Chapter VIII: Mysteries on Shore
I. Remains on the Shores
It is believed by some that Atlantis was "humanity's cradle" until its destruction. It is also believed that before Atlantis, there was Mu and Lemuria, two other lost continents some old stories speak of. But Mu and Lemuria go too much back in time, so trying to locate them won't be my purpose.
The Cro-Magnon, Chancelade, Grimaldi, Obercassel, Brünn, Predmost, Comb-Caplle, etc, so Homo Sapiens Fossilis, suddenly appeared in Europe between 30-12,000 BC. They are not the descendents of Homo Neanderthalensis, and the genetic and anthropologic differences among them were relevant. So where were these Homo Sapiens coming from? It's odd that their amazing knowledge appeared suddenly, without any kind of transition.
Edward Herbert Norton, the discoverer of Mayan centers in Yucatan and of the "Foutain of the Death" from Chichen Itza, advanced a new theory: a powerful civilization lived in Atlantis till 10,000 BC when the water sank the island. It is being said that the Atlanteans colonized the shores of Africa, Mediterranean Sea, and America, so if the Atlanteans perished, their heritage lived on through the people of their colonies. The Atlantean influence on local population was significant. This is how we could explain the Mayan, Egyptian, and Cretan enigmas, the existence of the white population in West Africa and Mediterranean. (eg. Guanchos in Canaries).
Henry Breuil mentioned the existence of a white race (tall white people with yellow or red hair) living in South Africa. The paintings at Namib and Bradberg are cases in point, and they bear similarities with the Egyptian and Cretan paintings. Scientists found skulls belonging to the European race, dating from 8-6,000 BC.
The painting "The White Lady" (Bradberg - South Africa) is 3-5,000 years old. It depicts a red-haired white woman and a man wearing Cretan clothes (boots, pants, sword). They are surrounded by black people and animals.
In 1902, William Niven found an unknown town on Mexican shore and its surrounding waters. The buildings look like the ones from the Roman Empire's era.
In 1970, another expedition was made to the Canaries, in order to study the origin of the islands and of the Guanchos (Guanches or Guanchis) tribes who once occupied these seven islands. The Guanchos were massacred in the end of 15th century. On Maroc's shore, they discovered tribes of white people, very different from the Arabian population. The writings found here are close in style to the Mayan's. The tribe dealt with the death in the Egyptian style, mummifying them, and let burring them in graves or pyramids. On De Hierro Island, Mayan or Egyptians-like pyramids were found. The Guanchos didn't know navigation, however, so the question is, how come the resemblance?
In Lanzarote Island (Canaries), scientists found ruins and stairs underwater. The stairs were built of huge stones. Similar ruins are to be found in the waters surrounding Fuerteventura Island.
At Chaco Canyon lived the Anasazis. The roads here link twelve
cities and their length reaches 60 - 100 km. However, it is known that the
Anasazis didn't have vehicles and they haven't even invented the wheel. Still,
the roads are 10 meters wide, and the rocks used to build them could cover
100,000 square kilometers. The population didn't use the roads for long, since
they appeared around 1175 AD and disappeared by 1250 AD.
The Indian fortresses of North America amaze through their perfect geometrical shape, functionality, and efficiency. They were dated back to the 1st century AD, but they were superior to any European fortress buot before the Renaissance period.
"The Wall of the Big Snake", in Ohio, has impressive measurements. Its height is 15 meters, the width is 3.5 meters, and the length, 400 meters. It was given the name "Wall of the Big Snake" because, from the plane, it looks like a snake.
In Loltun (Yucatan, Mexico), there are huge statues, built from lava. They couldn't establish the age. The graves found are a few hundred meters higher than the sea level, but they rose when the Bahamas Island sank, about 12,000 years ago. Some claim that the statues were built before the end of the Würm period. According to some, if you add to these 12,000 years the years needed for the fossils to get to nowadays stage, then we one can say that this happened 30-40,000 years ago.
In Costa Rica and Guatemala they found 2000 spheres of granite. The biggest one has a circumference of 2.5 meters and weighs 16 tones. The geometrical form of the spheres is perfect and their age reaches thousands of years.
