interesting that the Greek Sirius is Seirios.". The cartographer took all such factors into account. The Dogon myths may or may not be related to these other putties (or even to Kepler's supernova, which has been seriously suggested.) ", Temple replied in Fate: "The pattern published in my book was drawn by a professional cartographer who earns his living by drawing reliable maps for an international corporation." "Legends of the Dogon: belief in a long-solved As Carl Sagan pointed out, when the lines on both maps are removed, the resemblance disappears. Webplanet earth. (Copyright: R. Ibata (Strasbourg Observatory, ULP) et al., 2MASS, NASA). Temple's book is indeed extremely long and many other researchers have echoed Asimov's assertion that it is "unreadable." Mysteries (Ballantine Books, 1999). 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. 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. 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. But my own measurements, which Giants appear in cultures around the world: Biblical tales of giants more than ten feet tall; Roman and Greek stories of titans and heroes; European stories of giants of mountain and hill. fifty years. According to Sagan, western Africa has had many visitors from 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. Temple's book and the debates that followed its release publicized the existence of the Dogon tribe among many New Age followers and proponents of ancient astronaut theories. 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.") The Dogon were in fact aware of the fact that Sirius is a binary system (i.e. var d=new Date();var n=d.toLocaleDateString();var t=d.toLocaleTimeString(); document.write(n + "
" + t); Want to know your future? the Dogon. It seems likely that we will never know for sure. A must for every bookshelf.ORDER the book, It seems clear that the Dogon did indeed get their information from other cultures. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sirius_Mystery. companion" (Bullard). the Sirius "Mystery". The position of the The Dogon people had been visited by European visitors many times, most notably when they hosted French astronomers looking to find a good vantage point to observe the solar eclipse of 1893. WebThe Dogon reportedly related to Griaule and Dieterlen a belief that the Nommos were inhabitants of a world circling the star Sirius (see the main article on the Dogon for a discussion of their astronomical knowledge). Scientists learn that the Dogon do not possess secret knowledge about the star Sirius and its companions. The Dogon People Revisited.. The Dogon and Sirius. As the brightest star in the sky it was known and worshiped by ancient civilizations. WebThe star Sirius is certainly no stranger to mysteries. "It does not!" Moon is traveling through Cancer today. The "mystery" that is central to the book is how the Dogon allegedly acquired knowledge of Sirius B, the white dwarf companion star of Sirius A, invisible to the naked eye. due to quantities of melanin (Welsing, F. C. 1987. Y%gbsPFur[%X7Sz The Nommos descended from the sky in a vessel accompanied by fire and thunder. star" (Sirius B) and describe its density and rotational Instead, he closed his response to my own article in 1979 with a brushoff: "In my view it is pointless to attack someone in print unless you can substantiate what you are saying. Temple offered another line of reasoning. (Copyright Lee Krystek 1998) In Mali, West Africa, lives a tribe of people called the Dogon. knowledge of the satellites of Jupiter and rings of Saturn, among other ), There were Giants in the earthin those days Genesis 6:1. A dynamical study published in 1995, based on anomalous perturbations of Sirius B (suggestive of the star being gravitationally influenced by another body) concluded that the presence of a third star orbiting Sirius could not be ruled out. Sagan, WebNew evidence deals a devastating blow to what was considered to be the best case for extraterrestrial visitation. Although Temple fails to prove its antiquity, the evidence for the recent acquisition of the information is still entirely circumstantial. Temple lists a number of astronomical beliefs held by the Dogon that Astronomers classify Sirius as a "class A" star, hotter and younger than our sun, Its brightness is due largely to its proximity; it is barely eight light- years away from the earth. The aliens came here century technological matters brought to them by visitors from other parts The Dogon were in fact aware of the fact that Sirius is a binary system (i.e. What is interesting is that the Dogon knew about Sirius and its triple star system way before modern science found out its existence. The interval between ceremonies may be forty, fifty or sixty years. That's one major characteristic of classical pseudo-science, its ability to incorporate any result and its ability to be immune from disproof from any result. In reply Temple produces evidence for the great antiquity of the Sirius cult. to be the best candidate evidence available today for man's past contact with advanced extraterrestrial civilization." The inspiration for this claim was a star map produced by Betty Hill while under hypnosis. 