Dogon - not very big African people, traditionally engaged in agriculture and living on the lands of the Republic of Mali, in the remote highlands of Bandiagara. According to Dogon legends, their ancestors came to X-XI centuries from the upper reaches of the Niger River, from the country of Manden, in the territory of Sudan. They displaced the earlier population of Bandiagara, adopting much of its culture and possibly adopting its language.
The Dogon remained isolated from the whole world for a long time and therefore retained an archaic way of life, almost the same as their ancestors led in the Stone Age. Despite the adoption of Islam by a significant part of the Dogon since the middle of the 19th century, and over time, the adoption of Christianity by a smaller part of the people, the Dogon retained ancient beliefs, including primitive knowledge of nature, combined with mysterious astronomical information that amazed modern scientists. Cosmogonic representations of this people miraculously resonate with the science of our time.
Of the European scientists, the French ethnographer Marcel Griol showed interest in the life of the Dogon in the 1930s. He lived among them for several years, learned their language and customs. He was even lucky enough to participate in a holiday celebrated by the Dogon every 50 years. For this holiday, the Dogon make special masks, carefully preserved by the next generations.
When in 1946 Griol returned to this tribe again, the council of elders and priests decided to introduce him to the circle of initiates and reveal to the scientist the secret knowledge of the people - the legend of the creation of the world.
It must be said that these people did not have their own written language, and all important knowledge was passed down through generations by word of mouth. The story was accompanied by graphic drawings.
The mystery of the Dogon was first discussed in their research by Marcel Griol and Germain Dieterlin, French anthropologists who studied the Dogon from 1931 to 1952, in their article "The Sudanese Sirius System", published in 1950 in the "Journal de la Société des Africanistes". It was there that information about the triple character of Sirius first appeared in the cosmogony of the Dogon and the invisible stars known to them. The article only stated the facts, the researchers did not make any attempts to somehow explain the information received. Later, another book by scientists, Pale Fox, was published.
An attempt to comprehend the myths of the Dogon was made by Eric Guerrier in the book “An Essay on the Dogon Cosmogony: Nommo’s Ark” published in 1975 and Robert Temple in the book “The Sirius Mystery” published in 1976. The latter tried to prove that the Dogon learned their secrets from amphibious aliens from the Sirius system, and perhaps not directly, but through Ancient Egypt. Eric Guerrier, an architect and amateur astronomer, drew attention to the fact that the cosmogonic system of the Dogon and their astronomical views coincided with modern scientific data and hypotheses. A fact that has eluded ethnologists who are not quite knowledgeable in matters of astronomy.
The Dogon's excellent knowledge of the starry sky also attracted the attention of the scientist.
The Pole Star and the Southern Cross are called the "Eyes of the World" by the Dogon. Alpha of the Southern Cross - "Double eye of the world." The star is really double, but astronomers were convinced of this only with the help of telescopes, while the Dogon, we recall, did not have any astronomical instruments at hand.
They divide the celestial bodies into stars, planets and satellites. The Dogon are well aware of the structure of the solar system. They know that the Sun rotates on its axis, and the Earth around the Sun. According to the Dogon, Venus has a satellite. Actually it is not. But in 1976, astronomers Van Flandern and Harrington hypothesized that Mercury had been a moon of Venus in the past. According to the calculations of these scientists, the anomalies of the orbit of Mercury and some features of its structure indicate that approximately 400 thousand years ago it moved into an independent orbit. This hypothesis is based on precise astronomical observations and complex calculations. However, it remains a mystery how the Dogon know about this.
The Dogon know about the four moons of Jupiter and the ring around Saturn. The planets are placed in elliptical orbits.
But leading role among celestial bodies Dogon recognize Sirius. What is clear from the name of this planet, which they call "the navel of the world." According to their myths, Sirius is a triple star system. Modern astronomy, however, defines Sirius as a binary system. This is a small, comparable to the Earth, but very hot star with a mass that is close to the mass of the Sun, the so-called "white dwarf". The second star makes one revolution around Sirius-A in 50.4 ± 0.09 Earth years. It is with such frequency that the Dogon hold their feast of masks. They, like astronomical science today, know that around Sirius-A, which the Dogon call the Sigu star, a small but very massive satellite rotates in an elongated orbit - the Po star, which modern scientists call Sirius-B. The brightness of Sirius-B is 10 thousand times less than the brightness of the main star, and it can only be seen with a strong telescope. This star cannot be seen with the naked eye, and where the Dogon got such information from, one can only speculate. More mysterious is the information of this people about another satellite of Jupiter - the star Emma Ya, and in the language of science - Sirius-C, which has not yet been discovered by modern science. According to the Dogon, this satellite has a more elongated orbit than Sirius-B, but their period of revolution is the same - 50 years. In addition, according to the Dogon, with the approach of Sirius-B to Sirius-A, the brightness of the glow of the latter increases, which is also confirmed by modern astronomers. This happens once every 50 years.
