The Unveiling of the Anno Domini Swindle
Precession, Seven-Day Week and Yearly Count

Consideration of the precession, its early traces in mankind’s history, its discovery, the search for its velocity and its influence, together with the planetary seven-day-week, on the adjustment of the yearly counting.

Abstract

Contrary to the usual assumption, the Christian yearly count, established in Sixth Century under the pretext to create new Easter tables was not linked with Christ’s birth, but with the supposed date of Christ’s incarnation (conception). In veracity, however, astronomical, astrological and teleological concepts of late antiquity were the base. The dogma of the resurrection of the dead, and the duration of the world in analogy to the seven-day-week were the belief-concepts that should be brought in harmony and dated by the astronomical knowledge of that time. Astronomy's main contribution was information about the planetary periods and precession, with which Dionysius Exiguus tried to calculate the time of the eternal return and the end of the age. Early cultural witnesses show traces of precession, particularly the shift of constellations on the corner points of the seasonal year and of the change of polar stars, which occurred because of the gyroscopic movement (wobble) of Earth's axis. The knowledge of precession mostly has been incorporated into religions and suppressed. Though the ancient conclusions of precession, the seven-day-week, and the yearly count in our modern worldview are astrological, mythical, and superstitious, now, as then, they define the calculation of time. Some only recently discovered documents give a hint to the astrological connections and the effective mechanism.

Content

1. Introduction
2.1. The Precession of the Equinoxes
2.2. The Discovery of Precession
2.3. Values of Precession Before Hipparchos
2.4. Babylonian Star Lore and Astronomy. The Decans
2.5. The medieval “oriental” value of precession of 66.6 years per 1°
2.5.1. The 1000-year-period as Motif for Release of Political and Religious Movements in Islam
2.5.2. The Apocalyptic Number 666. The Duration of the Precession Each Decan in Years
3.1. The Pythagoreans
3.2. Cycle of Rebirth and Resurrection
3.4. Pythagorean Number Theory. Tetraktys
3.5. St. Augustine
3.6. Playing with Numbers
3.7. Coding of Knowledge
4.1. The Large Year. Annus Magnus. The Common Multiple of the Periods of Celestial Bodies
4.1.2. Kali Yuga and The Deluge
4.2. The Turning Year. Annus Vertens. Tying the Large Year to Precession
4.3. Calendrical Periods
4.3.1. The Grand Trine of Jupiter and Saturn and the Venus-Pentagraph
4.3.2. The Metonic Cycle
4.3.3. The Pythagorean Triangle of the Return
4.3.4. The Flight of the Phoenix
5.1. The Christian Bible-based Chronologies of Time
5.2. Creation of the World Eras and Seven-Day Week
5.3. The Threat of the Seventh Day
5.4. The Adjustment of AD by Dionysius Exiguus
5.5. Some More Modern AM Chronologies
6. Review and Conclusion
Abbreviations
Footnotes
Bibliography

1. Introduction

Probably the best-kept secret of the Occident is the background of the creation of the yearly counting of the Gregorian calendar.

The following investigation will show that the yearly count of the Gregorian calendar rests on a basis that one usually and rightly calls sectarian, esoteric, astrological, mythological, religious and superstitious, because it is far from scientific reality as we define and understand it. It seems paradoxical that personal data and official documents are infected with a severe religious and superstitious “date virus”. If the Millennium bug - a data problem of year numbers - was a simple cold, by comparison, the Christian yearly count is SARS, or better - because of a problem of disinformation - Schizophrenia.

The reason for this disinformation, the rejection by large populations of this kind of information, is not only because people are unaware of the laws of natural science, but most of them are influenced by Bible-based, or fundamentalist, Christian religions. A Gallup opinion survey of June 1993 showed that 47% of US citizens believed that God created man in the form and shape man has now, just as the creation report in Genesis tells. Footnote: Gallup, George Jr. 1993. The Gallup Poll: Public Opinion 1993.Wilmington. Delaware.

A more detailed Gallup survey of 1982 gave similar results, except that even the majority of high school dropouts equated the Biblical creation with the origin of mankind.
Footnote: Gallup, George H. 1982. The Gallup Poll: Public Opinion 1982. Wilmington. Delaware).

All spatial, temporal, physical, chemical etc. units of measure, like meter, second, kilogram, ampere, Kelvin, mol, etc., changed rapidly in modern times in definition, as well as in value, to bring them into closer harmony with new understanding. This was necessary because the discrepancies between their historical values and meaning became too large over time as a result of modern technology and new discoveries. Technological development – such as the invention of telescopes in astronomy – was accompanied by a change in our view of the world. Only the yearly count, now come up in the third year of a new millennium, survived undamaged through the technological and scientific revolution of the last centuries. Not the natural environment, weather, personal mood or celestial events determine the rhythm of our lives, but an organization of time, that was created by religion and influenced by superstitions.

Even clerics admit this calendar does not agree with the report of the magis in the Gospel of Matthew and say that it is in disharmony with the first Christian chronologies. Meantime, with its associated Gregorian calendar, this time system steers the economic lives of the greater part of mankind. It does not matter how we count the years; we have to have some system, is often used to argue in defense of this count.

If you compare the yearly count with a natural unit like the meter, the difference becomes evident.

On March 26, 1791, the French National Convention established the meter as the legal unit of length and defined it as the ten millionth part of a meridian of Earth between the North pole and the equator. The prototype of the meter, since 1795, has been the metre provisoire; since 1799, the metre vrai definitif. Both are sticks of platinum in the exact measurement. The latter later was called metre des archives . But soon it was realized that the body of Earth is not stiff, but malleable, and the assumption that defining the meter by Earth’s body created an eternal, unchanging measurement was debunked. Thus since 1889, the most exact copies (etalons) were created of the archived meter so the different countries and communities could calibrate their measurements. Finally, in 1985, the length of the meter was redefined by the distance that light moves in vacuum during 1/299,792,458 second. Thus the meter now is defined as a natural constant and anybody who wants to define it exactly can derive it from nature. Similarly, the duration of a second in time is defined by the vibration of a Cesium atom.

The year is not defined by a natural event, a celestial occurrence, or a true historical event, but by a mysterious event that is not defined clearly in calendrical and/or astronomical units.

For an open democratic society, there is the problem that the years, respectively by the leap day rule, also the calendrical days, were designated arbitrarily by the “holy church”, and these cannot be derived or calibrated from a specific event or point of history.

Analyzing the Gregorian calendar, we find it is necessary to investigate its different components separately:

* The division of the year into the twelve months
This was essentially introduced by Julius Caesar at the suggestion of the Alexandrian Egyptian Sosigenes. The fifth and sixth month, counted from March at the vernal equinox originally were called Quintilius and Sextilius. These were renamed in honour of the emperors Julius Caesar and Augustus as July and August.
* The seven-day week
The week originates from Babylonia and was not used in the Roman Empire’s Julian calendar. The derivation and separation of the weekdays from the planets will be explained later more precisely (chapter 5.1.)
* The lengths of the year and the leap rule.
The number of days in a year is defined by the leap rule. In the Julian calendar, every four years a leap day is inserted, or intercalated. This fourth-yearly leap rule is valid also in the current Gregorian calendar except for century-years, which are not divisable by 400.
Footnote:
Wolfgang Trapp: Kleines Handbuch der Maße Zahlen und Gewichte und der Zeitrechnung. Reclam, Stuttgart 1992.
* Moonrelated days.
The moon-related days are derived from the adjustment of Easter, the rule for which was adopted at the council of Nicea in 325. Easter was adjusted to take place on the Sunday after the first full moon that takes place after March 21st. It was attempted to set the date by leap rule, and the Gregorian reform of 1583 again established the date on the astronomical vernal equinox as was decided by the council of Nicea.
Footnote:
Wolfgang Trapp: Kleines Handbuch der Maße Zahlen und Gewichte und der Zeitrechnung. Reclam, Stuttgart 1992.
* The yearly count.
The definition of this yearly counting is attributed to the Scythian monk Dionysius Exiguus, who in the first half of the Sixth Century lived and worked in Rome. He called the yearly counting anni ab incarnatione domini nostri Iesu Christi, or years from the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Footnote http://hermes.ulaval.ca/%7Esitrau/calgreg/denys.html

During the invention of this yearly counting, briefly, anno domini (AD), or common era (CE), a special role was played by the equinoctial precession, the seven-day week, and the planetary periods.

2.1. The Precession of the Equinoxes

Equinoctial Precession refers to the progression of the equinoxes in relation to the constellations of the zodiac. Conversely, one could call this relative movement the shift of the constellations in relation to the equinoxes and solstices, which are the seasonal corner points of the year.

Precession is the result of a third movement of Earth – in addition to the rotation of Earth around its axis and its orbit around the sun -- which is called the gyration of the Earth’s axis.

Since the Earth – with its oblique standing axis – rotates during its orbit around the sun, it has become a rotating ellipsoid (more exactly, a geoid), which has at its equator some 43 km more diameter than at the poles. This equatorial bulge of the diagonally standing earth is affected by the attraction of the moon, the sun and the planets, the effect of which is to pull the earth into a more vertical position. The earth “wants to escape” this pull, which results in the gyration of the earth, similar to a child’s spinning toy gyroscope.

See some webpages of the precession:
http://earth.usc.edu/~geol150/variability/orbitalchanges.html
http://www.astro.oma.be/D1/EARTH_ROT/info.html
http://cse.ssl.berkeley.edu/lessons/indiv/beth/beth_intro.html

The Earth’s axis describes thereby a double opposing cone in the period of approximately 25,800 years, or the Platonic year.

The entire cone described thereby has about 1380 waves due to the nutation of the moon, in which the plane of the Moon's orbit wobbles with respect to the ecliptic with a period of 18.6 years. This causes Earth to nod, a waving motion that is superimposed on the equinoctial precession.

The speed of precession is usually indicated in modern time by its hundred-year or ten-year value. The value given by IAU (International Astronomical Union) in 1976 amounted to 50.290966 arcsec/y in Epoch 2000, measured 1976 with Julian years. (Astronomical Almanac, pp. B19 and K6; Lang 1992, p. 12). http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/physics/PrecessionoftheEquinoxes.html
Calculated with tropical year lenght the vernal equinox shifts against the fixed stars 50.289588 arcsec/y.

With more precise measurements the value is corrected continually to highest exactness, which is however not necessary for our purpose. To define the annual precession in 50.29 arcsec is exactly enough.
Therefore, the spring equinox progresses in 71.59 years for one degree of ecliptical longitude.

Because of the wavelike structure of the cone and because of trepidation, the somewhat varying speed of the precession, it is not possible to give an absolute value for the duration of the Platonic year. Since the precession circle does not close completely, rather like cycles in a kind of spiral, due to a tiny temporal change in the obliquity of Earth’s axis (from 24.24 degree in 10,000 years ago to 23.44 degree now), it is only meaningful to indicate an approximate value for the Platonic year, i.e. 25,770 +/-100 years.

In addition to the shift of the constellations in relation to the seasons, precession also has the effect of changing the polar stars. Currently, Phoenice, alpha Ursae minoris, the tail of the Lesser Bear, or the end of the little dipper’s handle, is the Northern polar star.

About 5,800 years ago Thuban, or alpha Draconis, main star of the constellation Draco, held the function of polar star. In approximately 12,000 years, however, the Northern axis of the Earth will point to the star Vega in the constellation Lyra, which then will be the Northern polar star.

The southern axis will point toward Canopus in the constellation Carina, the only bright polar star ever in this function in Southern skies.

Image: The cycle of precession on Northern celestial hemisphere.

