Ancient textual evidence for planetary catastrophe?

[nick c]

Babylonian (Venus Tablets of Amizaduga) clay tablets found in an astronomical library of Assurbanipal in Nineveh, 17 years of simple and matter of fact observations of Venus that don't make any sense and cannot be made to fit modern retrocalculations. No matter how one
analyzes the data one of two conclusions must be reached, either the Babylonians made grossly untrustworthy observations or they are describing a different order of the solar system.

I recently read an explanation of this which explained away the apparent discrepancy. I can't remember what it was and to be honest I don't have the requisite astronomical knowledge to make a judgement one way or t'other. My own understanding of things can accomodate the planets in any configuration so it's not an issue with me.

It should be 21 years not 17 as I wrote in the above quote.
I would be interested in reading how this discrepancy was "explained away." Can you cite a source? All mainstream attempts to explain the [url2=http://www.geocities.com/astrologysourc ... ablets.htm]Venus tablets [/url2] of Amizaduga (aka Ninsianna tablets) have involved changing the entries that the Babylonians made and attributing it to scribal error. While there is such a thing as scribal error, these attempts usually involve the wholesale rewriting of the observations in order to fit the presently observed movements of Venus.
Rose and Vaughn have studied the tablets extensively trying figure out possible orbits of Earth and Venus that could match the observations.

The irony is that both Velikovsky and his critics were drawing upon exactly
the same evidence, namely, the Babylonian-Venus tablets. But when you
examine the content of those tablets, they turn out to support Velikovsky and
not his critics. Those uniformitarians who do take tablets seriously seem to
be either unfamiliar with or oblivious to their contents. How else could
Kaempffert say that the Babylonians "saw the planet exactly as we see it?"
How else coud Stephens say that: "As I consider the texts in their entirety I
get quite the opposite impression [i.e., that Venus was not moving
irregularly at the time these observations were made]"? How else could
Neugebauer say that: "From the purely astronomical viewpoint these
observations are not very remarkable"? Such statements fly in the face of
the Venus tablets, for there is no way the tablets can be reconciled with the
present motions of Venus, except by denying, in one way or another, that the
Babylonians saw what they saw.

http://www.kronia.com/library/journals/ventablt.txt

If I remember correctly Rose and Vaughn determined that a possible fit involved Venus with an inner orbit but with the Earth on a different orbit. In any event the tablets do not conform to the uniformitarian concept of the solar sytem.
The Venus Tablets are actually a valuable piece of textual evidence as in the topic of this thread. They are basically cut and dried observations of Venus' invisibilities and returns. They show that the Babylonians were either:
1. complete idiots and couldn't make routine observations that a high school science student could do for his science fair project
or,
2. were just fabricating the observations for whatever purpose, and then going to extraordinary effort to copy them onto numerous clay tablets
or,
3. Venus' movements as observed from Earth were different than today and to the Babylonians this was of grave concern

Furthermore, the Dresden Codex shows that something is amiss with the apparent motion of Venus:

Indian and Central American records also show Venus moving on
an orbit other than its present one. Ginenthal cites Evan
Hadingham ("Early Man and the Cosmos):

"The Venus pages [of the Dresden Codex] bear little
resemblance to a modern astronomical table."

Ginenthal goes on to say:

"Since Hadingham, like the astronomers who dealt with the
Babylonian tables cannot conceive nor accept this evidence
that Venus' orbit was different in the past, an analysis is
created to dispose of this information. This is so in spite
of Hadingham's asserting the following regarding Mayan
astronomy:

'The precision of the observations documented in the few
surviving hieroglyphic books is astonishing. For instance,
one book contains a scheme for the correction of Venus
observations [present variety as opposed to the distant past]
which ensures an accuracy of approximately two hours in five
hundred years... How were they able to score such phenomenal
success in their observations?'"

http://www.skepticfiles.org/neocat/ammi.htm

Also, there is a passage in the Old Testament which speaks of the positions of Venus and discrepencies in the ordering of the solar system, in the book of Isaiah, 14 : 12-13, concerning [url2=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucifer#La ... rning_Star]Lucifer[/url2] which is another latin name for Venus:

How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut to the ground, which didst weaken nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God.

