Earth’s Axis Tilt, Global Catastrophe, Breach of Gibraltar Strait and a
Global Calendar Change -3,450 Years Ago
Note
–from John Jensen Dec 17th,
2014
In this paper, I quote the Egyptian
texts that were reported by Herodotus, hieroglyphic manuscripts
translated by Fernand Crombette as well as the Old Testament as three of the known historical reports of the
chronology of the events discussed in this paper. I also point to a
“regression analyses” of the widening of the Strait of Gibraltar that
indicates a breach likely occurred concurrent to the other events described
in this paper. The addition of 5 days to the then 360 day calendar
(worldwide) is well established, and is reviewed here as confirmation of the
actual catastrophe and one of its consequences.
Introduction
About -3,450 years ago, a regional to global catastrophe occurred that
included a partial tilt of the Earth’s axis causing a change in the Earth’s
perpendicular axis of spin to an axial tilt of 23.5 degrees. Most of the
evidence in this paper which supports that statement is centered on the
Atlantic rim, although the data will also include historical references to
the same event from around the globe. In certain areas and regions of the Earth,
the event is referred to as “the long day”, particularly in the Eastern
Mediterranean; while in other regions it is called “the long evening”, “the
long night”, etc. as would be expected of a partial tilt of the Earth on its
axis. For clarity, in this chapter, we will refer to the event as the “Axis
Tilt Event”.
The most well-known description of the Event comes from biblical
records, particularly Joshua which describe in some detail the fall of the
Walls of Jericho, (a sizeable earthquake) and the Sun “standing still in its
path” (a tilting of the Earth’s Axis of rotation).
The other major effects of the event include the breach of the Strait
of Gibraltar, the eruption of Santorini and the flooding of several
non-natural harbors as well as tsunami deposits around the Atlantic Rim. I
will present the evidence for the Axis Tilt first, and then present the
“Regression Analysis” of the Gibraltar Strait breach, followed by a review of
the (global) calendar change that occurred across all advanced cultures.
 This image is from Wikimedia Commons and is used with permission and/or used under 'public domain' and ‘fair use' policies due to the nature and content of this information being research and education material.
The Axis Tilt Event around the World.
In regard to the many other
anomalies that occurred around the Atlantic rim, covered in other sections of
this chapter, which define the event as an Axis Tilt and ensuing catastrophe,
it is essential to ask whether or not the event was restricted just to the
Atlantic Rim and/or Joshua’s Canaan, or whether it was global in
scope. Certainly an “extended day or night” event would generate
considerable concern among all peoples of the world, or at least the affected
areas, provided it was a global event. Are there accounts of a long day, a
long evening or even a long night extended though out the world? The
fact is we can find stories of a long evening, a long night as well as a long
day. We can even find tales where the sun hung near the horizon for a long
time. All the accounts taken together allow us to ascertain that the
anomaly was an actual event, and it occurred on a global basis.
Some of the world’s recitations of
the extended period of the Axis Tilt are vague and unspecific while others
are very clear. Many of the former are those which relate only that the
people had knowledge of the concept that the sun, moon, and stars can reverse
their motions. An example of one of these is the account referred to by
Augustine in The City of God where he quotes the Æneid about a
witch who:
....can reverse
the wheeling of the planets, halt rivers in their flowing.
The Axis Tilt Event in Africa
(Egypt)
The Greek historian Herodotus wrote
that when he visited Egypt, the priests there showed him an ancient
manuscript which told the story of a day which lasted about twice as long as
a normal day. At the time in question, the Egyptians had water clocks so
that they could accurately measure the duration of the day, not being
dependent on the motion of the sun, moon, and stars, as would other peoples
around the world.
For the Egyptian account, the
French classical scholar, Fernand Crombette, translated some Egyptian
hieroglyphics which tell of the Axis Tilt Event. The text starts out
with an edict from the king to exempt from taxation those who had been
victims of a flood some two weeks earlier. Evidently the flood had been
caused by an unusually high tide. The cause, according to the Egyptian
hieroglyphics, was:
The sun, thrown into confusion,
had remained low on the horizon, and by not rising had spread terror amongst
the great doctors. Two days had been rolled into one. The morning was
lengthened to one-and-a-half times the normal period of effective
daylight. A certain time after this divine phenomenon, the master had an
image built to keep further misfortune from the country.
