LEXILINE JOURNAL

From Teosinte to Maize : The Single Domestication of Corn in the Balsas Valley of Southern Mexico 9000 Years Ago - LexiLine Journal 543

2010-05-27T00:20:00.000+02:00

Tracking the Ancestry of Corn Back 9,000 Years - NYTimes.com

This is a delightful article by Sean B. Carroll tracing the history of maize as it developed out of a single domestication of teosinte in ca. 7000 B.C. in the Balsas Valley of southern Mexico.

For the scientific article at the root of the story, see A single domestication for maize shown by multilocus microsatellite genotyping by Yoshihiro Matsuoka, Yves Vigouroux, Major M. Goodman, Jesus Sanchez G., Edward Buckler, and John Doebley, where the Abstract reads:

"There exists extraordinary morphological and genetic diversity among the maize landraces that have been developed by pre-Columbian cultivators. To explain this high level of diversity in maize, several authors have proposed that maize landraces were the products of multiple independent domestications from their wild relative (teosinte). We present phylogenetic analyses based on 264 individual plants, each genotyped at 99 microsatellites, that challenge the multiple-origins hypothesis. Instead, our results indicate that all maize arose from a single domestication in southern Mexico about 9,000 years ago. Our analyses also indicate that the oldest surviving maize types are those of the Mexican highlands with maize spreading from this region over the Americas along two major paths. Our phylogenetic work is consistent with a model based on the archaeological record suggesting that maize diversified in the highlands of Mexico before spreading to the lowlands. We also found only modest evidence for postdomestication gene flow from teosinte into maize. "

See also Rio Balsas most likely region for maize domestication by Christine A. Hastorf who writes, inter alia:

"It is curious that with so much interest in the topic of plant domestication in archaeology, geography, and botany, it took until 2005 to include this region of Mexico in our search for the roots of domestication. This investigatory blind spot is most probably because visible early plant evidence was uncovered in dry conditions. Following the data, scholars pursued domestication where they could easily find the evidence, ignoring the regions where the interactions were more likely to occur."

In other words, without the genetic evidence, mainstream archaeology would still be looking for evidence of domestication in the WRONG places because that is where "drilling" for the truth was the easiest.

Revisited: Neandertal Man Rediscovered by Mainstream Science as Us - LexiLine Journal 542

2010-05-17T16:19:00.001+02:00

In spite of unequivocal genome-based evidence that the Neandertals*** did not die out but left their traces in modern man, the nay-sayers in the long-deluded archaeological profession are apparently not easily giving up their totally erroneous theories.

As written by David Perlman, Science Editor at the San Francisco Chronicle in Neanderthal in all of us, DNA study indicates:

"... Richard G. Klein, a noted archaeologist at Stanford who has long worked on the evolution of Neanderthals and humans, has serious reservations about the work. He is known for his research into the fossil record showing how modern humans replaced the Neanderthals throughout Europe thousands of years ago.
The Pääbo group's report, he said, "contradicts everything we know about the archaeological record. Their evidence is really wobbly and it bothers me a lot. But it's very important stuff if it's right - and I really do hope it's right."

One of the main problems that I have found in dealing with mainstream archaeology over the years in fact has been the archaeologists' hopeless reliance on their own home-spun theories, whatever their origin, regardless of the actual probative evidence.

The Neandertal issue is only one very representative example of the absolute evidentiary follies which pervade mainstream archaeology, and which have in many areas of archaeological study become so entrenched that no voice of reason challenging those theories is heard.

Thankfully, genetic studies are changing and will continue to change many of the totally nonsensical notions published by archaeologists over the last centuries, decades and years.

There is no probative evidence in archaeology or elsewhere -- and there never has been such evidence -- that Neandertals died out as a separate species, to be replaced by modern man.
Rather, it is equally compelling to argue that Neandertal man in one way or another evolved into viz. merged into modern man, either by the path of evolution or by the path of interbreeding with another human primate form.

The details, of course, will remain a conundrum for many years to come, but we can at long last bury the useless theory that Neandertal man occupied all of Europe and western Asia, only to be fully replaced by newcomers from Africa. That theory was always based on sand.

Neandertal Man Rediscovered by Mainstream Science as Us - LexiLine Journal 541

2010-05-07T16:22:00.000+02:00

Neandertal is a location in Germany and I have been there. The popular spelling Neanderthal is incorrect. But, that is a minor matter. The Neandertal Genome right now is a blockbuster story, as headlined by the New York Times, Signs of Neanderthals Mating With Humans.

But first, let us ask a serious question. What in world is wrong with a good deal of the people in mainstream science, especially those in the humanities-related professions? Is your average alleged "mainstream scientist" just a well-educated but otherwise uncritical and unthinking "yes man" running like a lemming to the sea blindly following whichever theory or professor in authority happens to be in vogue at the moment??

The above question has surfaced again as relates to "new" genetic research findings just published in Science magazine concerning Neandertal Man in A Draft Sequence of the Neandertal Genome.

The team of researchers under the direction of Svante Paabo at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, but involving numerous universities throughout the world, relate findings which -- totally contrary to the established faith in mainstream science -- now suggest that Neandertal Man did not just "die out", never to be seen again, but in fact left significant genetic traces in our modern human heritage, as normal logic would have expected. The Abstract to the May 7 publication provides:

"Neandertals, the closest evolutionary relatives of present-dayhumans, lived in large parts of Europe and western Asia beforedisappearing 30,000 years ago. We present a draft sequence ofthe Neandertal genome composed of more than 4 billion nucleotidesfrom three individuals. Comparisons of the Neandertal genometo the genomes of five present-day humans from different partsof the world identify a number of genomic regions that may havebeen affected by positive selection in ancestral modern humans,including genes involved in metabolism and in cognitive andskeletal development. We show that Neandertals shared more geneticvariants with present-day humans in Eurasia than with present-dayhumans in sub-Saharan Africa, suggesting that gene flow fromNeandertals into the ancestors of non-Africans occurred beforethe divergence of Eurasian groups from each other."

But, in fact, the influence of Neandertals is surely far greater on modern man than the above abstract suggests, especially for the dawn of modern man in Europe and western Asia. We need only to examine a National Geographic News article of October 25, 2007 by Brian Handwerk titled Some Neandertals Were Pale Redheads, DNA Suggests, which points to the Neandertal DNA test results of Carles LaLueza-Fox of the University of Barcelona, whose team:

"[F]ound an unknown mutation in a key gene called MC1R.
Also present in modern humans, the gene regulates a protein that guides the production of melanin, which pigments hair and skin and protects from UV rays.
Variations in this gene's sequence limit melanin production in people with pale skin and red hair, although the particular mutation found by the researchers is not known to occur in modern humans.
The team tested the gene in living cells to see what effect the previously unknown variant would have had on the Neandertals who carried it. The test tube experiment showed that the variant suppressed the production of melanin, and thus likely gave the Neandertals who carried it red hair and pale skin."

Handwerk also has an article at National Geographic News on Odd Skull Boosts Human, Neandertal Interbreeding Theory where he writes:

"A human skull from a Romanian bear cave is shaking up ideas about ancient sex.
The Homo sapiens skull has a distinctive feature previously found only in Neandertals, providing further evidence of interbreeding between the two species, according to a new study....
Recently the fossil was radiocarbon dated to 33,000 years ago and thoroughly examined, revealing the controversial anatomical feature.
The otherwise human skull has a groove at the base of the back of the skull, just above the neck muscle, that is ubiquitous in Neandertal specimens but has never been seen in the remains of a modern human, argues study leader Erik Trinkaus, an anthropologist at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri."

Accordingly, there is far more yet to be found as concerns the relationship of Neandertal man to modern humans, especially in Europe and western Asia, you can be sure.

So why have the majority of mainstream scientists and, unforgivably, the mainstream news media, been comfortable with accepting the position that seemed the most illogical, i.e. that the Neanderthals died out without leaving a trace? I presume that this must be either a kind of Rorschach test into the minds of many of those professing to be independent scientists, or it shows that many scientists are merely "followers" and not independently-thinking researchers. Similarly and unfortunately, much of the news media has merely a parrot function.

At LexiLine -- the discussion group on the History of Civilization -- I wrote in the year 2005 as follows in connection with my thoughts on Human Migration and the Rh Blood Protein:

"It is true that the current Neanderthal discussion is vexing. What I myself have seen written about the Neanderthals in past and present writings seems mostly to consist of overly broad conjectures based on very little evidence. I am of the impression that neither laymen, nor the news media, nor even mainstream scientists know enough about this yet. See in this regard also Michael P. Germano and his posting on Neanderthals Again? Has the Media Got It Right?

What is significant is the geographic area in which we have thus far found Neanderthal remains, which largely corresponds to what we would today call Europe. See http://anthro.palomar.edu/homo2/mod_homo_2.htm

A number of years ago, before it became fashionable, I suggested that humans formed from an interbreeding of two primate groups, based upon blood types. See http://www.lexiline.com/lexiline/lexi9.htm, see in this regard also http://www.dadamo.com/wiki/wiki.pl/Related_blood_group_factors_in_animals where it is written:

"In the ABO blood group system, humans and chimpanzees both have A blood group antigens, but the DNA nucleotide sequences are different. The differences are not minor.
Surprisingly, humans and gorillas both have blood group B, and their DNA nucleotide sequences are pretty much identical, with only minor differences."
However, I would imagine that such interbreeding, if it occurred, would have to have taken place before Man arrived in Europe. Indeed, where the territories of gorillas and chimpanzees in Eastern Africa meet is where we find the first evidence of human skulls. How the Neanderthals fit into this picture is still anybody's guess and will ultimately have to be decided by deciphering their human genome, as is being done."

You don't find any mainstream scientists quoting my work because they only quote people they know, whether they be right or wrong, the main thing being that they are considered "authorities" in their field. The "correctness" of the science of such authorities is beside the point.

However, I am at least gratified to read at BBC that one of the people, John Hawks, who I sometimes read for his apparent openness of mind in this field, is quoted at the BBC in Neanderthal genes 'survive in us' as follows:

"John Hawks, assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the US, told BBC News: "They're us. We're them. ""

At his john hawks weblog Hawks has a longish posting titled "Neandertals Live!" which is well worth reading to consider some of the new fascinating issues beyond the normal news hype.

Crossposted from LawPundit.

Roman Calendration, Sosigenes and Numa Pompilius - LexiLine Journal 540

2010-04-13T14:38:00.000+02:00

Happy Easter! (this is a bit late, but I have been traveling)
A movable calendric feast!
It is thus time again write a bit about calendration, this time, about the Roman Calendar:

"The Roman Calendar was a curious conglomeration of historical inputs, and yet, our own modern calendar in the Western world - with our non-astronomical months of varying durations and strange numerically disjointed names - was inherited directly from that Roman system as the Julian Calendar (Wikipedia), reflecting calendric reform made under Julius Caesar, who called upon the Egyptian astronomer priest Sosigenes of Alexandria (see also e.g. the Encyclopaedia Britannica) to correct the Roman calendar:

"[The Julian Calendar] has a regular year of 365 days divided into 12 months, and a leap day is added to February every four years. Hence the Julian year is on average 365.25 days long."
Pliny the Elder, Book 18, 210-212 wrote:

"... There were three main schools, the Chaldaean, the Egyptian, and the Greek; and to these a fourth was added in our country by Caesar during his dictatorship, who with the assistance of the learned astronomer Sosigenes (Sosigene perito scientiae eius adhibito) brought the separate years back into conformity with the course of the sun. (Wikipedia translation - source unknown)

(or, from Perseus at Tufts, translation by John Bostock)
"There have been three great schools of astronomy, the Chaldæan, the Ægyptian, and the Grecian. To these has been added a fourth school, which was established by the Dictator Cæsar among ourselves, and to which was entrusted the duty of regulating the year in conformity with the sun's revolution, under the auspices of Sosigenes, an astronomer of considerable learning and skill."

A history of that Early Roman Calendar is found at WebExhibits.org in their Calendars through the Ages.
The Roman system of calendration prior to calendar reform was described by Plutarch in "Numa Pompilius," C.E. 75, Sanctum Library: 8th-7th Century B.C.E., in a translation by John Dryden as follows (from WebExhibits.org):

"During the reign of Romulus, they had let their months run on without any certain or equal term; some of them contained twenty days, others thirty-five, others more; they had no sort of knowledge of the inequality in the motions of the sun and moon; they only kept to the one rule that the whole course of the year contained three hundred and sixty days.
"Numa, calculating the difference between the lunar and solar years at eleven days, for that the moon completed her anniversary course in three hundred and fifty-four days, and the sun in three hundred and sixty-five, to remedy this incongruity doubled the eleven days, and every other year added an intercalary month, to follow February, consisting of twenty-two days, and called by the Romans the month Mercedinus...

"Many will have it, that it was Numa, also, who added the two months of Januarius and Februarius; for in the beginning they had a year of ten months...

"That the Romans, at first, comprehended the whole year within ten, and not twelve months, plainly appears by the name of the last, December, meaning the tenth month; and that Martius was the first is likewise evident, for the fifth month after it was called Quintilis, and the sixth Sextilis, and so the rest; whereas, if Januarius and Februarius had, in this account, preceded Martius, Quintilis would have been fifth in name and seventh in reckoning.

"It was also natural that Martius, dedicated to Mars, should be Romulus’s first and Aprilis, named from Venus, or Aphrodite, his second month; in it they sacrifice to Venus, and the women bathe on the calends, or first day of it, with myrtle garlands on their heads.
"But others, because of its being p and not ph, will not allow of the derivation of this word from Aphrodite, but say it is called Aprilis from aperio, Latin for to open, because that this month is high spring, and opens and discloses the buds and flowers.
"The next is called Maius, from Maia, the mother of Mercury, to whom it is sacred; then Junius follows, so called from Juno; some, however, derive them from the two ages, old and young, majores being their name for older, and juniores for younger men.
"To the other months they gave denominations according to their order; so the fifth was called Quintilis, Sextilis the sixth, and the rest, Septembris, Octobris, Novembris and Decembris. Afterwards, Quintilis received the name of Julius (July), from Caesar, who defeated Pompey; as also Sextilis that of Augustus, (August) from the second Caesar, who had that title...

"Of the months which were added or transposed in their order by Numa, Februarius comes from februa; and is as such a Purification month; in it they make offerings to the dead, and celebrate the Lupercalia, which, in most points, resembles a purification. Januarius was also called from Janus, and precedence given to it by Numa before Martius, which was dedicated to the god Mars; because, as I conceive, he wished to take every opportunity of intimating that the arts and studies of peace are to be preferred before those of war."
When did Numa institute this calendar reform?
Six years ago in my posting at 31 LexiLine Newsletter 2004 I gave the following chronology based on 480-year intervals from the time of what I consider to be the official calendric founding of "dynastic" Egypt (see also Ancient Calendric Stele Newly Discovered in Egypt):

"3117 BC start of the calendar
2637 BC reform of the Calendar by Khasekhemwy for the tropical year
2157 BC First Intermediate Period
1677 BC Second Intermediate Period
1197 BC Rule of King David (Sethos) begins - whence his Hall of Records
717 BC Start of the reign of Numa Pompilius, the 1st calendric king of Rome, begins
237 BC Restoration of the Etruscan "Secular (calendric) Games" in Rome - whence the building of Edfu" [emphasis added]

I have since then considered moving the start of the modern calendar even further back to an earlier date at Göbekli Tepe, perhaps having a close relationship with the start of the Hebrew Calendar, but although that is relevant to the question of the date of the start of the calendar in Egypt, I am not yet finished with that ongoing analysis.
For purposes of demonstration only of the multiple intervals of 240 years and 480 years in a calendric system going back (at least) to Göbekli Tepe -- we can turn the clock back a couple of years as follows to get round BCE numbers - the astronomical year would however not change:

""3840 BCE start (?) of the calendar at Göbekli Tepe near Urfa, i.e. Ur, the birthplace of Abraham (the Hebrew Calendar starts by current calculation on October 7, 3761 BC according to the Julian Calendar and on September 7, -3760 according to the Gregorian Calendar - see the instructive Calendar Converter at Fourmilab.com from John Walker)
3600 BCE ??
3360 BCE start of the "calendric predynastic period" in Egypt
3120 BCE start of the dynastic calendar in Pharaonic Egypt - actually -3116 by astronomy
2640 BCE reform of the Calendar by Khasekhemwy for the tropical year
2160 BCE First Intermediate Period in Pharaonic Egypt
1680 BCE Second Intermediate Period in Pharaonic Egypt
1200 BCE Rule of King David (Sethos) begins - whence his Hall of Records
720 BCE Start of the reign of Numa Pompilius, the 1st calendric king of Rome, begins
240 BCE Restoration of the Etruscan "Secular (calendric) Games" in Rome - whence the building of Edfu - this is the same date as the ancient Ancient Calendric Stele Newly Discovered in Egypt which the archaeologists date to 238 BC....
0 BC viz. 0 AD The start of the modern method of calendration and the alleged birth of Jesus
Just what year BC or BCE is correct depends on when one puts the birth of Christ viz. the alleged birth of Jesus.

