The point of this article is to bring into debate the timeline of catastrophic events that lead to the demise of a previous civilisation and the rise of ours while the electromagnetic re-arrangement of the solar system truly took place. For the sake of clarity I've split the speech in sections about geological, myth, astronomical and historic arguments.
Geological argument: Mainstream scientists use to explain Ice Ages by the Milankovitch cycles. However, they cannot be blamed of glaciations if the solar system was engaged in a drastic re-arrangement (giant gaseous planets moving outwards and rocky ones inwards). If we are to find a reason for cold climate in that stage we must pay attention to Earth's distance to Sun and axis tilt. As stated in my previous article "The clash of Jupiter and Saturn" the astronomical upheaval cannot have happened in a nearby orbit (<1 AU). Saturn may only provide a shield against cold space while keeping his satellites inside its plasmasphere.
How can Ice Ages be explained if they must be dated when exiting the plasmasphere?
Myth argument: Approaches of Venus in 700 BC, 1500 BC, 2500 BC as stated by Velikovsky, at a distance of 1 Million km would have been seen as a 40 arc-minutes (1.5 degrees at 500.000 km) without considering its coma/plasma-sheath glow. Considering a 3 times increase in apparent size, that would become 2-4 degrees (bigger than current Sun and Moon). And Jupiter? At 50 Million km it would have look like a 10 arc-minutes disc. With a 3 times increase due to its atmospheric glow it would be the same size of the Sun/Moon (supposing they were at current distances). Main rule in myth interpretation is: 'the more important the God the more powerful features it had (brightness, heat, lightning and SIZE).
What happened with Sun and Moon? Where were they? They are really secondary in the myth.
If Venus (or Mars) was so close, even if only its plasma-spheres were larger, they should have been seen bigger, and in 700 BC there is no mural or wall depiction of that. How is this explained?
Astronomical argument: One way of backing the theory up is to do some calculations of how much time would orbits spend during electromagnetic re-arrangement. There is none. Several ancient historians and poets talked about pre-lunar people, Proselenes, ans Pelasgians (etymologically 'from the Deep Sea'). Ancient lunar gods were male (in the first matriarchal cultures) and did not have important roles in the legends. Finally, there are no prehistoric cave paintings about the Moon.
If the Moon wasn't orbiting Earth, and the Sun was far away (e.g. Earth distance 2.5 UA), how did it reach its circular orbit and captured the Moon in such a short span?
Why did ancient Romans, Greeks, Babylonians, Canaanites, Sumerians or Egyptians depicted planets as gods if they were seeing them in the sky???
Historic argument: If Venus got close approaches as late as 531 AD or Julius Caesar life, associations to calendars such as Mayas, dating back as far as 1.800 BC and cycles as the 52 years Tzolkin and so on are INCONSISTENT. Therefore, we must ask ourselves:
Who witnessed the Saturn System Collapse, the Polar Configuration, the Venus Flybys (at least 2), the approach of our Moon (and its electrical capture) and its final stabilization (circular orbit)?
Why ancient stories are written in PAST TENSE (by Plato in Critias, Timaeus and Politicus; Euripides in Elektra; Solinus in Polyhistor; several Papyrii Ipuwer, Ermitage, Harris; Maya Codices; Persian Avesta; Rig Veda; ) and talk about a time with other gods, first forefathers, several HUNDRED GENERATIONS -say 30 years per generation-, and the "Eye of the Sun God (Eye of Ra, Eye of Mithra-Varuna, Eye of Ahura-Mazda").
These historians were recalling their legendary ancestors, retelling their already mythical accounts, and trying to assemble distorted stories about the Golden Age, a Polar Configuration of planets unknown to them, mixing Theomachy wars with human battles and gods with heroes and kings. ¡ALL that cataclysms TOOK PLACE in the PRIMEVAL TIME!
