dogon sirius debunked
To be specific they sound like the kinds of astronomical conclusions one might draw from studying the heavens through a small portable telescope. In a recent book, The Once and Future Star (Hawthorn Books, 1977), George Michanowsky identifies "Oannes" as a Hellenized version of the Sumerian name Ea; he Given that the French stayed in their territory for five weeks and had several local guides, it would not be surprising if they shared some astronomical knowledge during that time. theorizes that the myths may refer to a gigantic supernova. In 1977 two radio astronomers were interested enough in the Sirius mystery to direct their telescopes at the star system in hopes of picking up any artificial radio signals. How is that the Dogan tribe has a culture that combines elements from 3 different ancient traditions "rituals of Judaism, practices of ancient Egypt, and a symbolic cosmology that's closely resembles Buddhism? But even after hundreds of pages of myths and interpretations Temple fails to make a connection between ancient Egypt and the modern Dogons; instead he "assumes" it. [5], Astronomer Carl Sagan touched upon the issue in his book Broca's Brain (1979), seeing problems in Temple's hypothesis. This of course would destroy the modern influence explanation totally. e issued monthly by the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles. They point out that the ancient Egyptians and Sumerians used spherical lenses6 (even though they are a bad choice to use in telescopes try seeing an image through a glass bead). [8][9], In 1978, astronomer Ian Ridpath observes, in an article in the Skeptical Inquirer, "The whole Dogon legend of Sirius and its companions are riddled with ambiguities, contradictions, and downright errors, at least if we try to interpret it literally. (2004). [12] According to Oberg, the Dogons' astronomical information resembled the knowledge and speculations of late 1920s Europe, suggesting that the Dogon were influenced by European visitors before their mythology was recorded in the 1930s. their knowledge without contact with an advanced technological (I must confess I've felt that way about some other people, tool). Astronomers Carl Sagan and Ian Ridpath, for example, have suggested that the modern astronomical aspects of the complex Dogon mythology entered the lore only recently, probably shortly before the myths were written down in the 1930s. Sagan further commented that he was surprised, given the freedom of viewpoint that Fish used, that her map didnt match the Hill map better!4. (Buffalo, New York: Prometheus Books,1982), pp. Griaule himself was aware of the discovery of Sirius B and in the 1920s before he visited the Dogon there were also unconfirmed sightings of Sirius C. The Dogon were well aware of the brightest star in the sky but, as Van Beek learned, they do not call it sigu tolo, as Griaule claimed, but dana tolo. One of the pieces of evidence Temple cites is a sand picture made by the Sirius B was first observed in 1862, and had been predicted in 1844 on dynamic grounds. The Dogon have a traditional interest in the sky and astronomical phenomena. 2Q9-mV5F W4g?`Su#q6a]sdaGr*_70 ! ;`~RS)Hm@FGI.m3gcW|PF.(`VypT!]WM6'b//^FX[P\9:H37)DH,y|F(&Da]w o9-K?MR+z.R}7.ubqUIXVy~frF@". Also it would take a very good set of lenses to see Sirius B, which has an apparent magnitude of 8.44 and a separation from Sirius A of 10 arcseconds (0.3% of a 1 angle) under the best conditions. | 3938 State St., Suite # 101, Santa Barbara, CA, 93105-3114 | 1-805-576-9396. Where did they get this knowledge, he asks, if not from Review. History Debunked then goes on to demonstrate the type of pseudo-scientific nonsense this has lead to by providing a link to an Ethnomathematics paper and reading out its conclusion. Griaule," Current Anthropology 32, 1992, pp. Carl Sagan's contribution to this discussion was in his book Broca's Brain (1979). He shows a total ignorance or disregard for almost every fact in my book, and there is hardly a single thing in his review which is remotely accurate." Dwarfs and Little Green Men". The second idea, championed by Afrocentrist historians, is that the Dogons either found out about Sirius B on their own or learned about it from the Egyptians. Nothing fuels religious extremism more than the belief that one has found the absolute moral truth. According to the Dogon, the instructor gods descended from Sirius and brought knowledge and wisdom. Finally, he asked me point-blank if I could point out any errors in it and partly out of politeness, partly to get rid of him, and partly because I had been able to read very little of the book so that the answer was true, I said I could not point out any errors. Based on Carrolls website (skepdic.com), the Dictionary is the definitive short-answer debunking of nearly every thing skeptical. The good news is that two of the first five