Saturn, the Black Sun of the early days

An in-depth analysis of the most ancient sources in our possession leads us to the conclusion that, 'in illo tempore', in a perspective of "stellar symbolism" (and not yet "solar"), Saturn was considered the true King of Heaven.

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di Andrew Casella

" In his opinion [Epigenes of Byzantium], the planet
Saturn [star Saturni] exercises a very powerful
influence on the movements of all celestial bodies. "

(Seneca, Naturals Questions, VII, 4, 2)

There is some inkling that ancient civilizations had somehow been sunny. The pre-eminence of the sun god is clear: Shamash in Mesopotamia has a fundamental part in theEpic of Gilgamesh, Apollo in Greece was the lord of the most important oracular temple of all, the pre-eminence of Amun-Ra in Egypt is even unnecessary to point out. And yet, in the really primordial times, going back to those that Aristotle, in Metaphysics, who loves oi archaioi kai pampalaioi ("archaic and very ancient men»), The symbolism was not solar, but stellar [cf. Stellar symbolism and solar symbolism]. In truth, the Sun was by no means considered among the cosmic actors except to provide the basic measure of time ("the golden string» of Homer), which was actually held by another cosmic actor, namely the planet Saturn, chronokrator supreme.

The deeper you go into the matter, the more you realize how the place of the Sun was originally held by Saturn, and indeed, one realizes how the successive gods of the Sun were actually late manifestations of Saturn, on which the Sun had come to superimpose itself. Report Giorgio de Santillana (The origins of scientific thought, note 2):

«In an excellent and authoritative work on Egypt, however, we will find that the Sun, Amun-Ra, is represented by tradition as the first king of Egypt, which demonstrates that the Egyptian civilization was solar, like all essentially agricultural civilizations. But elsewhere the author must admit the existence of an even more ancient god-king, that is Ptah, Lord of Memphis, the original capital of the 'united kingdom' (Upper and Lower Egypt). We are thus forced to conclude - together with the author - that Ptah was another version of the solar god. But a demotic ostracon (1), whose testimony has its weight, clearly states that the star of Ra is Kronos, that is, Saturn. We are therefore led to suppose that the Sun had superimposed itself on the original role of Saturn; more so that astronomical cuneiform tablets call Saturn by the name of the Sun, Shamash, and that there are sufficient reasons to believe that the Sun of the Greeks is Kronos whenever it is spoken of as 'Helios the Titan'. This is irrelevant, the knowledgeable philologists say: it is only a late ostracon and the good philological method teaches us not to take into account all the late testimonies. All right, but they could have taken into account the fact that Ptah, from the very beginning, bears the title of 'Thirty-year-old Lord of Heaven', that is, of the period of Saturn. This would be enough to show that, ancient or recent, the ostracon speaks the truth. Except that fifty years ago a great Egyptologist, Breasted, wrote as already known that the star cult preceded the solar cult. He forgot it. Always everything to be redone. A simple check would then have shown to those scholars that the ostracon statement is explicitly confirmed by Hyginus, 'Astronomica', 42, and by Diodorus, 2.30.3. And this would then lead him to discover many other remarkable relationships that have been systematically overlooked: for example in China (which was certainly another agricultural state) Saturn was the Imperial Star."

The reference to Hyginus the Astronomer it is particularly interesting, as he reports a very archaic list of the planets (the "wandering stars", that is, they escape the cadenced and regular motion of the other stars), which emphasizes the proto-Babylonian manner. For Igino (De astronomy, II, 42 and IV 15 - 18) the planets are five and not seven: they are Venus, Mercury, Jupiter, Sun and Mars. Well, in this case "Sun" is actually Saturn, called Shamash by Mesopotamian astronomers. The Sun and the Moon are not counted among the planets, according to the proto-Babylonian conception, since they are secondary stars, which do not "err" like the five cosmic legislators and the supreme legislator, the "Sun" Saturn (2).

According to the Greeks, the star of Saturn represents Phaeton (the "Shining One"), the son of Helios who led the chariot of the Sun out of its usual path by setting the earth on fire. Ovid says the horses went wild when the Titan came upon the sight of the Scorpion. Zeus, angry, struck him with lightning, and the young man fell dead into the waters of the river Eridanus (the "river of many weeping," according to Aratus). In reality, Phaeton is Kronos-Saturn in disguise (as is Prometheus, on whose figure we cannot dwell here), the Titan who was "thrown out of the chariot" by his son Zeus [cf. The "Heavenly Fire": Kronos, Phaeton, Prometheus] (for this image fr. 58 Kern). In a tradition by Michele Scotus (who refers to unspecified poet and), reported by Franz Boll (sphaera, p. 542), Phaeton is said to be the son of Saturn, rather than the Sun (eo quod ei dicebatur non esse filium Solis sed Saturni).

