Meteors: Faith and Fear

Comet Hale-Bopp (Philipp Salzgeber, Wikicommons).

Around 12,000 years ago, a huge comet smashed into Earth. The ensuing explosion, triggering infernos, tidal waves, pollution, toxic rain and darkness caused the extinctions of dozens of species and near wiped out humankind in large parts of the world. I’ve talked about this in detail in an earlier post.

Legends of this cataclysm have been handed down from our remote ancestors and are still told across the world today. And across the world, comets are still seen as a terrible omen. This may simply be because they are an anomaly in the perfectly predictable cycles of the skies. Or it may be a deeply buried race memory of the time when humankind nearly died.

The Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh describes fire and flood caused by a comet. In Mongolian lore, comets are the daughters of the devil and trigger destruction and storms. A comet was blamed for the Black Death in Medieval England and for the bloodshed between Caesar and Pompey in ancient Rome.

Meteorite fragment found in Russia. Svend Buhl / Meteorite Recon, Wikicommons.

The ancient sky-watchers would not have been able to distinguish between meteors, comets and other celestial phenomena as modern astronomers do, and all were considered moving or falling stars. Meteors often survive their impact with earth and have been revered objects for millennia. Their exceptional weight for their size, their reflective surface and their unique nature all added to their mythical status. 

Iron meteors were incorporated into Native American shrines. The Black Stone of Mecca, revered since pre-Islamic times, is probably of meteoric origin. A meteor was placed in the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. A large meteorite was incorporated into a Neolithic or Bronze Age burial mound in Wiltshire in southern England. The first iron used by ancient people was of meteoric origin and the previously unknown characteristics of metal would have added another dimension to the magical nature of meteors.

And this may have entirely originated with that ancient star fall, 12,000 years ago. This is the line I’ve taken in Broken Skies.