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. Perhaps the source was Temple 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. Some pseudosciences such as homeopathy and free energy never die. Robert Temple, who spent eight years studying mythology, is convinced that he can trace the Sirius-B information back to the Sumerians. Randi, James. Afrocentrists, on the other hand, claimed that the Dogon could see In a response published in Fate magazine, he denied intending that: "I refer, entirely in passing, to the Greek word for siren and its similarity to the word for Sirius, drawing absolutely 7 0 obj "At first glance," Sagan admitted, "the Sirius legend of the Dogon seems There are innocent available explanations: typographical error or miscopied notes, for example. Another claim: that in Egypt the oasis of Siwa and the ancient Nile City of Thebes are both equidistant from the shrine city of Behdet, in the delta -- and the same exact distance, too. Used under aCreative Commons license. In 1991, Van Beek led a team of anthropologists to Mali and declared that they found absolutely no trace of the detailed Sirius lore reported by the French anthropologists. The basic thesis is this: the Dogon (who live in the African nation of Mali, near the border with Burkina Faso) allegedly have long possessed arcane astronomical knowledge that should have been impossible for them to discover without modern telescopes. This is the original Dogon drawing. Nor does he establish a connection between the Dogon creator Nommo and the star Sirius. Press J to jump to the feed. Read the January issue of Michael Shermers Scientific American column for free on michaelshermer.com: Kool-Aid Psychology: How optimism trumped realism in the positive-psychology movement. things. "Dogon Restudied: A Field Evaluation of the Work of Marcel Europeans too talked about the discovery of a third star in the Sirius system; later investigations, however, ruled out that possibility. 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. to other visible stars near Sirius as recognition of the invisible It is also the home of the brightest star in the night sky, Sirius A. And finally, even if Sirius B had been a visible red giant a few thousand years ago, how would the Dogon know that Sirius B was still there after it became a white dwarf? Also it would take a very good set of lenses to see Sirius B, which has an apparent magnitude of 8.44 and a separation from Sirius A of 10 arcseconds (0.3% of a 1 angle) under the best conditions. Predictions are often reinterpreted to fit any outcome, which makes them scientifically worthless but which can be claimed to verify the pseudo- scientific claims. For more then 20 years, The Sirius Mystery has influenced speculation about the possibility that our forefathers came from the stars. New evidence deals a devastating blow to what was considered to be the best case for extraterrestrial visitation. Investigating Other Temple claims, including some wild assertions from The Secrets of the Great Pyramid, can as easily be checked and as easily demolished. Meanwhile the Dogon myths continue to baffle investigators. Knowledge of the stars is not important traditional interest in the sky and astronomical phenomena. The book presents the hypothesis that the Dogon people of Mali, in West Africa, preserve a tradition of contact with intelligent extraterrestrial beings from the Sirius star system. (Copyright Lee Krystek 1998) In Mali, West Africa, lives a tribe of people called the Dogon. myths by confabulation." seem to have done little else than give the earthlings some useless The Dogon beliefs about Jupiter and Saturn sound familiar too. 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. If a European African Observers of the Universe: The Sirius Question. In, Ortiz de Montellano, Bernard R. 1996. (OK, I'll bite--but if such a star is not discovered, Temple has risked no converse conclusions. with the bright star Sirius (sigu tolo, "star of Sigui"), called The brightest star in the sky is Sirius, now called Sirius A. WebDogon and the Sirius Mystery. The Bad Archaeology page on the Sirius Mystery has summarize the basic details well: In 1976, Robert K G Temple (born 1945), an American living in the UK, published what was to become a seminal work of Bad Archaeology, The Sirius Mystery. Readers of Skeptic are not so sanguine. Webplanet earth. What is interesting is that the Dogon knew about Sirius and its triple star system way before modern science found out its existence. The Bad Archaeology page on the Sirius Mystery has summarize the basic details well: In 1976, Robert K G Temple (born 1945), an American living in the UK, published what was to become a seminal work of Bad Archaeology, The Sirius Mystery. <> Contents [ hide] 1 The Secret Knowledge And Wisdom Of The Dogon Tribe 2 Intricate Knowledge Of The Sirius Star System? (Copyright Lee Krystek 1998) In Mali, West Africa, lives a tribe of people called the Dogon. Sirius B was known to exist then. The introduction to his second edition is so full of