sources differ as to how long the sun stood still); the Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Aboda Zara 25a; Targum Habakkuk 3:11.
B With the exception of the water clock.
6 Bernardino de Sahagun (1499P-1590), Historia general de las cosas de Nueva Espana, new ed. 1938 (5 vols.) and 1946 (3 vols.). French transl. D. Jourdanet and R. Simeon (1880), p. 481.
CHAPTER 2
Fifty-two Years Earlier
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THE PRE-COLUMBIAN written traditions of Central America tell us that fifty-two years before the catastrophe that closely resembles that of the time of Joshua, another catastrophe of world dimensions had occurred.1 It is therefore only natural to go back to the old Israelite traditions, as narrated in the Scriptures, to determine whether they contain evidence of a corresponding catastrophe. i»The time of the Wandering in the Desert is given by the Scriptures as forty years.
Then, for a number of years before the day of the disturbed movement of the earth, the protracted conquest of Palestine went on.2 It seems reasonable, therefore, to ask whether a date fifty-two years before this event would coincide with the time of the Exodus.
In the work Ages in Chaos, I describe at some length the catastrophe that visited Egypt and Arabia. In that work it is explained that the Exodus took place amid a great natural upheaval that terminated the period of Egyptian history known as the Middle Kingdom. There I endeavor to show that contemporary Egyptian documents describe the same disaster accompanied by "the plagues of Egypt," and that the traditions of the Arabian Peninsula relate similar occurrences in this land and on the shores of the Red Sea. In that work I refer also to Beke's idea that Mt. Sinai was a smoking volcano. However, I reveal that "the scope of the catastrophe must 1 These sources will be cited on subsequent pages.
2 According to rabbinical sources, the war of conquest in Palestine lasted fourteen years.
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48 WORLDS IN COLLISION
have exceeded by far the measure of the disturbance which could be caused by one active volcano," and I promise to answer the question: "Of what nature and dimension was this catastrophe, or this series of catastrophes, accompanied by plagues?" and to publish an investigation into the nature of great catastrophes of the past. Both works—the reconstruction of history and the reconstruction of natural history—were conceived within the short interval of half a year; the desire to establish a correct historical chronology before fitting the acts of nature into the periods of human history impelled me to complete Ages in Chaos first.3
I shall employ some of the historical material from the first chapters of Ages in Chaos. There I use it for the purpose of synchronizing events in the histories of the countries around the eastern Mediterranean; here I shall use it to show that the same events took place all around the world, and to explain the nature of these events.
The Red World
^ In the middle of the second millennium before the present era, as I intend to show, the earth underwent one of the greatest catastrophes in its history. A celestial body that only shortly before had become a member of the solar system—a new comet—came very close to the earth. The account of this catastrophe can be reconstructed from evidence supplied by a large number of documents.
The comet was on its way from its perihelion and touched the earth first with its gaseous tail.
Later in this book I shall show that it was about this comet that Servius wrote: "Non igneo sed sanguineo rubore fuisse" (It was not of a flaming but of a bloody redness).
One of the first visible signs of this encounter was the reddening of the earth's surface by a fine dust of rusty pigment. In sea, lake, and river this pigment gave a bloody coloring to the water.
Because of these particles of ferruginous or other soluble pigment, the world turned red.
The Manuscript QuichS of the Mayas tells that in the Western Hemisphere, in the days of a great cataclysm, when the earth quaked
3 In order of publication it will follow the present volume.
WORLDS IN COLLISION 49
and the sun's motion was interrupted, the water in the rivers turned to blood.1
Aipuwer, the Egyptian eyewitness of the catastrophe, wrote his lament on papyrus: 2 "The river is blood," and this corresponds with the Book of Exodus (7 :20): "All the waters that were in the river were turned to blood." The author of the papyrus also wrote: 'Tlague is throughout the land.
Blood is everywhere," and this, too, corresponds with the Book of Exodus (7 : 21): "There was blood throughout all the land of Egypt."
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vThe presence of the hematoid pigment in the rivers caused the death of fish followed by decomposition and smell. "And the river stank" (Exodus 7:21). "And all the Egyptians digged round about the river for water to drink; for they could not drink of the water of the river"
(Exodus 7:24). The papyrus relates: "Men shrink from tasting; human beings thirst after water,"
and "That is our water! That is our happiness! What shall we do in respect thereof? All is ruin."
. The skin of men and of animals was irritated by the dust, which caused boils, sickness, and the death of cattle— "a very grievous murrain." 3 Wild animals, frightened by the portents in the sky, came close to the villages and cities.4
The summit of mountainous Thrace received the name "Haemus," and Apollodorus related the tradition of the Thracians that the summit was so named because of the "stream of blood which gushed out on the mountain" when the heavenly battle was fought between Zeus and Typhon, and Typhon was struck by a thunderbolt.5 It is said that a city in Egypt received the same name for the same reason.6
1 Brasseur, Histoire des nations civilisees du Mexique, I, 130.
2 A. H. Gardiner, Admonitions of an Egyptian Sage from a hieratic papyrus in Leiden (1909). Its author was an Egyptian named Ipuwer. Hereafter the text will be cited as "Papyrus Ipuwer."
In Ages in Chaos I shall develop evidence to show that this papyrus describes events contemporaneous with the end of the Middle Kingdom in Egypt and the Exodus. It must have been composed shortly following the catastrophe.
3 Exodus 9 : 3; cf. Papyrus Ipuwer 5:5. 4 Ginzberg, Legends, V, 430. 5 Apollodorus, The Library (transl. J. G. Frazer, 1921), VI.
* Frazer's comment to Apollodorus' Library, I, 50.
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The mythology which personified the forces of the cosmic drama described the world as colored red. In one Egyptian myth the bloody hue of the world is ascribed to the blood of Osiris, the mortally wounded planet god; in another myth it is the blood of Seth or Apopi; in the Babylonian myth the world was colored red by the blood of the slain Tiamat, the heavenly monster.7
The Finnish epos of Kalevala describes how, in the days of the cosmic upheaval, the world was sprinkled with red milk.8 The Altai Tatars tell of a catastrophe when "blood turns the whole world red," and a world conflagration follows.9 The Orphic hymns refer to the time when the heavenly vault, "mighty Olympus, trembled fearfully . . . and the earth around shrieked fearfully, and the sea was stirred [heaped], troubled with its purple waves." 10
v An old subject for debate is: Why is the Red Sea so named? If a sea is called Black or White, that may be due to the dark coloring of the water or to the brightness of the ice and snow. The Red Sea has a deep blue color. As no better reason was found, a few coral formations or some red birds on its shores were proposed as explanations of its name.11
Like all the water in Egypt, the water on the surface of the Sea of the Passage was of a red tint. It appears that Raphael was not mistaken when, in painting the scene of the passage, he colored the water red.