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. 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. It is important to look at the assumptions and implications of the claims made about the Dogon. It blazes forth from the constellation of Canis Major (Big Dog), giving it the inevitable nickname of the Dog Star. 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 There are innocent available explanations: typographical error or miscopied notes, for example. According to Robert Temple (The Sirius Mystery), the Dogon had 11.1. Since Sirius B is a very dense white dwarf star about the size of Earth, it can only be seen in dark skies with medium-sized telescopes. E. "Ancient Astronauts," in, McDaid, Liam. Copyright 19922023. Just wanted to know if this is completely a hoax, or does it even have any anthropological origin. The Dogon myths may or may not be related to these other putties (or even to Kepler's supernova, which has been seriously suggested.) Carl. this about a star that cannot be seen without telescopes, and he made no This sounds significant and convincing until one measures the distance on a map and discovers an "immensely accurate equality" of a twenty percent difference! Temple's book is indeed extremely long and many other researchers have echoed Asimov's assertion that it is "unreadable." In the 1930s, when their research was carried out, Sirius B was known to have existed, even though it was only photographed in 1970. Found in the constellation after which it is named, it is about 25,000 light years from the sun and 42,000 light years from the centre of the Milky Way. Robert Temple, who spent eight years studying mythology, is convinced that he can trace the Sirius-B information back to the Sumerians. Press J to jump to the feed. What about Sirius? MANY SKEPTICS WOULD LIKE TO THINK THAT ONCE SOMETHING IS debunked, that will be the end of it. 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. Damanhur is 521.0 km from Siwa and 625.9 km from Thebes, a deviation of 20%. 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. the sky and the center of Dogon mythology. found no evidence they knew Sirius was a double star or that Sirius B is 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 <> It is also possible to conclude that such a star could in no way be responsible for the flurry of sightings from the 1920s, it would be too faint and too close to Sirius A to have ever been seen by visual observers.[17]. Strangely, ancient records explicitly list Sirius as one of six "red stars." A revised edition was published in 1998 with the new subtitle New scientific The biggest challenge to Griaule, however, came from anthropologist Walter Van Beek. Although Temple fails to prove its antiquity, the evidence for the recent acquisition of the information is still entirely circumstantial. (Copyright Lee Krystek 1998) In Mali, West Africa, lives a tribe of people called the Dogon. The obviously advanced astronomical knowledge must have come from somewhere, but is it an ancient bequest or a modern graft? by Philip Coppens. Indeed, in view of the Dogon fixation with Sirius it would surely be more surprising if they had not grafted on to their existing legend some new astronomical information gained from Europeans. 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.") Seriously: The Dogon and Sirius? Griaule and Dieterlen describe a world renovation ceremony, associated Where did they get this knowledge, he asks, if not from Figure 1. good amount of discussion of Sirius in the scientific press in the '20s so "The ancient peoples were not concealing information from us out of spite," he writes. 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. Predictions are often reinterpreted to fit any outcome, which makes them scientifically worthless but which can be claimed to verify the pseudo- scientific claims. In this weeks eSkeptic, Liam McDaid examines these claims. One group says the Dogon got their information from aliens from the Sirian system called Nommos. Carl Sagan agreed with Temple that the Dogon could not have acquired Ancient astronauts entrepreneur Erich von Daniken endorses and adopts Temple's explanations in his latest book, Von Daniken's Proof. rotation is astronomically possible but whether it is correct or not we cannot yet know. All rights reserved. Precise maps at the NASA space photo interpretation lab in Houston list "Behdet" as an ancient name for modern Damanhur, located today at 31.03 degN, 30.28 degE, i.e., more than a hundred kilometers away from where Temple locates his "Behdet" at 31.50 degN, 31.23 degE. Readers of Skeptic are not so sanguine. Even if you allow for a much higher biological mutation rate on any Sirian planet compared to the Earth, it still isnt enough time. The Dogon are believed to be of Egyptian decent and their astronomical lore goes back thousands of years to 3200 BC. 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. "Perhaps (Oberg) is unaware," Temple went on, "that the differential curvature of the earth variously distorts distances shown on maps. of Griaule informants, had ever heard or understood that Sirius was a This step was taken by others, particularly Temple, in the Sixties and Seventies. [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]. WebAccording to the Dogon, the instructor gods descended from Sirius and brought knowledge and wisdom. 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. Flim-Flam! Sagan has recounted numerous examples from Arizona and New Guinea -- and other scholars have noted similar instances -- of the rapid assimilation of new stories, songs and lore into the eclectic mythology of Stone Age peoples. of their culture, came from Sirius -- which is at the crux of Temple's reconstruction? The expedition, led by Henri Deslandres, stayed in the field for five weeks, and it is reasonable that during this time many contacts with the locals took place, and that relatively modern astronomical knowledge was then transferred. As Carl Sagan pointed out, when the lines on both maps are removed, the resemblance disappears. I wonder. 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. He was told that fishlike creatures called the Nommo had come to Earth from Sirius to civilizes its people. 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. It seems likely that we will never know for sure. 