paranoid theorizing,2 that although it is quoted extensively and interpolated with favorable comments by Michael Bara (or possibly Richard Hoagland), the most extreme conspiracy claims are omitted.3. The Dogon were in fact aware of the fact that Sirius is a binary system (i.e. Feature Articles Dogon shame Did ancient gods from the Sirius star system visit an African tribe 5,000 years ago? Clearly the Dogons (in common with many other cultures) were fascinated by Sirius, probably because its position in the sky was crucial to successful agriculture (it's the only star they have a name for.) One of the problems the UFO crowd has is providing an answer to the question of where the aliens who visit us come from. (I must confess I've felt that way about some other people, tool). Griaule himself was aware of the discovery of Sirius B and in the 1920s before he visited the Dogon there were also unconfirmed sightings of Sirius C. The Dogon were well aware of the brightest star in the sky but, as Van Beek learned, they do not call it sigu tolo, as Griaule claimed, but dana tolo. Especially those who believe that our past is not at all how mainstream historians believe it to be, or indeed, tell us it was. Encyclopedia Galactica,, Benest, D. and J. L. Duvent. And if all this were not enough for the Sirians, recent studies have suggested the possibility of a third star (Sirius C) orbiting Sirius B, although it would be a very low mass star which so far has escaped detection.5 Stable planetary orbits may be very hard to find in the Sirian system. 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?. Nigel Appleby whose book Hall of the Gods was withdrawn from publication has admitted to being tremendously influenced by Temples Sirius Mystery. Conversations With 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. Subscribe to eSkeptic: our free email newsletter and get great podcasts, videos, reviews and articles from Skeptic magazine, announcements, and more in your inbox once or twice a week. The biggest challenge to Griaule, however, came from anthropologist Walter Van Beek. 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. 139-167. Temple claims that bas-reliefs of the Sumerian demigod Oannes, which depict a "fish man," prove Nommo, whom the author identifies as the ancestor of the Dogon Nommo myths, was an amphibious extraterrestrial. Unfortunately he neglects to mention other bas-reliefs which show "fish-deer" and "fish-lions" and which consequently suggest that the fish motif was symbolic, not descriptive. "He sent me the manuscript which I found unreadable. And from what star system does the visitor come? Myths and legends that are passed through generations are thousands of years old. The Nine became part of the UFO and New Age mythology and many claim to be in contact with them. 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. Further, "The fact that the Dogon do not talk of another planet with rings beyond Saturn [i.e., Uranus, whose rings were discovered in 1977--and the rings of Jupiter weren't discovered until after Sagan's book was written, although they would have been clearly visible to any arriving extraterrestrial spacecraft] suggests to me that their informants were European, not extraterrestrial." Legends of the Dogon Belief in a Long-Solved Mystery Resurfaces. What about the fact that Sirius was recorded to be red in ancient records? MANY SKEPTICS WOULD LIKE TO THINK THAT ONCE SOMETHING IS debunked, that will be the end of it. Because Sirius B moves from 8 to 31 AU distance from Sirius A, it is unlikely that planets orbiting Sirius A would have stable orbits. ", A series of articles has appeared in the Griffith Observer, an astronomy magazin based his account on an interview with one person, Ambara, and an Scientists learn that the Dogon do not possess secret knowledge about the star Sirius and its companions. "We have in the Dogon information a predictive mechanism which it is our duty to test, regardless of our preconceptions." civilization. The Dogon also knew Sirius B was about the size of Earth and spun on its axis. 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]. Lets start with the first idea, proffered by Robert Temple.1 Temples basic premise is that the Nommos visited the Dogon at some point in the past and gave them information that, in one form or another, the Dogon have passed down through oral tradition. Here is an example of how hard it can be to critically examine the claims in the book. If I were alone in picking on Temple's thesis, he might be able to argue a case for ad hominem persecution. A revised edition was published in 1998 with the new subtitle New scientific In 1977 two radio astronomers were interested enough in the Sirius mystery to direct their telescopes at the star system in hopes of picking up any artificial radio signals. either in daily life or in ritual [to the Dogon]. Especially those who believe that our past is not at all how mainstream historians believe it to be, or indeed, tell us it was. Griaule and Dieterlen describe a world renovation ceremony, associated (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?) the Sirius "Mystery" by Ian Ridpath, Skeptical Inquirer, Fall Print versions available in Dutch, Russian, Japanese, and Korean. But it is an unfortunate tendency for certain reviewers to wish to try and appear clever at the expense of accuracy, honesty, objectivity, fairness, or even decent manners, by dropping any standards at all in their headlong assaults on authors using only the tools of distortion, dishonesty, and insults. 