Bel-Ashur and 432,000 Years History

Berossos, Akkadian Bel-usur, was an Assyrian priest of Bel in Babylon. He lived in the 3rd century BC and wrote all he knew about the history. Unfortunately, there are fragments or quotations left from the three books he wrote. Many historians have used him as a reference, so Bel-usur is real.

Bel-usur, in his second book describes a period of 432,000 years history, up to the Flood.

Bel-usur is also known as, Berosus, Berossus, Berossos, Berosos. I call him Bel-Ashur.

Table 26-1 shows the lists of kings from Plato, China, Genesis, Berossus, and two Sumerian clay tablets. The WB designations for the latter refer to the catalog numbers of the Weld-Blundell collection in the Ashmolean Museum of Oxford University.

It can be seen that the first Chinese king, Fu Hsi, falls in line with Adam, strengthening our supposition that he is a Chinese memory of Adam. However Daonos as #6 in Berossus' list, and Dumuzi as #5 in the two Sumerian lists, suggests that his memory was already faded by the time the lists were recorded. The Flood falls at the end of the lists from China, Genesis, Berossus and Sumeria. In Plato's account the ten twin sons were born before the geological disruptions of Atlantis. This Table is for illustration only; for simplicity I have not included the Egyptian list, or others for an exhaustive display from people around the world.

Table 26-2 is a tabulation of kings from the WB-144 list both before and after the Flood, including the first dynasty of Kish, and the first dynasty of ErechSKL. Many other dynasties follow but I do not show them since they are not pertinent to our discussions.

It is significant that ancient people acknowledged extremely long periods of time. The Sumerians reckoned in periods of 60 years, equal to one soss, 600 (60 X 10) years equal to one ner, and 3600 (60 X 60) years equal to one sar. (Note the sar designation, for kingly rulership.)

If this scheme is carried farther a great sar of 60 X 3600 would be equal to 216,000 years. That number is exactly one-half of the Berossus sum for his king ages = 432,000.

We would not use such long time designations in our modern world. In fact, we do not believe the old records; we see them only as "mythological" or fanciful inventions. Scholars have attempted to reconcile the long spans by suggesting they are moon or day counts. 930 years for Adam would be 930 months, approximately 80 years. However, 72,000 days for Alagar is almost two hundred years, obviously still not real for mortal earthly reigns, as we know them. These attempts also neglect the worldwide traditions of long time spans. They are nothing more than efforts to reconcile the data to conventional modern and godless views, a phenomena observed in the Chinese euphemizing process when Confucius said the 300 years is actually 100, plus 100 of memory, plus another 100 of fame.

Other curiosities present themselves in the numbers from the Sumerian lists. In Norse mythologies the "War of the Wolf" was the recurrent cosmic battle between the gods and the antigods. In the Icelandic Poetic Edda we are told that in Odin's heavenly warrior hall were 540 doorsMOG:

Five hundred doors and forty there are, I ween, in Valhalla's walls; eight hundred fighters through each door fare when to war with the Wolf they go.

Curiously 540 doors times 800 warriors is 432,000, that magical number from Berossus. We are also reminded of the Hindu myths of 12,000 divine years with 360 human years in each divine year. These 4,320,000 human years (10 X 432,000) are in each period of Brahma. The age of Kali, in which we now live, had 1200 divine years and therefore 432,000 human years, the same as the number from the Icelandic epic tale and from the Berossus' king reigns. Each speaks of a great cycle of earth time, a dispensation of the gods.

But the other Sumerian sums, although different from Berossus, also carry significance. The WB-62 sum is 456,000 years while that of the WB-144 is 241,200. Some of the magic of the numbers is seen in that 1200 (60 X 20) divides into all of them. 456,000/1200 = 380; 432,000/1200 = 360; 241,200/1200 = 201. But far more intriguing is the fact that the movement of the earth through the heavens also has a natural period related to the Sumerian numbers.

Our planet moves with its orbital axis pointed toward Polaris, the North Pole star. But this orientation is not stationary. It precesses over a period of 25,920 years. This precession is observed on March 21 when the vernal equinox takes place. Each year the heavenly bodies lag in their position by about 50 seconds of arc. In 72 years this lag amounts to one degree (50" X 72 = 3600" = 60' = 1 degree). Since there are twelve signs of the zodiac each sign occupies 30 degrees. Therefore the crossing of the earth at the vernal equinox changes zodiac sign every 2160 years. The cycle completes itself through the twelve signs in the 25,920 years. The North Pole position will continue to move around the heavens until it returns to its present position directed toward Polaris 25,920 years from now -- if other geophysical events do not take place.

If we take the Sumerian time unit of one soss = 60 years and divide it into the precessional period of 25,920 we obtain 432, that magical number given by Berossus.

Little do modern people recognize the strength of our inheritance from the past. The daily time keeping of 60 seconds in one minute, and 60 minutes in one hour is a memory of those old reckoning systems. 360 degrees in a circle is also part of that legacy. It is easy to recognize how the Sumerian sexagesimal system, which so greatly clocks our daily lives, could have been derived from the precessional period of the planet.

The ancient Sumerians also had a festival calendar which was reckoned by five-day periods or weeks. There are 72 such periods in 360 days. The extra five days in a year were considered special, not part of the regular 72-week cycle. In 72 years, the length of time for the earth to precess one degree, occur 72 X 360 = 25,920 festival weeks, the same as the number of years in the precession of the equinoxes. Also interesting, are the "lost" days. Five each for 72 years is the magic number of 360, and another full festival year. (Except that leap year confuses the neat mathematics.)

