When was Venus first seen?

The Sumerian calendar is not Venus based, nor is the Egyptian calendar. Taking observations of Venus and making predictions of Venus does not mean that the calendars have anything to do with Venus. The calendars of Mesopotamia were lunar and Egyptian calendar was solar.

reply to post by stereologist


One of the issues i have with science is that it presumes a static past. That things don't change, or if they do it is slow and gradual.

If one wants to get to the bottom of why Venus is seen as an oceanic rebirth goddess, one has to probe all possibilities.

RE: the 8 year cycle....see this:

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/files/cbd8957442f95624.gif[/atsimg]

RE: the base 60 system....it may work better, but human kind counts by 10's based on the number of fingers. It would seem that a base 10 is more intuitive. Having worked in cell phones, i do see the value in hexadecimal mathematics.

Originally posted by stereologist
The Sumerian calendar is not Venus based, nor is the Egyptian calendar. Taking observations of Venus and making predictions of Venus does not mean that the calendars have anything to do with Venus. The calendars of Mesopotamia were lunar and Egyptian calendar was solar.

I understand that the Sumerian calendar is not Venus based, i don't know anything about it. The 8 year's it takes to correct the calender, like texan said, is interesting because of the 8 year venus pentagram. The first use of the pentagram was suppose to come from Babylon in 3000BC. I guess this is all a coincidence.

I don't think i mentioned the Egyptian calendar, i do not know anything about that. I mentioned the Mayans and the people who built Newgrange in Ireland. But we do not know much about the people who built newgrange.

www.penton.co.za...

One Venus cycle is 37960 days, or 40 Earth years. 104 x 365 = 37960 (one and a half Zodiac degrees.)

The hebrew calendar, on the other hand, seems to use Venus numbers a lot:

www.johnpratt.com...

5.2 40 Years
There are many 40-year periods mentioned in the Bible. Forty years is a set of five 8-year Venus alignment periods, after which the planet realigns with the planet Mercury. As has already been mentioned, Mercury is an important second witness to many of these dates and has the same 8 holy days illustrated above during a 116-day cycle. It appears that many of the forty-year periods mentioned in scripture refer to Mercury/Venus alignments which coincide with Hebrew holy days.

5.3 430 Years
There are at least four references to 430-year periods in the scripture, and it turns out that 430 years is another Venus realignment period, when Hebrew holidays can occur on the same day of the Venus cycle. We are told that the Exodus occurred 430 years to the very day from the beginning of the sojourn of Israel (Ex. 12:40-41). What is the point being made about the accuracy of the very day? That may have to do with the fact that the Venus cycle is exactly 157,073 days, and knowing that, one could figure out the exact day of the Exodus. It was also 430 years from the birth of Peleg to the death of his father Eber (Genesis 11:17). Having the hint that the dates might be separated by a Venus cycle could be a clue to discovering the exact dates. Another example is the prophet Ezekiel was told by the Lord to lay on his side for a total of 430 days, which represented 430 years (Ezek. 4:5-6), which again could be a big chronological clue. Then, it turns out that the one chronological correction that the Prophet Joseph Smith made to Genesis was that Enoch did not live 365 years as stated in Gen. 5:23, but rather 430 years (Moses 8:1). What difference does that make? What does it matter if he lived 365 or 430 years? Perhaps it is important to know that Enoch was born and translated on a Venus cycle.

reply to post by bigfatfurrytexan

RE: the base 60 system....it may work better, but human kind counts by 10's based on the number of fingers. It would seem that a base 10 is more intuitive. Having worked in cell phones, i do see the value in hexadecimal mathematics.

So you should have incite into why 60 was used as a base. Work with fractions is simplified. Ten stinks for fractions. Cell phones are actually binary. Base 16 is used because it is easier to write down for humans - it takes less space. Remember the level of math at the time is fractions. There are no "decimal expansions" if you know what I mean. To keep the math reasonable you use a base that simplifies the math.

reply to post by BeastMaster2012


It's not the Sumerian lunar calendar (which became the Hebrew calendar) that makes use of Venus. It's the Venus predictions, and other planetary predictions, that are mentioned. It's a separate notion.

