Page 237 - Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock

Graham Hancock – FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS

The 25,776-year cycle of precession is the engine that drives this
majestic celestial juggernaut along its never-ending tour of the heavens.
But the details of exactly how precession moves the equinoctial points
from Pisces into Aquarius—and thence onwards around the zodiac—are
also worth knowing.
Remember that the equinoxes occur on the only two occasions in the
year when the earth’s tilted axis lies broadside-on to the sun. These are
when the sun rises due east all over the world and day and night are of
equal length. Because the earth’s axis is slowly but surely precessing in a
direction opposite to that of its own orbit, the points at which it lies
broadside-on to the sun must occur fractionally earlier in the orbit each
year. These annual changes are so small as to be almost imperceptible (a
one degree shift along the ecliptic—equivalent to the width of your little
finger held up to the horizon—requires approximately seventy-two years
to complete). However, as de Santillana points out, such minute changes
add up in just under 2200 years to a 30° passage through a complete
house of the zodiac, and in just under 26,000 years to a 360° passage
through a complete cycle of precession.

When did the ancients first work out precession?

In the answer to this question lies a great secret, and mystery, of the
past. Before we try to penetrate the mystery and to learn the secret, we
should acquaint ourselves with the ‘official’ line. The Encyclopaedia
Britannica is as good a repository as any of conventional historical
wisdom, and this is what it tells us about a scholar named Hipparchus,
the supposed discoverer of precession:

Hipparchus, also spelled HIPPARCHOS (b. Nicaea, Bithynia; d. after 127 BC,
Rhodes), Greek astronomer and mathematician who discovered the precession of
the equinoxes ... This notable discovery was the result of painstaking
observations, worked upon by an acute mind. Hipparchus observed the positions
of the stars, and then compared his results with those of Timocharis of Alexandria
about 150 years earlier and with even earlier observations made in Babylonia. He
discovered that the celestial longitudes were different and that this difference was
of a magnitude exceeding that attributable to errors of observation. He therefore
proposed precession to account for the size of the difference and he gave a value
of 45’ or 46’ (seconds of arc) for annual changes. This is very close to the figure of
3
50.274 seconds of arc accepted today ...’
First, a point of terminology. Seconds of arc are the smallest subdivisions
of a degree of arc. There are 60 of these arc seconds in one arc minute,
60 minutes in one degree, and 360 degrees in the full circle of earth’s
path around the sun. An annual change of 50.274 seconds of arc
represents a distance somewhat under one-sixtieth of one degree so that

3 Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1991, 5:937-8. See also The Death of Gods in Ancient Egypt,
p. 205, where the precise figure of 50.274 is given.

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