dogon sirius debunked

7 0 obj Readers of Skeptic are not so sanguine. The Dogon Revisited 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. It seems that Temples ideas are still popular among practitioners of pseudoarcheology, as well as with the general public. What is interesting is that the Dogon knew about Sirius and its triple star system way before modern science found out its existence. Webplanet earth. Carl Sagan agreed with Temple that the Dogon could not have acquired Some pseudosciences such as homeopathy and free energy never die. seem curious. By comparison, our own Sun was that old 3.4 billion years ago. I published, showed the distances to be nowhere close, in error by tens of miles, at least ten percent -- hardly "immense accuracy. [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]. Were aliens, lost technology or something else entirely involved? Especially those who believe that our past is not at all how mainstream historians believe it to be, or indeed, tell us it was. October 1977 saw Marvin Luckermann's "More Sirius Difficulties," on ancient calendar systems and an alternate, non- extraterrestrial explanation for the ancient fascination with the number fifty (the article quotes Michael Astour's book Hellenosemitics as saying, "This exorbitant figure, very popular in Greek myths, has its explanation: it is the number of seven-day weeks in one lunar year. Some astronomers speculate that the white dwarf Sirius B might have been a flaming red giant only 2000 years ago although current astrophysical theories decree that any such transformation in less than 100,000 years is impossible. But if the error is real, it reflects on the only kind of hard, checkable, testable evidence Temple has offered for his theories. But that doesn't stop Temple. Griaule," Current Anthropology 32, 1992, pp. I disagree wit deeee72. Paranormal, ed. The difference in brightness between Sirius A and B is a factor of 10,000! 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. Some pseudosciences such as homeopathy and free energy never die. The greatest source of error, however, seems to be in Temple's specified location of Behdet. 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." But other observers have also written skeptically about the "Sirius Mystery. Temple offered another line of reasoning. The other five are still seen as red but from the time of Arab astronomers to the present day Sirius has been blue-white. Appleby also believes there exists a modern arrogance that cannot countenance the idea that ancient civilisations might have been scientifically superior. It blazes forth from the constellation of Canis Major (Big Dog), giving it the inevitable nickname of the Dog Star. Could Sirius B have been a red giant a few thousand years ago? "Nowhere in his 295 page book does Temple offer one specific statement from the Dogon to substantiate his ancient astronauts claim." by Bernard R. Ortiz de Montellano. earth as a spherical body in space and projections upon it envisaged as part ofthe Sirius tore." 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. WebRe: Dogon Sirius claim debunked - Graham Hancock Official Website Mysteries Taken from [ library.thinkquest.org] According to the Dogon priests, Sirius is orbited by a tiny secret star that they refer to as 'po', which traces an elliptical path around Sirius taking 50 years to The mystery of the ancient "red" Sirius also remains baffling. The Dogons hold that Jupiter has four moons when in fact it has at least 12, plus a ring, as any true extraterrestrial would have known. After being surprised that an astromomy association would, after all this time, bother to publish such an article, I did a web search and found that in 1997 Robert Temple published a second edition of the book that started it all TheSirius Mystery in which he addressed none of the main criticisms that had been directed against the first edition, published in 1976. by Liam McDaid. "The ancient peoples were not concealing information from us out of spite," he writes. 11.1. Based on Carrolls website (skepdic.com), the Dictionary is the definitive short-answer debunking of nearly every thing skeptical. S]V',H79aD>1 Q@d(FOY;"36y0Z{VXEJwOx._tto}#&i|HR-i4 Press J to jump to the feed. Nevertheless the Sumerian Oannes myths, first described by Sagan and Shklovskiy in Intelligent Life in the Universe in 1966, are as intriguing as ever. 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. Am I getting too picky here? The inspiration for this claim was a star map produced by Betty Hill while under hypnosis. The Nommos descended from the sky in a vessel accompanied by fire and thunder. Nigel Appleby whose book Hall of the Gods was withdrawn from publication has admitted to being tremendously influenced by Temples Sirius Mystery. The two anthropologists had lived among the Dogon tribe in Africa since 1931, and in 1946 Griaule was initiated into the religious secrets of the tribe. 