Case of the Misplaced Teapot
A
Failed Challenge To An Enigma of Ancient Astronomy
I
was recently pleasantly surprised to encounter an old friend: The colorful cover
of the first edition of my first book The 12th Planet (1976), reproduced
in the April 2000 issue of Sky & Telescope.
The photo was provided by the astronomer E.C. Krupp for his article
"Lost Worlds" about misconceived predictions of planetary dooms (such
as that regarding 5/5/2000).
Almost a full page is then devoted to
"a different astronomical misconception" -- "Zecharia Sitchin's
books about ancient space colonists from a lost "12th planet" that
once violently invaded our solar system."
Conceding (or lamenting?) that �credulous readers are persuaded by
Sitchin that the traditions of ancient Sumer validate this unorthodox
reconstruction of solar system history," the article suggests in a sidebar
(see reproduction) that "Sitchin's case originates in an Akkadian cylinder
seal from the third millennium B.C.; a portion of it features a six-pointed star
surrounded by eleven dots of varying size; Sitchin judged that the star
symbolizes the Sun and the smaller elements are supposedly planets, including
the lost 12th world."
The
Embarrassing Ancient Depiction
My inclusion in an article about misconceived predictions of
doom (in which I have not engaged -- and this is not the only misrepresentation
in the article) was thus an excuse to tackle the embarrassing depiction on
cylinder seal VA/243 which I had found in the Vorderasiatisches Museum in (then
East) Berlin. On this seal, as on many others, the "mythological
scene" is decorated with celestial symbols -- in this case, I have
suggested, showing the Sun surrounded by all the planets we know of today, plus
the Moon and plus one more planet passing between Mars and Jupiter, the planet
named NIBIRU by the Sumerians:
The depiction and my interpretation
thereof have embarrassed astronomers for the past quarter of a century, because
it is just not possible for ancient peoples to have
known about post-Saturn planets, to say nothing about one more yet to be
acknowledged "unknown planet." My
explanation that the knowledge was provided by the Anunnaki ("Those
who from Heaven to Earth came�) -- Extraterrestrial visitors to Earth -- is an
even greater anathema to the scientific establishment.
What then to do about cylinder seal VA/243?
It exists, it is authentic, it is at least 4,500 years old,
If not Sitchin's interpretation -- what?
The
"Teapot" of Sagittarius
So
now, a quarter of a century after The 12th
Planet was published, the Sky &Telescope article comes to the
rescue. The sidebar and its two
illustrations offer an alternative. The
one on the right purports to show my interpretation of the seal -- colorful, but
conveniently omitting the key planet between Mars and Jupiter... The
other shows how the "dots" around the central object can be connected
to "roughly resemble the Teapot of Sagittarius":
Sky & Telescope's sidebar, reproducing the first edition
(1976)
cover of The 12th Planet and the magazine's two illustrations.
The
solution to the embarrassing enigma of ancient knowledge, as stated in
the
article's sidebar, is this: The depiction "could easily represent a bright
planet -- such as Jupiter -- in the midst of familiar stars; in fact, the
arrangement around the star like object roughly resembles the Teapot of
Sagittarius."
And so, if the central object is not the Sun
but Jupiter (with which the ancients were familiar) and the surrounding objects
not planets but the stars of Sagittarius (with which the ancients were
familiar)-- Sitchin's extraterrestrials and Nibiru
are not needed.
A clever theory -- but based on a misplaced
teapot...
A
"Rough Resemblance"?
Sagittarius, one of the twelve zodiacal
constellations (a Sumerian first), was named PA.BIL (The Defender) by them and
was depicted in antiquity as an Archer, a name and a depiction retained to this
day. But some modern astronomers
(while having afternoon tea?) decided that the central part of Sagittarius
resembles a teapot:
A
"spout" formed by connecting the stars Al Nasi, Kaus Media and Kaus
Australis (stars gamma, delta and epsilon of the constellation);
A
"handle" shaped by the stars designated zeta (Ascella), tau, sigma (Nunki)
and phi; and a "lid" indicated by Kaus Borealis (designated lambda).
When these eight stars are connected by
imaginary lines, a "teapot" seems to emerge:
Nice
Try -- But An Impossible One
One need not be an astronomer to see that
the "teapot" imposed upon the ancient depiction (magazine's left
illustration) is far from being similar to the actual celestial one;
But
one might have to be an astronomer to realize that the offered solution is not
only improbable -- it is impossible: Jupiter moves about the Sun in the
ecliptic (the plane of planetary orbits around the Sun); it never dips
enough in the southern skies to appear in the midst (the magazine's
words!) of the Teapot!
The illustration of Sagittarius that shows
the "teapot" also indicates the ecliptical path, in which Jupiter
moves. AND THE TWAIN CAN NEVER
MEET!
Jupiter, once in about twelve years, does
scratch the northernmost protrusion of Sagittarius; but it never comes even
close (in astronomical terms) to the Teapot, and could have NEVER been observed
"in the midst" of the Teapot.
And so, even after a quarter of a century,
"Sitchin�s misconception" continues to stand.
Z.
SITCHIN
June
2000
�
Z. Sitchin 2002
Reprinted with permission
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