, the
present length of the year.
The Egyptian year was composed of 360 days before it became 365 by the
addition of five days. The calendar of the Ebers Papyrus, a document
of the New Kingdom, has a year of twelve months of thirty days each.3
In the ninth year of King Ptolemy Euergetes, or 238 BC, a reform party
among the Egyptian priests met at Canopus and drew up a decree; in
1866 it was discovered at Tanis in the Delta, inscribed on a tablet.
The purpose of the decree was to harmonize the calendar with the
seasons " according to the present arrangement of the world," as the
text states. One day was ordered to be added every four years to the
"three hundred and sixty days, and to the five days which were
afterwards ordered to be added."4
The authors of the decree did not specify the particular date on which
the five days were added to the 360 days, but they do say clearly that
such a reform was instituted on some date after the period when the
year was only 360 days long.
On a previous page I referred to the fact that the calendar of 360
days was introduced in Egypt only after the close of the Middle
Kingdom, in the days of the Hyksos. The five epigomena must have been
added to the 360 days subsequent to the end of the Eighteenth Dynasty;
the epigomena or, as the Egyptians called them, "the five days which
are above the year," are known from the documents of the seventh and
following centuries.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Footnotes to page 321:
1 Samuel 20 : 5-6; II Kings 4 : 23; Amos 8 : 5; Isiah 1 : 13; Hosea
2 : 11; Ezekiel 46 : 1, 3.
In the bible the month is called *hodesh* , or "the new (moon)," which
testifies to a lunation of thirty days.
2 J. Wellhausen, 'Prolegemena to the History of Israel,' (1885), p.
113.
3 Cf. G. Legge in 'Recueil de travaux relatifs a la philologie et a
l'archeologie egyptiennes et arryriennes (La Mission Francaise du
Claire, 1909).
4 S. Sharpe, 'The Decree of Canopus (1879).
5 E. Meyer, "Agyptische Chronologie," 'Philos. Und hist. Abhandlungen
der Preuss. Akademie der Wissenschaften (1904), p. 8.
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Page 322 / Worlds In Collision by Immanuel Velikovsky
The pharaohs of the late dynasties used to write: "The year and the
five days." The last day of the year was celebrated, not on the last
of the epagomena, but on the thirtieth of Mesori, the twelfth month."1
In the fifth century BC Herodotus wrote: "The Egyptians, reckoning
thirty days to each of the twelve months, add five days in every year
over and above the number, and so the completed circle of seasons is
made to agree with the calendar."2
The 'Book of Sothis,' erroneously ascribed to the Egyptian priest
Manetho,3 and Georgius Syncellus, the Byzantine chronologist,4
maintain that originally the additional five days did not follow the
360 days of the calendar, but were introduced at a later date,5 which
is corroborated by the text of the Canopus Decree.
That the introduction of epagomena was not the result of progress in
astronomical knowledge, but was caused by an actual change in the
planetary movements, is implied in the Canopus Decree, for it refers
to "the amendment of the faults of the heaven." In his 'Isis and
Osiris' 6 Plutarch describes by means of an allegory the change in the
length of the year:
"Hermes playing at draughts with the moon, won from her the seventieth
part of each of her periods of illumination, and from all the winnings
he composed five days, and intercalated them as an addition to the 360
days." Plutarch informs us also that one of these epagomena days was
regarded as inauspicious; no business was transacted on that day, and
even kings "would not attend to their bodies until nightfall."
The new-moon festivals were very important in the days of the
Eighteenth Dynasty. On all the numerous inscriptions of that period,
wherever the months are mentioned, they are reckoned as thirty days
long. The fact that the new-moon festivals were observed at thirty-day
intervals implies that the lunar month was o that duration.
Recapitulating, we find concordant data. The Canopus Decree states
that at some period in the past the Egyptian year was only 360 days
long, and that five days were added at some later date.
------------------------------------------------------------------
footnotes to page 322:
1 E. Meyer, "Agyptische Chronologie," 'Philos. Und hist. Abhandlungen
der Preuss. Akademie der Wissenschaften (1904), p 8.
2 Herodotus, 'History,' Bk. 2, 4 (transl. A. D. Godley).
3 See volume of Manetho in Loeb Classical Library.
4 'Georgii Monachi Chronographia (ed. P. Jacopi Goar, 1652), p. 123.
5 In the days of the Hyksos King Aseth. Buot see the Section "Changes
in the Times and the Seasons."
6 Translated by F. C. Babbit.
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Page 323 / Worlds In Collision by Immanuel Velikovsky
The Ebers Papyrus shows that under the Eighteenth Dynasty the calendar
had a year of 360 days divided into twelve months of thirty days each;
other documents of this period also testify that the lunar month had
thirty days, and that a new moon was observed twelve times in a period
of 360 days. The Sothis book says that this 360-day year was
established under the Hyksos, who ruled after the end of the Middle
Kingdom, preceding the Eighteenth Dynasty.
In the eighth or seventh century BC the five epagomena days were added
to the year under conditions which caused them to be regarded as
unpropitious.
Although the change in the number of days in the year was calculated
soon after it occurred, nevertheless, for some time many nations
retained a civil year of 360 days divided into twelve months of thirty
days each.
Cleobulus, who was counted among the seven sages of ancient Greece, in
his famous allegory represents the year as divided into twelve months
of thirty days: the father is one, the sons are twelve, and each of
them has thirty daughters.1
From the days of Thales, another of the seven sages, who could predict
an eclipse, the Hellenes knew that the year consists of 365 days;
Thales was regarded by them as the man who discovered the number of
days in the year. As he was born in the seventh century BC, IT IS NOT
IMPOSSIBLE THAT HE WAS ONE OF THE FIRST AMONG THE Greeks to learn the
new length of the year; it was in the beginning of that century that
the year achieved its present length. A contemporary of Thales and
also one of the seven sages, Solon was regarded as the first among the
Greeks to find that a lunar month is less than thirty days. 2
Despite their knowledge of the correct measure of the year and the
month, the Greeks, after Solon and Thales, continued to keep to the
obsolete calendar, a fact for which we have the testimony of
Hippocrates ("Seven years contain 360 weeks"), Xenophon, Aristotle,
and Pliny. 3 The persistence of reckoning by 360 days is accounted for
not only by a certain reverence for the earlier astronomical year, but
also its convenience for every computation.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Footnotes to page 323:
1 See Diogenes Laertius, 'Lives of Eminent Philosophers,' "Life of
Thales."
2 Proclus, 'the Commentaries on the Timaeus of Plato (1820); Diogenes
Laertius, 'Lives,' "Life of Solon"; Plutarch, 'Lives,' "Life of
Solon."
3 Aristotle, 'Historia Animalium,' 6. 20; Pliny, 'Natural History,'
34, 12 (transl. Bostock and Riley).
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Page 324 / Worlds In Collision by Immanuel Velikovsky
The ancient Romans also reckoned 360 days to the year. Plutarch wrote
in his "Life of Numa" that in the time of Romulus, in the eighth
century BC, the Romans had a year of 360 days only.1 Various Latin
authors say that the ancient month was composed of thirty days.2
-------------------------------------------------------
On the other side of the ocean, the Mayan year consisted of 360 days;
later five days were added, and the year was then a 'tun' (360-day
period) and five days; every fourth year another day was added to the
year. "They did reckon them apart, and called them the days of
nothing: during the which the people did not anything," wrote J. de
Acosta, an early writer on America.3
Friar Diego de Landa, in his 'Yucatan before and after the Conquest,'
wrote: "They had their perfect year like ours, of 365 days and six
hours, which they divided into months in two ways. In the first the
months were of 30 days and were called 'U' which signifies the moon,
and they counted from the rising of the new moon until it
disappeared."4 The other method of reckoning, by months of twenty
days' duration ('uinal hunekeh'), reflects a much older system, to
which I shall return when I examine more archaic systems than that of
the 360-day year. De Landa also wrote that the five supplementary days
were regarded as "sinister and unlucky." They were called "days
without name."5 Although the Mexicans at the time of the conquest
called a thirty-day period "a moon," they knew that the synodical
period is 29.5209 days,6 which is more exact than the Gregorian
calendar introduced in Europe ninety years after the discovery of
America. Obviously, they adhered to an old tradition dating from the
time when the year had twelve months of thirty days each, 360 days in
all.7
------------------------------------------------------------------
Footnotes to page 324:
1 Plutarch, 'Lives,' "The Life of Numa," xviii.
2 Cf. Geminus,k 'Elenenta Astronomiae, viii; cf. also Cleomedes, 'De
moto circulari corporum celestium, xi, 4.
3 J. de Acosta, 'The Natural and Moral Histories of the Indies,' 1880,
('Historia Natural y maral de las Indias,' Sevillem, 1590).
4 Diego de Landam, 'Yucatan,' p. 59.
5 D. G. Brinton, 'The Mayan Chronicles (1882).'
6 Gates' note to De Landa, 'Yucatan,' p. 59.
7 R. C. E. Long, "Dhronology-Maya," Encyclopaedia Britannica (14th
ed.): "They (the Mayas) never used a year of 365 days in counting the
distance of time from one date to another."
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Page 325 / Worlds In Collision by Immanuel Velikovsky
In ancient South America also the year consisted of 360 days, divided
into twelve months.
"The Peruvian year was divided into twelve Quilla, or moons of thirty
days. Five days were added at the end, called Allcacanquis."1
Thereafter, a day was added every four years to keep the calendar
correct.
We cross the Pacific Ocean and return to Asia. The calendar of the
peoples of China had a year of 360 days divided into twelve months of
thirty days each.2
A relic of the system of 360 days is the still persisting division of
the sphere into 360 degrees; each degree represented the diurnal
advance of the earth on its orbit, or that position of the zodiac
which was passed over from one night to the next. After 360 changes
the stellar sky returned to the same position for the observer on the
earth.