Velikovsky, De Grazia and other timelines
The rutene scholar wrote in his book 'Earth in Upheaval' and in 'Worlds in Collision" that a global Flood caused by Saturn (he said it was Deucalion/Noah's Flood) took place in 2.500 BC, and that it drove the Earth to flip poles). One millennia afterwards, in 1.500 BC, Venus approach brought forth th Flood of Ogyges (which linked to Atlantis in Mid-Atlantic Ridge). In other book called 'Ages in Chaos' he made a revised chronology of history, establishing a real Exodus (Earth tilts temporally) in 1.200 BC. In 750 BC, Mars approach to Earth forced a change in calendars from 360 to 365 days.
A huge list of things were provided by Velikovsky as a proof of the Flood that Sagan tried to deny with different success. A few of them are the channelled Scablands of Columbia Plateau (excavated during floods but in wide range period from LGM to the end of Pleistocene), Athabasca Floods in Canada (dated by Warren Hunt in 11.000 BC), Darwin observed beaches who had recently risen 300 meters, also in the New Hebrides and around the South Pacific, sudden emergence of coastline detected by R. A. Daly in his book 'Our Mobile Earth' that he ascribed to the glaciation of polar icecaps in recent Neolithic (3.500 BC). The psychiatrist also pointed to accounts of native North-American Indians who did large oceanic trips in big canoes prior to that time and that oceans' level dropped 3-4 meters.
Velikovsky continued with a chapter dedicated to Alaska and North-Siberia slit and clay depositions, full of bones, mammoth tusks, and even carcasses with fast frozen specimens (were used to feed dogs and wolves), and shattered bones and tree trunks in volcanic ash layers. La Brea tar pits was a marsh of natural asphalt and tar radiocarbon dated between LGM and the Dryas period, where several mega-fauna was entrapped. He even cited papers with findings of human tools and stone artefacts. This dragged material from southern latitudes is completed with erratic boulders (rocks whose composition does not match the environment where they are found), that mainstream geology blames to glacial action.
The mainstream geologists argue that most of these floods were local phenomena, not global, being caused by the break of ice dams in the end of Ice Age. However, Charles Ginenthal replies that local floods would have washed away and shattered to pieces the complete skeletons of whales found intact near the Earth surface. He describes how a giant tide (tsunami) produced by a shift of rotational axis would have developed: "Since the Pacific Ocean lies between the continents of North America and Asia in the northern hemisphere, and the continental coastlines form an inverted V (/\) with its apex at the Bering Strait, the tidewater would veer east, over Alaska and Canada, and west, over Asia. In the Atlantic Ocean, the tidewater would flow more easily near the poles, covering a larger area; this would create smaller continental floods". High altitude beaches are claimed as proof of recent floods since they don't even show signs of erosion.
Nevertheless, the conundrum of whales still deepens when we are told that whale skeletons were found in lake Michigan at heights of 200 meters over St. Lawrence river, and equally elevations on lake Ontario, Vermont and Montreal in Quebec. In 1987 it was published in New York Times that Andes Mountains should have risen recently and very rapidly from the sea, as whales and other marine animals were found fossilised in Atacama Desert (Chile), several kilometres high. Many had come to rest facing in the same direction and upside down, which forced Smithsonian to to state that these creatures succumbing to the same, sudden catastrophe; only, the different fossils levels indicated it was not one event but four separate episodes spread over a period of several thousand years. ¡Four episodes of whale poisoning during thousands of years, 7 million years ago! Ridiculous not, the following.
In Wadi Al-Hitan, near El Cairo, laying close to the surface were unearthed 243 full skeletons of whales, 350 km away from the Read Sea. If Sahara Desert appeared after the Ice Age when climate became arid, whales had to have embedded themselves into the desert sand after the Ice Age ended and sand formed to cover them. Zeuglodons whales CANNOT REMAIN near the surface for about 40 million years, as some palaeontologists submit, because their bones would have eroded away. If they were encased in rock, over time, and the rock became sand, their bones would have become sand.
If we add the Sphinx's erosion features dug by runoff water, as debated by Schoch and Reader dating the monument back between 5.000-7.500 BC, the mystery is complete. This date matches the Black Sea Floods from the Mediterranean around 10.500 BC. Dating of organic mud layered in the Black Sea point to 7.500 BC (another famous creationist debate).