Due to Earth's gyration, a change takes place in its axis' spatial placement in relation to the fixed stars. That means the celestial equator, which is a virtual projection of the Earth’s equator upon the sky, changes its position; therefore, the intersection of the celestial equator and the ecliptic -- the equinoxes – also shift. Slowly, slowly, one zodiacal constellation after another moves backward during the course of the Platonic year (against the usual direction of the Sun’s yearly course) through the equinoxes and solstices.

To learn about early traces left by precession in the myths of different cultures, “Hamlet’s Mill: An Essay on Myth and Frame of Time” by Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend is highly recommended. This author’s German book, “STERNSTUNDE 2000. Der Countdown zum Jüngsten Tag, deals with similar matters.
http://www.calendersign.com/en/books/sternstunde2000/

2.2. The Discovery of Precession

The term “precession” originated from Hipparchos, about 150 BCE, as reported by the astronomer Claudius Ptolemaios (Ptolemy) from Alexandria, Egypt. Hipparchos lived in that city of Minor Asia known as Nicaea (Nikaia), where, almost 500 years later in 325 CE, the famous Christian church council took place that specified the rule for finding the calender date of Easter. He also made observations in Rhodes and Alexandria. Ptolemy tells us that Hipparchos had a 150-year-old report handed down from Timocharis that gave a distance of 8° between Spica and the point of autumnal equinox. Timocharis was another Alexandrian astronomer, who lived around 300 BCE.

Hipparchos stated that he himself had observed the vernal equinox in the 50th year of the Kallipic period, corresponding to 23 March 128 BCE.
(FOOTNOTE: Almagest Lib III c.1 OD. Heiberg, volume I).

Using this information, he determined the point of autumn equinox and found that its distance to Spica amounted to only 6°. Spica, the ear of wheat, main star of the constellation Virgo (the virgin), and together with the entire sphere of the fixed stars, had shifted by 2° in the 150 years since Timocharis. Hipparchos, chose as the average shift the incorrect value of 100 years per 1°, instead of trusting his own observed result of 75y/1°, which he expressed cautiously in his writings “On the Lengths of the Year” as follows:

If however due to that reason the equinoxes and solstices in one year move backwards for at least 1/100 degree, thus in 300 years they should have moved backwards 3°.
(Almagest VII 2) .

Three hundred years after Hipparchos, Ptolemy determined the distance between Spica and the point of the fall equinox and recorded two values: 3° 20’ distance from Spica or a shift of 2° 40’ since Hipparchos. This would result in approximately 100y/1°, which is not in harmony with the actual star positions of that time. Let us assume that Ptolemy simply added 2° 40’ to all longitudes of the Hipparchian star catalogue, in order to take account of precession.
FOOTNOTE.
(R.R. Newton: The Crime of Claudius Ptolemy, Baltimore 1977, p. 237-253; and D. Rawlins: An Investigation of the Ancient Star Catalogue, published by the Astronomical Society of the Pacific 95, 1982, p. 359 –373).

Ptolemy very precisely calculated the shift of Spica, based on two observations of occultations of Spica by the moon, which also were observed earlier by Timocharis. These two occultations occurred within 12 years of each other.

In Ptolemy’s Almagest we read about the first occultation of Spica by the moon:
Timocharis, as an observer in Alexandria makes the following records. In the 36th year of the first Kallippic period on the 15th Elaphebolion, i.e. on the 5th Tybi, the moon, at the beginning of the third (night) hour, reached with the middle of its rim that is directed toward the equinox point, Spica. And Spica went through (the moon), cutting off exactly the third part of its diameter to the North. The event happened in the 454th year of Nabonassar on the 5./6. Egyptian Tybi, four civil hours, that is also close to four equinoctial hours before midnight.

Foonote: Almagest VII 3 ( op cit: Claudius Ptolemaei opera quae exstant omnia I.II. Syntaxis Mathematica (Almagest) . Ed. J. L. Heiberg. Leipzig 1898-1903)

Converted into today’s calendar, this event took place on 9 March 294 BCE, 20:00.

Ptolemy presents a second, 12 year later observation of Timocharis. He says that in the 48th year (Kallippos) on the 7th of Thoth, after 10 ½ hours, the northern horn of the just risen sickle moon touched Spica. This was in the 466th year of Nabonassar, 7./8. Egypt. Thoth, 3 1/2 civil hours after midnight.

In our present chronology, that is 9th Nov. 283 BCE, 3:05 a.m.

Using his lunar tables, Ptolemy then calculated the precise ecliptical altitude and longitude of Spica and found that within this 12 years, the altitude did not change, but the longitude changed by 10’. In 72 years this would result in 1° (6*12 = 72 ; 10’*6 = 60’ = 1° ), and represents very precisely the modern value of precession.

As calculations with modern computer programs show, this almost 2300-year-old observation of Timocharis is absolutely in harmony with them and was in fact very exact.

Image: The start of the Spica occultation by the moon on 9 March 294 BCE at 20:00, represented by a modern astronomy program. (Sky Map)

Image: The moon’s occultation of Spica on the 9th Nov. 283 BCE, 3:05.

This calculation also may be used to disprove with ease the recently postulated 300-years-fake of the German, Heribert Illig, who states that fictitious, non-existent time has been inserted into history. However, that time can be shown to have existed by the motions of the stars.
http://www.calendersign.com/en/calendar-science/astrophoby/
Franz Krojer: Die Präzision der Präzession. Illigs mittelalterliche Phantomzeit aus astronomischer Sicht. Differenz-Verlag. München, 2003.

Like Hipparchos, however, Ptolemy chose the incorrect value of 1° in 100 years, calculated with it and promoted it. Thus, until the end of the Middle Ages, this incorrect value was the Occidental standard. In the 13th century it was still being taught by John Holywood at University of Paris:
Doch die acht himel wider fleyssent sich disem lauff in jren aygen leufften, davon der acht himel walztet in hundert jaren nur ein grad. (But the eighth heavens [= spheres of fixed stars] flow against this direction, according to their own paths. Of them, the eighth heaven rotates [= precesses] but 1° in 100 years.)

FOOTNOTE (Hamel)

2.3. Values of Precession Before Hipparchos

But Hipparchos was by no means the first discoverer of precession, as the history books try to tell us.

One proof is given by an article written by Dennis Rawlins in 1981 that was suppressed by the Roman Catholic church for nearly 20 years because a church-owned journal assumed that it was a heresy against Ptolemy. Thus it could not be published until 1999.

Recently the article appeared in DIO 9.1:3. Continued Fraction Decipherment: the Aristarchan Ancestry of Hipparchos’ Yearlength & Precession. The Aristarchos Sidereal Year’s High Accuracy - his pre-Hipparchos Knowledge of Precession – Consistency & Cause of Greek Tropical Year’s Error.
FOOTNOTE DIO, vol 9 #1; 12/30/02: http://dioi.org/vols/w91.pdf

The article, edited by Keith Pickering and published by Dennis Rawlins, presents two manuscripts owned by the Vatican that show lists of the year’s duration given by the heliocentricist Aristarchos of Samos, another scientist rejected by the Church.
FOOTNOTE List A: Vat. Gr. 191 fol 170v; List B: Vat. Gr. 381 fol 163v.

These lists are proof positive that Aristarchos had clearly recognized precession in about 280 BCE, about 130 years before Hipparchos.

The manuscripts present the duration of years in the continued-fraction technique and result in 365 ¼ -15/4868 days for what we call now the tropical year and in 365 ¼ +1/152 days for what we call the sidereal year. The difference between both is 0.0096514 days or about 13.9 minutes. In 100 years this amounts to 0°.952. This is almost exactly the value of 1° that Hipparchos and Ptolemy used and presumably took from Aristarchos. It is obvious that both relied on an older source, since they also copied and continued certain small errors, which proves their plagiarism.

There are still older sources of the precession value!
A Babylonian clay tablet listed as VAT 209 contains a predetermination of the sun’s and moon’s positions for the year 199 in the era of the Arcasids, which is also the year 263 in the era of the Seleucids (49/48 BCE). This tablet was manufactured in about 427 BCE and is marked with the name of an official: Naburi’annu. On this tablet the solstices and equinoxes lie on the 10th degree of the arrangement of the zodiac signs at that time. The zodiacal signs of this tablet do not correspond to modern ones (a division into 12 equal parts of the celestial equator, starting at the point of vernal equinox), but was a division of the ecliptic (relative to the constellations) into 12 equal parts.

It should be understood that the signs of the zodiac used in antiquity were not identical with our modern zodiac signs, but were laid out mathematically as 12 regular and equal parts over the large pictorial representations of the constellations. Thus the equinoxes and solstices could be on the 10th degree of a sign. In modern arrangement the equinoxes are always at 0° of the signs.

About 150 year later, or in 300-270 BCE, the “new light tablet” (ACT 122) was created. This tablet was found broken into several fragments, the largest of which was given the museum number SH 272. It is signed by the Babylonian astronomer Kidinnu (in Greek: Kidenas). It represents the precalculated visibility of the new moons of about 200 years later in the era of the Seleucids from 208-210 (104-103 CE until 102-101 BCE). In this tablet the position of the equinoxes is on 8° of the zodiac signs, proving Kidinnu had noticed precession since Naburi’annu signed the tablet. His computations show that Kidinnu recognized the precession. However, he determined it differently than Hipparchos. The distinction between tropical and sidereal years gives the precessional shift.
FOOTNOTE BLW

Otto Neugebauer, according to Michael Deckers, made another suggestion for the different lengths of the Babylonian equinoxes: i.e., different points of starting or zero for the measurements.
Footnote: O. Neugebauer: "The Alleged Babylonian Discovery of the Precession of the Equinoxes". Journal of American Oriental Society. vol 70.1. page 1-8. 1950.

The difference in the yearly durations results, according to Kidinnu’s calculation, in approximately 50 years for 1° precession, twice as “fast” as that of Hipparchos, which is about the same distance from the actual value of approx. 72 y/1°, a middle value that lies between the two men‘s calculations. Therefore, there was a school 150 years earlier than Hipparchos of those who accepted a faster progression of the equinoxes, which would result in a figure of 18,000 years for the whole precessional cycle, or one Platonic year.

Aetios made an interesting comment; was it only by coincidence?
The Great Year comes into existence if all (planets) arrive again in the same place, from where their movements started … according to Herakleitos the Great Year consists of 18,000 years (Diels, Doxographi Graeci P. 363).

The Platonic year, using Kidinnu’s value of precession, corresponds with 18,000 years, or exactly the Great Year of Herakleitos.

Presumably, the earliest allusion to the calculation of the value of precession was made by unknown Babylonian astronomers during the time of Darius the Great, around 520 BCE.

Willy Hartner proved that the Babylonian schema of moon reckoning has two different year lengths: sidereal and tropical. The difference between these is caused by precession.
Footnote (W. Hartner: The Young Avestian Calendar and the Antecedents of Precession, Journal for History of Astronomy 10, 1979; p. 1-22)

The Platonic Year, due to the precession on one side, and the Great Year, from one conjunction of all planets up to the next on the other side, are astronomically and calendrically two completely different movements and theories. It is unclear whether this difference was evident in antiquity, but it appears that they were considered equivalent. There were several attempts made to bring them into agreement and, as we will show, the ancient scientists thought both were the same.

Where did the value for the precession of exactly 100y/1° by Hipparchos and Ptolemy originate? The two astronomers did not leave us any scientific information, only cautious suggestions. Therefore, we ourselves are dependent on assumptions.

As shown above, the value given by Aristarchos is the first hint to this chosen corrupt constant. In addition we assume that the hexadecimal number system and the astrology of the Babylonians exerted an influence on this value. Another Babylonian contemporary of Kidinnu, Berossos, contributed substantially to the Occidental astronomy.