II. The Dogon Controversy
At this point, some of you might want to mention the Dogon tribe in Mali. But I have my reserves. If you don't know the story of the Dogons, it is my duty to let you know.
The Dogons occupy a region in Mali, south of the Sahara Desert in Africa. The tribe counts about 100,000 members. They live in the Homburi Moutains, near Timbuktu.
The precise origin of the Dogons is uncertain. This uncertainty led to myths and theories regarding their origin. However, they are believed to have Egyptian roots. They lived in Lybia for some time, then in Guinea or Mauritania, and around 1490 AD, they moved to Bandiagara cliffs of central Mali. Carbon-14 dating techniques on remains excavated from the cliffs show that there were other people inhabiting the region before the Dogon's arrival: the Toloy culture and, later on, the Tellem culture.
The Dogon are best known for their extensive carving of masks and wooden figurative art. The primary colors used by the Dogon are usually red, black, and white, and popular patterns include spirals and checkerboard motifs, both of which can be traced to their origin stories.
The Dogons were studied by the French anthropologists Dr. Marcel Griaule and
Dr. Germaine Dieterlen. The first
encounter took place in 1931, and the study continued for thirty years. A detailed study was written between
1946-1950.
Their most significant work was Le Renard Pâle, on Dogon cosmology.
Dogon's interest revolves around Sirius, the most brilliant star in our galaxy. Supposedly, the priest told the scientists a myth about the star Sirius. The matter of interest is that, as Griaule and Dieterlen reported, the Dogons claim that Sirius is accompanied by a star they call põ tolo, invisible to the naked eye. Tolo means 'star', while põ is the smallest seed they know. Seed also refers to creation; in our case, human creation. They also know seem to know that this start moves in an elliptical orbit around Sirius, that it is small and dense, and its period is 50 years. The tribe says that põ tolo is composed of s super-dense metal called sagala, heavier then the iron on Earth. They also describe a third star, Emme Ya ("Sorghum Female"), accompanied by a single satellite. They also know that Saturn has rings, Jupiter has four moons and that the planets orbit the sun. They have calendars for the sun, the moon, Sirius, and Venus. The Sumerians were also worshipping in 4000 BC the sun, the moon, and Venus.
The image on the right is taken from Griaule and Dieterlen's study, as being the drawing made on the sand by the Dogons. The description given is purely symbolic though. According to Skeptical Inquirer Fall 1978, "A, Sirius; B, põ tolo, the object equated with Sirius B, shown in two positions; C, emme ya, the sun of women, equated with Sirius C; D, the Nommo; E, the Yourougou, a mythical male figure destined to pursue his female twin; F, the star of women, a satellite of emma ya; G, the sign of women; H, the sex of women, represented by a womb shape. The whole system is enclosed in an oval, representing the egg of the world." The oval is "the great placenta from which have emerged, in the course of time, all space, all living beings, and everything in the world".
In the Dogon cosmological system, as reported by Griaule, twins and twinness are very important. As a matter of fact, almost all ancient civilizations had this belief: the Egyptians had Isis and Osiris, the Greeks had Zeus and Hera.
The Sirius (Sirius A, the Dog Star) obsession started early, and for the 'earliest' we know the the Egyptians and the Mesopotamians (Acadians, Babylonians, Assyrians). Later on the Persians used the star. Some say Sirius and the Biblical star Mazzaroth are one; later on the star was called Sihor, name learnt from the Egyptians prior to their exile. Egyptians identified Sirius first with Hathor, then with Isis. As I said, the pair male - female was quite common back then, so Isis's brother and husband, Osiris, was identified with Orion (Sirius B). A third star existed also in Egyptian mythology, Sirius C, belonging to the Dark Goddess or sometimes Anubis, the jackal-head god and son of Osiris and Isis, responsible for the passage of the souls to the underworld. Anubis was weighing the heart against a feather, to determine the good deeds of the deceased.
The whole commotion started when Robert Temple published an article in The Observatory in 1977 and his book called The Sirius Mystery, in 1976. His claim is that the Dogon's are right when they claim their knowledge had been brought by extraterrestrials, as Temple puts it, 'visitors from Sirius'.