His death in the waters of the Eridanus is significant, this southern constellation being the river of the afterlife (also called Ocean, by Eratosthenes) that leads to Elysium. Eridanus is Eridu, seat of the god Enki-Ea, in the star that forms the end of the river, that is Canopus (in Carinae). Here is located Kronos-Saturn dethroned or "thrown by the chariot" [cf. Apollo / Kronos in exile: Ogygia, the Dragon, the "fall"]. We will not dwell further, having done so elsewhere, on the real location of the Ogigia plutarchea. Here we report only the data for which Ogigio is a classic epithet of the river Styx (according to Hesiod, Styx is the tenth part of the river Ocean): the adjective Ogigio is also often referred to the Nile, of which Eridanus, according to the Egyptian astrologers (we are talking about Nechepso and Petosiris), would be the celestial debut. Hyginus still retains the name of Nile and Ocean for Eridanus. The southern sky is the "street of Ea (Kronos-Saturn)», according to Mesopotamian astronomers.

Remaining a moment longer in the Egyptian context, we would like to highlight what we believe corresponds to a moment of transition between the ancient stellar symbolism, starring Saturn, and the solar one, starring the Sun. Book of Doors it is said that: "One hour of Ra's nocturnal journey corresponds to an entire time of life on earth"; now, if Ra were indeed the Sun, such a statement would make no sense. However, it makes sense if we assume that Ra is Saturn, fulfilling his sidereal revolution in thirty years (according to Plutarch [De facie in orbe lunae] also the servants of Kronos asleep in Ogygia come to him every thirty years). Even more 'ambiguous' a prayer from an Egyptian magic papyrus, reported by Nuccio D'Anna in his very important The cosmic game: "O lord of all things, Aion of the Ages [Aiòn, tòn ​​aiònon], you are the lord of the cosmos, you are Ra [the sun], you are the All". Aiòn of the Ages is clearly Kronos, even if the epithet refers to Ra. He is that Aiòn, a child who plays, according to Heraclitus, moving the pieces on the cosmic chessboard (3).

Kronos-Saturn is the lord of time, indeed it is time: therefore Guénon is wrong to claim that Kronos and Chronos are distinct figures. The great metaphysician, who however is not an astrologer, misses the decisive link between heaven and time. From the top of the seventh sphere Kronos is the Demiurge who holds creation in his hand (demiurgy) making it and undoing it according to its "changing intentions". He is almost motionless, his symbol is the cube, the stone his element. But although he is at the top of the cosmos, his influence is exerted by the abyss of Tartarus, in the center of the southern sky, or in the "center of the earth". As Eliade reports (The myth of the eternal return p. 29 ff.), On the line perpendicular to the abyss (apsu for the Babylonians, tehom for the Jews, etc.) the ancients usually set the cornerstone, or foundation stone, of their cities, taken as miniature images of the cosmos. The stone (often also associated with a tree) was of vital importance, as it prevented the abyssal waters from rising and invading the surface world (it must be clear that all this must always be understood in an astronomical sense).

This cornerstone, theHexagil Sumerian (corresponding toEben Shetiyyah Hebrew and that in the epic of Gilgamesh it is said "equal to Apsu», With respect to which it places itself in a comparative-containing attitude), is nothing other than the terrestrial image of Square of Pegasus, or 1-iku in Sumerian (cf. Hamlet's mill, Appendix 45, pp. 565 - 566 [1, in Sumerian 60, is the agrarian unit of measure]), Paradise, or Primordial Field, according to A. Ungnad; cosmic center where the Demiurge Enki-Ea gave form to the first man (see in this regard the myth of Adapa of Eridu). The relationship between Eridu and the Esagil is clear in a tablet from the sixth century. to. C. found in Sippar (Graves - Patai, Jewish myths, Postal Code. 1):

« All lands were sea. Then there was a movement that shook the center of the sea; then Eridu was made and Esagil was built, Esagil where, in the mists of the abyss, lives the god Lugal-du-kuda. »

Nor should it be overlooked that the Pegasus Square (the field [iku] of Eridu?) rose eliacally together with Pisces at the winter solstice (i.e. when the sun is at its zenith on the line of the Tropic of Capricorn) during the so-called Golden Age and immediately after: an interesting representation of this field, almost constituting the base of the triangle formed by Pisces (in semblance of the Masonic pointed cubic stone) is present in the famous Dendera Zodiac. In the ritual text of the Babylonian New Year (Hamlet's mill, Appendix 45 p. 566) it is prescribed that the priest-Urigallu will go out to the Exalted Courtyard, turn towards the North and bless the Esagil temple three times with the blessing: «Stella-iku, Esagil, image of heaven and earth». The cube (or its two-dimensional counterpart, the square), or cubic stone, starting from the Platonic doctrine up to Kepler (the last of the astrologers), is associated with Saturn, and this must be considered, ultimately, also Enki- It's at.