2.4. Babylonian Star Lore and Astronomy. The Decans.

Berossos, already an old man, left Babylon for reasons unknown to us and settled down on the Greek island of Kos. Around 290 BCE, he established an astrology school there. He called himself a priest of Belus, or Bel, the Babylonian Marduk/Jupiter, and said he was contemporary with the Greek king, Philip, and his son Alexander.

Berossos wrote the Babyloniaka, which was popular throughout the Occident. According to Varro, Juba, Polyhistor, Josephus, Clemens Alexandrinus, Seneca, Eusebius and others, his ideas reached St. Augustine and surely Dionysius Exiguus, as well. His ideas still are found in stories of the Middle Ages and the crusades, where the search for the legendary priest-monk Prester John, or Oannes, drew men to the Far East.

Graphic: Timetable and spreading of the Babyloniaka of Berossos in antiquity according to P. Schnabel (Paul Schnabel, Berossos und Babylonisch-Hellenistische Literatur, Hildesheim 1968).
../images/Berossosg.gif

The Babyloniaka is a Babylonian world history and creation myth that resembles the Gilgamesh Epic. Berossos describes therein how the world and mankind were created by Belus. Oannes (the name means “foreman” or carpenter), a monster from the sea with fish body and human feet, taught people language, arts, building of cities and temples, and the cultivation of grains and all domesticity at the time of the first king, and “since that time, no one has invented anything new”.
FOOTNOTEs: (Paul Schnabel, Berossos und Babylonisch-Hellenistische Literatur, Hildesheim 1968).

The Babyloniaka also contains a report on the Deluge, where Xisuthros plays almost the same role as the Biblical Noah. In addition, there is an often-copied astrological training text on the Great Year, as well as a list of kings. The time periods for the rule of the kings therein were computed in Sars (1 Sar = 3,600 years). This time-measuring system closely resembles the Indian Yuga system.

Let’s have a brief look at Babylonian star lore and astronomy:

The Babylonian creation is attributed to Belus, who is identical to the God Marduk/Jupiter, and who made the divisions of the sky:
"He (Marduk) made the stations for the great gods;
The stars, their images, as the stars of the zodiac, he fixed.
He ordained the year, and into sections (mizrata) he divided it;
For (each of) the 12 months he fixed three stars."

FOOTNOTE

This text explains very simply the division of the sky into the twelve constellations and/or the zodiacal signs, each of which are divided into 3 decans, represented by three stars. The fact that the planet Jupiter is made responsible for it follows completely logically from its orbit: Jupiter requires 12 years to orbit around the sun. Each year, it is found in another constellation and/or sign of the length of 30°. In 12 years, Jupiter therefore divides the sky into 12 equal parts. Because for about one-third of the year Jupiter appears retrograde, moving from East to West about 10°, Jupiter divides each sign into three equal parts. Thus the planet marks out any third part of a sign with one decan, resulting in 36 decans in the whole zodiac.

Image: The path of Jupiter from Aug. 002 until Aug. 004 in the constellations Cancer and Leo shows how Jupiter is dividing by its loops each sign into three equal parts.
../images/juploop.gif

The first morning rising of a decan star was observed exactly and noted by the ancients. Each day, due to the orbit of the earth around the sun, such a decan star rises approximately 4 minutes earlier, which in 10 days amounts to 40 minutes (36th part of a day), and a new decan star rises. By observing the rising and setting of the decan stars, the hours of the night could be read on the celestial clock.

One of the earliest (about 700 BCE) Babylonian astronomical Cuneiform tablets, (L. W. King, Cuneiform Texts in the British Museum 33. Pl. 11-12) usually called a “cyclical astrolabe” shows a parallel. It has a cyclically arranged text divided into 12 sectors, which are again divided into 3 parts, resulting thus in 36 sections for the names of the constellations and hours.

Pic: Fraction of the cyclical astrolabe, published by L. W. King in Cuneiform Texts in the British Museum 33. Pl. 11-12.

These decans were not only used in Mesopotamia. You can see the “decan calendar” on numerous Egyptian graves, such as on the inner side of the lid of the about-4000-year-old Egyptian coffin of Tefabi, or in the famous zodiac at Dendera.

Every 10 days, the position of the decan shifts for one step on the night sky’s position, depicted on this diagonal calendar, which gives the impression of a diagonal frame. Presumably it would serve the dead as a kind of temporal orientation for his journey in the beyond. The Papyrus Carlsberg 1 says: “One decan dies, one decan comes to life, every 10th day”. Thus it describes the 10-day cycle in which a decan-star rises at the first time in the East while another decan-star simultaneously sets at the last time in the West.
Footnote BLW

Image: Lid of coffin of Tefabi (~2100 BCE).
The image shows half part of the lid with 18 decans, that shift every 10 days for one position.

By precession, these “star hours” shifted one decan in approximately 700 years, and the original star calendar rule, which assigned a certain hour and/or a certain day to a certain star, became invalid.

2.5. The medieval “oriental” value of precession of 66.6 years per 1°

It is most remarkable that in Medieval Eastern astronomy, all ephemerides were calculated with a precession constant of 66.6y/1°.

Among them are:
"Tabulae probatae" or "az-Zig al-mumtan" (829-830 CE)
Al Battani (880 CE)
"al-Zij" As-Sufi (964)
Al Biruni (973 - 1048 CE) al Qanun al-Masud
Arabic catalogue of fixed stars of 1 Oct. 1112 CE (acc. to Paul Kunitzsch)
"Libros del Saber" of Alfonso of Castile (1252-1284) http://www.geocities.com/CollegePark/Library/8945/diss.html
http://www.geocities.com/CollegePark/Library/8945/afonso.html
http://faculty.washington.edu/petersen/alfonso/esctra13.htm
http://www.hps.cam.ac.uk/starry/armillary.html
Judah Ben Verga of Lisboa.

Exactly where this value was derived, we are not told, but it can be based only on a rounded-up assumption that 30° of precessional shift lasted two integer millennia (exactly 2000 years). There seem to be two main schemas for finding the value of precession. One is slow, with 100 y/1°, that we will call “Occidental,” and one is faster, at 66 y/1°, which we will call “Oriental”. It is evident that the integer number of millennia for each 30° of precession is common to both. In the Occident, astronomers calculated “officially” with three millennia, in the Oriental, with only two.

Thus the Oriental value is between the “too slow” of Aristarchos, Hipparchos, and Ptolemy, and the “much-too-fast” of Kidinnu. The definition of this value seems to have been affected by religious commentary like II Peter 3:8, where it is said: “Beloved, be not ignorant of one thing: that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” Similar words are in the Koran, Sure 22 and Sure 32: “One day in the face of the Lord is like 1000 years in your perception.”

2.5.1. The 1000-year-period as Motif for Release of Political and Religious Movements in Islam

At this point shall be given a hint to a religious-political event, which wiill demonstrate how much the 1000-year period influences human intentions leading to a change of paradigm in another on Abraham-based religion. A "world's end revolution" shocked the Shiite Moslem in Persia about 160 years ago in 1844 CE. This event had its origin exactly 1000 years before: In the Islamic year 260 (873/874 CE) the Twelfth Imam disappeared and was thought to have been carried away. Noone knows where and how. This Twelfth Imam, for Shiite Moslem and in Alevitic belief, is the mystical hidden and still living Mohammad al-Mahdi.
Exactly 999 years lunar years had passed since the Twelfth Imam vanished (in Hejira 260), when the Shiraz-born Ali Mohammad announced that in the following Islamic year (Hejira 1260; 1844 CE), the hidden Imam of the Shiites, the Mahdi, would reappear and present himself as "Bab" (forerunner or door). Three years later the "Bab" revealed that he himself was the hidden Imam and declared the abolition of the Islamic laws, because the endtime had arrived. After another three years the movement suffered a bloody slaughter and Ali Mohammad was executed in Tabriz. The movement of the Bab was not finished yet. Because of sympathy for his martyrdom, his doctrine found high regard far from Persia in the West. The message of the Bab was continued by Mirza Husayn 'Ali, who calleed himself Baha'ullah (Glory of God) and became the founder of the Baha'i-religion.
Footnote
http://www.sullivan-county.com/id3/bahai_iran.htm
http://answering-islam.org/Books/Zwemer/Heirs/chap12.htm
http://www.angelfire.com/journal/baha/History.htm

The rise of another, messianically expected Mahdi took place almost simultaneously in Sudan. Muhammed Ahmed was born, or is addicted to be born, 1000 Islamic lunar years after the vanishing of the Twelth Imam, in the same Islamic Hejira year 1260 (1844 CE), when the Iranian Bab first appeared. This Sudanese Mahdi fought with his "Mahdists" against the Egyptian and British troops under General Gordon with fire and sword. There also the well known Slatin Pascha played an important role.
Footnote
http://www.jaduland.de/afrika/nil/index/slatin-pascha(14).html
http://www.aeiou.at/aeiou.encyclop.s/s620576.htm
Rudolf Slatin-Pascha: Feuer und Schwert im Sudan;
G. Brook-Shepherd: Slatin Pascha, 1972;
H. A. Vogelsberger: Slatin Pascha. Zwischen Wüstensand und Königskronen, 1992.

Also among Christians, the 1000 year period, combined with an interpretation of the announced Messianic return or resurrection of Jesus, results in a clearly religiously shaped time frame: Jesus was resurrected on the third day (Matt.: 16:21; 17:23; 20:19; 26:61; and 27:40). The “third day” begins when two days of the Lord (2000 years of mankind) have passed. Since Jesus was born at the beginning of the Piscean age (ICHTHYS), then after the end of this age, which lasts an assumed 2,000 years, his resurrection will take place, according to one apocalyptic assumption.

We should be aware here, that Osama bin Laden is often apostrophed as Mahdi. See the arcticle of Joseph Farah in WorldNetDaily: Is Ben Ladin the Mahdi?
Originally the WTC attackwas planned in the year 2000, but delayed because of problems
There is a clear temporal (new age) motif in behind for planning and executing this attack (not only to choose 9-11, which is the US emergency number). Calendrically interpreted Bible and Koran words and the (solar or lunar) 1000-year-period is the releasing motif for this religious madness. Number based calendrical and religious periods are used or abused for political and terroristic purposes.

2.5.2. The Apocalyptic Number 666. The Duration of the Precession Each Decan in Years

The mysterious and cryptic number 666 of John’s Revelation finds its exact astronomical allocation in the number of years taken by the corner points of the year to advance from one decan (each 10° of size) to the next, if you use the Oriental value of precession. In celestial illustrations the decans were depicted as men, usually in boats, in contrast to the animals (zodiacos = circle of animals or beasts). “Here is wisdom! Who has understanding, consider the number of the animal; because it is the number of a man, and his number is six hundred and sixty-six”. (Rev 13:18).

The number of the beast in fact is the number of the “beast cycle” (zodiacos) , the assumed value as the zodiac shifts against equinoxes due to precession.

3.1. The Pythagoreans

In the New Testament, there are numerous allusions to the secret brotherhood of the Pythagoreans, who used the number 666 in a major role, either because the authors of the gospels themselves were Pythagoreans, or else because quoting the theories of the Pythagoras in a scholarly manner would present them as highly sophisticated and belonging to the internal circle of this group. Here we must consider the Bible as literature. The writers and redactors of the Gospel were not poor, illiterate fisherman called from their nets by Jesus, because they could write. With this art, they tried, after the horrible drama of the destruction and plundering of Jerusalem by the Roman Titus in 70 CE, to give the Jewish religion a new base and composed the New Testament. To this day, the Titus Arch on Forum Romanum shows the looted temple treasures of Jerusalem being brought to Rome.

Image: Titus Arch, Rome. The plundered temple treasures of Jerusalem. http://www.christuskirche-suro.de/jerusalem/titusbogen.jpg

In any kind of written history, plausibility is of importance. The gospels are historical and religious literature and the characters therein are literary persons, skillfully embedded into historical surroundings using the state of the arts of this age. Therefore an allusion to the important Pythagoreans could not be omitted.