Originally I set the 3117 BC date near what my astronomy software program identified as a solar eclipse at the Winter Solstice at that time, whereas more recent tentative results indicate that it may in fact have been a solar eclipse near the Summer Solstice -- this is a calendric calculation problem caused by academic dispute on the matter of the variable Delta T, the change in the rate of the spin of the earth over millennia -- which determines the location of ancient solar eclipses -- about which there is a great deal of uncertainty, but this matter is not critical for the 480-year interval dates, although all will ultimately require some calibration.
At any event, there is in my opinion strong evidence in the ancient sources that a ca. 480-year interval was used for calculation in ancient Egypt [this was 479 years plus 120 days as inscribed on the statue of Khasekhemwy (my discovery)]:

"The casualties that are portrayed at the side of the pedestal to Khasekhemwy’s statue symbolize the dead, expired years. It is quite clear that the first nail-formed hieroglyph, written four times consecutively, stands for four 100’s and not for four 10000’s. The seven middle flower-shaped hieroglyphs represent seven 10’s. This is not disputed. The nine left "stick" hieroglyphs represent nine 1’s. This is also not disputed. The number represented here is thus the number 479 and not, as the Egyptologists would have us believe, he number 40079. A study of the magnified hieroglyphs confirms our analysis.

Figure 20 (ab0ve):
Khasekhemwy and his Numbers (slightly magnified).

Figure 21 (above):
Khasekhemwy and his Numbers (strongly magnified)
The individual numbers from the right to the left are 4-7-9 = 479 years, plus 120 days intercalated (2x 60), the @-shaped hieroglyphs. These numbers are clear. The Pharaohs would never have written the number 40279 this way, with 100's between the 10's and 1's, above the 1's."
This interval is also reflected in Biblical chronology, e.g. we can read in the Book of Kings, Chapter 6:1, King James Version of the Bible:

"And it came to pass in the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel, in the month Zif, which is the second month, that he began to build the house of the LORD."

That date too will have been a calendric construction.
Sosigenes, as an astronomer priest of Egypt will also have utilized the 240-year and 480-year calendric intervals for his secret and expert calculations for the Romans.
In this manner, our modern calendar, strangely enough, is also a direct descendant of the Pharaonic system, thanks to the astronomer priests of Pharaonic Egypt working with the Romans.

Ian Hodder: All Our Theories Were Wrong - LexiLine Journal 539

2010-03-02T20:52:00.001+01:00

Göbekli Tepe is featured at Newsweek online in an article from the March 1, 2010 issue of Newsweek magazine. At History in the Remaking: A temple complex in Turkey that predates even the pyramids is rewriting the story of human evolution, Patrick Symmes writes: "

"The new discoveries are finally beginning to reshape the slow-moving consensus of archeology. Göbekli Tepe is 'unbelievably big and amazing, at a ridiculously early date,' according to Ian Hodder, director of Stanford's archeology program. Enthusing over the 'huge great stones and fantastic, highly refined art' at Göbekli, Hodder -- "who has spent decades on rival Neolithic sites" -- says: 'Many people think that it changes everything…It overturns the whole apple cart. All our theories were wrong.
[Klaus Schmidt - chief archaeologist at Göbekli Tepe - theorizes that] it was the urge to worship that brought mankind together in the very first urban conglomerations. The need to build and maintain this temple, he says, drove the builders to seek stable food sources, like grains and animals that could be domesticated, and then to settle down to guard their new way of life. The temple begat the city."

All of THEIR theories (the theories of mainstream archaeology and astronomy) were wrong.

OUR megalithic archaeological and astronomical theories, on the other hand, are looking better all the time.

We have always linked the stones to astronomy and both to ancient belief.
There is more to these stones than just having an ancient sundial in your backyard.
The ancients were doing important things with these ancient megalithic sites.

Schmidt's rather esoteric idea that the temples were the reason for human urbanization and agricultural domestication is of course far-fetched. Forget that.

A hat tip and thank you to Boris of our LexiLine group for calling this Newsweek article to my attention.

Why Study Ancient Mankind and the Past? - LexiLine Journal 538

2010-03-02T20:30:00.001+01:00

I just wrote this to someone interested in my work who themselves was studying mankind's ancient past:

"In this field, the fun is in the doing.

I for example work almost entirely for myself, beacuse I am sincerely interested in what actually happened in ancient history.
It is my way of uncovering and tracing - for me - what I think to be the tracks of mankind.

Whether others agree with me or not or whether one is "correct" or not in some future "court" that decides these things,
I doubt very much that it matters."

I hope we have a lot of members in our group who share that view.

WANTING to know is the first prerequisite to learning new things
and making new discoveries,
especially for ourselves,
but we seldom have any guarantees
that we are right in our conclusions
about any of these things.

Evidentiary Archaeology: Akhenaten Identified by CT and DNA - LexiLine Journal 537

2010-02-22T16:41:00.001+01:00

Tutankhamun and "Where the Great Akhenaten Lies" : Asharq Alawsat Newspaper (English)

Zahi Hawass reports on the great discovery made regarding the identification of Akhenaten among the mummies of Egypt, where it appears quite clearly from the Hawass statements that Akhenaten has been convincingly identified, writing inter alia:

"At a press conference for international media figures held by the Supreme Council of Antiquities last Wednesday at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, I announced that important [archaeological] discoveries had been made that shed more light on the dynasty of the golden pharaoh Tutankhamen. These discoveries marked the beginning of a new chapter in using modern techniques and advanced technology in the field of archeological discoveries."

Read the rest here.

As regards those remarks, Mark Rose, the executive editor at Archaeology Magazine in Tut: Disease and DNA News had previously - and typically for Egyptology - raised the question of whether the DNA and CT Akhenaten identification was accurate, since mainstream Egyptology had previously alleged that the mummy KV55 in question was only ca. 25 years of age, which would be much too young for Akhenaten [who I equate with King Saul]. The CT, however showed the age to be 45 to 55 years. How mainstream archaeologists could be that far off on the age of KV55 up to now is remarkable, but to be expected from Egyptology, where unproven hypotheses based on little evidence are rampant. It is equally puzzling, by the way, that the report which contains the most necessary information on the CT and DNA studies that we have been able to find online up to know comes from distant China, where a Xinhua article - Egypt reveals Tutankhamun's lineage, cause of death - writes (editor yan):

"According to the CT scan, Tutankhamun's [who I equate with Saul's son, Jonathan, "Young ATON"] father Akhenaten died at the age between 45 and 55, not at the age between 20 and 25 as previously thought."

To see the sometimes appalling historical handling of the "evidence" relating to KV55 prior to now by the Egyptological community - "evidence" is something the Egyptologists are not trained for in their studies, and their work shows it - read KV55 in the Valley of the Kings on the West Bank at Luxor by Mark Andrews at TourEgypt.net.

Thankfully, as Hawass correctly observes, Egyptology will now be much corrected over time through modern means, i.e. via genetics and more modern means of assessing artefacts.

I wrote about this new "evidentiary archaeology" some time ago.

Cave Writings as Messages from the Stone Age - LexiLine Journal 536

2010-02-18T18:25:00.000+01:00

At

Messages from the Stone Age : Cave Writing Underestimated : 17 February 2010 : New Scientist

Kate Ravilious in "The writing on the cave wall" reports:

"While some scholars like [Jean Clottes] Clottes had recorded the presence of cave signs at individual sites, Genevieve von Petzinger, then a student at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada, was surprised to find that no one had brought all these records together to compare signs from different caves. And so, under the supervision of April Nowell, also at the University of Victoria, she devised an ambitious masters project. She compiled a comprehensive database of all recorded cave signs from 146 sites in France, covering 25,000 years of prehistory from 35,000 to 10,000 years ago.

What emerged was startling: 26 signs, all drawn in the same style, appeared again and again at numerous sites (see illustration). Admittedly, some of the symbols are pretty basic, like straight lines, circles and triangles, but the fact that many of the more complex designs also appeared in several places hinted to von Petzinger and Nowell that they were meaningful - perhaps even the seeds of written communication."

Mainstream archaeology is slowly moving forward toward OUR already long-term understanding of the significance of ancient cave and rock art

and we see that this new understanding will be dependent upon young people to tackle these topics in their academic papers.

Read the full article here.

DNA Proves Tutankhamun as Son of Akhenaten - LexiLine Journal 535

2010-02-18T00:03:00.000+01:00

Who was Tutankhamun and was he murdered by the Philistines?

Nearly five years ago I made a posting to the LexiLine group on the History of Civilization at 33 LexiLine Newsletter 2005 Who was Tutankhamun - Jonathon Aton - The Me'il in which I identified the young "co-regent" Tutankhamun as the son of Akhenaten (Echnaton). Tut was NEVER the Pharaoh himself. My identification has now been proven correct by DNA evidence in a study conducted by Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) under the leadership of Secretary General Zahi Hawass, a study published in Vol. 303 No. 7, February 17, 2010 of the Journal of the American Medical Association, of which the following is the Abstract:

"Ancestry and Pathology in King Tutankhamun's Family
Zahi Hawass, PhD; Yehia Z. Gad, MD; Somaia Ismail, PhD; Rabab Khairat, MSc; Dina Fathalla, MSc; Naglaa Hasan, MSc; Amal Ahmed, BPharm; Hisham Elleithy, MA; Markus Ball, MSc; Fawzi Gaballah, PhD; Sally Wasef, MSc; Mohamed Fateen, MD; Hany Amer, PhD; Paul Gostner, MD; Ashraf Selim, MD; Albert Zink, PhD; Carsten M. Pusch, PhD
JAMA. 2010;303(7):638-647.
Context The New Kingdom in ancient Egypt, comprising the18th, 19th, and 20th dynasties, spanned the mid-16th to theearly 11th centuries BC. The late 18th dynasty, which includedthe reigns of pharaohs Akhenaten and Tutankhamun, was an extraordinarytime. The identification of a number of royal mummies from thisera, the exact relationships between some members of the royalfamily, and possible illnesses and causes of death have beenmatters of debate.
Objectives To introduce a new approach to molecular andmedical Egyptology, to determine familial relationships among11 royal mummies of the New Kingdom, and to search for pathologicalfeatures attributable to possible murder, consanguinity, inheriteddisorders, and infectious diseases.
Design From September 2007 to October 2009, royal mummiesunderwent detailed anthropological, radiological, and geneticstudies as part of the King Tutankhamun Family Project. Mummiesdistinct from Tutankhamun's immediate lineage served as thegenetic and morphological reference. To authenticate DNA results,analytical steps were repeated and independently replicatedin a second ancient DNA laboratory staffed by a separate groupof personnel. Eleven royal mummies dating from circa 1410-1324BC and suspected of being kindred of Tutankhamun and 5 royalmummies dating to an earlier period, circa 1550-1479 BC, wereexamined.
Main Outcome Measures Microsatellite-based haplotypesin the mummies, generational segregation of alleles within possiblepedigree variants, and correlation of identified diseases withindividual age, archeological evidence, and the written historicalrecord.
Results Genetic fingerprinting allowed the constructionof a 5-generation pedigree of Tutankhamun's immediate lineage.The KV55 mummy and KV35YL were identified as the parents ofTutankhamun. No signs of gynecomastia and craniosynostoses (eg,Antley-Bixler syndrome) or Marfan syndrome were found, but anaccumulation of malformations in Tutankhamun's family was evident.Several pathologies including Köhler disease II were diagnosedin Tutankhamun; none alone would have caused death. Genetictesting for STEVOR, AMA1, or MSP1 genes specific for Plasmodiumfalciparum revealed indications of malaria tropica in 4 mummies,including Tutankhamun’s. These results suggest avascularbone necrosis in conjunction with the malarial infection asthe most likely cause of death in Tutankhamun. Walking impairmentand malarial disease sustained by Tutankhamun is supported bythe discovery of canes and an afterlife pharmacy in his tomb.
Conclusion Using a multidisciplinary scientific approach,we showed the feasibility of gathering data on Pharaonic kinshipand diseases and speculated about individual causes of death."

The results of the study were released within the last 24 hours (February 16/17, 2010) to the public and have already been summarized in part at the Wikipedia:

"Scholars had not reached consensus on the identity of Tutankhamun's parents. An inscription calls him a king's son [emphasis added], but it was not clear which king was meant. An extensive DNA analysis whose results were publicized in February 2010 confirmed that he was the son of Akhenaten and Akhenaten's sister (also his wife).^[8]
At one time Tutankhamun had been thought to be a son of Amenhotep III and his Great Royal Wife Queen Tiye [added insert from us: the hieroglpyh from which this erroneous idea came actually reads "ancestor" rather than "father"]. Instead, he has been confirmed as their grandson, child of their son and daughter.^[9] Later research claimed that he may have been a son of Amenhotep III, although not by Queen Tiye. She would have been more than fifty years old at the time of Tutankhamun's birth.

DNA results released in February 2010 confirm Tutankhamun as the biological son of Akhenaten and grandson of Queen Tiye. Tutankhamun's mother has been confirmed as Mummy KV35YL, a sister of Akhenaten. Her identity as of this date is still unidentified.^[10]

A common hypothesis held that Tutankhamun was the son of Akhenaten, also known as Amenhotep IV, and his minor wife Queen Kiya. Queen Kiya's title was "Greatly Beloved Wife of Akhenaten" so it is possible that she could have borne him an heir. Supporting this theory, images on the tomb wall in the tomb of Akhenaten show a royal fan bearer standing next to Kiya's death bed, fanning someone who may be a princess. Researchers also thought the figure was a wet nurse holding a baby, considered to be the boy king-to-be.

Professor James Allen [link added: President of the International Association of Egyptologists] argued that Tutankhamun was more likely to be a son of the short-lived king Smenkhkare rather than Akhenaten. Allen argued that Akhenaten chose a female co-regent named Neferneferuaten as his successor, rather than Tutankhamun. He thought that would have been unlikely if the latter were his son.^[11]^[12] Smenkhkare appears when Akhenaten entered year 14 of his reign. Scholars believe that during this time Meritaten married Smenkhkare. Smenkhkare, as the father of Tutankhamun, would have needed at least a three-year reign to bring Tutankhamun to the right age to have inherited the throne. However, if there had been lengthy co-regency between Amenhotep III and Akhenaten, Amenhotep could have been Tutankhamun's father (later disproved by DNA testing).^[12]^[13]

Recently, Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities, announced the recovery of a part of a limestone block depicting Tutankhamun and his wife Ankhesenamen, along with text. These identify both Tutankhamun and his wife Ankhesenpaaten as "children of the king's body" or the biological son and daughter of Akhenaten. This shows the repetition of marriage between royal siblings."

The junk that the mainstream media have written about the new - mostly DNA evidence - is further proof that mainstream academia and mainstream journalists feed the clueless public with more-or-less pablum nonsense, concentrating not on important matters of the identity of Pharaohs but rather on the speculatively sensationalistic question of Tut's cause of death, whereas the identity question is far more important to Egyptology and the reconstruction of man's ancient history. The mainstream media and Egyptologists have already announced that the cause of Tut's death is clear, whereas the actual study says:

"These results suggest avascularbone necrosis in conjunction with the malarial infection asthe most likely cause of death in Tutankhamun."

That "suggestion" is pure IDLE speculation given the fact that 4 of the 11 mummies examined showed signs of malaria and that Tut's foot malformation must have been of very long standing.

As written at Why Evolution is True in What killed King Tut?

"... Hawass, with his usual penchant for publicity, is going around telling reporters, with no reservations, that malaria definitely killed the young king. Well, maybe, but falciparum malaria isn’t always fatal. Two of of Tut’s great-grandparents had it, and, as the authors note, they died in their 50s, and the infection might have been chronic, or suppressed by their immune systems."

Already in the year 1923, as can easily be seen from a photograph of Tut's body, which is reproduced at page 297 of the 1996 British Museum Dictionary of Ancient Egypt (reproduced there courtesy of the Griffith Institute), it was well known already nearly 87 years ago that Tut had suffered a broken leg in his life and that there was a serious problem with his unequally sized feet - as can be seen from our cut-out and coloring of the lower half of that image (our added red circles show the leg break and the foot malformation):
The notion that the new DNA and CT study dispells the possibility that King Tut met a violent death is sadly mistaken - it proves nothing, merely adding the malaria element to an already shaky theory.

As written at TourEgypt.net in Who Killed King Tut? by The Government of Egypt and edited by Jimmy Dunn:

"The possibility that Tutankhamen did not die of natural causes was first raised 28 years ago when an X-ray analysis of his mummy was made by the anatomy department of the University of Liverpool. It revealed that the king may have died from a blow to the back of his head.

Early this year, a new X-ray analysis cast more light on the subject, this time suggesting that Tutankhamen may have been murdered in his sleep. The examination was conducted by a trauma specialist at Long Island University, USA, "The blow was to a protected area at the back of the head which you don't injure in an accident, someone had to sneak up from behind," said the specialist.

X-rays also show a thickening of a bone in the cranium which could occur only after a build-up of blood. This would indicate that the king might have been left bleeding for a long time before he actually died. In short, scientists suggest that the king was most probably hit on the back of his head while asleep and that he lingered, maybe for as long as two months, before he died....

[O]n the pedestal of one of Horemhab's statues is a text in which he left a message to all Egyptians, indicating that he was not the man who committed the crime. He declared in writing that he was loyal to his king and carried out all his orders faithfully. He also warned any Egyptian who may read the text, against 'normalizing' relations with foreigners and told them never to trust them: "Egyptian brothers, don't ever forget what foreigners did to our King Tutankhamen", Horemhab wrote."