This passage is remarkable! as Velikovsky pointed out, Venus of today is never seen very far away from the Sun. Therefore it is always low on the horizon either before sunrise or after sunset as a morning or evening star. But the author of this passage is saying that
1.Venus once appeared directly over head and
2.that it resulted in catastrophes "which didst weaken nations" and
3.it was subsequently "cut to the ground," that is, restricted to its' present low, near the horizon positions.

nick c

[Grey Cloud]

Hi Nick,
Undoubtedly myths contain cosmological themes. However, the cosmology is part and parcel of the over-riding philosophy or worldview (weltanschauung). It is not simply a case of them watching to see if 'something wicked this way comes'. Similarly, the anthropomorphisation,
whether added later or not, reflects this worldview.
Ancient peoples across the world built from the top down, if you will, in that they took their understanding of what the cosmos was about and tried to build their societies and individual lives in concordance or harmony with it. They believed that they were part of the cosmos,
whereas we moderns tend to think that we are merely in it. We think we have conquered the Earth and are now setting out to conquer space.
One should also bear in mind that the ancients did not differentiate between philosophy, science and religion as we do today. That which we call mythology was actually someones philosophy, religion and science.
You used the phrase 'the obsession with and fear of world destruction' but where is the evidence for this? If they were so obsessed and fearful how come references to catastrophic events are so few and far between? Why did they not spell out in plain language what had happened in the past and what they believed would happen again in the future?
When I use the term 'Ancient Wisdom' I am referring to a specific body of knowledge rather than the general intelligence of ancient peoples.

Below is the full account of what Critias relates about the myth of Phaeton etc.
There have been, and will be again, many destructions of mankind arising out of many causes; the greatest have been brought about by the agencies of fire and water, and other lesser ones by innumerable other causes.There is a story, which even you have preserved, that once upon a time Paethon, the son of Helios, having yoked the steeds in his father’s chariot, because he was not able to drive them in the path of his father, burnt up all that was upon the earth, and was himself destroyed by a thunderbolt. Now this has the form of a myth, but really signifies a declination of the bodies moving in the heavens around the earth, and a great conflagration of things upon the earth, which recurs after long intervals; at such times those who live upon the mountains and in dry and lofty places are more liable to destruction than those who dwell by rivers or on the seashore. And from this calamity the Nile, who is our never-failing saviour, delivers and preserves us.
When, on the other hand, the gods purge the earth with a deluge of water, the survivors in your country are herdsmen and shepherds who dwell on the mountains, but those who, like you, live in cities are carried by the rivers into the sea. Whereas in this land, neither then
nor at any other time, does he water come down from above on the fields, havng always a tendency to come up from below; for which reason the traditions preserved here are the most ancient.
Plato Timaeus, p10. (Jowett trans). Which can be dowloaded from here:
http://www2.hn.psu.edu/faculty/jmanis/plato.htm
Texts by various other authors can be got from here:
http://www2.hn.psu.edu/faculty/jmanis/jimspdf.htm

Having re-read this and re-thought about it, I have had to alter my opinion that it was the Earth moving rather than something in the heavens. I agree with your four points with the small caveat that I would use educated rather than skilled in writing (I'm thinking of the oral tradition and the prodigious memories of these people).
As I mentioned when the Phaeton myth was discussed earlier in the thread, the part about Egypt being untouched by either fire or flood appears to be at odds with, for instance, Velikovsky's claims re the Exodus.

You Euripedes link wasn't that informative as I could only gain access to the one page (I hate jstor for this). In any case, the academic writing the piece would have been totally oblivious to, or would have simply ignored anything that hinted at catastrophe. I haven't read the Euripedes play as I'm not a great one for plays and the theatre, but I would not be surprised if there was an esoteric element to the play which was about the planets or catastrophe. I don't know enough about Euripedes and his works to make a decision one way or the other.

You wrote:

Is it not easy to see, that as a myth is told and retold, by people who have no direct experience with planetary catastrophes (or are not capable of considering the possibility) that the meaning would be lost and the original celestial protagonists given human character with all its' accompanying flaws and virtues?

It was there in black and white in Plato's work. Why would those who read Plato not have seen it and understood it? The average man in the street no more thought for himself then than he does now. One of the reasons for the anthropomorphisation of these tales was to make them
popular with the masses to help ensure that they were not lost over time (quantity versus quality). The thinking person would see through the exoteric meaning and look for the esoteric.