The Dogon believe that this Sirius-B is the heaviest star, and so heavy that all people put together could not lift even a small piece of it. So, according to modern astronomy, the white dwarf Sirius-B consists of a substance of fantastic density, one cubic centimeter of it would weigh about a ton on Earth.
Dogon identify Sirius-B with the "po grain" - the "empty shell", which was formed after the "spread of things throughout the Universe." This - main object universe, giving birth to the "spiral worlds" of the Universe - galaxies.
According to modern astronomers, white dwarfs appear due to powerful explosions supernovae, which were previously red giants.
One of the Dogon myths tells of just such an event - a flash and the gradual extinction of a star in the Sirius system. It should be noted that in no other written sources nothing like this was noted in ancient civilizations.
Focusing on the 50-year cycle, the Dogon celebrate the Sigi holidays associated with the Sirius-A star - Siri-Tolo. But this date is celebrated not with a half-century interval, but every 60 years, while the holiday lasts for 7 years.
This is a celebration of the renewal of the world. During Shiga, a huge “kanaga” is made - a wooden mask of a bird. Masks at the end of the holiday are not destroyed, but stored in a special place. This made it possible for scholars, in particular Griol, to count the number of masks and determine that the Sigi celebrations began around 1300 AD.
The Dogon have a cult of honoring the "Zone of Twilight", and they bury the dead in caves. The Dogon cosmogony resembles both the idea of biblical creationism and the scientific theory of the "big bang". One of their myths says: “At the beginning of all things, there was only Amma, a god who did not lie on anything. Amma's ball-egg was closed… there was nothing but it.” Further, from this ball-egg the world appeared in all its diversity. “The world in the womb of Amma was still without time and without space. Time and space merged into one." “When Amma broke the egg of the world and came out of it, a whirlwind arose that turned. This whirlwind that is spinning is Amma." "Amma created an infinite number of worlds."
In general, the modern scientific theory of the "big bang" also sets out the emergence of the world from a small compressed clot of matter with a volume of 10 cubic centimeters. Approximately 20 billion years ago, there was a “big bang”, as a result of which our Universe began to expand. As it expanded, time and distance appeared. The universe continues to expand even today.
According to the Dogon, our Earth is not the only inhabited place. “The worlds of stars in the form of a spiral are inhabited worlds. Simultaneously with things, Amma, who gave the world movement and form, created all kinds of living beings.
The Dogon mythology also knows about the smallest particles that make up everything around. “All things that Amma created have their origin in the smallest seed. Starting from this small thing, all the things that Amma created were formed by successively adding the same elements. Amma creates all things small, like a grain “by”, then adds these grains to the already created things. As Amma connects them, the body increases."
Dogon mythology also speaks of the appearance of the first people on Earth. The first alien on Earth was Ogo, one of the assistants of the supreme god Amma, who rebelled against his patron. He is one of the four sons of the first being created by the supreme god Amma - Nommo anagonno. This Ogo is a rather mischievous character. Amma tried three times to prevent Ogo from entering Earth. But Ogo made himself a ship that moved with the help of the wind. He came from the star Sigi-Tolo (Sirius). After him, other settlers arrived on Earth, and Ogo began to harm them. The supreme god Amma turned him into the "pale fox Yurugu".
The next guest, who arrived already on the orders of Amma, was Nommo. His mission was to populate the Earth. He flew along with people on a ship consisting of 60 compartments. People only know what was contained in the 22 compartments of the Nommo ship. What was in the other compartments will be known later. This knowledge, according to the Dogon, will change people's ideas about the world.
Nommo's ship flew up to Earth through the hole in the sky that Amma made, and swung in the sky for eight periods, "occupying the sky from horizon to horizon, like a big rainbow." It swayed from East to West, leaning either north or south. The ship hung from the sky on a copper chain, which Nommo then returned back to the sky. Debbie Lake appeared at the landing site of Nommo's ship. Together with Nommo, eight human ancestors arrived on the ship. After landing people and other creatures, Nommo dived into the water, from there he monitors what is happening and takes care of people. He will reappear on earth on the "day of the word."