Hephaistos...grant protection to
your worshipers. Prevent the words of these foreign travelers from
having any effect. They are impostors. Let these enemies of the
sacrifices to the images be destroyed in the temples of the great gods by the
people of all classes. Make life harder for these cursed worshipers of
the Eternal. Punish them. Increase the hardships of these
shepherds. Reduce the size of their herds. Burn their dwellings.
Rameses, our celestial ancestral
chief; you who forced these wretched people to work, who ill-treated them,
who gave them no help when they were in need: cast them into the sea. They
made the moon stop in a small angle at the edge of the horizon. In a
small angle on the edge of the horizon, the sun itself, which had just risen
at the spot where the moon was going, instead of crossing the sky stayed
where it was. Whilst the moon, following a narrow path, reduced its
speed and climbed slowly, the sun stopped moving and its intensity of light
was reduced to the brightness at daybreak. The waves formed a wall of
water against the boats that were in the harbor and those that had left
it. Those fishermen that had ventured onto the deck to watch the waves
were washed into the sea.
The tide, which had risen high,
overflowed into the plains where the herds were grazing. The cattle
drowned represented half the herds of Lower Egypt. The remains of
abandoned boats broken against the sides of the canals were piled up in
places. Their anchors, which should have protected them, had been ground
into them. Quite out of control, the sea had penetrated deep into the
country. The expanding waters reached the fortified walls constructed by
Rameses, the celestial ancestral chief. The sea swept around both sides
of the region behind, sterilizing the gar dens as it went and causing
openings in the dikes. A great country had been turned into a wilderness
and brought into poverty. All the crops that had been planted had been
destroyed and heaps of cereal shoots lay scattered on the ground.
The Crombette account is
significant for a number of reasons. Crombette’s interpretation that the
moon was going to the spot where the sun had risen is explained by having the
moon continue its orbital motion and its being located west of the sun,
perhaps near last quarter.
Whether or not the tides mentioned
in translation were really tides or a storm swell cannot be categorically
ascertained. It is possible that the tidal bulge kept moving, but it is
unlikely that the narrows of the Nile delta and the narrowness of the canals
mentioned caused a bore wave, because that should always have been the case
under normal tidal conditions. It is possible, though unlikely, that the
breakup for the tidal bulge may have caused waves which interfered with each
other and that Egypt’s dikes might have broken at one or two points by
constructive interference, thus the resulting flooding. But it seems
more likely that the events mentioned in Egypt were the result of a severe
storm swell in the Mediterranean caused by the breaching of the Strait of
Gibraltar.
And it came to pass, as they fled from before
Israel, and were in the going down to Beth-horon, that the LORD cast down
great stones from heaven upon them unto Azekah, and they died: they were more
which died with hailstones than they whom the children of Israel slew with
the sword.
For comparison with the Egyptian
account, and complementing it, there is a West African story of a long
night. In that account, the night lasted way too long because the owl
over slept and did not awaken the sun.
The Chinese Account of the Axial
Tilt Event
Another source depicting the event
is based on what seems to be a recently lost ancient Chinese manuscript. In
1810 Gill presents the account:
In the Chinese history it is
reported, that in the time of their seventh emperor, Yao, the sun did not set
for ten days, and that men were afraid the world would be burnt, and there
were great fires at that time; and though the time of the sun’s standing
still were enlarged beyond the bounds of truth, yet it seems to refer to this
fact, and was manifestly about the same time; for this miracle was wrought in
the year of the world 2554, which fell in the 75th, or, as some say, the
67th year of that emperor’s reign, who reigned 90 years.
Now the year of the world 2554 is
identical to Bouw’s independently derived biblical chronology for the date of
Joshua’s “Sun standing Still”. Incidentally, note that a
90-year reign (not Yao’s age) is thoroughly consistent with the 110 to 120
year ages achieved by Moses, Aaron, and Joshua who would have been
contemporaries of Yao.
