In his Worlds in Collision (1950) Immanuel Velikovsky used myths, legends and traditions from throughout the world to illustrate his thesis that between the fifteenth and seventh centuries BC the earth suffered a series of devastating encounters with planetary bodies, which were recorded by the peoples of the time. Controversially, Velikovsky argued that in the fifteenth century a giant ball of fire, later to be the planet Venus, had erupted in a terrific explosion from the gas giant Jupiter and that this proto-planet, pulled by the sun’s gravitation, moved towards the inner solar system, where it came on a near-collision course with the earth. This resulted, according to Velikovsky, in the series of catastrophes told in the biblical Book of Exodus, popularly known as the Ten Plagues of Egypt.
In Worlds in Collision Velikovsky argued that his ideas would have profound consequences for ancient chronology. He placed the dramatic encounter between proto-planet Venus and the Earth around 1450 BC. Yet Egyptologists, who claimed to know the very coronation-date of the pharaoh who sat on the throne at that time, insisted that the records of Egypt contained not a hint of this terrible event. Velikovsky, on the other hand, found a series of hieroglyphic documents which did indeed allude to events similar to those described in Exodus, but these were dated by Egyptologists centuries earlier than 1450 BC.
Velikovsky divided Worlds in Collision into two parts. Part 1 dealt with events caused directly by Venus. Part 2 dealt with events seven centuries later, beginning in the year 776 BC, when Venus disrupted the solar orbit of the planet Mars, a body which then itself moved on a collision course with the Earth, bringing a series of catastrophic upheavals of nature which continued until the year 687 BC.
The above chronology was based squarely upon biblical timescales, which Velikovsky accepted more or less at face value; and indeed in Worlds in Collision he promised, in future publications, to trace the course of a series of earlier cataclysms also referred to in the Bible. The first of these, the Deluge of Noah, was believed by Velikovsky (following the Bible) to have occurred shortly before 3000 BC and to have been caused, he hinted, he hinted, by a supernova explosion of the planet Saturn. (See Velikovsky’s Mankind in Amnesia (1982), pp. 97-100). A later series of calamities, associated with the story of Abraham, were believed by him to have occurred around 2000 BC and to have been linked to the planets Jupiter and Mercury. He intended, he said, to reconstruct the course of these events in a volume entitled Saturn of the Flood and Jupiter of the Thunderbolt. Although he did in fact do much work in this book, it has never been formally published.
Perhaps like most of Velikovsky’s enthusiastic students I had, for a number of years, awaited the above volume (as well as other unpublished titles) with bated breath, and had never doubted that he was right in all his assumptions – especially with regard to his celestial mechanics. The advent of Gunnar Heinsohn’s stratigraphic work however changed everything. In the pages to follow I hope to demonstrate how that material makes a fundamental reassessment of Velikovsky’s catastrophic chronology absolutely essential; and I shall be showing that in the light of the new evidence we must conclude that the event known as the Flood or Deluge had nothing whatsoever to do with the planet Saturn, but was on the contrary the result of the activities of proto-planet Venus; an event which must have occurred quite close to 1400 BC. This dramatic reduction in date for the Flood will have profound consequences for the date of the Exodus, which we will find must be brought forward to the ninth century BC.
All this of course puts me completely at loggerheads with the so-called “Saturnian” school of writers (mainly Ev Cochrane and Dwardu Cardona), who hold that there was a period in early human history (ie the so-called Golden Age before the Flood) during which the planet Saturn was worshipped as the chief god. They also suggest, following Velikovsky, that the Deluge of Noah was caused by the supernova explosion of this planet. Yet if Saturn were ever the supreme god, it has to be stated here and now that his cult has left not a trace in the art and iconography of the early civilizations. True, ancient literature in the Old World – in the form of writings, traditions, and legends – does speak of a time when a figure called “Saturn” or “Kronos” was the ruler of the gods; but of this supposed epoch there is not a trace to be found in the art and artefacts recovered by the archaeologists working in the earliest cultures of Mesopotamia and Egypt. Quite the contrary, these societies honoured the goddess Ishtar/Inanna (in Mesopotamia) or Hathor/Neith (in Egypt), a deity unequivocally identified with the goddess and planet Venus. She was the destructive and dangerous Queen of Heaven who had been despatched on a mission by Jupiter (Marduk in Mesopotamia or Ra-Amon in Egypt) to annihilate the rebellious and sinful race of men. Reference to and illustration of this terrible event is found in the texts and artwork of the earliest literate societies in Egypt and Mesopotamia. And it should be remarked that in the traditions of the New World it was likewise the Queen of Heaven, Venus, who was universally associated with the Great Deluge.
Having said that, it is true that some of the civilizations of the Old World, such as the Greeks and Romans, honoured Saturn/Kronos as the original Father of the Gods, and speak of a time when he ruled the universe, only to be usurped by his son Jupiter. How are these traditions to be explained if human beings never actually worshipped Saturn? This is a question I intend to return to towards the end of the present paper.
