If a European had visited the Dogon in the 1920's and 1930's, conversation would likely have turned to astronomical matters, including Sirius, the brightest star in the sky and the center of Dogon mythology. Temple does not argue that contact with an advanced civilization is the only way that the Dogon could have obtained what he understood to be accurate information on Sirius B, but he indicates that he personally finds the theory of alien contact more convincing. To penetrate this supposed disguise (which might not be a disguise at all, other classical scholars maintain), Temple resorts to ancient puns, to hidden meanings, to "garbled versions" which he must amend to fit the theory, to the exchange of consonants in innocent-looking words, to similar-sounding words from No such nebula is seen. Through the carbon dating of old ritual masks researchers have established the antiquity of the Segui ceremonies. See also von Dniken, Zecharia Sitchin, and UFO. Mali was a former French colony (part of the Sudan), so some Dogon may have gone to French schools in the 1920s.7 Or Jesuit missionaries or merchants may have imparted the information to them.8, There may be an even simpler explanation. Second, while it is difficult to obtain precise locations of many archeological sites referred to in The Sirius Mystery, Temple himself shows a map that gives the location of Behdet (31.23 degE, 31.50 degN) and Thebes (32.63 degE, 25.70 degN). Credulous scholars, like Young and Temple, were taken in and through them a whole generation has swallowed the false mythology of aliens from the Dark Sirius Companion. This article appeared in Fortean Times. If a European had visited the Dogon in the 1920's and 1930's, conversation would likely have turned to astronomical matters, including Sirius, the brightest star in the sky and the center of Dogon mythology. On top of that, there is another star, Sirius B, orbiting at an average distance of about 20 AU (1 AU is the distance between the Earth and Sun). But Sagan then finds both astronomical and mythological holes in the hypothesis. When I set him a draft of a sharply critical review written for Astronomy magazine, he replied with a blistering counterattack in a letter to my editor: "A virulent attack against my honesty, integrity, and intelligence," he called my review. by Bernard R. Ortiz de Montellano. Temple has made very few verifiable assertions about mythology (and The Sirius Mystery is overwhelmingly about ancient myths, not about the Dogons or modern astronomy). This of course would destroy the modern influence explanation totally. WebAccording to the Dogon, the instructor gods descended from Sirius and brought knowledge and wisdom. African thought. In 1998, Temple republished the book with the subtitle new scientific evidence of alien contact 5,000 years ago. The books reputation was first dented in 1999, when Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince published The Stargate Conspiracy, in which they allege that Temples thinking had been heavily influenced by his mentor, Arthur M. Young. e issued monthly by the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles. As an example, Sagan believes that because the Dogon seem to have no knowledge of another planet beyond Saturn which has rings, their knowledge is therefore more likely to have come from European, and not extraterrestrial, sources.[11]. "Dogon Restudied: A Field Evaluation of the Work of Marcel good amount of discussion of Sirius in the scientific press in the '20s so "Robert Temple on three different occasions, by mail and phone, attempted to get support from me and I steadfastly refused," Asimov wrote. Y%gbsPFur[%X7Sz How did the Dogon obtain this knowledge? astronomical information. "Legends of the Dogon: belief in a long-solved The main problem with the alleged antiquity of the Dogon "Sirius secrets" legend is that they are reminiscent of European Sirius speculations of the late 1920s. 7 0 obj Where did they get this knowledge, he asks, if not from of earth and transmitted in conversation. I published, showed the distances to be nowhere close, in error by tens of miles, at least ten percent -- hardly "immense accuracy. ", British astronomy popularizer fan Ridpath, writing in the quarterly Skeptical Inquirer (Fall 1978), blasted Temple's "brain-numbing excursions into Egyptology." A revised edition was published in 1998 with the new subtitle New scientific Why would Europeans feel compelled that they needed to discuss astronomy with such a primitive tribe and why would this transfer of knowledge that only lasted 5 weeks have such an impact on the Dogan people that they would include it in their cultural practices? You dont have to watch too many Fantasy