The Event in
North America
Tales relating to the event abound
in North America. Almost all of the tales in North America tell of a long
night. Olcott has collected five of particular interest.
The preponderance of long night
tales in the Americas would rule out the theory that Joshua’s long day was a
miracle which was local to Canaan. It also rules out the speculation that the
story migrated around the world, for then it would everywhere be a long day
(or a long night), but not a mixture of long days and long nights.
In addition, there are several
large canal systems in Florida that appear to be quite old, deteriorating
back into the landscape. The system at North Key Largo is a very good
example.
North Key Largo 
Above image-photo
is a composite of Satellite Imagery and Google Earth of the North Key Largo
complex, and is used with permission and/or used under 'public domain' and
'fair use' policies due to the nature and content of this information being
research and education material. The coordinates in Google Earth are:
25°13'22.54"N, 80°20'23.09"W. Set 'Historical Imagery' to
11/12/2007 View a live Google Earth image
here
This site is a series of inlet
canals that are grown over and silted in, eroding back into the landscape.
The center canal is one of the largest (if older) ones found to date. It is
about 2,700’ long to the end of the ‘silted in’ paddle head. The original
width is about 350’ and the newer section is about 170’ wide. The old section
of the south canal is about 445’ wide, and the newer section is about 220’
wide, the north canal is about 85’ wide.
The curved S sections connecting
the canals are completely silted in and grown over. To the right, an unused,
unconnected cut canal goes out to open water. There is substantial berm
around the open water cut canal, indicating it was built with some technology
that deposited berm debris on the canal shoulder, or when the tidal shelf was
above water. Of significance is the moat canal surrounding this complex. All
indications are that this is one of the older shore based complex systems
found to date. Berm soil samples need to be taken here for a relatively
accurate C-14 dating sample.
Above image-photo
is a composite of Satellite Imagery and Google Earth of the North Key Largo
complex, and is used with permission and/or used under 'public domain' and
'fair use' policies due to the nature and content of this information being
research and education material. The coordinates in Google Earth are:
25°13'22.54"N, 80°20'23.09"W. Set 'Historical Imagery' to
11/12/2007 View a live Google Earth image
here
This complex appears to have two
building and use periods, one that is less structured and has the appearance
of being built on top of the old system. The original berm on this center
canal includes the large rectangle paddle head. The second berm seems to have
been cut out of the silted over section. It is not possible in this preview,
to do justice to the many features of this complex, and much field work is
required to make serious statements of potential purpose and function.
First impression is that this
complex is relatively the same age as the Matamoros, Mexico canal, and
coincides with the breach of the Strait of Gibraltar at -3,450 YBP.
The Event in
the Central and South Americas
Turning to the south, we find that
Central and South America similarly experienced a long night. In
the Annals of Chauhtitlan, the Mexican Indians tell of a long
night. The Aztecs wrote of an extended period of time when the sun
did not rise. According to their legend, there had been no sun for
many years.
... So a conclave of the gods was
called in Teotihuacan, and there it was decided that one of them should offer
himself as a sacrifice that once again the world might have a sun ... The
sacrificed gods had disappeared in the brazier’s flames, but as there was no
sign of the sun, the remaining wonder when it would first appear. At long
last, the sun burst forth ... But the sun, despite his brilliant light, did
not move; he hung on the edge of the sky, apparently unwilling to begin his
appointed task.
Likewise, in their national book
the Popol Vuh, (which translates into “Book of the
Princes,”) the Quiché Mayas of Guatemala wrote about the people’s reaction to
a long night with these words:
They did not sleep; they remained
standing and great was the anxiety of their hearts and their stomachs for the
coming of the dawn and the day ... “Oh, ... if we only could see the rising
of the sun! What shall we do now?” ... They talked, but they could
not calm their hearts which were anxious for the coming of the dawn.
Besides the accounts of a long
night in North and Central America, there is also at least one story of a
long night in Peru. According to Montesinos, the collector of the tale,
…the sun was hidden for nearly 20
hours in the third year of the reign of Titu Yupanqui Pachacuti II because of
sin in the land…”
Titu Yupanqui Pachacuti II ruled
about -3,400 YBP.