Why the mainstream scholars continue to ignore other evidence and seek to force a speculative interpretation upon the public is something that we can not understand. But it is typical for Egyptology.

To recall our own article, 5 years ago at 33 LexiLine Newsletter 2005 Who was Tutankhamun - Jonathon Aton - The Me'il:

"I recently received a letter asking me for an illustration of the robe or Me'il of the Cohen Gadol, the Hebrew High Priest, and also asking me who in my opinion Tutankhamun was. The two questions are inter-related.

See the following website for one interpretative drawing of the Cohen Gadol's priestly garments http://messianic-torat-chayim-sg.org/Torah/kohengadol.html. That is pretty much a fantasy drawing, but a good attempt.

Actually, the robe of the Cohen Gadol will not have been substantially different than that worn by the Pharaohs of Egypt, based on the following example ramsesIII.jpg of the garment of Ramses III which I have [also] uploaded to our LexiLine files at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LexiLine/files/Egypt/

You can see there both the top and bottom robe, the ephod, the belt in layers, as well as the tassels on the robe, some of which, also on Ramses III, appear to be small bells - as allegedly also on the robe of the Cohen Gadol in descriptions of the me'il. This picture is a scan from a superb book by Peter A. Clayton, Chronicle of the Pharaohs, Thames and Hudson Ltd., London, 1994, available at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0500050740/. The book is a must buy for anyone in this field as the best book of this kind in Egyptology (i.e. it is an understandable overview of all the pharaohs and their reigns according to the mainstream views). No other book comes even close. I use it all the time, even though it of course carries forward many mainstream errors in Egyptology.

Remnants of the Hebrew High Priest's robe were in my opinion found in the Tomb of Tutankhamun. Such a robe would have been far more Egyptian in nature than the drawing above and the Cohen Gadol would not have had a beard - quite the contrary, priests were bald: (quoted from http://snipurl.com/fetq viz.
http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/prehistory/egypt/dailylife/hairstyles.html.

"Priests were required to keep their entire bodies cleanly shaved.
They shaved every third day because they needed to avoid the danger
of lice or any other uncleanness to conduct rituals. This is the
reason why priests are illustrated bald-headed with no eyebrows or
lashes."

In addition, both the bearded Asiatics (Assyrians, etc.) and the black peoples were arch enemies of the clean-shaven Pharaohs, as shown at the Tomb of Tutankhamun on the prow of a miniature ship. In discussing the origin of the Pharaohs, it is rather remarkable that such important pieces of evidence are ignored by Egyptology.

For an extensive review of the items found in the Tomb of Tutankhamun, see generally

http://www.lexiline.com/lexiline/lexi80.htm and more specifically
http://www.lexiline.com/lexiline/lexi25.htm and also
http://www.lexiline.com/lexiline/lexi600.htm

The identity of Tutankhamun can be explained as follows:

In my opinion, the evidence is incontrovertible that King Saul =Echnaton (Akhenaten), King David = Sethos and King Solomon = Ramses II with Shishak = Ramses III.

Accordingly, Tutankhamun can only be ATON, i.e. JON-ATHON ("young Aton, young Adonis, "Jaun-(IE)donis"), one of the sons of Saul in the Bible. Saul was Echn-ATON viz. Akhen-ATEN ("old Aton", old Adonis, "Vec-(IE)Donis"). The other brother was Semenchkare, Biblical Ish-Boshet, who served a short time as Pharaoh before being executed. The hieroglyphs which the Egyptologists read as SE-Mench are actually ISH-Boshet. SE = ISH. The other error occurs because there are two alternative readings for the small chisel - one is MNCH (Indo-European e.g. latvian MI(N)CHA), MIEC- "to knead, strike" but the other is B[.....] which is Indo-European viz. Latvian PASIT (=BOSHET) "to strike at". The Egyptologists have chosen the wrong alternative of the two for Semenchkare.

Young ATON (Jon-ATHON) saved David's life and was his best friend, but was killed at an early age - according to the Bible - battling the Philistines, in a battle in which Saul ("old Aton") also lost his life. According to the Bible, the latter's body was mutilated by the Philistines and has thus never been found by the Egyptologists, probably having been buried somewhere in Canaan.

Tutankhamun never served as Pharaoh but was heir to the throne. This explains his having a royal cartouche but being excluded from the ancient lists of the kings of Egypt. He never manned the throne. His untimely death brought his best friend David onto the throne, and so Jonathon was buried in regal style by David, who had become King David = Sethos (Setoy).

Note in this regard that the alleged pharaoh Haremhab viz. Horemhab at this time was actually Hiram (also written Huram), King of Tyre, one of King David's best friends. Horemhab never served as sovereign Pharaoh of Egypt, contrary to the erred opinion of Egyptology, but was only a vice-regent (see http://www.varchive.org/tac/harcrown.htm) later given a royal status - whence the cartouche - by King David. Haremhab built many buildings for David (so the Bible) upon which he also placed his name as the builder of them - but pharaoh himself he was not, but only King of Tyre. The kingly reign attributed to him actually belonged to King David (Sethos viz. Setoy) and this is why in spite of two tombs being attributed to Haremhab by the Egyptologists, his mummy is not found among the mummies of the kings which have been recovered in the mummy depots. The Egyptologists incorrectly read "Tyre" on the hieroglyphs as DJOSER whereas Haremhab's cartouched hieroglyph showing the hand holding an object
is clearly to be read as TUR ("hold") i.e. TYRE and not DJOSER.

Nearly all of the furniture and treasures in the tomb of Tutankhamun are from a later period. The tomb was reopened and the holy vessels of the Mishnayot were hidden there, including the Ark of the Covenant (also called the Ark of the Law, Ark of the Testimony, Ark of God) with the tomb being resealed by the priests and the entrance being covered by tons of rubble - such tomb only having been found in our modern era by Howard Carter as the Tomb of Tutankhamun.

See in this regard
http://www.lexiline.com/lexiline/lexi80.htm and
http://www.lexiline.com/lexiline/lexi000.htm
for the hiding of the Ark of the Covenant and the holy vessels."

______________

M.S. Reddy wrote:

Dear Andis,

Congratulations for your excellent prediction Who was Tutankhamunn and the latest DNA analysis. The DNA analysis and the latest developments in this study of Egyptian mummies is revealing the wonders of our ancient civilization. Dedicated souls like you are doing great service to humanity at large and we are grateful for your keen insight and dedication.
______________

Andis Kaulins wrote:

EVIDENCE?
Tut Revisited:
But is the Evidence so Clear that KV55 is Akhenaten and not Tut's brother Smenkhkare?
http://ow.ly/16BqhR
______________

Andis Kaulins wrote:

Evidentiary Archaeology: Akhenaten Identified by CT and DNA

Tutankhamun and "Where the Great Akhenaten Lies" : Asharq Alawsat Newspaper (English)

Zahi Hawass reports on the great discovery made regarding the identification of Akhenaten among the mummies of Egypt, where it appears quite clearly from the Hawass statements that Akhenaten has been convincingly identified, writing inter alia:

"At a press conference for international media figures held by the Supreme Council of Antiquities last Wednesday at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, I announced that important [archaeological] discoveries had been made that shed more light on the dynasty of the golden pharaoh Tutankhamen. These discoveries marked the beginning of a new chapter in using modern techniques and advanced technology in the field of archeological discoveries."

"According to the CT scan, Tutankhamun's [who I equate with Saul's son, Jonathan, "Young ATON"] father Akhenaten died at the age between 45 and 55, not at the age between 20 and 25 as previously thought."

King's College London to Shut Down UK's Only Palaeography Chair : Maybe They Should Read My Blogs - LexiLine Journal 534

2010-02-15T21:21:00.000+01:00

Not much money in studying ancient texts.

Just ask the author of the posting you are now reading.

Hence, we are not surprised to read at The Guardian in Writing off the UK's last palaeographer that:

"The decision by a London university to axe the UK's only chair in palaeography has been met by outrage from the world's most eminent classicists. John Crace on why the study of ancient writings matters - and why history will be lost without it...."

As Crace writes:

"Indus Valley script

Plenty more work to be done . . . palaeographers are yet to decipher the Indus Valley script....

Palaeographers are used to making sense of fragments of ancient manuscripts, but King's College London couldn't have been plainer when it announced recently that it was to close the UK's only chair of palaeography....

Not that palaeography has the answer to everything. No one has still made head or tail of Linear A (dating back to around 1900BC), and the Indus Valley script of the third millennium BC is still a mystery.

[Our comment: Maybe the politicians, journalists and academic mainstreamers alike, should first do their homework about the Phaistos Disc and about the Indus Valley Script, before they go into uninformed decisionmaking and propagandizing.

For example, in the Indus Valley Script pictured by Crace -

- as can easily be seen from my graphic at the top of the page of my blog at Indus Valley Script, with the human to be replaced by the upturned arrows and the comparable bow-type symbol, the Indus Valley script pictured by Crace marks the stars from the Winter Solstice to the Autumn Equinox ca. 2000 B.C. Obviously this a stamp - so the reverse is intended, i.e. from the Autumn Equinox to the Winter Solstice.]

But just days before King's made the announcement, its sister London institution, University College, was boasting how two of Ganz's former students, Dr Simon Corcoran and Dr Benet Salway, had pieced together 17 fragments of parchment that form an important Roman law code believed to be the only original evidence yet discovered of the Gregorian Codex (a collection of constitutions upon which a substantial part of most modern European civil law systems are built) that had been thought lost for ever." [emphasis added]

The Star of Bethlehem 32 B.C. as the "Sparkling Star" Comet Recorded in Chinese Records - LexiLine Journal 533

2010-01-29T21:23:00.001+01:00

The book review New Book on the Star of Bethlehem and Birth Chart of Jesus » The Horoscopic Astrology Blog is by Chris Brennan who writes:

"A book just came out in which the author proposes a new theory about the Star of Bethlehem and the birth chart of Jesus.The book is aptly titled The Star of Bethlehem. It was written by a Swiss astrologer named Dieter Koch, who is primarily known for his work with the company Astrodienst, as a co-author of the widely used Swiss Ephemeris....He rightly emphasizes the importance that was ascribed to planets making a helical rising in ancient astrology, and then later adds another dimension to the argument when he takes the statement that the star “stopped” over the place of Jesus’ birth as an indication that the relevant star stationed around the time the Magi arrived in Bethlehem. (pg. 57)
Eventually he unveils the crux of his argument, which is essentially that:“Jesus was born at a heliacal rising of Venus!” (pg. 59)"

In our opinion, that theory of Koch is without substance. As Nigel Henbest writes in What was the Star of Bethlehem?

"Was Venus the Star of Bethlehem? Almost certainly not - Venus makes such regular appearances as the "Morning Star" and the "Evening Star" that people observing the heavens even thousands of years ago would have been familiar with it. The Christmas Star must have been a celestial event that was truly out-of-the-ordinary....Chinese astronomers were logging their own observations of the sky at the time, and reported no brilliant supernovae. They did, however, record two bright comets. The first was Halley's Comet, which swings close by the Sun roughly every 76 years.... But the ancient Chinese saw Halley swinging by in 12 BC - too early for the birth of Jesus.The Chinese reported another celestial visitor early in 5 BC - a"broom star" on the borders of the constellations Aquarius and Capricornus. Though some astronomers think this was a nova - an explosion on a dwarf star - Colin Humphreys, a scientist at Cambridge University, argues that it was a comet. And Humphreys is convinced that this tailed wonder was the Star of Bethlehem. The Chinese records show that the celestial visitor was visible for 70 days - long enough to guide the Magi to Bethlehem. In this case, Jesus was born in the spring of 5 BC. "

Postings by others on the topic of the Star of Bethlehem discuss yet other theories:

The Star of Bethlehem, again at Bad Astronomy discusses a theory that the Star of Bethlehem was the conjunction of Jupiter and Venus - we do not buy that at all.

Colin Humphreys, The Star of Bethlehem, Science and Christian Belief , Vol 5, (October 1995): 83-101, suggests that the Star of Bethlehem was a comet - and that is the theory which we regard to be correct - but which comet and when?

All previous efforts to identify a comet around the era currently assigned to Christ are for naught, because there is a ca. 28-year error in current chronology - see the links below - so that what we regard as the "birth" of Christ was actually his death:

The Era of Jesus: Questions in Modern Calendration
Law, Evidence and Archaeology: Errors in Biblical Chronology
Law, Evidence and Archaeology: Errors in Biblical Chronology II

The result is then that we are looking for a comet around ca. 30 B.C. rather than 0 B.C. and there is indeed such a comet which fits the Biblical account perfectly, having appeared in February in 32 BC and appearing in the heaven's at Ying Shih, which extends into Capricorn, the traditional area of Christ's birth.

See John Williams, Observations of comets, from B. C. 611 to A. D. 1640 (1871), where he writes about the Chinese observation of a comet that appears 50th in his list and was observed in February 32 B.C.:

50 B.C. 32. February.In the reign of Ching Te, the 1st year of the epoch Keen Che, the 1st moon, there was a comet in Ying Shih : its colour was a bluish white. It was from 60 to 70 cubits in length, and about i cubit in width. [emphasis added]

As written in a review of Williams work, Ying Shih is described as follows:

"Ying Shih, or as it is more usually denominated Shih, is one of the 28 stellar divisions determined by [alpha], [beta] and other stars in Pegasus, extending north and south from Cygnus to Piscis Australis, and east and west 17 degrees, and comprising parts of our signs Capricornus and Aquarius."

David Seargent in The greatest comets in history: broom stars and celestial scimitars, Volume 725, writes:

"There seems ... to have been a comet with an exceptionally long tail in the year 32 BC., but it is mentioned - and then only briefly - in just one Chinese record. Moreover, despite noting a tail of at least 70 degrees in length, the object is described as a sparkling star, a designation more normally reserved for comets with no conspicuous tail. Maybe the tail was faint....[emphasis added]

In our view, that "sparkling star" was the Star of Bethlehem.

Aristeo Canlas Fernando writes in his REVELATION AND PROOFS - based on the Bible, accounts of the respected Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, eclipse table prepared by Fred Espanek, Jewish calendars, Jewish festivals and fasts, calendar converter of Timothy James Forsythe, moon phases by Stellafane, Pasiong Mahal (Holy Passion), and the Aristean Cycle - that JESUS CHRIST WAS BORN ON MAY 23, 33 B.C.

We agree that the birth of Jesus occurred in this era ca. 33-32 B.C.l and that the Star of Bethlehem was the Comet of 32 B.C.

It may or may not be coincidence, by the way, but the oldest surviving date for the Maya Long Count also falls "in 32 BC at Chiapa de Corzo, between the Olmec and Maya zones," Simon Martin and Nikolai Grube, Chronicle of the Maya Kings and Queens, p.13.
______________

Update:

The possible date of 32 B.C. must be considered in light of my previous postings.

Useful for the discussion below is this graphic of the Lion of Nemrut Dagh (Nimrud Dag) linked from the pages of the International Nemrud Foundation:

"

Here is my previous posting on this subject at LexiLine.com :

" For the best material and graphics on Nemrud Dag see the International Nemrud Foundation. The historical background and presentation is excellent but their dating of the lion's horoscope to 109 BC is simply wrong, erroneously using a feast which is dated in the old style calendar, whereas the accepted date of ca. July 5 (new style), 62 BC is correct for the astronomy, which is shown in graphic form below.

Nimrud Dag in Anatolia
(also written as Nemrut or Nemrud)

Planets, July 5, 62 B.C. Graphic created using Starry Night Pro.

The LION of NIMRUD DAG (NEMRUT, NEMRUD)

The collar (Sun Moon and Regulus) and stars on the Lion's body (Leo) at Nemrud Dag represent the conjunction of planets near the Summer Solstice in 62 BC (including the Moon this conjunction calculates to exactly July 5, 62 BC, using the software Starry Night Pro). Tradition and a still existing feast "LOOS" at July 14 (old style calendar) states this was the date of the crowning of Antiochus, so that in new style this would be July 5. At that time, MARS, MERCURY, and JUPITER (the later three wise men) whose "gifts" are actually the colors of these 3 planets) were all in conjunction around the star of kings "Regulus" and all the rest of the planets were nearby in Cancer (Sun, Neptune, Uranus, Moon [Summer Solstice point], Venus, Pluto - only Saturn is at Aldebaran) - so that this was a fairly rare MAGNA-conjuction of planets, a REGAL Star (Cluster) of Bethlehem, occurring near the star Beth-el, "Beth-le-hem", ancient name of the star Betelgeuse, below Gemini, which was seen in ancient days as the antipode to Rasalhague (El Hai).

This massive stone relief at Nimrud Dag near Eski Kale in Anatolia is still standing today, near the greatest tumulus mound in all of Europe, perhaps erected to commemorate the then ruling Seleucid King Antiochus Theus (Antiochus of Commagene). We think that Antiochus had a son who was the later Jesus, as the son of Laodike, who, along with her children were allegedly all killed by the Parthian king after Mithradates, Antiochus' successor died. Antiochus ruled from 69-34 BC. We are sure Laodike gave one of her children (the newborn) away for safekeeping, as written in Luke. That would have been 33 BC.

