Read Who Built the Moon? Online
Authors: Christopher Knight,Alan Butler
Who Built the Moon? (27 page)
Figure 20
In this example the eye on the right looks past a small sphere to a much larger sphere. The size of the spheres and the distance between them is such that because of the perspective to the viewer the small sphere will exactly cover the large sphere.
Figure 21
Now the small sphere is even smaller, but is at the same distance from the eye of the observer. Under these circumstances the eye will also see part of the larger sphere. Finally, if we keep the spheres the same as in the last example, but move the smaller one nearer to the eye of the observer we once again create a situation in which the small sphere appears to exactly cover the large one.
Figure 22
The sphere of the Sun is almost exactly 400 times larger than that of the Moon. This in itself might be considered nothing more than a strange but meaningless coincidence but we must stretch coincidence almost to breaking point when we realize that when the Moon is as close to the Earth as its orbit will bring it, it stands at 1/400th the distance between the Earth and the Sun. Under these circumstances when it stands precisely between the observer and the Sun, the Moon ‘must’ exactly cover the disc of the Sun – it is a simple matter of perspective.
In the case of total eclipses we really are living in a tiny snapshot of the history of the Earth and the Moon. The Moon was very much closer to Earth at the beginning of the relationship, and by the time the two reach a situation of perfect stasis the Moon will be 1.6 times further away from the Earth than it presently is. If we estimate the Moon to be 4 billion years in age and then accept the most common assessment that it will reach its furthest position from the Earth in 15 billion years (excluding the fact that the Sun will most certainly have gobbled up both Earth and Moon by then) the sum total of the Moon’s journey from closest to furthest from the Earth is 19 billion years. The Moon is a finite size, as to all intents and purposes is the Sun. There can only be a very short window of opportunity during which the disc of the Moon can cover that of the Sun, as seen from Earth, in the truly perfect way that it does right now. That it has done so just at the time we have evolved into a sophisticated enough species to recognize and study the fact seems almost incredible. It doesn’t matter how much experts say ‘It’s just one of those things’, it is still an example of one of the most unlikely coincidences imaginable.
It stands to reason that if the Moon were any larger or smaller than it is, total solar eclipses would not be possible at this time. A smaller Moon would have brought such phenomena in the very distant past, when the Moon was much closer to the Earth than it is now.
This brings us to a discussion of the dimensions of the Moon. In comparison with the size of its host planet the Moon is huge. Its circumference would only fit into that of the Earth 3.66 times. Another of the terrestrial type planets, Mars, has two moons, but they are tiny when set against Earth’s Moon, which in terms of size might reasonably be termed a planetoid. Even bearing in mind the vast size of the planetary super-giants, with their proliferation of moons, Earth’s Moon is still the fifth largest in the whole solar system.
A close examination of Moon rock, brought back by both American astronauts and Soviet unmanned missions, shows that they are very similar to specific rocks on the Earth. Analysis of the rocks proves that they were created at the same distance from the Sun, so there is no longer any real doubt that the Earth and the Moon have a common origin. Yet there is something very strange about the Moon that isn’t easy to explain. Although it is 1/3
rd
as big as the Earth it has only 1/81
st
of the Earth’s mass.
Had the Moon been composed of a representative sample of ‘all’ Earth’s rocks and still been the size it is, it would have been much more massive. Conversely, if the Moon had exactly the same composition as the Earth and had exerted the gravitational pull it presently does, it would have been very much smaller in size.
These facts are discussed in greater detail elsewhere, but it is the weird composition of the Moon, which is comprised of very light, Earth-type rocks, that means it can be large enough to create a total solar eclipse and yet not rip the surface of the Earth to pieces with its gravitational pull every time it passes overhead.
In a Universe filled with incredible wonders, and one so big that it might as well be infinite as far as we are concerned, we are certain to stumble across what looks to us like outrageous coincidences. Even conservative astronomers admit that total eclipses are very unlikely but still maintain such happenings must be a random chance event. We beg to differ!
The World From a Barley Seed
The previous work we had undertaken for our book
Civilization One
had featured a number of ancient measuring systems. None of these surprised us more than that created by the Sumerians, a culture that originated in what is presently known as Iraq at about the same time as the Megalithic culture was flourishing in Britain and France. Our ongoing work for the present book made us look again at some aspects of the Sumerian measuring system. It could be that yet another part of the message left to us, indicating a deliberate intervention into the origin and progress of humanity, is encapsulated within the methods the Sumerians used to measure their world.
