I did some "just for the kick of it" browsing and saw this web page.
http://xfacts.com/x4.htm
It shows a bit of something as to what the Sumerians had that the current belief on Planet X came from.

The way the two pages presented the information, it provoked me to wonder if there might be some basis for what the Sumerians recorded. For instance, maybe it was actually a comet that came very close to Earth that the people saw. Maybe some natural disasters occured at about the same time as the appearance of this comet. Then, as things would have it, the historic rememberances turned to legend and then legend to myth (as Tolkein [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] sord-of put it), so that the story we have now is not the story that actually happened, but somewhere in the account is something that was true at one time. Think it is possible?

(And I probably just made a lightning rod out of myself again, but, hey, it's things like that which make this Board so lively.)

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<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: nebularain on 2002-08-20 23:33 ]</font>

Oops!

These in turn, rest on a chain of twenty-four smaller globes. It is only a coincidence that the number of all the "moons" or satellites, of the planets in our solar system (astronomers exclude those of ten miles or less in diameter) is also exactly twenty-four?

Don't know 'bout this "exclude those of ten miles or less in diameter" statement, but including those over 10 miles in diameter gives 56.

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Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by ignorance or stupidity.
Isaac Asimov

The orbit diagram on page 2 is labelled wrong. It's not perigee and apogee, it's perihelion and aphelion.

Not much of a case here. It looks like nothing but a bunch of far-fetched interpretations of ancient artwork to me.

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...And that, my liege, is how we know the Earth to be banana-shaped. --Sir Bedevere

OK, I'm not saying anything about the interpretations of the texts. I'm still trying to figure out the eleven-planets-of our-solar-system thing (nine if you still count Pluto as a planet, ten if you include the moon, so what is 11?). I also wonder why in the first picture, what are being called the planets of our solar system, some are plain circles and the others are circles with "rays" coming out of them or something like that.

I'm just wondering if the stuff written or drawn down originally had some basis behind it that we could explain, but because the people back then did not have the tools and knowledge of modern science, they got things all wrong.

Let's say a decently sized asteroid encountered the Earth and landed in the Atlantic Ocean, creating a tsunami. How would the ancients explain the event (keep in mind that they could see the asteroid on approach to a point but not it's encounter with the atmosphere or the ocean)?

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"As I lay beneath the Southern Cross, the stars tell more than I could" . . . David Meece

Uh, nebularain, it's a Planet X site. You know, the tenth planet?

According to http://xfacts.com/x1.htm, the sun is #1 ... Luna (moon) is #5 ... Pluto is #11, and Nibiru is #12.

Which would indicate an astrological basis (sun and moon are "planets") rather than astronomical.

Why include the sun at all? Why include the moon when it isn't a planet but a satellite? Some satellites are as large as or larger than the moon, so why exclude them? Why exclude Charon, which is also part of a "double-planet" system?

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Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by ignorance or stupidity.
Isaac Asimov

The web site I linked above says that Planet X is the 12th planet.
Ya trying to confuse me?

****************************

Thanks for the clarification, Jim!

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"As I lay beneath the Southern Cross, the stars tell more than I could" . . . David Meece

[quote]
On 2002-08-21 22:48, nebularain wrote:
Naw, you're doing fine. That website says Planet X is the 12th member of our solar system, including the Sun, moon, and the usual nine planets. I think they know what they're doing.

What I find amazing is that the 5000 year old Sumerian culture had knowledge of astronomy that's, well, pretty accurate for a culture that didn't even have telescopes.

They could actually see Neptune and Pluto? (I'll give them Uranus since it is visible to someone with good eyesight in a dark location.) Man, human eyesight must have really gone down in the last 5000 years. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]

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I was thinking the same thing. Must be all the light pollution. It was said that back in those days, you could discern the double-star Mizar and it's partner by naked eye. And these were arabs in the desert, with tons of radiational cooling going on each night.

However, I noticed immediately the same pattern... some are circles, some are circles with rays coming out of them. That seems to indicate a visual difference.

You have 6 circles. Mercury, Venus, Moon, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, would be my 1st guess. The Sun is prominent, and stands out in the sketches out, so that's pretty obvious.

OR You might interpret this in geocentrist terms, then the thing in the headress is Earth. But that doesn't seem as likely.

There are 5 rayed-circles. This could indicate further out planets, whicn would be smaller and visually appear more as stars. Or, could signify certain specific stars that always stayed in the sky, like Polaris. According to star chart software for the timeframe (4500B.C.) using today's date, you have several reference stars that would have burned quite bright and been there every night, including: Capella, Arcturus, Polaris, Spica, and Betelgeuse. So they could reference those.

Need more glyphs, but it's all very speculative from this evidence alone.

DJ

I wouldn't have a good career as an interpretive archaeologist. I think cave paintings, rather than depicting religious rituals, are more of the "oooh, Ugh draw pretty picture!" variety.

Likewise, interpreting symbology from ancient Sumeria is trying to get inside the minds of people who may very well have thought. "Hey, Sennecharbub! Pretty design for the tomb wall! We'll use it, it's much better than Bubbachadnezzar's idiotic 11th planet design!"

I can split Mizar and Alcor with some difficulty from my house, with 4th magnitude skies, and easily from a darker site an hour north of me.

Now, if they could split Mizar itself, that would be a trick! The separation is about 14 arcseconds, 1/4 of the eye's resolution.

Yes, and not only that, the companion is 1 1/2 mag. dimmer. Is the legend that Mizar itself can be split with the naked eye?

I think the idea is simply splitting Mizar and Alcor, which isn't all that hard to do, really. I can't do it without my glasses on, but with them it's easy.

Isn't the original definition of 'planet' something along the lines of 'wanderer'? If so, then couldn't the ancients have used planet for something that we don't consider a planet today? Sort of like Pluto, which as I understand, is only listed as planet because of tradition?

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"We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary." - James D. Nicoll

nebularain on 2002-08-20 23:33 ]</font>
[/quote]

Isn't the original definition of 'planet' something along the lines of 'wanderer'? If so, then couldn't the ancients have used planet for something that we don't consider a planet today? Sort of like Pluto, which as I understand, is only listed as planet because of tradition?


[/quote]

That doesn't quite work in this case. Even if you could count Pluto, it's still not visible to the naked eye.

But, if I'm not mistaken, there are some asteroids that are sometimes visible to the naked eye (someone please correct me if I'm wrong). Still, asteroids are nowhere near the size of planets, even Pluto is twice as large as the largest asteroid belt member (Ceres).

Man, I hope I'm not boosting that wacky prediction.

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Isn't the fact that they don't visit us proof that intelligent life is out there?

The Confused Philosopher - RCAF

Planet X will arrive 9 months after the ocean surrenders one of its giant creatures near the Iberian peninsular...

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp..._nm/squid_dc_1

Run away...!!!!! [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_wink.gif[/img]

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"I just like to say Quark a lot. Quark,quark,quark,quark."

On a more serious point - why do all these 'predictions' always seem to occur in May? Y'know, arrival of PX, syzygy etc..? What's so special about May (apart from my wife's birthday)?

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"I just like to say Quark a lot. Quark,quark,quark,quark."

Actually, the thought had occured to me also. Maybe the doomsday people don't like the May flowers that are brought by April showers?

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Isn't the fact that they don't visit us proof that intelligent life is out there?

The Confused Philosopher - RCAF

I don't recall any off hand. Asteroids are much bigger than meteors, but the larger ones mostly have orbits beyond Mars. The NEAs found so far are much smaller and dimmer.

OTOH, this link claims that a lot of binary asteroids appear to have been formed near to Earth--within a few radii! I think we could have seen those!

Vesta is the brightest, and can reach magnitude 6 or so, I believe. I have seen it easily in binoculars from light polluted skies. From a dark site that's naked eye brightness.

Because I was born in May, of course.

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Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.