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Joining The Dots
I have now published my new book, Joining The Dots, which offers a fresh look at the Atlantis mystery. I have addressed the critical questions of when, where and who, using Plato’s own words, tempered with some critical thinking and a modicum of common sense.Read More »
Queen of Sheba
Sirius
Sirius is a binary star in the constellation Canis Major and the brightest star in the night sky and is expected to remain so for the next 210,000 years. In relative terms, it is a near neighbour of ours.
One wild theory speculates that Sirius and our Sun had once been binary partners(i).
Many people of my vintage were first made aware of Sirius when Robert Temple published his bestselling The Sirius Mystery [735]. In which he supported the idea of extraterrestrial influence on human cultural development, citing as evidence, the ‘knowledge’ of the Dogon people regarding the Sirius star system before verification by modern astronomy. This idea has now come under serious attack with the claim that Sirius C does not even exist(a). The controversy is still raging as the Bad Archaeology website demonstrates(b) as well as an article from the Armagh Planetarium website(c). Jason Colavito has also added a few critical comments regarding the knowledge of the Dogon(j). Colavito also reveals(k) that Arthur M. Young (1905-1995), the helicopter pioneer and Robert Temple’s mentor also “believed he had been in contact with extraterrestrials from Sirius who served as the creator gods of Egypt.”
Two decades ago, Laird Scranton wrote in Atlantis Rising magazine(q) that, “the answers to Temple’s mysteries can no longer be reasonably found in the Sirius question itself because the debate has succeeded in casting doubt on so many of Temple’s assertions. However, there are many other fascinating aspects of the Dogon religion and cosmology not entangled in this debate which, due to the continuing glare of the star Sirius, seem to have been overlooked for study. Some of the most promising of these are the Dogon symbols relating to the structure of matter.” and the blub for his book Hidden Meanings [1916] added that “The mythology of the Dogon tribe of Mali describes how their one true god Amma created all of the matter of the universe. But the system defined by these tribal myths bears a striking resemblance to the actual scientific structure of matter, starting with the atom and continuing all the way down to the vibrating threads of string theory. Moreover, many of the Dogon words, symbols and rituals used to describe this structure are a close match for those found in the myths of ancient Egypt and in the daily rituals of Judaism.“
For the ancient Egyptians Sirius, known to them as Sothis, had great importance, as the heliacal rising of Sirius coincided with the summer solstice which heralded the next flooding of the Nile. They also associated Sirius with the goddess Isis. John deSalvo claims in his list of old pyramid theories(s) that “Several Arabian writers have seen a mystic correlation between the design of the pyramid and the revolutions of Sirius, the judge-god of the dead.”
A 2008 report from the University of Hamburg said “scientists led by Helmut Ziegert had found remains of a 10th-century-B.C. palace at Axum-Dungur (Ethiopia) under the palace of a later Christian king. There was evidence the early palace had been torn down and realigned to the path of the star Sirius.”(l)
Additionally, it is also suggested that the earlier structure was the palace of the legendary Queen Of Sheba. Today, Axum is claimed by the Ethiopian Church to be the current home of the Ark of the Covenant, a claim given widespread attention by Graham Hancock some decades ago in The Sign and the Seal.
In the 19th century, Theosophists claimed Sirius as having particular esoteric significance. “Blavatsky stated that the star Sirius exerts a mystic and direct influence over the entire living heaven and is linked with every great religion of antiquity.
Alice Bailey sees the Dog Star as the true ‘Great White Lodge’ and believes it to be the home of the ‘Spiritual Hierarchy’. For this reason, she considers Sirius as the ‘star of initiation’.”(m)
Even today, Sirius plays a part in the symbology of Freemasonry, where it is referred to as the ‘Blazing Star’.
Amanda Laoupi has written a five-part paper in which she expands on the significance of Sirius for the Pelasgians, among others(h).
Giulio Magli (1964- ) is an Italian archaeoastronomer with a website in English(d) dedicated to the application of the discipline in Egypt. In 2013, Magli proposed that aspects of the Göbleki Tepe site are related to the recent appearance of Sirius in the night sky around 9300 BC(e). Andrew Collins and Rodney Hale argue against this interpretation(f), which is perhaps understandable as they support a linkage with the Cygnus constellation.
