SIRIUSM.htm file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/Administrator/My%20Documents/emule/Incoming/SIRIUS_Mystery_Dogon_Robert_KG_Temple/SIRIUSM.htm (1 of 349)22/03/2005 01:32:09 SIRIUSM.htm ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My first thanks must go to my wife, Olivia, who has been an excellent proof- reader and collater and who made the greatest number of helpful suggestions concerning the manuscript. Two friends who read the book at an early stage and took extreme pains to be helpful, and devoted much of their time to writing out or explaining to me at length their lists of specific suggestions, are Adrian Berry of the London Telegraph, and Michael Scott of Tangier. The latter gave meticulous attention to details which few people would trouble to do with another's work. This book would never have been written without the material concerning the Dogon having been brought to my attention by Arthur M. Young of Philadelphia. He has helped and encouraged my efforts to get to the bottom of the mystery for years, and supplied me with invaluable materials, including the typescript of an English translation of Le Renard Pale by the anthropologists Griaule and Dieterlen, which enabled me to bring my survey up to date. Without the stimulus and early encouragement of Arthur C. Clarke of Ceylon, this book might not have found the motive force to carry it through many dreary years of research. My agent, Miss Anne McDermid, has been a model critic and adviser at all stages. Her enthusiasm and energy are matched only by her penetrating intuition and her skill at negotiation. Others who have read all or part of this book and who made helpful suggestions of some kind are Professor W. H. McCrea of the Department of Astronomy, University of Sussex, John Moore of Robinson & Watkins, Brendan O'Regan of the Stanford Research Institute, Edward Bakewell of St Louis, and Anthony Michaelis of the Weizmann Institute Foundation. file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/Administrator/My%20Documents/emule/Incoming/SIRIUS_Mystery_Dogon_Robert_KG_Temple/SIRIUSM.htm (2 of 349)22/03/2005 01:32:09 SIRIUSM.htm I am indebted to Adrian and Marina Berry for bringing me into touch with A. Costa, and to A. Costa for generously supplying his splendid photographs of the Dogon, some of which appear in this book, and also for his introduction to Mme Germaine Dieterlen. I am indebted to Mme Dieterlen for giving her permission and the permission of the Societe des Africainistes of Paris (of which she is Secretary-General) to publish in English the entire article 'Un Systeme Soudanais de Sirius', which Mme Dieterlen wrote in collaboration with the late Marcel Griaule. Among those whom I have consulted on specific points in my research and who have been extremely helpful are Geoffrey Watkins, Brigadier R. G. S. Bidwell, O.B.E., the Hon. Robin Baring, James Serpell, Seton Gordon, Herbert Brown, and Robert and Pauline Matarasso. I am also indebted for help or encouragement of varying kinds to Fred Clarke, Professor Cyrus Gordon, Robert Graves, Kathleen Raine, William Gunston, Professor D. M. Lang, Professor Charles Burney, Professor O. R. Gurney, Dr Irving Lindenblad, Dr Paul Murdin, Hilton Ambler, Gillian Hughes, Carol MacArthur, R. Markham, Richard Robinson, Dr Michael Barraclough, and Angela Earll. In production of this book my British editor, Mrs Jan Widdows, and viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS my American editor, Thomas Dunne, have been cooperative, helpful, and sympathetic. The cartographer Daniel Kitts has cheerfully prepared maps and diagrams to requirements which were often exasperating. Miss Mary Walsh showed ingenuity in picture research. Stephen du Sautoy has also been helpful and shown a great deal of imagination in connection with production of the British dust-jacket design, allowing the author a considerable say in a matter which is often barred to him. I would like to acknowledge indirect debts to the African priests Manda, Innekouzou, Yebene, and Ongnonlou, without whom the subject for this book could not honestly be said to exist, since it probably could never have been formulated. Two early pioneers deserve especial mention: the late Sir Norman Lockyer, who found ways to consider together the previously separate fields of astronomy and archaeology, and the late Thomas Taylor of London, who devoted his life to the translation and exposition of texts which have survived the centuries of malignity, abuse, book burnings, and slaughter which for two millennia have been the fate of those who adhered to 'the Great Tradition' - nor did Taylor himself escape the consequences of his position in pain and suffering. Thanks are also due to the philosopher Proclus for making public certain specific allusions to secret traditions which he might have