new book by Gary A. David

My new book The Kivas of Heaven: Ancient Hopi Starlore is now available.
http://theorionzone.com/kivas_heaven.htm

The Gold Standard for First Nations Orion Research, November 23, 2010
By John Jay Harper "www.johnjayharper.com" (Spokane, WA United States)

This review is from: The Kivas of Heaven: Ancient Hopi Starlore (Paperback)
This is a masterpiece of scholarship and educated speculation on the Orion constellation of stars and the role they play in human evolution. Beyond a doubt, it is well-researched and written. I am reading it right now for pleasure but I want to revisit some of the chapters before I comment further on the technical proclamations. But let me be blunt: do yourself a favor, get this book for your city and home library. It is a treasure chest of previously unknown references and unseen connections to cosmology in general. Professor David is intellectually honest, humble in his musings and I consider this author's subject matter skill-level outstanding: akin to that of John Major Jenkins and Joseph John Campbell, for examples. I know you will enjoy this book immensely too: it is a genuine page-turner and one that you will savor for its stimulating contents and startling conclusions about our future beyond 2012. On a sidenote, I can only imagine First Nations teachers and their students will benefit greatly from reviewing this work as well.

Epsilon Eridani: the Zalos?

Giorgio Santillana and Hertha Von Dechend in their classic book Hamlet's Mill describe a "whirlpool in the sky" near the constellation Eridanus (or Eridani).

“That there is a whirlpool in the sky is well known; it is most probably the essential one, and it is precisely placed. It is a group of stars so named (zalos) at the foot of Orion, close to Rigel (beta Orionis, Rigel being the Arabic word for ‘foot’), the degree of which was called ‘death,’ according to Hermes Trismegistos, whereas the Maori claim outright that Rigel marked the way to Hades (Castor indicating the primordial homeland). Antiochus the astrologer enumerates the whirl among the stars as Taurus. Franz Boll takes sharp exception to the adequacy of his description, but he concludes that the zalos must, indeed, be Eridanus ‘which flows from the foot of Orion.’” (Giorgio Santillana and Hertha Von Dechend, Hamlet’s Mill: An Essay Investigating the Origins of Human Knowledge and Its Transmission Through Myth (Boston: David R. Godine, Publisher, Inc., 1998, 1969), p. 210)

The whirlpool is an icon used in cultures around the world to signify an interdimensional portal, the transition between worlds, or a gateway between one reality and another. It is the doorway through which the shaman begins his or her ecstatic quest from the physical to the spiritual plane.

Recent news focuses on a particular star in Eridanus.

More Epsilon Eridani

"In the lore of Star Trek, the planet Vulcan orbits the nearby star Epsilon Eridani. And in fact, the star really does have planets. Logically, though, we probably won't find any Vulcans there, because the system is too young for the development of such advanced lifeforms.

"Epsilon Eridani is just 10 light-years away. It's a little smaller, cooler, and less massive than the Sun -- not bad specs if you're looking for a good home for life. But it's only about a fifth of the Sun's age, so there probably hasn't been enough time for complex life to have developed.

"The ingredients are there, though. About a decade ago, astronomers at McDonald Observatory discovered a planet orbiting the star. It's half again as massive as Jupiter, the giant of our own solar system. If it's like Jupiter, it's a big ball of gas with no solid surface -- not an inviting home for life.

"But the planet may come close to the distance where temperatures are right for liquid water. So if the planet has big moons, they could be more comfortable places for life to develop.

"At least one other planet orbits the star. So do two asteroid belts. The position of one of the belts hints at a third planet. And there's a broad disk of comets beyond the planets -- possible sources of water and the chemistry of life.

"So while we probably won't find an advanced civilization there, Epsilon Eridani might be a good place for future starships to visit."
http://stardate.org/
Script by Damond Benningfield, Copyright 2008

Many examples of the painted spiral exist in ancestral puebloan pottery from the American Southwest, and the carved spiral also is found in rock art. In particular, the whirlpool or double-spiral motif represents the "gate of Masau's house." Masau'u is the Hopi god of death, the underworld, fire, and the earth plane.



As you can see, this artistic rendition of the ancient Hopi god looks very much like modern depictions of a Grey alien. As my book The Orion Zone argues, Masau'u is the terrestrial equivalent of Orion, ritually the most important constellation in Hopi cosmology. Eridanus, also called the River, starts at the left foot of Orion.

Scientists have discovered planets revolving around a star just 10 light-years away, a star not unlike our sun in size and temperature. This suggests that the ancients somehow obtained knowledge that this region of the sky, this "whirlpool in the sky," may harbor life.

Epsilon Eridanus is relatively young. Perhaps intelligent entities migrated to this hospitable planet from elsewhere in the cosmos. Then, using SOL (speed-of-light) technology, they traveled over to our Earth, looking very much like the grey creature of the Hopi named Mausau'u, the god of the underworld. It should be stated that in many cultures the subterranean realm of the underworld, or Hades, also includes the celestial realm of stars and planets.