>>In 2004, Filip Coppens published two articles debunking Temple’s Sirius/Dogon claims(u)(v).<<
Also in 2004, a paper by Magli, on precessional effects in ancient astronomy(g), has recently been applied by Lenie Reedijk to her contention that the Maltese temples were oriented to Sirius[1631]. Reedijk promoted her theories as Author of the Month on Graham Hancock’s website in March 2019(t).
In 2012, E. A. James Swagger published The Newgrange Sirius Mystery [1683] in which he endeavoured to link Ireland’s most important megalithic site with both an early understanding of precession and the symbology of the Dogon.
Further to the east, in Armenia, Sirius was closely studied by the people of Metsamor at what is claimed as one of the oldest observatories in the world. In a series of six articles(o) by Rick Ney, Metsamor and the ancient site of Karahundj, sometimes dubbed ‘Armenia’s Stonehenge’, whose 204 stones stand near the town of Sissian are fully discussed. The Trip Advisor website(n) offers several enticing images.
Going from the serious to the silly, I note that the late Flying Eagle (1920-2007) and his partner Whispering Wind specified the planet Xylanthia(f) in the Sirius star system as the original home of a visitor who fell in love with an earthling and later became known as Poseidon!
In the Epilogue to Genisis [585], David Wood outlined a scenario in which he proposed that 200,000 years ago visitors arrived in our solar system from Sirius and developed a base on Mars and later came to Earth where they engaged in genetic engineering that produced humans! A speculation that is strongly reminiscent of Zecharia Sitchin’s claims.
The Wessex Research Group offer more nonsense in a paper by Murray Bruce in which the author endeavours to convince us that there were ancient astronauts, who originally came to Earth from Sirius and are remembered in our mythologies as the Gods, the Old Ones etc. Bruce suggests that these visitors probably inspired the description of the Sumerian god Oannes!(r)
The Sirius Research institute is concerned with the study of binary stars, precession and, of course, Sirius(p).
(b) Did the Dogon of Mali know about Sirius B? (archive.org)
(d) https://web.archive.org/web/20180903021842/https://archaeoastronomy-egypt.com/?page=introduction
(f) https://www.andrewcollins.com/page/articles/Gobekli_Sirius.htm
(g) Wayback Machine (archive.org)
(i) https://humanoriginproject.com/sirius-mythology-two-sun-solar-system/
(j) https://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/review-of-ancient-aliens-s14e04-the-stat-gods-of-Sirius
(k) https://www.jasoncolavito.com/robert-temple.html
(l) https://www.wnd.com/2008/05/63998/
(m) https://vigilantcitizen.com/hidden-knowledge/connection-between-sirius-and-human-history/
(o) Astrology on the Web: Armenia’s Stonehenge (archive.org) (to view all six papers, just change the number in the URL)
(q) Atlantis Rising magazine #29 https://archive.org/details/Atlantis_Rising_29/page/n3/mode/2up
(r) http://www.wessexresearchgroup.org/download/pdf_are_our_roots_in_sirius.pdf
(s) THEORIES ON WHY THE GREAT PYRAMID WAS BUILT (gizapyramid.com)
(t) Sirius and the Maltese Temples: A Tale of Two Revelations – Graham Hancock Official Website
Sweeney, Emmet John*
Emmet John Sweeney is a Scottish historian, who graduated from the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland. He has followed the lead of Immanuel Velikovsky and produced several books[520][845] arguing for a radical revision of the generally accepted chronologies of the early civilisations of the Eastern Mediterranean.
He controversially claims that “all the civilisations on both sides of the Atlantic arose more or less simultaneously, sometime between 1100 and 1200 BC” [700.202].
In Empire Of Thebes, Or, Ages In Chaos Revisited [1867] Sweeney returns to the work of Velikovsky and “seeks to complete the work which he commenced, identifying the problems Velikovsky could not solve, and bringing forward a great body of evidence not even mentioned by Velikovsky which supports his identification of Hatshepsut with the Queen of Sheba. Velikovsky was rejected by the academic establishment because of a number of contradictions in the chronology he outlined. Sweeney shows that despite some gaps and incompletions, his (Velikovsky’s) books were brilliant works of scholarship with much to recommend them. For decades now various scholars have attempted to solve the enigma. Yet the answer was stunningly simple and in front of us all the time. Empire of Thebes provides the solution and finally allows the possibility of a complete and satisfactory reconstruction of ancient history. This work calls for a much more radical shortening of ancient chronology and asserts that Velikovsky ran into a dead end because he placed too much reliance on the Bible as a chronological measuring rod.”