Pythagoras was born in Samos. He settled down with his followers in Southern Italy and Sicily after the Fifth pre-Christian century, where they formed brotherhoods or societies, around an internal circle (esoteros) with special initiation rituals. As a secret identification symbol they used the Pentagraph. From the internal circle of the Pythagoreans, today's modern word “esoteric” is derived. Secret societies seem to have had a long-lived tradition in Southern Italy.

Reports on the journeys of Pythagoras to Egypt and Babylon say he was a pupil of the magi and “Zaratas” the Chaldean.

On the Pythagorean theory, Dikaiarchos said the following:

Pythagoras says... that all things which happened once, will happen again after certain periods and that there is really nothing new. (Porphyrios, Vita Pyth. 19, p. 26 Nauck)

See some more cites of the Pythagoreans: http://www.magna.com.au/~prfbrown/pythagor.html

The Pythagoreans revered numbers and considered them divine, imagining that the whole cosmos was based on numbers and devoting time to computing individual numbers. Their intense occupation with music probably led to this view because of the mathematical relationship between pitch and chord in lengths of strings and flutes. Pythagoreans and early Christianity had much in common, such as the belief in an eternal or immortal soul, and rebirth. They thought that numbers were the basis of everything in the world; everything could be explained as relationships between numbers, rather like numerology; and apparently they believed that music was one of the ultimate relationships of numbers.

However, the so-called Pythagorean ratio (a² + b² = c²) and the smallest Pythagorean triangle (3:4:5) was known before him.
Pythagoras expressed astronomical conditions by geometrical figures. Thus be described the obliquity of ecliptic (the slope of Earth’s axis) as the inner angle of a regular 15-side figure.

3.2. Cycle of Rebirth and Resurrection

Pythagoreans and early Christianity had much in common, such as the belief in an eternal soul and rebirth, although with slightly different views. Thus the Pythagoreans believed in a cycle of reincarnation after 216 (= 6*6*6) years as Nicomachos and others report.

For example, Pythagoras believed that in a former life, he had participated in the Trojan war. At the temple of Juno, he claimed to recognize the shield he had used in that war.

Ovid writes in Metamorphosis about this:
The soul is free from death and when it left its former place
It lives on saved in an other house.
I am still conscious: At the time of the Trojan war
I was the son of Panthous, Euphorbus, on whose breast was
Fixed the heavy spear of the second Atride.
Recently I have noticed in the temple of Juno at the Abantian Argos
the same shield, that I wore on my left.
There are only changes, nothing dies.
Footnote: Publius Ovidius Naso: Metamorphôseôn liber XV, Pythagoras 160

Also Plato believed in a time period, after which everything, including political structures, decay. Bartel L. van der Waerden identified the number 216 in a very incomprehensible description of Plato’s Republic (VIII 546 B-D). There, Plato attributes to this significant number the transition between different kinds of states. Aristocracy, democracy, oligarchy and tyranny would be caused during this period by mixing the different lineages, as Hesiod described it: the golden, the silver, the earlier, and the iron lineage.

In a similar way in Christianity, there are allusions that Jesus plays the role of Moses as leader of the Jews. Even a pope represented himself as icon of Moses. In the streets of Rome there is statue, where a Pope is represented with horns of a ram like Michelangelo's Moses.

3.3. Symbolic representation of return

The Christians borrowed from Pythagoras the metaphor of the phoenix rising from the ashes, which particularly in the Middle Ages represented the desire for the return of Jesus.

Image: Phenix, mosaic museum Louvre, Paris

Ovid wrote:
There is a bird that creates and regenerates itself.
The Assyrians call it Phoenix. It does not live of fruits
And herbs, but of the drops of incense and the juice of amomum.
If five hundred years of his life al full,
He builds a nest with his talons and his clean gob
In the branches of a oak or the top of a palm tree.
He has Cassia there and the ears of supple grain,
Also yellow myrrh and ground cinnamon,
He lays down there and lives his life in this scent.
Here, people say, out of the body of the father is growing
A little Phoenix, that is determined to live also as long.
If he is strong enough, he breaks away the nest off the branches of a large tree
And carries it through the air to the city of Hyperion and lays
It down on the sacred door of the temple.
Footnote: Publius Ovidius Naso: Metamorphôseôn liber XV, 395-405: Pythagoras;
Latin version on : http://home.t-online.de/home/rudolf-steiner/ovid-pyt.htm#links

The cycle of the death and rebirth of the phoenix is often mentioned as taking 500, 540, or 660 years. We may assume this means a calendrical cycle of 532 years or the precession of one decan. More about it later.

The continuous thread of Pythagorean influence through the phoenix symbol reaches not only to St. Augustine, but leads clearly into the Middle Ages to Wolfram of Eschenbach and his Parzival, on down until today, with the UN Security Council holding its sessions under the symbol of the Phoenix arising out of the ashes.

Wolfram writes about Grail and Phenix in medieval German:
er heizet lapsit exillîs.
von des steines craft der fênîs
verbrinnet, daz er ze aschen wirt:
diu asche im aber leben birt.
sus rêrt der fênîs mûze sîn
unt gît dar nâch vil liehten schîn,
daz er schoene wirt als ê.
….
saeh ez den stein zwei hundert jâr,
um enwurde denne grâ sîn hâr.
selhe craft dem menschen gît der stein
daz im vleisch unde bein
jugent enpfaehet al sunder twâl.
der stein ist ouch genant der grâl.
(Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival IX (Trevrizentbuch) 471 ff über den Phönix)

In English:
It is called “lapsit exilis” (extraordinary stone).
By the power of this stone the
Phoenix burns, becoming ashes:
but these ashes are giving him life,
and after that, he shines brightly,
being more beautiful than before.
…
he saw the stone 200 years,
and his hairs grew grey.
Such a power this stone gives to men,
that in flesh and bones
they can receive youth in a special way.
This stone is called the grail.

3.4. Pythagorean Number Theory. Tetraktys

The Pythagorean theory of integer numbers in triangles is found in the New Testament. For this a short explanation:
Pythagoras devised the “Tetraktys”, which arises from the addition of the first four integer numbers:
0+1 = 1
0+1+2 = 3
0+1+2+3 = 6
0+1+2+3+4 = 10

Important musical intervals like a quarto (4:3), a quinte (3:2) and an octave (2:1) show the effect of the Tetraktys formula.

The four numbers of the Tetraktys can be counted to infinity, producing a frame of triangle numbers in the form of an arithmetic row, which can be represented as a group of balls. The result forms of an equilateral triangle in which the rows in three directions (one horizontally and two diagonally) run:

1. row ¢ S of balls 1
2. row ¢ ¢ S of balls 3
3. row ¢ ¢ ¢ S of balls 6
4. row ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢ S of balls 10
5. row ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢ S of balls 15
6. row ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢ S of balls 21 and so on …

A certain number of rows results in a certain sum of balls, which form the frame of the triangle numbers. These are: 1, 3, 6, 10, 15, 21, 28, 36, 45, 55, 66, 78, 91, 105, 120, 136, 153, 171, 190, 210, 231, 253, 276, 300, 325, 351, 378, 406, 435, 465, 496, 528, 561, 595, 630, 666, 703, etc.
The sum of the balls up to the n-th row results in the formula for the triangle numbers:
Tn = 1/2n(n+1)

The triangle numbers are extremely useful for finding so-called squared numbers (like 1, 4, 9, 16, 25 etc..) and integer Pythagorean triangles (like 3² + 4² = 5², 5² + 12² = 13² or 216² + 630² = 666²). The latter triangle is particularly fascinating, for 630 is a triangle number (sum of 1-35), 666 is triangle number (sum of 1-36), and 216 is the result of 6*6*6.

Interestingly 216 is also the sum of the cubic numbers of the smallest Pythagorean triangle
( 3 – 4 – 5); 27 + 64 + 125 = 216.

We will later come back to this number!

The sum of two sequential triangle numbers always results in a squared number.
Example: 1+3 = 2²; 3+6 = 3²; 6+10 = 4²; 10+15 = 5²; 15+21 = 6²; 21+28 = 7² etc …

The German mathematician and physicist Karl Friedrich Gauss on July 10th, 1796 made this famous short entry into his diary: Heureka! num = r+r+r !
He expressed in this way the fact that any integer number can be represented by the sum of only three triangle numbers.

Another example may better describe the sense of triangle numbers:

A specific number of persons celebrate with a good wine some particular event and toast each other with their glasses. How often do the glasses sound, if everyone touches against the others and in addition touches once his own glass? Correct! It is a triangle number that corresponds to the number of the persons; e.g., with ten persons the glasses sound 55 times.
1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10 = 55

The triangle numbers still today find sacred use in the ornamentation and coats of arms of the Catholic church. Tassels on the bishop’s and cardinal’s hats were introduced by a papal decree of 1832 for dignitaries of the Catholic church to denote the ranking in the hierarchy with symbolic meaning. Bishops have 3 rows, archbishops 4 rows and cardinals 5 rows.

Pics: Bishop’s and cardinal hats with tassels

More at: http://m.holzapfel.bei.t-online.de/themen/dreieckz/bischofhut.htm

We have demonstrated that 666 is a Pythagorean triangle number, being the sum of 1-36, in which 36 itself is a triangle number from the sum of 1-8.

Another Pythagorean triangle number, 153, the sum of the integer numbers of 1-17, appears in the gospel of John 21:1-4. After the resurrection, Jesus comes again to his followers. These had taken up their former occupation as fishermen at Lake Tiberias, but with little success, because they had caught nothing in their nets. Jesus, whom they did not recognize, stood on the shore and gave them the advice to throw the net on the other side of the boat, after which they caught 153 fish. After eating some fish, Jesus gave Peter three times the missionary order: “feed my lambs” and “pasture my sheep.” From these words the Pope derives his succession from St. Peter as the highest bishop of the Catholic church.

The astrological background of these words is probably clear to all: The writers of the gospels present Jesus to us as the releaser of the Age of Aries (sacrificed lamb), and place him on the transition of the precessional ages from Aries to Pisces. The people of the Aries age would be led into the new Piscean age (ICHTHYS), which one can compare with today's idea of the New Age movement, which looks forward to the Age of Aquarius.

At Luke 5:4 we find a similar story, where Peter was amazed because they had caught so many fish. Jesus said to him: “Don’t fear, from now on you will catch men!”

A similar story is told of Pythagoras, who prophesied to fishermen the size of their catch. The fishermen promised to do whatever he required, if Pythagoras could forecast the exact number of fish. When this applied with the next catch, he asked them to throw back all of the fish alive into the sea, which they actually did. Pythagoras paid them the price of the catch and was highly respected for this.

3.5. St. Augustine

The Catholic church father St. Augustine was bishop of Hippo in Africa from 396 to 430 CE. He had a special interest in numbers, with which he sought to interpret the Bible. 10, the number of the commitments added to 7, the number of the gifts of the holy spirit, results in 17. The sum of 1-17 results in 153 and was therefore seen as the number of the Saints who would be resurrected at doomsday. Augustine also knew the Babyloniaka of Berossos, for he quotes Berossus’ moon teachings literally in his Enneratio in psalmos X, 3.
Footnote (Paul Schnabel: Berossos und die babylonisch – hellenistische Literatur. Hildesheim 1968, S. 99)

In fact, the number 153 has more to offer:
It is also the sum of 1! + 2! + 3! + 4! + 5!
“!” means faculty, or the product of all positive whole numbers up to the given number, in this case number five, the number of the edges of the Pentagram, secret symbol of the Pythagoreans. The above calculation reads therefore: 1 + 1*2 + 1*2*3 + 1*2*3*4 + 1*2*3*4*5 = 153.