It is true that the Dogon legend says that their knowledge was brought to them by the Nommos, amphibious beings sent to Earth from Sirius for the benefit of mankind. The Nommos, would mean, translated, "Masters of the Water", "Monitors", "Teachers". The Nommos is said to have arrived in a vessel, along with fire and thunder. These beings' bodies are covered by fish scales, and they resemble more a fish than a human being. They resemble mermaids and mermen. The interesting fact is that their legend seems to match the Sumer, Babylonia, Acadia, and Egypt's tales.
The Nommos came to earth and created a water reservoir, then dove into it. "The Nommo divided his body among the men to feed them; that is why it is also said that as the universe 'has drunk of his body', the Nommo also made men drink. He gave all his life principles to human beings."
What I see so far is nothing but a legend of creation, that, as I said, is not only similar to old mythologies, but even to Jesus. They continue saying that the Nommo was crucified and resurrected and in the future will again visit the Earth, this time in human form.
It makes me recall the Chila Balam book, in which one can see how easy it was for the Aztecs to change their religion, adapt it to Christianity. According to P. and R. Pesch of the Warner and Swasey Observatory in Ohio, French schools were common in the Dogon area since 1902. There was nothing that could stop a tribesman to pursue his education there. Also missionaries were common in the area, which would explain the "Jesus" similarities in their legends.
Now let's take a look at the discoveries made by men in 19 hundreds, regarding Sirius and the whole system. Sirius B, the star accompanying Sirius A (the brightest star on the sky) was first discovered in 1862, by Alvan Graham Clark, an American optician, while testing a new telescope. White dwarfs were understood to have a dense nature in 1920s. As for Emme Ya, it goes so that around 1920s and 1930s the astronomers thought they found a third member in the constellation. However, Irving W. Lindenblag, of the U.S. naval Observatory, reported no evidence of a companion. Also, in 1920s, the white dwarfs were known to be heavy, and Sirius B was the heaviest known by then. Things have changed though lately, and neutron stars appeared, which are heavier and denser.
These information were widely published back then in newspapers, and it's a pretty big coincidence that the Dogons mentioned data, both correct and incorrect, as it was presented in the media.
According to P. and R. Pesch, "Temple claims that the Dogon know the period of Sirius B to be 50 years. What Griaule and Dieterlen report is that 'The orbit's period is counted twice, that is, as 100 years... in order to recall the fundamental principle of twinness'. Even if we accept this as meaning that Temple claims, we still encounter some difficulties. The ritual calendar of the Dogon is reportedly based on the period of põ tolo. However, this ritual calendar runs on a 60-year cycle."
Another one of Temple's claims is that the Dogons, by saying "Põ tolo and Sirius were once where the Sun is now", meant to describe our coming to this solar system from the Sirius system, "and leaving those stars for our star, the Sun". Questions were asked though and the general conclusion was that Sirius could have never and will never be able to develop or support life. Had it been, Sirius B, at some point, would have roasted anything around. Even now life in the system wouldn't be 'too pleasant'. If you're interested in finding out more on the subject, check Skeptical Inquirer.
It is known now that Sirius is 23 times more luminous and about twice the mass and diameter of the Sun.
However, in 1995 two French researchers, Daniel Benest and J.L. Duvent, wrote an article in the prestigious journal Astronomy and Astrophysics with the title Is Sirius a Triple Star?. They suggested (based on observations of motions in the Sirius system) that there could be a small third star there. Are we talking about Sirius C? They thought the star was probably of a type known as a "brown dwarf" and only had about .05 the mass of Sirius B. If this observations turns out true, then we might have to reconsider the whole Dogon myth. Even so, I would more likely attribute the knowledge not to the Nommos and the visitors from outer space, but to the Egyptians and the Mesopotamians. For now though, no reply came to support or deny the news, which doesn't make too strong of an evidence for us to consider the existence of Sirius C.
Sources:
The Observatory, Vol.97, February 1977: Correspondence, The Dogon and Sirius, by Peter and Roland Pesch
Skeptical Inquirer Fall 1978, Sirius Mystery, Dogon Tribe