Robert Graves (The white goddess, p. 306), on his part, makes Yahweh "a form of Bran, Saturn or Ninib [Ninurta]». The great British mythographer then specifies in note 1:

« Ninib, the Assyrian Saturn, was the god of the South, and therefore of the meridian sun, as well as of the heart of winter, when the sun reaches the southernmost position and stops for a day [it is evidently the winter solstice ed] ... That Yahweh was openly identified with Saturn-Ninib in Bethel before the captivity of Israel is proved by Amos, V, 26, where it is said that the image and the star of Siccut- Chiin [the star Chiin or Chiiòn is in all probability Saturn ed] were brought to the sanctuary; that the same was done in Jerusalem before the captivity of Judah is proved by the vision of Ezekiel, VIII, 3 - 5, where his image, the idol of jealousy, was erected at the northern gate of the Temple, for the prayers to turn south to worship him; while nearby (v. 14) there were women weeping for Adonis. "

How many times, in the Old Testament, Yahweh openly declares himself "jealous god"? Remarkable is also the news about Adonis, since he was, in the beginning, Tammuz, son or allotrope of Enki-Ea and later identified with the Sun (dying). On the other hand, we must ask ourselves why God rests on the seventh day, the day of the hebdomad that the Babylonians dedicated to Saturn: he rests because the seventh sphere, that of Saturn, is the slowest of all, and governs demiurgy almost in quality of motionless engine.

The stone is inseparable from Saturn, as it also testifies the betylus of Apollo in Delphi, consisting of the stone swallowed and then vomited by Kronos. In the Orphic hymn to Apollo, the god is strangely defined as "Memphis", that is, "of Memphis", the city of Ptah, the Egyptian Kronos. The stone of Delphi, an openly Saturnian accessory, in referring to a fundamental idea of ​​slowness (almost firmness) of time marked by the sphere of Kronos-Saturn, which gives the measurements to the entire creation: stone, which has its elementary solid in the cube, is the only material that the hand of time cannot scratch, it is almost a symbol of time itself.

It will surprise how often Apollo is associated with a stone: in the form of a pillar he was Apollo Agyio; of pyramidal stone, notably in Megara, was Apollo Karinos; of stone, in Malea, was Apollo Lithesios, etymology that Nilsson and others peacefully lead back to lithos. Well, they say that too the black stone of the Ka'ba, kept by Hobal, in pre-Islamic Arabia, had oracular functions. Often Hobal is approached to Saturn, especially since the idol of the god was in pre-Islamic times placed on the mouth of a well, now drained, called al-Akhsaf, to the right of the entrance to the sanctuary. (3). According to al-Biruni, the idol had the function of "preventing the water from rising"; purpose, therefore, completely identical to that covered by the Eben Shetiyyah of Yahweh, in Jerusalem. Ezekiel (Graves, The white dia, p. 303), during a vision, he sees the waters of a river (Eridanus?) Flowing under the threshold of the House of God.

It could, not without foundation, also be associated with the aforementioned figures Shiva, "Lord of the triple time," whose attribute, the lingam, is typically represented by a black stone. The same Poseidon, who dwells in the depths of the sea, has unsuspected affinities with these figures: according to Plutarch (Isis and Osiris par. 10), the Egyptian priests called him "The first cube". Another chthonic divinity that reveals unsuspected connections with Kronos-Saturn is that strange syncretic god, born in Hellenistic Egypt, which goes by the name of Serapis, or Sarapide. He is often depicted with Cerberus next to him, which would seem to draw him close to Hades. Giorgio de Santillana, based on the studies of Lehmann-Haupt, derives the name from the epithet of Enki-Ea, Sar Apsi, "Lord of the Abyss". According to theEncyclopedia Treccani (voice Serapis), supporters of the Mesopotamian origin theorize its introduction from Babylon through the city of Sinope del Pontus:

"The supporters of the Synopytic-Babylonian origin are based on a tale by Tacitus (Hist., IV, 83-4) and on a passage by Plutarch (Isis and Osiris, 28), from which one can deduce the ignorance of god by Egypt and Greece and the introduction, at least, of the image by Sinope. In this ancient Hellenized Assyrian colony the Semitic would have long been revered Baal or Bel or Ea also known as Sar-Apsi (lord of the sea depths), oracular god whom the generals of Alexander had consulted in Babylon during the last illness of the conqueror. In Sinope, the god would not have kept the Babylonian character pure and would also have assumed qualities and powers typical of Greek divinities, forming a Greek-Semitic mixture which would have led to the identification of Bel-Ea-Sar-Apsi, with Zeus-Hades- Pluto: Sarapis. The image worshiped in Sinope had great similarities with that of Pluto. "