CULT AND STRATIGRAPHY
In order to properly understand both the catastrophic events that shaped the early civilizations as well as how these impacted upon the belief systems of mankind, it is important and indispensible to keep an eye on stratigraphy. For in the ancient inhabited sites we have in situ a chronological record not only of the cataclysms as they occurred, but of mankind’s reaction to them in terms of art, iconography and literature.
Perhaps the best and most important stratigraphy in this regard is that of Ur, the ancient metropolis of southern Mesopotamia excavated by Leonard Woolley in the 1920s. Woolley famously uncovered four separate layers of mass destruction at this site, the most important of which occurred at the deepest level: this being the nine-metre (three of silt/clay and four of ‘debris’) “Flood” deposit which preceded the rise of the first literate civilizations. Immediately above this was found the first proto-literate culture, popularly named Jamdat Nasr, where there occurred the earliest temples and cult centres. This epoch too was terminated by another “flood” which however left a much smaller silt layer than the previous event. Above this second flood was found the Early Dynastic culture, characterised by full literacy and a flourishing temple cult. This period too was terminated by a flood, which left a small layer of silt comparable to that left by the previous one. The so-called Early Dynastic 2 period followed this event and was soon replaced by the first part of Early Dynastic 3, which was also destroyed by a flood, the fourth and last recorded at the site. Immediately above this final catastrophe there was evidence of a brief revival of Sumerian culture, which was followed soon by the period of Akkadian domination.
We need to examine the cultures and cults associated with each of these inter-catastrophic and post-catastrophic epochs and, importantly, to relate them if possible to the biblical story as outlined in Genesis and Exodus, as well as to the traditions of other ancient cultures. By taking a wide interdisciplinary and intercultural approach it should be possible to reconstruct, to some degree, both the celestial and human events of the time.
THE GREAT FLOOD
The earliest upheaval of nature at Ur, which left a 9-metre deep payer of debris, must be, just as Woolley surmised, be identified with the Deluge of Noah (and of Utnapishtim/Ziusudra). This was a world-wide calamity of almost unimaginable dimensions, and elsewhere I have explained in detail why the archaeologists could claim to have found no evidence of it outside Mesopotamia. (in my Genesis of Israel and Egypt). Briefly, the evidence is there in plenty, but excavators dated the catastrophes they discovered outside Mesopotamia differently, so that an event which was universal and immensely violent, was made to appear relatively small and local.
The culture destroyed by the Flood in Mesopotamia, named ‘Ubaid after its peculiar hand-made pottery, was contemporary with the Early Badarian culture of Egypt, which was also terminated by a cataclysmic of nature. (See Flinders Petrie, The Making of Egypt (London, 1939) p. 7) But the Early Badarian period, as Petrie noted, was seemingly contemporary with the Palaeolithic (Old Stone Age) culture known in Europe as Magdalenian. In Petrie’s words, “the finest ripple-flaked knives [of the Badarian Age] are in the same grave, side by side with long typical Magdalenian flakes. These might seem centuries apart in age, but they witness instead to two contemporaneous civilisations.” (Ibid., p. 6) The implications of this are enormous. For one thing, it means that the extinction of the Pleistocene fauna (mammoth, sabre-tooth cat, woolly rhino, etc), which the Magdalenian folk hunted, was almost certainly caused by the same event which terminated the Early Badarian epoch in Egypt and left a 9-metre deep flood layer at Ur. It means also that this Deluge – associated, as we shall see, by the ancient peoples with the proto-planet Venus – was the event which initiated star and planet worship amongst early humans. For there is not an ounce of evidence, either in the art and culture of the Magdalenians of Europe, the Early Badarians of Egypt, or the ‘Ubaid folk of Mesopotamia, that the pre-Flood populations worshipped the heavenly bodies. We possess a great deal of the artwork of these peoples, and this shows that they performed sympathetic magic to help in hunting (they portrayed these animals frequently), honoured the spirits of their dead (whom they ritually interred) and worshipped a Mother Goddess (whom they portrayed); but it shows equally that they seem to have had little interest in what went on in the skies: for images of the sun, moon, and planets are entirely missing. Evidently they took the rising and setting of the sun and the progression of the seasons more or less for granted.
It was only after the Pleistocene mass extinctions that the cult of the Dragon or Cosmic Serpent (the Great Comet), together with an obsessive interest in the movements of the planets and other heavenly bodies, appears with apparent suddenness throughout the globe.
In Mesopotamia the Jamdat Nasr culture, which appears directly above the Flood stratum, displays all the characteristics of a post-catastrophic society. The planets and stars appear prominently in the iconography, as does the Sky Goddess, variously identified as Inanna or Ishtar. Alongside Ishtar is found the image of the Tree of Life, or Celestial Tower, or World Axis. Invariably this is portrayed with intertwined dragons or serpents. The meaning of this symbol shall be dealt with presently.
Both the literature and art of the Jamdat Nasr culture leave is in no doubt that the Flood had been brought by Inanna/Ishtar, at the behest of her father Marduk. Thus for example, in one well-known text Utnapishtim describes the Flood to the hero Gilgamesh:
The […] land shattered like a […] pot.