153 is also the sum of its cubed numbers: 1³ + 5³ + 3³ = 153.

This enamoration with numbers was common to Augustine and the Pythagoreans. Aristotle (Metaphysics A5) reports on the Pythagorean science:
“The sky is harmony and number”
“Number is the Essence of the whole”
“Things exist by copying the numbers”
Almost belittlingly, Aristotle says (Of the Sky III and Metaphysics XIII):
(the Pythagorans) compute the sky with numbers.

Augustine seemed almost crazy for numbers and placed them even above God, when he writes:
Six is by itself a perfect number and not because God created all things in six days; rather the reverse is true; God created all things in six days, because this number is perfect. And it would remain perfect, even if the work of the six days did not exist.

3.6. Playing with Numbers

6 in fact is a “perfect number”, so-called because it is the sum of its genuine divisors.
6 = 1+2+3. The next perfect number is 28, summed from its divisors 1+2+4+7+14.

In antiquity, only four perfect numbers were known: 6, 28, 496 and 8128. The fifth perfect number, i.e. 33,550,336, was only just discovered in a medieval manuscript.

In 1814 P. Barlow wrote in A New Mathematical and Philosophical Dictionary that the eighth perfect number (with 19 places), discovered by Euler, would be the last and largest perfect number that ever will be discovered, "because they are strange and useless, and it is not likely that somebody will try to find any more”.
Barlow made a great mistake!
The perfect numbers are related to the Mersenne numbers, and these again with prime numbers, which are of highest importance for the coding and encrypting of the most volatile data. Until now, only about 30 perfect numbers have been discovered.

But back to the triangle numbers, now to 66 and 666.

The number 666 results from the sum of 1 to 36, which is also the number of decans. If you imagine all decans sitting at a table toasting one another, then their glasses would sound 666 times.

Image: Star with 36 tops. The number of the tops together with the lines between all the tops amount to the number 666.

666 was also the number of years with which the medieval oriental astronomer computed the precession of the hinge points that shifted along a decan star. This represented 10° of ecliptical length. 66.6 is also the result if one divides 2000 years by 30°. 2000 years is the religiously significant time up to the start of the “third” day (a reference to one day of God being the same as 1000 years for people) due to the length of the Piscean sign (2000 years) on the ecliptic

666 is also the sum of the number of degrees of the zodiac plus double the number of fishes (of John. 21, 1-4): 360 + 153 +153 = 666.

No miracle that by this repeated use 666 was seen as a characteristic of precession.

In addition, 666 is the sum of the squares of all prime numbers until 17:
2² + 3² + 5² + 7² + 11² + 13² + 17² = 666.
Remember: 17 is the starting point of the triangle number 153!

In Islam, the numerical value of the word Allah is represented in Gematria by the number 66. Its meaning is found in magic squares application: “to adore Allah.”

Image: Islamic magic square, in which the sum of each line or column gives 66.

Such a magic square in modern numerals:
21 26 19
20 22 24
25 18 23

A magic square highly significant in Islam is called a sun square. It sums up in each direction to 111 and in sum of all of its numbers to 666, since it has 6*6 = 36 fields.

Image: Magic sun square

The number 666 became a symbol of evil in the book of Revelation, which equates 666 with the ANTICHRIST. If by precession the age of ICHTHYS passes, for Christians, a once far-in-the-future-time arrives. This they probably saw as the end of their world and the beginning of another one. Until the second millennium, this was a time outside of their six-day horizon, where at the beginning stands the creation of the world and at the end, Doomsday and the Antichrist.

It may not surprise anyone that no Pope after Sixtus V has chosen the name Sixtus, because his name would be Sixtus Sextus (6.6.)

In England, since 1991, the governmental authority does not give out car license numbers with the number sequence 666, because of complaints from the public. Cars with these numbers had more accidents, they said.

In the USA, Route 666 once led straight to the Heights of Folly when you were driving on Route 491 in New Mexico, Colorado and Utah. This route will no longer be found on roadmaps, nor are there any bullet-pocked signs along it that designate this federal "Devil's" highway, because until recently (May 31, 2003), this particular road was known as the Road to Perdition. No more. The 77-year-old, 191-mile-long Route 666 has ceased to exist as such because the number is believed by some to be "the number of the beast.". New Mexico governor Bill Richardson argued that "the New Testament’s association of 666 with Satan was impairing the economic vitality of the towns along its route."
Footnote: http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig3/cullen5.html

The number 666 offered people many mysteries, which many have sought to fathom even in recent times, such as:

* 1/66 = 0.0151 515 151 515 … the sequence of numbers after the comma: 151+515 = 666.
* The area of the Pythagorean triangle, 693² + 1924² = 2045², results in 666,666.
* 666 results from adding together the first five Roman numerals:
I + V + X + L + C + D, i.e.,:1 + 5,+10 + 50 + 100 + 500 = 666.

For the conclusion of our trip into the world of numbers, Phi (?),the number of the Golden Ratio, most irrational of all numbers, must not be overlooked. There was no place for surds (irrational numbers) in the number system of the Pythagoreans, and the discovery of Hippasus concerning the relationship between the side and the diagonal of a square.
(sqr2 = 1,41421 ...) cannot be expressed by a relationship of integer numbers, which shocked the Pythagoreans, whose mathematical concepts were saved only by the invention of infinite continued fractions: The Golden Ratio, which marks the transition from chaos to order, and traces of which one can find in the planetary periods, the rings of Saturn, the distribution of the asteroids (Kirkwood gaps) and also ancient art and architecture, can be represented as a continued fraction of only one number: 1.

Image: Phi (?) as a infinitive chain fraction

A 1994 article in the Journal of Recreational Mathematics (vol. 26, ed. 3, p 203), entitled “The Sign of the Devil,” provides the following equation, which shows the relationship between Phi and 666:
? = - { sin 666° + cos[(6)(6)(6)° ] }

3.7. Coding of Knowledge

Numbers truly have their meaning, from which we better can learn, than smile about.

The theory of the integer numbers has great importance in modern atomic physics, quantum theory and chemistry. Atomic weights and quantum constants are the smallest bricks with which the whole cosmos is built, similar to the integer numbers composing the “number building” (sum of all integer numbers) by continued addition of the figure ONE.

There are many kinds of coded information and it is not a culture-based delusion to recognise genius and wisdom in an ancient culture. This window is often closed, due to the presumption and the arrogance of some scientists (in German Wissenschafter is literally: creator of knowledge), who better are called “science-negators”, because they deny the existence of old knowledge, if it is not expressed in a form that corresponds to modern, or rather, their personal understanding. For example, the Quipu, knotted cords used to record data by the Inkas. They had also small computing boxes, whose function is still unknown.

Image: Quipu. Calculation card and Box on Inca

Footnote: Ascher, Marcia. 1991. Ethnomathematics: A Multicultural View of Mathematical Ideas. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole Publishing Co. : quote follows:

A quipu is an assemblage of colored knotted cotton cords... The colors of the cords, the way the cords are connected together, the relative placement of the cords, the spaces between the cords, the types of knots on the individual cords, and the relative placement of the knots are all part of the logical-numerical recording. (p.17)

Someone who says that something does not exist because there is no evidence of it actually represents that they are ignorant. On the other hand, it is just as foolish to believe in everything. In fairness, Science should create knowledge, and if the sources fail, should reconsider and research further.

The knowledge of precession was under taboo in Christianity and coded by 666, the number of the beast. The slow precessional movement crushes in considerable time any rigid or stiff relation between tropical run of Earth and the fixed points of orientation in the sky, the fixed stars. Because the reason for precession was not understood and therefore seemed to be caused by Gods, precession was seen as dangerous and threatening and disturbing the order between Heavens and Earth, between calendars and celestial bodies, between men and celestial Gods. Perhaps therefore Christian subconsciously chose the drug alcohol as a cultic drink, in order to come in closer in harmony with the wobbling Earth.

In antiquity and during the Middle Ages, the wrong precessional constant was used. Only at the beginning of modern times was it converged by Johannes Kepler, who calculated it to be 75 years per 1°, very close to the modern value of 71.59 y/1°.

4.1. The Large Year. Annus Magnus. The Common Multiple of the Periods of Celestial Bodies

The Pythagoreans who used Babylonian planetary periods were acquainted with the well-known idea of the Large Year.

Thus Eudemos, a pupil of the Aristotle and teacher at the Lykeion in Athens said about the Pythagoreans:
"there is a common multiple of all orbital times, the large year, at its expiration all planets are again in the same place."

The return of all things, similar to what was expected by the Christians after the resurrection of the dead, was described Eudemos in such a way:

If one believes the Pythagoreans, then I will return also in the future, as everything after its number returns, and I will tell you here again fairy tales, holding this stick in my hand, while you will sit likewise before me. Likewise everything else will repeat itself.

In addition to the Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle also Berossos knew about the idea of the Large Year.

Seneca handed down:
Berosos, qui Belum interpretatus est, ait ista cursu siderum fieri; adeo quidem affirmat, ut conflagrationi atque diluuio tempus assignet: arsura enim terrena contendit, quandoque omnia sidera, quae nunc diuersos agunt cursus, in Cancrum conuenerint, sic sub eodem posita uestigio, ut recta linea exire per orbes omnium possit; inundationem futuram, cum eadem siderum turba in Capricornum conuenerit. Illic solstitium, hic bruma conficitur: magnae potentiae signa, quando in ipsa mutatione anni momenta sunt. (Seneca, Questiones naturales III 29,1)

In English:
Berossos, the interpreter of Belus, states that the courses of the planets determine the time of a fire disaster and a flood. A fire on earth will rage if all planets, which move now in different courses, will gather in Cancer, standing still in the same place (of the sky), such that a straight line can pass through all their positions. A flood, however, will come if the same group of planets comes together in Capricorn.

For a better understanding of why the cataclysms were announced in Cancer and Capricorn, it is useful to know that these were the former Babylonian solstice constellations of summer (hot season) and winter (rainy season). The astrological conclusion was that if all planets met in these constellations they would intensify the weather phenomena.

Further witnesses of this idea, but with different numerical data include:

Gervasius of Tilbury, OTIA IMPERIALIA, 1. decisio, chap. 6, 36 (On how many ways the „year“ is defined):
Nunc annus magnus qui planetis omnibus ad sua loca creationis reversis completur
quod fit demum post quingentos XXX. annos.

In English:
Then (we know) the Large Year becomes complete, if all planets return to their places at creation, which happens only after 530 years.

And:
Rhetorios Chap 51:
About the largest years and perfect returning of the 7 stars: Saturn achieves the largest return in 265 years, Jupiter in 427, Mars in 284, Helios in 1461, Venus in 1151, Mercury in 480, the Moon in 25 years. The cosmic return occurs in 1,753,005 years... then at the end of the Large Year all planets come into the 30th degree of Cancer or in the 1st degree of Leo together and complete fulfilment is attained. (Catal. Cod. astrol. Graec. I, 1898

4.1.2. Kali Yuga and The Deluge

In mentioning the Large Year, we cannot overlook Aryabhata of Kusumpara, contemporary of Dionysius Exiguus, and the Islamic astrologer Abu Ma’shar el-Balchi, born in Korasan, who was also called Albumasar. He lived to be more than 100 years old and died in Baghdad, April 886 CE.

Both report a conjunction of all planets in distant past and give its date with only little difference.

According to Aryabhata the Indian age of Kali Yuga began at that point, and he dates it as follows:
”When sixty times sixty and three quarters (of a year) since start of the recent Kali Yuga have past, I was 23 years old” (3600 years and 9 month before 499 CE) In usual chronologies this is 17th Feb. 3102 BJE; -3101-01-22 ACE, JDN 588,465; CEP -2,109,697.

