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NEWS DECEMBER 2022
Atlantipedia will be wound down in 2023. After nearly twenty years compiling Atlantipedia on my own, and as I am now approaching my 80th birthday, I have decided to cut back on the time I dedicate to developing this website. An orderly conclusion rather than an enforced one is always preferable before the Grim Reaper […]Read More »
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.
A 2004 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].
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(n) 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(o) 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!
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) https://www.badarchaeology.com/?page_id=585
(d) https://web.archive.org/web/20180903021842/https://archaeoastronomy-egypt.com/?page=introduction
(f) https://www.andrewcollins.com/page/articles/Gobekli_Sirius.htm
(g) https://arxiv.org/ftp/physics/papers/0407/0407108.pdf
(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) AstroScope Me: Armenia’s Stonehenge (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) *
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 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 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*
(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
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!
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) https://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread206916/pg1&colorshift=yes
(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 *