Let me give you a modern example. Federal officials are elected to 2, 4, and 6 year terms. We should not infer that our calendar is based on 2, 4, or 6 year cycles of interest because of the election of officials. That has the cart before the horse.

It certainly is possible that other astronomical observations play into the bible and other ancient texts. But those observations do not drive the calendar. It's the solar year that drives the calendar. The reason is simple. That tells people when the rains come and when to plant and so forth.

I think it would be natural for all sorts of events to be tied into astronomical observations. On the other hand we want to cautious in assigning events to astronomical events without anything more than numbers that might match up by coincidence.

Originally posted by stereologist
The first post mentioned that the Sumerians knew about Venus. This comes right after mentioning the

Venus tablets of Ammi-Saduqa. These tablets were Babylonian, not Sumerian.

I was wondering if anyone knows of a mention of Venus earlier than the Venus tablets which are from around 1640BC.

The Sumerians were (of course) aware of Venus.

They called it Inanna.

The Ammisaduqa tablets contain detailed observations of Venus. These tablets (as you rightly pointed out) are Babylonian, not Sumerian.

I'm not aware of any detailed Sumerian observations, if that's what you're asking. On the other hand, I'm not aware of all that much from Sumer so the fact that I'm not aware means very little.

However, the Sumerian goddess Inanna is associated with the planet Venus and that term is used throughout Sumerian texts and mythology.


Harte

Thanks so much. I figured that the Sumerians were aware of Venus although I somehow managed to miss the info. Much appreciated.

reply to post by stereologist

I understand how our calendar is today and if I remember correctly this calendar predated the Sumerians, or in other words they got it from someone/somewhere else. The original calendar is 12 Lunar months of 30 days each measuring a tropical year of 360 days. Now keep in mind the sexagesimal commensurate between the measure of time and Geo-coordinates. It is beyond reasonable to assume that this is all simply a coincidence. A circle is 360 degrees and a year was 360 days, presumable the orbit of Earth was the measure that inspired the number of degrees in a circle not the other way around.

A tropical year is one Earth orbit measured at spring equinox not to be mistaken by a sidereal year. In other words the difference between a tropical year and a sidereal year is Earth's precession and was measured in ancient times, Herodotus was not the first.

This ancient calendar of 12 lunations consisting of 30 days each measuring a 360 day tropical year has been found all over the world, even in the Americas. Then there is a period of time when all of these calendars were changed due to a change in the Earth's motions that added 5+ days. Again all of these calendars were changed and these added 5 days were considered bad luck or ominous days. The question remains, why were these calendars changed and why around the same time period all over the world?

I have spent some time searching the origins of the 360 day calendar and it is not just the Sumerians that used it. If the claims by Velikovsky are true that this calendar was used all over the world than this is very strong evidence that the Earth had at one time a 360 day tropical year.

Originally posted by stereologist
Velikovsky is very clear on Venus being ejected from Jupiter.

I have heard this mentioned many times yet I can't recall reading it as such in his book, "Worlds in Collision". Perhaps it is in another of his books or I missed it in the one I did read. Maybe you can help me by recalling where you read it, I would be willing to reread some of that book.

I guess it really is a mute point, you're probably correct and he did claim this. I would have to agree that it is a huge claim to make and I don't have any answers as to how it could have happened. My point is that to state it as impossible and therefore didn't happen is false logic.

I do remember the myth he presented about Zeus and the birth of Athena (Jupiter and...? Venus?) I find the search and reading of these Greek/Roman myths to be very ambiguous.
Is Athena Venus or is that Aphrodite?
Did Athena come out of Jupiter after being "swallowed" or was that Aphrodite?
Did Aphrodite (Venus) come from Zeus (Jupiter) of Uranus?