Antiochus viz. Antiochos was King of Commagene, a kingdom north of Antioch, modern Antakya. Antiochus called himself Theus viz. Deus or God. He was a Seleucid king. Seleucid kings took the following titles:
They called themselves
"Epiphanes" - God manifest
and also "Savior", titles later used by Jesus. The people of Commagene had been exiled from their lands by Sargon II - these were the Jews. Jesus was the King of the Jews. According to our analysis, he was a human descendant of Antiochus (we do not discuss his divine nature).

Antiochus claimed to be a "King of Kings"
who traced his lineage back to Zeus on the Greek Side
and to Xerxes and the great Persian kings on the Persian side. He was the first human ever to try to merge the religions of both sides into one universal religion, incurring the wrath of the Roman legions, who invaded Commagene, but were at first repelled, since Antiochus was the first "Western" king to apparently use gunpowder, imported from China. It was only when Julius Caesar invaded Commagene, that the kingdom was doomed and it was this campaign which led to Julius Caesar's famous saying: "veni, vidi, vici" - "I came, I saw, I conquered".

Antioch was the first Christian city and home of the Biblical Luke,
who wrote about the life of Jesus.
Is this a clue to who Jesus was?

GO TO
WHO WAS JESUS?"

or read the material from that link below

"Who was Jesus as a Human ?
Jesus was clearly a human, perhaps divinely inspired.
There is no great doubt that he actually lived on Earth
and started Christianity according to his Father's Wishes.
But who was his father "human" father?

King Antiochus (Antiochos) of Commagene

King Antiochus Theos (God) of Commagene was a Seleucid king.
The Seleucids were kings who called themselves "God" and "Savior".
Antiochus Theos (God) ruled from about 69 B.C. to 34 B.C.
What did Antiochus have to do with Jesus?
Let us look into the evidence.

The Three Kings or Wise Men

Who were the three Zoroastrian "Wise Men" who allegedly
visited the Christ child? Here we find a significant clue.
The THREE Wise Men allegedly gave gifts of gold,
frankincense (milky white) and myrrh (yellow to reddish-brown).
Could these colors be "THREE" planets of conjunction on July 5, 62 BC
shown on a stone relief at Nimrud Dag, temple of Antiochus
(also written as Nemrud, Nemrut and Dagh) in Commagene?

Nimrud Dag (Nemrut Dag) in Commagene

Link to Nimrud Dag.

The large stone monument of a Lion at Nimrud Dag is a "relief"
1.75 meters high and 2.4 meters broad. IT IS STILL STANDING,
virtually unscathed, on the western terrace at Nimrud Dag
in the Commagene (ancient Assyrian KUMMUH) north of Antioch.

Nimrud Dag is a fantastic place. The earth mound tumulus
at Nimrud Dag is the largest in the world, having a diameter of 150
meters, a height of 49.8 meters West and 39.45 meters East.

KUMMUH is the city from which the original inhabitants
were deported by the imposter Sargon II to the south from the
Mesopotamian city of Bit-Yakin (looks like a Hebrew name),
whose OWN residents in turn were deported in the other
direction to Kummuh - which accounts for the presence
of the Hebrews there. The Babylonian Captivity?

This large stone relief at Nimrud Dag is the relief of a maned LION
surrounded by and covered with stars. In addition to these stars,
there are three LARGER star-like symbols above the back of the lion,
identified clearly by inscriptions above them as
Jupiter, Mars and Mercury (identification by Otto Puchstein,
an archaeologist who excavated the site).
The three planets correspond in their colors
to the 3 gifts of the wise men.

The Three "Wise Kings"

Puchstein called the stone relief the "first" historical horoscope.
(Vergangene Welten, Faszinierende Funde, Verlag Das Beste,
1986, "Zwischen Zeus und Zarathustra [Zoroaster]".)

It can be dated by astronomy to circa July 5, 62 BC.

The planets at Nimrud Dag represent 3 wise "god kings"
according to archaeologist Friedrich Carl Doerner as follows:

1st planet - Zeus and Ahura Mazda
(LexiLine note: = Jupiter, heavenly father)
2nd planet - Apollo, Mithras, Helios, Hermes
(LexiLine note: the Sun, to which Mercury belonged)
3rd planet - Artagnes, Herakles, Ares
(LexiLine note: Aries, March, to which Mars belonged)

Moreover, on the breast of the lion, there is a horizontal crescent
moon with the Star Regulus inside it (signifying Antiochus).

Above is the concentration of planets near the Summer Solstice 62 BC.
It was a MAGNA-conjunction.

Antioch and Christianity

The significance of this relief, the entire Nimrud Dag complex,
and its East and West altar terraces
to Biblical matters has been overlooked for millennia.

Antioch (Turkish Antakya) was the FIRST Christian city
- anywhere. Moreover, it was the "School of Antioch"
- as opposed to the "School of Alexandria"... -
"which stressed the literal interpretation of the Bible
and the completeness of Christ's humanity." (Encyclopaedia Britannica)

The Western world has followed the School of Alexandria,
"which emphasized the allegorical interpretation of the Bible
and stressed Christ's divinity". This has led to consequent
historical, calendric and religious errors.

The "Kings of Kings"

Antiochus called himself a "king of kings"
much as Jesus was called a king of kings in the Bible.

As the inscriptions at Nimrud Dag show, Antiochus traced

1) his father's lineage through the Achaemenids
(the famous kings Cambyses, Darius, Xerxes, Artaxerxes)
to the Persian godking Ahura Mazda and Zarathustra (Zoroaster), and
2) his mother's lineage through the Seleucid Kings to
Alexander the Great and to the godking Zeus.
Such a "king of kings" was unprecedented in history.

"Given of Mithra"

Moreover, the father of Antiochus was King Mithradates
(the name Mithra-dates means "gift of Mithra",
but in the sense of "given of, born of Mithra").

This corresponds to a planet on the Nimrud Dag relief
Mithras or Mercury/Sun (son of the sun),
just as in the Pharaonic Egyptian tradition
since Mercury belonged to the sun.

Hence, when the Bible speaks of the "gifts" of the 3 Kings,
there has occurred an ancient mistranslation of names
such as Mithradates ("gift of Mithra").
It is a NAME of the king as "given or born of a god or
goddess" and not "that the king has given a gift".

The Birth of Christianity

Antiochus' downfall came when he tried, as the first person ever,
TO UNITE THE RELIGIONS OF EAST AND WEST.
This is monumentally recorded at Nimrud Dag.

This was the birth of "Christianity"
which his "son" of Theos (God)
carried on in his life and preaching
(for what else was Christianity but this idea?).
It was the "cross" or the blend of religions into one idea.

The efforts of Antiochus to unite all religions under one house
brought on the wrath of the Romans
(King Herodus also sided with Rome against the Parthians)
and meant the ultimate forced loss of the Kingdom
of Commagene to Roman rule.

Saviors, Galatia, Nazareth

After Antiochus passed away, and his son Mithradates II proved too weak to withstand the Parthians (Persians), the Parthian king had Antiochus' wife Laodike and allegedly all her children killed. But did Laodike save one of her sons by giving him to a foster couple?

It was the "pagan" regions of Anatolia, such as Commagene,
which were called "Galatia" in ancient times
(see also Biblical Acts, Galatians, Paul and Luke),
much as "Galilae" of the Bible was also called the region
of the pagans after the Syrian conquest, so that when the Bible
speaks of Galilee as the origin of Jesus, this means "to the North"
or "the Black Sea region" or "to the end of the land".

It was only Mary who originally came from Nazareth, and it was
an "Angel" (i.e. a "courier" of the "God" Antiochus) who came to the
virgin Mary in Nazareth "in the sixth month"
[in the sixth month of something...but what?]
Once we read the Bible carefully, it is all very clear.

Luke in the Bible

From reading Luke (and Luke, not coincidentally, was "a man from
Antioch, Syria" see Enc. Brit.) we will come to the likely
conclusion that Antiochus' wife Laodike - in order to save a newborn
son from being killed by the Parthians (a legend retained in the Bible)
had thus given the [presumed] newborn son to Joseph and Mary
to keep and raise incognito.

"In the Sixth Month"

Luke 1, 26 states that in the "sixth month" [of the pregnancy]
Gabriel (the word means courier), in the days of Herodes,
king of Judaea (Herodes ruled from 37 BC to 4 BC
came to the virgin Mary and Joseph in Nazareth.
But what had happened before that visit?

Gabriel had first come to the aged and barren
Zacharias and Elisabeth and had promised them a son.
He had also gotten a vow from Zacharias that he would
not talk about the matter to anyone. Why the secrecy?

Thereupon, Elisabeth, allegedly pregnant, did not permit herself
to be seen for 5 months - obviously pretending to be pregnant.
Then, "in the sixth month" Gabriel went to the virgin Mary
and Joseph, promising Mary even more than Elisabeth,
a "virgin birth" of a "king of kings".

The virgin Mary at this time then went
to the house of Zacharias and Elisabeth, and
- as Elisabeth hears Mary's greeting -
the child of Elisabeth "passes" into Mary's body.
This is all straight from Luke in the Bible.

"Plus Three Months"

Mary remains another "THREE months" (this makes nine
months total) - and returns home only after Elisabeth allegedly
gives birth to a son, who is baptized Johannes by the courier's decree,
- contrary to established family custom, since there had been
no Johannes in the family of Elisabeth or Zacharias -
and THEN the baby "lives in the desert" (under what identity?)
until he is ready to appear before the folk of Israel.

Obviously, Mary has taken the baby, not Elisabeth's baby anyway,
with her. On the order of Gabriel, the baby Johannes is
called Jesus at the circumcision , so that Jesus and
John (Johannes) the Baptist ARE in fact surely the same.

Indeed, before Judas gives Jesus the kiss of death,
the identity of Jesus - as the son of the king of kings -
is not known to the masses, so that he must have been known
as someone else during most of his life, and this can
only be as John the Baptist. In Matthew 16, 14, there is in
fact the phrase that many say that Jesus "is" John the Baptist.

When was the Census ?

In discussing the early life of Jesus - there is mention of the
census during the reign of Augustus Caesar in Luke 2,
which is thought to have occurred ca. 28 BC.

Moreover, in the same context, it talks
about a census in SYRIA ("to the North") under Quirinius.
There is no census anywhere in this region - as related
in the Bible - for the period around 0 B.C. Indeed, this has been
one of the arguments some have raised to claim that the story
of Jesus is a fiction. But the story is true - from a human perspective.
The chronology is just 30 years removed from reality.
This does not mean that the man Jesus may not
have been possessed of "divine grace", however each of us
wants to define that term.

Jesus Did Live and
Did Start the Christian Faith

Jesus did live as a man, and he did start Christianity,
pursuant to this father wishes. The story is true.
The "Divinity" of Jesus, however, is a Question of Faith.

Tel Aviv Jaffa Archaeological Find is "Dip" of Big Dipper - LexiLine Journal 532

2010-01-24T00:10:00.000+01:00

I could not be more pleased!

The archaeological news of the past week was the spectacular discovery of a prehistoric building in the Tel Aviv - Jaffa area (Ramat Aviv)..."on the northern bank of the Yarkon River, not far from the confluence with Nahal Ayalon."

To my luck, the Jewish Journal not only carried the story but also included a photograph of the site by Assaf Peretz / Israel Antiquities Authority which I include here (enlarged to 80% of the width of the posting) because of its importance - together with the original label:

Israel Antiquities Authority workers during the archaeological excavation of the oldest building ever found in Tel Aviv,
estimated to be 7,800-8,400 years old, Jan 10, 2010. (Assaf Peretz / Israel Antiquities Authority)
I have taken that photograph and simply traced the most prominent lines of the ground plan as follows:

Note that the large room in the foreground is strangely not square and that the entire design of the "building" is somewhat peculiar for such an allegedly ancient construction. As I have discovered, this prehistoric building is part of the megalithic survey of the Holy Land by astronomy in ancient days, a survey which I deciphered some years ago and posted to several locations, including my Ancient World Blog as follows:

As you can see, given the megalithic sites known at that time, the "dip" viz. "ladle" of the Big Dipper was missing. Ramat Aviv now fills that void, as Tel Aviv - Jaffa is located on the coast nearly halfway between the Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee, exactly where we would expect this part of Ursa Major to be located.

In the astronomical context of my decipherment of the ancient megaliths of the Holy Land, this puts Tel Aviv - Jaffa at the location of the "Dip" of the Big Dipper.
The design of the archaeological find is a nice match for this part of Ursa Major. Note also that the large room in the foreground at Ramat Aviv also has a small megalith with marks which look like the "dip" of the Big Dipper and a "hearth" in the shape of the dip of the Big Dipper. This may be chance, but these artefacts should be investigated more carefully to make sure that I am not seeing things that are not there. In fact, it will be of interest to view the official archaeological plot of this ancient site.

And more yet. Tel Aviv is a modern city originally founded in the year 1909 as a neighbor to Jaffa (today a part of Tel Aviv). Jaffa is one of the world's oldest cities. The Wikipedia writes :

"Jaffa (Hebrew: יָפוֹ‎, About this sound Yāfō (help·info); Arabic: يَافَا‎, About this sound Yāfā (help·info); Latin: Joppe; also Japho, Joppa as transliteration from the greek "Ιόππη") is an ancient port city believed to be one of the oldest in the world.[1] Jaffa is now part of Tel Aviv which is why the city's full name is Tel Aviv-Jaffa, Israel. The name of the city is supposed to be mentioned in the Egyptian sources and the Amarna Letters as Yapu. There are several legends about the origin of the name Jaffa. Some say it is named for Japheth, one of the sons of Noah, who built it after the Great Flood.[citation needed] The Hellenist tradition links the name to "Iopeia", which is Cassiopeia, the mother of Andromeda. Pliny the Elder associates the name with Jopa, the daughter of Aeolus, god of wind. The Arab geographer Al-Muqaddasi mentions it under the name Yaffa, which is used by Arabic speakers today."

That the name is seen to have an astronomical context is remarkable in itself, and Cassiopeia would ordinarily be a hot contender for this location, if it were not for better information provided to us by Richard Hinckley Allen in his book Star Names: Their Lore and Meaning , where he writes at page 423 about Ursa Major (the Big Dipper):

"Hebrew observers called the constellation Dōbh; Phoenician, Dub; and Arabian, Al Dubb al Akbar, the Greater Bear, " Dubhelacbar with Bayer and Dub Alacber with Chilmead, " all of these perhaps adopted from Greece. Caesius cited the "Mohammedans' " Dubbe, Dubhe, and Dubon; and Robert Browning, in his Jochanan Hakkadosh, repeated these as Dob."

What is now quite clear from the modern archaeological discovery at Tel Aviv /Jaffa
is that the name JAFFA Latin: JOPPE = DOBH, DUB, DUBB, DUBBE, DOB "Ursa Major".
DOBE in Indo-European e.g. Latvian means "hollow, cavity, hole, DIP", i.e. DIP in English.

In the ancient survey of the holy land, the city Jaffa thus arguably took its name from the "dip" in the constellation of the Great Bear.

David Rohl and His Errors of Ancient Chronology - LexiLine Journal 531

2010-01-23T21:43:00.001+01:00

Normally, being the moderator of this list, I do not approve of emails which link to commercially sold items.

However, I did approve the previous posting by a list member because David Rohl is important for the study of the History of Civilization in recognizing that there are serious defects in the mainstream chronology of ancient eras.

Let it be known, however, that I personally do not buy Rohl's analysis at all - and I have read his books.
In my opinion - he erroneously moves the chronology forward in time - which is a capital mistake - rather than moving chronology - correctly - backward.

If Rohl would try to correct his chronology by matching the Exodus with the explosion of the volcano Santorin ca. 1627 BC, he would be on the right track.

I do have Rohl to thank for my knowledge of the work of Artapanus, who wrote a biography of Moses in ancient days and stated clearly that Moses was born in the reign of Pharaoh Chaneferre - which puts the birth of Moses at around 1700 BC - that is also the correct date in my estimation (ca. 1707 BC), which puts Exodus at ca. 1627 BC when, according to the Bible, Moses was 80 years old.

Rohl's moving of the chronology forward is totally false. Why Rohl does not try to match the Biblical and Pharaonic chronologies by assuming that Artapanus was writing the truth is a mystery to me. How can Rohl ignore this kind of evidence - evidence which he himself initially presented!!? No unbiased researcher can do so. No one. The key to finding historical truth is to be neutral in your judgments. You have to FIRST reconstruct chronology based on the available written history - and that is the Bible and Artapanus - which confirm each other. Only if that does not work - but it DOES work - can you try alternative approaches.

Nevertheless, there may people out there who would be interested in reading someone other than myself who also correctly recognizes that mainstream scholars are clueless about chronology. Still, as long as Rohl moves chronology forward, his efforts are a complete waste of time.

The German Tale of the Loreley is "Megalithically True

2010-01-20T20:46:00.003+01:00

[The text and graphic to this posting is in preparation and will be posted soon - we hope later today. We have already posted this file empty online because we need this link as an update link for a previous posting on the Loreley at LexiLine Journal 301.]

The Academic Battle over the Dead Sea Scrolls - LexiLine Journal 530

2010-01-20T18:14:00.000+01:00

Climategate is no exception.
Academia can be a cesspool of vanities and distortion.
We knew this long ago.
Some of the rest of the world is now just finding that out.