concealed. r. K. G. t. file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/Administrator/My%20Documents/emule/Incoming/SIRIUS_Mystery_Dogon_Robert_KG_Temple/SIRIUSM.htm (3 of 349)22/03/2005 01:32:09 SIRIUSM.htm Acknowledgements Author's Note What is the Mystery? CONTENTS page xi TO THE READER I PART ONE The Sirius Question is posed 1 The Knowledge of the Dogon ii A Sudanese Sirius System by M. Griaule and G. Dieterlen 35 PART TWO The Sirius Question is rephrased 2 A Fairytale 55 3 The Sacred Fifty 82 4 The Hounds of Hell 101 5 The Oracle Centres l2l 6 Origins of the Dogon 153 7 The Rising of 'Serpent's Tooth' 175 8 A Fable PART THREE Beyond the Mystery APPENDICES file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/Administrator/My%20Documents/emule/Incoming/SIRIUS_Mystery_Dogon_Robert_KG_Temple/SIRIUSM.htm (4 of 349)22/03/2005 01:32:09 SIRIUSM.htm I The Moons of the Planets, the Planets around Stars, and Revolutions and Rotations of Bodies in Space - Described by the Neoplatonic Philosopher Proclus 223 II The Surviving Fragments of Berossus, in English Translation 24.8 III Why Sixty Years? 258 IV The Meaning of the E at Delphi 265 V Why the Hittites were at Hebron in Palestine 268 VI The Dogon Stages of Initiation 273 Bibliography Index 283 AUTHOR'S NOTE Summaries follow each chapter in Part Two. The sheer amount of the material dealt with makes it advisable for the reader to put it into a smooth perspective by reading over these summaries which have been prepared so that the reader may refresh his memory if he wishes. The author can offer no apology for the complexity of the material, but he can present these slight aids for its comprehension. Every effort has been made to trace the ownership of all illustrative material reproduced in this book. Should any error or omission in acknowledgement have been made the author offers his apologies and will make the necessary correction in future editions. What is the Mystery? The question which this book poses is: Has Earth in the past been visited by intelligent beings from the region of the star Sirius ? When I began writing this book in earnest in 1967, the entire question was framed in terms of an African tribe named the Dogon, who live in Mali in the former French Sudan. The Dogon were in possession of information concerning the system of the star Sirius which was so incredible that I felt impelled to research the material. The results, in 1974, seven years later, are that I have been able to show that the information which the Dogon possess is really more file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/Administrator/My%20Documents/emule/Incoming/SIRIUS_Mystery_Dogon_Robert_KG_Temple/SIRIUSM.htm (5 of 349)22/03/2005 01:32:09 SIRIUSM.htm than five thousand years old and was possessed by the ancient Egyptians in the pre-dynastic times before 3200 B.C., from which people I show that the Dogon are partially descended culturally, and probably physically as well. What I have done, therefore, is to push back by over five thousand years the terms of reference of the original question, so that it now becomes more tantalizing than ever. But now that I have done that, it becomes less easy to answer. The Dogon preserve a tradition of what seems to have been an extra- terrestrial contact. It is more satisfactory not to have to presume the preposterous notion that intelligent beings from outer space landed in Africa, imparted specific information to a West African tribe, then returned to space and left the rest of the world alone. Such a theory never really struck me as possible. But in the beginning it did have to serve as a working hypothesis. After all, I had no idea that the Dogon could have preserved ancient Egyptian religious mysteries in their culture. I also had no idea that the ancient Egyptians knew anything about Sirius. I was in that state of ignorance so common among people who know nothing more about ancient Egypt than that the Egyptians built pyramids, left mummies, had a Pharaoh named Tutankhamen, and wrote in hieroglyphs. My own academic background concerned oriental studies, but I never touched on Egypt except regarding the Islamic period after a.d. 600. I knew almost nothing whatsoever about ancient Egypt. If I had, perhaps I might have saved myself a lot of time. It took many, many months for two or three small clues to work themselves around in my head long enough to force me to study ancient Egypt and a whole range of subjects which I had never previously tackled. I doubt if, even then, I could have been persuaded to spend considerable sums of money such as the necessary fifty pounds for the essential and out-of-print Wallis Budge Egyptian Hieroglyphic Dictionary, which consists of 1,356 pages and cannot even be lifted off the table by a ten-year-old child. But as fate would have it, I was 2 THE SIRIUS MYSTERY actually given one of these huge dictionaries, along with many other essential books on the subjects with which I needed to become concerned.