# Paleocontact and Zacharia Sitchin's The 12th Planet



## Stalker (Jun 22, 2005)

Everybody, who read Zacharia Sitchin's The 12th Planet are invited here to discuss the issues of this book and post their opinions on his theory here.
Those who are going to know what this theory is, fid the link below:
http://www.sitchin.com/


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## Brian G Turner (Jun 22, 2005)

I'm not sure I'm properly acquainted with Sitchin's work - but it looks like he's suggesting something similar to speculation we've covered before:

Nemesis
Planet X - Nibaru

Any chance of a quick recap, particularly in relation to the Nemesis and Nibaru concepts?


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## Stalker (Jun 22, 2005)

Exactly, Nibiru. You are probably acquainted with Alan Alford's works on the topic? But he only refrains what Sitchin had set out before him.
So, maybe, you should unite these threads into one?


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## Jayaprakash Satyamurthy (Jun 22, 2005)

Frankly, he seems like another crank like Velikovsky or Von Danichen. Here are a couple of good skeptical looks at his theories:


http://www.ramtops.demon.co.uk/siren.html

http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Corridor/8148/zclaims.html

I don't think that anyone who theorises that Noah's Ark was an early submarine really needs to be given any kind of credence.


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## Stalker (Jun 22, 2005)

Well, credibility of Sitchin's theories does not rely on wether Noa's (Ziusudra's, Ut-Naipisti's) Ark was an ancient sub or not.  Not even on astronomic facts, though when we speak of esoteric knowledge that probably (?) come directly from the Gods, otherwise I simply couldn't explain why the Maia had so perfect and precise Venusian calendary. The astronomy was extremely useful to ancient men for agricultural purposes, but thet were only practical - Sun and Moon were only really needed sky bodies to accomplish that, all the rest of the plantes played only symbolical roles needed for religious rites -  I agree here, but why did they need to create such a precise calendary of the hell-hot Venus? Isn't that part of divine knoledge, whose purpose had been lost but calculational techniques somehow remained?...
Among what Sitchin suggested, I particularly got interested in his revision of the lexic meaning of some fundamental terms...
His theory has serious flaws but what he suggested amazes me still...


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## Jayaprakash Satyamurthy (Jun 22, 2005)

Well, scholars seem less than impressed with him - archaeologists, astronomers and experts in the ancient languages he mangles all have bones to pick with him. And given the basic scientific ignorance he displays, I see no reason to see him as anything other than a clever fellow making money exploiting people's willingness to believe in a history that's more exciting than what accepted science suggests.

Perhaps you need to read some of essys refuting his theories as closely as you've read Sitchin - too many people omit to do this and wind up assuming the latest crank on the block is a genuine theorist. 

Here's a site which specifically adresses his linguistic finagling: http://www.sitchiniswrong.com/


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## Stalker (Jun 22, 2005)

Aye!

One example. The Great Pyramids. Two of them in particular - Khufu's and Meneker. 
I am not going to set out here all that crap about its mathematical proportions etc. Umberto Eco in his _Foucault's Pendulum_ shows on the example of the phone cabin what all those speculations are worth. 
All this time I've been obsessed with the simple task of calculating working hours required to construct such a pyramid.
What we have as given for circa 2600 BC?
What is the whole population of lower Egypt at that time? Delta of Nile can feed several miliion people but I hardly believe that the two Egypts of that time were populetad by more than 3 million people, including old people and children. From the history we know that only free artisans were used for construction of pyramids - no slaves. So, how many? Ten thousand? Hundred thousand?
I cannot even estimate those figures for all scope of work needed for masonry, polishing stones, transportation by river, and installation of ready blocks on place. Zillions of working hours! How long would it have taken then to constract the pyramid? Will Occam razor work ith that? What is the simplest explanation then?


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## Brian G Turner (Jun 22, 2005)

I'm afraid I'm not familiar with Sitchin - but I'm afraid I'm not too enamoured with the Nibiru idea so far.

The Nemesis theory is pretty interesting, though.

As for who built the pyramids - all too often we look at our amazing technology, and presume that people without these tools must therefore have been extremely limited at accomplishing anything.

However, the human ape is famed for its ingenuity, and we have the amazing technology we have today precisely because humanity has spent thousands of years being innovate with whatever it has.

Certainly the main pyramids required a lot of logistics, planning, and manpower to build. But I shouldn't be so bold as to presume that the Old Kingdom Egyptians were incapable of efficient organisation and large-scale application of their own experienced industries.