When the year changed from 360 to 365 and a quarter days, the Chinese
added five and a quarter days to their year, calling this additional
period *Khe-ying* ; they also began to divide a sphere into 365 and a
quarter degrees, adopting the new year-length not only in the
calendar, but also in celestial and terrestrial geometry.3
Ancient Chinese time reckoning was based on a coefficient of sixty; so
also in India, Mexico and Chaldea, sixty being the universal
coefficient.
The division of the year into 360 days was honoured in many ways,4 and
indeed it became an incentive to progress in astronomy and geometry,
so that people did not readily discard this method of reckoning when
it became obsolete. They retained their "moons" of thirty days, though
the lunar month in fact became shorter, and they regarded the five
days as not belonging to the year.
------------------------------------------------------------------
footnotes to page 325:
1 Markham, 'The Incas of Peru,' p.117
2 Joseph Scaliger, 'Opus de emendatione temporum,' p. 225; W. Hales,
'New Analysis of Chronology' (1809-1812), I, 31; W. D Medhurst, notes
to pp. 405-406 of his translation of 'The Shoo King' (Shanghai,
1846).
3 H. Murray, J. Crawfurd, and others, 'An Historical and Descriptive
Account of China (p. 235); 'The Chinese Classics, III, Pt. 2, ed.
Legge (Shanghai, 1865), note to p. 21.
Cf. also Cantor, 'Vorlesungen, p 92. "Zurest wurde von den Astronomen
Bybylons das Jahr von 360 Tagen erkannt, und die Kreisteilung in 360
Grade sollte den Weg versinnlichen welchen die Sonne bei ihrem
vermeintlichen Umlaufe um die Erde jeden Tag zurucklegte."
4 C. F. Dupuis ('L'Origine de tous les cultes' [1835-1836], the
English compendium being 'The Origin of All Religious Worship [1872],
p=2E 41) gathered material on the number 360, "which is that of the days
of the year without the epigomena." He refers to the 360 gods in the
"theology of Orpheus," to the 360 eons of the gnostic genii, to the
360 idols before the palace of Dairi in Japan, to 360 statues
"surrounding that of Hobal," worshipped by the ancient Arabs, to the
360 genii who take possession of the soul after death, "according to
the doctrine of the Christians of St. John," to the 360 temples built
on the mountain of Lowham in China, and to the wall of 360 stadia
"with which Semiramis surrounded the city of Babylon. This material
did not convey to its collector the idea that an astronomical year of
360 days had been the reason for the sacredness of the number 36.
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All over the world we find that there was at some time the same
calendar of 360 days, and that at some later date, about the seventh
century BC, five days were added at the end of the year, as "days over
the year," or "days of nothing."
Scholars who investigated the calendars of the Incas of Peru and the
Mayas of Yukatan wondered at the calendar of 360 days; so did the
scholars who studied the calendars of the Egyptians, Persians, Hundus,
Chaldeans, Assyrians, Hebrews, Chinese, Greeks or Romans. Most of
them, while debating the problem in their own field, did not suspect
that the same problem turned up in the calendar of every nation of
antiquity.
Two matters appeared perplexing: a mistake of five and a quarter days
in a year could certainly be traced, not only by astronomers, but even
by analphabetic farmers, for in the short span of forty years - a
period that a person could readily observe - the seasons would become
displaced by more than two hundred days. The second perplexity
concerns the length of a month. "It seems to have been a prevailing
opinion among the ancients that a lunation or synodical month lasted
thirty days."1 In many documents of various peoples, it is said that
the month, or the "moon," is equal to thirty days, and that the
beginning of such a month coincides with the new moon.
Such declarations by ancient astronomers make it clear that there was
no such thing as a conventional calendar with an admitted error; as a
matter of fact, the existence of an international calendar in those
days is extremely unlikely. After centuries of open sea lanes and
international exchange of ideas, no uniform calendar for the whole
world has as yet been devised: the Moslems have a lunar year, based on
the movements of the moon, which is systematically adjusted every few
years to the solar year by intercalation; many other creeds and
peoples have systems of their own containing many vestiges of ancient
systems. The reckoning of months as equal to thirty and thirty-one
days is also a relic of older systems; the five supplementary days
were divided among the old lunar months. But at present the almanac
does not ascribe an interval of thirty days between two lunations or a
period of 360 days for twelve lunations.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Footnote to page 326:
1 Medhurst, 'The Shoo King.'
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The reason for the universal identity of time reckoning between the
fifteenth and the eight centuries BC lay in the actual movement of the
earth on its axis and along its orbit, and in the revolution of the
moon, during that historical period. The length of a lunar revolution
must have been almost exactly 30 days, and the length of the year
apparently did not vary from 360 days by more than a few hours.
Then a series of catastrophes occurred that changed the axis and the
orbit of the earth and the orbit of the moon, and the ancient year,
after going through a period marked by disarranged seasons, settled
into a "slow moving year" (Seneca) of 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes,
46 seconds, a lunar month being equal to 29 days, twelve hours, 44
minutes, 2.7 seconds, mean synodical period.
DISARRANGED MONTHS
As a result of repeated perturbations, the earth changed from an orbit
of 360 days' duration to one of 365 and a quarter days, the days
probably not being exactly equal in both cases. The month changed from
thirty to twenty-nine and a half days. These were the values at the
beginning and at the end of the century of "the battle of the gods."
As a result of the perturbations of that century, there were
intermediary values of the year and the month. The length of the year
probably ranged between 360 and 365 and a quarter, but the moon, being
a smaller (or weaker) body than the earth, suffered greater
perturbations from the contacting body, and the intermediate values of
the month could have been subjected to greater changes.
Plutarch declares that in the time of Romulus the people were
"irrational and irregular in their fixing of the months," and reckoned
some months at thirty-five days and some at more, "trying to keep to a
year of 360 days," and that Numa, Romulus' successor, corrected the
irregularities of the calendar and also changed the order of the
months. This statement suggests a question: Might it not have been
that during the period between consecutive catastrophes the moon
receded to an orbit of thirty-five or thirty -six days' duration?
If, in the period of confusion, the moon actually changed for a while
to such an orbit, it must have been an ellipse or a circle of a radius
larger than before.
Page 328 / Worlds In Collision by Immanuel Velikovsky
In the latter case, each of the four moon phases must have been of
nine days' duration. It is of interest, therefore, to read that in
many sagas dealing with the moon, the number nine is used in measures
of time.1
A series of scholars found that nine days was for a while a time
period of many ancient peoples: the Hindus, the Persians,2 the
Babylonians,3 the Egyptians,4 and the Chinese.5 In religious
traditions, literature, and astrological works, seven days and nine
days compete as a measure of the month's quarter.
In the time of the Homeric epics, the nine-day week became prevalent
in the Greek world. The seven-day week and the nine-day week are both
found in Homer.6 The Romans, too, retained the recollection of a time
when the week had been of nine days' duration.7
The change from a seven-day phase to a nine-day phase is found in the
traditions of the peoples of Romania, Lithuania and Sardinia, and
among the Celts of Europe, and the Mongols of Asia, and the tribes of
West Africa.8
In order to explain this strange phenomenon in time reckoning,
obviously connected with the moon, the suggestion was made that, in
addition to the seven-day phase of the moon, a nine-day phase was also
observed, which is a third of the month.9 But the idea must be
rejected, because a third part of a month of twenty-nine and a half
days would more nearly be ten days and not nine.10 Besides, the
quarter-month phases are easily observable periods during which the
moon increases from new moon to half moon, to full moon, and then
decreases accordingly; but a nine-day period falls between these
phases.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Footnotes to page 328:
1 "The number nine occurs conspicuously in so many sagas which, for
other reasons, I recognised to be moon sagas, that I am convinced that
the holiness of this number has its origin in its very ancient
application in time division." The author of this passage, (E Siecke,
'Die Liebesgeschichte des Himmels, Untersuchungen zur indogermanischen
Sagenkunde [1892] did not suppose a change in the nature of the lunar
cycles, and also was not aware of the work of the scholar referred to
in the following footnote, yet he was forced to believe that nine was
connected with a time subdivision of a month.
2 A. Kaegi, "Die Neunzahl bei den Ostarien," in the volume dedicated
to H. Schweizer-Sidler (1891).
3 Kugler, "Die Symbolik der Neunzahl," 'Babylonische Zeitordnung,' p.
192.
4 E. Naville, 'Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archaeology,'
IV (1875), 1-18.
5 Roscher, 'Die enneadischen und hebdomadischen Fristen und Wochen,'
Vol. XXI , no. 4, of 'Abhandlungen der philol.-histor. Klasse der Kg.
Sachs. Ges. Der Wissenschaften (1903).
6 Roscher, 'Die Sieben- und Neunzahl im Kultus und Mythus der
Griechen, ibid., Vol. XXIV, No 1 (1904): "Die beiden Arten von Fristen
schon bei Homer und ebenso auch im altesten Kultus nebeneinander
vorkommen" (p. 54). "In der Zeit des alteren Epos herrschend gewordene
9-tagige Woche" (p. 73).
7 Cf. Ovid, 'Metamorphoses,' vii. 23 ff.; xiii. 951; xiv. 57.
8 Roscher, 'Die Sieben- und Neunzahl.
9 Roscher, Fristen und Wochen.
10 The sidereal month, or the period of time during which the mon
completes a revolution in relation to the fixed stars is 27 days, 7
hours, 43 minutes. But the hases of the moon change according to the
synodical month of 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes; after a synodical
month the moon returns to the same position in relation to the sun as
viewed from the earth.
