Did anyone predict the death of the Sun before science?
score:9
The Aztecs believed that the sun was the fifth in a line of suns, and that each of the preceding four had been destroyed before its successor was created. Various natural disasters had destroyed the previous suns. This one would be destroyed as well, by an earthquake. Its destruction could be delayed by human sacrifices, but not prevented forever. See this article:
Set I. The Five Ages- War and Destruction. Duran (1971: 412) relates that on the walls of the Temple of Warriors within a sacred compound surrounding the Templo Mayor was a large emblem of a butterfly. He tells us that this emblem meant "ollin" or "motion." The root of the word "heart" also meant motion. In this age, not only were still-beating hearts offered as the life-blood of the universe but the warriors, when sacrificed, went to the sky to help the sun each day and, after four years, became butterflies which flitted from flower to flower.
This central image suggests what appears to be the primary ordering principle of this first set - an ordering principle for time. Its basic impetus is a historically sequential, temporal message of eschatology - a vision of time with an emphasis on destruction. The scenario presented in this story is one in which the original timeless unity is divided by four deities into a series of ages, each called a "sun." Each sun is destroyed, apparently completely, for in each sun the inhabitants either "disappear" or "perish." In the fourth sun even the heavens collapse. The fifth sun is begun by divine sacrifice and is also doomed to an inevitable destruction. There is no mention of a sixth age, or of any new creation in the future, nor is there ever a return to that primordial age of of cosmic creation.
So this was not 'circle of life' stuff. The sun was going to be destroyed and there was no happy ending - just putting it off.
The Aztecs are a striking example because the sun was the centre of their mythology. I don't know much about mythology, but it's not uncommon for mythologies to predict the end of the world. Even myths with cyclical notions of time often depict the world recreated and destroyed forever. The Aztecs' mythology was linear, with one beginning and one final destruction of the world. Depending on how cultures conceptualize the world, this often entails the destruction of the sun. From the book of Revelation, Chapter 21:
And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
...
And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.
...
And there shall be no night there [and] neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever.
Interestingly, earlier in Revelation the sun goes dark because of an earthquake - but then flares up again and burns people. I doubt it means anything, but if you want to write an alternate history in which ancient Israelites sail the Atlantic to meet the Aztecs, there's your excuse.
Read, Kay A. “The Fleeting Moment: Cosmogony, Eschatology, and Ethics in Aztec Religion and Society.” The Journal of Religious Ethics, vol. 14, no. 1, [Journal of Religious Ethics, Inc, Wiley, Blackwell Publishing Ltd], 1986, pp. 113–38, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40015027.
Upvote:5
Yes. Probably the first rigorous hypothesis about the source of Sun's energy is the Helmholtz-Thompson mechanism (or Helmholtz-Kelvin) of gravitational contraction which predicts something like 20 million years solar lifetime.
Upvote:11
In Norse mythology, the Sun, named Sól, is chased by a wolf, named Sköll or Fenrir. At the end of times (Ragnarök), Fenrir will catch Sól and eat her. This is not great news:
High then quotes stanza 45 of Völuspá. Next, High describes that the wolf will swallow the sun, then his brother will swallow the moon, and mankind will consider the occurrence as a great disaster resulting in much ruin. The stars will disappear. The earth and mountains will shake so violently that the trees will come loose from the soil, the mountains will topple, and all restraints will break, causing Fenrir to break free from his bonds.
Alternatively, Sól will have had a daughter before being eaten, and her daughter will replace her in the sky.
Vafþrúðnismál stanza 45 is then quoted. The personified sun, Sól, will have a daughter at least as beautiful as she, and this daughter will follow the same path as her mother.
In stanza 46, Odin asks what sun will come into the sky after Fenrir has consumed the sun that exists. Vafþrúðnir responds that Sól will bear a daughter before Fenrir assails her, and that after Ragnarök this daughter will continue her mother's path.
In yet another version, the Sun would just turn black.
The god Freyr fights Surtr and loses. After this, people flee their homes, and the sun becomes black while the earth sinks into the sea, the stars vanish, steam rises, and flames touch the heavens.
More post
- 📝 Where can I find the earliest surviving versions of Herodotus's Histories?
- 📝 Did Napoleon's coronation mantle survive?
- 📝 Has a sniper ever disabled a tank?
- 📝 Why was Poland able to resist the Swedish invasion during the Deluge, but not during the time of Charles XII?
- 📝 Why did Roosevelt and Truman change the usual switch date of presidency? (4th of March to 20th of January)
- 📝 Why did Huldrych Zwingli and Martin Luther stand for clerical marriage?