2c


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## Jayaprakash Satyamurthy (Jun 22, 2005)

Still, it seems that mainstream Egyptologists find a far more conservative estimate plausible: http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/pyramidworkforce.htm 

The thing is, it's hard to know what to think at times. While I am certain that revisionists slant facts, even misrepresent them (like Sitchin's more or less baseless re-definition of the word 'shem') it is possible that the mainstream academics are also picking and choosing facts to support the accpeted view. I'm inclined to respect them a bit more though, simply because the fringe people like Hancock and so on often have errors in their reasoning that even a layman like me can pick out.

*EDIT: *And I must echo Brian's sentiments on not underestimating human ingenuity. The Indus Valley Culture, India's earliest civilization, had perfectly laid-out roads and an efficient drainage system - something we, their supposed descendants, ahve utterly failed to recreate in our modern cities!


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## Stalker (Jun 22, 2005)

No, by no means shall I deny human ingenuity, but probably two Great Pyramids stand outside of all wonders of Ancient civilisation. Ancient Hindoos of Mohenjo Daro and Harappa (sp.?) with all my due respect to really Great Indian culture are not the exclusion from the rule. Although I remember several scolars referring to a clear passage of Mahabharatha (sp.?) where the use of a nuke is described when Pandaws (or their opponents? - don't remember) siedge the city, and then say that such a perfectly burnt brick as that one, which was found among the ruins of Mohenjo Daro (sp.?) migh be the particular result of extreme temperature during the nuclear explosion...
Back to the pyramids... Even in the time of Herodotus and then Plato the Egyptian said that the Great Pyramid was the Khufu's pyramid but they didn't say it was the tomb of Khufu. They simply stated the fact that Khufu was the protector of the Pyramid. But thet mistake of Greeks had remained intact through the ages and nobody even cared to correct it. Colonel Wess who presumably found the cartouche belonging to Khufu (some say, with spelling mistakes belonging to different Kingdoms at the same time) looks like an utter fraud.
I read the material by the link you gave. All scientific-like estimates have serious flaws in logics because they all miss several important criteria: one of them is the fact that there was not hard wood in the whole Egypt to be used as rollers. It, of course, could be imported from Palestina but then you should come up with another great discovery of trade routs on such a huge scale in the time of Great Kingdom that you deserve a special price in archaeology and history! Another objection against long-established estimates is that the constructing of a sand slope is a hell of work by itself and would have required probably half of the mass of the sands of Sakhara.
Why then firslly Snofru, the Khufu's direct ancestor was anable to build a real pyramid at the angle of 52 dergees, and once his first attempt failed ordered building a so called Bent Pyramyd, and only his successor Khufu was able to built a pyramyd that 20 times exceeded the Bent Pyramid. What a breakthrough in construction technicues! And all Menacaur, Khufu's grandson could accomplish is the third Giza pyramid 10 times as smaller that the one of his grandfuther! Technical regress or economic crisis? As for me the economic crisis should be the result of construction of the very first Great Pyramid - on such a scale that it should have inevitably destroyed the Ancient Kingdom! That didn't happen.
Simply sayng that the Egyptians were pretty inventive people is saying nothing. I am trying to think, to find but I don't find explanation lying in the realm of primitive techniques...


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## Jayaprakash Satyamurthy (Jun 23, 2005)

So the flaws in Sitchin's 'logic' don't count as a strike against him? I think you ought to apply the same critcality to his revisionist account as you are to mainstream scholarship.


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## Stalker (Jun 23, 2005)

Oh, I do, my friend! 
Actually, I am not going to say that Sitchin came up with absolutely well-grounded theory. He does have serious flaws in grounding, and that makes his book rather sci-fi work than serious scientific work but he raises a series of thought-provoking issues yet to be answered by official science.
Not always the methods the archaelogy uses (I don't even mention official history that became quite a prostitute of the science) are precise. Dating the period by comparing the samples of ceramics is rather speculative because this method is based on the original sample whose association with certain period may become subject to argument, radiocarbon analysis is the most precise but has wide range of error. I am mentioning all this to emphaise that we not always may rely on official chronology and long established theories because sometimes even a single (!!!) fact may ruin all the construction of our ideas of the history. So, that may happen with one of the questions posed by Sitchin, why not?
And the Great Pyramids...


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