entries were from skeptical websites (CSICOP and Bob Carrolls Skeptics Dictionary). Through the carbon dating of old ritual masks researchers have established the antiquity of the Segui ceremonies. Indeed, in view of the Dogon fixation with Sirius it would surely be more surprising if they had not grafted on to their existing legend some new astronomical information gained from Europeans. A substantial bulk of The Sirius Mystery consists of comparative linguistic and mythological scholarship, pointing out resemblances among Dogon, Yoruba, Egyptian and Sumerian beliefs and symbols. The Dogon are supposed to have known that Sirius B orbits Sirius and that a complete orbit takes The star Sirius is certainly no stranger to mysteries. Webplanet earth. In 1952, Young was one of nine people present during the first contact with the Council, an event initiated by Andrija Puharich, the man who brought Israeli spoonbender Uri Geller to America. Its appearance in the dawn sky over Egypt warned of the impending Nile floods and the summer's heat and marked the beginning of the Egyptian calendar. None were detected, That was not surprising since, judging from the age and energy of the stars in the Sirius system, astronomers believe it is unlikely that any earthlike planets could exist there long enough for life to emerge and develop. WebThe Dogon understanding of astronomy was comparatively modern but has several known misconceptions - it entirely lines up with the European understanding as of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, before the discovery of relativity. When Walter van Beek studied the Dogon, he WebDogon and the Sirius Mystery. The number "fifty" has great signifance in ancient myths. He has written of Temples belief that present-day authorities are unwilling to set aside the blinkers of orthodoxy, unable to admit the validity of anything that lies outside their field or that offers a challenge to the status quo. The Nommos descended from the sky in a vessel accompanied by fire and thunder. Seriously: The Dogon and Sirius? Afrocentrists, on the other hand, claimed that the Dogon could see Temple claims that bas-reliefs of the Sumerian demigod Oannes, which depict a "fish man," prove Nommo, whom the author identifies as the ancestor of the Dogon Nommo myths, was an amphibious extraterrestrial. ", A series of articles has appeared in the Griffith Observer, an astronomy magazin Temple claims his expert cartographer found these distances "nearly equal." The brightest star in the sky is Sirius, now called Sirius A. The former study also concluded that while a triple system for Sirius could not be fully eliminated, the probability was low. implausible notions such as the claim that the Dogon got their knowledge The obviously advanced astronomical knowledge must have come from somewhere, but is it an ancient bequest or a modern graft? 1978. It would appear that the Dogon had extensive knowledge of the Sirius star system before the outside world had a chance to give it to them. The stars in this group are too young only a few tens of millions of years for planets with life and civilization to have developed. Temple offered another line of reasoning. It has a mass of 2.35 times the mass of the Sun. A recent newsletter from my local astronomy association still found the Dogon and their mysterious knowledge of Sirius B worth mentioning. WebRe: Dogon Sirius claim debunked - Graham Hancock Official Website Mysteries Taken from [ library.thinkquest.org] According to the Dogon priests, Sirius is orbited by a tiny secret star that they refer to as 'po', which traces an elliptical path around Sirius taking 50 years to James, P., N. Thorpe, and I. J. Thorpe. by Philip Coppens. It's fascinating. have turned to astronomical matters, including Sirius, the brightest star in James and Thorpe understate the problem when they say this is very worrying. Griaule claimed that about 15 per cent of the Dogon tribe possessed this secret knowledge, but Van Beek could find no trace of it in the decade he spent with the Dogon. %PDF-1.4 MANY SKEPTICS WOULD LIKE TO THINK THAT ONCE SOMETHING IS debunked, that will be the end of it. Temple has made very few verifiable assertions about mythology (and The Sirius Mystery is overwhelmingly about ancient myths, not about the Dogons or modern astronomy). The Nommos descended from the sky in a vessel accompanied by fire and thunder. Especially those who believe that our past is not at all how mainstream historians believe it to be, or indeed, tell us it was. By comparison, our own Sun was that old 3.4 billion years ago. WebDogon and the Sirius Mystery. Create an account to follow your favorite communities and start taking part in conversations. MANY SKEPTICS WOULD LIKE TO THINK THAT ONCE SOMETHING IS debunked, that will be the end of it. When I set him a draft of a sharply critical review written for Astronomy