Posted on 04/21/2006 4:39:40 PM PDT by blam
TALE OF ARTHUR POINTS TO COMET CATASTROPHE
From The Times, 9 September 2000
http://www.the-times.co.uk
BY NICK NUTTALL
Arthur: myth links him to fire from the sky
THE story of the death of King Arthur and its references to a wasteland may have been inspired by the apocalyptic effects of a giant comet bombarding the Earth in AD540, leading to the Dark Ages, a British scientist said yesterday.
The impacts filled the atmosphere with dust and debris; a long winter began. Crops failed, and there was famine, Dr Mike Baillie of Queen's University, Belfast, told the British Association for the Advancement of Science. There was now overwhelming evidence from studies of tree rings of a catastrophic climate change at that time, he said.
Dr Baillie, who is based at the university's school of archaeology and palaeoecology, said studies of Irish oaks showed that the climate suddenly became inhospitable around AD540. Other researchers had discovered the same narrow rings on trees in places such as Germany, Scandinavia, Siberia, North America and China. "For all these trees to show the same rings at the same time means it must have been a profoundly unpleasant event, a catastrophic environmental downturn, in AD540, which is in or at the beginning of the Dark Ages."
The tightly bound rings are consistent with fierce frosts that would have devastated agriculture and made a malnourished population more vulnerable to the plague of 542, which killed millions. Plague-carrying rats and pests would have been looking for sustenance, thus hastening the spread of the disease.
Dr Baillie said that there were several theories as to the explanation. One was that a vast volcano had erupted and pumped huge amounts of dust into the atmosphere. Yet such a volcano "would have been out of all proportion to ones we see in recent times", he said, adding that the geological records bore no trace of it.
The other theory, he said,was that huge fragments from a giant comet had hit the Earth, causing violent explosions and a dramatic cooling of the planet. "My view is that we had a cometary bombardment - not a full-blown comet, or we would not be here, but parts of a comet."
Dr Baillie said the hypothesis was supported by studies by astronomers and astrophysicists including Mark Bailey, of the Armagh Observatory, Victor Clube, of Oxford University, and Bill Napier, formerly of the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh. They had calculated that there was a strong likelihood that the Earth suffered a cometary bombardment between 400 and 600, based on records of high meteor shower activity. They had linked it with the break-up of the comet Biela.
It was hoped that scientists in Greenland would analyse ice cores for signs of cometary dust. They were soon to carry out chemical analysis for tree rings for similar clues.
Dr Baillie urged historians to examine the records for writings that may record the events. "You can read about the Justinian plague in conventional history books but you cannot read about the cometary bombardment. The trees single out an episode which can be best described as catastrophic, and it isn't there in written history."
There was, however, some support buried in mythological writings and other works. Roger of Wendover had referred in 540 or 541 to a "comet in Gaul so vast that the whole sky seemed on fire. In the same year there dropped real blood from the clouds . . . and a dreadful mortality ensued".
Dr Baillie also cited the death of King Arthur, which is dated to 537, 539 and 542 in various works, as establishing possible links with fire from the sky and destruction. Dr Baillie said that Arthur was linked in old Irish with CuChulainn, the sky god, who in turn was linked with the Celtic bright sky god Lugh variously described as "bright as the setting sun, comes up in the west, and of the mighty blows".
"The Arthurian stories with their Celtic antecedents of bright sky gods and 'wasteland' come with traditional dates for Arthur's death."
Dr Baillie said that the myths hinted strongly at a bombardment as the causes of an environmental downturn.
Copyright 2000, The Times Newspapers Ltd.
Or at least fire and brimstone.
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Note: this topic is from 2002. Never got pinged.
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Gotta love fussy British spelling. I don't think I've ever seen another word in the English language with four vowels in succession.
What archeological evidence will the latest Tsunami leave behind?? And in 1000 years, what will the grant money application say??
From what I’ve seen within my own family history during Reconstruction in the south after the Civil War, it’s not surprising that record keeping would have ceased in the aftermath of such an event.
Just privations in the aftermath of war in a defeated state left some of my people burying their dead with rocks for markers, and then there were those, even from formerly prominent families, who fell into poverty and illiteracy, climbing out of which required several generations. There are families who still haven’t, with ancestors’ surnames on college campus buildings, government edifices and such.
So, to me, it’s not surprising at all to have such a black hole, especially leading into the so-called Dark Ages.
The idea of a comet disaster around 540 is more or less believable. The mistake would be in thinking that previous catastrophes including the flood had such relatively small or isolated causes.
Sorry, came upon this while reading something else.
Elemental Fluorine...?
Color me rather skeptical and highly surprised.
If true, nasty horrible stuff--and a terrible way to go.
If you reed the British press enough, it becomes habit forming. I notice that I often mis-spell 'amoungst'.
The Laki Fissure event was a major calamity, and while sulfur fumes are more commonly associated with volcanic events, Iceland seems especially prone to fluorine fumes. The death toll was very high amoung livestock, and about 10,000 Icelanders died mostly of starvation effects. Benjamin Franklin who was in France at the time remarked on the weird weather and blue haze which affected Europe’s climate at the time. He commented that it was probably something volcanic in Iceland. Subsequent European crop failures are thought to have worsened conditions in France helping to promote the French Revolution.
With regard to historical records, I read somewhere (probably in Simon Winchesters book “Krakatoa”) that efforts to determine earlier ages of major eruptions there were using the absence of records as a sign that something catastrophic happened at certain dates. Regarding 540AD, I believe that this was the period referred to by Cassiodorus in his writings. Check Google. There was also famine in China at the same time. I suspect it was more likely volcanic in cause than from a major boloid strike. I think a boloid event of that size would have left physical evidence which I don’t think has been found.
I was merrily reading along, and came to a large comment that sounded somehow familiar. Then I saw it was written by me, then I saw it was from 2006. So I am wondering why this is being reposted in 2011? Inquiring minds want to know.
He gets bored and starts 'updating the **** list/file' and this is what happens. the other day, I had replies on a nine year old thread, lol.
I was just surprised at Fluorine, because it is so reactive that you generally don't see it in elemental form.
Cheers!
I’m just playin’ mind games, mwa-ha-ha! ;’)
Queueing has five in a row.
“Queue” is a borrowed word from the French.
Not reposted, just bumped with a recent comment, which was seen in the “Comments” tab and the thread was resurrected. Happens fairly often. Sometimes it’s annoying, but sometimes it’s a good thing. This is an interesting thread, I’m all for it.
Dang, I thought it was borrowed from that Star Trek guy.
Within a hundred years of this disasterous event people from all over the southeast were converging and settling at the Cahokia site in Illinois, a culture which would be ruled by a series of leaders called “great suns,” and a site at which woodhenges would be built to track solar or other events in the sky.
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