Site Section Links

Introduction Material
Articles
The Third Story
Features

Cosmology, Origins
The Nature of Time
Nature of Time video
The Nature of Space
The Neutrino Aether
Nature of Force Fields

Geophysical Material
Origin of Modern Geology
Niagara Falls Issues
Climate Change Model
Climate Change Questions

Philosophy Material
Philosophy Links

Reconstruction &
Mythology Material
Modern Mythology Material
Language/Symbol Development
1994 Velikovsky Symposium
Horus Journals TOC
Kronos Journals TOC
Pensee Journals TOC
Velikovskian Journals TOC
Selected Velikovskian Article

Miscellaneous Material
Modern Mythology
State of Religious Diversity
PDF Download Files
Open letter to science editors

HORUS VOL I. Issue 1

The Pentagram of Venus
by William J. Douglas

Since Venus is in inner planet, it passes between the Sun and the Earth each time it overtakes the latter. An inferior conjunction occurs when Venus is on a straight line between the Sun and the Earth. And the time between two successive inferior conjunctions is 584 days (to the nearest integer), which is called the synodic period. Using a 365-day year (as did the Mayans and Egyptians), five circlings of Venus is very nearly equal to eight Earth years, since 5 x 584 = 8 x 365 = 2920 days. Venus is not visible at the time conjunctions occur, but her first appearance as a Morning Star (heliacal rising) occurs within a few days after inferior conjunction, indicating completion of a synodic period.

The eight-year period defined by five synodic revolutions of Venus is the basis for the eight-year (and later, four-year) festivals of Mexico, Greece, and Egypt. The eight-year period is divided into two four-year periods by the superior conjunctions, that is, when Venus passes behind the Sun.

Using the integer values given above, each inferior conjunction would occur 144 degrees from the previous one, the fifth one coinciding with the starting point. Starting with the first conjunction just within Sagittarius, the following ones occur in Leo, Pisces, Libra, Taurus, and then back to the starting point in Sagittarius. These points, when joined by straight lines in sequence, form a pentagram, as shown by the solid lines in Figure 1. When today's actual sidereal values we used (583.92 and 365.256) successive conjunctions are separated by 144.48 degrees, the fifth being 2.4 degrees from the starting point, as shown by the dotted lines in Figure 1: each successive period of eight years forms another pentagram rotated 2.4 degrees. The pentagram was the secret symbol of the Pythagoreans, and provides a basis for linking Egyptian, Greek, and Babylonian mythology and astronomy.

Conjunctions of other planets also define geometric figures, such as the Trigon of Great Conjunctions or Jupiter and Saturn (Figure 2).

[*!* Image: Figure 1 - Pentagramma Veneris]

[*!* Image: Figure 2 - The Trigon of Great Conjunctions]

In round numbers, the conjunctions occur every 20 years, a Trigon (triangle) is formed in 60 years, and it takes 2400 years for a complete rotation. The Trigon will be considered in a future issue.

Even long before the Greeks, observation of the planets was primarily concerned with the stationary points where their retrograde loops reversed, and with their heliacal risings and settings. According to an ancient observational rule, the latter stood in constant intervals of time relative to the station points. Thus they considered the planets as moving from one point to another, rather than as one continuous movement as we do today. For Venus, the pentagram summarizes her first appearance as a Morning Star around the zodiac.

Five Belongs To Venus

For the Pythagoreans, numbers were points having position, and were represented with dots. The numbers one, two, three, and four comprised the Tetraktys, which in turn relate to the geometric concepts of a point, a straight line, a triangle, and a solid. The Tetraktys, upon which the Pythagorean number theory was based, could be impressed in wet clay using the tips of one, two, three or four fingers. And the imprint of the fingers and the thumb spread in a circle, when joined in the same fashion as for the five heliacal risings of Venus, form an asymmetrical pentagram, which resembles the secret recognition symbol used by the Pythagoreans.

