The Zodiac: Map or Magic?
Part 2
A Measure of Time and Space
Hours
Each 'hour' of the Great Clock is a Zodiacal Age of about 2,160 years (our current Age of Pisces will give way to the Age of Aquarius in another couple of hundred years) and so for each 'great day', nearly 26,000 years must pass. Movement through each single degree in the circle of the Precession takes approximately 72 years, the real biblical age of a man, which was rounded to 'three score years and ten' just as the Septuagint - the Greek translation of the 5 books of Moses in the Hebrew scriptures, or Old Testament - takes its name from the Latin word for 'seventy', even though tradition states that 72 translators worked on it in seclusion on the island of Pharos. 72 is one fifth of 360 - the number of degrees in a circle; This relationship appears more than a random chance.
The poet and classical scholar, Robert Graves, notes (The White Goddess, 1961) that God is reputed to have not just the 4-letter Sacred Name (the Tetragrammaton) and the 22-letter Hebrew alphabet which also is His Name, but also one of 42 letters and another of 72 letters. (The 42-letter name would be, by my conjecture, the six possible transformations of the heptad of days, which include the heptad of metals and that of the seven-planets, which I expand upon below.) Graves also notes the Irish work The Hearings of the Scholars where the 'Work of the Tower of Nimrod' (i.e. the Tower of Babel) is explained as the linguistic researches by Feniusa Farsa and his seventy-two assistants. The name 'Farsa' sounds too much like 'Pharos'; The work referred to is not that of the Tower of Babel but that of the Septuagint translation on Pharos. The name of the island is actually that of the lighthouse ('Phar-os': literally, 'House of light') situated there - one of the Seven Wonders of the World - and which could conceivably be mistaken for that other fabled tower also connected with linguistics.
Pharos is situated just north of the Egyptian city of Alexandria, to which it has long been connected by a 7-stadia (approximately one kilometre) causeway, now vastly broadened by centuries of silting in the harbour. In the same period that saw the translation to the Septuagint, Eratosthenes of Alexandria is reputed to have computed the size of the Earth from the known distance to Syene (modern Aswan) supposedly situated on the Tropic of Cancer where the midsummer sun casts no shadow, from Alexandria, where the sun cast a shadow at an angle of 7.2° - one fiftieth of a full circle. Except for being modified by an order of magnitude, these Alexandrian numbers are precisely the same as those associated with the Septuagint. Putting it down to sheer coincidence seems to be stretching credulity; there has to be some connection.
There is yet more to the story of Eratosthenes. Although several different measures of the stadion are known to have been in use throughout the classical period and beyond, the definitive measure, and that which Eratosthenes is most likely to have used, was the Attic stadion (equivalent to 7290 English inches). Subdivided into 600 Greek feet (measuring 12.15 English inches), the Attic stadion is precisely 1/600° at the latitude of Greece. Obviously, the size of the Earth was known long before Eratosthenes. The length of a degree of latitude varies with latitude but if the Attic stadion is taken as an average measure, the polar circumference of the Earth is 360° times 600 stadia, which works out at 216,000 stadia. Yet again we have a figure differing only in order of magnitude from another important figure - the 2,160 years of a zodiacal Age. A mathematical curiosity, possibly known to Eratosthenes, is that Alexandria and the island of Pharos are situated on the point where the latitudinal circumference is exactly 10 times the distance from the equator. The more that I think about it, the more I am forced to the conclusion that Eratosthenes, with the vast resources of the Library of Alexandria at his command, was not really offering us a calculation on the size of the Earth (Syene is too far to the north of the Tropic and too far to the east of Alexandria for accurate calculation and his given results had an error of about 16%) but actually letting out some light from the well of ancient knowledge - the Bir Abu Hashim.
The number 216,000 is also the cube of 60. The Babylonian equivalent of Noah's Ark is described in the tablets as a cube with a square base of 60 units by 60 units. The Babylonian Ark therefore had a volume of 216,000 cubic units; and it was built to carry animals. The zodiac, with its precessing Ages, each of about 2,160 years, derives its name from the Greek zoion, an animal.
Minutes
Each minute of the Great Clock represents a half-degree turn of the zodiac. Could it be no more than meaningless coincidence that the diameter of the sun viewed from the Earth is just half a degree? The apparent diameter of the moon also approximates to half a degree - although it is sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less, as the distance of the moon from the Earth varies considerably. But why should the apparent sizes have any meaning? Would it make a difference if the apparent diameters of sun and moon did differ considerably from each other, and from the half-degree 'minute' of the Great Clock? I cannot say that it would, but I suggest that it might; that the mass, size and distance of the sun and moon could be connected as accurately and minutely as the gearing in a clock.