- 📝 Is there evidence that the annual pilgrimage to Mecca facilitated cultural exchanges?
- 📝 How powerful and influential was the "last caliph" Abdul Mejid?
- 📝 Were the Spanish conquistadors really motivated by myths like El Dorado?
- 📝 Why did few French and no Dutch pilots (but many Poles and Czechs) take part in the Battle of Britain?
- 📝 When was grass seed first imported specifically for aesthetic reasons?
- 📝 What did whistling bombs actually sound like?
- 📝 Ratio of population to military size throughout European history?
- 📝 Did any contemporary sources write about Jesus?
- 📝 How was Napoleon able to take power from the Republic
- 📝 What exactly is this 1795 German "Berichte" Document?
- 📝 Did the Soviets lack ball bearings in WWII?
- 📝 Can someone help explain this floor plan of a mid 20th century apartment?
- 📝 Were there any non-Afrikaner apartheid supporters in South Africa before 1994?
- 📝 How wealthy was Singapore at its independence (1965)?
- 📝 In Germany 1935, what happened to the Jews in the armed forces?
- 📝 Why is the Queen Anne flintlock pistol named after Queen Anne?
- 📝 What is the history of the use of word dividers in Greek?
- 📝 Where does the concept of traffic keeping to the "right" side of the street originate?
- 📝 What was Rousseau's point in "The Social Contract"?
- 📝 How many humans were killed by Alexander.the Great, versus Genghis Khan?
- 📝 What damage did anti-tank rifles hope to inflict on tanks in WW2?
- 📝 How many Dutch lived in Indonesia during the colonial era vs native population?
- 📝 Is there a Welsh or Irish equivalent to the Declaration of Arbroath or Magna Carta?
- 📝 Is it true that "All spicy food is from Latin America"?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 Did anyone predict the death of the Sun before science?
- 📝 Did anyone in Europe predict the existence of the Americas?
- 📝 Did anyone interweave blue and red threads in order to give the illusion of purple cloth before purple dye became cheap?
- 📝 What did babies eat before the advent of modern blenders?
- 📝 Did Native Americans ever fight the indigenous people living in Mexico before Europeans arrived?
- 📝 What concessions did Hitler demand from the Poles before 1939?
- 📝 Did Muslim states hire Western European knights as mercenaries before the Crusades?
- 📝 Did any British working class men have the vote before 1918?
- 📝 How did the British Navy pass orders to its fleet before radio?
- 📝 Did the aborigines of Australia and the Maoris in New Zealand know about each other's existence, before the Europeans came?
- 📝 How did people have access to ice in warm areas before the industrial revolution?
- 📝 Did anyone face consequences (charges / court-martial) for the 1914 Christmas truce in WWI?
- 📝 What numerals did the people of Ireland use before Roman Numerals? (aka, did Ogham include numbers?)
- 📝 Before European influence circa 1600, did any Chinese believe the Earth was spherical, and did they ever try to measure it?
- 📝 How did people say “I have to go to the bathroom” before the bathroom and pipes were common?
- 📝 In the 1980s, did any Western expert, scholar, official, or politician predict the impending collapse of the Soviet Union?
- 📝 Did airports have security checks before the 1970s?
- 📝 Did anyone warn about the potential for stock market crashes in 1929, and if so why were their warnings ignored?
- 📝 Before entering WW II, why was the US so against Japanese aggression in China but did nothing about Germany in Europe?
- 📝 How did lecturers magnify their voice in the days before amplification?
- 📝 Did anyone at the time blame the Great Plague on rats or fleas?
- 📝 When did humans understand the science of hail?
- 📝 How did the Egyptian engineers of the Third and Fourth Dynasty construct the Pyramids and Sphinx without modern science and mathematics?
- 📝 How did the way commanders ask their troops to deal with the immediate death of their comrades vary by country/culture during WWII?
- 📝 How long did belief in the Egyptian sun god Ra last?
- 📝 What did Ben Franklin mean when he said "The sun of liberty is set; you must light up the candle of industry & economy"?
- 📝 Why did science flourish in Germany after the First World War?
- 📝 How did the Nuremberg Trials decide whether a guilty defendant was to be sentence to death or life imprisonment?
- 📝 Did the Bar Kokhba revolt happen before or after Jerusalem's name was changed to Aelia?
- 📝 Did Mithraism and other Roman cults surpass the original Greco-Roman religion in popularity before the rise of Christianity?