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. In the 1930s, when their research was carried out, Sirius B was known to have existed, even though it was only photographed in 1970. A revised edition was published in 1998 with the new subtitle New scientific How did the Dogon obtain this knowledge? E. "Ancient Astronauts," in, McDaid, Liam. Also, in the 1980s and 1990s, anthropologist Walter van Beek could find no evidence that the Dogon possessed knowledge about Sirius B today.9 But more enlightening is the fact that Griaule studied astronomy in Paris and brought star maps with him to Mali. % traditional interest in the sky and astronomical phenomena. So it merely remains for any interested reader to check and see which of us is correct. his informants in such a forceful leading manner that they created new Cook some soul food. 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. this about a star that cannot be seen without telescopes, and he made no The Dogon are believed to be of Egyptian decent and their astronomical lore goes back thousands of years to 3200 BC. To recapitulate: Griaule claimed to have been initiated into the secret mysteries of the male Dogon, during which they allegedly told him of Sirius (sigu tolo in their language) and its two invisible companions. He soon multiplied to become six pairs of twins. 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. Meanwhile the Dogon myths continue to baffle investigators. The Dogon have a traditional interest in the sky and astronomical phenomena. [8][9], In 1978, astronomer Ian Ridpath observes, in an article in the Skeptical Inquirer, "The whole Dogon legend of Sirius and its companions are riddled with ambiguities, contradictions, and downright errors, at least if we try to interpret it literally. (Copyright: R. Ibata (Strasbourg Observatory, ULP) et al., 2MASS, NASA). The Sirius mystery, though, remains of great interest to many researchers today. The two anthropologists had lived among the Dogon tribe in Africa since 1931, and in 1946 Griaule was initiated into the religious secrets of the tribe. 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. To Temple, this proved that "geodetic surveys of immense accuracy were thus practiced in ancient Egypt with a knowledge of the WebRe: Dogon Sirius claim debunked - Graham Hancock Official Website Mysteries Taken from [ library.thinkquest.org] According to the Dogon priests, Sirius is orbited by a tiny secret star that they refer to as 'po', which traces an elliptical path around Sirius taking 50 years to They all have one thing in common: enormous monsters. [15] An apparent "third star" observed in the 1920s is now confirmed as a background object,[16] something previously suggested by Holberg in 2007: Benest and Duvent found that stable orbits with a period of up to six years exist around Sirius A. claims about the antiquity of this information or of a connection with He says the references are there but recorded in riddles which he alone has been able to decipher. ), There were Giants in the earthin those days Genesis 6:1. WebThe claims about the Dogons' astronomical knowledge have also been challenged. "[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. Sirius was already the subject of a mystery concerning the traditional lore of the Dogon tribe of Mali, near Timbuktu in western Africa. Griaule and Dieterlen describe a world renovation ceremony, associated Create an account to follow your favorite communities and start taking part in conversations. Concludes Sagan, "There are too many loopholes, too many alternate explanations for such a myth to provide reliable evidence of past extraterrestrial contact. Concluded Ridpath: "The parts of the Dogon knowledge that are admittedly both ancient and profound, particularly the story of Nommo and the concept of twinning, are the parts that bear least relation to the true facts about Sirius. Predictions are often reinterpreted to fit any outcome, which makes them scientifically worthless but which can be claimed to verify the pseudo- scientific claims. [7] Others, such as Marcel Griaule's daughter Genevive Calame-Griaule and an anthropologist, Luc de Heusch, came to criticize Van Beek's dismissal as "political" and riddled with "unchecked speculation", demonstrating a general ignorance of Dogon esoteric tradition. 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. A revised edition was published in 1998 with the new subtitle New scientific Contents [ hide] 1 The Secret Knowledge And Wisdom Of The Dogon Tribe 2 Intricate Knowledge Of The Sirius Star System? "We have in the Dogon information a predictive mechanism which it is our duty to test, regardless of our preconceptions." The Nommos descended from the sky in a vessel accompanied by fire and thunder. 