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page 329 / Worlds In Collision by Immanuel Velikovsky
Therefore, and in view of the vast material from many peoples, we
conclude that at one time during the century of perturbations, for a
period between two catastrophes, the moon receded to an orbit of
thirty-five to thirty-six days' duration. It remained in such an orbit
for a few decades until, at the next upheaval, it was carried to an
orbit of twenty-nine and a half days' duration, on which it has
proceeded since then.
These "perturbed months" occurred in the second half of the eighth
century BC, at the beginning of Roman history.1 What is more, we have
actual dates like "the 33rd day of the month," cited in the Babylonian
tablets of that period.2
Thus the month which was equal to thirty days, changed to thirty-six
and then to twenty-nine and a half days. The last change was
simultaneous with the change of the terrestrial orbit to one of 365
and a quarter days' duration.
YEARS OF TEN MONTHS
When the month was about thirty-six days and the year between 360 and
365 and a quarter days, the year must have been composed of only then
months. This was the case.
According to many classical authors, in the days of Romulus the year
consisted of ten months, and in the time of Numa, his successor, two
months were added: January and February. Ovid writes: "When the
founder of the city [Rome] was setting the calendar in order, he
ordained that there should be twice five months in his year.... He gave
his laws to regulate the year. The month of Mars was the first, and
that of Venus the second.... But Numa overlooked not Janus and the
ancestral shades [February] and so to the ancient months he prefixed
two."3
Geminus, a Greek astronomer of the first century BC, says similarly
that it was Romulus who (in the eighth century BC) established the
year of ten months.4
------------------------------------------------------------------
Footnotes to page 329:
1 It was probably these changes that caused the god in 'The Clouds' of
Aristophanes to accuse the moon of having brought disorder in the
calendar and in the cult. Aristophanes, 'The Clouds,' II. 615 ff.
2 Kugler, 'Babylonische Zeitordnung,' p. 191, note.
3 Ovid, 'Fasti,' i. 27 ff.
4 Geminus, "Introduction aux phenomenes" in Petau, 'Uranologion
(1630).
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Aulus Gellius, a second century author, writes in his 'Attic Nights:'
"The year was composed not of twelve months but of ten."1 Plutarch
remarks that in his day there was a belief that the Romans, in the
time of Romulus, computed the year "not in twelve months, but in ten,
by adding more than thirty days to some of the months."2 At the
beginning of Numa's reign the ten-month year was still the official
one.3 "March was considered the first month until the reign of Numa,
the full year before that time containing ten months," wrote Procopius
of Caesarea, who lived in the closing years of the Roman Empire.4 The
fact that in Romulus' time, the first month was named in honour of
Mars and the second in honour of Venus shows the importance of these
two deities in that period of history. July was named Quintilis (the
fifth). The difference of two months still survives in the names
September, October, November, December, which denote the seventh,
eighth, ninth and tenth months, but according to present-day reckoning
they are the ninth, tenth, eleventh and twelfth months respectively.
Not only was the year divided into fewer than twelve months, but also
the zodiac, or the path of the sun and moon across the firmament, at
present consisting of twelve signs, at one time had eleven and at
another time ten signs. A zodiac of fewer than twelve signs was
employed by the astrologers of Babylonia, ancient Greece, and other
countries.5 A Jewish song in the Aramaic language which is included in
the Seder Service refers to eleven constellations of the Zodiac.
The calendars of the primitive peoples disclose their early origin by
the fact that many of them are composed of ten months, and some of
eleven months. If the time of the lunar revolution was thirty-five
days and some hours, the year was something over ten months long. The
Yurak Samoyeds reckon eleven months to the year.6 The natives of
Formosa, too, have a year of eleven months.7
------------------------------------------------------------------
Footnotes to page 330:
1 Aulus Gellius, 'Noctes Atticae,' iii. 16.
2 Plutarch, 'The Roman Questions,' xix.
3 Eutropius, 'Brevarium rerum romanorum,' i. 3 says: "Numa Pompilius
divided the year into ten months." This must refer to the beginning of
Numa's reign, when the calendar of Romulus was still valid.
4 Procopius of Caesarea, 'History of the Wars,' Bk. V, 'The Gothic
War' (transl. H. B. Dewing, 1919), Sec. 31.
5 Boll, 'Sternglaube und Sterndeutung,' p. 92; A. del Mar, 'The
Worship of Augustus Caesar,' pp. 6, 11, with references to Ovid,
Virgil, Pliny, Servius and Hyginus.
6 M. P. Nilsson, 'Primitive Time Reckoning' (1920), p 89.
7 A. Wirth, 'The Aboriginies of Formosa,' in 'The American
Anthropologist,' 1897.
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page 331 / Worlds In Collision by Immanuel Velikovsky
The Year of the Kamchadals is made up of then months, "one of which is
said to be as long as three."1 The inhabitants of the Kingsmill
Islands in the Pacific, also called the Gilbert Islands, near the
equator, use a ten-month period for their year.2 In the Marquesas (in
Polynesia, south of the equator) ten months form a year ('tau' or
'puni'), but the actual year of 365 days is also known.3
The Toradja of the Dutch East Indies compute time in moon-months. Each
year, however, a period of two or three months is not brought into the
computation at all, and is omitted in time reckoning.4
The Chams of Indo-China have a calendar of only ten months to the year.
5 The natives in some islands of the Indian Ocean also observe ten
months to the year.6
The aborigines of New Zealand do not count two months in the year.
"These two months are not in the calendar: they do not reckon them;
nor are they in any way accounted for."7
"Among the Yoruba of South Nigeria the three months - February, March,
April - are generally given no specific name."8
These calendars of primitive peoples are similar to the old Roman
calendar. They were not invented in disregard of the solar year
("Years with less than twelve months are to us the strangest of
phenomena."9); their fault is that they are more constant then the
revolution of the earth on her orbit around the sun. The work of
adapting the old systems to a new order is still evident in the
systems of the aborigines of Kamchatka, South Nigeria, the Dutch East
Indies, and New Zealand. Instead of introducing two additional months,
as in the reform of Numa, one of the months is extended to triple its
length, or a period equivalent to two months is not counted at all in
the calendric system.
------------------------------------------------------------------
footnotes to page 331:
1 A Schiefner, 'Bulletin de l'Academie de St. Petersbourg, Hist.-phil.
Cl.,' XIV (1857), 198, 201, f.
2 H. Hale, 'Ethnography and Philology:' U.S. Exploring Expedition,
1838-42, VI (1846), 106,170.
3 G. Mathias, 'Lettres sur les Isles Marquises (1843), 211.
4 N. Adriani and A. C. Kruijt, 'De Bare'e-sprekende Toradja's
(1912-1914), II, 264.
5 Frazer, 'Ovid's Fasti' (1931), p. 386.
6 Ibid.
7 W. Yate (English missionary in the early part of the nineteenth
century), quoted in Frazer, 'Ovid's Fasti,' p. 386.
8 Ibid.
9 Nilsson, 'Primitive Time Reckoning,' p. 89.
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The abundance of proofs of the existence of a ten-month year is even
embarrassing.
Since the period when the year was composed of ten months of thirty-
five to thirty-six days each was short, how could this ten-month year
leave so many vestiges in the calendar systems all over the world? The
answer to this question will become simple when we shall find that
this was the second time in the history of the world that the year was
composed of ten months. In a much earlier age, when the year was of an
entirely different length, one revolution of the earth was also equal
to ten revolutions of the moon. We shall trace this period in history
in a succeeding volume of this work.
THE REFORMING OF THE CALENDAR
In the middle of the eighth century BC the calendar then in use became
obsolete. From the year 747 BC until the last of the catastrophes on
the twenty-third of March 687 BC, the solar and lunar movements
changed repeatedly, necessitating adjustments of the calendar. Reforms
undertaken during this time soon became obsolete in their turn, and
were replaced by new ones; only after the last catastrophe of 687 BC,
when the present world order was established, did the calendar become
permanent.
Some of the clay tablets of Nineveh found in the royal library of that
city1 contain astronomical observations made during the period before
the present order in the planetary system was established. One tablet
fixes the day of the vernal equinox as the sixth of Nisan: "On the
sixth of the month Nisan, the day and night are equal." But another
tablet places the quinox on the fifteenth of Nisan. "We cannot explain
the difference," wrote a scholar.2 Judging by the accurate methods
employed and the precision achieved in their observations, the
stargazers of Nineveh would not have erred by nine days.
In the astronomical tablets of Nineveh "three systems of planets" are
extensively represented; single planets are followed in all their
movements in three different schedules. For the movements of the moon
there are two different systems.3 Each of these systems is carried out
down to the smallest detail, but only the last system of the planets
and of the moon conforms to the present world order.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Footnotes to page 332:
1 The palace of Nineveh was the residence of Sargon II, Sennacherib,
Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal.
2 J. Menant, 'La Bibliotheque du palais de Ninive (1880), p 100.
3 Kugler, 'Die babylonische Mondrechnung: |wei Systeme der Chaldaer
uber den Lauf des Mondes und der Sonne,' pp. 207-209.
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page 333 / Worlds In Collision by Immanuel Velikovsky
According to Tablet No. 93, the perihelion, or the point on the
earth's orbit that is nearest the sun, is defined as the twentieth
degree of the sign of the zodiac called the Archer; at aphelion, when
the earth is farthest from the sun, the sun is said to be at the
twentieth degree of Gemini. Accordingly, these points are designated
as stations of the fastest and slowest solar motion. "But the real
position of the apsides decidedly contradicts these statements."1
Another tablet, No. 272, seventy years younger than the first, gives
very different data for the perihelion and aphelion, and the scholars
wonder at this.