Myths are in fact history just as ancient cultures are also history, the question here is do these ancient myths have any truth behind them. It has been said by many great minds, like Joseph Campbell, that there is a kernel of truth in every myth and this is what we are dealing with here.

Originally posted by stereologist
reply to post by Devino

 

A pole shift is a physical change of location of the land masses on the Earth. It is not a magnetic reversal, or a magnetic north wandering issue...
This is the claim that has been put forward. It is a failure on a number of fronts, but mainly there are means of tracking the pole orientation over millions of years and there is no evidence for these events. Again, this is a failed effort to use myth as history.

Thanks for clearing that up. I find it hard to believe that an axial pole shift has occurred in recent history although there is evidence that it has happened at least once in Earth's history. Velikovsky does bring up a myriad of peculiar evidence of animals living in a past subtropical area that was then flash frozen and is now in the Arctic regions, Siberia.

There seems to be further evidence that Earth's North pole was once around the Great Lakes region. I think the problem here is that no one is looking for this evidence and we will not find that which we are not looking for. I think it is presumptuous to state that there is no evidence for a pole shift, it would be better said that there is no evidence found yet.

Lots of things in your post.

Let me begin and end with the 360 day calendars. Twelve lunar months I showed is 354 days. You don't get 360 days out of 12 lunar months. This is not really related to the 360 degrees in a circle. The reason for 360 degrees in a circle is that it was chosen by the Sumerians. They opted to divide a circle into 360 units. Is it coincidental that they chose 360 for the degrees? It really doesn't matter does it?

The reason to use 360 degrees for a circle is simply to choose a number which can be divided by many numbers. It's the math that drives that issue. Many fractions work better with 360. The 360 or so days in a year is driven by astronomy. So the numbers are not really the same. It's really a coincidence.

Again, the number of days in a year even back in Sumerian times was known to be 365. The Haab calendar of the Mayans was 365. The Egyptian calendar was 365 days. Or was it? It was a 360 day calendar with 5 extra days tossed in so that it matched up with the solar cycle.

There was never a sudden change in the number of days in the year. If that happened then there would be evidence of such a change. The stability of the length of the year is shown in biological materials such as corals.

A 360 day year is quickly seen to be inadequate. In 6 years the calendar is seen even by the laymen to be out of synch with the seasons. One of the things that makes a 360 day calendar work is that the calendars may not have been continuous. A new king restarted the dating with the start of their reign. That is seen in texts. Did the calendars get resynched with the solar year when the new reign started? I don't know. Many of these 360 day calendars also used extra days. The extra days were thrown in at the ends of the calendar to get the calendar to align with the solar cycle.

[edit on 10-5-2010 by stereologist]

Velikovsky has Venus being ejected from Jupiter in Worlds in Collision.

World in Collision

The book proposed that around the 15th century BCE, a comet or comet-like object (now called the planet Venus), having originally been ejected from Jupiter, passed near Earth (an actual collision is not mentioned).

There is evidence for a pole shift. The only one I am aware of is back 800 million years ago. It was not a Hapgood or Hancock type of ECD. It took millions of years for the shift to take place.

V. and Hancock and others claim that millions of animals were flash frozen when the pole shift occurred. This is simply not true. Maybe tens of animals have been found. That is far shy of the millions claim. Most of the animals were rotten. They were decomposed. That does not match the claim of being quickly frozen. Some authors make the bold lie that the animals were frozen where they stood.

Originally posted by stereologist
The tails do not form spirals. They form arcs due to the movement of the comets and the forces acting on the gasses of the tail.
These ion tails from planets are not visible to the eye.

Comets have tails of dust and gas as well as ions, Venus also has detectable ion tails but no tail of dust and gas. The reason Venus has such an ion tail is due to the lack of a magnetic field protecting its atmosphere from the Sun's solar wind. You might be correct that all ion tails in space are not visible to the naked eye but they have been photographed and these ion tails, and similar plasma streams, form Birkeland currents that are seen as spirals.