The relative positions and motions of sun, moon and the Earth result in eclipses (of the full moon when the Earth's shadow falls across it; and of the sun when the new moon passes between it and the Earth) which occur only because the Earth is tilted off its axis of spin - i.e. because the Precession exists. Eclipses have long been known to recur at regular intervals and there are, in fact, two sequences of eclipses, referred to as the saros and double-inex. The periods of these two sequences - the time between successive eclipses in the sequence - actually fit harmonically between the orbital periods (years) of the planets Jupiter and Saturn (saros) and between those of Saturn and Uranus (double-inex). Harmonisation between the orbital (year) and rotational (day) periods of near physical bodies in the solar system is common and probably due to gravitational effects. That what is in effect a pair of virtual bodies, resulting from the complexity of Sun- Moon- Earth- Precession, also seem gravitationally controlled by the massive planets, Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus, must mean that the mechanism which creates those virtual bodies is subject to the gravitational control of the massive planets. In short, not only are the eclipses ultimately caused by the large planets but so are the Precession, the lengths of the year, the lunar month and the day. When astrology claims that the planets influence us, physics responds by demonstrating that the gravitational effects of the planets are so attenuated by distance as to be less than that of a passing removals van. However, as I have indicated, the effect need not be so direct; the planets may yet be shown to influence us.
Six Weeks
The seven heavenly bodies of the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn (often referred to as 'the planets') move in regular motions about the zodiac. Note that the order is the astrological sequence of their periods rather than the astronomical sequence one is more used to seeing in this scientific age. They have corresponding heptads in the seven metals that were known to the ancient world, and in the seven days of the week. The metals associated with the planets have changed throughout the history of astrology. Jupiter's metal, now tin, was originally electrum, an alloy of gold and silver; for a time Mercury was associated with this alloy until the comparatively late discovery of quicksilver.
The planets are also assigned colours and these too have varied culturally and historically, though always tending to reflect some aspect of the corresponding planet or its metal. In the Ptolomaic system, for example, Venus was associated with yellow, Jupiter with white, Saturn with grey and Mercury's colour varied as its temperament. Since the European Middle Ages, when immense amounts of knowledge filtered out of the Arab world and from the Jewish philosophers, astrological correspondences have been, on the whole, quite standard. The seven associated colours now almost universally accepted are, respectively, white, purple, Green, yellow, Red, Blue, and Black. Using these colours to represent the associated heptads of planets, metals and days may better illustrate certain inherent patterns without having to use special symbols. I shall use the initial letters of these colours, but (for a reason that will immediately become obvious) substitute c (cyan) for white and m (magenta) for purple. I shall also use the bracketed letter (K) for Black, since B is used for Blue. The astrological order of the planets translated into these colours becomes,
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c m G y R B (K) |
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[white] c m B y G R (K) |
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[white] y m R c G B (K) |
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c m G y R B (K) - Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, (Saturn) R G c B y m (K) - Iron, Copper, Silver, Tin, Gold, Mercury, (Lead) y c R m B G (K) - Sunday, Mon., Tues., Wed., Thurs., Fri., (Saturday) B R y G m c (K) - planets reversed m y B c G R (K) - metals reversed G B m R c y (K) - days reversed |
(For a more detailed appraisal of this curious phenomenon, see Colour Magic)
Ploughing the Earth
The time taken for the spring sun to complete its passage through each sign of the zodiac, about 2,160 years, would appear to have formed the basis of the Babylonian sexagesimal system of counting in base 60. It, rather than the 365.25 days of the year, accounts for the 360° of the circle; and the 12 hours of day and of night, the 60 minutes to each hour, and 60 seconds to each minute of the clock. The 600 Greek feet to each stadion, and 600 stadia to a degree of latitude (but only in the region of Greece) also suggests itself due to an ancient knowledge of time and of the size of the Earth.
The stadion was an ancient measure of land, used long before it is supposed the size of the Earth was known. The English equivalent would be the furlong - named for a 'furrow-length' in ploughing. Again, this is an old land measure, in use long before accurate details of the Earth's dimensions were supposed to have been known; and from its name, could anyone guess that it relates not only to the Earth's diameter, but also to the stadion and to the ellipticity of the Earth?
The stadion, already stated as being a precise measure of latitude in the region of Greece, is 7290 English inches in length. The furlong, 1/8th of a mile, is 7920 English inches long - precisely one inch for every mile of the Earth's diameter at the latitude of England.
Just as the length of a degree of latitude increases with latitude, so the diameter of the Earth decreases with latitude. This is due to the shape of the Earth which is not a perfect sphere but is roughly an ellipsoid, with an equatorial diameter greater than its polar diameter. In fact, throughout the nineteenth century, until technical improvements made it possible to account for surface variations, the model used in Geodesy (full Earth surveying) was the International Ellipsoid of Reference with an equatorial radius of 6,378,388 metres (just over 3,963 miles) and an ellipticity (polar flattening) of 1/297.
One is forced to ask if the ancients - the Babylonians, the Chaldeans, or their precursors - could have had sufficient knowledge and ability to invent a system of measuring Time and the Earth that is so interrelated as this appears to be? Is the recurrence of the digits, 2, 7 and 9, in relation to Earth-measure just coincidence? Or is the relationship part of the blueprint of an original creation, some aspects of which have seeped into the minds of observers through the ages, and which can be used to divine our future?
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Ink Amera |
(C) David 7/9/2007 |
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