Aryabhata writes in his opus that in finding this alignment he “has rescued with the boat of his intelligence a pearl of astronomy out of a sea of truth and error”. (Aryabhatiya IV 49).

In Indian literature, interestingly, a second date is often mentioned as the start of Kali Yuga: 17th March 3102 BJE.

To almost the same day Albumasar dates in his “Book of Thousands” the deluge and links it to a conjunction of all planets. FOOTNOTE (See: B.L. van der Waerden: The Conjunction of 3102 B.C., Centaurus 24, p 117 – 131; E.S. Kennedy: Ramifications of the World Year Concept in Islamic Astrology, Ithaca 26 VIII-2 IX, 1962)

Albumasar presumably uses the same source as Aryabahta, because al-Biruni writes:
This man (Albumasar) who is so proud of his astuteness, has calculated these star cycles exclusively on the base of the movements of stars, as they were designated by the Persians …

Albumasar reported the data of deluge and conjunction, based on two dates, which lead to same result, as follows:
1. The deluge conjunction lies 1,095,777 + 267,821 = 1,363,595 days before the Wednesday on which the rulership of Yazdigerd III started.

2. The first year of the deluge and the first day of the year of the conjunction that “announced the Arab people” are separated by 3,671 years.

The conjunction announcing the Arab people was the triple conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in 570 CE. If you count back 3,671 years from 570 CE you arrive in fact at 3102 BCE. As modern astronomy computer programs show, on 17th Feb, a very close conjunction, and one month later, on 17th March, 3102 BJE, a much closer (~20°) conjunction of all planets took place.

Image: Conjunction of classical planets on 17th March, 3102 BJE; 19. 02. 3102 BCE; JDN 588,493; CEP -2,109,669.

If you calculate starting with 16th Feb 3102 BCE (= 14th March BJC; 588,490 JDN; CEP -2,109,672) the 1,363,595 days of Albumasar, the result is Wednesday 8th July, 632 JC (1,952,085 JDN, CEP -746,077).

The 14th . Feb, 3102 BJC (= 19th Jan, BCE; 588,462 JDN; CEP -2,109,700) plus 1,363,595 days gives Wednesday, 10th June, 632 JC (= 13th . Juni 632 CE, 1,952,057 JDN; CEP-746,105).

On one of these two days, according to Albumasar, the reign of Yazdigerd III should have begun.

FOOTNOTE! The complicated conversion of the dates was made by Easy Date converter and was proved with CEP. http://www.calendersign.com/de/kalenderkunde/cep-pec/

4.2. The Turning Year. Annus Vertens. Tying the Large Year to Precession

We know today that the gyrating movement of Earth’s axis is caused by the gravitational pull of the sun and moon, but does not directly depend on the orbits of Earth, moon and the planets. In antiquity this knowledge surely was not available in the modern scientific model but ancient scholars thought that precession might depend in an unknown way upon celestial periods.

An important hint that the period between two Great-Year-Conjunctions of all planets (annus vertens), which results in the Large Year, was equated also with precession, is reported to us by Cicero and Macrobius in Scipio’s Dream:

Homines enim populariter annum tantum modo
solis, id est unius astri, reditu metiuntur;
cum autem ad idem, unde semel profecta sunt, cuncta astra redierint
eandemque totius caeli discriptionem longis intervallis rettulerint,
tum ille vere vertens annus appellari potest;
in quo vix dicere audeo quam multa hominum saecula teneantur.
Namque ut olim deficere sol hominibus exstinguique visus est,
cum Romuli animus haec ipsa in templa penetravit,
quandoque ab eadem parte sol eodemque tempore iterum defecerit,
tum signis omnibus ad principium stellisque revocatis
expletum annum habeto;
cuius quidem anni nondum vicesimam partem scito esse conversam.
Marcus Tullius Cicero: Somnium Scipionis (De Republica 6,24)

In English:
Men usually measure one year only by using the return of the sun,
thus with only one star;
but if however all stars return to the same point,
from which they started, and repeat in long intervals the same figure of the total sky,
then this is called indeed a "turning year";
I almost do not dare to say, how many human ages are contained in it.
Because - as once the sun seemed to vanish and expire for humans,
when the soul of Romulus penetrated into these temples here -
when at the same place and at the same time the sun again disappears,
then, when all signs and stars return to their beginning,
see, this is the completion of the turning year.

It is very interesting that Cicero equates the birth of Romulus with a Greatest Year, calling it annus vertens (turning year), at the beginning of a Large Year, thus relating the birth hour of Rome’s history with a conjunction of all planets and the vanishing of the sun due to an eclipse. In fact, between 600 – 1000 BCE no such alignment took place and the quote of Cicero rather expresses wishful thoughts in order to promote the prestige and image of Rome, by bringing the founder in alignment with a higher cosmic order.

The formula, “tum signis omnibus ad principium stellisque revocatis” (by all signs and stars returning to their beginnings) must be a direct allusion to precession, because, how else could the signs move back, if not by precession?

The temporal date given by Cicero until the “fulfilment of the Turning Year” also makes some sense so far: If since foundation of Rome until Cicero or Scipio 750 years have passed, and this is one part of twenty, then it will be at least another 15,000 years until the “return of the signs”, which is within the tolerance of the assumed lengths of the precessional years of classical antiquity.

Scipios Dream is also described by Macrobius ( ~ 450 CE):
Annus vero, qui mundanus vocatur, qui vere vertens est,
quia conversione plenae universitatis efficitur, largissimis saeculis explicatur;
'(...) mundani ergo anni finis est, cum stellae omnes omniaque sidera quae aplanes habet a certo loco ad eundem locum ita remeaverint, ut ne una quidem stella in alio loco sit, quam in quo fuit cum omnes aliae ex eo loco motae sunt, ad quem reversae anno suo finem dederunt, ita ut lumina quoque cum erraticis quinque in isdem locis et partibus sint, in quibus incipiente mundano anno fuerunt.
Hoc autem, ut physici volunt, post annorum quindecim milia peracta contingit.
(Macrobius : Somnium Scipionis 2,11,8-11)

In English:
The year that is called "mundanus" [world year, usually called the Greatest Year], is a true turning-year since it happens by the turning of the entire universe, unfolding over the longest periods of time; (...) [it] is therefore the end of the Great Year, when all the constellations and all the fixed stars so return from a known place to the very same place, that not a single star is in a place other than the one in which it was when all the others were set into motion from their places; in returning to it they put an end to their year, so that the lights and the five planets too are in the same places and parts in which they were at the beginning of the Great Year. This, according to the natural scientists, occurs after the passing of fifteen thousand years.

There cannot be any doubt of the fact that this somewhat complicated sentence of Macrobius, even more certainly than Cicero, describes both precession and the Great Year of the planetary periods and tries to establish a common denominator to bring them into harmony. The movement of the non-planetary stars can concern only the precession of the fixed stars in relation to the seasons or equinoxes (the self-movement of the fixed stars surely was not meant).

Macrobius assumed the duration of the Large Year, similar to Cicero, at the value of 15,000 years, after which time there would be a conjunction of all planets.

To choose the words ut physici volunt (as the physicists want), shows that this was a standard of natural science in his age.

A long collection of ancient cites on the Large Year can be found on website:
http://www.calendersign.com/en/topics/turn_of_era1/

The idea was not limited to antiquity, but is found in the Ninth Century with the Venerable Bede:
Annus magnus est, dum omnia sidera, certis cursibus exactis, ad lucum suum revertuntur, quem sexcentis annis solaribus Iosephus dicit impleri.
(Beda venerabils, De temporibus ratione 9)
English:
The Greatest Year is when all stars in their exact orbits come back to one position, which is fulfilled after 600 years, as Josephus said.

And:
Annus magnus est, cum omnia simul errantia sidera ad sua queque loca, que simul habuere, recurrunt.
(Beda venerabils, De temporum ratione 31)
In English:
The Greatest year is then, when all together the wandering stars come back to the one and same place, at which they once were.

An unsolved riddle is why still in modern terminology the full precessional cycle is still called a Platonic Year, though Plato himself never mentioned this period or movement, but only taught the large period, after which all planets return to their starting points:
After this, all stars, whose function it was to create time, arrived into each other's path... and had become alive beings and they had noted, what was prescribed for them, there they began their cycle in the course of the ecliptic, which is diagonal, because it crosses the course of the equator... Nonetheless it is possible to realize the fact that the perfect number brings the perfect year then to the time of termination, when the mutual rates of all eight circulations arrive in complete agreement and again reach their starting point, based on the circle of the steadily turning equator. (Plato; Timaios 39 a-d)

The term Platonic Year and its meaning suggests that up through the ages precession and planetary periods were mixed up, linked, seen as causing each other, or even equated.

4.3. Calendrical Periods

Any terrestrial calender time measurement has to account the movement of the Earth with some tool and display a relationship. These tools are in the calendar: Sun, Moon and the stars. By their movements time is expressed. The Earth’s day is the smallest representative unit. How putting this into relation was carried out using common multiples, and how it was described by creating a virtual meta level, shall be demonstrated now with a few examples:
Oinipides discovered the zodiac and the Large Year, of 59 years, according to Theon of Smyrna and Aetios.

4.3.1. The Grand Trine of Jupiter and Saturn and the Venus-Pentagraph

The division of the constellations and signs of the zodiac can be derived from the path of Jupiter, according to Berossos and the Babylonians. For the “Large Year” of 59 years, Saturn also is needed.

Jupiter takes about 12 years and Saturn 29.5 years for one orbit around the sun, so that alignments of Jupiter and Saturn occur on average every 19.84 years, separated from each other at a distance of ~240° on the zodiac.

This circumstance led to the invention of the four elements, which goes back to Anaxagoras and Demokritos. They tried to deduce time and cosmos from "Fire and Water and Earth and Air." For teaching this idea, the two were threatened with loss of property and death.

In this system, the 12 ecliptical constellations are arranged in such a way, that the four elements alternate regularly and the corresponding trinities form a triangle: the Grand Trine.

Image: Trinities: Air, Fire, Earth, Water

The occurrence of Jupiter-Saturn alignments can be presented vividly in this ancient metaphysical way by using the four elements.

Each fourth conjunction (after approximately 59 1/2 years) recurs at almost the same place on the ecliptic, but shifted approximately 7° 16', which results in the Grand Trine moving through a whole constellation after 238 years (30:4 = 7.5; 59.5 x 4 = 238).

The Jupiter-Saturn conjunctions take place about 12 times in the same trinity, or four times in the space of approximately 59 years consecutively in the same constellation, before the triangle moves on, into the next trinity. Thus in antiquity a kind of metaphysics was created to explain the puzzling planetary motions.

Greek Olympic time reckoning is also connected with the orbiting of these two planets, because Pelops and Oinomaios, the mythical founders of the Olympic games of antiquity represented the mythical race of Chronos and Zeus, who threw his father out of the celestial wagon.

Footnote Hamlets Mill H.v.D.

It is not certain if the four-year interval of the games was used to mark leap years, but it would have fit perfectly.

Presumably the progression of the Trine was seen as a parallel of precession or even as its motor.

Image: Kepler’s Grand Trine

Johann Kepler calculated the conjunctions for the years 1583 until 1763 CE and described them as forming the star of Bethlehem.

Image: Keplers schematic representation of the Grand Trine

The knowledge of the virtual structure, in which the alignments of Jupiter and Saturn take place, was available in antiquity in many forms. As with any movement, the significant appearance of this conjunctions can be used to give time a structure, and soon was seen generating time, or even fate, and therefore was used by priests as an oracle. Remember that the Pythia of the Apollo sanctuary in Delphi, sat on the three-legged Triphos and told people’s oracles if they sacrificed appropriately.

Two complementary facing elements (triangles) form a hexagram, or Star of David, which plays a role in the star of Bethlehem, both in symbol and in the scriptures, and one triangle is the Christian symbol of the Holy Trinity.