magazine, he replied with a blistering counterattack in a letter to my editor: "A virulent attack against my honesty, integrity, and intelligence," he called my review. James, Peter and Nick Thorpe. As the brightest star in the sky it was known and worshiped by ancient civilizations. On this episode of MonsterTalk we chat with archeologist Dr. Ken Feder about giants, biblical archeology and one of the biggest hoaxes in American history. Could Sirius B have been a red giant a few thousand years ago? He soon multiplied to become six pairs of twins. The Sirius mystery, though, remains of great interest to many researchers today. Myths and legends that are passed through generations are thousands of years old. 68-70. extraterrestrial visitor tells earthmen about the undiscovered Martian moons. Clearly the Dogons (in common with many other cultures) were fascinated by Sirius, probably because its position in the sky was crucial to successful agriculture (it's the only star they have a name for.) Scientists learn that the Dogon do not possess secret knowledge about the star Sirius and its companions. scientific equipment, so how could they get this knowledge? Sirius figures prominently in the Dogon myths. S]V',H79aD>1 Q@d(FOY;"36y0Z{VXEJwOx._tto}#&i|HR-i4 Because Sirius B moves from 8 to 31 AU distance from Sirius A, it is unlikely that planets orbiting Sirius A would have stable orbits. If I were alone in picking on Temple's thesis, he might be able to argue a case for ad hominem persecution. The brightest star in the sky is Sirius, now called Sirius A. No such nebula is seen. "[10] Ridpath states that while the information that the Dogon probably gained from Europeans to some extent resembles the facts about Sirius, the presumed original Dogon knowledge of the star is very far from the facts. Temple considers alternative possibilities other than alien contact, such as a very ancient, advanced, and lost civilization that was behind the sudden appearance of advanced civilization in both Egypt and Sumer. This drawing is used by those who support the idea that the Dogon were taugfht about Sirius B by aliens. by Philip Coppens. Lets start with the first idea, proffered by Robert Temple.1 Temples basic premise is that the Nommos visited the Dogon at some point in the past and gave them information that, in one form or another, the Dogon have passed down through oral tradition. Such criteria suggest that these periodic festivals have been going on for at least 600 years and possibly much longer. WebAlso there is the fact that they described the Nommo as fish people and you find all kinds of half man/half fish - serpent imagery all over the Mediterranean. The position of the had visited the Dogon in the 1920's and 1930's, conversation would likely It seems that Temples ideas are still popular among practitioners of pseudoarcheology, as well as with the general public. The inspiration for this claim was a star map produced by Betty Hill while under hypnosis. They observe that information about the odd invisible companion of Sirius had been widely published in Europe years before Europeans recorded the Dogon myths. The Dogon. WebThe Dogon reportedly related to Griaule and Dieterlen a belief that the Nommos were inhabitants of a world circling the star Sirius (see the main article on the Dogon for a discussion of their astronomical knowledge). They seem to have He allegedly found the distances "to be nearly equal to one another" -- although no quantitative definition of "nearly equal" was ever offered. Ogotemmeli: An Introduction to Dogon Religious rotation is astronomically possible but whether it is correct or not we cannot yet know. Some astronomers speculate that the white dwarf Sirius B might have been a flaming red giant only 2000 years ago although current astrophysical theories decree that any such transformation in less than 100,000 years is impossible. The author mentions that he could have made the book much longer but restrained himself "lest I blow this book up into a pufball of miscellaneous odds and ends" -- which prompted one reviewer to remark that Temple had stopped much too late to avoid that fate. Could a remote African people have gained esoteric knowledge about the sky without having telescopes? All agree, however, that they learned about the star from Griaule. Van Beek states that this creates a major problem for Griaules claims. (Copyright: R. Ibata (Strasbourg Observatory, ULP) et al., 2MASS, NASA). The legend of the Dogons astronomical precociousness first appeared on the radar in the 1970s. contact with some ugly, amphibious* For instance, the anthropologist Walter Van Beek, who studied the Dogon after Griaule and Dieterlen, found no evidence that the Dogon considered Sirius to be a double star and/or that astronomy was particularly important in their belief system. 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