The heretic scholar gave some insights about the Chandler wobbling (currently 14 months) and Moon libration as a remnant of a Pole Shift, that recent measurements show is damping slowly. He thought that Moon was recently captured by Earth, lost its possible atmosphere and got its weak magnetism. Issues with the origin of volatile such as nitrogen, oxygen or chlorine are beyond the scope of this analysis.
In summary, from all the factors enlisted, Scablands, Athabasca Floods, dragged bones and mammoth tusks, the whales conundrum and muck sediments in Alaska and Siberia, are dated in the transition period between Pleistocene and Holocene (12.000 years ago). Sphinx erosion and Black Sea Flood may be deferred until the 6-7th millennia BC, while the little eroded high altitude beaches and the erratic boulders might yet be debated. A nuance about the mammoths remains is the nagging suspicion that something is lacking in the equation, as large groups were cutoff from the continent and managed to survive in Wrangle and the New Siberian Islands until 3.000 BC.
Radiometric Digression
Fauna extinctions and drawings and carvings of animals out of place/time (elephants in America, horses in the desert, dinosaurs in caves, and pictures of extinct species) are adduced. Several inconsistencies of radiometric dating techniques (we should realise it was not improved yet) with blunder errors are reckoned. We may digress here to state that radiometry is based on a bunch of assumptions, which I will abridge in three:
The amount of father and daughter isotopes are known when the process starts.
The system is closed or isolated. There is no influence from external factors.
Decay rate has Always been constant, everywhere along aeons.
Milton, De Grazia, Velikovsky or Talbott to name a few, try to attach to the myths and legends sequentially as they are conventionally dated by mainstream historians, which in turn, is backed by radiometric dating techniques. However, when they face orthodox scientists countering with radiometric dating of bones, pottery or silt layers they argue that the method is flawed. This is a flagrant contradiction.
Ordering the mess
So, what are we doing with that mess? Ancient historians seem to talk about a very far past; Plato and Herodotus even fix the date to that of the Holocene onset. Of course, Adversaries may counter that these dating are based in radiometry which is flawed. And they're partially right. Ice cores, mitochondrial DNA, OSL, dendrochronology are incorrect too. Even more they need confirmation of other techniques as they are not absolute methods. But even, bearing that in mind, radiometric techniques problems arise from a number of factors that may change decay rates, and these are related to Earth environment, atmosphere and perhaps space electromagnetic activity, not only of our planet but other celestial orbs.
It seems reasonable to assume:
These factors alter and influence climate and temperature.
Electric charge in environment is somewhat linked to gravity.
Then, as large sudden climate variations and gravity changes have not occurred since the end of the Younger Dryas (beginning of the Holocene), we must consider that effects on decay rates may be lighter, and the errors inherent to radiometric dating should be acceptable (+- 1 or 2 thousand years). Beyond the Holocene barrier, as radiometry is an statistical logarithmic method, errors would grow largely, so these methods become irrelevant.
What we cannot argue is that the only method of absolute dating available is useless and we must start from scratch. If we deny any physical law (radiometry, redshift, gravity...) we ought to admit anything, from the existences of phantoms, fairies and gnomes to flat-earth or geocentric theories.
Therefore, I contemplate dating methods with some restraints and not viewing them as absolute divine truths, notwithstanding we may take them as a reference guide to link our own hypothesis.
Bias and specialisation
Dr. Velikovsky's Ages in Chaos pursue that some five or six hundred years in the conventional history of Egypt have to be eliminated, so that, for example, Egyptian kings and events which Egyptologists date to the 14th century B.C. are really to be dated in the 9th century B.C. One of these consequences is that the so-called Amarna Letters, an archive of more than 350 cuneiform texts found in Egypt about 80 years ago and comprising the international diplomatic correspondence of Egypt in a period usually dated to the 14th century B.C. should be traced forward to 9th century, making a leap over the non-existent Dark Ages of Greece.
Some scholars blame him of ignoring the regnal years itemised in Assyrian King List which arrive at the middle of the 14th century B.C. for King Assuruballit of Assyria, who wrote one of the Amarna letters to the king of Egypt. Abraham Sachs accused him of not being a cuneiformist and was not aware that the forms of the cuneiform characters used in the 9th century B.C. are different from those used in the 14th century B.C., that the phonetic and logographic values that are applicable in texts of the 9th century B.C. do not apply in the 14th century B.C., that the orthographic practices are different, and that neither the grammar nor the vocabulary is the same. Conventional scholarship has established some things beyond doubt according to Sachs and the subject turns into complex technical discussion.
