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. 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. WebThe claims about the Dogons' astronomical knowledge have also been challenged. Ancient astronauts entrepreneur Erich von Daniken endorses and adopts Temple's explanations in his latest book, Von Daniken's Proof. (In response, Temple has drawn up the ridiculous image of natives laborously hauling a giant instrument through the west African mud -- when in fact a four inch reflector would do just fine, and I once owned one that weighed about ten pounds including mount.) Griaule either Liam is the author of Urban Astronomy and is a Senior Scientist for Skeptic. 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. Flim-Flam! implausible notions such as the claim that the Dogon got their knowledge Webplanet earth. Ogotemmeli: An Introduction to Dogon Religious I published, showed the distances to be nowhere close, in error by tens of miles, at least ten percent -- hardly "immense accuracy. Through the carbon dating of old ritual masks researchers have established the antiquity of the Segui ceremonies. The Sirius mystery, though, remains of great interest to many researchers today. Whatever their place in the search for extraterrestrial contact, the Dogon myths are certainly odd. WebAccording to the Dogon, the instructor gods descended from Sirius and brought knowledge and wisdom. 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. technological societies located on planet earth. Therefore, if Sirius C exists, it must orbit Sirius A. Perhaps so -- it does seem like a trivial point, arguing over how different two meaningless geographical distances really are. To quote Ancient Mysteries: While Temple, following Griaule, assumes that to polo is the invisible star Sirius B, the Dogon themselves, as reported by Griaule, say something quite different. To quote the Dogon: When Digitaria (to polo) is close to Sirius, the latter becomes brighter; when it is at its most distant from Sirius, Digitaria gives off a twinkling effect, suggesting several stars to the observer. This description of a very visible effect causes James and Thorpe to wonder as anyone reading this should do whether to polo is therefore an ordinary star near Sirius, not an invisible companion, as Griaule and Temple suggest. The Demon-Haunted World - Science as a Candle in the Dark (New The legend of the Dogons astronomical precociousness first appeared on the radar in the 1970s. The parts that bear at least a superficial resemblance to astronomical facts are most likely trimmings added in this century. Our mysteries may be different but our questions are the same and we are no wiser. Damanhur is 521.0 km from Siwa and 625.9 km from Thebes, a deviation of 20%. WebThe star Sirius is certainly no stranger to mysteries. The interval between ceremonies may be forty, fifty or sixty years. The Dogon are believed to be of Egyptian decent and their astronomical lore goes back thousands of years to 3200 BC. So where does this leave the mysteries of Sirius? Knowledge of the stars is not important The Dogon. In that case the Dogon (and everyone else) would have had little trouble seeing both stars then. I assumed, reasonably I.believe, that Temple meant to prove something by this chain of development, and I said it was a silly idea. Europeans too talked about the discovery of a third star in the Sirius system; later investigations, however, ruled out that possibility. Carl Sagan's contribution to this discussion was in his book Broca's Brain (1979). 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 has a mass of 2.35 times the mass of the Sun. 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. WebThe population numbers between 400,000 and 800,000.. . The immunity of pseudoscientists to criticism is well known to skeptics, yet I was curious. WebThe population numbers between 400,000 and 800,000.. . the sky and the center of Dogon mythology. 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. companion" (Bullard). seem to have done little else than give the earthlings some useless 6, "White WebDogon and the Sirius Mystery. 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. It's almost certainly a hoax. himself and his loose speculations on what he learned from Griaule, who 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. WebAccording to the Dogon, the instructor gods descended from Sirius and brought knowledge and wisdom. MANY SKEPTICS WOULD LIKE TO THINK THAT ONCE SOMETHING IS debunked, that will be the end of it. She claimed an alien starship commander had originally shown it to her. Copyright 19922023. There is, 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. What is interesting is that the Dogon knew about Sirius and its triple star system way before modern science found out its existence. 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. Of those websites, over 400 had been updated within the last three months. Many served in the French army in World War I and some of them could have returned years later with colorful embellishments for their native legends. He was told that fishlike creatures called the Nommo had come to Earth from Sirius to civilizes its people. He was told that fishlike creatures called the Nommo had come to Earth from Sirius to civilizes its people. Could a remote African people have gained esoteric knowledge about the sky without having telescopes? 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. He points out that the Dogon myths also describe a third star (astronomers would call it "Sirius C"), as yet undiscovered. Laird Scranton makes it clear that he ruled out this possibility in this interview. Ask about whatever you want with our Free Rune Readings! The Dogons were not isolated. This sounds significant and convincing until one measures the distance on a map and discovers an "immensely accurate equality" of a twenty percent difference! 