Although these coincidences of numbers are intriguing they do not necessarily indicate a basic relationship between mathematics and physical cycles. Rather they indicate that ancient people tied their clocks, their calendars, their circular measurements, and their activities to the natural cycles of the earth over very long spans of time. They knew much about the great cycles of the earth and of time.

Other relationships exist among the lists. Translation into year equivalents has obscured these connections; if the lists had been published with the sar numbers the patterns might have been more apparent. In Table 26-3 I list the numbers in both years and sars. It is obvious that except for three cases the numbers are rounded off to whole sar values. (The fractional values are also round numbers: 1/6 sar = 600 years; 4/6 sar = 2400 years; 5/6 sar = 3000 years.)

We also find certain repetitive patterns: Berossus has 18-10-18-10-8-18 in the last six kings. These numbers are not random, but show a rhythmic sequence. WB-144 also show a rhythmic sequence in 8-10-12-8-10-8. WB-62 also suggests artificial numbers in the sequence of 6-8-6-10-20.

The first three kings of the Berossus' list have reigns of 10-3-13 sars; the third number is the sum of the first two. The number 18 is the sum of 8 and 10. Thus it appears that the numbers are not real; they were modified to reflect ancient traditions of spans of 6, 8, 10, or 12 sars, and were further modified to add to sums that go back nearly 500,000 years! The kings from these lists are related to the physical precessional cycles of the earth.

A more exact appraisal of the numbers can be obtained by closer examination of the patterns. If we move the WB-144 list down one position to compensate for a missing king we find that the fourth king on each list has reigns of 12-6-12 sars respectively. The WB-62 number is one-half the 12 from Berossus and WB-144. The kings in the fifth position have reigns of 18-8-8 sars; the Berossus number 18 is the sum of 8, shown on the two Sumerian lists, plus 10.

From these coincidental numbers we open the door to perception of artificial adjustments used by the scribes to obtain their magic sums. If we assume numbers were coupled together by Berossus to obtain his 432,000 magic years we arrive at insight into his mathematics. If the number 18 in the sequence 18-10-18-10-8-18 is the addition of 8 and 10 then the order might originally have been 8-10-8-10-8-10. Thus the kings would be grouped into sets of two, or twinned, as in Plato and the Egyptian list. This procedure also gives other correlations. If we reduce the Berossus' numbers to their primary values, the sequence 10-12-8-10-8 occurs from the third king to the seventh in both Berossus and WB-144.

WB-144 remains unchanged except for realignment with the other two lists.

Similarly if we uncouple the numbers on the WB-62 list by assuming that 20 should be 10, and that 6 should be 12, we find six numbers correlating with the modified Berossus' list. Berossus coupled numbers by adding consecutive values, while the WB-62 scribe multiplied or divided some numbers by two to obtain his 456,000 total. The scribes were playing with the numbers to take the origin of the kings back nearly one-half million years!

The scribe for the WB-144 list did not attempt to adjust the ages. This suggests that WB-144 may be the most accurate of the lists.

Based on these adjustments I show all lists in the second part of Table 26-3, together with a suggested optimum list. The first king is the most remote in time and the most uncertain. He does not show on WB-144. The next six values are as shown on WB-144 and find support by majority vote of the three lists. The last two also are subject to question; I again use the WB-144 values since they seem to be more "real" than the values from the other lists. They are more recent in time and perhaps may have been remembered more precisely. I assume that WB-144, being the most honest list, has two kings missing. The second missing value I place in position eight because of the good correlation across all the lists and because the last two positions appear as artificial repetitions on both Berossus and WB-62.

Thorkild Jacobsen, in his expert analysis of WB-144, expressed the opinion also that it represents the best tradition of the lists. He showed that the documentation could be traced over several centuries by the mannerisms of the scribes. He expressed the opinion that the WB-62 and Berossus' lists were changed after they broke away from a common line of preservation. Based on the assessment that WB-144 represents the best tradition of the lists Jacobsen concluded that two kings were inserted on the other lists to preserve the tradition of ten kings. He felt that a king was added in the last position to satisfy the pervasive myth of the Flood. But he admits that the tradition of ten kings is very strongSKL.

Joseph Campbell expressed two major thoughts which reflect on the listsMOG:

The first point is that although Berossus differs considerably from the earlier lists, and they between themselves, there is enough to indicate that all are variants of a common legacy. The strength of the tradition shows also that they persisted in essential continuity for at least two thousand years (from 4,000 to 2,000 BC).

By this remark Campbell emphasizes the conservative strength of cultural memory in ancient times. People clung to their folk tales and their traditions much more strongly than people of more recent times. The lists reflect actual planetary periods, just as the myths of Dumuzi and Inanna reflected actual events, although distorted and debased with time.

Campbell goes on to make a foolish remark:

And we can readily see that although their year assignments greatly vary, all are of the same mythological order and could not possibly be read today by anybody in his right mind as referring accurately to historical events. These, accounts, therefore, represent precipitates, not of sober history, but of legend; that is to say, history interpreted as a manifestation of myth.

We shall now go on to show the significance of the lists, and how they remember the natural history of this planet. But first we must examine that greatest of all earth events -- the Great Flood.