As seems to be ascertained by late ancient evidence, Serapis was closely linked to the waters, and its influence was believed to be the cause of the vital flood of the Nile. Says Rufino (Ecclesiastical history, II, 20), arguing on the vanity of pagan superstitions: "Everyone said that if the statue had been demolished and consumed by fire, Serapis, in response to the offense that had been done to him, would no longer have given the high waters and the usual flood.". Enki-Ea's connection with groundwater (abyssal) is well known, being its precise epithet "Lord of the watery depths", as reported by Ananda Coomaraswamy, associating it with al-Khidr (5). It is true that some ancient authors have tended to identify Serapis with the Sun (and on this basis most of the more orthodox scholars have derived the name from Api), but if we think about the relationship between the Sun and Saturn, with the latter as the antecedent planetary power, everything is clarified. Basically, Api, later risen to solar divinity, was also called "Repetition of Ptah"; and Ptah was the "Thirty-year Lord of Heaven," therefore, in his turn, a hierophany of Kronos-Saturn.

Wherever there are "oracular" stones there is Saturn. Unfortunately, this is not the place to try to expose the difficult Plutarchy doctrine of oracles and their relationship with the time of Kronos, that is, the time that turns on itself. Suffice it here to say that Kronos is the true lord of the archaic time, deus faber, artificial of time that does not yet know the concept of eternity, but, in the form of a snake biting its own tail, turns on itself, establishing in itself the origin and the end, according to the Heraclitean maxim: "Common is the beginning and the end of circle". In a completely analogous way (since, ultimately, the circle is nothing other than the sky / time) the Orphic doctrine often attributes to Kronos the epithet "give advice tortuous " (or «with curved thinking») In Greek ἀγκυλομήτης (ankulometes), (Fr. 107, 131, 140 Kern, Hymn to Kronos) motivating him by the fact that he always turns on himself, or looks at himself (koronous). The epithet κορόνους (korònous), "looking at himself", referring to Kronos in the Orphic fragments, looks like a hapax legomenon, having no other evidence in Greek literature. At least we, despite our efforts, have not been able to track down another case. However, it seems a tracing of the adjective κορωνός (koronòs), "curved", "curved".

Interesting fact is the close relationship that is established between Kronos and all these epithets (very similar to his name, as evident) with an animal, assumed by the myth as his companion (see, ex plurimis, R. Graves, The Greek myths, VII, note 2), which, at first, does not arouse any kind of attention: the Crow. Well, in Greek the crow is κορώνη (koròne), a noun which, however, also has the meaning of "curved object", "ring", evoking, in short, something that returns to itself, and therefore of the same nature as Kronos / korònous / koronòs. Consistently, even the Latin Saturnus foresaw the raven as associated with him (not to mention Odin).

It should be emphasized that, as Graves recalls (The white goddess, Adelphi 2009, p. 77), the raven was used by augurs during the vaticini and, according to Plutarch (The oracles of the Pythia, 400 A), the crow was also sacred to Apollo. The symbol (signifier) ​​always refers to another (meaning) to which it is linked (the etymology of "symbol" is exactly syn-büllein = to tie / unite). In archaic iconography, animals are never mere living beings, ornaments drawn with artistic (and therefore fictitious) intent, but contain a superior nature, or, as Giovanni Ferrero excellently expresses himself (The knowledge of Apollo cit., p. 16), deciphering a temporal measure from some Greek-Archaic vase paintings:

«The mythological bestiary does not describe the reality of animals, it does not belong to the description of the fauna in terrestrial areas, but it is to be referred to a landscape which is the cosmic-symbolic one. "

And what about thatEl Elyon, El theMost High whose priest would have been the mysterious Melkizedek (lit. "My king is righteous»)? El Elyon appears to be nothing more than a primordial manifestation of Kronos-Saturn. According to Graves-Patai (Jewish myths, I, 17):

"Despite the revolutionary concept of an eternal, absolute, omnipotent and one God, first proposed by Pharaoh Akhenaten and accepted by the Jews, protected by him, or reinvented by them, nevertheless the name 'Elohim' (generally translated as 'God') , which we find in the first Genesis, is the Hebrew variant of an ancient Semitic name for a god or several: Ilu, between the Assyrians and the Babylonians, El, in the Hittite and Ugaritic texts; The, or Ilum, among the Arabs of the south. El was considered head of the Phoenician pantheon and is often mentioned in Ugaritic poems (dated from the fourteenth century BC) as "bull El" reminiscent of the idols in the form of a golden calf made by Aaron (Exodus, XXXII, 16, 24, 35 ) and from Jeroboam (I Kings, XII, 28 - 29) as emblems of God; as well as the personification of God, made by Sedecia, represented by a bull with iron horns (I Kings, XXII, 11). "

This El would therefore have been the supreme god: the epithet "Most High", however, we associate it with the sphere of Saturn, which is the supreme: its semblance of bull would derive from the fact that at that time Saturn had entered the constellation of Taurus . Il calf d'oror that the Jews who escaped from Egypt carry with them, also refers to Saturn.

