Continuing Worlds in Collision....

..Our planet rotates from west to east. Has it always done so?

In this rotation from west to east, the sun is seen to rise in the east and set in the west. Was the east the primeval and only place of the sunrise?

There is testimony from all parts of the world that the side which is now turned toward the evening once faced the morning.

In the second book of his history; Herodotus relates his conversations with Egyptian priests on his visit to Egypt some time during the second half of the fifth century before the present era. Concluding the history of their people, the priests told him that the period following their first king covered three hundred and forty one generations; and Herodotus calculated that, three generations being equal to a century, the whole period was over eleven thousand years. The priests asserted that within historical ages and since Egypt became a kingdom; "four times in this period (so they told me) the sun rose contrary to his wont; twice he rose where he now sets; and twice he set where he now rises." 1

This passage has been the subject of exhaustive commentaries, the authors of which tried to invent every possible explanation of the phenomenon, but failed to consider the meaning which was plainly stated by the priests of Egypt, and their efforts through the centuries have remained fruitless.

The famous chronologist of the sixteenth century, Joseph Scaliger, weighed the question whether the Sothis period, or time reckoning by years of 365 days which, when compared with the Julian calendar, accumulated an error of a full year in 1,461 years, was hinted at by this passage in Herodotus, and remarked: "Sed hoc non fuerit occasum et orientem mutare" (No reversal of sunrise and sunset takes place in a Sothis period).2

Did the words of the priests to Herodotus refer to the slow change in the direction of the terrestrial axis during a period of approximately 25,800 years, which is brought about by its spinning or by the slow movement of the equinoctial points of the terrestrial orbit (precession of the equinoxes)? So thought Alexander von Humboldt of "the famous passage of the second book of Herodotus which so strained the sagacity of the commentators." 3 But this also is a violation of the meaning of the words of the priests, for during the period of spinning, orient and occident do not exchange places.

One may doubt the trustworthiness of the priests' statements, or of Egyptian tradition in general, or attack Herodotus for ignorance of the natural sciences,4 but there is no way to reconcile the passage with present-day natural science. It remains "a very remarkable passage of Herodotus that has become the despair of commentators." 5

Pomponius Mela, a Latin author of the first century, wrote: "The Egyptians pride themselves on being the most ancient people in the world. In their authentic annals • • • one may read that since they have been in existence, the course of the stars has changed direction four times, and that the sun has set twice in the part of the sky where it rises today." 6 https://exploringrealhistory.blogspot.com/2021/04/part-4-worlds-in-collisioneast-and.html