All day long the South Wind blew […],
Blowing fast, submerging the mountain in water,
Overwhelming the land like an attack.
No one could see his fellow,
They could not recognise each other in the torrent.
The gods were frightened by the Flood,
Retreated, ascending to the heaven of Anu.
The gods were cowering like dogs, crouching by the outer wall.
Ishtar shrieked like a woman in childbirth,
The sweet-voiced Mistress of the Gods wailed:
‘The olden days have alas turned to clay,
Because I said evil things in the Assembly of the Gods!
How could I say evil things in the Assembly of the Gods,
Ordering a catastrophe to destroy my people?!
No sooner have I given birth to my dear people
Than they fill the sea like so many fish.’ (M. G. Kovacs, The Epic of Gilgamesh (Stanford, 1989) pp. 100f.)
It was these events which provided the impetus for all that we call high civilization. Thus temple (ziggurat) building is first confirmed in the Jamdat Nasr period, and is described in the literature as the direct consequence of the Flood. In the Mesopotamian myth we hear how Marduk himself (Jupiter) orders the building of the first ziggurat:
I shall make a house to be a luxurious dwelling for myself
And shall found his [Marduk’s] cult centre within it … (Babylonian Creation Epic)
In the same place we hear that in gratitude for saving the universe from Tiamat (the Dragon monster), the other gods offer to build Marduk’s home for him; at which point,
His face lit up, like daylight.
‘Create Babylon, whose construction you requested!
Let its mud bricks be moulded, and build high the shrine.’
In these early temples blood sacrifices were offered to the celestial deities upon and alter (Latin altus, ‘high place’). During the space of an entire year the gods manufacture bricks, and by the end of the second year they have built the great shrine and ziggurat of Esagila. Another well-known Mesopotamian text, “The Deluge,” is equally specific in connecting the establishment of the cult centres (temples) to the aftermath of a cosmic catastrophe:
My mankind, in its destruction I will …
I will return the people to their settlements
After the … of kingship had been lowered from heaven,
After the exalted tiara and the throne of kingship had been lowered from heaven,
He perfected the rites and the exalted divine laws …,
Founded the five cities in … pure places,
Called their names, apportioned them as cult centres. (S. N. Kramer, History Begins at Sumer (Pennsylvania, 1981) p. 149)
The Mesopotamian sources therefore connect not only the establishment of religious customs, but the very idea of priest-kingship, to the aftermath of some cosmic disaster. Kingship was everywhere initially inseparable from priesthood, and all the early kings were at the same time High Priests, one of whose major functions was the offering of blood sacrifices on the high altars. This is further emphasized in another Mesopotamian text, The Epic of Etana, which states that immediately after the Flood,
The great Annunaki, who decree the fate,
Sat down, taking counsel about the land.
They who created the regions, who set up the establishment,
The Igigi were too lofty for mankind,
A stated time for mankind they decreed.
The beclouded people, in all, had not set up a king.
At that time, no tiara had been tied on, nor crown,
And no sceptre had been inlaid with lapis;
The shrines had not been built altogether.
The seven [Igigi] had barred the gates against the settlers [settlements].
Sceptre, crown tiara, and [shepherd’s] crook
Lay deposited before the Anu in heaven,
There being no counselling for its people.
[Then] kingship descended from heaven. (Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts (Princeton, 1950) p. 114)
It would appear therefore tat the traumatised survivors of the Flood sought, by means of ritualised violence, to control events over which they had, in reality, no control whatsoever. The gods who dwelt in the skies, it seemed, delighted in death and destruction. What if they were voluntarily offered victims? Perhaps they might leave the world in peace! High places, usually on mountain-tops, were sought out and upon them victims were offered to the Cosmic Serpent or Dragon, the Great Comet. When people once again settled in the low-lying regions artificial mountains, or pyramids, upon which these sacrifices could be performed, begun to be erected.
Thus, by quirk of fate, was literate civilization born. The erection of the sacred hills needed organization; it needed building skills, it needed measuring skills, it needed record-keeping skills. And the obsessive watch that was kept upon the night skies delivered to mankind the science of astronomy.
HERMES AND THE CELESTIAL TOWER
The Great Comet, proto-planet Venus, pursued its elliptical solar orbit for a number of centuries, and (as I argue in various places) sometime in the eleventh century it caused, either directly or indirectly, another cosmic calamity. In archaeological terms this was the event which terminated the Mesopotamian Jamdat Nasr epoch. In biblical terms it needs to be associated with the Tower of Babel and the story of Abraham, which elsewhere I have shown belongs to the epoch which saw the rise of literate civilization in Egypt. This period is everywhere associated with phallicism/phallus-worship and with the closely-related myth of the destruction of the Celestial Tower.
Some explanation is here called for.