In
About New York - Raphael Golb’s Aliases Enlivened Debate Over Dead Sea Scrolls - NYTimes.com

Jim Dwyer reports on a unique "cyberbrawl" over the Dead Sea Scrolls which highlights all of the advantages and disadvantages of "dialogue" about controversial academic topics on the Internet (and elsewhere).

As Dwyer writes, the accused is Raphael Haim Golb, a Ph.D. graduate of Harvard and of New York University Law School, who allegedly tried to discredit one or more academics taking a different position on the Dead Sea Scrolls than his own father, a professor, who is apparently not implicated himself in the matter:

"Mr. Golb’s father is Norman Golb, a professor at the University of Chicago and a critic of claims that the Dead Sea Scrolls were the work of a sect called the Essenes, thought to have lived near the Qumran caves where the scrolls were found. Professor Golb has suggested that the scrolls were actually the product of several libraries in Jerusalem and were taken to the caves around the time the city fell to the Romans in the year 70. This is not a dispute for the fainthearted. Golb the Son has taken up his father’s cause with all the vigor permitted by multiple Gmail accounts.

Mr. Golb is 49 years old and had 50 e-mail aliases. He used pseudonyms to post on blogs. Under the name of a professor he was trying to undermine, prosecutors charged, Mr. Golb wrote a quasi confession to plagiarism and circulated it among students and officials at New York University. ....

In court papers filed last week, Mr. Golb’s lawyers argued that prosecutors were trying to criminalize the commonplace. Both sides in the Dead Sea Scrolls debate, they said, use “sock puppets” -" fake identities -" on the Internet to make it seem as if scores of people are arguing a point."

Read Dwyer's highly elucidating article in full here.

We had always suspected that conspiracies of academics and "academic schools of thought" are rampant on the Internet and in the "peer review good old boy networks", and we hope as this case unravels, that these odious practices come more and more to the surface.

There are a few of us out here - true academics in the scholarly sense - actually trying to find out what really happened in man's history. But believe me - we are a handfull - a handfull only.

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2010 and WELCOME TO THE NEW DECADE OF THE 2010s - THE TEENS (the 2000s were the AUGHTS) - LexiLine Journal 529

2010-01-01T18:26:00.002+01:00

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2010!

Our group membership is approaching the 500 mark and we welcome all new members who joined in the past year. We hope to have a much more scintillating year in 2010, as I have a lot of new things in the pipeline.

How did you spend your New Year? Give our newsletter a bit of life to start the year and post about it!

The New Year always begins for us with the televized live New Year's Concert (in German "Neujahrskonzert") of the Vienna Philharmonic (Wiener Philharmoniker) which is broadcast worldwide (ca. 11:15 a.m. European time) and this year reached a record 72 countries.

Each year a conductor of world renown is invited to conduct the orchestra and today it was the amazingly dynamic 85-year old French conductor Georges Prêtre ("his interests include riding, swimming, aviation, judo, and karate") whose presentation in 2008 was so warmly received that he was invited again for 2010, conducting in a manner which we to us reflects "the Vienna style".

This year's concert proved to be an absolutely spectacular presentation sponsored by Rolex, who must have put a lot of money into this year's concert, judging by the sheer professionality and extravagance of the production. For example, the 77-year old Italian fashion designer Valentino (Valentino Garavani) was enticed out of retirement to design 18 ballet dresses for two ballets danced for the first time at the Museum of Art History in Vienna (Kunsthistorisches Museum, KHM). We heard comments that these were the most beautiful, feminine ballet dresses that some people had ever seen.

The conductor in 2011 will be Franz Welser-Möst, "who in 2010 becomes the General Music Director of the Vienna State Opera. Franz Welser-Möst has been musical director in Nörrköping and Winterthur, principal conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Music Director of the Zurich Opera. Since 2002 he has been Music Director of the Cleveland Orchestra."

The concert is so popular that each year lots are drawn for the privilege of buying tickets, and registration for the ticket drawing commences this year on January 2 and ends on January 23. A registration from MUST be filled out and each registrant can register once only (multiple registrations are ignored) for any or all of three concerts: the Preview Performance (Dec. 30, 2010, 11:00 AM), the New Year's Eve Concert (December 31, 2010, 7:30 PM,), and the New Year's Concert (January 1, 2011, 11:15 AM). No one can obtain more than two tickets and prices range up to €940 per seat for the New Year's Concert, which is the most expensive concert of the three in terms of tickets. (See Ticket Drawing.)

Culture of Old Europe Is Uncloaked in an Exhibit at N.Y.U. - LexiLine Journal 528

2009-12-03T01:45:00.000+01:00

Culture of Old Europe Is Uncloaked in an Exhibit at N.Y.U. - NYTimes.com:

"The little-known culture is being rescued from obscurity in an exhibition, “The Lost World of Old Europe: the Danube Valley, 5000-3500 B.C.,” which opened last month at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University. More than 250 artifacts from museums in Bulgaria, Moldova and Romania are on display for the first time in the United States. The show will run through April 25."

Megaliths and Astronomy : Island of the Setting Sun - In Seach of Ireland's Ancient Astronomers - LexiLine Journal 527

2009-11-03T20:40:00.000+01:00

There is a lovely book called Island of the Setting Sun - In Search of Ireland's Ancient Astronomers, by Anthony Murphy and Richard Moore about the astronomical alignments and mythic connections of Irelands ancient monuments. It is published by the Liffey Press.

Best Regards,
Wilson Bertram

Ancestral Pueblo Anasazi Kivas Were Used for Astronomy - LexiLine Journal 526

2009-11-03T01:18:00.000+01:00

If you are lucky enough to be near Denison University in Granville, Ohio, [not far from Columbus, Ohio] Thursday of this week, go there, as Jim Krehbiel will deliver an illustrated lecture about his work from 7 to 9 p.m. Thursday at Slater Hall Auditorium on the campus of Denison University in Granville.

Information via Sacred studies : Ohio Wesleyan art professor uncovers celestial connection in desert Southwest, a November 1, 2009 article by Doug Caruso at THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH. Read the whole article. Here is my summary with a link to the important illustration:

Two Ohio Wesleyan professors have greatly furthered the cause of our decades-long megalithic research by confirming what I have always argued about the ancient megaliths and such megalithic sites as the Malta Temples. They are all astronomy, here on the example of the Anasazi (Ancestral Pueblo) Kivas, as proven by Jim Krehbiel, head of the Ohio Wesleyan University Art Department, together with Barbara Andereck, a professor of astronomy and physics at Ohio Wesleyan and one of her students, Natalie Cunningham, who did important calculations. Here is what they have discovered about the Kivas as astronomical observatories, using stone formations as lines of sight:

source of the ilustration at
http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/science/stories/2009/11/01/graph.html

Tsunami due to Santorini Eruption [1627 B.C. by LexiLine Journal Calculations] - LexiLine Journal 525

2009-11-02T01:14:00.000+01:00

Below is the Abstract to an article published in the October issue of GEOLOGY .
doi: 10.1130/G25704A.1 Geology October 2009 v. 37 no. 10 p. 943-946:

"Tsunami waves generated by the Santorini eruption reached Eastern Mediterranean shores

1. Beverly N. Goodman-Tchernov1,2,
2. Hendrik W. Dey3,
3. Eduard G. Reinhardt4,
4. Floyd McCoy5 and
5. Yossi Mart6

+ Author Affiliations

1.
1Leon Charney School of Marine Sciences, Haifa University, Haifa, Israel
2.
2Interuniversity Institute for Marine Sciences, Coral Beach, Eilat, Israel
3.
3Department of Art, Hunter College, New York, New York 10065, USA
4.
4School of Geography and Earth Sciences, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario ON L8S, Canada
5.
5Geology and Geophysics, University of Hawaii-Windward, Kaneohe, Hawaii 96744, USA, and American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Greece
6.
6Recanati School of Maritime Studies, Haifa University, Haifa, Israel

Abstract

A sedimentary deposit on the continental shelf off Caesarea Maritima, Israel, is identified, dated, and attributed to tsunami waves produced during the Late Bronze Age (ca. 1630�"1550 B.C.E.) eruption of Santorini, Greece. The sheet-like deposit was found as a layer as much as 40 cm thick in four cores collected from 10 to 20 m water depths. Particle-size distribution, planar bedding, shell taphoecoensis, dating (radiocarbon, optically stimulated luminescence, and pottery), and comparison of the horizon to more recent tsunamigenic layers distinguish it from normal storm and typical marine conditions across a wide (>1 km2) lateral area. The presence of this deposit is evidence that tsunami waves from the Santorini eruption radiated throughout the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, affecting the coastal people living there. Dates for the tsunami deposit bracket both the so-called “high” and “low” chronology for the Santorini eruption. In addition to resolving the question of the extent of tsunami impact from the Santorini eruption, the research presented also provides a new means of discovering, identifying, and studying continuous records of paleotsunami deposits in the upper shelf coastal environment. The latter is key to understanding past events, better interpreting sedimentological records, and creating stronger models for understanding tsunami propagation, coastal management, and hazard preparation worldwide.

*
o Received 25 November 2008."
o Revision received 27 May 2009.
o Accepted 27 May 2009.

* © 2009 Geological Society of America"

Obviously, "evidence" of this tsunami would therefore be found in ancient sources and the parting of the waves during the Hebrew "Exodus" is the most likely candidate.
______________

Walter (polestar101) wrote:

Many years ago I had suggested to my students the remote possibility
that Moses' famous "parting of the sea" might have been due to the explosion on
Thera – so I chuckled when I saw your mention of the possibility. Of course such
a belief requires quite a bit of selective "mything", and a location other than
the Red Sea (sea of reeds?). If it really happened when Moses raised his hands
and called the Lord – that is one heck of a coincidence! It is easier to believe
that Moses was an avatar that commanded the elements than accept the idea that
his timing was so fortuitous! Just think, if he tried to cross on any other day
there would likely be no Israelites in Palestine today and the whole history of
the Middle East would be different.
______________

Andis Kaulins replied:

There is no doubt that the "sea of reeds" was Fayyum. The idea that the Red Sea
was involved in the Exodus is a "myth" erroneously propounded by clueless
mainstream archaeologists and equally confounded Biblical scholars having zero
idea what they were or are talking about. I wish a gigantic wastebasket existed
into which all of that kind of "Biblical scholarship" could be tossed to free
the world of such nonsense. 99% of what the theologians, religious fanatics and
related disciplines have written about the Bible and similar religious works is
just the worst kind of superstitious, non-critical babble - pure veritably
retarded junk. Those of us who still command our intellect can only look at the
world aghast at the existing religious idiocies, which dominate the daily news.

I am also perplexed as to why people perist on taking Biblical "prophecies" so
literally. It is quite clear throughout the Bible that important events - AFTER
THE FACT OF THEIR OCCURRENCE - were ascribed to prophecies allegedly made prior
to event by sages later trying to obtain maximal personal marketing value out of
the events described. Moroever, many historical events were embellished, as they
still are today, to include natural disasters or other events that happened in
the same or nearly contemporaneous time period. There is a whole field of
cognitive psychology devoted to what man remembers, why and how he does so,
etc., but you can be sure that the word cognition is a foreign concept to most
people in this field.

Gobekli Tepe and Nabta Playa dates - LexiLine Journal 524

2009-08-29T00:02:00.000+02:00

Open Minded Polestar101 wrote:

Saw your mention of faulty radiocarbon dating for Gobekli Tepe and also noticed
that you challenged the dating of Nabta Playa. In both cases you chopped many
thousands of years off the accepted dating according to mainstream
archaeologists.

Are you generally of the opinion that mankind lacked the ability to create
megalithic structures or stone arrangements in stellar alignment as early as
10,000 BC? Or is it just that these two cases are questionable in your mind and
otherwise mankind was capable of such activities in 10,000 BC? Just curious why
you appear to filter out the earliest dating?
______________

Andis Kaulins replied:

Thank you for your excellent comment. I have pre-answered many of your questions previously in my German-language article Das Tanum System - ein alteuropäisch-afrikanisches Vermessungssystem at http://www.scribd.com/doc/12402525/Das-Tanum-System-ein-alteuropaischafrikanisches-Vermessungssystem-DOC and due to your comment I am right now working to put that into English as soon as I can since a German version is not of much use to you or most of our audience here at LexiLine. Still, if you examine the German version - many graphics - you will get more information about my reasons.

There are however many, many other reasons for my challenging the radiocarbon dating of Gobekli Tepe (and affiliated sites) and of Nabta Playa.

You might want to read the following material which I quote from the Wikipedia article on AMORITE at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amorite which shows that as late as the 3rd Millennium, the approximate highland area in question for Gobekli Tepe and surroundings was predominantly occupied by highland people who knew no grain and whose culture was at the lowest level. The mainstream archaeologists use the absurd argument that since no grain was found at Gobekli Tepe, then it must predate the origins of agriculture. But the Amorite data tells us that their primitive state of culture prevailed in this general region until much, MUCH later.

Let me tell you one thing - there are many in mainstream archaeology who are superb con-men who are conning a great number of their fellows and laymen - I would call these the "chumps" or "suckers" - into thinking that their digs in Anatolia involve the real, real origins of culture at some absurdly old date. That is just a bunch of hokum based on some very sparse carbon dating of charcoal in that area which might just as well stem from some ancient natural fiery conflagration.

Just read the Wikipedia material:

"In the earliest Sumerian sources, beginning about 2400 BC, the land of the Amorites ("the Mar.tu land") is associated with the West, including Syria and Canaan, although their ultimate origin may have been Arabia. They appear as nomadic people in the Mesopotamian sources, and they are especially connected with the mountainous region of Jebel Bishri in Syria called as the "mountain of the Amorites". The ethnic terms Amurru and Amar were used for them in Assyria and Egypt respectively....

In early inscriptions, all western lands, including Syria and Canaan, were known as "the land of the Amorites". "The MAR.TU land" appears in the earliest Sumerian texts, such as Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta, as well as early tablets from Ebla; and for the Akkadian kings Mar.tu was one of the "Four Quarters" surrounding Akkad, along with Subartu, Sumer and Elam. The Akkadian king Naram-Sin records campaigns against them in northern Syria ca. 2240 BC, and his successor Shar-Kali-Sharri followed suit.

By the time of the Neo-Sumerian Ur-III empire, immigrating Amorites had become such a force that kings such as Shu-Sin were obliged to construct a 170 mile wall from the Tigris to the Euphrates to hold them off [3]. These Amorites appear as nomadic clans ruled by fierce tribal chiefs, who forced themselves into lands they needed to graze their herds. Some of the Akkadian literature of this era speaks disparagingly of the Amorites, and implies that the neo-Sumerians viewed their nomadic way of life with disgust and contempt, for example:

"The MAR.TU who know no grain.... The MAR.TU who know no house nor town, the boors of the mountains.... The MAR.TU who digs up truffles... who does not bend his knees (to cultivate the land), who eats raw meat, who has no house during his lifetime, who is not buried after death...[4]

They have prepared wheat and gú-nunuz (grain) as a confection, but an Amorite will eat it without even recognizing what it contains![5] "

These were the people who inhabited most of the highlands of Anatolia, clear down to the days of written history. Of course, they did not build the Temple of Gobekli Tepe, but their fierce primitive presence was surely the reason that the people who DID build Gobekli Tepe left the region and covered their Temple under a mountain of earth as they left the region and moved southward to ultimately found Pharaonic civilization.

I will post my English version of the Tanum System soon - for there is much, much more to be said.
_____________

Polestar relied:

Conflagration?? We agree the Amorites did not build the site because it far
predates them (and therefore has nothing to do with their lack of wheat??). But
why do you consider the dating "absurdly old"? All over the world archaeologists
are pushing back the clock with new discoveries. Gobekli Tepe and Nabta Playa
are evidence that fit. We no longer have to fit civilization into a Biblical
6000 year limitation.
______________

Andis Kaulins replied:

Thank you for your comment.

Are you familiar with the supposed "evidence" from this region?

Take a look at the article Upper Mesopotamia (SE TURKEY, N SYRIA and N IRAQ) 10,000 - 5000 cal BC by Damien Bischoff with the collaboration of Agathe Reingruber and Laurens Thissen (last update 12 February 2006) at http://www.canew.org/files/CANeW%20Upper%20Mesopotamia%20C14%20dbase%20%28February%202006%29.pdf where Bischoff writes, for example:

"Comment CAFER HÖYÜK
Most complete sequence in the East area (50 m2), yielding 13 levels with a total depth of 6 m over virgin soil; the occupation is reported to be continuous (Cauvin
et al. 1999, 89). In the West area only the Late Phase has been uncovered. Sample Ly-3773 from the Middle Phase is reported to lack sufficient carbon (o.c., 94). Samples Ly-2523 and Ly-2522, both from the West area, might stem from the `numerous fragments of charcoal´ - or `carbonised wood´ as they are described further on - associated with structures 18, 19 and 8 of Level IVc, which, incidentally, is destroyed by fire (o.c., 95, 96). Would these have been the remains of the wooden ceiling beams, as seems suggested? If so, is it warranted to hypothesize similar samples for the earlier phases as well? Most of the wood used at Cafer seems to have been salix and populus growing along the Degirmendere stream (Willcox 1991). The `old-wood´ problem seems to have been not an issue here, for explaining the big discrepancies within the Cafer 14C dates corpus."