In the regions inhabited by the Dogon, there are Lake Debbie and Mount Shall, on which there is a large dolmen - a structure made of large stones. According to the Dogon legend, it symbolizes the ship Nommo, which once arrived on Earth. Nearby rise three more stone structures - menhirs, symbolizing Sirius, the Sun and the Earth. Debbie Lake and these stone structures mark the landing site of spacefarers.
Some scientists, in particular Guerrier, believe that the myths of the Dogon preserved information about their contacts with aliens that took place in antiquity. Other researchers, such as American astronomer Carl Sagan, are opponents of such views.
Then where did African tribe can there be such extensive knowledge in astronomy? Perhaps the Dogon or their distant ancestors lived on the planet Sirius?
There is also a skeptical point of view on the knowledge of the Dogon. Some scientists note that the studies of Marcel Griol and Germaine Dieterlin are the only source that tells about the mysterious awareness of the Dogon priests in the field of astronomy.
In addition, over time it became clear that in all Griol's notes on the Dogon cosmogony there is not a single astronomical fact that was unknown at the time when the scientist was conducting his research. The modern Belgian anthropologist Walter van Beek spent 12 years among the Dogon, but said that he had not heard from them anything like Griol's messages.
This scientist drew attention to the fact that all the information was received by Griol from only one informant named Ambara, and this fact also does not give credibility to the data received. True, it is also possible that the knowledge of the Dogon about the mysteries of space was known only to a narrow circle of initiates, whom Griol mentions under the word "olubaru", and Griol Ambar's informant was just one of them.
Finally, the researcher of this topic, Carl Sagan, suggested that some astronomical knowledge could be borrowed from Europeans who visited the Dogon before Griol and Dieterlen began their research.
An opinion was also expressed about the Dogon's independent observations of the stars: according to this version, in contemplating the starry sky, they did not use any magnifying devices and made their discoveries only thanks to visual acuity individual people. This assumption was made in the 1980s by Soviet authors A. Arefiev and L. Fomin. However, in order to observe, for example, such a star as Sirius-B, you need to have a visual acuity that is more than twice that available to a person, and in order to perceive this star as a separate luminary from the neighboring Sirius-A, you need to have vision that is four times more powerful than in a person with normal vision. The first observation of Sirius B was made with a telescope only in 1862.
Skeptics also point out that the Dogon do not know anything about such planets as Mercury, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto.
Be that as it may, the question of where the tribe of aborigines from Central Africa has such deep, inexplicable and modern science knowledge of the heavenly bodies remains unresolved.
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Technological progress and widespread adoption high technology did not affect the way of life of numerous African tribes inhabiting the endless tropical jungle. One of the most mysterious tribal formations is the Dogon tribe, living on the territory of the state of Mali on the banks of the full-flowing and dangerous Niger River.
At first glance, the Dogon live in caves and look like an ordinary prehistoric tribe, engaged, like thousands of years ago, in gathering and fishing. However, any of the researchers who studied the myths and beliefs of these semi-wild natives found facts indicating that the Dogon have very wide and exact knowledge in the field of astronomy and the structure of the solar system.
The famous ethnographer Marcel Griol, who studied the habits of peoples in the 30s of the last century West Africa, claimed that the Dogon are one of the fragments ancient people who lived in Sudan and Mali long before our era. Once in their settlement, Griol saw the ancient cave drawings, on which, despite their primitiveness, the complex outlines of the planets and their orbits were guessed. The main festival of the tribe is Sigui, which takes place every 50 years, when the distant planet Sirius finishes full turn around an unknown star.
The Dogon claim that the progenitor of all living things was the god Amma, who had the shape of a ball. As a result of the Big Bang, the continuous expansion of the ball began, which continues today. Data on the constant expansion of the Universe are also confirmed by the results latest research carried out with the help of powerful radio telescopes. But the Dogon knew about this back in the 19th century ...
According to the opinion of the Dogon themselves, astronomical knowledge was transferred to them by an alien god from the planet Sirius named Nommo, who descended from heaven during a powerful Cataclysm. As soon as Nommo sank to the ground, the storms, thunderstorms and explosions stopped, the door of the apparatus opened, from which the gods emerged. Interestingly, the mysterious alien gods Annunaki are often mentioned in the mythology of the Sumerians.