Velikovsky’s (and Sweeney’s) identification of the Queen of Sheba with Hatshepsut was recently endorsed in a paper by Ken Griffith and Darrell K. White (f). However, others, such as Eulalio Eguia, identify the Queen of Sheba with Nefertiti(g).
He further claims that the Egyptian pyramids were constructed around 800 BC(d) and that Atlantis was destroyed around the same period! This date is significant as it coincides with an event that led to devastation in Southern Germany and the Alps involving huge inundations and tilting of lake shorelines which could only be brought about by a very powerful seismic upheaval(b).
“His claim that the Great Pyramid was constructed around 850 BC, rather than 2550 BC, is viewed as unfounded sensationalism. Sweeney’s claims that the pyramid-builders would have needed steel tools to cut granite, basalt and diorite, is said to have been disproved by the researches of Denys A. Stocks, who shows (Experiments in Egyptian Archaeology, 2003) that granite, for example, can be worked by pounding it with a harder stone, such as basalt. Sweeney however has pointed out that while large granite surfaces can be ground down in this way, Pyramid Age sculptors must have been in possession of steel tools, since the carving of basalt and diorite portrait statues, which display details of eyes, nose, ears, etc, can only have been executed using very sharp and fine cutting-tools.”(e)
He has also tackled the Arthurian legend, regarding which he considers Stonehenge to have been Arthur’s ‘round table’. The blurb for his 2001 book Arthur and Stonehenge[918] goes further stating that “As for Arthur himself, he was the primitive bear-god “Artos”, the Celtic version of Hercules. Originally portrayed with a bearskin over his head and shoulders and carrying a great oaken club, he became the prototype of the Greek Hercules when Hellenic traders, braving the wild waters of the Atlantic in search of tin, heard his story from the Britons.”
Sweeney has now ventured beyond his comfort zone and devoted his talents to the Atlantis question. He argues for the existence of a large island in the Atlantic, whose remnants today are the Azores. He sees this island as a stepping-stone to the Americas, which is necessary to explain the evidence of transatlantic contacts in the very distant past. He also takes the opportunity to highlight weaknesses in radiocarbon dating (p218).
The Washington Times, which is owned by the ‘Moonies’, gave his book a favourable review(a)! The reviewer, Martin Sieff, a native of Belfast and Velikovskian catastrophist, is accused by Jason Colavito[915] of using his critique to promote Sweeney more as a catastrophist rather than as an atlantologist and does so without revealing Sieff’s catastrophist background.
A more critical review of Sweeney’s work can also be found elsewhere on the Internet(c).
(a) https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/feb/25/book-review-atlantis/print/
(b) H. Gams and R. Nordhagen, Mitteil. der Geograph. Ges. in Munchen, XVI, H. 2 (1923), pp. 13-348. R. Sernander, ‘Klimaverschlechterung, Postglaciale’ in Reallexikon der Vorgeschichte, VII (1926); O. Paret, Das Neue Bild der Vorgeschuchte (1948), p.44.
(c) https://web.archive.org/web/20140416073952/https://wikibin.org/articles/emmet-sweeney.html
(d) https://www.algora.com/140/book/details.html
(e) Emmet Sweeney (wikibin.org)
(g) https://cread.jd.com/read/startRead.action?bookId=30564080&readType=1 *
Booysen, Riaan
Riaan Booysen is a South African researcher (and avid tennis fan) who has written articles on a number of ancient mysteries, which can be found on his website(e). Among his controversial ideas are that the Queen of Sheba, Nefertiti and Helen of Troy were a single person(d).
He offers a major paper on Atlantis(a), in which he bravely identifies its location as an extensive landmass which included present day Australia. Unlike other writers who have offered similar suggestions based on guesswork, Booysen offers a more coherent thesis based on the geology of the South Pacific and early cartography.
His theory requires a radical redating of the Antarctic ice cap, which has led to continued debate on the internet(c).