All the numerous data on solar movements in one of the systems lead to
one and the same conclusion. "The solstitial and equinoctial points of
the ecliptic lay 6=B0 too far to the east."2
"The distances travelled by the moon on the Chaldean ecliptic from one
new moon to the next are, according to Tablet No. 272, on the average
3=B0 14=A2 too great."3 This means that during a lunar month the moon
moved a greater distance in relation to the fixed stars than the
present observation shows.
In Tablet No. 32, the movement of the sun along the zodiac is
precisely calculated in degrees, and the station of the sun at the
beginning of each lunar month is determined exactly; but it is "a
perplexing presentation of the ununiform movement of the sun. The
question is insistent: why is it that the Bablyonians formulated the
nonuniformity of the solar movement precisely in this way?"4
As the various systems recorded in the astronomical tablets of Nineveh
show, the world order changed repeatedly in the course of a single
century. Hence the Chalean astronomers had the task of repeatedly
readjusting the calendar. "From certain passages in the astrological
tablets it is easy to see that the calculation of times and seasons
was one of the chief duties of the astrologers in Mesopotamia."5 The
scholars ask: how could these men, employed for that very purpose,
have made the egregious mistakes recorded in the tablets, and carried
these mistakes over into systems in which the movements of the sun,
the moon, and the five planets were recorded with repetitions at
regular intervals, these movements and intervals being consistently
different from the present celestial order?
------------------------------------------------------------------
Footnotes to page 333:
1 Kugler, 'Die Babylonische Mondrechnung: Zwei Systeme der Chaldaer
uner den Lauf des Mondes und der Sonne,' p. 90.
2 Ibid., p. 72.
3 Ibid., p. 90.
4 Ibid., p. 67.
5 R. C. Thompson, 'The Reports of the Magicians and Astrologers of
Nineveh and Babylon,' II. xviii.
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page 334 / Worlds In Collision by Immanuel Velikovsky
How could the stargazers who composed the earlier tablets be so
careless as to maintain that the year is 360 days long, a mistake that
in six years accumulates to a full month of divergence; or how could
the astronomers of the royal observatories announce to the king the
movements of the moon and its phases on the wrong dates, though a
child can tell when the moon is new,1 and then record all this in very
scholarly tablets requiring advanced mathematical knowledge?2 Hence
scholars speak "of enigmatic mistakes."3
However, it appears to us that the tablets with their changing
astronomical systems reflect the changing order of the world and
consequent attempts to adjust the calendar to the changes.
When the cataclysm of the 23rd of March 687 BC brought about another
disturbance in the length of the year and the month, the new standards
remained uncertain until they could be calculated anew in a series of
investigations.
From the time of that catastrophe until about the year 669 0r 667 BC,
no New Year festivals were observed at Babylon.4 "Eight years under
Sennacherib, twelve years under Esarhaddon: for twenty years... the New
Year's festival was omitted," says an ancient chronicle on a clay
tablet.5 According to cuneiform inscriptions, in the days of Sargon II
a new world age began, and in the days of his son Seencherib another
world age.6 In the days of Assurbanipal, son of Esarhaddon, son of
Sennacherib, the planetary movements, the precession of the equinoxes,
and the periodic returns of the eclipses were recalculated, and these
new tablets, together with the older ones or copies of the older ones,
were stored in the palace library at Nineveh. The tablets from Nineveh
provide the best possible opportunity to learn how the order of the
world changed in the eighth and seventh centuries BC.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Footnotes to page 334:
1 "The class of magicians who calculated the length of the months and
published information concerning them formed a very important section
of the Babylonian and Assyrian priesthood" Ibid., p. xxiii.
2 C. Bexold, 'Astronomie, Himmelschau und Astrallehre bei den
Babyloniern,' in 'Sitzungsberichte der Heidelberger Akademie der
Wissenschaften, philos.-histor. Klasse,' 1911, expresses the opinion
that before the sixth century BC the Babylonians were unaware of the
relative lengths of the solar year and 12 lunar months. See also
Gundel, 'Dekane und Dekansternbilder,' p. 379.
3 Kugler, 'Die Mondrechnung,' p. 90.
4 S. Smith, 'Babylonian Historical Texts,' p. 22.
5 Ibid., p. 25
6 A. Jeremias, 'Der alte Orient und die agyptische Religion' (1907, p.
17; Winckler, 'Forschungen, III, 300.
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Repeated changes in the course of the sun across the firmament led the
astronomers of Babylonia to distinguish three paths of the sun: the
Anu path, the Enlil path and the Ea path. These three paths created
much difficulty for the writers on Babylonian astronomy, and many
explanations were offered and as many rejected.1 The Anu, Enlil and Ea
paths of the planets across the sky appear to denote the successive
ecliptics in various world ages. Like the sun, the planets in
different times moved along the Anu, Enlil and Ea paths.
In the Talmud 2 a number of scattered passages deal with a calendric
change made by Hezekiah. The Talmud was written about a thousand years
after Hezekiah, and not all details of the reform are preserved; it
states that Hezekiah doubled the month of Nisan.
In later times, in order to adjust the lunar year to the solar year,
an intercalary month was added every few years by doubling the last
month of the year, Adar. This system of an intercalary Adar is
preserved in the Hebrew calendar to this day.
The rabbis wondered why Hezekiah added another Nisan (the first
month). The story is told in the Scriptures that Hezekiah, instead of
celebrating Passover in the first month, put off the feast to the
second month.3 The Talmud explains that it was not the second month,
but an additional Nisan.
It must be noted that in Judea in the days of Hezekiah the months were
not called by Babylonian names, and therefore the situation should be
stated as follows: Hezekiah, after the death of Ahaz, and before the
second invasion of Sennacherib, added a month and postponed the feast
of Passover. According to the Talmud this was done to make the lunar
year correspond more closely to the solar year. As we shall see, there
appears to be some similarity between this action and that by Numa at
about the same time.
What permanent changes Hezekiah introduced in the calendar is not
stated, but it is apparent that at that time calendar reckoning became
a complicated matter.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Footnotes to page 335:
1 Bezold, 'Zenit und Aequatorialgestirne am Babylonischen
Fixsternhimmel (1913), p. 6; M. Jastrow, 'The Civilization of
Babylonia and Assyria (1915), p. 261
2 Tractate Berakhot 10b; Pesahim 56a; other sources in Ginzberg,
'Legends,' VI, 369.
3 II Chronichles 30.
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As Moses in his day "could not understand how to compute the calendar
until God showed him the movements of the moon plainly," so in the
days of Hezekiah the determination of the month and of the year became
a matter, not of calculation, but of direct observation, and could not
be performed much in advance. Isaiah called the astrologers "the
monthly prognosticators."1
As we have already said, there is in the Talmud 2 the information that
the Temple of Solomon was built so that on the equinoctial days of the
year the direction of the rays of the rising sun could be tested. A
gold plate or disc was affixed to the eastern gate: through it the
rays of the rising sun fell into the heart of the Temple. The Festival
of the Tabernacle (Sukkoth) "was originally an equinoctial festival as
Exodus 23 : 16 and 34 : 22 state explicitly, celebrated during the
last seven days of the year, and immediately preceding the New Year's
Day, the day of the fall equinox, upon the tenth of the seventh
month."3 In other words, New Year's Day, or the day of the autumnal
equinox, was observed on the tenth day of the seventh month, the day
when the sun rose exactly in the east and set exactly in the west, the
Day of Atonement falling on the same day.4 Thereafter, the day of the
New Year was moved back to the first day of the seventh month. We may
note that not only on the Jewish calendar, but also according to the
Babylonian tablets, the equinoctial dates were displaced by nine days:
one tablet says that in the spring day and night are equal on the
fifteenth of the month Nisan; another tablet says that it takes place
on the sixth of the same month. This indicates that the change in the
calendar of the feasts observed in Jerusalem followed astronomical
changes.
The eastern gate of the Temple of Jerusalem was no longer correctly
oriented after the cardinal points had become displaced. On his
accession to the throne following the death of Ahaz, Hezekiah
"inaugurated a sweeping religious reformation."5 II Chronicles 29 : 3
ff. says: "He in the first year of his reign, in the first month,
opened the doors of the house of the Lord and repaired them."
Apparently the natural changes in terrestrial rotation which took
place in the days of Uzziah and again on the day of the burial of
Ahaz, necessitated a reform. Hezekiah therefore gathered the priests
"into the east street" and spoke to them, saying that "our fathers
have trespassed" and "have shut up the doors of the porch."
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Footnotes to page 336:
1 Isaiah 47 : 13
2 Talmudic references may be found in the article cited in the
following footnote.
3 Morgenstern, "The Gates of Righteousness," Hebrew Union College
Annual, VI (1929), p 31.
4 Morgenstern says: "Upon the tenth of the seventh month Israel
celebrated originally, not the Day of Atonement, but the New Year's
Day." Ibid., p. 37.
5 Ibid., p. 33.
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page 337 / Worlds In Collision by Immanuel Velikovsky
In the pre-Exilic period it was held "to be of imperative necessity
that on two days of the year the sun shone directly through the
eastern gate," and "through all the eastern gates of the Temple
arranged in line, directly into the very heart of the Temple proper."1
The eastern gate, also called "sun gate," served not only to check on
the equinoxes, when the sun rises directly in the east, but on the
solstices as well: a device on the eastern gate was designed to
reflect the first rays of the sun on the summer and winter solstices,
when the sun rises in the southeast and the northeast, respectively.
According to Talmudic authorities, the early prophets experienced much
difficulty in making this arrangement work.2
From biblical times vestiges of three calendar systems remain,3 and
this assumes a special interest in view of the fact we noted some
pages back, namely, the tablets from Nineveh record three different
systems of solar and planetary movements, each of which is complete in
itself and differs from the others at every point.