Who was Nommo, a stranger from another world and one of the last inhabitants of ancient Atlantis, which just disappeared as a result of a similar cataclysm? Many people think about this question, but the mystery of the Dogon and their inexplicable knowledge still remains a mystery.
Photo. The Dogon tribe in Mali are aliens from Sirius.
Photo. Ordinary dwellings of the people of the Dogon tribe.
A series of video films will help create a more complete picture of the people of the Dogon tribe in Mali. The first video in the "Magic of Adventure" series is "Children of the Pale Fox".
The second film: "Dogon - aliens from Sirius?"
Third video: The unsolved mystery of the Dogon«
At all times, there have been a few mysterious ethnic groups on Earth, whose heritage has riveted the attention of all mankind. These are the Sumerians, the ancient Egyptians, the Aztecs, the Mayans and the Dogon, little known to most of us.
These peoples have much in common - and, in particular, the phenomenon of their sudden appearance and the same sudden and rapid disappearance from the Earth. Especially vivid examples are the Mayan people and the African Dogon tribe that has survived to this day.
Regarding the latter, scientists are currently unanimous in only one thing: no one can say for sure where the Dogon came from. Some of the researchers suggest that the Dogon tribe appeared simply out of nowhere, other anthropologists consider them a branch of the Egyptian civilization, based on the similarity of some myths.
Many of us ask ourselves the eternal questions: “Who are we? From whom did they originate? Where did they come from? Where shall we go? And than more humanity learns about himself and the world around him, the more difficult it becomes to answer this question. You can say it was good primitive people, who, in response, confidently pointed a finger at the sky - they say, we came from the stars.
But if you think that there are no such "optimists" left, then you are deeply mistaken. There is a small Dogon tribe on Earth, or, as scientists say, a mini-ethnos. The number of the tribe is only about 200 thousand people, and it lives in such jungles, where even at the height of the day the dense foliage barely passes the sunlight.
The Dogon inhabit a small area in the bend of the Niger River (Republic of Mali, Africa). They "own" the Bandiagara Plateau at the foot of Mount Gomburi and live in caves and primitive huts. The isolation of the tribe from the rest of the world for many centuries allowed the peaceful Dogon to maintain their identity.
Remarkable is the fact that after they were accidentally “discovered” in 1931 by two French anthropologists, Marcel Griol and Germain Dieterlin, not only ethnographers, but also astronomers show interest in the tribe. Griol lived here for ten years, studied everyday life, wrote down legends, and even, by decision of the council of elders, was admitted to initiation into the secret title of priest.
What so shocked the scientist? Mud huts, dancing on stilts, fields sown with millet, ritual mass graves in caves - the most primitive culture. Even when, after the end of World War II, he published a series of articles about the Dogon in African studies magazines, they did not become a sensation. You never know what legends exist among primitive peoples.
But one day Griol's articles accidentally fell into the hands of the English astronomer McGrey - and the attitude towards the Dogon changed radically. Still, what can information about the second star of the Sirius system, Sirius B, tell an archaeologist or ethnographer? Well, if you dig into special reference books, you can find out that it was discovered ... only in 1862. Before the outbreak of the First World War, it was determined that it had an unusually high density and ranked the star in the category of "white dwarfs".
And if you delve into scientific reading, it will become known that the spiral nebulae are sketched by Ross in mid-nineteenth century ... Hubble in 1924 proved that they are composed of stars. The rotation of our Galaxy was proved in 1927, and its spiral shape - in 1950... Very informative. After all, few people still know about this, but for some reason the Dogon are well aware, and this is not a hoax.
Historians and archaeologists unanimously claim that all the facts indicate that the tribe settled on the Bandiagara plateau, which is now also called the Dogon Country, in the very early XIII century. There is a cave here, going far into the depths of the mountain, in which there are wall paintings created more than 700 years ago.
The entrance to the cave is guarded by a revered saint. He does nothing else, but only protects the entrance. The whole tribe takes care of this person, feeds him, but no one has the right to touch him or come close to the entrance, even during the transfer of food. When he dies, another saint takes his place. So what secrets does he keep?
The cave contains amazing drawings and grains of valuable information. For example, a drawing connecting the Sirius system and our Sun with one straight line. In general, it would not be unusual if the image indicated only the most bright star in the sky - Sirius A.