Thanks for the Solinus and Varro update, I checked out the passage in Augustine. Basically we have Augustine citing Varro who is in turn citing two other authors about an event which happened in pre-history (even of their time). I'm not saying that this totally invalidates it,
just that it's not quite the open and shut case that Velikovsky makes out. Augustine later states that the planet went back to its original course after a short time.

Unfortunately I can't find an online English rendition of the Solinus piece.

[Grey Cloud]

Grey Cloud wrote:

Native American fire myths. To me they appear as variations on a theme as they all originated from the survivors of the same culture who were left isolated for an unknown post-catastrophe period.

GC,
As i think nick and maguey have previously indicated, i would also respectfully caution against lumping all 'American' indigenies into the same ethno/cultural gene pool.
Without digging up a bunch of academic references, let me propound my extensively researched trivial opinion that there were at least two waves of immigrants to the New World, separated by tens of millennia. The earlier probably being coincident with the "aborigonies' arrival in Australia.
BTW, to you down-under ancient history buffs- any anecdotes pertaining to global catastrophes there ??

s

Hi seasmith,
I'm not saying anything about gene pools as I don't put much credence into the stuff the 'experts' are saying about DNA etc. I personally see those that we presently call 'Native Americans' or 'first peoples' to be those that occupied the Americas, whether all or parts thereof, after a catastrophe, i.e. they filled the void left after the destruction of the previous occupants. Practically every people on the planet claims to have originally come from somewhere other than where they are now.
I'm not so sure about the tens of millenia either.
Here's a couple of links to a couple of news stories from earlier this year:
The voyage to America
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/ ... 040308.php

Footprints in the ash
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic ... in_the_ash

This first one gives 14,340ya and the second gives 40,000 ya.
I've taken my eye off the ball on this over the last couple of months but earlier this year there was a constant stream of new finds etc relating to the populating of the Americas. The main group of scholars is sticking with the Bering land bridge but there is a smaller group advocating arrival by sea. Why it has to be either/or is beyond me. Given the length of the eastern and western coastlines of the Americas, I don't see anything radical in suggesting that some may have arrived by sea. There is also the added factor that the oceans were much lower then and island-hopping may well have been an option. The Polynesians covered vast distances across the Pacific in their ocean-going canoes. [The concept of an ocean-going canoe is an oxymoron to a landlubber like me].

I'll second that request for anything about the Australian aborigines

[Grey Cloud]

Hi Nick,
Re the Tablets of Amizaduga. Part of what I read came from here:
http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/velstcol.html

Basically, if one takes out the puffery, innuendo, pop psychology, and ad hominem attacks, Rose's positive arguments boil down to: a) a misinterpretation of the early Sumerian symbol for a bundle of reeds [representing the door posts on the birthing huts that were sacred to
Inanna, still seen today in reed huts in southern Iraq] as a comet; and b) an assertion that the Venus tablets constitute no evidence of events in the 17th, 16th, or 15th centuries B.C., because calculation ought to agree with the preserved text in more instances than it does....I have little to add to what Huber has said with great clarity and credibility re: the Venus tablets and chronological issues in general....However, a few points may be worth noting....4) It is telling that in criticizing Sach's annotated contents entry for LBAT 1560+1561 (BM 4227+42033) -- which was hardly intended as a critical discussion of the text -- Rose incorrectly claims that Sachs attributes 34227 to Section I and that 42033 belongs to the 'Corrigenda Section' (S-5). In fact, Sachs notes (correctly) that 34277 'presents problems', something confirmed and discussed at length in RP [i.e., Reiner & Pingree, The Venus Tablet of Ammisaduqa, Malibu, 1975], and only line 5' of 34277 (not 42033) represents S-5. Sachs does misattribute lines 6'ff of 42033 to omens 14ff of VTA [i.e., Venus tablet of Ammisaduqa] instead of omens 38-42 of Section IV (which begin with a recapitulation of omen 14). Rose is
certainly aware of the discussion in RP and apart from the fact that his own description of this text is less accurate than what he castigates Sachs for, his failure to mention Sachs' correct observation of the text's peculiar problems is, once again, essentially dishonest.