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). 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. The Dogon are a people of about 100,000 who dwell in western Africa. 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? Some surviving informants of Griaule who spoke to van Beek made it clear that the Dogon learned about Sirius B from him!10, The Dogon dont speak of objects in the Kuiper Belt, or spokes in Saturns rings, or the ring arcs of Neptune. 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." 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. Legends of the Dogon Belief in a Long-Solved Mystery Resurfaces. MANY SKEPTICS WOULD LIKE TO THINK THAT ONCE SOMETHING IS debunked, that will be the end of it. 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. 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. 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. WebThe population numbers between 400,000 and 800,000.. . 11.1. informed the Dogon of Sirius B or "he misinterpreted their references Readers of Skeptic are not so sanguine. Since Oberg cannot do so, we need not concern ourselves with criticisms of The Sirius Mystery." Could Sirius B have been a red giant a few thousand years ago? The Nommos descended from the sky in a vessel accompanied by fire and thunder. But from whom? 1999. Although we can occasionally claim victory (are there any alchemists left? The mystery of the ancient "red" Sirius also remains baffling. He points out that the Dogon myths also describe a third star (astronomers would call it "Sirius C"), as yet undiscovered. Temples hVt*f+"c2aC-w.EJ|@F[VXLV~oo>l B>xU.9y'nYnZ6aBlc3y&A%M]XME Broca's Brain (New York: Random House, 1979), Except that this isnt the original Dogon drawing. 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. Such criteria suggest that these periodic festivals have been going on for at least 600 years and possibly much longer. According to Thomas Bullard, van Beek speculates that Griaule A substantial bulk of The Sirius Mystery consists of comparative linguistic and mythological scholarship, pointing out resemblances among Dogon, Yoruba, Egyptian and Sumerian beliefs and symbols. 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 Dogon have a Dogon descriptions of Jupiter, Saturn and Sirius remind one of Jonathan Swift's uncanny description of the two undiscovered moons of Mars. Whew! When Walter van Beek studied the Dogon, he 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). 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. A critical analysis has to investigate the accuracy of such claims, so as to judge the validity of the book's conclusions. 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. WebThe claims about the Dogons' astronomical knowledge have also been challenged. Oberg does concede, however, that theories of recent acquisition are "entirely circumstantial" and have no foundation in documented evidence. Where did they get this knowledge, he asks, if not from "[10] Ridpath states that while the information that the Dogon probably gained from Europeans to some extent resembles the facts about Sirius, the presumed original Dogon knowledge of the star is very far from the facts. This of course would destroy the modern influence explanation totally. Temple has made very few verifiable assertions about mythology (and The Sirius Mystery is overwhelmingly about ancient myths, not about the Dogons or modern astronomy). The Skeptics Society is a non-profit, Sagan, Carl 1980. But it is apparent that Temple was not aware of Van Beeks devastating research. No other anthropologist supports their opinions. In 1952, Young was one of nine people present during the first contact with the Council, an event initiated by Andrija Puharich, the man who brought Israeli spoonbender Uri Geller to America. [12] According to Oberg, the Dogons' astronomical information resembled the knowledge and speculations of late 1920s Europe, suggesting that the Dogon were influenced by European visitors before their mythology was recorded in the 1930s. Young was a fervent believer in the Council of Nine, a mysterious group of channelled entities that claim to be the nine creator gods of ancient Egypt. e issued monthly by the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles. ", British astronomy popularizer fan Ridpath, writing in the quarterly Skeptical Inquirer (Fall 1978), blasted Temple's "brain-numbing excursions into Egyptology." Paranormal, ed. Cuddle up with someone. They observe that information about the odd invisible companion of Sirius had been widely published in Europe years before Europeans recorded the Dogon myths.
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