[*!* Image: The Tetraktys]

The Pentagram was given the name "Health" by Pythagoras, each point being one of the five Greek letters involved. Tracing the earliest records of the pentagram to ancient Mesopotamia, H. E. Stapleton suggests that "Health" implied bodily existence in peaceful relationship with the unseen controller of human fife, and that the pentagram may have been originally regarded as the hand of some Deity. Looking for parallels in Mesoamerica we find that an open hand (Mayan hieroglyph T713a) with prefix T24 and suffix T181 (Figure 3) occurs throughout the pages of the Dresden Codex as a verb which relates the object god to Venus, who is the actor or initiator of action. T713a itself depicts a hand (in human terms) indicating offering or giving, in contrast with the hand of a deity a suggested by Stapleton.

[*!* Image: Figure 3 - The Venus Verb Glyph]

Five was also associated with Venus in the sphere of twelve pentagons" -the dodecahedron, the fifth of the regular solids (Figure 4). Each face also represents a pentagram, which can be inscribed by drawing fines between alternating vertices. But the dodecahedron is the symbol for Aphrodite Urania (Ourania), the Starry Mantle, the Framework of the Whole, Parmenides' Daemon Lady who steers the Heavens. And the Starry Mantle is Ishtar/Innin, who is Venus.*

[*!* Image: Figure 4 - The Dodecahedron, and a Pentagon with an inscribed Pentagram]

These heliacal risings of the Morning Star, this point of light, shifting position by itself, causing the pentagram to flash forth in the order of time, was the physical image-one that had been known and worshipped for ages.

The Eight Year Festivals

The Venus Pentagram was first discovered in modern times by M. Knapp, who supposed that the Sothic period pertained to Venus, rather than to Sirius. Taking as his model the famous Keplerian time diagram of the successive conjunctions of Jupiter and Saturn, he tried the same with Venus-and got a pentagram, but his discovery was ignored by the historians of Astronomy. It was rediscovered in 1963 by 0. Hinze and G. de Santillana when the latter was investigating "the insistent recurrence of the eight-year cycles in so many inscriptions and seal cylinders of civilizations East and West". This cycle was the eight solar years of the five synodic revolutions of Venus, which is confirmed by the eight-pointed star on countless Mesopotamian seal cylinders, borderstones, etc., which every time means Ishtar/Venus.

In his comparison of the Ptolemaic and Copernican systems, Wm. Stahlman mentions Ptolemy's use of the fact "that Venus makes five complete cycles of anomaly in about eight Egyptian years." He notes that although the eight year period for Venus is well attested from many sources in antiquity, including usage in a completely different context in Babylonian astronomy, little is known about its origin.

The eight-year period is also the basis of the oktaeteris, which was introduced into Greece by Eudoxus. It was a lunar-solar calendar since there are 99 lunar synodic months of 29.53 days in eight years (in round figures), the oktaeteris was used extensively until it was superseded by the 19 year Metonic cycle.

Looking for parallels in Mesoamerica, we find that one pass through the Venus table of the Mayan Dresden Codex covers a period of eight solar years or five synodic revolutions of Venus. The table is repeated thirteen times to fit the 260-day augural calendar to the synodic revolutions of Venus. We find in the Mayan codices Glyph T510b, which is known as the Star Glyph, and is used in the Dresden Codex with the prefix "Great", designating Venus as the "Great-Star". T510b itself is not infrequently taken to mean Venus wherever it appears (Figure 5).

[*!* Image: Figure 5 - The Great Star Glyph]

But the eight-pointed star was not used in Egypt for Venus. De Santillana informs us that the Egyptians, laying the accent on the five, have been even more 'Venus minded'; the five revolutions are hers, after all, she draws the pentagram". They used a five pointed star '[*!* Image: 5-pointed star],' as a determinative in words for time measurements and the names of constellations and stars. (A determinative is a sign used to differentiate between words with the same spelling, which happens frequently when the only alphabetic signs are consonants.) Especially interesting is the Egyptian [*!* Image: heiroglyph Spdt] their rendition of Sothis. (Spdt is the transliteration of Egyptian consonants into the English alphabet.)