But it should be noted that the Dogon tribe lives in that region of Africa, where the star Sirius disappears for a long time over the horizon and is out of sight for several months. Bright ruby red, it appears just above the horizon on the morning of July 23, almost due east, and rises about sixty seconds before the Sun.
So Sirius can only be seen for a moment, and then he disappears again. This is called the Sirius Sunrise. This is the rarest moment when Sirius, the Sun and the Earth find themselves in a straight line in space. But this was also known to the ancient Egyptians, who specially made through holes in the thickness of the pyramids so that the bloody rising of the star would illuminate the altar.
But not only that, the Dogon told scientists that next to the blue giant Sirius A there are two more stars that you can’t see through every telescope. So, they clearly indicated the location of the white dwarf Po Tolo - Sirius B - which, as mentioned above, was confirmed only in 1862. The Dogon have very specific information about this star.
They say it is very, very old and very small, and is made of what they call "the heaviest matter in the universe": 1.5 million tons per cubic inch. And they say that this little star makes a complete revolution around Sirius "in about 50 years" (the error, according to astronomers, is 0.1 years).
But how did an ancient primitive tribe get such exact information relative to a star, the measurement of whose parameters became possible only in the 20th century?
Another proof of the phenomenal knowledge and memory of the Dogon tribe is small drawing on the cave wall, which scientists did not know for a long time what to attribute it to ... until the computers calculated the orbits of Sirius A and Sirius B.
As it turned out, this is an exact model of the movement of one star around another in a certain period of time - from 1912 to 1990. Naturally, the Dogon themselves could not have calculated this.
All rituals of the Dogon are tied to the 50-year cycle of circulation of Sirius B around Sirius A. It is impossible to detect this satellite, determine its color, calculate the period of revolution and density without astronomical instruments.
Even the satellites of Jupiter, which the Dogons know about, cannot be seen with the eye. There is only one way out - borrowing from another culture.
Perhaps the tribe could obtain information about the structure of the universe from the ancient Egyptian priests. But the ancient Egyptians could not know anything about the explosion of Sirius B in the 2nd century AD - their civilization died much earlier. And among the Dogon this explosion is one of the central points of mythology. Ideas about the existence in the Universe of superdense matter, "white dwarfs", generally belong to the most modern ideas.
But that's not all. The presence in this star system of another third small star of Sirius C - Emme Ya, which the Dogon kept talking about, was established by scientists only in 1970. The tribe was also aware of all the other planets in our solar system, including Neptune, Pluto and Uranus, as well as information about 226 other star systems, among them spiral star systems that were discovered by astronomers later.
They knew exactly how these planets look when approaching them from space, which also became known to scientists only recently. And of course, they knew that the Earth rotates around its axis and around the Sun, and completes a complete revolution in 365 days, and in their calendar they divided this cycle into 12 months. They knew about the moon, that it was waterless and dead.
The Dogon also knew about red and white blood cells, and they possessed all the information about human physiology that we have received only recently.
So how did the Dogon know about all these stars and their features? When the elders of the tribe are asked who provided their ancestors with such amazing information, they answer that it was Nommo, who at one time arrived on the "ark" just from ... the Sirius system.
And all this is captured in cave drawings. But it is known for sure that they were not made by the Dogons. They came here only three centuries ago, and the drawings are 700 years old. But it turns out that where the tribe lived before, there is a cave like this, from which you can see individual stars in the Sirius system. In addition, there are some "material evidence" in this cave.
However, despite the persistent persuasion of scientists, the natives have not yet discovered its location. Either there are some super-powerful astronomical instruments created by the civilization of Sirius, or the "gods" left something there for storage in anticipation of the next visit. One can only guess about this.
According to a variant of the genealogical myth, the Dogon once lived in a certain Mande Country and are descendants of the legendary Lebe, who, in turn, descended from the primordial nommo ancestors. He gave life to two sons. From the eldest of them came the Dogon tribe, and younger son became the founder of the Aru tribe.
When Lebe died, the Dogon lowered his corpse into the ground, but before leaving the Country, the Mande decided to take the remains with them. But when they opened the grave, they found that Lebe had resurrected - there was a living snake. The Dogon, taking with them some earth from the grave, went underground, led by a snake, and ended up in Mali.
Interested in the Dogon, scientists found that, in addition to Sirius, they have knowledge in the field molecular biology, nuclear physics and other sciences, but, of course, they cannot use any of this. The Dogon seem to be a huge treasury of knowledge, however, it is not known; for what purposes intended.