Channel (formerly known as the History Channel) specials on ancient astronauts before youll be told about the primitive African Dogon of Mali and their advanced astronomical knowledge bestowed, of course, by extraterrestrials. Readers of Skeptic are not so sanguine. One additional disturbing note: That distance has been computed based on a true geodetic oblate spheroid, but even assuming a flat surface would only have introduced an error of a few tenths of one percent at most (Temple obviously didn't know that, or he wouldn't have asserted that measurements even less accurate than that were proof that ancients took Earth's sphericity into account.). If so, I wonder why that passage was ever "worth pointing out" in the book in the first place. The diagram that Temple presents, however, is not the Temple, however, has stated in the reprint of The Sirius Mystery (1999) that he in no way supports what he refers to as "sinister cults" that have been inspired by his book. Dieterlen the Dogon also name a companion star, po tolo "Digitaria Temple has either misinterpreted Dogon beliefs, or distorted A revised edition was published in 1998 with the new subtitle New scientific He shows a total ignorance or disregard for almost every fact in my book, and there is hardly a single thing in his review which is remotely accurate." It would appear that the Dogon had extensive knowledge of the Sirius star system before the outside world had a chance to give it to them. McDaid, Liam. [18], He also used the second edition of his book to complain about what he said was "the extreme and virulent hostility towards me by certain security agencies, most notably the American ones."[19]. So it merely remains for any interested reader to check and see which of us is correct. He certainly did not have permission to use that statement as part of the promotion, I'11 just have to be even more careful hereafter.". Except that this isnt the original Dogon drawing. 1995. He made no secret of the fact that his intention was to redeem The ancient records are filled with unanswered astronomical questions -- including the "red Sirius" and the possible Sumerian Ea-Oannes references to the spectacular Vela-X supernova. York: Random House, 1995). In his 1998 revised edition, Temple was quick to point out the new discussions in scientific circles about the possible existence of Sirius C, which seemed to make Griaules claims even more spectacular and accurate. Dogon people are renowned for their knowledge about the Sirius Star system which dates back to 3200 BC, long before scientists discovered it in 1862 The traditional mythology of the Dogon is amazing. sun and the phases of the moon are more pertinent for Dogon reckoning. The Nommos descended from the sky in a vessel accompanied by fire and thunder. If a European had visited the Dogon in the 1920's and 1930's, conversation would likely have turned to astronomical matters, including Sirius, the brightest star in the sky and the center of Dogon mythology. knowledge of the satellites of Jupiter and rings of Saturn, among other (Copyright Lee Krystek 1998) In Mali, West Africa, lives a tribe of people called the Dogon. The Pleiades are sometimes mentioned, but this is not possible. Sounds like you're grasping at straws. (And presumably, that the Egyptians then located their river deltas, eases, and river ports deliberately on geometric rather than purely geographical grounds, I'm tempted to ask?) But was anything left out? Inevitably one must ask, if the Dogons had heard good stories about Sirius from other sources, would they ignore them or would they quickly adopt them into their own cultural myths? But it seems that Griaule, a scientist, wanted to attribute to earlier civilisations more knowledge than they actually possessed. WebAlso there is the fact that they described the Nommo as fish people and you find all kinds of half man/half fish - serpent imagery all over the Mediterranean. %PDF-1.4 2Q9-mV5F W4g?`Su#q6a]sdaGr*_70 ! ;`~RS)Hm@FGI.m3gcW|PF.(`VypT!]WM6'b//^FX[P\9:H37)DH,y|F(&Da]w o9-K?MR+z.R}7.ubqUIXVy~frF@". In 1965, Arthur Young gave Robert Temple a French article on the secret star lore of the Dogon, an article written by two French anthropologists Marcel Griaule and Germaine Dieterlen. ;WI)hK>U/sW_: v* &73DUI*y|07s^gQ7ni[khi4o2vA[a20?D-C[;,!vgejZE-,I51.cWS,?4#_}dpU4I[, w.Mi>Z@iOa:ia](i}29pit+ K#x>0nzDS%c7iN}%37Y-f 1Yvq'Nm=~-%#bO*O44*4%Aj Wi The Demon-Haunted World - Science as a Candle in the Dark (New Saturn is not, as the Dogons insist, the farthest planet in the solar system. If a European had visited the Dogon in the 1920's and 1930's, conversation would likely have turned to astronomical matters, including Sirius, the brightest star in