Franz Boll reports (sphaera, p. 228): In the run-down area of ​​Dendera there is an unmitigated hinter of the Jungfrau and a similar gestalt, Hor-ka, of the planet Saturn ("On the round zodiac of Dendera, just behind Virgo, there is a figure with a bull's head: it is Hor-ka, the planet Saturn»). The priest of El Elyon would have been Melkizedek, whose figure resembles that of Enki-Ea as well as that of the Koranic al-Khidr, and whose name means "My king is righteous": And who could be more just (dikaios) of the supreme Demiurge, dispenser of Justice and Measure from the top of his demiurgy? However El, or Elohim, was "earthly" ruler at the time he was still walking in Eden (as well as in Lazio or Greece, according to Fr. 139 Kern) in communion with man, before his "stable" retreat in the southern pole of the ecliptic.

This Semitic name, moreover, has evident assonances with Helios Hyperion (6), the solar Titan named in the Homeric poems. The name literally means Helios «That stands above all». Moreover, it is known that Helios is a divine figure of Eastern origin. But it is none other, once again, than Kronos-Saturn subsumed under the Sun. To realize this we must look at his major sanctuary, in Emesa, Syria. Here was the temple of the Sun, called El-Gabal (Hellenized in Elagabalos, hence the Latin Heliogabalus: note the “natural” association El / Helios), which involved the worship of a black conical stone, regularly oracular, which was brought to Rome when its high priest became emperor, in the third century.

Here is the Saturnine accessory! El-Gabal, moreover, seems to have precisely the meaning of "God-Stone"(Luigi Nardi, Homework, Pesaro, 1827, p. 75). It has been proposed (Encyclopedia Treccani, voice Eliogabalo) also the variant El Gabel, that is "god creator", "god formator", which also goes well with the conclusion "saturnine". It is not uncommon to find, in the Syro-Arabian area, the worship of "solar" stones, usually black. Famous example, already mentioned: the black stone of Mecca. Nor should we forget the black stone of Cybele in Pessinunte. Giovanni Filoramo, in his text on Islam, reminds us that, in ancient times, four black stones were kept in the four corners of Arabia, of which today only one, that of Mecca, survives. Even the "very sunny" Mithras is sometimes approached to Saturn. In this regard Franz Boll (sphaera, p. 313, note 3): 

« In the astrological ethnography of Tetrabyblos (II 3 p. 64, 14) we note about the peoples of Central Asia: 'They worship Aphrodite's star calling it Isis, calling instead that of Saturn Mithra-Helios'. The planet Saturn is therefore identified with Mithra-Helios. "

The suggestion arises in us that Mithra (in the ancient Vedic religion component with Varuna the duo Mithra-Varuna, while in the mazdea one the counterpart Mithra-Ahura) is the beneficial aspect of Saturn, in contrast to the dark face, that is the 'Opponent, Ahriman / Samael "full of death", in Zervanism openly associated with Saturn-Kewan, the "most nefarious planetary demon of the heavens". According to Zad Sparam IV, 7: "Saturn [kewan] is dead for the creature».

We could still say a lot about this god of gods, about his identification with the blacksmith Prometheus, who "as a warning" had to wear a ring made of iron and stone forever, following his release by Heracles later, coincidentally, thirty years of imprisonment in the Caucasus (see this figure in Hyginus, Fabulae), of its duplicity, but the discourse would take us too far. What we wanted to expose with this short paper is a point of view rarely touched upon by scholars, which goes by the name of "Stellar symbolism". It has been the soul of the most ancient religiosity of man, of a strictly cosmo-theological nature. The hierophany of the supreme god, far from having a metaphysical character, had cosmological connotations. Who were those men so attentive to heaven? We will never know, but what seems certain is that they must have possessed a genius mind.

According to Arato, the names of the constellations are due to "a man of a disappeared generation" who would have identified the stars in the figures to orient himself through time (it is now known, moreover, that the pictograms of the Lascaux caves, dated to the Paleolithic, and defined masterpieces of primitive art, they are actually constellations, and not simple representations of animals or hunting scenes). And it is certainly in the most ancient prehistory of man that the discourse on the cosmos must have originated, originally conceived as a single story, albeit in mythical language (but the mythical language, far from being childish, is actually highly technical). This great archaic design, for some obscure reason, was shattered at the dawn of history, and it was no longer possible to put the pieces back together, if not briefly. (remember in this regard the strange speech that Plato makes in Politico about mythological stories).