There is a link to Sachs' criticism of Velikovsky in the above document.

I cannot read cuneiform myself and my astronomical knowledge is minimal so I tend not to bother with this sort of data. Have you studied them or are you just repeating what you have read by various Velikovskians and Saturn theorists? Have you read any of the scholarly works or are you just accepting the word of the likes of Rose et al? Have you checked out any of their footnote references? I have with Cardona and Cochrane.
I will say though that I am not a fan of Rose's methods after reading what he wrote about Philolaos and Heraclitus and the Central Sun, as quoted by Cardona in God Star. In fact, to be honest, I'm not a fan of any of these Velikovskians and Saturn theorists in terms of
scholarship. As I've stated elsewhere, I prefer to read as close to the original as possible and make up my own mind rather than to trust the 'interpretation' of a third party who is, in any case, usually trying to sell a book.
I'm sorry but your link to a geocities website by someone who calls himself a 'galactic astrologer' doesn't cut it with me.

Re the Dresden Codex. Ginethal's another one whose 'scholarship' has come in for some criticism over the years. Can he read Mayan glyphs?
Ginenthal cites Evan Hadingham ("Early Man and the Cosmos):

"The Venus pages [of the Dresden Codex] bear little
resemblance to a modern astronomical table."

This quote from Hadingham via Ginethal means nothing as it totally without any context. It could be taken literally as modern astronomical tables presumably use alpha-numeric characters whereas the Maya used bars and dots or glyphs.
The Dresden Codex can be downloaded from here:
http://www.famsi.org/mayawriting/codices/dresden.html

All these people are going to have to tighten up their acts as it does not take long these days to check a text online.

Re the passage from Isaiah. The passage may well be remarkable as presented by Velikovsky but if one actually reads the passage in its context....

7 The whole earth is at rest, and is quiet; they break forth into singing.
8 Yea, the cypresses rejoice at thee, and the cedars of Lebanon: 'Since thou art laid down, no feller is come up against us.'
9 The nether-world from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming; the shades are stirred up for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth; all the kings of the nations are raised up from their thrones.
10 All they do answer and say unto thee: 'Art thou also become weak as we? Art thou become like unto us?
11 Thy pomp is brought down to the nether-world, and the noise of thy psalteries; the maggot is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee.'
12 How art thou fallen from heaven, O day-star, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, that didst cast lots over the nations!
13 And thou saidst in thy heart: 'I will ascend into heaven, above the stars of God will I exalt my throne, and I will sit upon the mount of meeting, in the uttermost parts of the north;
14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High.'
15 Yet thou shalt be brought down to the nether-world, to the uttermost parts of the pit.
16 They that saw thee do narrowly look upon thee, they gaze earnestly at thee: 'Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms;
17 That made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof; that opened not the house of his prisoners?'
18 All the kings of the nations, all of them, sleep in glory, every one in his own house.
19 But thou art cast forth away from thy grave like an abhorred offshoot, in the raiment of the slain, that are thrust through with the sword, that go down to the pavement of the pit, as a carcass trodden under foot.
20 Thou shalt not be joined with them in burial, because thou hast destroyed thy land, thou hast slain thy people; the seed of evil-doers shall not be named for ever.
[....]
25 That I will break Asshur in My land, and upon My mountains tread him under foot; then shall his yoke depart from off them, and his burden depart from off their shoulder.

I got this from the Hebrew Bible in English at:
http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt1014.htm

The Asshur mentioned in the above passage:

Asshur was the father of the Assyrians and the country was named after him. He was regarded as "the great god, king of all the gods." It was Asshur who gave power and life to every priestly king, and this was his symbol. A winged circle or globe with the human figure of a warrior god armed with a bow in its center.

"And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. Out of that land went forth Asshur, and builded Nineveh, and the city Rehoboth, and Calah, And Resen between Nineveh and Calah: the same is a great city."
- Genesis 10:10-12

"For through the voice of the LORD Assyria will be beaten down, As He strikes with the rod."
- Isaiah 30:31

Taken from
http://www.bible-history.com/sketches/a ... sshur.html
Note the verse from later in Isaiah (which I had missed).
See also:
http://net.bible.org/dictionary.php?dic ... rd=Assyria
and:
http://www.skeptica.dk/arkiv_dk2/forrest1.htm Bob Forrest article
I will say that I'm not convinced of some of Forrest's reasoning/conclusions either.