The Golden Section

Each leg of the pentagram is divided by the intersecting leg according to the Golden Section; the ratio of the larger segment to the smaller is equal to the ratio of the whole to

the larger. This proportion, also known as 0 (the Greek letter phi), was considered by Plato in his Timaeus to be the key to the physics of the cosmos. The value of 0 is an irrational number; it cannot be expressed as the ratio of two integers. But an increasingly accurate approximation to it can be obtained by the additive series:

1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, ....

in which each term is the sum of the preceding two. Dividing any number in the series by the preceding one gives an approximate value for 0. Accuracy improves as the series is extended (Figure 6), converging onto the correct value of 1.6180. . . This series is known as the Fibonacci series. Leonardo Fibonacci learned of it during his travels in Egypt, and introduced it to Europe. It was known and used in Old Kingdom times, as indicated by the frequent use of 0 in the proportions and measurements of Egyptian architecture, such as the Temple of Luxor, and the Great Pyramid of Cheops.

The above series is of interest here, since during the eight years required for five synodic revolutions, Venus makes thirteen revolutions around the Sun-and the numbers 5, 8, and 13 are successive terms in the series. The Venus/Earth orbital ratio of 13/8 = 1.625, which is fairly close to today's actual value of 1.6255. The Babylonian Ninsianna tablets imply that Venus made 313 revolutions around the Sun for 193 by the Earth. The resulting orbital ratio is 313/193 1.62176, which falls halfway between today's value and 0.

The full significance of the Pentagram and the additive series based on the Tetraktys can best be demonstrated by the famous Pythagorean Theorem, which states that the diagonal of a right triangle is equal to the square root of the sum of the squares of the two sides. This was known to be true in antiquity for selected numbers, such as 3, 4, and 5, but a general solution awaited the Pythagoreans, who showed that in many cages exact solutions for the hypotenuse could be expressed as the ratio of two integers. But they proved that there were exceptions, such as the diagonal of a square, which they called irrationals. (Note that the term "irrational" originated in this context.) Having discovered this flaw in numbers through a geometric problem, they developed geometric algebra, which eliminated the difficulty with irrationals, thus laying the foundation for Greek mathematics.

Rooted in the Tetraktys, the series leads to the pentagram, a geometric construction of the Golden Section, and a rational approximation to it. Could any symbol be more appropriate than the pentagram for those who discovered the irrational and how to cope with it?

The series applies to Venus due to the phenomenon of orbital resonance. The asteroid Toro is in 5:8 resonance with the Earth's orbit. One asteroid is in 3:1, and three are in 2:1 resonance with Jupiter. Saturn is in 2:5 near resonance with Jupiter, producing the rotating triangle shown in Figure 2. Other resonances have probably existed in the past. Resonances frequently involve the above series, since small integers are favored.

Ancient Astronomical Data

Figure 6 shows a comparison of the orbital ratio of Venus and Earth with successive approximations to 0. The Fibonacci series is shown across the top. Horizontal dashed lines between each pair of the series are placed vertically according to the decimal value of their ratio. Note how successive approximations swing above and below 0, but closer each time.

[*!* Image: Figure 6 - Decimal Values of Approximation to 0.

The dashed lines show the decimal values (vertical scale) derived from their number pairs indicated by the ends (horizontal scale). The first entry, 8/5 = 1.6, gives 0 accurate to one decimal place. Note that successive approximation swing above and below 0, converging onto it. LABELS: FIBONACCI SERIES. Current (1.62552) Dresden Codex (1.6250). Artificial Insertion (1.622222) Ninsianna Tablets (1.62176).]

Along the right side are listed the decimal values of the Venus/Earth orbital ratio from various sources. The top pair of values corresponds to the fixed and rotating pentagrams of Figure 1. The fixed pentagram relates to Mayan astronomical data, since the Venus Tables in the Dresden Codex give 584 days for Venus' synodic period, and their calendar system used a 365-day year.

Halfway between the top pair and the actual value of 0 appears the value for the Ninsianna tablets mentioned above. With a minor adjustment, the 313/193 ratio simplifies to 73/45, which are members of another additive series starting with I and 5:

1, 5, 6, 11, 17, 28, 45, 73. . . .