Mothman, 14th century New Mexico, and the hallucinogen Datura

The Mothman Prophecies (book and subsequent movie) introduced us to a bizarre creature that terrorized the small town of Point Pleasant, West Virginia in the late 60s. Surprisingly, a similar entity haunted a 14th century pueblo that the ancestral Hopi, Zuni, and Acoma built upon a flat-topped pyramid in New Mexico. Stranger still, archaeologists have found evidence there of a cult involving a hallucinogenic plant called Datura (jimsonweed). Read the details and see ancient murals depicting the crypto-zoomorph in Gary A. David’s article “The Mothman, Pottery Mound, and the Sacred Datura.”

Neo-Barbarians at Nabta Playa, Egypt

The Oldest and Most Important Astronomical Site in the World Vandalized: Neo-Barbarians at Nabta Playa, Egypt

About one hundred miles west of Aswan in the Sahara Desert lay an archaeological site called Nabta Playa. Only ten to eleven feet in diameter, this megalithic calendar circle has a north/south line-of-sight as well as a summer solstice sunrise alignment. According to former NASA physicist Thomas G. Brophy, Ph.D., three stones inside the circle mirror the pattern of Orion’s belt at the meridian for this season during the period 6400 to 4900 B.C. Three other interior stones represent the shoulders and head of the constellation for the astoundingly early date of 16,500 B.C.

Another set of megaliths south of the circle align to the vernal equinox heliacal rising in 6300 B.C. of six of key stars of Orion: Alnitak, Alnilam, Mintaka (the belt), Betelgeuse, Bellatrix (the shoulders), and Meissa (the head). This vernal equinox heliacal rising happens only once per precessional cycle (25,920 years).

Even more astonishing is the fact that some of these megaliths are arranged proportionally to correspond to the physical distance from Earth of each of the aforementioned stars except Meissa. In addition, other megaliths in this group are arranged proportionally to correspond to the same stars’ radial velocity, or the speeds at which these stars are moving away from us.

“The companion megaliths in each distance alignment match corresponding megaliths in each velocity alignment in such a way as to fit the physics of orbital motion, and thus probably represent actual companion objects to the six primary stars. Meaning: The designers of the megaliths had a basic understanding of physics, and knowledge of astronomy that rivaled or surpassed ours today.” [Thomas G. Brophy, Ph.D., The Origin Map: Discovery of a Prehistoric, Megalithic Astrophysical Map and Sculpture of the Universe, Writers Club Press/iUniverse, New York/Lincoln, Nebraska, 2002, p. 104]

Compounding the complexity of this astrophysical map, a sculpture carved into the bedrock has been found buried beneath the surface sediment. This sculpture accurately depicts the Milky Way Galaxy, showing the relationship between our Sun and the vernal equinox heliacal rising of the Galactic Center circa 17,400 B.C. Given the astronomical encoding of this site, Nabta Playa’s homage to Orion reveals an understanding of the cosmos that shatters our traditional notions of the ancient world.

Considering the site’s astounding data that do not seem to fit any traditional paradigm of a “primitive” culture, it was heartbreaking to learn about the recent vandalism of such an important archaeological treasure. Robert Bauval posted the following on April 23, 2008 at the Graham Hancock Message Board:

“Thomas Brophy has just returned from a visit to Napta Playa. Yesterday in Cairo we compared photographs of the 'Calendar Circle' taken by myself in November 2007 and by Thomas Brophy a few days ago. We were shocked at the apparent 'vandalisation' of the site (see photo).



"Brophy had visited the site also back in 2003 and took extensive photography. During his visit last week he noted that some of the most beautifully worked stone in the Calendar Circle were missing, and that many of the standing stones had been knocked down, moved around and even broken. Also Brophy noted that a carved megalith at Complex Structure A was also missing. Evidence of a recent encampment --in the form of rubbish-- was found nearby (see photo). It would also seem that some of the beautifully worked grinding blocks and stones were also missing.




"In all occasions that either Brophy or myself had visited the site (10/2003,11/2007 and 4/2008), we were both extremely surprised that the area was totally unsupervised and that absolutely no security was in place, not even a panel informing visitors that this was an important prehistoric site still under study and asking them not to touch or remove any of the stones. Considering that Napta Playa was discovered in 1974 and, since 1998, has been declared the oldest and thus most important astronomical site in the world, this total lack of supervision and/or security is, to say the least, deplorable.