But if the ancients already had lost the key to what the late Giorgio de Santillana called "the lost treasure" (with very rare exceptions, such as the Pythagoreans), we moderns cannot even suspect that it once existed. We, as far as possible, can try, with extreme difficulty, to illuminate the darkness that now envelops these things at times, hoping to do something pleasing to someone. On the other hand, we believe that the best motivation for the transformation of the celestial gods (and of the supreme god, Kronos-Saturn, above all) into metaphysical principles (here is the real progress!), Mircea Eliade gave it in his Treatise on the History of Religions:

«These supreme celestial gods could be transformed into philosophical concepts because the Uranian hierophany itself was transformable into metaphysical revelation; in other words, why the very character of the contemplation of Heaven allowed, alongside the revelation of the precariousness of man and the transcendence of divinity, the revelation of the SACRALITY OF KNOWLEDGE, of the spiritual 'strength'. The divine origin and the sacred value of knowledge, the omnipotence of the one who sees and understands, of the one who 'knows'  -  insofar as it is in every place, it sees everything, it has created and dominates everything  -  it is nowhere to be seen as fully as in front of the daytime sky or the starry vault. It is well understood that, for the modern mentality, such divinities, with the scarce precision of their mythical features  Iho, Brahman, etc.  -  they seem to be abstractions, to be considered philosophical concepts rather than divinities proper. Let us not forget, however, that for primitive man, who shaped them, KNOWLEDGE, KNOWLEDGE were  -  and they stayed  epiphanies of 'power', of 'sacred strength'. Who sees and knows everything, CAN AND IS everything. Sometimes similar Supreme Beings of uranic origin become the foundation of the Universe, authors and rulers of cosmic rhythms, and tend to coincide both with the principle or metaphysical substance of the Universe, and with the Law, with what is eternal and universal in transitory phenomena, in their becoming. Law that the gods themselves cannot abolish. "

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Note:

(1) Franz Boll (sphaera, p. 313, note 3): "Interestingly, an ostrakon recently found in Egypt with planets and zodiac images lists Saturn as Ra, also called Helios».

(2)  Indeed, instead of proposing the classic Moon-Sun opposition, the Babylonians used to field that Moon-Saturn (see Franz Boll - Carl Bezold, Interpretation and faith in the stars, Sillabe, 1999, pp. 35, 85 and 105).

(3)  The cosmic nature of the shields described by Homer is well known. Regarding perhaps the most famous of all, that of Achilles (Iliad Liber XVIII), forged, coincidentally, by Hephaestus, the cosmic blacksmith / demiurge, it is said: "He made you [Hephaestus] the earth and the sky and the sea, the indefatigable sun and the full moon, and all the constellations, of which the sky is crowned, the Pleiades and the Hyades and the can of Orion, and the Bear to whom they give the name of Chariot, which turns around the same point and watches Orion, and alone ignores the washings of the ocean [that is, it never sets] ». After the description of these truly fundamental constellations, a scene of jurisdiction follows: "The spectators cheered on both [of the two contenders], divided in siding; but the heralds then kept the crowd quiet; and the senior judges sat inside a sacred circular enclosure on smooth stones and they took the scepters of the shrill-voiced heralds in their hands, and leaning on them they gave their sentence in turn; and stood in their midst two gold talents, to be given to whoever pronounces the most righteous judgment». In this scene, Nuccio D'Anna (The cosmic game. Time and eternity in ancient Greece, p. 34) has glimpsed a cosmological motif, although it does not seem to fully grasp its implications. It is worth mentioning it to better subject it to criticism: "The judges sit within a sacred circular enclosure [teamenos] holding the scepter in his hand, while in the center are 'two golden talents'. 'Tàlanta' is formed with the same radical from which we get the verb 'talantèuo', 'weigh', 'balance', 'measure', 'oscillate', so that in reality the term used by Homer indicates the 'two plates of' gold 'of a scale. It is the same 'gesture' of throwing the sword on the scales made by the Celtic king Brenno when he invaded Rome at the time of Furio Camillo, who had to 'weigh' the defeat of the Romans and on which, as in the archaic predictive, the scepter of the judge. In this way, the Homeric judge 'weighed' the faults and rewarded the innocent, as in a game, with two golden 'talents', ambivalent symbols of the two halves of a single cosmic circle. We will add that the Homeric description gives us the two plates of a balance centered on the perpendicular of the pole, the cosmic equilibrium point, therefore in direct relationship with the two Bears as celestial counterparts of these 'plates'. The symbol couldn't be more precise. Indeed, if we remember that the balance is a typical attribute of the goddess of justice Themis, the cosmic Order par excellence, it seems to be possible to deduce that Homer is envisioning an archaic cosmic balance structured on the axis of a celestial Libra placed in correspondence with the pole. north and not of the autumnal equinox, as it happens in any normal zodiac". The interpretation relies on a juxtaposition between game, law and cosmic symbols, but metaphysics proves once again to cloud the sight of the most acute. The two plates of the scales, which the author associates with the two halves of the "cosmic circle" (?), Should be correctly understood as the two halves of the ecliptic circle which, "oscillating", rises and falls with respect to the pivot of the celestial equator, giving life to the alternation of the seasons. From this "balance" of celestial lines the Order of Time comes to life, reflected on the coordinates of the skhamba-sphere-armillary-cosmic, traced according to "Justice", the universal Dìke (or Thèmi) that embodies the spirit of these coordinates. The same constellations illustrated by Homer, rather than allude to a generic polar axis, seem to refer to the ancient solstitial colure (personified by Dike, in fact). Justice is administered by some seniors seated on stones, in the guise of ministers of the supreme judge Kronos-Saturno, the planet kosmokrator associated with the stone, which "gives the measures" to the entire cosmos. The same author acknowledges that gambling and related divinatory-astrological aspects were specific attributes of Kronos-Saturn, whose scythe should be taken for the stick-oracle with which the seer decreed the fate and distributed the "lot". Alfredo Cattabiani, on his part, remembers how only during the Saturnalia gambling was allowed (and for what? Dadi, cubic in shape; our tombola would be nothing more than an unrecognized fossil of these ancient practices). After all, it is ius, before becoming "profane", it had been the prerogative, in the most archaic societies, of the priestly caste. Pierre Grimal (cf. Marco Aurelio, pp. 283 - 284) attempted an etymological reconstruction of the Latin word fas, corresponding to the Greek Thèmi, and expressing the essence of the sacred and profound substratum of the ius, the human right. It has traced its roots to the word do, the "doing", the "disposing", but also the "creating". In this sense Cosmic Justice is an authentically demiurgic affair: it is the norm that the Demiurge imposes on the sphere of the cosmos by tracing the coordinates of the skhamba. This norm is the "fire" of Heraclitus, who with measure it flares up and with measure it goes out: it was already the fire of Prometheus and of the Cervo dei Catlo'ltq; is expressed in me Sumerians, in ŗta Hindu, in maat Egyptian nall 'aṧa Iranian; and it is the visible manifestation on the plane of the astral period of what, as the Pythagoreans said, is superordinate to everything: the number.