A specific study of Gobekli Tepe has been made via pedogenic carbonate coatings on the stones found there: Evidence for Holocene environmental changes in the northern Fertile Crescent provided by pedogenic carbonate coatings, as authored by Konstantin PUSTOVOYTOV, Klaus SCHMIDT and Heinrich TAUBALD. The work is abstracted online at cat.inist.fr (http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=18698456 ):

""Holocene environmental changes in the northern Fertile Crescent remain poorly understood because of the scarcity of local proxy records in the region. In this study we investigated pedogenic (soil-formed) carbonate coatings on stones at the Pre-Pottery Neolithic site Göbekli Tepe as an indicator of local early-mid Holocene environmental changes. The ¹⁴C ages and stable isotopic composition of carbon and oxygen in thin (0.2-0.3 mm thick) pedogenic carbonate lamina indicate two main periods of coating formation: the early-Holocene (ca. 10000-6000 cal yr BP) and the mid-Holocene (ca. 6000-4000 cal yr BP). During the first period, there was an inverse relationship between δ¹³C and δ¹⁸O curves: a decrease in δ¹³C values coincide with an increase in δ¹⁸O values. For this period a trend towards higher temperatures is suggested. In the mid-Holocene, the mean rate of coating growth was 2-3 times higher than in the early Holocene. Both δ¹³C and δ¹⁸O reached their maximum values during this time and the direction of changes of the δ¹³C and δ¹⁸O curves became similar. The combination of data suggests that this period was the most humid in the Holocene and on average warmer than the early Holocene. At ca. 4000 cal yr BP secondary accumulation of carbonate ceased, presumably reflecting a shift to a more arid climate.""

Essentially, this kind of dating is a scientific free-for-all where the data says what the authors want the data to say. The amount of coating on the stones is said to vary by climate epoch and variation is explained away by higher temperatures and humidity - whatever is needed to get the dates to fit. NO accumulation at all of carbonate is then presumed starting ca. 4000 BP, "presumably reflecting a shift to a more arid climate", for stones buried underground. But if carbonate in fact DID accumulate until clear up to the present time - which is the solution that apears most exact to us, also after 4000 BP, i.e. for 6000 years up to their excavation in the present era, then the stones have in fact been dated 6000 years too old - and that gives us the accurate date of the construction of Gobekli Tepe at ca. 4000 to 3000 B.C., which I am quite sure by my astronomical assessment of the megaliths to be the correct date.

By "conflagrations" previously I meant for example things like much older forest or brush fires for example that burned the wood used for radiocarbon dating. The ancient dating of Anatolia is based mostly on charcoal, what is called "carbonized wood". There are many problems involved in assigning that wood's actual origin to the period in which structures were constructed because it is not even known to what use carbonized wood was put. It stems mainly from ancient fruit and nut trees.

The unreliability of Anatolian tree dating in principle is discussed at length e.g. in Anatolian tree-ring studies are untrustworthy by Douglas J. Keenan, The Limehouse Cut, London E14 6N, United Kingdom; doug.keenan@informath.org, 22 February 2006, online at http://www.informath.org/ATSU04a.pdf where Keenan writes:

"The chronology of the Ancient Near East is poorly understood. Although many references give exact dates for events, such as the building of the Great Pyramid or the rise of certain kings in Babylon, in reality such dates are debated. Wood has the potential to resolve such debates. Many ancient buildings and other artefacts were
constructed from wood, and in some circumstances, it is possible to precisely date this wood, by examining the pattern of its tree rings. Work on dating wood from the Ancient Near East has been done primarily in Anatolia (roughly, modern Turkey). This work has been conducted over many years and been published in respected journals; it has claimed to provide definitive dates for several important events in the early history of civilisation. Herein is reviewed some of this wood-dating research. The primary conclusion is that the research has invalidating flaws, which are obvious upon inspection. The underlying issue is that the system under which tree-ring research generally is conducted lacks transparency....

During ancient times, wood was often reused. For example, an investigation of the remains of a Middle Bronze Age building, which comprised 26 timbers, concluded that all the timbers had been reused from some Early Bronze Age structure-dated several centuries earlier [Kuniholm, 1994]. In fact, similar reuse of wood still occurs in modern times: for example, the investigators have concluded that the joist in a modern Turkish house is over 6000 years old [Kuniholm, 2001]. Thus, when a tree is recovered from an archaeological site, it cannot be known a priori in which millennium the tree grew....

[footnote 11 provides as follows] Detailed information has also been published for the site of Kültepe [Kuniholm & Newton, 1989; Newton, 2004: app.2]. The investigators, however, no longer claim to have a date for this site that is near reliable; for example, Newton & Kuniholm [2004] say that the date "should be thought of as tentative, subject to ... modification"-indeed, their t-score is only 4.1. (The tentative match is actually just the best that could be found within the date range allowed by radiocarbon ages: this is not a valid basis for dating ... furthermore, the radiocarbon ages are internally inconsistent and are unlikely to have the accuracy assumed.

Keenan concludes that the whole historical dating game is:

"a system in which investigators can claim any plausible results and are accountable to no one.

That is also my opinion. It is a pea and shell game by mainstream archaeology. See my postings about archaeology and "evidence" at "Law and Science ".

My critique of current Anatolian dating has nothing to do with Biblical dates, as you seem to suggest. What it does have to do with is the fact that smoothly carved or cut pillars such as found at Gobekli Tepe do not surface 10000 years ago - and then we never hear of this technology again until this same technology surfaces about 3000 B.C. in places like Egypt. Technology transfer does not work way. Once a technology has been perfected, it is used further and in other places - it does not simply disappear for millennia. One of the main pieces of evidence proving that the Anatolian chronology is faulty is the fact that it forces us to assume a break of many thousands of years between the first emergence of the Gobekli Tepe technology and the surfacing of that technology later elsewhere. Sorry. That is NOT believable. When the chronology is ACCURATE, there will be a clear continuity of technology.

You write that Gobekli Tepe and Nabta Playa are evidence that fit. WHAT EVIDENCE? I have told you that the Nabta Playa evidence is taken from ancient oasis campfires somewhat removed from the precise megalithic lcoation at the oasis that have NOTHING to do with the megaliths found there and that radiocarbon dating from a campfire right at those stones dates from ca. 3000 BC. The archaeologists chose the older dating because its suits their purposes. You can "believe" whatever you want, but that is NOT science. Archaeologists "want" Nabta Playo to be older because it makes them famous. But that has nothing to do with true history. And the same is true for Anatolia.

EVIDENCE? There are lots of problems with the subjective treatment of the evidence by the mainstream archaeologists in these regions.
______________

Robert (ronen1968) writes:

To be fair, aside from charcoal evidence, Fred Wendorf does resort to some astronomical speculations for his dating. The following is from http://www.comp-archaeology.org/WendorfSAA98.html

"Among the ring of stones are four pairs of larger stones, each pair set close together and separated by a narrow space, or gate. The gates on two of these pairs align generally north-south; the gates on the other two pairs form a line at 70⁰ east of north, which aligns with the calculated position of sunrise at the summer solstice 6000 years ago. In the center of the circle are six upright slabs arranged in two lines , whose astronomical function, if any, is not evident. Charcoal from one of the numerous hearths around the "calendar" dated around 6800 years ago (6000 bp +- 60 years, CAMS - 17287)."

But I'm confused about Wendorf's dating terminology. I thought bp, as opposed to bc, meant before present, as in before 1950. If this is so, then 6000 bp would be about 4050 bc, or 6000 years ago. Yet Wendorf equates 6000 bp to 6800 years ago in the above paragraph. He does this throughout his paper. What am I missing?
______________

Walter (polestar101) replied to the posting of Andis Kaulins:

You wrote "Once a technology has been perfected, it is used further and in other places - it does not simply disappear for millennia."

Your argument is not supported by the facts:

It was thought that Volta "invented" the battery in about 1700AD - until the discovery of the Babylon batteries - why was this technology not perfected several thousand years earlier?

It was thought that complex geared devices were "invented" during the great clock making era of 1200 -1400AD Europe, until the discovery of the Antikythera device. Why did this technology vanish for over a thousand years?

Aristarchus of Samos wrote about a heliocentric system almost 2000 years before Copernicus.

And look at the history of denistry (8000BC Pakistan), orthodontics (3000BC Egypt), domestication of pets, hybridization of plants, brain surgery, etc. etc. - all things that were lost for thousands of years before being "invented". There are hundreds more.

The ancient world was doing some rather amazing things but most of it was lost well prior to or during the Dark Ages. Things seem to go backwards for thousands of years. That is a fact.

The Ancients themselves through numerous myth and folklore hint at a long lost higher age - (over 30 unrelated ancient cultures spoke of it according to Giorgio deSantillana, former professor of history of science at MIT). Gobekli Tepe and Nabta Playa fit the myth and folklore - and they fit the archaeological pattern - that is a fact.
______________

Andis Kaulins replied:

No one doubts that some things are invented "before their time".

Examples are the inventions of Leonardo da Vinci, whose ideas predated their actual later development: for example his ideas on "airplanes" viz. "helicopters". These were not implemented in Leonardo's day because many of the attendant technologies in materials which are necessary for their proper operation did not yet exist.

It is sort of like inventing an automobile prior to the invention of the combustion engine or the wheel. It does not work. So you are always going to find some oddball inventions from the past which anticipate modern developments but drop out of sight for a lack of sensible integration into the society under question in the era at hand.

I personally do not buy the theory of a "long lost higher age" just because some ancient humans also were capable of isolated individually great things. Every age will have their Leonardos....

In the case of Göbekli Tepe we have an entirely different matter, however, than "mechanical inventions" or isolated discoveries of unusual inventions before their time.

Rather, we are dealing with basic STONE-WORKING technology - the methods and the tools. You can not just start out of nothing carving many-tonned stones into straight-edged megaliths and moving them great distances. That kind of a technology has to develop over time - and there has to be a record of that stone-working development in the archaeological evidence.

At the same time, stone-working technology, once developed, does not just disappear. Quite the contrary, archaeologists use stone-working technology as one of their most basic methods for dating the progress of mankind on this planet, as we know from such dating terms as Paleolithic or Neolithic, which apply to various "stone ages".

Göbekli Tepe has stone work which is similar to the Malta Temples or also Nabta Playa - and - in terms of the traditional dating of stone-working technology - this fits in with a date of ca. 4000-3000 B.C.

Dating the stoneworking technology at Göbekli Tepe prior to that era is technologically frivolous at best.
_____________

Walter (polestar101) replied:

Why should the expression of ideas in stonework be viewed any differently
than ideas expressed in metal work or woodwork? These are just mediums and each
require specialized knowledge and tools.

When I was a boy someone like you told me that 500 years ago we could hardly
build ships larger than the ones "needed" by Columbus to sail to the "new
world". Sometime later archaeologists discovered that there were ships twice
the length of the Columbian ships - and the Egyptians built them over 4000 years
ago! (i.e. solar boat of Khufu)

I grant you the Dark Ages destroyed or obscured most of the evidence of ancient
accomplishments long before we ever had a chance to "discover" it. But follow
the trends of forensic archaeology today and you will notice we are now
constantly and dramatically pushing back the clock on mankind's capabilities.
Over the next ten years I suspect we will find many many more sites that confirm
the mainstream carbon dating of Gobekli Tepe and Nabta Playa.

We are living through a very exciting era of discovery – with many indications
the universal myths of a long lost Golden Age may have a basis in fact. Best to
keep an open mind.
______________

Andis Kaulins replied:

I see exactly the opposite development.

In anthropology, the actual "age" of mankind has been reduced to a fraction of what it was thought to be in my school days, where people then talked about man as existing for millions of years. That always appeared to be illogical to me because there should then be more evidence present of what man did in that period.

In fact, modern genetic evidence indicates that humans "Out of Africa" occurred only within maybe about the last 60,000 years and that the real age of homo sapiens is surely not more than 200,000 years (and perhaps even much less than that) - not millions of years.

Mankind in our intellectually advanced form has not been around that long on Earth at all and so I find all this discussion about "lost civilizations" to be bunk - that is my personal opinion, take it as you will - it is of course interesting, exciting and provoking to argue for lost civilizations, but hardly believable. Nor does it match the evidence. To me, new age science is a branch of fiction.

This has nothing to do with my not having an open mind. I probably have one of the most open minds in science - but only to actual facts, and I am as critical of the "new agers" as I am of "mainstream archaeology" because they are both in the business of hokum marketing.

The development of mankind is an evolutionary development and that evolution can be followed like a vector over time - and this applies especially to man's stone technology.

This evolution is not the same of course for all human groups and some groups have evolved technologically more advanced than others and some much less so or not at all.

Archaeologists just do not seem to apply that recognition to the past in their assessment of dating and chronology.

Just look at the Earth population today and you will see that there are still many primitive groupings on our planet - indeed, the main battle being fought politically on our globe today is precisely that, civilization versus primitivism.

I do not deny that some human groups were already advanced starting at the Holocene , i.e. about 10,000 years ago. Indeed, as aptly noted at the Wikipedia :

""Human civilization dates entirely within the Holocene."

However, their stone technology did not develop out of thin air and the vector of development should be traceable - and, indeed, properly interpreted - is in fact traceable in the archaeological evidence.

But you do not have thousands of years of gap in the appearance of the same technology.

The Gobekli Tepe and Nabta Playa stone technology dates out of the period 4000-3000 BC, just as the Malta Temples, so in my opinion.

Should probative evidence surface that the dating is actually older, I am quite willing to change my mind, but the astronomy of the stones tells me that the lower date of 4000-3000 BC is quite accurate, and I have seen or heard nothing to make me change my view.

Gobekli Tepe Decipherment Dating Exhibition & Videos - - LexiLine Journal 523

2009-08-11T18:25:00.001+02:00

I am still working on my formal write-up of my Gobekli Tepe decipherment which will show that Göbekli Tepe is astronomical in nature and oriented to the stars ca. 3800 B.C.

I conclude that this location near Urfa is where the Hebrew Calendar began. Gobekli Tepe is only 12 kilometers (about 7.5 miles) from Urfa (currently called Sanliurfa or Edessa), the legendary birthplace of the Biblical Abraham, and only 38 kilometers (23.75 miles) from his later residence at Haran. (see Am Anfang war Anatolien)

I initially dated the installation of the standing stones by what I have deciphered to be the relief depiction of the appearance of Halley's Comet on one of the stones, which by its location on that stone can only be ca. 3800 B.C.

The date assigned to these megaliths (allegedly 11000 years old) by some of the mainstream archaeologists is woefully wrong and based on the wishful thinking of many of these mainstream archaeologists generally in search of fame and fortune who always seem to find "an older yet" archaeological site, i.e. it is a self-fulfilling prophecy which subliminally creeps into the dating process and skews the accurate interpretation of the data.

The faulty chronological assessment of Gobekli Tepe is based on some questionable radiocarbon dating and equally gullible comparative dating of stone tools found at or near the site similar to other falsely dated stone tools found at another site - chronological devices which are simply fantasy stretches at best. Because no pots or grains have been found at the site, it is illogically presumed to predate their development - sort of like finding a modern ruin in Death Valley - where also no pots or grains will be found.

As correctly written online by Omar W. Rosales in a comment at the Smithsonian Magazine online:

"... you still need independent verification of the age of the burial site. It mentions that stone implements (whether they are flint, or knives, or whatever) resemble those found in another site, where the artifacts in the other site radiocarbon date to 11000 B.C. Okay, so how does prove that Gobekli Tepe dates around 11000 B.C.? If there are wood fragments, pottery shards, or some other type of carbon-based item at Gobekli, then test these to establish the date. Although undiscovered sites with monumental architecture probably pre-date our discovered (and well-known) archaeological sites, you still need to independently verify the dates. - Omar W. Rosales J.D. http://www.elementalshaman.com
Posted by Omar W. Rosales on October 24,2008 | 03:15PM"

Equally unconvincing is the radiocarbon analysis of organic materials found at the site, based on a very questionable find which alleges that "old" organic material has been found adhering to the stones. Since the stones were purposefully buried - i.e. covered with earth from the surrounding region, any age is possible by radiocarbon analysis depending on what organic materials were resident in the earth used to cover up the stones, or indeed, into which the stones were originally placed. That evidence can not be used to date the megalithic site.

A similar error has been made in Egypt in dating Nabta Playa to be far older than it actually is, since the radiocarbon evidence directly at the stones correctly in fact dates them to ca. 3000 B.C. rather than the thousands of years earlier which the archaeologists intentionally and totally erroneously preferred to choose. The archaeologists at Nabta Playa in Egypt then took the radiocarbon dating from more distantly removed ancient hearths at the oasis because they gave an older date - a date which has nothing, however, to do with the Nabta Playa megaliths, which date by my research to ca. 3000 BC.

In fact the German Archaeological Institute (Deutsches Archäologisches Institut) itself writes at its Göbekli Tepe website:

"As early as 1963 Göbekli Tepe had been pinpointed as an archaeological site in the course of a Turkish-American survey, and in 1980 appeared Peter Benedict's report on the mound. The full significance of the site, however, was not yet apparent. The flanks of the rise, strewn with large cut blocks of masonry as well as countless implements of chipped stone, certainly did not bring to mind an establishment from mankind's earliest period of settlement, i.e. from the time the Paleolithic/Mesolithic hunters were first shifting to a sedentary life of farming."

