Page 255 - Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock

Graham Hancock – FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS

seconds per annum). The true figure, as calculated by twentieth century
science, is 71.6 years. If Sellers’s theory is correct, therefore, the ‘Osiris
9
numbers’, which give a value of 72 years, are significantly more accurate
than those of Hipparchus. Indeed, within the obvious confines imposed
by narrative structure, it is difficult to see how the number 72 could have
been improved upon, even if the more precise figure had been known to
the ancient myth-makers. One can hardly insert 71.6 conspirators into a
story, but 72 will fit comfortably.
Working from this rounded-up figure, the Osiris myth is capable of
yielding a value of 2160 years for a precessional shift through one
complete house of the zodiac. The correct figure, according to today’s
calculations, is 2148 years. The Hipparchus figures are 2400 years and
10
2347.8 years respectively. Finally, Osiris enables us to calculate 25,920
as the number of years required for the fulfillment of a complete
precessional cycle through 12 houses of the zodiac. Hipparchus gives us
either 28,800 or 28,173.6 years. The correct figure, by today’s estimates,
is 25,776 years. The Hipparchus calculations for the Great Return are
11
therefore around 3000 years out of kilter. The Osiris calculations miss
the true figure by only 144 years, and may well do so because the
narrative context forced a rounding-up of the base number from the
correct value of 71.6 to a more workable figure of 72.
All this, however, assumes that Sellers is right to suppose that the
numbers 360, 72, 30 and 12 did not find their way into the Osiris myth
by chance but were placed there deliberately by people who understood—
and had accurately measured—precession.
Is Sellers right?

Times of decay

The Osiris myth is not the only one to incorporate the calculus for
precession. The relevant numbers keep surfacing in various forms,
multiples and combinations, all over the ancient world.
An example was given in Chapter Thirty-three—the Norse myth of the
432,000 fighters who sallied forth from Valhalla to do battle with ‘the
Wolf’. A glance back at that myth shows that it contains several
permutations of ‘precessional numbers’.
Likewise, as we saw in Chapter Twenty-four, ancient Chinese traditions
referring to a universal cataclysm were said to have been written down in
a great text consisting of precisely 4320 volumes.
Thousands of miles away, is it a coincidence that the Babylonian
historian Berossus (third century BC) ascribed a total reign of 432,000

Death of Gods in Ancient Egypt, p. 205.
9
10 Ibid.
11 Ibid.

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