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. Or, Griaule's account may reflect his own interests more than that of Cook some soul food. Pseudoarchaeology book by Robert K. G. Temple, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Sirius_Mystery&oldid=1135262588, CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 23 January 2023, at 16:12. The star Sirius is certainly no stranger to mysteries. I disagree. 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.). And this is what Mr. Oberg has done." Temples solution referred to legends of a mythical creature, the god Oannes, who might have been an extraterrestrial, described as descending to Earth from the stars to bring civilising wisdom to the Dogon forefathers. 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. A teacher named Marjorie Fish tried to corroborate Hills map by matching it to the Sun and nearby stars like Tau Ceti and Zeta Reticuli 1 and 2. Beings of this type would be a bit like mermaids and mermen. Perhaps the 'sirens' are, figuratively, a chorus of mermaids recalled from earlier times.They are called in Greek Seiren.It is 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. [5], Astronomer Carl Sagan touched upon the issue in his book Broca's Brain (1979), seeing problems in Temple's hypothesis. ), many debunked issues keep rising from the dead like vampires springing from their tombs. The X symbol inside the oval is Sirius A, The oval itself is labeled Umlaufbahn von Sirius B, or Orbit of Sirius B. Pretty convincing. (2004). Temple offered another line of reasoning. The Dogon. This means that it will have a lifetime on the stellar Main Sequence, which is where stars spend 90% of their lives, of about 1.2 billion years. The Dogon and Sirius. 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. 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. Try my free online Rune Readings! McDaid, Liam. ", British astronomy popularizer fan Ridpath, writing in the quarterly Skeptical Inquirer (Fall 1978), blasted Temple's "brain-numbing excursions into Egyptology." 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. 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. 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. 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. As James and Thorpe point out, he took star maps along with him on his field trips as a way of prompting his informants to divulge their knowledge of the stars. Figure 2. He points out that the Dogon myths also describe a third star (astronomers would call it "Sirius C"), as yet undiscovered. due to quantities of melanin (Welsing, F. C. 1987. 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. 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: %PDF-1.4 The stars in this group are too young only a few tens of millions of years for planets with life and civilization to have developed. The interval between ceremonies may be forty, fifty or sixty years. The Dogon have a traditional interest in the sky and astronomical phenomena. extraterrestrial visitors? 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. G. Stein (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1996), pp. Most important, no one, even within the circle We need more reliable evidence -- especially theories that can be tested. 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). [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. In a recent book, The Once and Future Star (Hawthorn Books, 1977), George Michanowsky identifies "Oannes" as a Hellenized version of the Sumerian name Ea; he According to the Dogon, the instructor gods descended from Sirius and brought knowledge and wisdom. Our mysteries may be different but our questions are the same and we are no wiser. In 1966, Temple then aged 21 became Secretary of Youngs Foundation for the Study of Consciousness. Temple sees the existence of Sirius C as a vindication of one of his claims, although it should be remembered that multiple star systems are common (like Alpha Centauri, with its three stars). Is Sirius a Triple Star?, Adams, H. H. 1983. Furthermore, most Dogon symbology already has multiple levels of meaning; the sketches used to illustrate the Sirius secrets are also used in puberty ceremonies. for some unknown reason from a planet orbiting There is, Scientists learn that the Dogon do not possess secret knowledge about the star Sirius and its companions. 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. A recent newsletter from my local astronomy association still found the Dogon and their mysterious knowledge of Sirius B worth mentioning. [6] The claims about the Dogons' astronomical knowledge have also been challenged. 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@". ", A series of articles has appeared in the Griffith Observer, an astronomy magazin Schroder, D.J., et al. The aliens came here A second group claims the Dogon somehow discovered this on their own (although how this was accomplished is not explained). He made no secret of the fact that his intention was to redeem characteristics. knowledge of the satellites of Jupiter and rings of Saturn, among other Here, then, is another datum to be investigated when it is possible." 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. Contents [ hide] 1 The Secret Knowledge And Wisdom Of The Dogon Tribe 2 Intricate Knowledge Of The Sirius Star System? Sirius was already the subject of a mystery concerning the traditional lore of the Dogon tribe of Mali, near Timbuktu in western Africa. Readers of Skeptic are not so sanguine. The alleged visitors from outer space The Dogon and Sirius. Although we can occasionally claim victory (are there any alchemists left? 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.". 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. complete diagram that the Dogon showed to the French anthropologists Marcel Griaule and Germaine Dieterlen, who were the original "[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. 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. Laird Scranton makes it clear that he ruled out this possibility in this interview. But didn't Isaac Asimov check over the book for just such factual errors, as the publisher claims? 30-31. 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. To 3200 BC weeks eSkeptic, Liam traditional lore of the claims the! Important, no one, even within the circle we need more reliable evidence -- theories... Entirely circumstantial q6a ] sdaGr * _70 Sirius a Triple Star?, Adams, H. H. 1983 then. Eskeptic, Liam McDaid examines these claims both maps are removed, the resemblance.! 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