It appears that the adjustment of the calendar, following the
initiation of the new world order in the days of Hezekiah, was a long
and tedious process. As late as one hundred years after Hezekiah,
during the Babylonian exile, in the days of Solon and Thales,
Jeremiah, Baruch and Ezekiel drew up the calendar from year to year.4
When the Jews returned from the Babylonian exile, they brought with
them their present calendar, in which the months are called by Assyro-
Babylonian names.
"For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will [do] make,
shall remain before me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your
name remain," reads the closing chapter of the Book of Isaiah. All
flesh will come to worship the Lord "from one new moon to another, and
from one Sabbath to another." The "new heavens" means a sky with
constellations or luminaries in new places. The prophet promises that
the new sky will be everlasting and that the months will keep forever
their established order.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Footnotes to page 337:
1 Ibid., pp. 17, 31.
2 The Jerusalem Talmud, Tractatte Erubin 22c.
3 Morgenstern, "The Three Calendars of Ancient Israel," Hebrew Union
College Annual, I (1924), 13-78.
4 The Jerusalem Talmud, Tractatte Sanhedrin I, 19a.
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page 339 / Worlds In Collision by Immanuel Velikovsky
Daniel, the Jewish sage at the court of Nebuchadnezzar, king of the
Exile, when blessing the Lord, said to the king: "He changeth the
times and the seasons."1 This is a remarkable sentence which is also
preserved in many Jewish prayers. By the change of seasons or
"appointed dates" (moadim) is meant an alteration in the order of
nature, with shifting of solstitial and equinoctial dates and the
festivals connected with them. "The change of times" could refer not
only to the last change, but to the previous ones also, and it was
"the change of the times and the seasons" that was followed by
calendar reforms.
The old Hindu astronomical observations offer a set of calculations
different from those of the present day. "What is extraordinary are
the durations assigned to the synodical revolutions... To meet in Hindu
astronomy with a set of numerical quantities widely differing from
those generally accepted is indeed so startling that one at first
feels strongly inclined to doubt the soundness of the text... Moreover,
each figure is given twice over."2
In the astronomical work of Varaha Mihira, the recorded synodical
revolutions of the planets, which are easy to calculate against the
background of the fixed stars, are about five days too short for
Saturn, over five days too short for Jupiter, eleven days too short
for Mars, eight or nine days too short for Venus, less than two days
too short for Mercury. In a solar system in which the earth revolves
around the sun in 360 days, the synodical periods of Jupiter and
Saturn would be about five days shorter than they are at present, and
that of Mercury less than two days shorter. But Mars and Venus of the
synodical table of Varaha Mihira must have had orbits different from
their present ones, even if the terrestrial year was only 360 days.
Calendric changes in India were effected in the seventh century BC: at
that time, as in China also, the ten-month year was supplanted by a
twelve-month year.3
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Footnotes to page 338:
1 Daniel 2 : 21
2 G.Thibaut, p.xlvii of his translation of the 'Panchasiddhantika,'
the astronomical work of Varaha Mihira (Benares, 1889).
3 A. del Mar, 'The Worship of Augustus Caesar,' p. 4.
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page 339 / Worlds In Collision by Immanuel Velikovsky
In the eighth century BC a calendar reform was made in Egypt. We have
already referred to a cataclysm during the reign of the Pharaoh
Osorkon II of the Libyan Dynasty; another disturbance of a cosmic
nature took place a few decades later, still in the time of the Libyan
Dynasty.
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Sosenk III "there occurred a
remarkable prodigy of uncertain nature, but in some way connected with
the moon."1 The contemporaneous document written by the royal son, the
high priest Osorkon, reads: "In the year 15, fourth month of the third
season, 25th day, under the majesty of his august father, the divine
ruler of Therbes, before heaven devoured (or: not devoured) the moon,
great wrath arose in this land."2 Soon thereafter Osorkon "introduced
a new calendar of offerings."3 The mutilated condition of the
inscription makes it impossible to determine the exact nature of the
calendric reform.4
It appears that the same or a similar disturbance in the movement of
the moon is the subject of an Assyrian inscription, which speaks of
the moon being obstructed on its way. "Day and night it was
handicapped. In its august station it did not stand." Because of the
duration of the phenomenon, it is concluded that "it could not mean an
eclipse of the moon."5 The reference to the moon's unwonted position
also precludes such an interpretation.
At the end of the eighth or the beginning of the seventh century BC,
the people of Rome introduced a calendar reform. In the preceding
section we referred to Ovid's statement in 'Fasti' concerning the
reform of Romulus, who divided the year into ten months, and the
reform of Numa, who "prefixed" two months. Plutarch's "Life of Numa"
contains the following passage, part of which has already been quoted:
"He [Numa] applied himself, also, to the adjustment of the calendar,
not with exactness, and yet not altogether without careful
observation. For during the reign of Romulus, they had been irrational
and irregular in their fixing of the months, reckoning some at less
than twenty days, some at thirty-five, and some at more; they had no
idea of the inequality in the annual motions of the sun and moon, but
held to the principle only that the year should consist of three
hundred and sixty days."6
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Footnotes to page 339:
1 Breasted, 'Records of Egypt,' IV, Sec. 757.
2 Ibid., Sec 764. See controversy in 'Zeitschrift fur agyptische
Sprache,' VI (1868).
3 Breasted, 'Records of Egypt,' IV, Sec. 756.
4 A. Erman, Zeitschrift fur agyptische Sprache,' XLV (1908), 1-7.
5 P. Jensen, 'Die Kosmologie der Babylonier,' p 39.
6 Plutarch, 'Lives,' "The Life of Numa" (transl. B. Perrin).
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page 340 / Worlds In Collision by Immanuel Velikovsky
Numa reformed the calendar, and the "correction of the inequality
which he made was destined to require other and greater corrections in
the future. He also changed the order of the months."1
Numa was a contemporary of Hezekiah.2
In the second half of the seventh century BC, the length of the new
month and the new year was calculated by the Greeks. Diogenes Laertius
regarded Thales the Milesian, one of the "seven sages of antiquity,"
as the man who discovered the number of days in the year and the
length of the seasons. In his 'Life of Thales' he wrote: "He was the
first to determine the sun's course from solstice to solstice." And
again: "He is said to have discovered the seasons of the year and to
have divided it into 365 days."3 He was the first to predict eclipses
of the sun and to fix the solstices."4 Thales is said to have written
two treatises, one "On the Solstice" and the other "On the Equinox,"
neither of which is extant.
If the natural year always was what it is now, it is very strange that
this discovery should have been attributed to a sage who lived as late
as the seventh century BC, when Egypt and Assyria were already very
old kingdoms, and when the dynasty of David was in its last decades.
The longest and shortest days of the year, and thus the length of the
year, are easily determined by the length of the shadow. Thales is
said to have been born in the first year of the thirty-fifth Olympiad
or 640 BC. The progress of culture would hardly leave to one and the
same person the calculation of the days in a year, which is a simple
matter, and the calculation of forthcoming eclipses, which is an
advanced achievement. Similarly, the fact, as stated by Plutarch and
Diogenes Laertius, that Solon, another sage of the same period,
adjusted the months to the motion of the moon after finding that the
time from one new moon to another is half a day shorter than thirty
days, must be understood as an adjustment of the calendar to the new
order in nature. The span of time from one new moon to another is a
natural time division, almost as easily observable as day and night;
primitive peoples, unable to read or write, know that the period is
less than thirty days.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Footnotes to page 340:
1 Plutarch, 'Lives,' "The Life of Numa" (transl. B. Perrin).
2 Cf. Augustine, 'The City of God,' Bk. XVIII, Chap. 27.
3 Diogenes Laertius, 'Lives of Eminent Philosophers' (English transl.
R=2E D. Hicks, 1925).
4 Ibid., see also Herodotus i. 74.
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page 341 / Worlds In Collision by Immanuel Velikovsky
On the other side of the globe, the people of Peru reckoned time from
the day of the last cataclysm, and this method of computation was in
use when the Europeans reached that country from the beginning of the
sixteenth century.1
After the last cataclysm, the times and the seasons were computed
anew. Kin Inti-Capac-Yupanqui ordered astronomical observations and
calculations to be made, the result of which was a calendar reform,
and the year, previously of 360 days, "was changed to 365 days and 6
hours."2
"This Ynca appears to have been the first to order and settle
ceremonies... He it was who established the twelve months of the year,
giving a name to each, and ordaining the ceremonies that were to be
observed in each. For although his ancestors used months and years
counted by the quipus, yet they were never previously regulated in
such order until the time of this lord."3
"All Toltec histories mention an assembly of sages and astrologers
that was convoked in the city of Huehue-Tlapallan for the purpose of
working on the correction of the calendar, and the reforming of the
computation of the year, which was recognized as erroneous and which
had been employed until that time."4
Half a meridian away, across the Pacific Ocean, a calendar was
introduced in Japan in 660 BC, and the reckoning of years in that
country starts from that year.
In China, the astronomer Y-hang in the year 721 BC announced to the
Emperor Hiuen-tsong that the order of the sky and the movements of the
planets had changed, which made it impossible to predict eclispses;
and he referred to other authorities who asserted that in the tim eof
Tsin the planet Venus used to move 40 degrees to the south of the
ecliptic and eclipse the star Sirius. Y-hang explained that the course
of the planet Venus changed in the days of Tsin.5
------------------------------------------------
Footnotes to page 341:
1 Brasseur, 'Manuscrit Troano,' p. 25.
2 F. Montesinos (fl. 1628-1639), 'Memorias antiguas historiales del
Peru, II, Chap. 7.
