The Story of EclipsesChambers, George F. (George Frederick)
History
The Story of Eclipses
Chambers, George F. (George Frederick)
Eclipses
This seems an appropriate place to mention a very interesting matter, to
which attention has been called by Oriental scholars in recent times,
who have investigated Assyrian and Egyptian monuments, and other
monuments of the same type. The story would be a long and interesting
one if presented in detail, and would far exceed my limits of space. I
must, therefore, be content with such a summary as that which has been
worked out by Mr. E. W. Maunder. Briefly the facts are these. There are
to be found in many places carvings in stone, symbolic of the Sun-god
once worshipped in the East. The general design, with of course
variations, is a circle with striated wings extending right and left to
two diameters of the wing, more or less, with a lesser extension in a
downward direction. Allowing for the roughness of the art, and for the
fact that the material was stone, it does not require any very great
stretch of imagination to see in these carvings the disc of a
totally-eclipsed Sun with, right and left and below it, that form of
corona which we have come to associate with total eclipses occurring at
periods of Sun-spot minima.[34] This idea should not seem far-fetched if
we bear in mind the fact that the ancient Orientals worshipped the Sun,
Moon, and Planets; and one of the natural outcomes of this is submitted
for our consideration by Maunder in the words following[35]:—
“There can be little doubt that the Sun was regarded partly as a symbol,
partly as a manifestation of the unseen, unapproachable Divinity. Its
light and heat, its power of calling into active exercise the
mysterious forces of germination and ripening, the universality of its
influence, all seemed the fit expressions of the yet greater powers
which belonged to the Invisible. What happened in a total solar eclipse?
For a short time that which seemed so perfect a divine symbol was
completely hidden. The light and heat, the two great forms of solar
energy, were withdrawn, but something took their place. A mysterious
light of mysterious form, unlike any other light, unlike any other
single form, was seen in its place. Could they fail to see in this a
closer, a more intimate revelation, a more exalted symbolism of the
Divine Nature and Presence? Just as in the various Greek ‘mysteries’ the
student was gradually advanced from one set of symbols to another even
more abstruse and esoteric, so here, on the broad face of heaven itself,
vouchsafed for a brief space of time and at long intervals apart, the
Deity revealed Himself to the initiated by a higher and more difficult
symbol than ordinarily. The symbol would vary in shape. We may take it
for granted that the old Chaldeans, as modern astronomers to-day, had at
one time or another presented to them every type of Coronal structure.
But there would, no doubt, be a difficulty in grasping or remembering
the irregular details of the Corona as seen in most eclipses. It
occasionally happens, however, that the Corona shows itself under a form
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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