SOL NIGER

THE DOUBLE SOLAR ECLIPSE OF NINEVEH

SOL NIGER - THE BLACK SUN OF THE NIGREDO STAGE IN ALCHEMY

The biblical book of Jonah seems to be entirely based on the metaphorical concept of a solar
eclipse. The most ancient recorded eclipse occurred on 22 October 2134 BC and was entered
into the Chinese Book of Documents. This record was intertwined with the myth of a dragon
devouring the sun. The whale that swallowed Jonah before vomiting him up is thus a Judeo-
Christian version where the dragon or serpent, in other cultures, takes the form of a giant fish.
The swallowing of the sun by a giant monster in a battle in which the sun survives is a myth of
redemption and resurrection.

With this aim of redemption Jonah travels to Nineveh where the receptive inhabitants are
willing to repent and clothe themselves in sackcloth. "And Jonah began to enter into the city a
day's journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. So the
people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest
of them even to the least of them."1

The historical figure of Jonah can be dated by cross-referencing 2 Kings 14:25. This places him
within the timeframe of the famous solar eclipse of 15 June 763 BC. Whether Jonah was
actually in Nineveh on this date seems less important than the real intent of the writers of the
biblical story to conflate the events of the solar eclipse and the destruction of Nineveh. The
biblical account was written in the period after the Babylonian exile when the fate of Nineveh,
and the solar eclipse that preceded it, would have been well known.

The solar eclipse in 763 BC is recorded in the Assyrian Chronicle: "Revolt in the citadel; in (the
month) Siwan, the Sun had an eclipse." This eclipse is believed to be the same as that in the
biblical book of Amos. "And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord GOD, that I will
cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day…" 2

This eclipse would have been almost total over Nineveh and been total over the adjacent
territory controlled by the city. This searing omen could account for the receptiveness of the
population for redemption from the wrath of the deity.

Jonah retreats to the outer limits of the city to witness the event and is sheltered by a plant
that miraculously grows up over him protecting him from the sun. A prominent feature of the
period just before and after totality during solar eclipses is the 'worm' effect. This describes the
sliver of light that wraps around the corona. In the context of the biblical story this could be
imagined as devouring the sun. "And the LORD God prepared a gourd, and made it to come up
over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to deliver him from his grief… But God
prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it
withered."3

The association between the story of Jonah and solar eclipses is strengthened by the record of a
second solar eclipse over Nineveh. This was the celebrated eclipse of Thales on 28 May 585 BC
which was named after the Greek sage who predicted it. Herodotus describes this phenomenon
during the war between the Lydians and the Medes.
"They were still warring with equal success, when it happened, at an encounter which occurred
in the sixth year, that during the battle the day was suddenly turned to night. Thales of Miletus
had foretold this loss of daylight to the Ionians, fixing it within the year in which the change did
indeed happen. So when the Lydians and Medes saw the day turned to night, they stopped
fighting, and both were the more eager to make peace."4

Nineveh was sacked in 612 BC and never reclaimed its former status. The history of the
destruction of Nineveh is therefore bracketed by two solar eclipses The first in 763 BC heralded
its destruction and the second in 585 BC affirmed this destruction by appearing over the ruins of
the recently sacked city. The extraordinary confluence of events would have been seen as an
ominous portent in Babylon. After the Babylonian exile the story was retold within a Judeo-
Christian framework and subsequently was included in the Bible.

This is a story of resurrection. Jonah spends three days in the darkness of the belly of the whale
- the same duration as Christ in the tomb. After being initially swallowed the sun is reborn.
"Now the LORD had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of
the fish three days and three nights."5

The story of solar death, redemption and resurrection is symbolized by the gourd that God
creates to provide a protective canopy for Jonah. The word gourd, or vine in other versions of
the Bible, is a mistranslation from the original Hebrew which has kikayon. Current Hebrew
usage of the word refers to the castor oil plant.