What would happen if these ion tails come into contact with Earth's magnetic field? Think of the Aurora Borealis. Venus' ion tail is not visible to the naked eye but would this be the case were it to contact Earth's atmosphere?

If Venus is a new planet (new to its present orbit that is) and it did at one time have a cometary tail of dust, gas and ions stretching hundreds of millions of miles it would have effected Earth severely during inferior conjunctions and especially transits of the Sun. Taking this theory into consideration I assume that this theoretical tail from Venus has since dissipated and all that is left is a tail of ions.

Keep in mind that it was not long ago that the fact that meteorites fell from space to Earth was considered ridiculous by mainstream science. Science still considers comets to be "dirty snowballs" even though almost no water has been found on any of the comets we have sampled. Mainstream science also still considers them to originate in the outer solar system even though their own evidence contradicts this assumption. If we were to follow mainstream science's track record over the past 15 centuries I think some ancient myths might be considered more accurate.

The tail is sparse. It really does not reach out to earth. The ions from Venus may make it here, but a transfer in the terms of grams is really small.

This comment is accurate but very limited in scope.
Has Venus' ion tail always been this way?
Has Venus ever had a magnetic field?
Without a magnetic field to protect its atmosphere how come it is still 90 times more dense than Earth's?

From what I have been reading there is much evidence that Venus appears to be a new planet.

• Total global resurfacing with no evidence of current volcanic activity
  
• Thick atmosphere with extremely high temperatures and wind speeds
  
• No magnetic field yet an atmosphere 90 times more dense than Earth's
  
• Retrograde rotation and tidal locks with Earth
  
• Apparent orbital resonance with Earth (8:13 ratio)
  

From all of this I think it is reasonable to ask the question about Venus being a new planet and how it is connected to Earth. I understand that there are explanations for each of these observations refuting this as evidence for a new planet theory but at what point are we dismissing all of this evidence simply because it has been assumed to be impossible?

Add to post; I would like to also say thank you for the replies on this subject as I find it to be very interesting.

[edit on 5/10/2010 by Devino]

reply to post by Devino


I actually have a previous post in this thread discussing some of these issues. The ion trail from Venus does not form a spiral. The tail does touch the Earth at times. It passes an estimated 10 grams of material during a Venusian transit that happens ever 105 years or so. There was one in 2004, which I saw and another happens in 2012. The ion tail of Venus is generated today. There is no evidence whatsoever that Venus has had a recent change in its orbit.

The term "dirty snowball" comes from Whipple who proposed that comets were icy objects rather than rocky objects. More recent evidence suggests that ices in comets are below the surface as seen by the Deep Impact probe. So yes the nature of the materials that form comets is poorly understood.

To claim that ancient myths might be more accurate is simply wrong. Are you saying that the claim that the planets are gods is more accurate? Are you suggesting that the sun is actually a chariot is more accurate? Are you saying that comets are the harbingers of disaster is more accurate? I don't think that you believe any of these things to be more accurate.

1. Total global resurfacing with no evidence of current volcanic activity
   
2. Thick atmosphere with extremely high temperatures and wind speeds
   
3. No magnetic field yet an atmosphere 90 times more dense than Earth's
   
4. Retrograde rotation and tidal locks with Earth
   
5. Apparent orbital resonance with Earth (8:13 ratio)
   

We know 1 is false since recent volcanic flows have been recorded on the surface of Venus by the mapping satellites we sent there.
Number 2 and 3 are interesting. I don't know.
Number 4 is false. The tidal locks are with the sun, which is a really good indication that Venus has been in a stable orbit for a long time.
Number 5 would indicate that the planet has been there a really, really long time.

Originally posted by stereologist
The reason for 360 degrees in a circle is that it was chosen by the Sumerians. They opted to divide a circle into 360 units.

That explanation does nothing for me. It is that way because they did it that way... does not explain why they did it.

Is it coincidental that they chose 360 for the degrees? It really doesn't matter does it?