Matamorus,
Mexico Tsunami Debris Field
In addition to the above, there is a
very large shore side tsunami debris field that covers the ocean entry side
of the 26 mile long Matamoros, Mexico canal. The shore side debris field is
estimated to be 12’ to 18’ in depth, just over a mile inland, with continuing
debris wash and upheaval for an additional 5.5 miles inland
This canal, about 20 miles south of
the Rio Grande, in a straight line from Matamoros, which faces the Mexico-US
border, is about 26 miles long to the ocean exit. It has a split (circular)
feature at its head (enclosing the old city center), suggesting fresh water
delivery to the city’s inhabitants, agricultural irrigation, aquatic farming,
small craft commercial use, and probably a defense-security mechanism. It is
about 40' in width between two high berm banks, and expected to be about 5'
to 9' deep. It appears to have been machine cut, and is an exact straight
line along its 26 mile length between the city center and the ocean edge.
The above image-photo
is a continuation of the composite of Satellite Imagery and Google Earth of
the Matamoros, Mexico canal system, and is used with permission and/or used
under 'public domain' and 'fair use' policies due to the nature and content
of this information being research and education material. The coordinates in
Google Earth are: 25°38'48.27"N, 97°14'35.82"W. Set 'Historical
Imagery' to 11/18/2008
If the canal's total length is 26
miles, at an average width of 40' and a depth of 9', original construction
would have removed about 210,000 cubic yards of material per mile, or about
5.5 million cubic yards. At a cost of $8 per cubic yard, it would cost about
$43.5 MILLION in today's dollars to complete the entire project.
This nearly 1,000' south breakwater
wall appears to be significantly eroded. Toward shore, the breakwater wall is
degraded to the point of being split into two sections, and the original canal
has completely disappeared for about a mile under sand and other build up, of
what appears to be a tsunami debris field. During our recent or modern
history there has not been a tsunami large enough on the gulf coast to leave
a tsunami debris field 1.5 miles inside the shoreline. That is exactly what
is represented here. I would highly recommend that C-14 dating be performed
on the tsunami debris field covering the entrance to this canal. I would be
shocked if it did not represent a date of roughly -3,450 YBP to support the
date when a major Atlantic category 3 catastrophe occurred.
It is not known whether the north
breakwater wall was originally longer than its current degraded length. From a
design engineering standpoint, it may not have been longer due to the fact
that the south breakwater wall is angled toward the northeast, suggesting the
prevailing winds and tidal-storm surge were predominately from the
south-southeast, and that breakwater angle would clearly protect the
canal-channel entrance, and reducing the need for an extended northern
breakwater wall.
This canal is a major anomaly,
because it is so close to the Brownsville 'canal', and because it seems to
have served some light craft, commercial or industrial purpose at one point,
and is completely eroded at the ocean side portion, which is covered by what
appears to be a large tsunami debris field. At first review, the tsunami
debris field completely covers the ocean inlet side of the canal for about 7,500’
inland at an estimated debris field depth of between 5-6 meters. Which
suggests a very large tsunami struck this area of the Atlantic Coast. The
debris field can be clearly identified. This canal appears to be very much
like Florida's East Coast inland canals, particularly the North Key Largo
complex.
A significant issue that points to
the fact this system is NOT part of the -7K YBP event, is that the subsequent
Ocean Level Rise of just over 5’ would, in all probability mean that the
breakwater wall would have to be quite a bit further out on the Continental shelf
to be effective. A 5’ decrease in ocean level at this location would mean the
beach line would be several hundred feet from the current shore line. In
effect, ensuring the canal and breakwater were built sometime after ocean
levels had stabilized about -5,500 years ago. And the catastrophe happened
sometime after the breakwaters were built. The Axis Tilt catastrophe date of
-3,450 fits those facts better than any other scenario.
The Long
Sunset
There is a story of a long sunset
in the Fiji Islands. J. G. Frazer tells of a tradition on the
island of Lakomba in the eastern Fiji Islands where there is a hillside with
a patch of weeds on it. The story goes that natives will tie the
weeds together in order to keep the sun from going down. It is
said that the sun did, indeed, stop from setting at one time.