And once a sorcerer drew for scientists right on the sand a map of the starry sky, in which the star Sirius occupied a central place. This is what kind of memory you need to have, so that, taking an alien star as a reference point, you don’t confuse anything!
Yes, the amount of information stored by the Dogon can amaze not only the average layman, but also scientists. For example, they know the planets Jupiter and Saturn, each of which is designated by them with a certain symbol. For Jupiter, this is a circle, next to which there are four smaller circles (the four largest satellites), and for Saturn, two concentric circles (they know about the existence of a ring around Saturn). Knowledge of two largest planets The solar system legends of the tribe are not limited. They also contain the most up-to-date information and concepts about the structure of the universe.
Here are some fragments of the Dogon legends, recorded from their words: spring." And they say it primitive people, who not only could not observe the movements of the Sun, but also never saw a spiral spring in their eyes.
Dogon legends also say: “Amma stood at the beginning of all things, who did not lean on anything ... Amma's egg-ball was closed ... When Amma broke the egg of the world and came out of it, a rotating whirlwind arose ... As a result of this appeared "yala" (in a loose translation from the language of the Dogon, this means the transition from the abstract to the concrete) from a spiral that rotated inside the egg and meant the coming expansion of the world.
Pretty confusing. But you must admit, based on our knowledge of the structure of the Universe, it looks like the primary Big Bang and the billions of years of expansion of the universe.
How do the “information carriers” themselves explain the emergence of such knowledge in them? To the scientists' questions, the priests showed another series of drawings that depict a flying saucer. This image is very similar to the shape already familiar to us - a plate descending from the sky and landing on three pillars.
The next drawing is the creatures inside the ship. Further, it is drawn how they make a large hole in the ground, fill it with water, get out of the ship into the water and approach the water's edge. True, they do not look like any “green men”.
The elders of the tribe talk about creatures resembling dolphins, that when they landed, they made a large depression in the ground, filled it with water and began to swim. Coming ashore, they spoke to the Dogon and told them that they had flown from the heavenly earth Po Tolo (Sirius B) and passed on all the knowledge.
The heavenly messengers were extraordinary tall and "fish by nature": they breathed in water and therefore were constantly in transparent helmets filled with liquid. The Dogon called the newcomers "nommo", which in the language of the natives means "to drink water." And the people of the tribe called the day of their appearance "the day of the fish", and the gods themselves were considered amphibious creatures.
It turns out that similar descriptions can be found among the Uros Indians living near Lake Titicaca (Peru). Legends tell of the same dolphin-like creatures that came from the stars and very quickly established close relationships with people who lived here even before the Incas. It was this connection with the "people of the sky", according to legend, that led to the founding of the Inca Empire.
In addition, in the Mediterranean alone, as many as twelve cultures tell a similar story. But the astronomically "advanced" mythology of the Dogon is the most striking evidence of the aliens' paleovisit. The Dogon claimed that according to their calculations, Nommo should have returned in 2003.
Perhaps the natives lost count, or the "amphibians" never flew in and did not fly away, but at one time lived on the ground, and the "plates" served them like helicopters. You can fantasize a lot of such “or” and even draw a parallel with our dolphins, but all this is still unproven.
But the fact that the Dogon tribe once stood at a higher stage of development is not groundless, if only because the natives gave many interesting things to historians and anthropologists. For example, tools that have not been seen before in any other isolated wild tribe of the planet, all kinds of figurines made of stone, bone and wood. Later it turned out that many of these objects are at least 4000 years old!
In memory of the tall aliens, the Dogon walk on stilts
Some especially incredulous scholars believe that missionaries who preached in Mali in the 1920s shared information with the Dogon, and the drawings, they say, although old, are just a coincidence. It's hard to argue with unbelievers, but here are a few facts. If the information received by the Dogon dated back to the beginning of the 20th century, then the natives would have told scientists about eight satellites of Jupiter (now they have already been discovered 67 according to data from 2012), and not about four.
And the brothers in Christ could not have known at that time such details about the Sirius system or the spiral structure of the Galaxy. In addition, each astronomical fact among the Dogon is tied to certain rituals that can be traced through relics at least until the 12th century!
The German scientist Dieter Hermann calls the situation with the Dogon knowledge about space a "hopeless case": when it is impossible to unambiguously refute or confirm any version.