3 Christoval de Molina (fl. 1570 to 1584), 'An Account of the Fables
and Rites of the Yncas,' trans. And ed. C. R. Markham (1873), p. 10.
4 Brasseur, 'Histoires des nations civilisees du Mexique,' p. 122.
Among his sources were Ixtlilxochitl, 'Sumaria relacion,' etc.; M.
Veytia (1718-1779), 'Historia antigua de Mexico,' I (1944), Chap 2.
5 A Gaubil, 'Histoire de l'astronomie chinoise (1732), pp. 73-86.
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page 342 / Worlds In Collision by Immanuel Velikovsky
All around the globe the years following 687 BC saw activity directed
toward reforming the calendar. Between 747 BC AND 687 BC the calendar
was in a chaotic state, the length of the year and of the month, and
probably also of the day, repeatedly changing. Before the eighth
century BC there was a comparatively long span of time when the year
had 360 days and the lunar month consisted of almost exactly thirty
days.
Neither the calendar, nor the celestial charts, nor the sundials, nor
the water clocks of the time before 687 BC were adequate for their
purpose after that year. Values subsequently established in different
parts of the terrestrial globe have remained practically unchanged
down to the present save for very small improvements resulting from
the more precise calculations of modern times. This stability of the
calendar is due to the fact that the celestial order has remained
unaltered: no changes in the heavenly order were observed except for
minor perturbations between the planets which have no visible effect
on their motion. Thus we are lulled into the belief - which is wishful
thinking - that we live in an orderly universe.
In the language of a modern scientist: "Though the order of the
succession of events in the heavens is often somewhat complex, it is
nevertheless systematic and invariable. The running of no clock ever
approached in precision the motions of the sun, the moon and the
stars. In fact, to this day clocks are regulated by comparing them
with the apparent diurnal motions of the heavenly bodies. Since not
merely a few but hundreds of celestial phenomena were long ago found
to be perfectly orderly, it was gradually perceived that majestic
order prevails universally in those regions in which , before the
birth of science, capricious gods and goddesses were believed to hold
domain."1
However, as we have learned from the records of ancient times, the
order today is not the primeval order; it was established less than
twenty-seven centuries ago
when the moon was placed in orbit,
when the silver sun was planted,
when the Bear was firmly stationed.2
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Footnotes to page 342:
1 F. R. Moulton, 'The World and Man as Science Sees Them,' p. 2.
2 'Kalevale,' Rune, 3.
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This presentation is an attempt to capture the essence of Dr Immanuel
Velikovsky's three vital volumes - THE TRILOGY OF TRUTH - in a
relatively brief series of extracts, offered to other students of
Velikovsky - not for sale or resale and to be used only as a study aid
for students of Velikovsky.
We now revert to pages 307 et seq. of Worlds In Collision.
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pages 307 - 308 / Worlds In Collision by Immanuel Velikovsky
THE SHADOW CLOCK
The poles changed their locations; all latitudes were displaced, the
axis changed its direction; the number of days in the year increased
from 360 to 365 and a quarter, a fact demonstrated in a [previous]
section; the length of the day probably also altered. Of course, a
sundial or shadow clock from before 687 BC can no longer serve the
purpose for which it was devised, but it might well be of use in
proving our assumption.
Such a clock, originating from the period between circa 850 BC and 720
BC, was found in Faijum in Egypt at latitude 27=B0. A horizontal slab
with hour marks has at one end a shadow-casting vertical hob.1 This
shadow clock cannot show correctly the change of time in Faijum or
elsewhere in Egypt. A scholar who investigated its working came to the
conclusion that it must have been kept with its head to the east in
the forenoon and to the west in afternoon, and several scholars agreed
that this was the way to use the clock. But this arrangement by itself
did not make it possible to read the time. "Since all actual hour
shadows lie substantially closer to the hob than the corresponding
marks of the instrument, the shadow-casting edge must have been higher
over the shadow-receiving plane than we find it to be. The upper edge
cannot be the shadow-caster of the instrument; it must have been on a
parallel line above this edge."2 "The marks were also not made on the
basis of actual observations, but must have been taken from some
theory or other."3 But, as a critic remarked, "this theory implies
that at no season of the year did the clock denote the hours
correctly, without an hourly alteration of the height of that part of
the instrument which cast the shadow."4
As the clock has no device to adjust the height of the head, it is
improbable that this hourly manipulation took place. Besides, in order
to change the height of the head every hour, in itself an impractical
method, it would have been necessary to have another clock to show the
hours without any manipulation, thus indicating the exact moment when
the first clock had to be adjust ed. But if there was a clock that
could show the hours correctly without adjustment, what purpose did
the shadow clock serve?
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Footnotes to page 308 (Worlds In Collision):
1 The Egyptian day was divided into hours that represented equal
portions of time between sunrise and sunset, independently of the
length of the day.
2 L. Borchardt, "Altagyptische Sonnenuhren," 'Zeitschrift fur
agyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde,' XLVIII (1911), 14.
3 Ibid., p. 15.
4 J. MacNaughton, "The Use of the Shadow Clock of Seti I," 'Journal of
the British Astronomical Association,' LIV, No. 7 (Sept. 1944).
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page 309 / Worlds In Collision by Immanuel Velikovsky
Another explanation has therefore been offered for the manner in which
the Egyptian sundial was used. The author of the new idea supposes
that at some early date (the precession of the equinoxes being taken
into consideration), the shadow clock was used at some latitude in
Egypt on the day of the summer solstice. He admits: "Account has,
however, not been taken of change in the declination of the sun
between sunrise and sunset... For other seasons of the year it would be
necessary at each hour or each clock reading, either to alter the
height of the hob, or tilt the st't [clock] or both. Indeed, when the
sun had south declination, and even when it had slight north
declination, it would always be necessary to do both. The inference
is, therefore, that the clock was originally used at or near the time
of the summer solstice."1 The problem of adjustment for each reading
once more crops up in this explanation, again requiring some better
means of knowing the exact time. The conclusion at which the author of
this explanation arrives - that originally the clock was built for a
single day - is rather odd and defies the very purpose for which
clocks are constructed. And even if a clock were to be read only once
a year, the author of this theory could not make the specimen found in
Faijum work, but only a similar clock that had been found broken in
pieces; and this he could do only by having recourse to the precession
of the equinoxes and by referring the clock to a period many hundreds
of years earlier than chronologists assume.
The shadow clock found at Faijum, built under the Libyan Dynasty,
between about 850 and 720 BC, may help us to learn the length of the
day, the inclination of the pole to the ecliptic, and the latitudes of
Egypt in that historical period. A change in any of these three
factors would have made the clock obsolete as an instrument for time
reading, and probably all three factors did change.
We do not possess the sundial of King Ahaz, but we do have the shadow
clock used in Egypt in the period before the last catastrophe of 687
BC and possibly before the catastrophe of 747 BC.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Footnote to page 309:
1 J. MacNaughton, "The Use of the Shadow Clock of Seti I," 'Journal of
the British Astronomical Association,' LIV, No. 7 (Sept. 1944).
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page 310, Worlds In Collsion by Immanuel Velikovsky
THE WATER CLOCK
Besides the gnomon or sundial, the Egyptians used the water clock,
which had the advantage over the former of showing time during the
night as well as during the day.
A complete example was found in the Amon Temple of Karnak (Thebes),
25.5=B0 north of the equator. This water clock dates from the time of
Amenhotep III of the Eighteenth Dynasty, father of Ikhnaton. The jar
has an opening through which water flows out; marks are incised on the
inner surface of the jar to indicate the time. Since the Egyptian day
was divided into hours, which changed in length with the length of the
day, the jar has different sets of markings for the various seasons of
the year. Four time points are prominently important: the autumnal
equinox, the winter solstice, the vernal equinox, and the summer
solstice. The equinoxes have equal days and nights in all latitudes.
But on the solstices, when either the day or the night is the longest
of the year, the length of the daylight varies with the latitude: the
farther from the equator, the greater is the difference between the
day and the night on the day of the solstice. This difference also
depends on the inclination of the equator to the plane of the orbit or
ecliptic, which at present is 23 and a half degrees. Should this
inclination change, or in other words, should the polar axis change
its astronomical position (direction), or should the polar axis change
its geographical position with each pole shifting to another point,
the length of the day and night (on any day except the equinoxes)
would change too.
The water clock of Amenhotep III presented its investigator with a
very strange time scale.1 Calculating the length of the day of the
winter solstice, he found that the clock was constructed for a day of
11 hours 18 minutes, whereas the day of the solstice at 25=B0 north
latitude is 10 hours 26 minutes, a difference of fifty-two minutes.
Similarly, the builder of the clock reckoned the night of the winter
solstice to be 12 hours 42 minutes, whereas it is 13 hours 34 minutes
- fifty-two minutes too short.
On the summer solstice, the longest day, the clock anticipated a day
of 12 hours 48 minutes, whereas it is 13 hours and 41 minutes, and a
night of 11 hours 12 minutes, whereas it is 10 hours 19 minutes.
On the vernal and autumnal equinoxes the day is 11 hours and 56
minutes long, and the clock actually shows 11 hours and 56 minutes;
the night is 12 hours 4 minutes long, and the clock shows exactly 12
hours 4 minutes.
The difference between the present values and the values of the day
for which the clock is adjusted is very consistent: on the winter
solstice the day of the clock is fifty-two minutes longer than the
present day of the winter solstice in Karnak, and the night is fifty-
two minutes shorter; on the summer solstice the day is fifty-three
minutes shorter on the clock and the night fifty-three minutes
longer.