Although there are several other
traditions of stopping the sun, most are remotely, if at all, connected to the
Axis Tilt Event In Australia, for example, if a native wanted to stop
the sun he would place a piece of sod in the fork of a
tree. Similar traditions exist in Africa and in Central
America. A tradition of that nature in Japan meant nothing more
than the belief that a man’s friends would wait dinner for him if he was
going to arrive home late. Still, underlying all but the last of
these traditions is the idea that the sun can, and by implication, did stop
at least once upon a time.
The
Extra-Long Night
A handful of long day and long
night tales do not seem to fit. The Hawaiian tale of Maui’s
capture of the sun is one, for it implies an arrest of the sun at
sunrise. It is similar to the myths from other Polynesian Islands
peoples, and those similarities serve to tie it to Peru’s Hezekiah’s sign
accounts, not Joshua’s long day.
Three peoples have a tale of a
night which lasted several months: the Japanese, an ancient tribe in
Lithuania, and the Cherokee Indians of North America. The Cherokee
and Japanese tales are virtually identical and seem to stem from the same
source. Both have the sun hiding in a cave for a long time and
being tricked out of the cave.
The account from Lithuania was
collected by Jerome of Prague when he visited the “heathen” of the area in
the early 15th century. There he discovered a
tribe which had migrated from the east and which also told tales of a night
lasting several months.
There are two possible reasons for
these accounts. All could be related to the Japanese account and
could reflect either a volcanic eruption which darkened the sky over Japan
and Siberia for months on end or else, it could be a tale of the long Arctic
night, almost six months long at the pole. A two-month night is
experienced about the latitude of Point Barrow, Alaska. Perhaps
the accounts relate to these natural events. In any case, they
stand in stark contrast with the other long day and long night tales from
around the world.
The Date of the
Axis Tilt
The Biblical account of Joshua and
Moses’ entry into Canaan was early April of -3,448 years ago. Can
we ascertain the month and day of the “long day” with any degree of
certainty? As it turns out, we can come very close.
When the Israelites entered Canaan,
it was the tenth day of the first month (Joshua 4:19), shortly before the
time of the Passover which is at the time of the full moon. In -3,448 YBP the
new moon and the first day of spring closely coincided, the first day of
spring being March 19 at the time, so we can date the entry into the Canaan
as Thursday, March 29, give or take a day
The events which are described
between the Passover and the battle at Gibeon all took time. The
Passover celebration itself took a week; the fall of Jericho took seven days;
the fall of Ai took at least four days; the construction of the altar on
mount Ebal and the copying of the law probably took a week or more; the
trickery of the Gibeonites took still more time; the communication of that
trickery to the Gibeonites’ neighbors and the subsequent formation of an
alliance, not to mention their march to Gibeon, all took time. It
is reasonable to assume that over a month passed between the celebration of
the Passover and long day. This is entirely consistent with the
geometry of sun and moon presented in Joshua 10 where the moon seems to be
west of the sun and both visible in daylight. Given that the time
for the event was 9:00 a.m., the moon was most likely near or after its last
quarter. More specifically, then, it appears that Joshua’s long
day happened somewhere between May 8 to May 15 of -3,448 YBP.
Putting it
all Together
Based on information in Old
Testament texts, the best date for the event seems to be within four or five
days either side of May 12, -3,448 YBP sometime between 8:30 and 9:30
a.m. This conclusion can be drawn from plotting all of the long
day, long night, and the long sunset accounts on a globe. Such extensive
observations preclude the conclusion that the event was an optical illusion
restricted to the land of Israel. It also disallows the notion
that Joshua’s account is fictitious, for the testimony of the peoples around
the world is entirely consistent with its reality.
That some peoples have tales of a
long night while others tell of a long day while none have both a long day
and a long night tale collectively reinforces that the Event is not one
account, originating in the mid-East, which has migrated all over the world;
for if such were the case, then all nations would tell of a long day and none
would tell of a long night, let alone a perfectly-placed long
sunset. So we must conclude that the Axis Tilt Event was a real,
historical event and not some local work of fiction.