>Booysen has now (Nov 2023) developed his Atlantis theories further and published them in book form, Atlantis Revealed [2079] explaining that “I have since (end 2022) decided to revisit and thoroughly study and expand, where necessary, my Atlantis theory once more, with the intent of having it formally published. My latest studies include significantly more information than previously available on my website, and several additional hypotheses about the fate of the Atlanteans after their continent had been ‘sunk’. This occurred when a comet glanced off the face of the earth ca. 11,600 years ago, knocking a dent of around 8,000m in its crust and thereby ‘sinking’ Atlantis (parts of Terra Australis are clearly visible on NASA’s submarine topography maps of the world).”<
Booysen published another contentious offering in 2013, entitled Thera and the Exodus [1025] in which he argues that there were at least two Theran eruptions which led to two separate ‘Exodus’ events by the biblical Israelites, whom he identifies as the Hyksos!
He dates these events to ca. 1613 & 1450 BC.
Booysen has now commented on negative feedback from his book(b).
A year later he ventured into even more contentious territory with the publication of BARBELO – The Story of Jesus Christ, now available as a free ebook(f).
(a) https://www.riaanbooysen.com/terra-aus (link broken) See (g).*
(b) https://www.riaanbooysen.com/thera
(c) https://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=265894&st=0
(d) https://www.grahamhancock.com/forum/BooysenR1.php
(e) https://www.riaanbooysen.com/theories
(f) https://www.riaanbooysen.com/barbelo
(g) https://riaanbooysen.com/atlantis *
Byblos
Byblos is an ancient Phoenician city in modern Lebanon. Emilio Spedicato has pointed out that since this harbour city dates back to at least the third or fourth millennium BC, it can be used to demonstrate the relative stability of Mediterranean Sea levels over that period. The proponents of the idea that there had been a Sicilian Landbridge that was destroyed in the second millennium BC will have to consider either:
(i) Revising the dating of the existing harbour in Byblos,
(ii) the Sicilian landbridge was destroyed earlier than the building of the harbour, or
(iii) the landbridge did not exist within human memory.
>Emmet Sweeney in Empire of Thebes [1867] returned to the debate regarding the identity of the Queen of Sheba where he follows the conclusions of Immanuel Velikovsky and argues for her having been the Egyptian queen Hatshepsut, whose funerary monument details her trip to the land of Punt. Sweeney offers Byblos, in modern Lebanon as the location of Punt, which is also similar to the theories of Velikovsky.<
Temple of the Obelisks – Byblos
Twenty years ago the underwater archaeologist Ibrahim Noureddine had voiced the opinion that the current port at Byblos is too small to have accommodated the Phoenician fleet as recorded by the likes of the Palermo Stone(b)*. The current harbour is only 2.8 meters deep and with a solid rock floor could not have been deeper in the past. Noureddine is now researching alternative sites. If the content of the Palermo Stone is accurate and not an exaggeration it would appear that the matter of ancient Mediterranean sea levels may be still open to question. The resolution of this matter is critical for supporters of a Mediterranean Atlantis.
>He returned to the subject in a 2010 paper(c) noting that “in the Phoenician heartland, today’s Lebanon, no Phoenician harbor structure has been clearly identified to date in the main cities of Tyre, Byblos, Beirut, and Sidon. Tyre, the most famous Phoenician city, has particularly attracted many scholars who dedicated their efforts to finding remains of its illustrious harbor. Some of them failed in their quest, while others were able to secure some, but certainly not all, of the answers.”<
A November 2016 report claims that the discovery of the ancient port “is close”, quoting George Papatheodorou, professor of environmental and geological oceanography at the University of Patra’s Department of Geology(a).
(b) https://www.stonepages.com/news/archives/000755.html *
(c) https://www.academia.edu/3305769/New_Light_on_the_Phoenician_Harbor_at_Tyre *
Ellis, Ralph
Ralph Ellis is an airline pilot by profession with a passion for ancient history and religions. His 
revisionist views has been heavily criticised. He has authored a number of books(a) focusing, in the main, on ancient Egypt.
The scale of Ellis’ revisionism, is, to say the least, breathtaking.
Jerusalem was not the capital of the ancient Jewish state!
King Solomon was in fact an Egyptian Pharaoh!
The Queen of Sheba was from Egypt!
>>The Great Pyramid of Giza was Mt. Sinai(q)<<
Kind David and the pharaoh Psusennes II were the one person!