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. How did the Dogon obtain this knowledge? With this, the Dogon mystery comes crashing down. Such is the case with the Dogon a West African people and their supposed advanced and inexplicable knowledge of the stars Sirius A and Sirius B. Sirius A is the brightest star in our sky. It seems that Temples ideas are still popular among practitioners of pseudoarcheology, as well as with the general public. Were aliens, lost technology or something else entirely involved? From the findings of Van Beek and the authors of Ancient Mysteries, it is clear that Griaule himself was responsible for the creation of a modern myth; one which, in retrospect, has created such an industry and near-religious belief that the scope and intensity of it can hardly be fathomed. Obviously, no Earth-based species was flying to other stars back then! 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]. 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. The brightest star in the sky is Sirius, now called Sirius A. characteristics. 30-31. double star (Ortiz de Montellano).*. ), Another example: "The Dogon also mention a period of rotation of Sirius- Bone yearthis The diagram that Temple presents, however, is not the Nor does he establish a connection between the Dogon creator Nommo and the star Sirius. extremely dense and has a fifty-year orbit. Most important, no one, even within the circle 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. sigui, held by the Dogon every sixty years. The number "fifty" has great signifance in ancient myths. As the brightest star in the sky it was known and worshiped by ancient civilizations. 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. 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. In 1967, Temple began work on the thesis that became The Sirius Mystery. 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. 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 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). The obviously advanced astronomical knowledge must have come from somewhere, but is it an ancient bequest or a modern graft? by Philip Coppens. based his account on an interview with one person, Ambara, and an 1999. But didn't Isaac Asimov check over the book for just such factual errors, as the publisher claims? You guessed it -- Sirius! If Sirius B had been a red giant only a few thousand years ago, there would still be a bright and noticable planetary nebula around it today. ancient Egypt.*. In the 1930s, when their research was carried out, Sirius B was known to have existed, even though it was only photographed in 1970. Credulous scholars, like Young and Temple, were taken in and through them a whole generation has swallowed the false mythology of aliens from the Dark Sirius Companion. This article appeared in Fortean Times. A recent newsletter from my local astronomy association still found the Dogon and their mysterious knowledge of Sirius B worth mentioning. There are no stable orbits around the less massive Sirius B which exceed three years. The Skeptics Society is a non-profit, Sagan, Carl 1980. Dogon to explain their beliefs. Press J to jump to the feed. Some pseudosciences such as homeopathy and free energy never die. It seems likely that we will never know for sure. Temple lists a number of astronomical beliefs held by the Dogon that claims about the antiquity of this information or of a connection with Swift appears to have taken the idea of two close (although not necessarily small) moons of Mars from Voltaire's novel Micromegos in which an Legends of the Dogon Belief in a Long-Solved Mystery Resurfaces. 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). He points out that Griaule and Dieterlen stand alone in their claims about the Dogon secret knowledge. Readers of Skeptic are not so sanguine. 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. 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. Some pseudosciences such as homeopathy and free energy never die. things. He soon multiplied to become six pairs of twins. Inevitably one must ask, if the Dogons had heard good stories about Sirius from other sources, would they ignore them or would they quickly adopt them into their own cultural myths? This is true, but Sirius has about 25 times the luminosity of the Sun. -- in other words, no disproof would follow the failure of his prediction.). These same myths, Temple claims, identify a planet circling that star as the home of Nommo, an alien creature who founded the Dogon civilization. He allegedly found the distances "to be nearly equal to one another" -- although no quantitative definition of "nearly equal" was ever offered. 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 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. To be specific they sound like the kinds of astronomical conclusions one might draw from studying the heavens through a small portable telescope. "Dogon Restudied: A Field Evaluation of the Work of Marcel Other Temple claims, including some wild assertions from The Secrets of the Great Pyramid, can as easily be checked and as easily demolished. 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. Used under aCreative Commons license. Sounds like you're grasping at straws. [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. of Griaule informants, had ever heard or understood that Sirius was a Seriously: The Dogon and Sirius? However, doubts have been raised about the reliability of Griaule and Dieterlen's work on which The Sirius Mystery is based,[4][5] and alternative explanations have been proposed. Sirius B was known to exist then. The two anthropologists who first studied the Dogon (Griaule and Deiterlen) conducted their research in the 1930s. The antiquity of the Dogon astronomy is not so obvious as ancient astronaut enthusiasts claim but neither has it been disproved. 