(4)  «The fact that explicit condemnations of polytheism and, in particular, of the female triad of the populations of the Hijaz appear in the Koran, and instead there is no reference to the Lord of the Ka'ba, has led Wellhausen (1887, p. 75) to hypothesize that Hubal and Allah constituted the same divinity and there was no lack of those who suggested that the name of the Meccan divinity could represent the Arabization of the Aramean god Ba'l» (G. Filoramo, Islam, p. 33). Note that Hobal was depicted as an old man with a bow and seven arrows, with oracular virtues, like Shani in India and Apollo in Delphi. Massimo Campanini, one of the leading experts on Islam, of it The Koran and its interpretation (pp. 43 - 44), openly compares Allah to Marduk and Ptah, the Demiurges of Babylon and Egypt: "Allah creates, and creates with the word [...]. Creation through speech is a commonplace of the ancient religions of the Near (or Middle) East. We find it in Egypt, where the god Ptah produces the universe through intelligence and the Word; we find it in Babylon, where the power to create through 'fiat' is a characteristic faculty of the god Marduk. We find it, of course, in the book of Genesis and, basically, in the Gospel of John [...]. Allah has imposed his order on the cosmos [...]. God produces creation and reproduces it; creation begins and repeats it [...]. Originally, there was a primordial matter, called 'smoke', from which God began the creative work (XLI, 11), something similar to the biblical waters of the abyss of the first chapter of Genesis». It is clear, therefore, that not even Allah "creates" in the true sense of the term. He doesn't make something exist ex nihilo, but (in perfect demiurgic style) he finds himself modeling, through the word, a pre-existing ganga. Her is a work of perfection, the Koran outlines it in such a way as to remind us of the Platonic Demiurge: "Then, Allah separated the primordial mass (XXI, 30) and thus created seven heavens, perfectly ordered (LXVII, 3: "He who created the seven heavens one on the other. You see no inequality in the creation of the Merciful. Turn your eyes [upwards]: do you see any fractures? "). Just as there is no irregularity and imprecision in the creation of the cosmos, so the motion of the stars is regular and periodic and God has established their abodes in heaven (X, 5; LV, 5) ". Finally, it is known that during the annual pilgrimage of Hajj, pilgrims make seven turns around the Ka'ba, thus imitating the motion of the planetary spheres. Testimonies, misunderstood remains of ancient astral cults supplanted. The Hajjafter all, it took place well before the advent of Islam. The ancient Arabs were great astrologers, and the denomination they gave to the stars reveals much more than appears at first glance. Moreover, most of the stars, even today, bear Arabic names.