The upshot is that there appears to
be solid evidence from contemporary accounts and from folklore around the
world that there was one day which, depending upon geographical location,
presented the inhabitants of the earth with an unusually long span of
daylight or night.
This image is from Wikimedia Commons and is used with permission
and/or used under 'public domain' and 'fair use' policies due to the nature
and content of this information being research and education material.
In the
above photo the solid black circles show locations with tales of a long night;
open circles plot tales of a long day, and the half-white half-black circle
in the Pacific shows the location of a long sunrise tale. Recently,
after this figure was made, another long sunrise tale was reported in
Hawaii.
It is my contention that only one
geological event can account for the phenomenon of the ‘Sun standing still in
the sky” and that is a partial tilt of the Earth on its Axis of Rotation.
Most cultures in the world say it happened, and some say ‘when’ it happened.
Based on the other evidence presented in this chapter, taken together shows
that a catastrophe happened about -3,450 years ago, and that catastrophe was
a 23.5 degree Tilt of the Earth’s Axis of Spin.
|
Breach of
Gibraltar Strait -3,450 Years Ago
About 3,450 years ago, Gibraltar Strait
breached, opening the Mediterranean up to direct access to the Atlantic Ocean.
If the breach did in fact occur at that time, and the regression analysis below
suggests that it did, then that begs the question of whether the breach
occurred from the Mediterranean side out to the Atlantic, or it occurred inward
from the Atlantic Ocean toward the Med side.
This image is from Wikimedia Commons and is used with permission and/or used under 'public domain' and 'fair use' policies due to the nature and content of this information being research and education material.
A case for the former seems the most
reasonable. If the Melt Water Pulse had caused ocean levels to rise 400' over
the Holocene, and ice water melt from the European Ice Sheet had increased the
level of the freshwater Mediterranean faster than the ocean rise of the outside
Atlantic Ocean levels, then the breach would have been outward, from the
Mediterranean toward the Atlantic Ocean. This makes logical sense, as the
rising freshwater Mediterranean would have slowly spilled over, creating a
narrow, thin river like spill across the land bridge, but as the levels
increased, the spillway grew more torrential, widening the original gap more
and more rapidly. It required an "equalization" of both the Mediterranean
and Ocean level water tables in order for tidal effects to act in both
direction, which caused a rapid "scouring" and widening of the gap on
a much more rapid basis. However, an equal and compelling argument can likely
be made for an Atlantic side breach.
The Bosporus Strait breached 3,600
years before Gibraltar, (-7,000 YBP) giving both the Black Sea and
Mediterranean an opportunity to equalize their water tables. Following the
breach in the Bosporus land bridge, without an outlet, the combined Black Sea
and Mediterranean water table should have risen faster than the global oceans,
(due primarily to the fact that the world oceans was rising more slowly from
the combined Laurentide, and Lambeck (European) Ice Sheets draining into the
Baltic and North Sea, with a smaller amount of the Lambeck runoff draining
southward into the Black Sea-Mediterranean water table. The overall ocean level
had a much larger surface to spread out the ice melt water; consequently the
oceans would rise slower than the confined smaller area of the Mediterranean and
Black Sea.
Graphic image © John
Jensen, 2014
The Gibraltar Strait's width has
quadrupled within recorded history. In the fifth century BC, the Greeks
measured the Strait at 5 stadia or about four miles wide. When Julius Caesar's
Roman Legions measured the Strait, it was seven miles wide. During the Crusades
in the 11th century, Gibraltar was measured at twelve miles wide; now it
currently measures fifteen miles wide.
If we reverse engineer the growth rate,
we can extrapolate the initial failure to be sometime around 3,450 YBP. The
above chart shows the Gibraltar Strait growth rate over time - please note that
the left column depicts time in centuries (100 year) segments, and the bottom axis
represents width in miles. Extrapolating those dates into a “regression table”
indicates the date of the breach of the Strait of Gibraltar. Geologically, regression dating is a
well-known and often used method to ascertain age-dating of certain geological
events. For example; the annual regression or upstream decay of the actual
waterfall face of both Niagara and Minnesota Falls demonstrates a likely date
of their initiation or ‘birth”. Generally speaking, regression dating is best
used when a process like turbulent flowing water cuts or degrades the flow edge
a measurable amount, over a known period of time. With that data a relatively
accurate determination of the date of initiation or ‘birth’ of that process can
be established.