WOW! The origin of our current system of measures for both time and Geo-coordinate space does not matter? I must be an exception to this then because I think it very much does matter.

• 12 months in a year, 12 hours in a day and 12 constellations in the Zodiac.
  
• 30 days in a Lunar month (early calendar) 30 degrees of arc in an hour (12 hour analog clock is 360 degrees)
  
• 60 minutes of arc per degree and 60 seconds of arc for every minute of arc.
  
• 60 minuets per hour and 60 seconds per minute.
  

Do you believe that all of this is simply coincidence?

The reason to use 360 degrees for a circle is simply to choose a number which can be divided by many numbers.

Why not use 100 then? Or perhaps 300, 400 or so on? Why 360? There is a reason and it is no coincidence. I realize that 360 is easily divisible by just about every number; 3,4,6,9,12,15,30,60,90 and so on. I just find it uncanny how all of this fits in so well and the origin is still unknown and not isolated to Mesopotamia.

Again, the number of days in a year even back in Sumerian times was known to be 365. The Haab calendar of the Mayans was 365. The Egyptian calendar was 365 days. Or was it? It was a 360 day calendar with 5 extra days tossed in so that it matched up with the solar cycle.

You are correct yet previous calendars from these civilizations had only 360 days per year. The same is true for civilizations around the world, 360 days of 12 Lunar months of 30 days each. All had at one time a 360 day calendar, Sumerian, Persian, Chinese, Egyptian, Maya...ect. There is even mention of a 360 day calendar in the bible.

My question is when were these 5 ominous days added. I suppose there is no proof that these 5 days were added to all of the calendars around the world all at the same time period but there is also no proof against this. It seems apparent that all of these civilizations did have a calendar of 360 days which does not fit into our measurement of time today as you have pointed out. It is also apparent that 5+ days were added to all of these early calendars and later revisions were made and thus we have our current calendars.

There was never a sudden change in the number of days in the year. If that happened then there would be evidence of such a change.

This is what I am looking for. I suppose I could just take your word for it and dismiss it all or ask the question, Is there evidence of a change in the length of an Earth year in recent history?

reply to post by Devino


I guess I did not express myself clearly.
You said.

That explanation does nothing for me. It is that way because they did it that way... does not explain why they did it.

My answer was.

The reason to use 360 degrees for a circle is simply to choose a number which can be divided by many numbers. It's the math that drives that issue. Many fractions work better with 360.

You wrote

WOW! The origin of our current system of measures for both time and Geo-coordinate space does not matter? I must be an exception to this then because I think it very much does matter.

My answer was

The 360 or so days in a year is driven by astronomy. So the numbers are not really the same. It's really a coincidence.

reply to post by Devino


I don't believe anyone would have ever used a 30 day lunar month. In 6 lunar months you'd notice that the calendar was no longer working. By a year you'd be predicting a new moon and seeing a first quarter.

The 60 seconds is a later refinement, not chosen by the Sumerians. The same is true for 60 minutes of arc and 60 seconds of arc. Actually the Sumerians quickly split the 12 units in a day to 2 groups of 12.

Is it coincidence? What you show is due to the Sumerian mathematics which used fractions. The ability to simplify mathematics drove this.

This is what I am looking for. I suppose I could just take your word for it and dismiss it all or ask the question, Is there evidence of a change in the length of an Earth year in recent history?

There is no evidence at all. I know that ancient corals do reveal that the length of the day has changed. The slowing of the Earth is seen when the news announces the adding of leap seconds. Those leap seconds keep our atomic clocks in synch with the changing Earth. Tidal friction slows down the Earth's rotation. Conservation of energy causes the Moon to accelerate and move to a higher orbit.

This write up should tickle your fancy.
Does Anybody Really Know What Time it is?
Basically the earth is slowing down in its rotation. It it spins faster then there are more turns per year or the year has more days in it. Going back to the Cambrian Age we see that there were 424 days in a year. You can see that the decline is not uniform. There is some uncertainty in the results. In general, the data show that the number of days in the year has been going down.