The figures on the clock show a smaller difference between the length
of daylight on the solstices or between the longest and shortest days
of the year than is observed at Karnak at the present time. Thus the
water clock of Amenhotep III, if it was correctly built and correctly
interpreted, indicates that either Thebes was closer to the equator or
that the inclination of the equator toward the ecliptic was less than
the present angle of 23 and a half degrees. In either case the climate
of the latitudes of Egypt could not have been the same as it is in our
age.
As we find from the present research, the clock of Amenhotep III
became obsolete in the middle of the eighth century BC; and the clock
that might have replaced it at that time would have been made obsolete
in the catastrophes of the end of the eight and the beginning of the
seventh centuries BC, when once more the axis changed its direction in
the sky and its position on the globe as well.
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Footnote to page 310:
1 L. Borchardt, 'Die altagyptische Zeitrechnung (1920), pp. 6-25.
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EARTH IN UPHEAVAL
"Earth In Upheaval" is the second volume of what I sometimes call THE
TRILOGY OF TRUTH by Immanuel Velikovsky.
The reality of our lives, the truth about our history and the truth
about our emotional state - are so far removed from what the average
person believes, so far removed from the fake debates in the media and
from the fake debates in the universities - that it is very difficult
to mention anything truthful, anything realistic, to the average
person.
How can we convey the truth to human beings when their beliefs and
their assumptions are so far removed from reality. It's too big a leap
for average people to make. You can't mention the truth to average
people. If you do, they'll soon make you regret it.
By the mid-1950s, Velikovsky understood well what he was up against,
and he stated in the preface to "Earth In Upheaval:"
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"This book was not written for those who swear by the verba magistri -
the holiness of their school wisdom; and they may debate it without
reading it...."
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"Earth In Upheaval" by Immanuel Velikovsky is there if you are ready
to face it. If you cannot obtain it anywhere else, I can send a full
photocopy of it to you on request at cost price, loose unbound pages,
not for resale but for study purposes among fellow students only.
The section titled 'The Hippopotamus,' reproduced below, is a fairly
mild introduction to this uniquely shocking book, a book which reveals
that the so-called "science" of "geology" is only a farce, that
"geology" is not science at all but is only a pack of lies, just like
the Vivisection Swindle, a symptom of our collective mental illness of
scotoma-amnesia, a denial of what the surface of the earth is so
clearly revealing to us about our true history.
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=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
The following, then, is a mild 'taster' of "Earth In Upheaval" by
Immanuel Velikovsky.
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
THE HIPPOPOTAMUS
The hippopotamus inhabits the larger rivers and marshes of Africa. It
is not found in Europe or America save in zoological gardens where
specimens of it wallow most of the time in pools, submerging their
huge bodies in muddy water. Next to the elephant it is the largest of
the land animals. Bones of hippopotami are found in the soil of
Europe as far north as Yorkshire in England.
Lyell gave the following explanation for the presence of the
hippopotamus in Europe:
"The geologist ...may freely speculate on the time when herds of
hippopotami issued from North African rivers, such as the Nile, and
swam northward in summer along the coasts of the Mediterranean, or
even occasionally visited islands near the shore. Here and there they
may have landed to graze or browse, tarrying awhile, and afterwards
continuing their course northward. Others may have swum in a few
summer days from rivers in the south of Spain or France to the Somme,
Thames or Severn, making timely retreat to the south before the snow
and ice set in."
An Argonaut expedition of hippopotami from the rivers of Africa to the
isles of Albion sounds like an idyll.
In the Victorian cave near Settle, in West Yorkshire, 1,450 feet above
sea level, under twelve feet of clay deposit containing some well-
scratched boulders, were found numerous remains of the mammoth,
rhinoceros, hippopotamus, bison, hyena and other animals.
In northern Wales in the Vale of Clwyd, in numerous caves remains of
the hippopotamus lay together with those of the mammoth, the
rhinoceros and the cave lion. In the cave of Cae Gwyn in the Vale of
Clwyd, "during the excavations it became clear that the bones had been
greatly disturbed by water action." The floor of the cavern was
"covered afterwards by clays and sand containing foreign pebbles.
This seemed to prove that the caverns, now 400 feet above sea level
must have been submerged subsequently to their occupation by the
animals and by man... The contents of the cavern must have been
dispersed by marine action during the great submergence in mid-glacial
times, and afterwards covered by marine sands..." writes H. B. Woodward.
Hippopotami not only travelled during the summer nights to England and
Wales, but also climbed hills to die peacefully among other animals in
the caves, and the ice, approaching softly, tenderly spread little
pebbles over the travellers resting in peace, and the land with its
hills and caverns in a slow lullaby movement sank below the level of
the sea and gentle streams caressed the dead bodies and covered them
with rosy sand.
Three assumptions were made by the exponents of uniformity: sometime
not long ago the climate of the British Isles was so warm that
hippopotami used to visit there in summer; the British Isles subsided
so much that caves in the hills became submerged; the land rose again
to its present height - and all this without any action of a violent
nature.
Or was it, perchance, a mountain-high wave that crossed the land and
poured into the caves and filled them with marine sand and gravel? Or
did the ground submerge and then emerge again in some paroxysm of
nature in which the climate also changed? Did the animals run away at
the sign of the approaching catastrophe, and did the trespassing sea
follow and suffocate them in the caves that were their last refuge and
became the place of their burial? Or did the sea sweep them from
Africa, throw them in heaps on the British Isles and in other places,
and cover them with earth and marine debris? The entrances to some
caves were too narrow and the caves themselves too "shrunk" to have
been places of refuge for such huge animals as hippopotami and
rhinoceroses. Whichever of these answers or surmises is correct, and
whether the hippopotami lived in England or were thrown there by the
ocean, whether they sought refuge in caves or the caves are but their
graves, their bones on the British Isles, as also on the bottom of the
seas surrounding these islands, are signs of some great natural
change.
"THE HIPPOPOTAMUS" - from "Earth in Upheaval" by Immanuel Velikovsky.
Reproduced with reasonably presumed permission as a study note for
fellow students of Velikovsky to illustrate the wealth of evidence
that catastrophes (=3Dpoleshifts =3D'the end of the world') have occurred
repeatedly within historical times.
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
MANKIND IN AMNESIA
This is the third volume in what I sometimes call Velikovsky's TRILOGY
OF TRUTH.
To avoid 'information overload,' it's best to be brief.
The following is from the cover blurb for 'Mankind In Amnesia:'
------------------------------------------------------------------
"An eloquent message from an inspired genius who seeks to save mankind
from looming self-destruction." - Hyman Spotnitz, M.D., Med. Sc. D.
"Immanuel Velikovsky was one of the great thinkers of our time. His
first epoch-making book, 'Worlds In Collision,' kindled a worldwide
debate - undiminished after three decades - of such fervour as is
reserved only for books that lay bare new fundamentals...............
'Mankind In Amnesia,' ......is the product of a lifetime of brilliant
analytical insights. In this thought-provoking document, Velikovsky
undertakes to reveal the hidden springs of our irrational behaviour.
The global catastrophes of ancient times, as Velikovsky shows, had
devastating effects on the human psyche. Collectively, mankind acts
like an amnesia victim seeking to relive a traumatic experience.
Though surrounded by literary, geological and astronomical evidence of
our violent heritage, we try to avoid the realisation that earth-
wrenching cataclysms have occurred - as recently as a hundred
generations ago. Yet only by understanding our past can we overcome
the urge to re-enact the scene of planetary devastation, this time
with man the agent as well as the victim. The horrifying truth, so
long as it remains unrecognised, is a powerful force urging us toward
our doom.
"If the human race is not made able to face its past, the traumatic
experience that caused cultural amnesia will demand repetition."
------------------------------------------------------------------
There is a need to avoid 'information overload.' There follows here
only a brief few extracts from this amazingly rich and revelatory
volume, 'Mankind in Amnesia.'
------------------------------------------------------------------
page 39 / Mankind In Amnesia by Immanuel Velikovsky:
..=2E...........The narrative (of 'Worlds In Collision') is horrifying and d=
oubly
so. On the one hand is the anguished, bloodcurdling spectacle of our
forebears suffering the paroxysms of nature. On the other hand is the
horrifying realisation that we were brought up in a deception - in a
view of the past which is but a guile that dulled our inquiry, put our
vibrant curiosity to sleep, taught us, together with our statesmen,
philosophers and scientists, a lesson of apathy as to our true
destinies, and at the same time imbued us with the self-assurance that
nothing earth-shaking can happen to us.
------------------------------------------------------------------
page 52 / Mankind In Amnesia by Immanuel Velikovsky
"ARISTOTLE AND AMNESIA
(The following section [extract here] by Professor Lynn E. Rose was
prepared at [Velikovsky's] suggestion.)
Almost every page of the writings of Aristotle raises two nagging
questions: (1) "Why would anyone say that?" and (2) "Why have people
throughout the ages admired a person who said such things?" These
questions can best be answered in terms of Velikovsky's reconstruction
of interplanetary near-collisions and in terms of his concept of
collective cultural amnesia.
The core and the frame of Aristotle's system is his cosmology, which
not only has been the most influential of all cosmological theories,
but also is the most excessive of all such theories in its
astronomical uniformitarianism. ..... Aristotle's entire system seems
specifically designed to eliminate the very possibility of worlds in
collision. That has been the reason for its enduring popularity and
appeal...... "
(amazingly revelatory section, truncated here to avoid 'information
overload.')
----------------------------------------------------------------
page 71 / Mankind In Amnesia by Immanuel Velikovsky
DARWIN
The extent to which the fear of recognition that we travel on an
accident-prone [planet] governs the thinking of modern science can be
exemplified by a few instances.
Charles Darwin, as a young naturalist, visited South America....
He wrote in his 'Journal' ....