[StefanR]

Greylord,
I have to say that I'm 99.9% in agreement with your assertions . Checking on sources and finding something different is why I personally have moved away from mythology, especially the interpretive books. While it did not concern any of the books of some of the affiliated authors of this site (have to admit I have not read any of them, though I have browsed some of them), it most certainly does ring a bell.

But could you maybe be a little more specific of what your primary question was, what does constitute a planetary catastrophe? Did you meant specific thunderbolts stuff or just catastrophic events (regional/wider area) in general?
Do environmental changes count too?

[nick c]

Hello Grey Cloud,
There have been so many points raised, that I have difficulty allocating enough time to address these issues in the thorough manner that they deserve. So I will start with the Venus Tablets, and maybe I can address other points in the near future.

Re the Tablets of Amizaduga. Part of what I read came from here:
http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/velstcol.html

I am familiar with the source, Leroy Ellenberger.
My first inclination is to just disregard anything that depends on ad hominem attacks and appeals to authority, but since you introduced it let's look at some of what he says, and doesn't say. With regard to the Venus Tablets, Ellenberger cites a 'respected' professor and uses his quote in order to facilitate a reprehensible personal assault on the integrity of an honest scholar, Prof. Lynn Rose.

In 2002 John P. Britton (Yale, Ph.D. 1966), a student of the history of ancient astronomy and Dibner Institute Fellow at M.I.T. (2003-2004), read Rose's publications on the Venus Tablet and reported to this writer: "Rose is an aggressive crank, entirely unconcerned with the truth, with a substantial capacity for both intellectual dissembling and nasty, ad hominem attacks. Anyone who cannot recognize the nature of his nonsense seems beyond hope to me" (7/18/2002).]

Well, I guess that I am one of the ones who is "beyond hope!" But then Ellenberger informs us that we don't have to lend any credence to anything written by Dr. Rose since he quotes a "qualified scholar" who has labeled him a crank! Furthermore, Rose is then hanged for the very charge that his accuser is guilty of, ad hom attacks.
Yet nowhere in the article do I see anything to show that the Babylonian observations of Venus are consistent with what we see today, nor is any explanation offered as to what the Babylonians were recording. The issue is diverted with a reference to incorrect (a seperate issue) chronology, yet this has no bearing on the validity of the Venus Tablets, beyond the point of where to place them in Babylonian history. In fact, if the tablets recorded movements of a Venus that is the same as today, then it would be a matter of retro calculating Venus' position until a fit for the 21 year period was achieved, and thereby pinpointing the exact years of the original observations recorded on those tablets. If the tablets were observations of same celestial order we experience today, there would be no debate over where in time to place the tablets. Dating them should be a piece of cake. Ellenberger (or Britton) cannot do this, no one has been able to, because the whole point is that the tablets depict a Venus which does not move as it does today. But then he does not need to prove that Venus moved the same then as it does now, since anyone who would say otherwise must be a "crank."

Also in the same article and though somewhat off the topic of the thread is the reference to ice cores as proof against planetary catastrophism. That issue is dealt with here:
http://www.bearfabrique.org/Catastrophism/floods/ice8

Ellenberger treats the Electric Universe in much the same ad hom manner that he treats Dr. Rose. Apparently actually dealing with the issues is not his forte.

Since conventional physics precludes any such arrangement, Velikovskians have adopted the plasma-theoretic "electric universe" model, propounded in the 1970s by civil engineer Ralph Juergens, as a deus ex machina. Supposedly the Sun is an electric discharge powered by an influx of galactic electrons. Based largely on various analogies, this "theory" has no quantitative basis and, despite all the hand waving, is disproved by everything known about the Sun's behavior; see (http://www.tim-thompson.com/electric-sun.html). Juergens' work is carried on by the "Holoscience" project (http://www.holoscience.com/), organized by Wal Thornhill, a retired computer systems engineer who now bills himself as an "Australian physicist" on the basis of his 1964 B.S. degree.