the sky and the center of Dogon mythology. to other visible stars near Sirius as recognition of the invisible Given that the French stayed in their territory for five weeks and had several local guides, it would not be surprising if they shared some astronomical knowledge during that time. WebAlso there is the fact that they described the Nommo as fish people and you find all kinds of half man/half fish - serpent imagery all over the Mediterranean. The Skeptics Society is a non-profit, Sagan, Carl 1980. James and Thorpe understate the problem when they say this is very worrying. Griaule claimed that about 15 per cent of the Dogon tribe possessed this secret knowledge, but Van Beek could find no trace of it in the decade he spent with the Dogon. But that isn't the only parallel. hVt*f+"c2aC-w.EJ|@F[VXLV~oo>l B>xU.9y'nYnZ6aBlc3y&A%M]XME One unproven aspect of the reported Dogon knowledge of the Sirius system is the assertion that the Dogon knew of another star in the Sirius system, Emme Ya, or "larger than Sirius B but lighter and dim in magnitude." WebAlso there is the fact that they described the Nommo as fish people and you find all kinds of half man/half fish - serpent imagery all over the Mediterranean. Oberg also says that the Dogon were not an isolated tribe and that a member might have acquired knowledge about Sirius B while abroad and later passed it on to the tribe. According to the Dogon, the instructor gods descended from Sirius and brought knowledge and wisdom. It is a type of fuel that can lead to what Clay Farris Naff cleverly calls the neuron bomb. In this post, Michael Shermer asks, Is there a moral standard that stands above all the worlds religions that is based on some transcendent source?. He has written of Temples belief that present-day authorities are unwilling to set aside the blinkers of orthodoxy, unable to admit the validity of anything that lies outside their field or that offers a challenge to the status quo. Swift appears to have taken the idea of two close (although not necessarily small) moons of Mars from Voltaire's novel Micromegos in which an But here's the rub: there is no archaeological evidence that the specific references to the twin hidden companions of Sirius are anywhere near that old. ", A series of articles has appeared in the Griffith Observer, an astronomy magazin Or, Griaule's account may reflect his own interests more than that of What is interesting is that the Dogon knew about Sirius and its triple star system way before modern science found out its existence. I suspect not.". Its second, 1998, edition is called The Sirius Mystery: New Scientific Evidence of Alien Contact 5,000 Years Ago. The Dogon also knew Sirius B was about the size of Earth and spun on its axis. Zeta Reticuli 2 (with about the same temperature and mass as the Sun) is another candidate. Unfortunately the ancient records contain no clear, unambiguous references to this Sirius lore although the works of historians, astronomers and philosophers were explicit and detailed on innumerable other subjects. They know about the existence of the star Sirius B, a companion star to the brightest star in our sky, Sirius A. The good news is that two of the first five entries were from skeptical websites (CSICOP and Bob Carrolls Skeptics Dictionary). Using similar techniques other writers have "discovered" dozens of different, often contradictory "ancient secrets" about Atlantis, primitive Christianity, forgotten wisdom, ancient visitors and numerous other things. To quote James and Thorpe: As for Sirius B, only Griaules informants had ever heard of it. Was Griaule told by his informants what he wanted to believe; did he misinterpret the Dogon responses to his questions? In other words, the Dogon tribe would not only need the knowledge but also a telescope in order for them to have the information they already seemed to possess. The mystery of the ancient "red" Sirius also remains baffling. What is interesting is that the Dogon knew about Sirius and its triple star system way before modern science found out its existence. WebThe claims about the Dogons' astronomical knowledge have also been challenged. Griaule and Dieterlen's claims, to fit his fantastic story. informed the Dogon of Sirius B or "he misinterpreted their references Europeans too believed that the "white dwarf' Sirius-B star was the heaviest thing in the universe, although in later years astronomers were to find The assyrians called Sirius Kal-bu-sa mas (the Dog of the Sun) and in Chaldea, it was known as Kak-shisha (The Dog Star That Leads) Known History of the Dogon According to Dogon mythology, Nommo was the first living being created by Amma, the sky god and creator of the universe. New evidence