If the above case is true, it
solidifies the geological data that a catastrophic event occurred at a 3,450
YBP watershed.
Calendar Change 3,450 Years Ago
Accurate knowledge of the Earth’s orbit
around the sun, called the sidereal year, and the exact dates of summer and
winter solstices, as well as the spring and fall equinoxes, were critical
information to both nomadic and agrarian based early societies. Planting, food
gathering, harvest, storage, movement of domestic herds, hunting, and other
seasonal aspects of life were regulated by this information. Consequently, one
of the very earliest ‘technical’ achievements of an emerging social group was
the development and use of an accurate calendar.
Information required to construct a
precise, useful calendar was gathered by tracking movement of the Sun, Moon and
other celestial objects. That information was provided by a simple solar
observatory. Gathering and managing annual observatory information was a matter
of setting a fixed observation point, and marking a horizon point with exact
positions of the rising and setting sun, moon rise and moon set, as well as the
movement of other planets and stars. In a very limited number of years, a
relatively precise calendar would be established.
Image: Wikimedia Commons. Used with permission and/or used under 'public
domain' and 'fair use' policies due to the nature and content of this information
being research and education material.
Many surviving megalithic artifacts,
stone rows, clusters and circles, aligned buildings, as well as other similar
examples from Stone Age cultures are simple to complex solar observatories.
They were by definition, precision instruments, providing quite detailed
information to observers, though they were often simple in terms of mechanical
characteristics. It seems obvious then that a precise calendar of any early or
prehistoric society was probably about as accurate as our modern Julian
calendar.
The process was just complex enough
however, to be relegated to an ‘intellectual’ class which often later evolved
into a ‘priest’ or ‘shaman’ class. Their responsibility of tracking days and
seasons expanded into providing a semblance of ‘purpose and meaning’ to
seemingly random events such as weather, storms, flooding, eclipses, and social
behavior. Astrology, or the divination of positions of various celestial bodies
at a given time and location, in its various forms, is still practiced in our
modern world today.
In the final analysis however, the
annual calendar count and the exact dates of the solstices and equinoxes were
the primary function of the local solar observatory. A direct result of
the solar year day count was the definition of ‘degrees’ of a circle, which
were derived from sunrise and sunset positions on the horizon. In addition, the
Zodiac or Astrological Chart with its 12 signs or houses, each being 30 degrees
of the ecliptic, is a direct remnant of the solar calendar system.
All early major primitive societies,
Sumerian, Egyptian, Ethiopian, Babylonian and Mesoamerican had a primary 360
day solar calendar, and all but the Maya had a 360 degree circle, and a 12 sign
Zodiac. The additional 5 days were dealt with by each group, but were always
‘add-ons’ to the fixed length calendar. The length of the calendar was not a
function of mathematical simplicity, but rather an accurate reflection of the
actual day count of a sidereal year, which suggests that sometime in our not so
distant past, Earth had a solar orbit path exactly 360 days long.
Image: Wikimedia Commons and/or Public Domain. Used with permission and/or used under 'public domain' and 'fair use' policies due to the nature and content of this information being research and education material.
Generally, sometime after the emergence
of the earliest known historical city state cultures, many peoples who had
previously considered the year to be 360 days in length began using a calendar
of twelve 30-day months, and sometime in the mid third millennium BC, they all
individually added an additional five days to the end of their year. These
additional days were considered to be very unlucky or ‘dark days’. These groups
in the mid-east are:
Sumerians had a calendar five
thousand years ago, that divided the year into 30-day months, divided the day
into 12 periods (each corresponding to 2 of our hours), and divided these
periods into 30 parts (each like 4 of our minutes).
Copts, and their neighbors to
the south, the Ethiopians, probably
because they were surrounded by Islamic peoples, never adopted the Western
calendar. Instead, these two isolated groups continued to use the older 360-day
calendar.