Indeed, simple logic suggests that the current mainsteam dating of the Göbekli Tepe megaliths is far off the mark, since it would presume that the ancients possessed a stone technology 10000 years ago which then simply vanished from the face of the earth for thousands of years.

Any time that there is not a believable cohesive chronological stream of evidence for any given technology over time, irrationally ancient dating given to that technology by the sensation-hungry mainstream archaeologists can be presumed to be totally faulty.

It seems every new find made today is the oldest and the best - the reality of course is otherwise. As written by Alex Hunger at megalithic.co.uk:

"One is reminded, to some extent of the temples in Malta, which were built 5,000 years later."

The observation is correct - the Malta Temples show similarities - only it was NOT 5000 years later.

In the interim Gwynneth Anderson has a standard-type posting at the Examiner titled
Göbekli Tepe: Standing stones from humanity's oldest temple - including a YouTube video (the chanting music may not be everyone's taste), but the archaeologists have no insight as to the purpose of this megalithic site, as might be expected. Really, they have no clue.

There are now several Gobekli Tepe videos availabe on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFgcmXRHcLU&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XqfjWCUgfk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmSIG4qV2Sg&feature=related (in German language - Göbekli Tepe Stelenscan)
Göbekli Tepe I (in German)
Göbekli Tepe II (in German)
Göbekli Tepe Official Website (very poor)
Deutsches Archäologisches Institut (official Göbekli Tepe site of the German Archaeological Institute)

I have ordered Klaus Schmidt's book (only available in German) and hope it is better than the dearth of quality information available online:

Sie bauten die ersten Tempel: Das rätselhafte Heiligtum der Steinzeitjäger (Gebundene Ausgabe) von Klaus Schmidt (Autor)
______________

Update:

Gilbert de Jong has some ideas on Halley's Comet and ancient sites. I do not agree with many of his conclusions, but I do agree that the ancients paid much more attention to Halley's Comet than we give them credit for.

Below is our correspondence - published with permission:

"Hi Andis,

Sure,

I have seen the moving tail on the stones also (if that is the reference you refer to). Although I have an idea what went on Gobleki Tepe and other sites

Gilbert de Jong

....

Hi Gilbert,

I am very sympathetic to your approach because of a discovery I have made at Gobekli Tepe,
where I think one of the stones marks Halley's Comet.
Are you in agreement that I publish all of your emails below to the following site
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/LexiLine/
We have about 450 members. Feel free to join.
It will give your idea more publicity.
I of course do not agree with you in all particulars, but I do agree that Halley's Comet was important throughout ancient eras.

>
> Hello Andis,
>
> Almost two years ago I begot this e-mail from you. I invite you to an
> article involving Halley's Comet and which has been published recently on
> Newgrange.com
>
> The Irish/English people seem to have known that Halley's Comet returned
> long before 3100 BC. In fact we can notice in Lascaux cave that horse manes
> (the comet's hairy tail) and the Bulls horns (iontails) were metaphors of
> Halley's Comet already in 14.000 BC (see the last image on the article)
>
> I have received some enthusiastic response to the idea that Halley's Comet
> is related to ancient religion far, far before the birth of Christ and have
> been spread worldwide (even the Maya's as you have noticed!) and finally led
> to the construction of the Giza pyramids (the triad of April 18 2647 BC of
> Reguls, Saturn and Jupiter in Leo)
>
> So, if you have time:
> http://www.newgrange.com/halleys-comet.htm
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Gilbert de Jong
>

>
> Hello Gilbert,
>
> Thank you for your kind comments and material, but I work mostly alone on my
>
> research and have almost no time for correspondence, so I will not be able
> to continue this e-mail exchange.
>
> However, if this matter interests you enough, consider joining our History
> of Civilization Newsletter Group at
>
> http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/LexiLine/
>
> There is no question but that Halley's Comet is important in ancient
> astronomy and has been somewhat neglected by the scholars. However,
> calculating when Halley appeared in ancient times is very difficult since
> the orbital period can vary substantially from 76 years.
>
> I have written about Halley's Comet at
> http://www.lexiline.com/lexiline/lexi75.htm
>
> Andis
>

> >
> >Hi Andis,
> >
> >Every time I try to find something that interests me your name is popping
> >up. I might have a clue to ancient Egyptian 'knowledge' that might interest
> >you. So I decided to drop you a few lines. You are an educated man and I
> >hope you'll appreciate a small hint to the King of Heavens. I appreciate
> >(and appreciation is hard to get these days, don't you think?) your work
> >very much.
> >
> >I have been interested in ancient cultures for the last ten years. I have
> >visited Peru (Nazca) and Bolivia (El Fuerte, Samaipata), China, Crete,
> >Egypt, Stonehenge, and I have my own theory on the source of civilization
> >of
> >men. Mmm, well I expected some kind of relation but I at that time I didn't
> >figure out what it was. I thought it had something to do with the
> >(heliacal)
> >appearances of Venus. I was wrong. It took me about 9 years to find out
> >that
> >I was wrong using Starry Night Pro as reference. Now I think might have
> >found the universal source that unites them. (Well, unites)
> >
> >You are so close but there is one part of the story that was so important
> >to
> >our ancestors, to their beliefs, to their Faith. They made sacrifices to
> >it.
> >Smashed in heads. Buried elephants in honour (Hierakonpolis) of this event.
> >
> >It came with fire, like a serpent, a snake, a scorpion's tail, a spear, an
> >arrow. It came from the black (KM/Kem). It came from a distant place (.T).
> >It came from the Universe (KM.T/Kemet)
> >
> >If elephants are mice to whom are they offered? Egyptian answer: it must be
> >an enormous and sacred Cobra.
> >
> >So where do we find sacred cobra's in Egypt? Well, some kings carry them on
> >their foreheads. They are named: Uraeus (and they spit fire too)
> >
> >What about the pyramids in Giza. They were in honor of Jupiter (according
> >Herodotus) and he was right. But actually they were in honor of the King of
> >Heaven who returned every, lets say 75/76 years.
> >
> >Proof? Well, yes there is. They idea behind it is very simple, very
> >convincing. In the night, morning and/or evening they saw a comet. We still
> >do. But in ancient times it was more impressive. In fact references to the
> >time of the Babylonians and the Chinese still exist. References that state
> >that 'Kometes, Greece' looked like horns, antlers still exist. In Peru
> >(Nazca) they saw it as a catlike animal with an atlatl that threw a spear
> >towards earth (Helaine Silverman: Cahuachi). In the Olmec period, hundreds
> >of years before, they looked at it the same way (Izapa). The hences of
> >Britain seem to have been built and adjusted when the King of Heavens
> >(China) appeared.
> >
> >So if the perihelion dates of the return of Halley's Comet would have been
> >calculated by some astronomer; we would be able to see if the position of
> >planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Saturn and Jupiter), in the weeks before or
> >after the perihelion, would match the place in heavens that the chronicles
> >(or legends) gave us. So: visibility of the comet>the position of planets
> >in
> >the constellations or at transit positions>might have inspired 'the
> >ancients' to built monuments in honor of the King of Heaven (Halley's
> >Comet).
> >
> >They did. They left us the Giza pyramids (well, they started with king
> >Menes), they left us Stonehenge (although they started much earlier), they
> >left us the Nasca cultures (= which means 'being born") based on earlier
> >coastal cultures as Caral, they left us Huanacauri>El Fuerte (Samaipata)
> >the
> >start of the Inca empire, they left as Sumeria (with the ziqqurats), they
> >left us India (Ganges cultures with the sacred Cow (>horns/antlers) and
> >China.
> >
> >In fact in my opinion sun or moon eclipses are not the answer to the start
> >of the Egyptian or Mayan calendar. They can't be because eclipses can be
> >watched only locally. If an eclipse occurs in Egypt it won't be seen in
> >Peru. There is no proof that there has been a relation between Peru and
> >Egypt in the time of the Pharoahs. If we accept the fact, as you propose,
> >that Egyptian and Mayan calendars start at the same date than we must admit
> >that something (astronomically) more important was going on. Some event
> >that
> >could have been watched on both continents.
> >
> >This event occurs every 75/76 years: the apparition or visibility of Comet
> >Halley. The appearances of Halley's Comet seem to have been watched in
> >Egypt
> >(as a giant snake) together with the (parallel) heliacal appearance of two
> >planets (two bright eyes) in the morning from very remote times.
> >
> >Well, I think both astronomical circumstances (the calculation of the
> >visibility (near perihelion) of Halley's Comet are checkable and the
> >parallel heliacal rising of two planets are checkable) for 25/26 December
> >3117 BC. I think this would make up the ultimate connection between China,
> >Peru, Europe and Africa. Because they would have seen the giant snake
> >circling around Leo's head in the morning at the same time two planets had
> >their parallel heliacal appearance.
> >
> >I would like to discuss this topic more if you are interested,
> >
> >Kind regards,
> >
> >Gilbert. J. de Jong

Genetics of British Ancestry - LexiLine Journal 522

2009-07-21T00:42:00.000+02:00

Modern genetic studies are in part confirming and in part challenging established ideas about mankind's ancient migrations.

A case in point is provided by Myths of British ancestry, an article by Stephen Oppenheimer at Prospect magazine online, where he writes, for example, that:

"[T]here is no agreement among historians or archaeologists on the meaning of the words "Celtic" or "Anglo-Saxon." What is more, new evidence from genetic analysis (see note below) indicates that the Anglo-Saxons and Celts, to the extent that they can be defined genetically, were both small immigrant minorities. Neither group had much more impact on the British Isles gene pool than the Vikings, the Normans or, indeed, immigrants of the past 50 years."

Read the article and the update Myths of British ancestry revisited, with reader comments,
as well as First Drafts, the Prospect magazine blog and the posting there at The Origins of Modern Man: Q and A with Stephen Oppenheimer by Brian Semple.

Hat tip to John Gartside who also provides us with the following link:
How Old is English? - at http://www.proto-english.org/index.html

Semites and Jews : Phoenician Gene : Judaism of Hebrews is a Religion : Jews are not a Separate Race of People but are Ethnic - LexiLine Journal 521

2009-06-07T01:54:00.002+02:00

The terms Semite and Semitic were first coined by the German historian August Ludwig von Schlözer only in the modern era in the year 1781 to designate the progeny of Shem of the Bible, so that if we speak about Semites or talk about Semitic language, we are still quite "stuck" to the Bible in our conversation and our concepts, even if we try to avoid that Bible.

In any case, I think that any serious researcher would agree that one has to be careful not to make too many assumptions in trying to find out the truth about man's ancient astronomy and history.

On the other hand, you do have to make some assumptions in order to arrive at workable hypotheses - subject to rigorous testing of course. If they don't work, well, then you throw out your old theories, check your assumptions and then try to formulate new hypotheses. You continue to move forward.

One thing that I do want to emphasize, however, is that my own research is definitely NOT political or religiously oriented - at least not consciously. I look on ALL of the world's religions and political doings with a great deal of distrust.

I myself am not Jewish, but I respect the Hebrew people, the Jewish tradition and the Christian heritage derived from the Judeo-Christian ethic which has played an integral part in the development of the modern Western world.

Already in ancient times the Hebrews were called "the People of the Book".

There are only about 14 million Jews on this planet - and yet they excel in nearly every field of modern human endeavor. We moderns know enough about genetics today to understand that this can not have occurred suddenly in our era - quite the contrary - those genes, and also the corresponding talents, will have been there a long time.

One of the most interesting pieces in this entire puzzle is the matter of genetic evidence.

We find the following written about Y-DNA Haplogroup J2 , the so-called "Phoenician gene", at the Wikipedia:

"Haplogroup J2 is widely believed to be associated with the spread of agriculture from the Mesopotamian regions of the Levant & Anatolia. The age of J2 has been estimated as 18,500 +/- 3,500 thousand years ago. Its distribution, centered in West Asia and Southeastern Europe, its association with the presence of Neolithic archaeological artifacts, such as figurines and painted pottery, and its association with annual precipitation have been interpreted as evidence that J2, and in particular its J2a-M410 subclade belonged to the agricultural innovators who followed the rainfall....Haplogroup J2 is found mainly in the Fertile Crescent, the Mediterranean (including Southern Europe and North Africa), the Iranian plateau, and Central Asia. More specifically it is found in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, Israel, Palestine, Greece, Italy and the eastern coasts of the Iberian Peninsula, and more frequently in Iraqis 29.7% ..., Lebanese 30% ..., Palestinians 16.8%^..., Syrians 29%, Sephardic Jews 29% ....

According to Semino et al. and the National Geographic Genographic Project, the frequency of haplogroup J2 generally declines as one moves away from the Northern fertile crescent. Haplogroup J2 is carried by 6% of Europeans and its frequency drops dramatically as one moves northward away from the Mediterranean.

Another important fact about the distribution of Haplogroup J2 is that it appears to have dispersed from a Middle Eastern homeland to the west through a primarily maritime or littoral route, as it is found in high concentrations among the populations of the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea in both Eurasia and Africa, and particularly along the coasts of the eastern Mediterranean in Europe. This distribution may be more consonant with a Neolithic or post-Neolithic maritime dispersal from the Middle East, such as through Greek colonization or Phoenician commercial and colonial activities.

In Italy, J2 is found in about 19.3% of Italians ^[23]. Turkey is one of the countries with major J2 population. Approximately 24% of Turkish men are J2 according to a recent study.... Haplogroup J2 is also common in neighboring Greece, with regional frequencies ranging between 11% and 46%.

It has been proposed that haplogroup J2a-M410 was linked to populations on ancient Crete by examining the relationship between Anatolian, Cretan, and Greek populations from around early Neolithic sites. Haplogroup J2b-M12 was associated with Neolithic Greece (ca. 8500 - 4300 BCE) and was reported to be found in modern Crete (3.1%) and mainland Greece (Macedonia 7.0%, Thessaly 8.8%, Argolis 1.8%).

Sephardic Jews have about 29% of haplogroup J2^[1] and Ashkenazi Jews have 23%^[1], or 19%^[26]. It has been reported that a sample of Italian Cohensbelong to Network 1.2, a group of Y chromosomes characterized by avalue of the DYS413 marker less or equal to 18. This deletion has beenplaced in the J2a-M410 clade. However, other Jewish Cohens belong to haplogroup J1 (see Cohen modal haplotype).

J2 subclades are also found in the South Caucasus (Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan), Iran, Central Asia, and South Asia.

Haplogroup J2 has been shown to have a more northern distribution inthe Middle East, although it exists in significant amounts in thesouthern middle-east regions, a lesser amount of it was found whencompared to its brother haplogroup, J1, which has a high frequencysoutherly distribution. This suggests that, if the occurrence ofHaplogroup J among modern populations of Europe, Central Asia, andSouth Asia does reflect Neolithic demic diffusion from the Middle East, the source population is more likely to have originated from Anatolia, the Levant or northern Mesopotamia than from regions further south.

Haplogroup J2a-M410 in India is largely confined to the upper castes^[27]with little occurrence in the middle and lower castes and is completelyabsent from south Indian tribes and middle and lower castes.

J2b in most cases seems to be mostly limited to the Balkans/Eastern Europe and India."

At Cohen Modal Haplotype at the Wikipedia it is written:

"Y-chromosomal Aaron is the name given to the hypothesised most recent common ancestor of many of the patrilineal Jewish priestly caste known as KohanimKohane). In the Hebrew Bible this ancestor is identified as Aaron, the brother of Moses. Research published in 1997 and thereafter has indicated that some contemporary Jewish Kohanim share Y-chromosomal Haplogroup J1 (Y-DNA) with a set of genetic markers,known as the Cohen Modal Haplotype, which may well derive from a singlecommon ancestor. Later, in 2007, the same team announced that theyfound another common set of genetic marker related to present-day traditional Kohanim families in Haplogroup J2 (Y-DNA). (singular "Kohen", "Cohen", or
Although membership in the Jewish community has, since at least the second century CE, been passed maternally (see: Who is a Jew?), membership in the group that originally comprised the Jewish priesthood ("Cohen" or "Kohen"; plural: Kohanim), is patrilineal. Modern Kohens claim descent from a biblical person, Aaron, brother of Moses,in the direct lineage from Levi, the patriarch of the Tribe of Levi,greatgrandson of Abraham, according to the tradition codified in the Tanakh (שמות / Sh'mot/Exodus 6). DNAtesting is aiding scholars to trace the lineages found among modernJewish populations, including contemporary Cohen families, to decipherorigins of the people groups that were joined to the ancient Israelites and to identify genetic admixture and genetic drift."
Khazaria.com points out that genetic studies have helped to draw the following conclusions:
"Advanced genetic testing ... of modern Jewish communities around the world, has helped to determine which of the communities are likely to descend from the Israelites and which are not ....

Key findings:

The main ethnic element of ... most ... modern Jewish populations of the world is Israelite. The Israelite haplotypes fall into Y-DNA haplogroups J and E.

Ashkenazim also descend, in a smaller way, from European peoples such as Slavs and Khazars. The non-Israelite Y-DNA haplogroups include Q (typically Central Asian) and R1a1 (typically Eastern European).