Out of a plethora of different linear lengths, weights and measures, it was possible for us to reconstruct the entire Sumerian system as we are sure it was originally meant to be. We have demonstrated how the Sumerians used a pendulum and the planet Venus in order to establish the basic unit of linear length, which was known as the double kush. Existent statues of the Sumerian King Gudea demonstrate that the double kush was intended to measure 99.88cm. Units of volume and weight were derived from the double kush by creating a cube with sides of 1/10
th
of a double kush. The amount of pure water held by such a cube represented the
sila
, which was the Sumerian unit for measuring volume. The weight of this water was known as the
mana
or
mina
and was the Sumerian unit for measuring mass. How we untangled all of this from the Sumerian records is explained in detail in our book
Civilization One
.
47
There seemed to be no doubt that the double kush had indeed been created by way of a pendulum and observations of the planet Venus but it was not the only way the Sumerian system could be recreated. Everything in the system also relied on the size, shape and weight of a humble barley seed.
To the Sumerians a barley seed was known as a
se
. Until our own investigations, many experts had believed that the use of the barley seed by the Sumerians for measuring purposes was probably an abstraction. It was generally considered that the Sumerians might originally have used such seeds (as was the case in ancient western Europe), but that as in the case of Europe the seeds ultimately came to be words representing sizes and weights that no longer related to barley seeds at all.
The Sumerians claimed that 360 barley seeds was the measure of the double kush, something that experts on the Sumerian culture actively deny or at best have totally ignored.
Our extensive investigations showed conclusively why this state of affairs had come about. Experts had undoubtedly assumed that if the Sumerians had used barley seeds as tiny units of length, they must have laid the seeds end to end. It is likely to be for this reason that it is now generally considered that the seeds themselves eventually lost all contact with units of measure, because when they are laid end to end they make no sense at all. However, we discovered that if the seeds were laid on their sides and front to back (as they may have been carefully strung on a necklace) they conformed absolutely to the Sumerian system.
We then went on to demonstrate, by practical experiment, that the Sumerians had also been quite correct in their estimation of the ‘weight’ of an average barley seed and we were staggered to discover that even modern barley seeds have almost exactly the same dimensions and weight as their Sumerian counterparts.
It has been possible to show that in terms of mass measurement the whole Sumerian system was irrevocably and seemingly quite deliberately tied to the overall mass of the Earth itself. We appreciate that this sounds absolutely absurd for such an early culture but when one sees the figures involved, there is no doubt about it.
According to Sumerian texts it was considered that there were 10,800 barley seeds to the unit of weight known as the ‘mana’. The weight of water held in the double mana, assuming a double kush of 99.88cm and a cube with sides of 1/10
th
of this, would have been 996.4 grams.
The mass of the Earth is held to be 5.976 x 10
24
kg. If we divide this by .9964 in order to establish how many double mana there are to the mass of the Earth, we arrive at 5.99759 x 10
24
double mana. This number is so close to 6 x 10
24
(99.99per cent) that this must surely have been the number intended. Since there are 10.800 barley seeds to the mana and therefore 21,600 to the double mana it is possible to show that the mass of the Earth is equal to that of 1.296 x 10
29
barley seeds. This might not seem to be a particularly impressive number but it has some very important properties.
If we were to segment the Earth, as we might an orange, we would discover that each 1/360
th
segment of the Earth has a mass equal to 3.6 x 10
26
barley seeds. A further split of sixty brings us to 6 x 10
24
barley seeds and yet another split of sixty results in 1 x 10
23
barley seeds, which can be expressed fully as 100,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000.
The starting point of this exercise was an Earth mass of 6 x 10
24
double mana for the mass of the Earth, which would have been highly significant in Sumerian terms since there’s was a sexagesimal (sixty base) system.
For all the reasons explained in
Civilization One
, we cannot accept that this state of affairs is a coincidence. What we have with the Sumerian system is a fully integrated way of measuring length, volume, mass, area and time, using the same number bases in each case. The whole system can be constructed from a pendulum set by the movements of Venus across one degree of arc of the horizon or else from the bottom up with nothing more complicated than barley seeds.
The real question has to be whether or not the Sumerians themselves could have possibly known just how incredible their measuring systems were? We are left with the impression that the system would have been very useful in the marketplace and on the farm in order to ensure equity of measurement throughout Sumerian society but that it is highly unlikely that the Sumerian Priests could have known the dimensions of the Earth, let alone its mass. It is most likely that both concepts would have been absolutely alien to them.
This appears to be yet another example of direct and deliberate intervention into the development of humanity. In other words, as their own mythology demonstrates, someone ‘taught’ the Sumerians about weights and measures and told them the numbers to use. By so doing they supplied the Sumerians with one of the hallmarks of true civilization, namely an integrated and replicable measuring system. At the same time, the use of the barley seeds added to a significant series of messages about these events in prehistory that were intended for our consumption. Since it seems unlikely that a cereal grain as widespread and useful as barley could, by chance, behave in the way that it does in terms of its size and weight, it seems very likely to us that the crop was genetically engineered. It was used by the Sumerians for bread but also brewed into a beer that was drunk for many centuries across the whole of civilization.
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