Babylonians, during the reign of the
Babylonian king Nabonasser (-2,747 – 2,734 YBP) discontinued their practice of
looking for the new moon in order to name the beginning of a month. Instead,
they returned to a previous fixed-length calendar that had 12 months of 30 days
each, with five days added at the end.
Zoroastrians began their calendar in -2,389
YBP with the birth of Zoroaster, their founder. Like others in the region,
their calendar consists of a 360 day year of twelve 30-day months with five
"gatha days" added at the end.
The Maya in ancient times had a
tradition of a 360-day year. But by the -1,300 YBP they took a different
approach than either Europeans or Asians. They maintained three different
calendars at the same time. In one of them, they divided a 365-day year into
eighteen 20-day months followed by a five-day period that was part of no month.
The five-day period was considered to be unlucky.
Image: Wikimedia Commons.
Used with permission and/or used under 'public domain' and 'fair use' policies
due to the nature and content of this information being research and education
material.
Conclusion
Based on the
information in this paper, I have come to the startling conclusion that about
-3,450 years ago, a global catastrophe occurred that included a partial tilt of
the Earth’s axis. The event, while devastating, was not nearly as cataclysmic
as the earlier event -7,000 years ago. The Tilt Event caused a change in the
Earth’s perpendicular axis of spin to an axial tilt of 23.5 degrees.
The most well-known
description of the Event comes from Biblical records, particularly Joshua, which
describe in some detail the fall of the Walls of Jericho, (a sizeable
earthquake) and the Sun “standing still in its path” (a tilting of the Earth
Axis of rotation). In addition, I have used many other historical references
including Egyptian Hieroglyph translation to support the dating and narrative
of events defined in this paper.
The other major effect
of the event is the ‘regression dated” breach of the Strait of Gibraltar. This
is the most compelling evidence for the scope of the event. Without detail, I
also think that the dating of the eruption of Santorini, or Thera (estimated to
have occurred -3,600 years ago) is too close to the date of -3,450 to be more
than coincidence. I predict that further testing will establish a date for the Thera
eruption to be nearly identical to the regression date of the breach of
Gibraltar Strait.
The Axis Tilt, a
catastrophe of serious magnitude, is not nearly as lethal or devastating as the
-7,000 YBP Mega Cataclysm. That earlier event was a serious near extinction
level event, and will be covered in detail in another chapter of this book
called “The Last Great Cataclysm, -7,000
Years Ago. The Axis Tilt is a catastrophe, (not a cataclysm) that occurred
while there were growing remnant-survivor-derivative populations from the
-7,000 YBP Mega Cataclysm. The 7K super cataclysm stopped progress for nearly a
thousand years, which seems to be the length of time necessary before a
surviving culture can start rebuilding their civilization in any meaningful
way. Some of those cultures had already started to rebuild their civilizations
from the 7K event, and had established several advanced technologies including early
forms of writing, leaving us fairly reliable reports of the Axis Tilt event. There
is good evidence to suggest another period of nearly 1,000 years followed the
-3,400 event before survivor-derivative cultures could once again effectively
begin to rebuild. The explosion of Greek culture a thousand years after the
Tilt event is a good example.
Last, it is very
important to me, that I make the case on a stand-alone basis for the Axis Tilt
to have occurred -3,450 years ago, while ensuring that information in NO WAY
suggests the catastrophe at that time had anything at all to do with “The
Flood”, the “Sinking of Atlantis” or any other like “legends” or “myths” of
similar type events.
I am interested in any and all
feedback, criticism, editorial comments, diction and grammar corrections, or
just different and opposing opinions and viewpoints.
Thank you for your review.
John Jensen
321-614-5040
floathouse@gmail.com
EarthEpochs.Blogspot.com
AncientCanalBuilders.com
EarthEpochs.com (coming soon with the Amazon publication of the book)
Academia.edu
Google.com
321-614-5040
floathouse@gmail.com
EarthEpochs.Blogspot.com
AncientCanalBuilders.com
EarthEpochs.com (coming soon with the Amazon publication of the book)
Academia.edu
Google.com