The Exodus of the Israelites describes the departure of the Hyksos! etc., etc.
Ellis concluded an old Atlantis Rising article((m) with the following,
“In essence, the whole of the Judaic—and therefore the later Christian – belief systems and iconography were based upon Egyptian antecedents. More importantly, perhaps, the historical characters whose lives spawned this religion, and the very book in which their entire history was written, were also Egyptian. The time has come to take a deep breath, to reassess all that we know of these religious beliefs, and to rewrite the entire theology of the world’s Judaeo-Christian cultures.”
As noted elsewhere he has drawn attention to evidence for re-dating the pyramids. In an Atlantis Rising article in 2000, he argues that the ‘collapsed’ pyramid at Meidum was damaged by erosion that in his opinion would have taken more than the 5,000 years usually ascribed to it. He then turns to Khufu’s pyramid at Giza where he has identified evidence of erosion of pavement slabs that again seems to indicate a greater age than conventionally thought. Ellis proposed an age of 10,000 rather than 5,000 years. He has similar comments to offer on the state of ‘Bent’ Pyramid(j).
In a 2015 article(e) he claims that the four small shafts in the Great Pyramid had nothing to do with alignment with stars but were associated with the value of pi, an idea first suggested in 1859 by John Taylor (1781-1864)(i) in a book entitled The Great Pyramid: Why was it Built, and Who Built it? [1451]
Ellis’ 2013 book, Eden in Egypt [0951], locates the Garden of Eden in Egypt and claims that Adam and Eve were Akhenaton and Nefertiti!(n) He has also proposed(f) that Flavius Josephus was in fact, St. Paul! This latter idea has been taken up by others(g).
He has also co-authored a number of articles with Mark Foster(b).
In his trilogy, The Gospel of King Jesus, Ellis ‘reveals’ that Jesus was the great-grandson of Queen Cleopatra(o) and was King Izas of Edessa, in what is now northern Syria. Understandably, this has stirred up quite a controversy(a).
Ellis first touched on the subject of Atlantis in his book Thoth[0517] locating Plato’s island in the Atlantic, but in a later book, Tempest & Exodus[0656] he changed his opinion and subscribed to the Minoan Hypothesis.
Ellis has now turned his attention to ice age theory since the exact cause of the onset of an ice age is still a matter of active debate. He has now proposed a new theory based on a cyclical alteration of polar albedo by atmospheric dust(c).
In a recent paper published(d)(p) in Atlantis Rising magazine, Ellis reviews the mystery of the Carolina Bays, but offers little that is new and supports the growing consensus that the ‘Bays’ were the result of a cometary impact in the Great Lakes region, which was at that time covered by the Laurentide ice sheet. The impact shattered the ice and ejected millions of ‘slush balls’, many of which survived their high-speed journey through the atmosphere, creating the ‘Bays’ on landing.
The World Mysteries website has a range of Ellis’ articles available(k).
For some sort of balance, you can read an extensive critical paper by Daniel O. McClennan, with some of Ellis’ responses to it(l).
Another of Ellis’ weirder claims is that “there exists a large copy of the Great Pyramid way up in the Himalayas, highlighted in an article(h) and book, K2: Quest of the Gods” [1563]!
(a) https://edfu-books.com/news.html
(d) Archive 3025 [Atlantis Rising Mar/April 2016-# 116] and see (p) below
(f) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsNOAUMyKIo
(g) Flavious Josephus And the Apostle Paul Were the Same Person?, page 1 (archive.org)
(h) https://www.ancient-origins.net/opinion-guest-authors/star-shaft-theory-great-pyramid-busted-001787
(i) https://sites.math.washington.edu/~greenber/PiPyr.html
(j) Atlantis Rising # 23 http://www.pdfarchive.info/index.php?pages/At
(l) https://danielomcclellan.wordpress.com/2013/04/14/again-on-ralph-ellis/
(m) Atlantis Rising magazine #39 http://pdfarchive.info/index.php?pages/At
(n) Atlantis Rising magazine #50 http://pdfarchive.info/index.php?pages/At
(o) Atlantis Rising magazine #60 http://pdfarchive.info/index.php?pages/At
(p) https://www.academia.edu/20051868/The_Carolina_Bays_and_the_destruction_of_North_America
(q) World Mysteries – Articles by Ralph Ellis (archive.org) *