Note the reliance on the qualifications and degrees as an appeal to authority, in this case in a negative sense. Ralph Juergens was only a "civil" (ahem!) engineer, and Wal Thornhill only has a BS (cough!) degree. The implication is that the ideas can be ignored since the people don't have proper qualifications. When it comes to ideas, Ellenberger states (the Electric Universe) "is disproved by everything known about the Sun's behavior." And then he references the Tim Thompson "refutation" of the electric universe. No mention is made of Don Scott's [url2=http://www.electric-cosmos.org/Rejoinder.htm]rejoinder[/url2] which remains unanswered by Thompson or anyone else.
Anyway, Ellenberger aside, I will stick with my original position.
The Venus Tablets tell us one of two things:
1. they portray a different order of the solar system than that of today
or
2. the Babylonians were incomprehensibly incompetent in making celestial observations

nick c

[Grey Cloud]

Greylord,
I have to say that I'm 99.9% in agreement with your assertions . Checking on sources and finding something different is why I personally have moved away from mythology, especially the interpretive books. While it did not concern any of the books of some of the affiliated authors of this site (have to admit I have not read any of them, though I have browsed some of them), it most certainly does ring a bell.

But could you maybe be a little more specific of what your primary question was, what does constitute a planetary catastrophe? Did you meant specific thunderbolts stuff or just catastrophic events (regional/wider area) in general?
Do environmental changes count too?

Hi Stefan,
Greylord? Are you getting me mixed up with Junglecloud?

Re planetary catastrophe. Fire, flood or anything else counts if it is attested to in the ancient texts. Regional/wider events are acceptable as they would have a knock-on effect due to e.g. altering ocean currents or blocking out the Sun etc.
I personally see the current global climate change as part of the phenomena of cyclic time and precession etc.
Ideally, what I would like is to accumulate a number of ancient accounts and references to planetary mayhem and then try to identify what was happening, where it was happening and, most important to me, when it was happening.

[Grey Cloud]

Hi Nick,
I more or less agree with your assessment of Ellenberger and other critics of Velikovsky and the Saturn theory.
I would disagree with your assesment of Rose but that is perhaps topic for another time.
Given that neither you nor I can read cuneiform may I suggest that we leave the Tablets? Otherwise the best we will manage is 'my sources are better than your's' which one of the reasons I am after ancient texts rather than third-party interpretations of them.
Similarly, the ice-core thing is a matter of the interpretation of data. I for one would not know one end of an ice-core from the other. I prefer to play to my strengths and use texts which are in black and white. I realise that I still somewhat at the mercy of the translation but this can be offset somewhat by reading different translations.
I think I mentioned earlier in this thread that it would be great if someone opened a sort of sister thread daling with the physical evidence. I personally don't have the requisite knowledge to do it.

[StefanR]

Greylord? Are you getting me mixed up with Junglecloud?

Ouch, that's a silly mistake. But creative you got to admit. Names are my weak point.

Fire, flood or anything else counts if it is attested to in the ancient texts.

Well then, the first book from my collection that would fit the bill would be the "Walam Olum"-the book of the Delaware.
http://ia311235.us.archive.org/3/items/ ... 00brin.pdf(10MB)
http://www.archive.org/details/lenptheirleg00brin(other formats)
In that account in the first book is a short cosmology which seems pretty general. After that in book two, the account starts
which seems like a large flood of some kind. This flooding seemingly being the cause of the the first migration described in the book.

21. But very secretly an evil being, a mighty magician,
came on earth,

THE WALAM OLUM. 177

22. And with him brought badness, quarreling, unhap-
piness,
23. Brought bad weather, brought sickness, brought
death.
24. All this took place of old on the earth, beyond the
great tide-water, at the first.

11.