The following article is a little more complicated. Figure 1 on page 38 explains how the tidal friction makes the Earth slow and the moon move away. Table 1 on page 50 shows how the various measurements have changed over time.
GEOLOGICAL CONSTRAINTS ON THE PRECAMBRIAN HISTORY OF EARTH’S ROTATION AND THE MOON’S ORBIT

[edit on 10-5-2010 by stereologist]

[edit on 10-5-2010 by stereologist]

Finally I located the info on the volcanism on Venus.
Volcanic Venus

Although previous data suggested volcanic activity on Venus, it wasn’t until now that scientists were able to estimate how recent that activity was. By analyzing several “hot spots” on the Venusian surface — volcanic areas located on topographic rises that are thousands of kilometers wide — a team of scientists, including Lindy Elkins-Tanton, the Mitsui Career Development Assistant Professor of Geology in MIT’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, concluded that several lava flows are up to 250 years to 2.5 million years old. Considering Venus is about 4.6 billion years old and its overall surface is thought to be about 500 million years old, even a 2.5 million-year-old lava flow would mean the planet is volcanically active, according to a paper published Thursday in Science.

reply to post by stereologist


You have made many statements on this page worthy of discussion, but in consideration of my short time this morning, I will only address 1:

V. and Hancock and others claim that millions of animals were flash frozen when the pole shift occurred. This is simply not true. Maybe tens of animals have been found. That is far shy of the millions claim. Most of the animals were rotten. They were decomposed. That does not match the claim of being quickly frozen. Some authors make the bold lie that the animals were frozen where they stood.

There has been mammoth found that were fresh enough when frozen that they were edible. As a matter of fact, they have discerned the diet from frozen, yes still undigested and fairly fresh food in the stomache's of these animals.

You are right in that some animals were found in a bad state. But it is untrue to paint that as the picture of what happened, exclusively.

Disputing every single point someone makes only works if you are honest and have something to dispute with.

Alright, so i was wrong. But jeez....

Originally posted by stereologist
reply to post by Devino

 

I actually have a previous post in this thread discussing some of these issues. The ion trail from Venus does not form a spiral. The tail does touch the Earth at times. It passes an estimated 10 grams of material during a Venusian transit that happens ever 105 years or so. There was one in 2004, which I saw and another happens in 2012. The ion tail of Venus is generated today. There is no evidence whatsoever that Venus has had a recent change in its orbit.

So, 10 grams, huh?

And that has always been, and always will be? Never, ever could have been more, could it? Nah....the universe is static.

The term "dirty snowball" comes from Whipple who proposed that comets were icy objects rather than rocky objects. More recent evidence suggests that ices in comets are below the surface as seen by the Deep Impact probe. So yes the nature of the materials that form comets is poorly understood.

Minor issue, but perhaps it isn't the nature of the comet that is the issue. Perhaps it is the nature of what is happening to the comet that is completely missed?

To claim that ancient myths might be more accurate is simply wrong. Are you saying that the claim that the planets are gods is more accurate? Are you suggesting that the sun is actually a chariot is more accurate? Are you saying that comets are the harbingers of disaster is more accurate? I don't think that you believe any of these things to be more accurate.

This is the reason i quoted your post.

Really? You are going to throw up a strawman argument? This is bad, bad form.

No, i don't believe any of the above....except the comet one. That belief came from somewhere...where do you propose it came from?

Perhaps a comet had created negative interactions with Earth, and THAT is why it was a harbinger of death? But this is beside the point.

Fallacies are ignorance. Use of them in debate speaks volumes to the position of the person using them.

reply to post by bigfatfurrytexan


Your quite right bigfatfurrytexan, some of the animals were found to have drowned in mud and were well preserved which is why I stated that "Most of the animals were rotten." I did not say all, nor did I intend to give that impression. The better preserved remains were those animals such as Lyuba.
Lyuba - baby mammoth - wikipedia
Other well preserved animals have also been found. These are the exception though.