A possible connection could be made between the legs of Triphos, the asterism of the Big Dipper (Greater Wagon and backward part of Greater Bear) and finally, the golden thigh of Pythagoras

The Big Dipper was represented in a lot of Egyptian celestial illustrations as the thigh of a bull. Greek myth tells that Dionysius was born out of the thigh of Zeus. In the Babylonian mythic epoch, Gilgamesh and Enkidu kill the celestial bull and divide it; then Enkidu throws one thigh towards Ishtar (Venus). Presumably the golden thigh of Pythagoras brought him direct divine honour or is an allusion to it. And remember: the sides of a triangle are called in English, legs (German: Schenkel, thigh).

Still today there is the French saying "sortie de la cuisse de Jupiter“ (the end of Jupiter’s thigh), which means a very high, almost divine person.

Image: Greek pottery. The struggle of Apollo and Herakles for the Triphos

A similar geometrical shape is created by the synodic period of Venus in its alignments with the Sun. About every 584 days, Venus (as seen from Earth) is behind the sun and appears after this for the first time again as the evening star. In the same period the first appearance as morning star takes place, after Venus was in front of the sun. On the zodiac the locations of its appearance are apart from each other by about 144°. Five of these positions describe an almost regular pentagraph, which is similar in its shifting motions to the Jupiter-Saturn-Trigon. After five alignments, Sun and Venus meet again at the same ecliptical length, after almost exactly 8 solar years have passed (5*584 = 8*365). This period in antiquity was called Octaeteris and was used as a leap period.

Image: Venus Pentagraph

4.3.2. The Metonic Cycle

Our two main “ time generators”, the sun and the moon, respectively, are the most important instruments for measuring time on earth. The repetitive cycle of their orbits results in what is called the 19-year Metonic Cycle.

The unequal speed of orbits of Earth around the sun and of Moon around Earth, causes the same phase of the moon to occur on almost the same time of a particular day of a solar year every 19 years. The Sun and the Moon have therefore a common period.
Expressed in another way: In spite of completely different orbital periods, the sun and moon meet after many revolutions like the hands of a watch coincidently meet in the same positions.

Calculated with average, very precise modern dates we find:
235 synodic months of each 29.530594 days result in 6939.68935 days.
19 tropical years of each 365.24219 days result in 6939.60161 days.
Difference : 0.08798 days

That means the actual average shift between the Sun and the moon amounts in 19 years to only 2 hours, 6 min, 41 sec, showing the value that 19 tropical years are shorter than 235 synodic months.

This commonality of Sun and Moon was recorded very early, close to 400 BCE. Euktemon, Demokritos, Meton, the Egyptians and the Babylonians could round it up only on integer days and adjusted it to 6,940 days. Because the duration of a synodic month, due to the variable movement of the moon, can differ by half a day, this value is very precise.

A 19-year lunisolar cycle was created thereby, which later became indispensable in calculating Easter and the Christian Julian Calendar, using the Golden Numbers 1-19.

Let us do the previous calculation again with ancient values:
(6940 days for the Metonic cycle and 365.25 days for calendrical solar year.)

235 synodic months of each 29.530594 days results in 6939.68935 days, the observable and observed duration of the synodic month. (That was and is still in Islam the reason why the first visibility of the sickle of the new crescent moon is so important.)

19 calendrical years of 365.25 days each result in 6939.75 days.
We see immediately that the Metonic cycle does not result in an integer number of days. This was solved in antiquity by multiplying it times four, giving 76 years.

The difference between both cycles gives here 0.06065 days (approx. 1 ½ hours), almost the same value as before, except here the lunar cycle is the shorter one. This is also far below the tolerances of antiquity.

But the Metonic cycle, or better the shift of difference between sun and moon in this 19-year cycle, shows in an absolutely fantastic way why Pythagoras believed in a period of return after exactly 216 years, as reported many times by his followers.
We will explain it now exactly.

4.3.3. The Pythagorean Triangle of the Return

We have seen that Pythagoras liked to express things with numbers, but he also represented celestial conditions with geometry. Thus he states that the obliquity of the ecliptic is as much as the inner angle of a regular 15 sided polygon (360°:15 = 24°).

Why does Pythagoras say the period of return or rebirth is exactly 216 years?
This question will be answered here for the first time.

We must consider the following carefully:
How long in ACTUALITY does it take until the Metonic cycle solar year and synodic month differ by exactly one integer day?

The following simple reckoning shows that by calculating how often the above difference fits into 1 day, and multiplying this result by 19:
24 hours / 2 hours, 6 min 41 sec. (86400 sec / 7601,4 sec) = 11.3663;

11.3663 * 19 = 215.959 years.
Only after 216 years will the two exactly calculated cycles differ by exactly one day!

If the Metonic Cycle would fit with integer numbers into 216 years, a leap day would bring Sun and Moon into almost perfect calendrical harmony. Because 19 is a prime number, this happens only every 4104 years.

Expressed in pictorial language, that imagines Sun and Moon as wheels of gigantic mill, the unequal fast wheels rotate in such a way, that they are “grinding out” every 216 years one entire NEW DAY, or, respectively every 4104 years, 19 entire days.
The reckoning goes simply this way:

For 216 years:
216 * 365.24219 = 78892.31304
1498972,95144 : 19 = 78893.31323
Difference : 1,00019 days !

For 4104 years:
Syn. month: 235 * 216 = 50760; 50760*29.530594 = 1498972.95144
Trop. Years 19 * 216 = 4104; 4104 * 365.24219 = 1498953.94776
Difference: 19.00368 days in 4104 tropical years, respectively in 50760 syn. month.

The mysterious and enigmatic reason why Pythagoras selected the number of 216 years as a rebirth cycle seems sufficiently revealed by its “astrogeometrical” and lunisolar calendrical connection.

There is a Pythagorean triangle that ties together the oriental constant of precession, the 19-year Metonic cycle and the Pythagorean rebirth cycle of 216 years in an ingenious way.

The Pythagorean Triangle with the lengths of its legs 216 – 630 – 666 encodes this knowledge. A circular arrangement of 19 of these triangles formed the “Holy Grail” of antiquity and is found under the title "second seal" in the same family document as the Pseudo Dionysius cite, which is called there the "first" of "seven seals". There is intimated the true intention of the years calendrical adjustment and given the planetary periods. FOOTNOTE!! (See: WIRKLICHT. (V)ERZÄHLUNG ZUR ZEITENWENDE). http://www.calendersign.com/en/books/wirklicht/

The smaller angle of this triangle represents almost exactly the inner angle of a regular 19-sided polyhedron.

The following calculation shows the marginal difference:
Tg (360°/19) = 0.343300; 630/216 = 0.342857
The difference between both, the Tangens of the angle of the regular 19-sided polyhedron and the fraction of 630/216 is only 0.000443, thus less than a half per thousand.

Remember: 666 is the triangle number of 36 (the number of decans) and the oriental constant of precession in years each decan.

Image: Pythagorean triangle 216 – 630 – 666.

Image: The “Holy Grail” of antiquity. The circular arrangement of 19 Pythagorean triangles 216 - 630 – 666.

A last representative of a similar geometric metaphysical “weltanschauung” was experienced by Johannes Kepler when, following a revelation, he described the planetary system as circumscribing the five regular Platonic bodies.

Image: Kepler’s Platonic bodies and the planetary system.

Modern astronomers but also astrologers will recognise immediately, that the number 216 is also 120th part of the often mentioned precessional cycle with 25,920 years, where a Platonic month results in 2160 years. Here, precession for 1° results in 72 years. But it should be considered, that this could be a pure random coincidence and rather assume, that this number was not known in antiquity as precessional value.

But, who knows …
In 216 years precession, calculated with this value, results in 3° movement of spring point along the zodiac.

The difference compared with the most precise modern values (25.770 +/- 100 ) amount in the whole Platonic Year to only about 150 years, which almost can be disregarded because of the other not precisely known influences on the wobbling of Earth.
Some modern esoterics, who imagine the cosmos and its cycles to be huge crystals, similar to Kepler's former image, seem with this idea to be not completely incorrect …

The approximate 500-660-year-cycle of the Phoenix is also explained by the 216 years.

Let us now take a closer look at the flight of this strange sunbird.

4.3.4. The Flight of the Phoenix

Physiologus 7. About the bird Phoenix:
There is a bird in India, called the Phoenix.
After five hundred years it flies into the forests of Lebanon and fills its wings with aromatic essences and shows itself to the priest of Heliopolis (the sun city of Egypt) in the first month, in Nisan or Adar (in Babylonian-Jewish calendar: mid-March until mid-April), that is in Phamenoth or Pharmuti. The priest, to whom it had shown itself, comes and fills the altar with the wood of wine trees.
The bird flies to Heliopolis loaded with aromatic essences and steps on the altar and lights for itself the fire and burns itself.
On the following day, when the priest searches the altar, he finds a worm in the ashes.
On second day he finds it as a little chicken of a bird, and on third day he finds a grown up bird, and this one takes its leave and goes back to his home again.

Herodotus reports on the phoenix:
There is another sacred bird, called Phoenix.
I have not seen it by myself, only an image of it, and it only visits rarely, as the people of Sun city Heliopolis say, only every five hundred years.
It comes only when, as one says, when his father has died.
(Herodot Historiae 2,73)

Pliny wrote:
Hee (Manilius) reporteth, that never man was knowne to see him feeding: that in Arabia hee is held a sacred bird, dedicated unto the Sunne: that hee liveth 660 yeares: and when hee groweth old, and begins to decay, he builds himselfe a nest with the twigs and branches of the Canell or Cinamon, and Frankincense trees: and when he hath filled it with all sort of sweet Aromaticall spices, yeeldeth up his life thereupon. He saith moreover, that of his bones & marrow there breedeth at first as it were a little worme: which afterwards prooveth to bee a pretie bird. And the first thing that this yong new Phœnix doth, is to performe the obsequies of the former Phœnix late deceased: to translate and carie away his whole nest into the citie of the Sunne neere Panchæa, and to bestow it full devoutly there upon the altar. The same Manilius affirmeth, that the revolution of the great yeare so much spoken of, agreeth just with the life of this bird: in which yeare the starres returne againe to their first points, and give signification of times and seasons, as at the beginning: and withall, that this yeare should begin at high noone, that very day when the Sunne entreth the signe Aries.
(Plinius Elder., Historia naturalis 10,2,3-5)

Footnote: Philemon Holland, translator (1601): C. Plinius Secundus. The Historie of the World. Book X. (Pages 270-309). http://penelope.uchicago.edu/holland/pliny10.html

Tacitus wrote:
That it is a creature sacred to the sun, differing from all other birds in
its beak and in the tints of its plumage, is held unanimously by those who have described its nature.
As to the number of years it lives, there are various accounts. The general tradition says five hundred years. Some maintain that it is seen at intervals of fourteen hundred and sixty-one years, and that the former birds flew into the city called Heliopolis successively in the reigns of Sesostris, Amasis, and Ptolemy, the third king of the Macedonian dynasty, with a multitude of companion birds marvelling at the novelty of the appearance.
(Tacitus, Annales 6,28)
Footnote: http://classics.mit.edu/Tacitus/annals.6.vi.html
All above cites are to found in original Latin or Greek versions on website of Hans Zimmermann. http://home.t-online.de/home/rudolf-steiner/phoenix.htm

Particularly the quote of Pliny concerning 660 years, and that of Tacitus regarding 1461 years is a clear hint. 660 regards precession and 1461 is the period after which the Egyptian 365-day calendar has “overtaken” the Julian 365 ¼ day calendar, or the difference of ¼ day has amounted to one whole year.
(365.25 * 4 = 1461).