Consistently, in almost every corner of the globe there is preserved the strange report of how in the aftermath of the Great Flood men (or demigods or giants) sought to reopen communication with heaven by raising a great Tower (or Pillar or Tree) which reached the sky. This Tower is sometimes depicted as a crystal pillar, sometimes as an enormous tree with branches reaching out to the four quarters. Usually it is located at the North Pole – the latter name itself being derived from the legend. Around the Pole or Pillar a great dragon-serpent was believed to be entwined. This creature was known to the Greeks at Ladon or Latone, and to the Phoenicians as Lotan (biblical Leviathan). Following a cataclysmic confrontation between the giants who raised the pillar and the gods, the pillar is smashed and destroyed; and communication between earth and heaven is brought to a definitive end. The destruction of the pillar was said to have been accompanied by chaos is the firmament among the planetary deities, as well as by vast upheavals of nature on the earth. In the Greek version of the story the rebellious titans pile mountains on top of each other, from which vantage point they attempt to storm Olympus. In the ensuing battle we are told that vast fissures opened in the earth, the sea boiled and great waves came over the land. In the end, the titans are defeated and the tower they raised is destroyed when Zeus smashes it with his thunderbolt.
That this tradition is every bit as universal as that of the Flood itself is apparent from mythologies on every continent. As an example, consider the following account from Mexico. After narrating the story of the Flood which brought to a close the first world age, Ixtlilxochitl described the catastrophe which ended the second age or Ehecatonatiuh, the “sun of wind.”
…and as men were thereafter multiplying they constructed a very high and strong Zacualli, which means ‘a very high tower’ in order to protect themselves when again the second world should be destroyed. At the crucial moment their languages were changed, and as they did not understand one another, they went into different parts of the world. (Don Fernando de Alvara, “Ixtlilxochitl,” Obras Historicas (Mexico, 1891) Vol. 1, p. 12)
The same story is recorded in Polynesia. On the island of Hoa, for instance, part of the Puamotu islands, it was said that after a great Flood the sons of Rata, who had survived the disaster, made an attempt to erect a building by which they sought to reach the sky and see the creator god Vata, “but the god in anger chased the builders away, broke down the building, and changed their language, so that they spoke diverse tongues.” (R. W. Williamson, Religious and Cosmic Beliefs in Central Polynesia (Cambridge, 1933) Vol. 1, p. 94)
In my Genesis of Israel and Egypt (1997 and 2007), as well as in various other publications, I have explored this myth in detail. Suffice to note here that they story constitutes a vital element in the Abraham myth. The biblical Tower of Babel, which is placed immediately before the story of Abraham in Genesis, is the Hebrew version of the Celestial Pillar. The phallus cult of Abraham’s (and Menes’) time is a human reaction to the destruction of the Celestial Pillar (as is circumcision – the voluntary mutilation of one’s own “pillar”). Abraham’s nephew Lot is the Phoenician dragon-deity Lotan who entwines himself around the Pillar; whilst the crystal pillar into which Lot’s wife is transformed is the Celestial Pillar itself.
It was this Pillar, by which the demigods attempted to reopen communication with the heavens, with its entwined serpent, that gave rise to the symbol of Hermes/Thoth’s magic wand, the caduceus. The same Pillar is depicted on a thousand artefacts from all over the Near East, some of which portray the intertwined dragons as long-necked lionesses. This motif was particularly popular in Egypt. In time, the serpent-necks of the lionesses disappeared, to be replaced simply by a pillar guarded by two felines, a motif most famously illustrated in the Lion Gate of Mycenae. It should be noted too that these guardian felines are the prototype sphinx, the lioness-goddess Sekhmet to whom human beings were sacrificed.
The Pillar itself, often described as being of a crystal or golden colour, is evidently a natural feature, most probably an electro-magnetic phenomenon of some sort. This view is reinforced by the fact that the structure is frequently located at the North Pole. It seems that following our planet’s initial encounter with the Great Comet the earth was in some way or other electro-magnetically “recharged”, and that the Tower or Pillar was perhaps some form of enhanced aurora-borealis.
The cataclysm which destroyed the Tower was the event which at the end of the Jamdat Nasr period propelled the inhabitants of Lower Mesopotamia westwards and northwards in search of new homes. Once again, it appears, a cosmic body had come dangerously close to the earth. Tidal waves, caused both by earthquakes and disturbances in the planet’s rotation, swept over the landmasses. Showers of meteorites bombarded the terrestrial sphere. Our entire planet, torn by the gravitational pull of the nearby body, went into gigantic tectonic convulsions. In the midst of this devastation, weather patterns changed radically, and famines (remembered throughout the entire Patriarch period) became widespread. Populations were uprooted and whole continents laid waste.
How then do we reconstruct the celestial events which gave rise to such destruction? There is no question that the god Hermes or Mercury was particularly linked to these occurrences. His caduceus, with its intertwined serpents, is evidently the Tower itself. But what of the planet Mercury? In what way, if any, was this body involved?
Various mythologies describe Mercury as the Divine Child, the youngest of the gods – the implication being that he was younger even than Venus/Ishtar/Hathor/Athena, whose own birth (from Jupiter/Ammon) was said to have been witnessed by mortals. But Hermes/Mercury was not said to have erupted from Jupiter. He was variously believed to have been born in a cave or under the ground or in the Pillar/Tower in which his mother had been confined. This, I would suggest, implies that he came out of the darkness: his “birth” was not witnessed by humans. He came, perhaps, out of the dark reaches of the outer solar system, pulled there, I would suggest, by comet Venus. Bearing this in mind, it seems to me probable that Mercury may originally have been a satellite of Jupiter, captured by Venus and drawn by her into the inner solar system. Sometime in the eleventh century BC the Dragon goddess herself and her Divine Child approached the earth. A veritable cosmic “war” ensued (the clash of the gods and the titans), during which earth, Venus, Mercury and possibly the Moon, exchanged thunderbolts of immense power.
I do not pretend to explain here the physics or celestial mechanics involved in such a scenario. Suffice to say, the evidence suggests that the electro-magnetic “pillar,” which had hitherto been visible from both the northern southern terrestrial poles, now disappeared; and humanity bewailed the final severing of the link between earth and heaven.
Before moving on, I would like to clarify one point. Osiris, a classic Dying God (like Mesopotamian Tammuz) is also associated with the above events. The “Saturnist” school of writers have further associated Osiris and Tammuz with the god Saturn/Kronos, and have suggested that all these events (especially the myth relating to the Pillar or Tower) took place long before events associated with Venus/Ishtar. But the link between the gods Osiris/Tammuz and the planet Saturn is spurious – a statement which I shall elaborate on towards the end of the present paper. The link between Osiris and the World Tree or Pillar (or phallus) is however very real, and is confirmed in two separate ways. Thus we are told that after his murder by Set (the cosmic serpent) Osiris’ body was washed ashore at Byblos, where it grew into the body of a great tree. This was the World Tree itself; the Cosmic Pillar or Tower, which stood at the Pole. (The Egyptians would have reached Byblos by sailing almost due north from the eastern end of the Nile Delta). Afterwards, Osiris’ wife Isis tried to reconstruct the body of her dead husband, but was unable to locate his penis. This “castration” of Osiris has an apparent parallel in the castration of Uranus (Ouranos) by Kronos. However, even a rudimentary examination of the story reveals that Osiris (a green vegetation god) is in fact an alter-ego of Geb, god of the earth, who is repeatedly portrayed lying flat on his back, with erect penis, ready to copulate with Nut, goddess of the sky. Osiris is simply the dead Geb, the god of the earth who, after losing his life-force (his erect penis, namely the Pillar or Tower) is reborn in the Underworld as the Lord of the Nether Regions.
Aside from the supposedly primeval account of how Kronos usurped the divine kingship by castrating his father Ouranos, there is in fact no reason to place the Osiris/Tammuz myth earlier than the Venus Flood. The linking of Kronos/Saturn to a castration myth was a late innovation which, as we shall see, had nothing whatever to do with events observed in the cosmos.
SEVEN-YEAR FAMINES AND COSMIC WARS
The stratigraphic record shows that another major Flood struck Mesopotamia towards the end of the Early Dynastic 1 period. This too, like the earlier Mesopotamian floods, would have been a world-wide event which would have impacted Egypt and the region of Syria/Palestine. If the previous disaster, which terminated the Jamdat Nasr epoch, is associated with the catastrophes reported in the Abraham legend, then this next event would have occurred right in the middle of the Patriarch epoch, and would most probably need to be synchronised with the great famine (of seven years) which brought the tribes of Israel into Egypt. As I have shown at some length elsewhere, this event can be fairly accurately dated to the beginning of the Egyptian Third Dynasty and there, from our point of view, to the middle of the tenth century BC. Joseph himself (of the long-sleeved coat) is identifiable with the famous Imhotep, greatest of all Egyptian seers and vizier to Djoser, second pharaoh of the Third Dynasty. Imhotep was later credited with designing the Step Pyramid at Sakkara, the first such structure to be raised in stone.
Various clues hint that the Second Dynasty ended catastrophically, and that Djoser, with the help of his wise vizier Imhotep helped restore order to the stricken land. Certainly the seven years’ famine was a central event in Egyptian history – if the surviving account is anything to go by. This suggests some form of change in religious belief: Imhotep advises Djoser to build temples to the god Khnum, whilst the raising of the stone Step Pyramid also speaks of a fundamental shift. The Hebrew account of these events paints a similar picture. So for example Genesis tells us that the ownership of the land changed hands (becoming the property of pharaoh) and Joseph himself became High Priest of On, by marrying the daughter of Potiphar). It should be noted too that Imhotep was also the High Priest of On.
Another clue comes in the story’s connection with the number seven. Seven of course was regarded as a sacred number because of the Seven Gods (ie. the seven planetary bodies visible to the ancients with the naked eye. These are still commemorated in the days of the week: Thus Monday (Day of the Moon); Tuesday (French Mardi – Day of Mars); Wednesday (French Mercredi – Day of Mercury); Thursday (French Jeudi – Day of Jupiter); Friday (French Vendredi – Day of Venus); Saturday (Day of Saturn), and Sunday (Day of the Sun).
It is perhaps impossible to reconstruct exactly what happened in the skies at this time. Accepting Velikovsky’s theory of cometary Venus, we cannot doubt that this body’s elliptical solar orbit made it a continual threat to all the planets of the inner solar system – hanging for centuries like a veritable Sword of Damocles above the heads of humanity. We know from the various mythologies that on different occasions Venus, as well as other planets, were involved in devastating cosmic ‘battles’, some of which were conducted far from the earth and had little impact upon humans, others of which took place in close proximity to our planet and had terrific consequences for its inhabitants. However, in view of the fact that the story of the seven years’ famine is connected with cows (in the Hebrew version) and the horned god Khnum (in the Egyptian version), is seems that on this occasion the catastrophe was the result of another direct encounter between Venus (the Divine Cow) and earth: Not of course as close an encounter as occurred in the fourteenth century, but close enough to cause devastation throughout the planet and uproot populations.
MOSES AND HERCULES
The final flood catastrophe recorded at Ur, that which terminated Early Dynastic 3a, is perhaps the most significant from a chronological point of view. In Worlds in Collision Velikovsky claimed that as the ancient civilizations moved towards the Iron Age, in the ninth and eighth centuries BC, the god and planet Mars assumed a new significance. He even described the eighth and seventh centuries as the Age of Mars. In the same place Velikovsky made it quite plain that the hero/demigod Hercules (Herakles), who figured very prominently in the legends and cults of this epoch, was none other than an alter-ego of Mars himself. He argued that sometime in the early eighth century the comet Venus again came on a collision course with the earth, but instead of clashing with our planet came into close contact with Mars, which diverted Venus away from us. A great cosmic battle, clearly observed by the earth’s inhabitants, ensued. Immensely powerful bolts of electricity passed between the two charged bodies. In this heavenly “war” (recorded in the Egyptian Pyramid texts as the contendings of Horus and Seth) Venus lost a great deal of its angular momentum and assumed a circular, planetary, solar orbit.
In effect, the comet became a planet and was removed as a threat to the earth.
Concomitant with its new and safe solar orbit the comet also lost its tail of gas and debris. To men it seemed as if the Great Serpent or Dragon had been “decapitated” and Velikovsky demonstrated how legends from throughout the planet commemorated the beheading of the Cosmic Dragon. Hercules/Mars, the diety responsible for this notable feat, became celebrated as the dragon-slaying hero, the divine champion whose task it was to rid the world of monsters and rescue victims destined for sacrifice to the dragon.
The “destruction” of the cosmic dragon was thus greeted with joy by the earth’s inhabitants and many great festivals (including apparently the Olympic Games) commemorated the event. To the peoples of the earth it appeared that a new World Age had been inaugurated, a new epoch that was to have an entirely new religion. Worship of the thoroughly amoral planetary deities was abandoned, along with the human sacrifice demanded by them. There was a movement towards limited forms of monotheism – a movement highlighted in the Egyptian Pyramid Texts (from the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties) and in the astonishingly high moral tone of much of the literature of the Fourth to Sixth Dynasties. This was a world-wide phenomenon, associated everywhere with prophetic utterances and new codes of conduct.
These new moral codes were typically formulated by Sage Kings who shared many of the characteristics of Hercules himself.
Elsewhere I have shown in detail how the Israelite Exodus needs to be linked to the catastrophic event which terminated the Egyptian Third Dynasty (and Early Dynastic 3a of Ur). In the same place I show how the natural occurrences which precipitated the Exodus are closely related to the Hercules story and the decapitation of the Cosmic Dragon. Moses himself, as well as other characters of the immediate post Exodus age such as Samson, is clearly identified with Hercules, and this was an identification Velikovsky missed or ignored because it called into serious question the timescale of events outlined in Worlds in Collision. Biblical chronology, we know, places the Exodus sometime in the fifteenth century BC. How then to explain the fact that story’s main character is so closely identified with the hero-god Hercules, whose name and deeds are unknown before the eighth or ninth century at the earliest? Velikovsky himself admits that the “entire story of the Exodus is connected with the Archangel Michael.” (Worlds in Collision, p. 281) Midrashic texts for example tell how Michael formed the pillar of fire which protected the Israelites from the pursuing Egyptians. Yet Michael is the classic dragon-slaying hero. He is associated too with the casting of Lucifer, (the “Bight One”, or Venus) out of heaven and down to the nether regions – a story actually emphasized by Velikovsky. His association with Hercules is thus beyond question. Nevertheless, in violation of his own method, Velikovsky insists here that Michael is an alter-ego of Venus. (Ibid.)
In Greek history the term Heroic Age is given to the epoch during which Hercules was active. This was an era during which gods and men were said to have interacted on an everyday basis. The hero par excellence of the time was Hercules himself; and indeed the word “hero” is said to be derived from his name. In archaeological terms the Heroic Age is equated with what has come to be known as the Mycenaean Age. As we have said, in literally scores of details this Heroic/Mycenaean Age is revealed to be contemporary with the Exodus/Judges Age of Israel, as well as – as I show in detail in my Pyramid Age – with the Pyramid Age of Egypt. I will not burden the reader with an exhaustive examination of this evidence, but a brief overview is necessary.
First and foremost, both Hercules and Moses have mysterious births and are designed by the deity for a special mission as saviours. Both inaugurate numerous new laws and religious customs. Thus almost all of the Jewish religion is attributed to Moses, whilst many or most of the customs and beliefs of the Greeks were attributed to Hercules. Both are enemies of human sacrifice and of the serpent deity: Thus Hercules strangles the two serpents sent to destroy him in his cradle, whilst Moses’ staff devours the two magical serpents of pharaoh’s magicians. Moses likewise “pushes apart” the waters at the Sea of Passage with his staff, whilst Hercules pushes apart the pillars at either side of the strait separating Europe from Africa, which henceforth bear his name. Both have mysterious ends, involving the ascent of a high mountain, Moses to Horeb and Hercules to Oeta.
The Hebrew hero Samson, coming at a slightly later period than Moses, displays even more obvious parallels with Hercules. We need only mention here his great physical strength, his killing of a ferocious lion with his bare hands, his ultimate betrayal by a woman, and his pushing apart the pillars of the Philistine temple.
Hebrew traditions about the Exodus even appear to have been incorporated into the body of Greek Heroic Age myths. Thus for example the Greek tale of the flight of the Danaids from Aegyptus (Egypt) seems to refer to the flight of the Israelite tribe of Dan during the escape from bondage. This is confirmed by the story’s close link with the legend of Cadmus, the hero accredited with introducing the Phoenician alphabet into Greece. In this tradition Agenor, the twin brother of Belus (father of Danaus and Aegyptus), was said to have left Egypt to settle in the land of Canaan. Shortly thereafter, Agenor’s daughter Europa was abducted by Zeus, whereupon he ordered his sons, who are named Cadmus, Thasus, Cilix, Phoenix and Phineus, to set out in search of her. And the occurrence of the name Phineus here provides a direct and unequivocal link with Hebrew tradition and with the Exodus: for Phineus is apparently one and the same as Phinehas, grandson of Moses’ brother Aaron, who slays the Israelite Zimri along with his Midianite bride in their tent. (Numbers 25: 6-15) In the Greek legend Phineus attacks Perseus along with his bride Andromeda, daughter of the king of Joppa (Jaffa), at their wedding-feast. (Ovid, Metamorphoses, v, 1-230) Again, in another tradition, the Greeks told how Phineus, who had been plagued by harpies, was rescued by two of the Argonauts, Calais and Zetes, who pursue the harpies through the air. (Argonautica ii, 178 ff.) This accords with a Jewish tradition about Phinehas, which tells how the flying swordsman Zaliah pursued Balaam through the air, on the orders of Phinehas. (Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews (1961) p. 508)
The story of the Danaids, as well as that of Agenor and Phineus, must have arrived in Greece through the same channels as the Phoenician alphabet. After their entry into Canann the Twelve Tribes were allocated separate territories. Dan’s portion was in the very north of the country – regions now comprising eastern Lebanon. It is known that they became closely associated with the Phoenician inhabitants of the nearby territories; and some of the Phoenician traders and settlers who brought the alphabet to Greece may well have been from the tribe of Dan.
It is important to remember here that the cycle of legends surrounding such evidently Hebrew personalities as Danaus, Cadmus and Phineus, were placed by the Greeks in the same epoch as Hercules; and the connection is proved beyond question when we remember that the abolition of human sacrifice is a central element in all the stories (witness Perseus’ prevention of Andromeda’s sacrifice and the Argonauts’ rescue of Phineus from the harpies). Indeed most of the deeds attributed to Hercules were also shared by the other great heroes of the age. Thus Hercules’ abolishment of human sacrifice is mimicked also by Theseus when he slays the bull-headed Minotaur in the Labyrinth. For this reason it should come as no surprise to find that not only Moses, but Samson, as well as various other Hebrew characters, share numerous characteristics with the divine hero of the age, Hercules, the character known in the Phoenician/Hebrew tongue as Melkarth and in the language of Syria as Samsum (Shamash).
Moving into the Age of the Conquest and the Judges, when the Israelites battled with the natives of Canaan to possess and hold the land, the parallels with the Greek Mycenaean Age become almost too numerous to mention. Again, this is a topic I have dealt with at length elsewhere and am unable to repeat all the arguments here. Suffice to say that the major military innovations of the period of the Conquest and Judges, namely chariots, bronze swords, the composite bow and body armour, are all equally well associated with the high point of the Mycenaean/Heroic Age.
So, Moses and his epoch belongs squarely in the Age of Mars, the period which saw the final series of catastrophes associated with the god Mars and with his alter-ego Hercules. Velikovsky dated this period in the eighth century BC, an opinion shared by the present writer. The fact that Moses is also, logically, placed alongside the Heroic/Mycenaean Age of Greece, has profound chronological implications. No one in the “revisionist” school, not even David Rohl or Peter James, would place the Heroic Age of Greece before the eighth or ninth century BC at the earliest. How then do they continue to justify placing the admittedly contemporary Hebrew Age of Conquest and Judges in the fourteenth to twelfth centuries BC?