It appears that the word kikayon, which does not appear anywhere else in the Bible, may be a
corruption of kykeon. This mythical draft is associated with the Eleusinian Mysteries. These
mysteries are thus associated with the castor oil plant via the medium of the Bible. The basic
ingredients of kykeon are revealed in Homer's Odyssey.
"She brought them in and made them sit on chairs and seats, and made for them a potion of
cheese and barley meal and yellow honey with Pramnian wine; but in the food she mixed
baneful drugs, that they might utterly forget their native land."6

The "baneful" drugs that the goddess mixes with the kykeon does not in this case include ergot
since being intrinsic to the barley this would not have been a separate ingredient. The term
baneful (causing great distress) does not imply opium either or any drug that could be seen as
pleasurable in part. However baneful would be a precise description of ricin.

The seed or bean of the castor oil plant (Ricinus communis) contains ricin and consequently can
be fatally poisonous to humans. The plant is characterized by its black seeds or beans which
were seen as resembling blood-engorged ticks. Pliny explains the derivation of the name of the
plant. "Our people are in the habit of calling it 'ricinus,' from the resemblance of the seed to
that insect (the tick). It is boiled in water, and the oil that swims on the surface is then skimmed
off… eaten with food this oil is repulsive, but it is very useful for burning in lamps." 7

Hence the name (ricinus) is derived from this resemblance and the blood-sucking tick is an
appropriate metaphor for the disc that sucks the light out of the sun during a solar eclipse. The
seeds or beans contain potentially fatal quantities of ricin. This then is one of the most
dangerously toxic plants on earth and yet is linked through the Hebrew word kikayon used in
scriptural texts to the kykeon of the Eleusinian Mysteries.

In this context the biblical story of Jonah makes sense as a metaphorical but disguised
invocation of the mysteries. In the Dionysian rites orgies were performed beside the sacred
Alcyonian Lake that was believed to mark the entrance to the underworld. Dionysus descended
into the underworld in order to raise his mother Semele from the unfathomable depths.

"They call him (Dionysus) up out of the water by the sound of trumpets, at the same time
casting into the depths a lamb as an offering to the Keeper of the Gate. The trumpets they
conceal in Bacchic wands, as Socrates has stated in his treatise on The Holy Ones. Furthermore,
the tales regarding the Titans and the rites celebrated by night agree with the accounts of the
dismemberment of Osiris and his revivification and regenesis."8

The Alcyonian Lake from which Dionysus is summoned has an equivalence to the lake at Sais in
Egypt which was central to the Egyptian Mysteries and the resurrection of Osiris. Herodotus
identifies the nocturnal rites performed there with the Egyptian Mysteries.

"There is also at Sais the burial-place of one whose name (Osiris) I think it impious to mention in
speaking of such a matter; it is in the temple of Athena, behind and close to the length of the
wall of the shrine. Moreover, great stone obelisks stand in the precinct; and there is a lake
nearby, adorned with a stone margin and made in a complete circle; it is, as it seemed to me,
the size of the lake at Delos which they call the Round Pond. On this lake they enact by night the
story of the god's sufferings, a rite which the Egyptians call the Mysteries." 9

It is known that the Eleusinian Mysteries involved an intense transition from darkness to
penetrating and visionary light. The effect, probably drug-enhanced, was partly achieved by
fasting and sensory deprivation. The participants endured long periods in darkness in order to
simulate the underworld before being released into the light. The concept is equivalent to the
experience of totality in a solar eclipse.

The poisonous bitterness of the castor oil plant is a perfect metaphor for the ominous spectacle
of a total solar eclipse. The two eclipses that were either total or close to total over Nineveh
defined the destruction, before and after, of one of the great cities of antiquity. The eclipse of
763 BC heralded the destruction and the eclipse of 585 BC presided in judgement over the
ruins. The event resonated through the mysteries and it seems through the strange biblical book
of Jonah.
Therefore the two solar eclipses bracketed the destruction of the city framing the event with a
dark cosmic significance.

1. Jonah 3:5
2. Amos 8:9
3. Jonah 4:6-7
4. Herodotus - Histories 1.74
5. Jonah 1:17
6. Homer - Odyssey 10.233-236
7. Pliny - Natural History 15.7
8. Plutarch - Isis and Osiris 35
9. Herodotus - Histories 2.170-171