1460 Julian years gives therefore 1461 so called Egyptian Sothic years.

This time span was also called a Large Year by many ancient authors and results also from the common multiple of days of both calendrical years.
365,25 * 365 * 4 = 533.265.

Because after 216 years in the Metonic cycle a crack (or crevice) of exactly one integer day opens between the Sun and the Moon, this results after about 500 years to approx 2 ½ days. The described days in which the Phoenix bird burns to ashes and is reborn in Heliopolis is nothing less than the number of intercalated leap days required to correct the calendar after about 500 years.

After this, priests observed with much brimborium (hoo-hah) the tiny moon sickle (described as a little worm) and symbolically, the solar bird (the solar calendar) was sent on his journey.

Whoever has only a little bit of understanding will recognize that the days of Christ, who resurrected on third day, are only a copy of the days of the Phoenix of Heliopolis. In medieval times, the cycle of the Phoenix was considered to be a symbol of the resurrection of Christ.

Phoenix, Medieval Monastery Neuberg, Styria, Austria
The description under the sculpture reads:
The Phoenix, which becomes young again by burning itself, was already in early christianity symbol of resurrection.
After Physiologus it symbolizes death and resurrection of Christ according to his divine nature.

This age-old time-counting cult attempts to bring into harmony the sun and the moon by the calendrical time-reckoning and navigation of the “time-space-ship” Earth. The course to be taken is East (oriens, rise, future), where the Sun arises at the vernal equinox, on almost the same point of horizon as the spring full moon or new moon. Ostara, Pessach, Nauroz, Annunciation, Eos and Tithonos, New Day, Saka, Incarnation, Tahwil, Easter etc. are some of the names of feasts and myths that are or should be connected with this celestial cycle.

In last years Easter is celebrated at a slightly different time because of the Gregorian Calendar cycle, after being held numerous times on the wrong Sunday. To celebrate Easter on the wrong Sunday, according to Christian belief is a mortal sin, for which in former times innumerable people have been burnt at the stake. In the Gregorian Calendar, the astronomical spring equinox falls on March 21, which in the council of Nicea and by the reform of 1583 CE was proclaimed to be the vernal equinox, only in 2003 and 2007. In rest of the years of this century, the vernal equinox will be on the 20th and even on 19th March! The Catholic Easter takes place this year at correct date, and perhaps, for the last time …

For the adjustment of the yearly count, additional ancient concepts of faith were responsible.

5.1. The Christian Bible-based Chronologies of Time

Of the Sabbath He speaketh in the beginning of the creation; And God made the works of His hands in six days, and He ended on the seventh day, and rested on it, and He hallowed it.
Give heed, children, what this meaneth; He ended in six days. He meaneth this, that in six thousand years the Lord shall bring all things to an end; for the day with Him signifieth a thousand years; and this He himself beareth me witness, saying; Behold, the day of
the Lord shall be as a thousand years. Therefore, children, in six days, that is in six thousand years, everything shall come to an end.
And He rested on the seventh day. This He meaneth; when His Son shall come, and shall abolish the time of the Lawless One, and shall judge the ungodly, and shall change the sun and the moon and the stars, then shall he truly rest on the seventh day.
(Barnabas 15:3-5)

Before we look more closely at early Christian chronologies, briefly we shall explain the origin of the seven-day week, which was not in use under the old Roman Julian Calendar, which used an eight-day market cycle. The origin of the seven-day-week is clearly Babylonian, and this is the week that has been accepted by Judaism, Christianity and Islam. It was and is the main instrument used to move people to do God’s service on the free-of-work day, and to bind people to religious communities.

The order of the weekdays, which are coordinated to the seven classical planets, is determined by a matrix of each of the 12 day and night hours, and the order of planets in the Babylonian planetary system.

In antiquity there was no common agreement on the order of spheres or their distance from Earth.

A brief list of the main ancient authors and the order of the planetary spheres according their distance from fixed stars to Earth goes:
1 Plato, Timaios 38 C -39 A: Mo Sun Venus Merkur Mars Jup Sat Fix
2

E Early Pythagoreans
P Ptolemy, Almagest IX 1
Mo Venus Mer Sun Mars Jup Sat Fix
3 Late Pythagoreans
Eudoxos Kallippos Aristoteles Mo Sun Venus Mer Mars Jup Sat Fix
4 Berossos Mo Mer Venus Sun Mars Jup Sat Fix
5 Sev. ancient astrologers Mo Mer Venus Sun Mars Jup Sat Fix
6 Ptolemy Mo Mer Venus Sun Mars Jup Sat Fix

As is shown, agreement on the order extended only to the moon, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and the fixed stars, although the order in lines 1, 2, 3, is completely unrealistic and impossible. The order as in line 4, 5, 6, represents the order of the seeming speeds of the planets along the zodiac or ecliptic. This order, even in the heliocentric system is possible, if at new moon the planets Mercury and Venus are in lower conjunction and Mars, Jupiter and Saturn are in upper conjunction.

In this order is based the planetary week, as Berossos reports.

Using an astrological horoscopical (literally: hour watching) concept, this seven-planet order was connected with each of the12 hours of the day and night.

The first hour of the first day was coordinated by the astrologers with the “bad” planet Saturn, on which day, the Sabbath, it is better that nothing be undertaken. In the order of Jupiter (2), Mars (3), Sun (4), Venus (5), Mercury (6), Moon (7), each of the 12 day and night hours were counted. The first hour of the next day as a consequence was dedicated to the sun (Sunday). The first hour of the following days similarly was coordinated with one of the seven planets, which gave its name to that day. After seven days the cycle would repeat.
The same order of weekdays is given if you always omit two in the repetitive order of their spheres.

Image: Matrix of weekday order

5.2. Creation of the World Eras and Seven-Day Week

Early Christian world histories tried to relate the biblical seven-day cycle of Genesis with the birth of Christ. The first attempt was made by Sextus Julius Africanus at the beginning of the 3rd century with his Anno Mundi chronology. For the whole history of mankind since creation there was preserved a time frame of 6000 years, in allusion to Ps. 90:4 (For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night.) and 2 Peter 3:8 (one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day).
After this, on the Seventh, or Doomsday, shall come the resurrection of the death.

The birth of Jesus was put by Africanus in the world year 5500 (AM), to agree with the Bible statement that Christ had appeared in the 11th (the last) hour.

I John 2:18: "Children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come; therefore we know that it is the last hour."
Thus 5500 corresponds to the eleventh hour from the available twelve (6000: 12 * 11 = 5500).

The method of Africanus substantially influenced early occidental and Byzantine historians and chronologies and is still, albeit slightly changed, in use in Orthodox Christian Churches.

This Anno Mundi counting had a problem in that human history ends with the year 6000, after which the seventh day arrives, naturally accompanied by the end of the world, as taught by the churches.

As an example Declercq says:
At the turn of the fourth to fifth centuries, i.e., precisely the moment when the barbarian invasions may have stirred up apocalyptic anxieties, the North African bishop Julius Hilarianus, for instance, wrote a treatise “On the Duration of the World”, in which he calculates 5530 years from creation to the Passion of Christ, and 369 years from that event until the consulate of Caesarius and Atticus (AD 397); there remain, so he concludes, 101 years to go before the Resurrection of the dead.
FOOTNOTE (Declercq, Georges: Anno Domini. The Origins of the Christian Era. Turnhout Belgium 2000)

5.3. The Threat of the Seventh Day

What is the Church to do, if the world is ending because of the world’s calendar age of 6000 years? They created a new, Bible-connected chronology in order to head off hysterical civil and religious disturbance!

Three main attempts to form a new yearly count were made:

1. Shift AM 6000 to the past, as Malalas did by dating Christ’s passion to AM 6000, with the consequence that the Seventh Day had already begun, which was surely inconvenient for the church.

2. Make the age of the world younger, in order to shift the fatal year 6000 into the future. This was the calculation of Eusebius, who based on 4th cent. Hieronimus. Eusebius shifted the birth of Christ about three centuries from AM 5500 to the year AM 5199. Due to this, in the West soon becoming the standard time calculation, Eusebius’s AM 6000 occurred around the year 800 CE. Indeed, in the Ninth Century, the Venerable Bede “made younger” again the world’s age - probably because in his time the Eusebian AM 6000 occurred. Bede shifted the birth of Christ 1200 years and dated it to AM 3952. So Bede’s year AM 6000 threatens in 2043 CE.

Even in the most recent history, as we will show later, Isaac Newton linked the world’s end of Eusebius, AM 6000, i.e., 800 CE, to and created another apocalyptically calculated world’s end.

3. The most widespread global attempt was made by Dionysius Exiguus when he created a new temporal hinge point for counting the years.

5.4. The Adjustment of AD by Dionysius Exiguus

As we saw before, all Christian chronologies were based on a time frame of six days, representing 6000 years, where the birth of Christ and the expected arrival of doomsday played the major roles for linking it with calendar years.

Both were used by Dionysius Exiguus, but in addition he wanted to bring into harmony or link the calendar with two other ancient scientific concepts of the world: the Great Year and precession.

As seen above in the chapter ”Turning Year” (4.2.) and “The Pythagorean Triangle of the Return” (4.3.3.) Pliny and Macrobius regarded these two ideas as one and the same.

Dionysius Exiguus took up this idea about 80 years after Macrobius, when the world year AM 6000 of the Africanus had come. Using known planetary periods, he computed the date of the future conjunction of all planets (5 May 2000). With that Greatest-Year-alignment he meant to have found the end of the world. He adjusted the year of the incarnation of Christ according to the assumed precession constant (666y/10°), one precessional age of 2000 years before that date.

Dionysius tells us in his Liber de Paschate that because of the ending of St. Cyril’s Easter cycle, he created a new 532-year cycle, which he linked with the life of Jesus. He called his new chronology ab incarnatione Domini nostri Iesu Christi annorum tempora (time from the year of the incarnation (conception) of our Lord Jesus Christ).

Significant for calendrical Easter calculation, as in Julian calendar, is the fourth-yearly leap rule and seven-day week. Thus the weekdays repeat in a 28-year cycle (4*7 = 28). Therefore, every 28 years the year starts with the same weekday. Easter is also linked to the first vernal full moon, thus together with the Metonic period, this results in a cycle in which the planetary weekdays arithmetically should be in agreement with solar and lunar periods (28 * 19 = 532).

Here it is important to see that the Christian feast of incarnation was placed at the former vernal equinox, which was on March 25th around 1 BCE. Dionysius, significantly, also did not link his new time calculation with Anno Mundi, nor with ab urbe condita (time from the foundation of the city of Rome). He did not want to give rise to suspicion, that his new count was to coordinate the creation of the world, six-day work-week, nor did he intend to link the incarnation with the Greatest Year, as was done by Cicero with Remus and Romulus’ birth.

FOOTNOTE: (chapter 4.2.).

Instead of this, he chose, as a pretext, the to be abolished years since Diocletian, by equating the 248th year of Diocletian with 532 AD. Hi hide thus tricky the true orientation of his yearly count, i.e. precession and a Greatest Year at the end: the assumed end of the world at expected return of Christ and new spring constellation after Pisces (ICHTHYS).

Dionysius hoped to harmonize both precession and the planetary Great Year. He also tried to interpret correctly the words of the Old Testament, “1000 years are for God one day”, as “Destroy this temple and on the third day I will raise it up” of the New Testament, because the third day (of Jesus) starts when 2000 years have expired.
Thus he created his yearly counting, which now ends in 2003 CE.

The reason for the adjustment of AD given by Dionysius and the church, namely to create a new Easter cycle and remove the Diocletian count was only a pretext to distract us from the true reason. This in fact is the imminent world’s end in AM 6000, at the beginning of the Sixth Century. This world’s end was postponed to 2000 AD, the year of the conjunctio