This case corresponds to 28 synods in 45 Earth years with 73 revolutions of Venus, successive conjunctions being separated by 141.43 degrees. In this case the "pentagram" rotates 12.86 degrees every fifth conjunction, returning to the starting point at the 28th synod, providing a fixed reference framework for the Ninsianna data like the Dresden Codex pentagram does for modern data (Figure 7). The 28 points invite comparison with the lunar zodiac and the lunar sidereal period of 27.32 days. Since the moon was observed relative to the stellar background in those times, this suggests that they may have linked the Venusian and Lunar calendars. And granting that the 56 (2 x 28) Aubrey holes at the Stonehenge represented the zodiac, we can envision a stone every 22nd hole to mark the conjunctions of Venus.

[*!* Image: Figure 7 - The Artificial Insertion]

The Venus/Earth orbital ratio of 73/45 1.622222... Since 365/225 gives exactly the same value, we use the synodic equation to compute the corresponding synodic period.

1/225 - 1/365 = 1/586.6

which is 586.6 days, whereas observational data from Section I of the Ninsianna Tablets gives 586.64 days, and the Artificial insertion gives 587 days. So far, this is not remarkable, since Rose and Vaughan [KRONOS V:4 1980] have shown that the Artificial Insertion could have been derived from a version of Section 1; a close agreement is expected. What is peculiar, though, is the coincidence that when the nearest integer values for the orbital periods of Venus and Earth today are used in the synodic equation, we get the same value for the synodic period as in the Ninsianna tablets.

However, it is tempting to speculate whether the Babylonians understood the synodic equation, and were observing orbital periods, rather than the synodic period, which varies considerably, even today. This possibility is suggested by later Babylonian mathematics, which used tables of reciprocals, and was concerned with various types of means, including the harmonic mean, which bears a striking resemblance to the synodic equation.

In considering the above, the reader should keep in mind that using the nearest integer number of days does not necessarily indicate sloppiness, since observational data is based on a day count.

The sequence of 13, 21, 34 from the original series is of interest, even though there is no supporting data for such a sequence. It would correspond to 13 synods in 21 Earth years with 34 revolutions of Venus. The orbital ratio is 34/21 = 1.6190, which is very close to 0. It forms a figure with 13 points (Figure 8) separated by 360/13 = 27.69 degrees. The fact that 13 and 28 apply to Figures 7 and 8 with the role of separation and number of points interchanged emphasizes the interdependence of cycles of 13 and 28 in calendar systems which include lunar cycles.

If we divided the circle into 364 days rather than 360 degrees, the interrelationship between 13 and 28 would apply exactly. There is provision for a 364-day computing year in the Mayan Dresden Codex, which is especially concerned with Venus and the Moon, and Alban Wall has shown evidence that the Stonehenge was used as a Lunar/Solar calendar with a 364 day counter. Considering that the Chinese once divided the circle into 365 1/4 equal parts, and that Vedic astronomy in India measured time rather than angles, the 364 part division of the circle does not seem out of order.

Conclusions

Is there significance in aft this for our own times? On the one hand, the cross-cultural quantitative evidence suggests great antiquity for knowledge of the value of 0, the Golden Section, and the related Fibonacci series. Further, these seem to have been incorporated in both astral-religious symbolism and the calendric systems associated with Venus observations. These relationships form part of a comparative quantitative platform for astronomical research. Their inclusion in prominent mythico-religious art aids objective study in this field as well.

Most of all, perhaps, it calls attention to the sophistication exercised by ancient civilizations in their respective systems of astronomy and mensuration. These practices were simultaneously motivated by the belief that the visible astronomical bodies, their positional and temporal cycles, and the seeming verities in numbers and geometry were expressions of the divine. We better appreciate, therefore, the care with which the specialists of antiquity tracked the celestial paths of their gods, studied the relationships between their measured cycles, and sought to integrate these with their achievement in quantification.

We are also the more nonplused by the strange discrepancies between ancient observations and those expected from the present order of nature. Unless we negate the evidence for the inferred precision of their methods and records, the case for a nonuniformitarian interpretation of natural history takes on a renewed credibility.

[*!* Image: Figure 8 - The Golden Section]

*These names for the Queen of Heaven we set forth by Giorgio de Santillana ("Prologue to Parmenides", Reflections on Men and Ideas, 1968, pp. 86, 108-116) where he shows that Five is Venus.

 home       features       science/philosophy       wholesale store        policies        contact
Mikamar Publishing, 16871 SE 80th Pl,  Portland  OR  97267       503-974-9665