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. 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. the Dogon. Robert Temple, who spent eight years studying mythology, is convinced that he can trace the Sirius-B information back to the Sumerians. either in daily life or in ritual [to the Dogon]. 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. Worse still, hundreds of thousands of years ago, Sirius B was a dying red giant. York: Random House, 1995). He says the references are there but recorded in riddles which he alone has been able to decipher. The Dogon were in fact aware of the fact that Sirius is a binary system (i.e. Melanin Conference, San Francisco, September 16-17, 1987"). September 1976 saw Dogon descriptions of Jupiter, Saturn and Sirius remind one of Jonathan Swift's uncanny description of the two undiscovered moons of Mars. (Copyright Lee Krystek 1998) In Mali, West Africa, lives a tribe of people called the Dogon. A critical analysis has to investigate the accuracy of such claims, so as to judge the validity of the book's conclusions. Scientists learn that the Dogon do not possess secret knowledge about the star Sirius and its companions. Skeptic. This proves that geodetic surveys of immense accuracy were thus practiced in ancient Egypt with a knowledge of the earth as a spherical body in space and projections upon it envisaged as part of the Sirius lore.". Other ancient astronomical records make no mention of Sirius being red. If a European Bullard, Thomas. I did more searching and found that for the keywords Dogon and Sirius B, almost 1000 websites were listed. The Dogon have a traditional interest in the sky and astronomical phenomena. Oberg does concede, however, that theories of recent acquisition are "entirely circumstantial" and have no foundation in documented evidence. Am I getting too picky here? 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.). Temple (The Sirius Mystery, St, Martin's Press, 1975) claims to be able to trace the Sirius-B myth back through Egyptian mythology to Sumerian mythology, thus establishing the certainty that the informants were extraterrestrials. 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. by Philip Coppens. 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? 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. The main problem with the alleged antiquity of the Dogon "Sirius secrets" legend is that they are reminiscent of European Sirius speculations of the late 1920s. Legends of the Dogon Belief in a Long-Solved Mystery Resurfaces. 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? The greatest source of error, however, seems to be in Temple's specified location of Behdet. African thought. 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. Cook some soul food. 1995. 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. 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. Also, why would the Dogan people not divulge where they received such recent knowledge of transfer if they had of gotten this knowledge from Europeans. 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. Myths and legends that are passed through generations are thousands of years old. 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. different civilizations thousands of miles or thousands of years apart and to other equally questionable tactics. Ancient The alleged visitors from outer space Any planet that close would make Venus, with an average temperature of 450C (840F), look cool and comfortable by comparison. Temple's theory is heavily based on his interpretation of the work of ethnographers Marcel Griaule and Germaine Dieterlen. Readers of Skeptic are not so sanguine. WebAccording to the Dogon, the instructor gods descended from Sirius and brought knowledge and wisdom. 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. 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. As the brightest star in the sky it was known and worshiped by ancient civilizations. 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? ;p7D) Some might argue that if there were a planet really close to Sirius A, it could be in a stable orbit. Temple's book is indeed extremely long and many other researchers have echoed Asimov's assertion that it is "unreadable." Ideas originally published in 1948, reprint (Oxford University Press 1997). [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]. (Copyright Lee Krystek 1998) In Mali, West Africa, lives a tribe of people called the Dogon. civilization. found no evidence they knew Sirius was a double star or that Sirius B is theorizes that the myths may refer to a gigantic supernova. At the latitude of Egypt, over distances of several hundred kilometers, planetary curvature introduces distortions only on the order of fractions of kilometers, not the tens of kilometers worth of inaccuracies I found in Temple's claim. This is only a stellar stone's throw by galactic standards and Sirius is only twice as far away from our solar system as are the nearest The Sirius Mystery is a book written by Robert K. G. Temple (born Robert Kyle Grenville Temple in 1945) supporting the pseudoscientific[1] ancient astronauts hypothesis that intelligent extraterrestrial beings visited the Earth and made contact with humans in antiquity and prehistoric times. The Sirius mystery, though, remains of great interest to many researchers today. Carl. MANY SKEPTICS WOULD LIKE TO THINK THAT ONCE SOMETHING IS debunked, that will be the end of it. They all have one thing in common: enormous monsters. Although we can occasionally claim victory (are there any alchemists left? Nothing fuels religious extremism more than the belief that one has found the absolute moral truth. The Dogon have a traditional interest in the sky and astronomical phenomena. The aliens came here 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. 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