I . Long ago there was a mighty snake and beings evil
to men.
2. This mighty snake hated those who were there (and)
greatly disquieted those whom he hated.
3. They both did harm, they both injured each other,
both were not in peace.
4. Driven from their homes they fought with this mur-
derer.
5. The mighty snake firmly resolved to harm the men.
6. He brought three persons, he brought a monster, he
brought a rushine water.
7. Between the hills the water rushed and rushed, dash-
ing through and through, destroying much.
8. Nanabush, the Strong White One, grandfather of
beings, grandfather of men, was on the Turtle
Island.
9. There he was walking and creating, as he passed by
and created the turtle.
10. Beings and men all go forth, they walk in the floods
and shallow waters, down stream thither to the
Turtle Island.
Split asunder, weak, trembling, their land burned,
they went, torn and broken, to the Snake Island.
II. Those from the north being free, without care, went
forth from the land of snow, in different directions.
1 2. The fathers of the Bald Eagle and the White Wolf
remain along the sea, rich in fish and muscles.
13. Floating lip the streams in their canoes, our fathers
were rich, they were in the light, when they were
at those islands.
14. Head Beaver and Big Bird said,
" Let us go to Snake Island," they said.
15. All say they will go along to destroy all the land.
16. Those of the north agreed.
Those of the east agreed.
Over the water, the frozen sea.
They went to enjoy it.
17. On the wonderful, slippery water,
On the stone-hard water all went.
On the great Tidal Sea, the muscle-bearing sea.
1 8. Ten thousand at night,
All in one night,
To the Snake Island, to the east, at night,
They walk and walk, all of them.
19. The men from the north, the east, the south,
The Eagle clan, the Beaver clan, the Wolf clan.
The best men, the rich m.en, the head men,
Those with wives, those with daughters, those with
dogs.
20. They all come, they tarry at the land of the spruce
pines;
Those from the west come with hesitation.
Esteeming highly their old home at the Turtle land.

I. Long ago the fathers of the Lenape were at the land
of spruce pines.
2, Hitherto the Bald Eagle band had been the pipe
bearer.
3. While they were searching for the Snake Island, that
great and fine land.

And then it goes on.


One other "source" book I have is the book of Posnansky "Tihuanacu - the cradle of american man".
It's one of the more beautiful books I have. It's not a account of a people, but it does describe the landscape of the area in remarkable detail. Showing the changes having occured to the landscape and the site itself since it's conception there. Posnansky shows three distinct periods of building and makes the case of the site never having been fully finished. And that the last of the destruction was a flooding by near by the outflowing of lakes (at least lakes that existed in a post-glacial period). It's a little difficult to quote from this book, as there is no online version. At least I was not able to find it.
Not sure if it fits to your question.


As for some Vedic stuff, are you aware of Bal Gangadhar Tilak? I happen to have these two books of his called "Orion-a search for ancientness of Aryan-Vedic Culture" http://www.archive.org/details/orionort ... u021979mbp
,making the case of a at least 4000 bc origin of the Vedas, by research into astronomical references, and the other is "Artic Home in the Vedas" which uses the Rigveda showing polar attributes of Vedic deities and traces of an ancient arctic calender and the Iranian Avesta to show of an origin at polar regions when it was milder there and that destruction of snow and ice necessitated a migration southward.

[nick c]

Hi Grey Cloud,
I have to correct a statement made concerning Ellenberger's critique, although it has little effect on what I wrote, it is somewhat misleading.

No mention is made of Don Scott's rejoinder which remains unanswered by Thompson or anyone else.

Ellenberger's article was written before Scott wrote his rejoinder to Thompson, so he could not address that issue. My mistake. However, as far as I know, Thompson or Ellenburger have since, not responded to Scott's rejoinder.
As far as Rose is concerned, you may disagree with what he writes, but I cannot comprehend how anyone could besmirch his name as in that quote. There is nothing in Rose's articles and books that I have read that would warrant that type of personal attack. Ad hominen and appeals to authority argument techniques send up a red flag, that says "I cannot or will not deal with these ideas."
We can put the Venus Tablets aside as you suggest, however, I get the impression that because we "cannot read cuneiform" is not the real reason. After all, not to many documents in the ancient world were written in English
That said, let's put it on the back burner.

later,
nick c

[soulsurvivor]

I'm not a Bible scholar, but there are mentions of blight, pestilence, and plagues. Castastrophe, disaster? I suppose that depends upon whether humans are directly impacted or not. Plant diseases have always "plagued" man. A blight fungus contributed to the Irish potato famine in the 1800s. The American chestnut and elm trees are "blighted" from existence. We humans "control" fungi with fungicides, bacteria with bactericides, parasites with pesticides, BUT there is no chemical control for virus disease.

