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Rotation RestartThe Immanuel Velikovsky Archive
[Quoted by Immanuel Velikovsky in Worlds in Collision, 1950].
12. Thereupon Yaou [Yahou] commanded Hi and Ho, in reverent accordance with the wide heavens, to calculate and delineate the movements and the appearances of the sun, the moon, the stars, and the zodiacal spaces; and to deliver respectfully the seasons to the people. [Worlds in Collision, p.116]
13. Herodotus: 'No reversal of sunrise and sunset takes place in a Sothis period.' [Worlds in Collision, p.118]
14. Pomponius Mela, a Latin author of the first century. wrote: 'The Egyptians pride themselves on being the most ancient people in the world. In their authentic annals...one may read that since they have been in
existence, the course of the stars has changed direction four times, and the sun has set twice in the part of the sky where it rises today.' [Worlds in Collision, p.119]
15. The Magical Papyrus Harris speaks of a cosmic upheaval of fire and water when 'the south becomes north, and the earth turns over.' [Worlds in Collision, p.120]
16. In the Papyrus Ipuwer it is similarly stated that 'the land turns round [over] as does a potter's wheel,' and 'Earth turns upside down.' [Worlds in Collision, p.121]
17. In the Ermitage Papyrus [Leningrad, 1116b recto] also, reference is made to a catastrophe that turned the 'land upside down; happens that which never (yet) had happened.' It is assumed at that time- in the second millenium-people were not aware of the daily rotation of the earth, and believed that the firmament with its luminaries turned around earth; therefore the expression, 'the earth turned over,' does not refer to the daily rotation of the globe. Nor do these descriptions in the papyri of Leiden and Leningrad leave room for figurative explanation of the sentence, especially if we consider the text of the Papyrus Harris-the turning over of earth is accompanied by the interchange of the south and north poles. [Worlds in Collision, p.121]
18. Harakhte is the Egyptian name for the western sun. As there is but one sun in the sky, it is supposed that Harakhte means the sun at its setting. But why should the sun at its setting be regarded as a deity different from the morning sun? The identity of the rising and the setting sun is seen by everyone. The inscriptions do not leave any room for misunderstanding: 'Harakhte, he riseth in the west.' " [Worlds in Collision, p.121]
19. The texts found in the pyramids say that the luminary 'ceased to live in the occident, and shines, a new one, in the orient.' After the reversal of direction, whenever it may have occurred, the words 'west' and 'east' were no longer synonyms, and it is necessary to clarify references by adding: 'the west which is at the sun-setting.' It was not mere tautology, as the translator of this text thought. [Worlds in Collision, p.120]
20. In the tomb of Senmut, the architect of Queen Hatshepsut, a panel on the ceiling shows the celestial sphere with 'a reversed orientation' or the southern sky. The end of the Middle Kingdom antedated the time of Queen Hatshepsut by several centuries. The astronomical ceiling presenting a reversed orientation must have been a venerated chart, made obsolete a number of centuries earlier. 'A characteristic feature of the Senmut ceiling is the astronomically objectionable orientation of the souther panel,' The center of this panel is occupied by the Orion-Sirius group, in which Orion appears west of Sirius instead of east. 'The orientating of the souther panel is such that a person in the tomb looking at it has to lift his head and face north, not south.' 'With the reversed orientation of the south panel, Orion, the most conspicuous constellation of the southern sky, appeared to be moving eastward, i.e., in the wrong direction.' [Worlds in Collision, p.120]
21. The real meaning of 'the irrational orientation of the southern panel' and the 'reversed position of Orion' appears to be this: the southern panel shows the sky of Egypt as it was before the celestial sphere interchanged north and south, east and west. The northern panel shows the sky of Egypt as it was on some night of the year in the time of Senmut. [Worlds in Collision, p.120]
22. Plato wrote in his dialogue, The Statesman (Politicus): 'I mean the change in the rising and the setting of the sun and the other heavenly bodies, how in those times they used to set in the quarter where they now rise, and they used to rise where they now set..' [Worlds in Collision, p.122]
23. According to a short fragment of a historical drama by Sophocles (Atreus), the sun rises in the east only since its course was reversed. 'Zeus ... changed the course of the sun, causing it to rise in the east and not in the west.'" [Worlds in Collision, p.122]