Most non-academic researchers would agree that a holistic approach is preferable to a specialist; we would not exclude that some degree of specialisation is worth valued on certain disciplines, but not indeed in interpretative ones as anthropology, philology, mythology and religion or history.
Velikovsky was not the only one stating that some periods in history had been artificially stretched (Greek Dark Ages, Roman Medieval Dark Age, Intermediate Kingdom Periods of Egypt), nor he was the first in doing so. Isaac Newton himself wrote a revised chronology majorly overlooked in 'Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended'. Anatoly Fomenko, brilliant Russian physicist and mathematician, has a wide and large work with seven volumes and several addendum with colleagues, where he assures that there are 3 periods where history overlaps (kings and events). Briefly, his story begins with the findings of NASA astronomer Robert Newton on discordance observational/historic and calculated/theoretical eclipses in the period 700-1.200 AD.
These deviations from the calculated theoretical results leads them to develop a published in several papers statistical method to compare ancient historical writings, that eventually drives them to the conclusion that a 300 year period about 700 AD was a repetition of later years, 'confused' by Jesuits and Benedictines monks. They also talk about other 2 periods of about 1.000 years and even a larger one of 1.800 years in ancient Middle-East cultures.
Other scholars who have similar theories are the historian Gunnar Heinsohn, Andreu Marfull, D. Mckey, J. Howe, F. de Sarre, H. Deterring, N. Morozov, A. de Ercilla, J. Hardouin, R. Baldauf, Heribert Ilig (in 'The Phantom years' study the Gregorian Calendar Reform), and Hans Ulrich Niemitz.
Sociologists and historians of science had different approaches when analysing the Velikovsky Affair; some argue that the polymath was biased (although they don't specify the reason, one could infer he came from a Hebrew background), while others claim that Shapley or Sagan were biased by their atheist or uniformitarian ideas. Personally, I don't see signs of religious trend in his work.
Definitely, recent catastrophism remains possible though unlikely. None can prove or disprove rival theories.
Geological arguments slant in favour of a mid-term timeline (prehistoric Holocene period).
Myth argument stands in spite of some logical flaws.
Physics and Astronomical argument remain inconclusive.
Historic arguments are the more troubled ones. Ancient events are described by historians in past tense, though it's still interpretative how long 'primeval times' was. Moreover, it's pending the answer to the question of who witnessed key events as Saturn fixed at the celestial pole, the flood(s) or the inrush of the Moon.
Parallel timelines
Not only Velikovsky chronology is affected by this analysis, but the works of all those people who based their investigation in mainstream history and Velikovsky's re-interpretation. Among them, it deserves a great deal of recognition the timelines of David Talbott, Dwardu Cardona, Jno Cook and Alfred de Grazia. Special mention should be done of electrical engineer Jno Cook, whose theory is the most detailed by far, offering precise dates (too much exact to my view, due to uncertainties involved) and which extends the first contact of Saturn's system with heliosphere millions of years to the Cambrian Explosion.
CONCLUSION
Geological arguments point to an older chronology of events (solar system re-arrangement), what could be called pre-historic timeline or Holocene timeline. Mythology argument has logical problems related to the appearance or capture of the Moon, which seemed to be present in Sumerian matriarchal society as well as pre-dynastic Egyptian. Historic arguments slant slightly towards the same mid-term timeline too. The inrush of the Moon into the Earth system is also a key point against the historic Velikovskian timeline since, not only myth acknowledges its existence in the sky with first Sumerians and Old Kingdom Egyptians, but the gravitational effects that her absence or close proximity would produce (in a somewhat elliptical orbit) suggest the capture process happened earlier in Holocene.
The only way I see to remove such timeline incompatibilities would be to reassess the age in which Holocene started (and Pleistocene ended), probably bringing it forward in time.
This article may continue in the future.
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