(5)  Quoting theEdda by Snorri Sturluson, Giorgio de Santillana (Hamlet's mill, pp. 516 - 517) reports the headquarters of the giant Surtr: "At the limit of the sky facing south is the most beautiful room of all and brighter than the sun. Its name is Gimle, and it will remain even after heaven and earth have disappeared, and good and just men will live there for eternity. Thus it is said in Voluspà (64): “- I saw a room rise / more beautiful than the sun, / covered with gold / in Gimlè: / there they will live forever / the trusted hosts / and will enjoy the joy / that never perishes -. Then Gagleri asked: - What will protect that place when the flame of Surtr [the Black] burns heaven and earth? -. Har replied: - It is said that in the south, above our sky, there is another one, which is called Vindhblàinn, and that above this there is a third one, which is called Andlangr, and that in this sky we believe that it is find that place. But we think that now only the luminous Elves inhabit those lands… ”. The lord of this place Elysium must be Surtr, the Black, so at least Rydberg says: “In the text found in the Uppsala Code, the Gylfaginning makes him the lord of Gimlè, and likewise king of eternal bliss. After Ragnarok it is said: “Here are many good and many bad abodes; the best thing is to be in Gimlè with Surtr ”». For our part, we cannot help but rethink Syria (kathùperthen), which is "above" Ogygia, where it is "the winter solstice". Lord of that place is Kronos-Saturn asleep. In Norse mythology it is Surtr, the Black (remember the reference already made by us to Suri, the Black, of the Etruscans, what is commonly called Apollo Black). According to the Edda of Snorri, Gimlè (Eridu / Canopus) will be the only "place" to escape Ragnarok and will live forever in eternal peace. According to the etymology Gimlè means "precious stone" or also "star". Canopus, on his part, is the Hellenization of the Egyptian kah-nub, «Land of gold». It would take too long to elaborate on this question, which is also of decisive importance. On this occasion, since we have not done so elsewhere, we would like to limit ourselves to tearing the mask of a certain "metaphysical" claim, which, the deeper we go, the more clearly it shows its astrological "face". René Guénon, in the chapter of The King of the World dedicated to Shekinah and Metatron, he lets himself go to the observation that the number of the Beast, the infamous 666, is a solar number. In note 18, he says that the gematric value of the name of Sorath, the solar demon, is just 666. Well, the name Sorath it is formed from the Hebrew radical Svrt, which when vocalized returns, precisely, surtr, the "Black", the Norse giant from whom the final destruction comes, but who is also the ruler of Gimlè, the sojourn of bliss. This Sorath (note the assonance with Mount Soratte, home of the "Custos" Apollo, Sorano, in turn the counterpart of the Etruscan Suri [da Public chat = Black]) is therefore not the Sun, but the far more primordial Black Sun, Saturn. In truth, the number 666 is "solar" (and here we mean the Sun) also for another reason, indicating it the house of Scorpio, placed in the Age of Taurus in the sixth place of the ecliptic starting from Taurus. Scorpio, with the red Antares (Anti Ares) is indeed the astrological home of Mars, but it must be recognized that, in more ancient times, it was much wider than it is now: in fact, Libra once constituted the claws of Scorpio. In Libra, according to Zervanism (which is influenced by Babylonian astrology), Saturn obtains the exaltation of him. If, however, we ensure that Libra is "absorbed" in Scorpio, we observe that the latter zodiacal constellation is simultaneously the home of Mars and the exaltation of Saturn, the ancient Nergal and Ninurta, the one lord of death and storms , the other (“dark” face of Enki), lord of the “unbreakable bonds”, of time that crushes. In the galactic zone located between Scorpio and Sagittarius, the entrance to Hades is to be identified. The terrifying "grasshopper men", which come out "accompanied by smoke" (it is the smoke that exhales from the constellation of Ara, just south of Scorpio), as described in theApocalypse, appear identical to Sagittarius as depicted in the very ancient Mesopotamian border stones. Sagittarius, in turn, was identified with Nergal-Mars; and it is to the Centaurs that Dante, on the escort of Virgil, entrusts the custody of the violent people immersed in the Flegetonte river. The seventh circle of Hell is in fact nothing other than the chthonic and inverted equivalent of the sky of Mars. We could go on and clarify, explaining why, with the passage from stellar symbolism to solar (or zodiacal) symbolism Saturn degrades to the rank of nefarious demon, but we must stop here, for brevity, referring this topic to a possible future article.

(6) In addition to the sacred tripod of Delphi, the classic time frame past - present - future would seem to emerge in another god of the sun, the Vedic Surya, often represented with three faces. Son of him Shani (the planet Saturn) is owner of bow and arrow, as well as of trishula, which brings him closer to Shiva, "Lord of the Triple Time". Surya and Shani seem to be the splitting of a character who was originally unique, when the "real sun" was Saturn, chronokrator primordial.

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