Dutch Jews from the Netherlands also descend from northwestern Europeans.

Sephardim also descend, in a smaller way, from various non-Israelite peoples.

Georgian Jews (Gruzinim) are a mix of Georgians and Israelites.

Yemenite Jews (Temanim) are a mix of Yemenite Arabs and Israelites.

Moroccan Jews, Algerian Jews, and Tunisian Jews are mainly Israelites.

Libyan Jews are mainly Israelites who may have mixed somewhat with Berbers.

Ethiopian Jews are almost exclusively Ethiopian, with little or no Israelite ancestry.

Bene Israel Jews and Cochin Jews of India have much Indian ancestry in their mtDNA.

Palestinian Arabs are probably partly Israelite...

Key findings:

Samaritans are descended from Israelite men and Assyrian women.

Those Lembas who possess the Cohen Modal Haplotype have Middle Eastern ancestry, possibly Jewish Cohen. The Buba clan is especially Middle Eastern in its paternal DNA.

Many Spanish-speaking Latinos of the American Southwest are descended from Anusim (Spanish Jews who were forced to convert to Catholicism).

The Mizo people of northeastern India, the self-styled "B'nei Menashe", have no proven genetic connection to the Israelites....Rabbi Harold M. Schulweis explains the nature of Judaism: "One of the unique aspects of Judaism is its rejection of Judaism as a biological entity, an inherited spiritual DNA, racial or ethnic. The point is that being a Jew is not a matter of genes and chromosomes. To the contrary,Judaism is the first religion to recognize the 'ger', the stranger who chooses to identify himself with Judaism. Judaism is not rooted in race or clan or in a genetic matter but a religious tradition of choice."

The answer is that Jews are a religion and a civilization, but not a race or singular ethnic group (the latter two definitions marginalize proselytes). As Rabbi Rami Shapiro said: "There is only one response to Who is a Jew? that works: A Jew is one who takes Judaism seriously. One who takes Judaism seriously studies it, argues with it, and lives it."The proper name of the separate ethnic group that most Jews descend from is Israelite."

Some Comments on Hebrew Calendration and Kings and Dynasties - LexiLine Journal 520

2009-06-06T15:21:00.001+02:00

Hebrew Calendration

1. If the Hebrews have a calendar which they trace back to nearly 3800 BC, then they will have had an astronomy system at that early time.

2. I am fairly sure that this calendar originated at Gobekli Tepe, near Ur(fa), birthplace of Abraham. Gobekli Tepe is north of Haran.

3. The Hebrews brought the calendric system with them to Egypt, where, according to my decipherments, they were the pharaohs of Egypt (the tomb of Tutankhamun features the two enemies of Egypt on the prow of a ship - the native peoples of Africa and the Asiatics - but the Hebrews are not pictured, so they are identical with the Pharaohs). e.g. King Saul was Akhenaten, King David was Sethos and King Solomon was Ramses II, with Shishak as Ramses III. This is all quite clearly apparent.

4. The Pharaonic dynasties are astronomically based and calculated, as I show in Kings and Dynasties (but see the update below to see that this book is now outdated and inaccurate and not be used). The oldest of these Pharaohs are the Biblical Patriarchs.

5. In those ancient days, longer periods of time, such as the realms of kings, were measured by the stars , and that is the basic theory of Kings and Dynasties. This is not a "code" at all. It is just the way that time was calculated in ancient eras, in addition to using the Sun and the Moon - the "Sun" name of a Pharaoh was his RA name and the "Moon" name of a Pharaoh was his AMUN name.

6. The Old Testament is an actual history of ca. 3800 BC to the year 0, but much of the Bible is nevertheless astronomically-based chronology, e.g. Chronicles, Kings.

7. The Book of Enoch is in fact a very detailed ancient Hebrew astronomy, but it was not included in the modern Bible by laymen when put together in the modern era - the exclusion of the astronomical Book of Enoch from the modern Bible was an error. You have to have astronomy if you want chronology.

In other words, there is in fact a LOT of astronomy in the Bible and the so-called apochryphal texts, such as the Book of Enoch, which has developed over thousands of years.
______________

I received some correspondence about Kings and Dynasties and here is the current state of affairs about that publication.

Kings and Dynasties is a problematical publication of mine and it should currently not be used for chronological study.

It contained a number of first insights about the way that stars were used for chronology in ancient days, but it can no longer be considered to be accurate.

The basic stellar rising and setting system used is right, and was also used by the Sumerians as well, but my data as to specific stars for the Patriarchs is wrong.

When I came up with this system many years ago, I used a simple planisphere taken from the back pocket of Whitney's Starfinder by which one can follow the rising and setting of stars quite simply on the horizons. Simple enough - but, as I have found out in the interim - wrong in my application.

One CAN NOT use a normal planisphere for this work.

In the interim, I use the portable plastic "Precession of the Equinoxes Historical Planisphere" by Milton D. Heifetz which he produced together with astronomy prof Owen Gingerich of Harvard. It used to be the case that this could be ordered as Milton D. Heifetz's Historical Planisphere with Precession of the Equinoxes (created with consultation from Owen Gingrich of Harvard) from Learning Technologies, Inc., 40 Cameron Avenue, Somerville, MA, 02144 USA, internet at http://www.starlab.com, e-mail at starlab@starlab.com, phone at 800-537-8703, 617-628-1459, and fax 617-628-8606. THIS HAS CHANGED and it is now being sold through ScienceFirst at http://www.sciencefirst.com/vw_prdct_mdl.asp?mdl_cd=6540155.

The Heifetz Planisphere adjusts for precession of the equinoxes and it also shows "undistorted images of the constellations along its periphery - " exactly as they appear in the real sky." Most softward astronomy programs are unable to do that. The cost of that HISTORICAL PLANISPHERE is $11.95.

There are two such planispheres by Heifetz and I have both, one for the Northern Heavens and one for the Southern Heavens, and although both are essential for world megalithic and calendric study I no longer am able to find the one for the Southern Heavens at ScienceFirst - probably not enough commercial demand for it - but you might ask them if they still have it for sale in their product archives somewhere.

The setting of the Heifetz Planisphere for the Northern Heavens is at 30 degrees North latitutde - which is close enough for my purposes - but I have discovered since then that the system of rising and setting stars for the Biblical Patriarchs was surely conceived originally at Gobekli Tepe (just north of Haran) at between 37 and 38 degrees North latitude. See my posting at http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/LexiLine/message/1775 for more information.

Although the positions of the stars in the heavens are fixed, their rising and setting ARE NOT FIXED and in fact this differs from era to era because of precession of the equinoxes. Because of the wobbly rotation of the North Pole around the Ecliptic Pole in about 26,000 years, this results in the heavens "rising" or "falling", depending on the phase of the wobble in which the Earth is found, and this also "raises" or "lowers" the stars respective to the viewer on Earth. This also GREATLY affects which stars are rising and setting at any given time in any era and is surely the reason the ancients ultimately abandoned this system as a means of telling time.

Accordingly, although the principle of using the rising and setting stars for chronology of the lives of the Biblical Patriarchs is sound, the only way to get the correct stellar results for rising and setting stars is to set the Heifetz Planisphere at the same date at which this system was actually recorded for posterity - this need not be the date of origin - and I have been working on that - but it is by no means finished.

In any case, my publication Kings & Dynasies can be archived.
______________

Joseph wrote:

It's unbelievable how knowledgeable you are about these things.
Thanks for sharing your knowledge.
Where does one begin in learning to master stars and history?
______________

Andis Kaulins replied:

Thank you for your kind words, but as you can see from my own comments about my
book Kings & Dynasites, this entire area of research is fraught with difficulty.
One reason that most mainstream scholars detour around megalithic research, for
example, is surely that it is too full of pitfalls. Too little is known, too
much is unknown.

Moreover, I am more traditional in my approach than you might suspect. As
regards your question about learning astronomy and history, I would recommend to
anyone wishing to master astronomy or history that they enroll in the
corresponding courses at educational institutions of their choice. There they
will learn the basics, from which they can then expand on their own, if they are
willing - and able.

It is for example the case in my theories that I am not trying to supplant our
institutions or our learning. Rather, I am bombarding established academia with
questions that they have have been ignoring and I am putting into doubt accepted
theories that have no basis in probative fact. Someone has to do it and fate has
somehow put me in this position. We all have our destiny.

6 billion now and soon 7 billion human beings are like a giant swarm of bees or
a massive ant hill. Or, as Pink Floyd sings, you are just another brick in the
wall, even if your bank account says that you are worth billions or if you are
the head of a country. It applies to all humanity - we are all just part of a
gigantic human "project".

I mean that positively.
______________

Magnus Munn wrote:

This is an area of intense interest and (from what I've seen) seems to border
closely with political agendas. The fabric of ancient history has been written
very hastily and with a great deal of emphasis on the notions of biblical
authority ie: whoever wrote the oldest documents - the bible - must also be the
oldest race. In my investigations into archaeological and anthropological
discoveries both recent and established, I've found that quite the opposite is
true.

The Hebrews have the appearance of antiquity only because of their conquest of
older races. They did not possess an advanced system of astronomy or writing,
they inherited them; the original settlers of Canaan after the flood arrived by
sea and migrated from Anatolia. Egypt was conquered and civilized by these sea
same foreigners, as was Sumer and Harrappa - they all arrived by sea.

At the time of Pre-Dynastic Egypt (5000-3300 BC) the indigenous tribesmen,
including the Semites, were no match for these people at first, who had brought
with them an already advanced language, military and seafaring skill and
technology, system of astronomy, and monotheist spirituality.

But as it can be seen in the Old Testament which is an account of far more
recent times, the business of the Hebrew tribes was to utterly wipe out the
Caananites, which they did. The thing is, not only did they wipe them out, but
they immediately assumed the knowledge and antiquity of their victims for their
own.

If you do any amount of research into the history of the Phoenicians
(Canaanites), it becomes obvious that Hebrew is not a root culture, nor is it
even a root language. Hebrews were to the Canaanites as the Romans were to the
Greeks.

The ancient astronomy that the Hebrews took ownership of was never maintained,
or advanced. In terms of its use, it actually devolved to a sidereal system
where constellations were thought to never change position. Its earlier form was
the more sophisticated tropical system which accounted for precession of
equinoxes. The reason for this was that they simply had no use for it - the
Semitic tribesmen were not seafarers by practice or by ancestry.

My main point here is, there are vast, vast assumptions being made about who is
who in ancient history and prehistory, and it deserves to be revisited without
biblical spectacles on, so that things can be seen from a wider view.
______________

Andis Kaulins replied:

The terms Semite and Semitic were first coined by the German historian August Ludwig von Schlözer only in the modern era in the year 1781 to designate the progeny of Shem of the Bible, so that if we speak about Semites or talk about Semitic language, we are still quite "stuck" to the Bible in our conversation and our concepts, even if we try to avoid that Bible.

In any case, I think that any serious researcher would agree that one has to be careful not to make too many assumptions in trying to find out the truth about man's ancient astronomy and history.

On the other hand, you do have to make some assumptions in order to arrive at workable hypotheses - subject to rigorous testing of course. If they don't work, well, then you throw out your old theories, check your assumptions and then try to formulate new hypotheses. You continue to move forward.

One thing that I do want to emphasize, however, is that my own research is definitely NOT poltiical or religiously oriented - at least not consciously. I look on ALL of the world's religions and political doings with a great deal of distrust.

I myself am not Jewish, but I respect the Hebrew people, the Jewish tradition and the Christian heritage derived from the Judeo-Christian ethic which has played an integral part in the development of the modern Western world.

Already in ancient times the Hebrews were called "the People of the Book".

There are only about 14 million Jews on this planet - and yet they excel in nearly every field of modern human endeavor. We moderns know enough about genetics today to understand that this can not have occurred suddenly in our era - quite the contrary - those genes, and also the corresponding talents, will have been there a long time.

One of the most interesting pieces in this entire puzzle is the matter of genetic evidence.

We find the following written about Y-DNA Haplogroup J2 , the so-called "Phoenician gene", at the Wikipedia:

"Haplogroup J2 is widely believed to be associated with the spread of agriculture from the Mesopotamian regions of the Levant & Anatolia. The age of J2 has been estimated as 18,500 +/- 3,500 thousand years ago. Its distribution, centered in West Asia and Southeastern Europe, its association with the presence of Neolithic archaeological artifacts, such as figurines and painted pottery, and its association with annual precipitationhave been interpreted as evidence that J2, and in particular itsJ2a-M410 subclade belonged to the agricultural innovators who followedthe rainfall....Haplogroup J2 is found mainly in the Fertile Crescent, the Mediterranean (including Southern Europe and North Africa), the Iranian plateau, and Central Asia. More specifically it is found in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, Israel, Palestine, Greece, Italy and the eastern coasts of the Iberian Peninsula, and more frequently in Iraqis 29.7% ..., Lebanese 30% ..., Palestinians 16.8%^..., Syrians 29%, Sephardic Jews 29% .... According to Semino et al. and the National Geographic Genographic Project,the frequency of haplogroup J2 generally declines as one moves awayfrom the Northern fertile crescent. Haplogroup J2 is carried by 6% ofEuropeans and its frequency drops dramatically as one moves northwardaway from the Mediterranean.

Another important fact about the distribution of Haplogroup J2 is that it appears to have dispersed from a Middle Easternhomeland to the west through a primarily maritime or littoral route, asit is found in high concentrations among the populations of the coastsof the Mediterranean Seain both Eurasia and Africa, and particularly along the coasts of theeastern Mediterranean in Europe. This distribution may be moreconsonant with a Neolithic or post-Neolithic maritime dispersal fromthe Middle East, such as through Greek colonization or Phoenician commercial and colonial activities.

In Italy, J2 is found in about 19.3% of Italians ^[23]. Turkey is one of the countries with major J2 population. Approximately 24% of Turkish men are J2 according to a recent study.... Haplogroup J2 is also common in neighboring Greece, withregional frequencies ranging between 11% and 46%.

It has been proposed that haplogroup J2a-M410 was linked to populations on ancient Crete by examining the relationship between Anatolian, Cretan, and Greek. Haplogroup J2b-M12 was associated with Neolithic Greece (ca. 8500 - 4300 BCE) and was reported to be found in modern Crete (3.1%) and mainland Greece (Macedonia 7.0%, Thessaly 8.8%, Argolis 1.8%). populations from around early Neolithic sites

Sephardic Jews have about 29% of haplogroup J2^[1] and Ashkenazi Jews have 23%^[1], or 19%^[26]. It has been reported that a sample of Italian Cohensbelong to Network 1.2, a group of Y chromosomes characterized by avalue of the DYS413 marker less or equal to 18. This deletion has beenplaced in the J2a-M410 clade. However, other Jewish Cohens belong to haplogroup J1 (see Cohen modal haplotype).

J2 subclades are also found in the South Caucasus (Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan), Iran, Central Asia, and South Asia.

Haplogroup J2 has been shown to have a more northern distribution inthe Middle East, although it exists in significant amounts in thesouthern middle-east regions, a lesser amount of it was found whencompared to its brother haplogroup, J1, which has a high frequencysoutherly distribution. This suggests that, if the occurrence ofHaplogroup J among modern populations of Europe, Central Asia, andSouth Asia does reflect Neolithic demic diffusion from the Middle East, the source population is more likely to have originated from Anatolia, the Levant or northern Mesopotamia than from regions further south.

Haplogroup J2a-M410 in India is largely confined to the upper castes^[27]with little occurrence in the middle and lower castes and is completelyabsent from south Indian tribes and middle and lower castes.

J2b in most cases seems to be mostly limited to the Balkans/Eastern Europe and India."

At Cohen Modal Haplotype at the Wikipedia it is written:

"Y-chromosomal Aaron is the name given to the hypothesised most recent common ancestor of many of the patrilineal Jewish priestly caste known as KohanimKohane). In the Hebrew Bible this ancestor is identified as Aaron, the brother of Moses. Research published in 1997 and thereafter has indicated that some contemporary Jewish Kohanim share Y-chromosomal Haplogroup J1 (Y-DNA) with a set of genetic markers,known as the Cohen Modal Haplotype, which may well derive from a singlecommon ancestor. Later, in 2007, the same team announced that theyfound another common set of genetic marker related to present-day traditional Kohanim families in Haplogroup J2 (Y-DNA). (singular "Kohen", "Cohen", or

Although membership in the Jewish community has, since at least the second century CE, been passed maternally (see: Who is a Jew?), membership in the group that originally comprised the Jewish priesthood ("Cohen" or "Kohen"; plural: Kohanim), is patrilineal. Modern Kohens claim descent from a biblical person, Aaron, brother of Moses,in the direct lineage from Levi, the patriarch of the Tribe of Levi,greatgrandson of Abraham, according to the tradition codified in the Tanakh (שמות / Sh'mot/Exodus 6). DNAtesting is aiding scholars to trace the lineages found among modernJewish populations, including contemporary Cohen families, to decipherorigins of the people groups that were joined to the ancient Israelites and to identify genetic admixture and genetic drift."

Khazaria.com points out that genetic studies have helped to draw the following conclusions:

"Advanced genetic testing ... of modern Jewish communities around the world, has helped to determine which of the communities are likely to descend from the Israelites and which are not ....

Key findings: