hVt*f+"c2aC-w.EJ|@F[VXLV~oo>l B>xU.9y'nYnZ6aBlc3y&A%M]XME The Stone Age storytellers speak by their campfires of other people on other planets and of other mysteries. WebAccording to the Dogon, the instructor gods descended from Sirius and brought knowledge and wisdom. Griaule himself was aware of the discovery of Sirius B and in the 1920s before he visited the Dogon there were also unconfirmed sightings of Sirius C. The Dogon were well aware of the brightest star in the sky but, as Van Beek learned, they do not call it sigu tolo, as Griaule claimed, but dana tolo. amphibious aliens or telescopic vision due to melanin. [7] Others, such as Marcel Griaule's daughter Genevive Calame-Griaule and an anthropologist, Luc de Heusch, came to criticize Van Beek's dismissal as "political" and riddled with "unchecked speculation", demonstrating a general ignorance of Dogon esoteric tradition. Especially those who believe that our past is not at all how mainstream historians believe it to be, or indeed, tell us it was. The Dogon have a traditional interest in the sky and astronomical phenomena. Either way, the original purity of the Dogon-Sirius story is itself a myth as it is highly likely that Griaule contaminated their knowledge with his own. ancient Egypt.*. "At first glance," Sagan admitted, "the Sirius legend of the Dogon seems James and Thorpe understate the problem when they say this is very worrying. Griaule claimed that about 15 per cent of the Dogon tribe possessed this secret knowledge, but Van Beek could find no trace of it in the decade he spent with the Dogon. [5], Astronomer Carl Sagan touched upon the issue in his book Broca's Brain (1979), seeing problems in Temple's hypothesis. The Dogon are believed to be of Egyptian decent and their astronomical lore goes back thousands of years to 3200 BC. We need more reliable evidence -- especially theories that can be tested. by Philip Coppens. to other visible stars near Sirius as recognition of the invisible contact with some ugly, amphibious* (And presumably, that the Egyptians then located their river deltas, eases, and river ports deliberately on geometric rather than purely geographical grounds, I'm tempted to ask?) ", A series of articles has appeared in the Griffith Observer, an astronomy magazin Pseudoarchaeology book by Robert K. G. Temple, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Sirius_Mystery&oldid=1135262588, CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 23 January 2023, at 16:12. 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. Griaule," Current Anthropology 32, 1992, pp. Concludes Sagan, "There are too many loopholes, too many alternate explanations for such a myth to provide reliable evidence of past extraterrestrial contact. The parts that bear at least a superficial resemblance to astronomical facts are most likely trimmings added in this century. Sagan has recounted numerous examples from Arizona and New Guinea -- and other scholars have noted similar instances -- of the rapid assimilation of new stories, songs and lore into the eclectic mythology of Stone Age peoples. MANY SKEPTICS WOULD LIKE TO THINK THAT ONCE SOMETHING IS debunked, that will be the end of it. 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. Though Temples work was challenged, at its core lay the original anthropological study of the Dogon by Griaule and Dieterlen, who describe the secret knowledge of Sirius B and Sirius C in their own book The Pale Fox. York: Random House, 1995). I did more searching and found that for the keywords Dogon and Sirius B, almost 1000 websites were listed. But the extraterrestrial hypothesis will not fade away so easily. 2000. Skeptic Jason Colavito counts The Sirius Mystery among the body of works in a tradition of ancient astronaut ideas he believes were ultimately inspired by H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos.[13][14]. seem curious. There are innocent available explanations: typographical error or miscopied notes, for example. 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. But it is apparent that Temple was not aware of Van Beeks devastating research. Sounds like you're grasping at straws. 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. Meanwhile the Dogon myths continue to baffle investigators. 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. Temple has made very few verifiable assertions about mythology (and The Sirius Mystery is overwhelmingly about ancient myths, not about the Dogons or modern astronomy). ), many debunked issues keep rising from the dead like vampires springing from their tombs. When Walter van Beek studied the Dogon, he It's fascinating. He was told that fishlike creatures called the Nommo had come to Earth from Sirius to civilizes its people. Obviously, no Earth-based species was flying to other stars back then! There is, Ancient astronauts entrepreneur Erich von Daniken endorses and adopts Temple's explanations in his latest book, Von Daniken's Proof. I disagree. <> But if the error is real, it reflects on the only kind of hard, checkable, testable evidence Temple has offered for his theories. Although Temple fails to prove its antiquity, the evidence for the recent acquisition of the information is still entirely circumstantial. ), Another example: "The Dogon also mention a period of rotation of Sirius- Bone yearthis Sirius S]V',H79aD>1 Q@d(FOY;"36y0Z{VXEJwOx._tto}#&i|HR-i4 The difference in brightness between Sirius A and B is a factor of 10,000! In 1967, Temple began work on the thesis that became The Sirius Mystery. Ridpath concludes that any information that resembles the facts about Sirius was probably ascertained by way of cultural contamination. E. "Ancient Astronauts," in The Encyclopedia of the WebAlso there is the fact that they described the Nommo as fish people and you find all kinds of half man/half fish - serpent imagery all over the Mediterranean. 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. One of Temple's main sun and the phases of the moon are more pertinent for Dogon reckoning. But Fishs map used an arbitrary viewpoint in space. Temple's book mentions the absorption of a Christ-figure into the traditional Dogon Pantheon, obviously a recent addition. they were not told by beings from the star Sirius.". Liam McDaid is Astronomy Coordinator and Professor of Astronomy at Sacramento City College. The Dogon were in fact aware of the fact that Sirius is a binary system (i.e. Strangely, ancient records explicitly list Sirius as one of six "red stars." The two anthropologists who first studied the Dogon (Griaule and Deiterlen) conducted their research in the 1930s. The so-called "Sirius Mystery" can easily be explained by a transfer of knowledge from European visitors during that time period - and we know for a fact that several major visits by astronomers actually occurred during that time. As Carl Sagan pointed out, when the lines on both maps are removed, the resemblance disappears. The Dogon. The Dogon Revisited You dont have to watch too many Fantasy Channel (formerly known as the History Channel) specials on ancient astronauts before youll be told about the primitive African Dogon of Mali and their advanced astronomical knowledge bestowed, of course, by extraterrestrials. If I were alone in picking on Temple's thesis, he might be able to argue a case for ad hominem persecution. characteristics. Other Temple claims, including some wild assertions from The Secrets of the Great Pyramid, can as easily be checked and as easily demolished. Contents [ hide] 1 The Secret Knowledge And Wisdom Of The Dogon Tribe 2 Intricate Knowledge Of The Sirius Star System? the Dogon. The inspiration for this claim was a star map produced by Betty Hill while under hypnosis. WebDogon and the Sirius Mystery. astronomical information. What about the fact that Sirius was recorded to be red in ancient records? If a European Griaule and Dieterlen describe a world renovation ceremony, associated And as to good manners, Temple for his part has never answered any of my own personal letters asking for clarification and explanation of controversial points. The Dogon people had been visited by European visitors many times, most notably when they hosted French astronomers looking to find a good vantage point to observe the solar eclipse of 1893. A critical analysis has to investigate the accuracy of such claims, so as to judge the validity of the book's conclusions. At least three are farther and at least one of them has rings too. Here is an example of how hard it can be to critically examine the claims in the book. A revised edition was published in 1998 with the new subtitle New scientific But it seems that Griaule, a scientist, wanted to attribute to earlier civilisations more knowledge than they actually possessed. Below: The Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy (discovered in 2003) is the nearest known galaxy to the centre of the Milky Way. Is Sirius a Triple Star?, Adams, H. H. 1983. 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. This step was taken by others, particularly Temple, in the Sixties and Seventies. The mystery of the ancient "red" Sirius also remains baffling. Ridpath asserts. To recapitulate: Griaule claimed to have been initiated into the secret mysteries of the male Dogon, during which they allegedly told him of Sirius (sigu tolo in their language) and its two invisible companions. In a recent book, The Once and Future Star (Hawthorn Books, 1977), George Michanowsky identifies "Oannes" as a Hellenized version of the Sumerian name Ea; he For example, he claims that the Dogon have a drawing like the one in Figure 1. 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. 139-167. (I must confess I've felt that way about some other people, tool). ", British astronomy popularizer fan Ridpath, writing in the quarterly Skeptical Inquirer (Fall 1978), blasted Temple's "brain-numbing excursions into Egyptology." They observe that information about the odd invisible companion of Sirius had been widely published in Europe years before Europeans recorded the Dogon myths. When I set him a draft of a sharply critical review written for Astronomy magazine, he replied with a blistering counterattack in a letter to my editor: "A virulent attack against my honesty, integrity, and intelligence," he called my review. Fishs map and Hills map look similar only because the lines connecting the stars look the same. The book's advertising blurb quotes prolific science writer Isaac Asimov, who says, "I couldn't find any mistakes in this book. Conversations With A revised edition was published in 1998 with the new subtitle New scientific 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. Hmm, The Cardiff Giant, one of the most celebrated hoaxes in American history, on display at the Farmers Museum in Cooperstown, NY. According to the Dogon, the instructor gods descended from Sirius and brought knowledge and wisdom. | 3938 State St., Suite # 101, Santa Barbara, CA, 93105-3114 | 1-805-576-9396. More recent research suggests that the contaminator was Griaule himself. Temple claimed that the Dogon knew about two smaller stars that are closely related to Sirius Sirius B and Sirius C. 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