'=2E.......... the mind at first is irresistibly hurried into the belief of
some great catastrophe; but thus to destroy animals, both large and
small, in Southern Patagonia, in Brazil, on the Cordillera of Peru, in
North America up to Behrings's Straits, we must shake the entire
framework of the globe....... Certainly no fact in the long history of the
world is so startling as the wide and repeated exterminations of its
inhabitants.........'
..=2E........Having seen what he did in South America, Darwin could not but
embrace catastrophism............... Yet, two decades later Darwin propound=
ed a
non sequitur in ascribing all changes in the animal kingdom to a very
slow evolution through competition...... because the idea of a shaking of
the entire globe was mentally beyond him........... The plot now being
settled, the drama... could go on without any fear that the stage itself
would collapse.... Obviously there was a psychological need in Darwin to
shut his eyes to contrary evidence, but also a similar need in both
the academic and the lay society to get rid of the natural revolution
by embracing natural evolution.... None of the arguments that could have
been used against him was utilised by his opponents.......... None of [the]
contradictions between his diary observations and his views in his
major work was raised by any of his opponents... The success of Darwin,
the speedy acceptance of his theory by academia, and the penetration
of his theory into all things spiritual and material of the last
hundred years were due to his assurance that the frame of this globe
had never been shaken.
------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------
End of extracts from THE TRILOGY OF TRUTH - referring to the three
vital volumes by Immanuel Velikovsky titled "Worlds In Collision,"
"Earth In Upheaval," "Mankind In Amnesia."
------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------
Objection Overruled
-------------------------------
The following is the reply to some objections to the article titled
"The Trilogy of Truth."
Regarding the changes in the calendar 2,700 years ago, nobody has
ever replied to that point in a rational manner.
To say it was a case of advances in science, or due to invasions or
cultural influences, is not valid.
To measure the number of days in a year is not science.
If you call it science, it's as elementary as science can get.
A child or an illiterate farmer can easily measure the number of days
in a year with near-total accuracy, for example by means of a shadow
clock (sundial) or aligning any object with the rising or setting
sun. It's a type of elementary 'science,' but it's as easy as 2+2=3D4,
almost, and anyone can do it.
An error of five days in the measurement of the year 2,800 years ago
among the ancient Hindus, the ancient Greeks, the Maya, etc. is
unthinkable. They were not imbeciles. They were highly cultured and
their achievements in architecture are a demonstration of their
accurate powers of observation and measurement. They had two eyes and
they could record the length of a shadow on successive days, just as
any child or any illiterate farmer can do.
If they all said the year had 360 days at that time, it was because
the year had 360 days at that time.
As Velikovsky shows, everybody on every continent 2,800 years ago
recorded the length of the year as 360 days, and that could only have
been because the earth completed an orbit of the sun in 360 days at
that time.
Then, about 2,700 years ago, on every continent, the year suddenly
and abruptly came to be measured at 365 days.
This was not an advance in science, because no advanced science was
ever required to measure the number of days in a year. It is
something any child or any illiterate peasant can do.
Also this was not due to cultural influences or invasions.
As Velikovsky demonstrates, the sudden change from a year of 360 days
to a year of 365 days was universal on all continents and at the same
time, independent of any invasions and common to civilisations so far
apart that they did not know of each other's existence.
The ONLY explanation is the presence of a full-sized planet very
close to the earth 2,700 years ago. No other force could have shifted
both the earth and the moon into significantly different orbits.
Such events terrorised and traumatised our ancestors to such a degree
that we have lapsed into amnesia and, by unspoken consent,
we 'bowdlerise' these pivotal events out of the historical and
geological records.
These near-collisions between the earth and other planets take place
at irregular intervals and for differing reasons or causes.
They repeatedly wrecked civilisations, plunging humanity back to the
state of survivalist emergency, with ensuing inter-tribal wars for
the limited resources remaining.
Crucially, the emergency male leadership discerned the causal link
between child abuse and the ferocity of the tribe's soldiers.
The more children are abused, the more viciously they will fight on
the battlefield.
Thus, the tribe which most ruthlessly abused its babies and growing
children was the tribe which was going to come out on top.
So, after each succeeding interplanetary near-collision, humanity
degenerated into an inter-tribal competition to see which tribe could
harden its heart the most so as to abuse its children even MORE than
competing tribes............
The outcome was that the WORST of humanity survived - the ones who
were the most ruthless, the most cruel toward their children, so as
to produce the most ferocious warriors.
And we never came out of survivalist mode after the vegetation grew
back.
That explains the state of the world today.
And that explains why we don't remember our infancy in this type of
civilisation.
The mother-infant relationship is still today a system of
institutionalised child abuse, quite deliberately devised and imposed
for the purpose of rejecting and tormenting every baby to reduce
babies to soldier material.
It's too painful and too embarrassing for the human mind to
contemplate. So we had to take refuge in amnesia and so we don't
remember our infancy under present conditions.
We don't have to go on like this, surrendering to the forces of
negativity in a competition to surpass every other tribe at child
abuse every time we revert to the state of survivalist emergency.
We can stand back and take a look at ourselves and resolve to behave
with a bit of MATURITY and in a future survivalist emergency.
The road back to decency is long and hard.
I've been asking people to make a start, to sow a good seed in the
collective consciousness, which may come to fruition among some
isolated pockets of survivors after the next collapse.
The thought is father to the deed;
I'm asking you to sow the seed.
----------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------
COMMENTARY
Why offer these extracts to other progressive humans? The answer has
been supplied by Velikovsky himself in 'Mankind In Amnesia:'
"The horrifying truth, so long as it remains unrecognised, is a
powerful force urging us toward our doom.
"If the human race is not made able to face its past, the traumatic
experience that caused cultural amnesia will demand repetition."
And you can see that happening all around you at an accelerating rate.
We have this inner compulsion to recreate and relive the forgotten
survivalist emergencies in which all human behaviour is rooted.
THE VIVISECTION SWINDLE - ITS UNIQUE SIGNIFICANCE
Our failure - our emphatic refusal - to put a stop to the Vivisection
Swindle is the most glaring example of our determination to destroy
ourselves, to restore the earth and ourselves to another state of
survivalist emergency. If not by any other means, the avalanche of
"animal tested" (=3DUNTESTED) poisons pouring out of the vivisection
laboratories will eventually destroy us completely and return the
human race to the conditions of a new survivalist emergency. Our
refusal to end the Vivisection Swindle, such refusal having been
formalised in 1990 with our collective suppression of the Citizens'
Arrest Initiative, in favour of the ongoing FAKE DEBATE on vivisection
in the media, demonstrates most prominently our determination to
destroy the earth's life support system in order to relive the ancient
trauma which is the wellspring of human insanity.
All human beings, without any exception anywhere, have demonstrated
that they WANT that avalanche of "animal tested" (=3DUNTESTED) poisons
to keep on coming out of the vivisection laboratories.
So it is going to happen. We've made our decision. We surrendered
finally to our collective insanity in 1990 when we formally
surrendered to the Vivisection Swindle. Now only the time scale for
our self destruction is in doubt, but not the final outcome.
The total destruction of our civilisation is coming, possibly in our
lifetimes, possibly later. We made that decision quite definitely in
1990 when we surrendered to the Vivisection Swindle - effectively and
formally embarking on collective suicide by self poisoning, while
pretending we're not really doing it, the pretence maintained via the
soothing, comforting FAKE DEBATE on vivisection in the media and in
the bogus 'antivivisection' organisations. So 1990 was the pivotal
year of modern times, the year when we finally surrendered to our self-
destruct impulse. And the most important events in human history do
not get mentioned in the mainstream newsmedia.
We view the documentaries on World War Two and we haughtily parade our
righteous indignation and outrage at how Goebbels could have poisoned
his own children.
And we fail to see that we - all of us collectively - made exactly the
same decision to murder our own children by slow poison when we
endorsed the Vivisection Swindle and gave our full consent and backing
to the avalanche of "animal tested" (=3DUNTESTED) poisons back in 1990.
So if you are honest about it, you too - whoever you may be - are
murdering your children by poison, just as Goebbels did.
(Perhaps you can 'do a deal' with your conscience on the Vivisection
Swindle and get the charge reduced to manslaughter on ground of
brainwashing. Either way, murder or manslaughter, our collective
surrender to the Vivisection Swindle in 1990 was a sad and tragic
collective failure for the human race.)
I had to say that to you, because it is true, and there is a powerful
psychological urge in us to unveil all hidden truths in the Last Days
of a dying civilisation.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
HOPE
Our only hope of healing / decency / dignity lies in 'Plan B.'
After the coming destruction of our civilisation, if you are left
alive and if conditions are favourable, look for ways of building
something decent that may last for about a thousand years.
If your part of the world is sufficiently isolated from the newly
emerged continental land masses, it could be as long as a thousand
years before the missionaries and colonists come again to drag the
whole world back down to survivalist mode, as happened in the South
Pacific a few hundred years ago when the missionaries arrived. So it's
a job worth doing.
There is even the possibility that a sane civilisation may spread over
most of the globe again, as happened twelve thousand 'years' ago,
prior to the major 'deluge.'
LET'S AVOID ONE ANOTHER LIKE THE PLAGUE WHILE STILL IN SURVIVALIST
MODE
Survivalist-mode beings ARE the emotional plague.
Healing is impossible - even UNTHINKABLE - in our present era.
Do not contact me (unless to clarify any details). There is nothing
useful we can do together now. No progress can be made in the present
era, only after the coming destruction.
What you CAN do now is to begin to THINK straight, in the privacy of
your own mind. Just start making your plans for the future. Read at
the links below, read Velikovsky too, at least saving the above
extracts from the Trilogy of Truth for your future reference, and then
do your own thinking on whether you want to get some real wor |