CHRONOLOGY IN ANCIENT TIMES
The evidence then seems to suggest that human tradition knows nothing of events preceding the Venus cataclysm, the Great Flood, which we place in the fourteenth century BC, or thereabouts. The subsequent series of cosmic catastrophes which ended, just as Velikovsky believed, sometime in the eighth century BC, involved at some stage most of the planets of the inner solar system. The last series directly involved the planet Mars. It is possible, even probable, that after the final major flood catastrophe recorded at Ur, namely that which terminated Early Dynastic 3a – which we associate with the Exodus event – that there were further, lesser catastrophes directly precipitated by Mars. Certainly the story of Joshua as well as that of Atreus and those linked to the Trojan War hint at such. Velikovsky argued that after diverting proto-planet Venus away from Earth (the heroic deed of Hercules) Mars itself then posed a threat for a while, coming dangerously close to our planet every fifteen years. Certainly Mars (Ares) is described in ancient literature as a deity who delights in death and destruction. Homer calls him the “bane of mortals” and the “bloodstained stormer of walls.” Be that as it may, these Martian catastrophes were of much lesser violence than the earlier events precipitated by Venus; and they cannot have endured for a great length of time.
By the end of the Trojan War, which must be placed around 710 BC, all was calm.
Yet human beings had not lost an interest in the cosmos. On the contrary, the science of astronomy, previously the preserve of the priest-kings, was now taken up by philosophers; whilst out of the earlier worship of the planets there developed the occult semi-science of astrology – though at that time this was not differentiated from astronomy. But these developments did not follow a precisely parallels course in the New World, where, for varying reasons, the priest-kings continued to exercise a far greater sway over both religion and popular culture. One consequence of this was that here human sacrifice (usually to Venus, but occasionally also to Mars) continued to be practised on a grand scale. In Europe and the Near East however, as well as in the Far East, the end of cosmic catastrophes meant the end of the power of the priest-kings, with more and more of their knowledge and functions being usurped by the philosophers and astrologers.
In the Old World then astrology, as we have come to know it, developed out of the ancient religion of planet-worship. Influenced by the memory of the time when the planets exercised very real and often devastating power on the earth, the astrologers developed, as one of their fundamental principles, the idea that the planetary deities had their own particular personalities of characters. Thus Venus came to be seen as the goddess of love, Mars as the god of war. Extrapolating on the ancient traditions, all the visible bodies of the solar system were accorded a “personality.” Swift-moving Mercury came to be viewed as the messenger of the gods, as well as the promoter of learning and commerce, whilst Jupiter, the father of Athena/Hathor/Venus, came to be viewed as the epitome of fatherhood and paternal authority.
On the outer reaches of the solar system there was a planet, named Saturn, which had never been observed as involved in the cosmic upheavals so recently witnessed by men. Yet it was easy, by the now familiar method of extrapolation, to determine a personality value for this god too. Saturn, by virtue of his distance from the sun, seemed to move more slowly across the firmament than the other planets. Slow movement, among people, is one of the characteristics of old age. Hence Saturn too must be an old god. Perhaps this god, who took no part in the violent activities of the past centuries, was an old and venerable deity who had in an earlier time himself ruled the cosmos. Perhaps he had been usurped by Jupiter. This idea was suggested too by the fact that the Greek name for the deity, Kronos, sounded very much like Khronos, the word for Time.
Other traditions, mainly concerning the nature of the world before the Flood, seemed to confirm the connection. Thus it was believed by some that in the pre-Flood age the seasons did not exist and that people lived much longer than later. Could it be that this world had been ruled by Kronos/Saturn? The “facts” seemed to fit; and this came into tradition the notion of a “Saturnian Age,” a semi-mythical perfect age before the Deluge.
Now the final element in the Saturnian myth was put into place. Ancient societies were familiar with a myth about a god (Osiris/Tammuz), previously all-powerful, who had been murdered and castrated before being reborn as Lord of the Nether Regions. Perhaps Saturn too had been involved in a loss of his masculinity when he was usurped by Jupiter. This idea too was crafted onto Saturn’s myth (though in fact it was not Saturn, but his father Uranus, god of the sky, who was emasculated).
Looking then at the evidence of stratigraphy and its relationship to the cultures and religions as found in the different epochs, we have to conclude that ancient peoples had no knowledge of events in the cosmos before the Venus catastrophe. The idea of a “Saturnian” Flood is a blind alley first pursued by Velikovsky because of his uncritical acceptance of Bible-based chronology and because of his assumptions that all the myths found in classical literature were formed in the same way and referred to similar type events. Either it never occurred to him that astrology played a big part in the final formulation of the Old World mythologies, or this was rejected because of his adherence to biblical timescales.
To conclude then it seems that Velikovsky got it spectacularly right with regard to the events precipitated by Venus and Mars, as well as the other inner solar system bodies, but the Saturnian speculations are a road to nowhere. Our planet experienced many cataclysms before the Venus event of the fourteenth century BC, but of these ancient man was entirely ignorant.