And Robert Temple, who devoted an entire book to the Dogon, concludes his research with the words: “I was able to prove that the information that the natives of the Dogon tribe possess is very ancient origin- it is more than 5 thousand years old and was possessed by the ancient Egyptians in the pre-dynastic period, that is, until 3200 BC.
In 1950, the ethnologists Marcel Griol and Germain Dieterlin reported in small article that, while studying the life of a small Dogon tribe living in our time is still primitive communal system, they discovered among the natives extraordinary knowledge about the distant star system of Sirius. The Dogon told the researchers that in the "heavenly heights" there is a "beautiful star Sigui". Around it, according to their information, another star revolves - Po tolo. "Po" in the language of the tribe means "corn grain". Interestingly, in modern astronomical literature, this star is called Latin word Digitaria, which also means "bread grain". Digitaria is the heaviest star in the Sirius system and is invisible human eye, and the period of its revolution around Sigui is 50 years. The Dogon also report that the Sirius system includes two more stars. One of them they call Emma Ya. She is larger than Digitaria, but 4 times lighter than her. Sigui's other moon is very far away from it and rotates in the opposite direction.
Photo: The constellation Canis Major as a pattern of a dog and lines in the night sky.
The most surprising thing is that the information available to the Dogon largely coincides with modern scientific ideas. Already in 1934, the American scientist Clark discovered the first satellite of Sirius, which later astronomers began to call Sirius-B, or Digitaria. In 1970 Sirius B was photographed. The period of its revolution around Sirius was calculated - 51 years. The diameter of the Digitaria is approximately equal to that of the earth, but its mass is unusually large. Just one teaspoon of the substance of this star has approximately the same weight as the moon.
Photo: Sanctuary of the Dogon tribe
Until recently, scientists believed that the Sirius system consisted of only two stars: Sirius-A and Digitaria (Sirius-B). But already in 1997, the French astronomers Bonnet-Bideau and Gris suggested that Sirius-A has two more satellites: Sirius-C and Sirius-D. The components of this star system are still extremely little studied, and scientists have not yet made any final conclusions, but, according to preliminary data, Sirius-C is larger than Digitaria and several times lighter than it, and the fourth star is very far from Sirius-A. Astronomers cannot yet say with certainty whether Sirius-D is an independent star or is part of the Sirius star system. Nevertheless, information about the structure of this system, received from an African tribe, coincides unusually exactly with the latest scientific data.
Photo: Dwellings of the Dogon tribe
Dogon culture contains amazing knowledge
It should be noted that in addition to Sirius, the Dogon also knew other stars and planets. They were well aware of the presence of moons around Jupiter and rings around Saturn. The Dogon also defined the boundaries of the Milky Way and believed, like many ancient peoples, that our solar system consists of 12 planets. It is interesting that many astronomers and astrophysicists are currently inclined to the opinion that beyond the orbit of the last planet known to us - Pluto - there is a celestial body with a large mass. It is also possible that there may be not one celestial body, but two or three different planets.
Photo: Representative of the Dogon tribe
How do the Dogon know so many details about the structure of stars and celestial bodies? There are several opinions on this matter. Some researchers believe that the knowledge of astronomy available to primitive tribe Dogon, confirm the hypothesis of scientists about paleocontact, that is, the interaction of ancient peoples with representatives of some highly developed extraterrestrial civilization, whose representatives visited the Earth millennia ago. Perhaps it was the aliens who were those "gods" and "teachers" of antiquity, about whom the legends and tales of almost all the peoples of our planet tell. Based on the legends and amazing knowledge of the Dogon, the famous astronomer Robert Temple believes that in time immemorial the inhabitants of Sirius or one of the planets included in this star system arrived on Earth. It can be assumed that, having met intelligent beings on the "blue planet", the messengers of a distant star transferred some of their knowledge to the natives of the Earth, and then departed for their world. According to Temple, it was the newcomers from Sirius who were the founders of the ancient Egyptian civilization and the first pharaohs of this state. According to another version, on our planet many millennia ago there were "their own", earthly highly developed civilizations that died as a result of global catastrophes. It is believed that the Dogon are the heirs of a great people who once possessed great knowledge. Perhaps the few representatives of a highly developed civilization that survived as a result of catastrophes assimilated with other peoples at a low stage of development, and, having transferred some knowledge to them, degraded in the existing historical conditions. There is no consensus among scientists regarding the information received from the Dogon. Some believe that everything stated by scientists is so incredible that it simply cannot be true. Some critics accused Griol and Dieterlen of hoax. Others stated, however, without any justification, that Sirius-B (Digitaria), and Jupiter, and the rings of Saturn can supposedly be seen with the naked eye, although it is known that the rings of Saturn, for example, were discovered only in the 17th century. Italian astronomer Cassini using a telescope. Robert Temple, in response to numerous attacks by opponents, said that he understood the critical attitude of his colleagues towards this issue. After all, the knowledge of the Dogon "does not just change the traditional picture of the world, but shakes the foundations of modern science. To recognize the existence of such knowledge in a tribe living in a primitive communal system, one must have a certain courage, ”says Temple in one of his articles.
Disputes about the knowledge of a small African tribe are still ongoing. Science has yet to answer the question of who and when told the Dogon about the stars of the Sirius system.
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In 1931, an expedition took place along the African Niger River, on the territory of the Republic of Mali, led by French geographers J. Deterlin and M. Griol. They discovered a rather small Dogon tribe, which no one in the world had previously known about. The tribes that geographers found on the "black continent" were backward in their development, but after talking closer with the Dogon, it turned out that their ideas about the world and the universe are very similar to modern ones.
The Dogon have no written language, they pass on their knowledge from generation to generation in the form of drawings or legends. Members of the tribe shared their knowledge about the structure of the universe, and also said that our planet moves around its axis "along big circle”, while “permanent stars” are stars that move around other stars, and satellites are stars that form circles as they move. They are also well aware of the planets in our solar system, they can tell the most information to both Saturn and Jupiter. When talking about the planets, they draw a picture for each. When depicting Saturn, they indicated that the planet has two concentrated rings, and near Jupiter they drew four small rings. But, really, Saturn is the only planet that is surrounded by rings, and Jupiter is surrounded by four large satellites.
However, the most surprising thing, as the scientist Lucian Zinich noted in his work, is that the rings of Saturn and the moons of Jupiter can only be seen with a special telescope, the existence of which the Dogon tribe does not even know. They also have information about Sigitolo (in our opinion about Sirius) - this is the most big star in the night sky, which is located in the constellation Big Dog. After talking even more with people from this tribe, scientists concluded that their development was far ahead of the knowledge of modern science in the 70s of our century. According to the stories, these facts were already known to the semi-wild Dogon for a long time.
This knowledge includes information about the composition of small stars around Sirius, which, as we know, are composed of heavy nuclear matter, which we call "white dwarfs." The Dogon know about the existence of 226 constellations in our sky. The most amazing thing is that in the legends of this semi-savage tribe There is modern facts from the field of nuclear physics, as well as molecular biology. It is impossible to imagine that people developing in primitive conditions of existence have such knowledge. It makes no sense to even imagine the hypothesis that this tribe had a telescope, even a natural one, the mirror of which is a lake in a cave, as well as the assumption that several space aliens from Sirius arrived on our planet many millennia ago. But the question remains: who then provided the Dogon tribe with such information? Many scientists are working on the answer to this question.
Now is the time to remember famous book"The Sirius Mystery", written in 1977 by the English scientist Robert Temple. In his work, the author expressed the opinion that he categorically rejects the contact of the Dogon tribe with space aliens. He believes that the Dogon could have received their deep knowledge from the people of the Garamants, who were very developed in antiquity, and were mentioned by Herodotus. Their kingdom stretched from the border of Egypt to the Atlas Mountains. Perhaps they left many drawings in the Tassili mountains. This people disappeared among the inhabitants of West and North Africa and did not leave behind any monuments, except for small ruins to the northeast of the city of Murzuka. That is why we know almost nothing about them now. It is believed that some of them settled in the center of the continent, most likely in the Tibesti highlands, where geographers met similar legends like those of the Dogon.
Scientists believe that the Tuaregs are the descendants of the ancient people of the Garamants. There are facts that testify to us that this people was highly developed - this is a huge water supply system built under the Sahara, it stretches from Sebha to the Gat oasis, which is located near the Algerian border, as well as many feudal structures. Note the fact that the length of the tunnels cut in the rock is more than 1600 kilometers. It is amazing how people of the third millennium could do this without having mining equipment, tools needed for laying roads, ventilation and lighting. Just imagine, during this work they brought to the surface more than 20 million cubic meters of rock. On this basis, scientists make the assumption that perhaps it was the Garamantes who enlightened the Dogon tribe. But then a new question arises, and who gave them such unique knowledge?