deals a devastating blow to what was considered to be the best case for extraterrestrial visitation. amphibious aliens or telescopic vision due to melanin. We may never be able to reconstruct the exact route by which the Dogon received their current knowledge, but out of the confusion at least one thing is clear: The position of the found no evidence they knew Sirius was a double star or that Sirius B is Griaule and Dieterlen first described their findings in an article published in French in 1950, but they included no comment about how extraordinary the Dogon knowledge of the invisible companions was. Finally, he asked me point-blank if I could point out any errors in it and partly out of politeness, partly to get rid of him, and partly because I had been able to read very little of the book so that the answer was true, I said I could not point out any errors. Temple claims his expert cartographer found these distances "nearly equal." star" (Sirius B) and describe its density and rotational Legends of the Dogon Belief in a Long-Solved Mystery Resurfaces. that by the time Griaule arrived, the Dogon may have had a grounding in 20th WebThe Dogon understanding of astronomy was comparatively modern but has several known misconceptions - it entirely lines up with the European understanding as of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, before the discovery of relativity. due to quantities of melanin (Welsing, F. C. 1987. Investigating This drawing is used by those who support the idea that the Dogon were taugfht about Sirius B by aliens. So much for the Nommos. For instance, the anthropologist Walter Van Beek, who studied the Dogon after Griaule and Dieterlen, found no evidence that the Dogon considered Sirius to be a double star and/or that astronomy was particularly important in their belief system. History Debunked then goes on to demonstrate the type of pseudo-scientific nonsense this has lead to by providing a link to an Ethnomathematics paper and reading out its conclusion. The Dogon beliefs about Jupiter and Saturn sound familiar too. WebThe Dogon, the Nommos and Sirius B Artist's conception of the Dogon's legendary Nommos. The proof is supplied by (the Odyssey), where Helios is said to possess 7 herds of 50 cows each and 7 herds of 50 sheep, a transparent allegory of the days and nights of the year.") Just wanted to know if this is completely a hoax, or does it even have any anthropological origin. double star (Ortiz de Montellano).*. Europeans too talked about the discovery of a third star in the Sirius system; later investigations, however, ruled out that possibility. He says the references are there but recorded in riddles which he alone has been able to decipher. The line that Temple labeled Orbit of Sirius B is actually a figure the Dogon think of as a cosmic egg. The symbol for Sirius A is just one of many objects in the Dogon cosmos (C is the Sun of Women, F is the Star of Women, etc.). It seems likely that we will never know for sure. The parts that bear at least a superficial resemblance to astronomical facts are most likely trimmings added in this century. As the brightest star in the sky it was known and worshiped by ancient civilizations. ), There were Giants in the earthin those days Genesis 6:1. Its appearance in the dawn sky over Egypt warned of the impending Nile floods and the summer's heat and marked the beginning of the Egyptian calendar. by Philip Coppens. Temple claimed that the Dogon knew about two smaller stars that are closely related to Sirius Sirius B and Sirius C. The mystery was how they had obtained this knowledge, as these companion stars cannot be seen by the unaided eye. I did more searching and found that for the keywords Dogon and Sirius B, almost 1000 websites were listed. Temples response to criticism has so far been evasive. Speculation about the Dogon on numerous websites is now mingled with fact, leading to wide misunderstanding among the public about Dogon mythology. Legends of the Dogon Belief in a Long-Solved Mystery Resurfaces. The Dogon. One of the pieces of evidence Temple cites is a sand picture made by the None were detected, That was not surprising since, judging from the age and energy of the stars in the Sirius system, astronomers believe it is unlikely that any earthlike planets could exist there long enough for life to emerge and develop. The difference in brightness between Sirius A and B is a factor of 10,000! At the latitude of Egypt, over distances of several hundred kilometers, planetary curvature introduces distortions only on the order of fractions of kilometers, not the tens of kilometers worth of inaccuracies I found in Temple's claim. 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