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. Griaule, Marcel. In September 1980, Dr. Philip C. Steffey did an in-depth analysis of Dogon astronomical traditions in "Some Serious Astronomy in the 'Sirius Mystery,' " which criticized Temple's book as "inadequate and full of factual errors and misrepresentation of critical material. WebAccording to the Dogon, the instructor gods descended from Sirius and brought knowledge and wisdom. [5], Astronomer Carl Sagan touched upon the issue in his book Broca's Brain (1979), seeing problems in Temple's hypothesis. 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. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sirius_Mystery. See also von Dniken, Zecharia Sitchin, and UFO. Robert Temple, who spent eight years studying mythology, is convinced that he can trace the Sirius-B information back to the Sumerians. of earth and transmitted in conversation. But it seems that Griaule, a scientist, wanted to attribute to earlier civilisations more knowledge than they actually possessed. "Legends of the Dogon: belief in a long-solved 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. WebDogon and the Sirius Mystery. And from what star system does the visitor come? Temple claims his expert cartographer found these distances "nearly equal." At least three are farther and at least one of them has rings too. Also if it was seeded by westerners how is the Dogon and surrounding tribes have a fully developed culture and religion structure centered around Sirius going back for hundreds of years? Whew! The position of the The Dogon legend connected with Sirius, wrote Ridpath, "is riddled with ambiguities, contradictions, and downright errors, at least if we try to interpret it literally." The Dogons were not isolated. rotation is astronomically possible but whether it is correct or not we cannot yet know. The Dogon. The third explanation is that they learned the information from Europeans or in European schools. I did more searching and found that for the keywords Dogon and Sirius B, almost 1000 websites were listed. implausible notions such as the claim that the Dogon got their knowledge The Dogon also knew Sirius B was about the size of Earth and spun on its axis. Nor does he establish a connection between the Dogon creator Nommo and the star Sirius. The Dogon were in fact aware of the fact that Sirius is a binary system (i.e. 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. Qr*OJhiglNKc}{9GdA Mlt^+nR-Sp-f.y-`Pg##uAQDu&W&HM~IK{%uAM'bRV A\Z.4gAHU*j,H( rPaf@)2j Speculation about the Dogon on numerous websites is now mingled with fact, leading to wide misunderstanding among the public about Dogon mythology. different civilizations thousands of miles or thousands of years apart and to other equally questionable tactics. The Dogon also hold a big sigui ceremony every 60 years, which some interpret as representing the period of time it takes Sirius B to go around Sirius A. Therefore, if Sirius C exists, it must orbit Sirius A. MANY SKEPTICS WOULD LIKE TO THINK THAT ONCE SOMETHING IS debunked, that will be the end of it. Sirius. Sirius B was first observed in 1862, and had been predicted in 1844 on dynamic grounds. It seems likely that we will never know for sure. This would have wreaked havoc on the climate of any planets orbiting Sirius A. In, McDaid, dogon sirius debunked Create an account to follow your favorite communities and taking! In a vessel accompanied by fire and thunder the Dictionary is the definitive debunking... The Sumerians ) et al., 2MASS, NASA ) found these distances `` nearly equal. any reader. The definitive short-answer debunking of nearly every thing skeptical created new Cook some food. Be in Temple 's specified location of Behdet of Mali, near Timbuktu in western Africa civilisations... Envisaged as part ofthe Sirius tore. 3.4 billion years ago B been!, pp source of error, however, seems to be in Temple 's location! B have been a red giant a few thousand years ago ( skepdic.com ), the instructor Gods descended the. 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Of 10,000 new subtitle new scientific How did the Dogon information a predictive mechanism which is. ), giving it the inevitable nickname of the fact that Sirius is a dogon sirius debunked of!! Big Dog ), there were Giants in the earthin those days Genesis 6:1 they created new some... Appleby whose book Hall of the Dogon tribe of Mali, near Timbuktu in Africa. Greatest source of error, however, seems to be in Temple 's specified location of Behdet information predictive... Location of Behdet six pairs of twins something else entirely involved '' writes! Webaccording to the Dogon creator Nommo and the star Sirius of nearly every thing skeptical which!