"Thomas Brophy and myself will be reporting this grave matter to the Egyptian authorities in the hope that they will take the long-overdue action that is needed to safeguard the site. To place a security officer at Napta Playa would only cost a few hundred dollars per month. We really cannot comprehend why such an important prehistoric site has been, and still is, left totally unattended and thus at the mercy of any vandals. Its proximity to Abu Simbel (100 km) makes Napta Playa extremely vulnerable to such vandalism and souvenir seekers.”

www.grahamhancock.com/phorum/read.php?f=1&i=240359&t=240359

Because of its current damaged state, we probably will never learn who constructed Nabta Playa, much less how such knowledge in prehistoric times was programmed into its megaliths. Sic transit gloria aborigine.

The Lost Tomb of Walmart

The Lost Tomb of Jesus

The Lost Tomb of Walmart

Walmart of the Rocks, Prescott, Arizona

Another Orion Correlation in Arizona?

The Tohono O'odham (formerly known as the Papago tribe) consider Baboquivari Peak near the Mexican border as the navel of the world, the place where the people emerged from a subterranean existence. Their creator god I'itoi lives in a cave just below the summit.

This mountain is actually the central one in a triad of peaks. Boboquivari (elevation 7740 ft.) is in the middle, while to the north lies Kitt Peak (6875 ft.), upon which an astronomical observatory is built. http://www.noao.edu/kpno/ At the southern end of the range is Caponera Peak (4885 ft.).

My article "The Great Pyramids of Arizona" http://www.farshores.org/a07gpa.htm describes at similar triad of mountains nearly 238 miles to the north. Humphreys Peak, the highest mountain in Arizona, is flanked by the slightly lower Agassiz Peak and the still lower Fremont Peak. Surprisingly, Humphreys and Baboquivari are on an exact north/south meridian.

Baboquivari: 111.60 longitude
Humphreys: 111.68 longitude

In the article I mention that the northern sacred mountains are the winter home of the Hopi kachinas, or spirit messengers. These three mountains mirror the three Hopi Mesas where this tribe has lived for over a thousands years. In turn both the tripartite mountains and the tripartite mesas reflect the belt stars of Orion. http://www.theorionzone.com/

In the O'odham language Baboquivari is known as Waw Kiwulik, meaning "narrow about the middle." Maybe it is merely a coincidence that the figure of the Orion constellation is also "narrow at the middle." Or considering all the other Orion lore in Arizona, maybe not.

Is Aztlan in Utah?

Belgian paleographer Antoon Leon Vollemaere thinks so. After reviewing a number of Aztec documents and doing onsite research, he surmizes that the "mythical" home of the Aztecs before they headed south to found a civilization in the Valley of Mexico was a lonely mesa near the juncture of the Colorado and San Juan rivers in southern Utah.

"After 3 years of study and investigations, we located in May 1991 (Vollemaere 1991d 'De mythe van Aztlán...' in Flemish) the three mythical places:

• Aztlán, 'Land of the Herons', ancient homeland of the Azteca Mexica, must be situated in the region of Lake Powell (Colorado River and San Juan River, Utah), at least on Wilson Mesa and Grey Mesa, but probably over a larger area;


• the beautiful and interesting White House cliff dwelling of Canyon de Chelly (Arizona) was certainly the historic (Teo)Colhuacan, the second mythical town of the Aztec migration; it was the 'residence of the ancestors (Colhua), or 'residence of the hill bending forward';


• the Gila Cliff Dwellings (New Mexico) were one of the several Chicomoztoc's (Seven Caves or Seven Canyons), the third most important town of the Aztec migration to Central Mexico." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicomoztoc

Here is the the migration path of the tribes.

One of the tribes that migrated south were the CUILLAHUACA, or "the Ancestral People." He believes this group stayed north in Arizona and became the Moki, another name for Hopi. There is a Moki Canyon in Utah north of the San Juan where a number of ruins have been found.

"As we see, the tribe glyph (ethnonym) represents water, running first over a square surface, and then finally falling down. This clearly indicates a waterfall, a cataract, or a rapid. Therefore we must call this Aztec tribe more correctly People of the Rapids. If they are called Colhua, it should be better to designate them by the name of Acolhua, or Water (Atl)Colhua, an Aztec tribe who came later to the region of Texcoco in the Valley of Mexico.... Therefore we may suppose that the Cuillahuaca (Acolhua / Hopi), lived in the region of the rapids from the confluence of the Green and Colorado rivers in the north to Moqui [Moki] Canyon (north of Hall's Crossing) in the south. In that region there are found many Anasazi ruins, potsherds, and petroglyphs. The Mesa Verde and Kayenta potsherds belong to the period 1000-1300. In this period falls the first migration (1064) of the Aztec tribes to the south."

Vollemaere believes that the event that precipitated the migration may have been the 1064 eruption of the volcano north of Flagstaff, Arizona now known as Sunset Crater.

The above photo from the Cline Library archives at NAU shows pictographs (rock paintings) of shaman figures in Moki Canyon. http://www6.nau.edu/library/scadb/recdisplay.cfm?control_num=12156

Read more at Vollemare's website: http://users.skynet.be/fa039055/aztlnkat.htm