I know this isn't contributing one iota to your thread Grey Cloud, but I am in hopes that someone may decide to begin a thread on the physical attributes of catastrophe theory as found within ancient texts and first person accounts.

As always, I have a personal need to read what others have had to say about this. I'm going through smell hell and have been for some years now regarding my perception that the mold overgrowth within the environment is an indication of a gradual but significant change that's here and now, not just locally, but perhaps is an indication of a global system change. I have close ties to the land and farming, and with that is an inner sense of remaining on full alert to weather or environmental changes. Other environmental smells that give me cause for some puzzlement are the super sweet flower smells, not unlike a really cheap perfume; the smell I remember from childhood when we butchered hogs, specifically the smell of the testicles; and also the smell of burning flesh, I think maybe human, for it's like no animal I ever recall. I don't smell these all the time nor in all locales, but when it "hits" there's no denying its existence coming from ? somewhere. We're in a state of drought here in KY, and the mold smells the past few days have just about burned my sinuses out of my head.

So, are there ancient references to what I perceive as a massive mold overgrowth within the environment, even to the point of decomposing your shoes right off your feet? I'm wanting first person accounts, and I'm not finding those. I do appreciate the link to Varro. Also, any references to first person accounts on how they "see" the surrounding environment. It's difficult to explain without sounding as though I'm very ill, (I'm not that ill) but I sometimes see much of nature as having a black cast to it. I don't know any other way to describe this, but what should be in full blooming live color sometimes isn't.

I understand what Varro was saying about the invisible "bugs". He could "sense" them even without actually seeing them. Did the Romans go through a climate change?

[Plasmatic]

Hi GC,Ive a question for you before I post some references. Do you have any specific refutations of the Comparative Method as a valid tool for discerning myth? Be as specific as you can if you would.

[Grey Cloud]

Hi GC,Ive a question for you before I post some references. Do you have any specific refutations of the Comparative Method as a valid tool for discerning myth? Be as specific as you can if you would.

Hi Plasmatic,
I'm not sure what you mean by 'refutations of the Comparative Method' (CM). If you mean refutations to specific claims made via the CM then may I point you to:
http://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/forum/phpB ... f=9&t=1016
Or are you referring to problems I have with the CM per se? The only problems I have with the CM is understanding exactly what it entails. How does it differ from comparative mythology (and if it doesn't, why does it need a different name?). I have a similar problem with the term 'archetype'. How does this differ from the 'themes', 'motifs' and 'archetypes' that have long been recognised in comparative mythology and other methodologies? There are also claims about the 'predictive' power of the CM which confuse me.

Hope that helped. Any further questions, ask away.

[Grey Cloud]

Hi Soulsurvivor,
Thanks for seconding my request for a physical evidence thread. Hopefully someone will grasp the nettle.
Off the top of my head I cannot recall ever reading an account of the microscopic world in an ancient text. The Varro quote was a pleasant surprise. There are a few acounts of the macroscopic world, e.g. Cicero's 'The Dream of Scipio'.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_of_Scipio
http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/ROME/SCIPIO.HTM
And a few dealing with what happens to the soul after 'death', e.g. Plato's Myth of Er:
http://www.davidson.edu/academic/classi ... rMyth.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_Er
The closest I can get are the recollections of a couple of my old 'acid-head' friends. I find what they say about size and space very interesting.
If I do come any references to environmental topics I will let you know.

With regard to the smells - I don't know. The subject, and your comments (here and in other threads), fascinates me but I cannot see where or how it fits in. I don't doubt that it does fit in though.

[Grey Cloud]

Hi all,
I've just spotted this in Cicero's 'The Dream of Scipio':
http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/ROME/SCIPIO.HTM

What about the people who do know and speak about us? How long do you think they will remember us or even desire to remember us? Let us even grant that future generations will desire to remember us. Think about the deluges and conflagrations which descend on the earth at set intervals. These disasters make it impossible for our glory to last for any length of time, let alone for eternity. But putting all this aside, why do you even want people who have never even been born to talk about you, people you will never know. Think about it: all those multitudes of people who preceded you in life never spoke about you—there are as many people who preceded you as will follow you, and the early generations were better than later generations, for humanity continues to degenerate.

'Set intervals' = cycles?
There is also some very interesting astronomical information in the piece.