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- Let's travel back for a moment to about 1200 BC, the
time of the Shang dynasty in China.
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- It's early evening, and the full moon has just risen
in the east, bathing the black night in its bright glow.
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- In this time before sidewalks, streetlights, headlights,
and the glow of cities, the moonless night was truly dark, so dark that
it was often dangerous to be outside at night.
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- The blackness made it difficult to see the ground, and
the dark gave cover to beasts and bandits that prowled the night.
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- But a bright moon dispelled the dark, and the radiant
glow of a rising full moon was as dramatic and as welcome as a sunrise.
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- To the ancient Chinese that bright full moon was warm
and comforting, but as we watch the moon rise higher in the east on this
particular day so many centuries ago, something strange and ominous occurs:
The moon is darkening.
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- Its bright disk is being consumed by darkness, a growing
shadow the color of dried blood spreading across its face, threatening
to devour the entire orb.
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- As you watched the warm lunar light being extinguished
and the moon consumed by ominous darkness, what would you have thought?
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- In that era predating popular astronomy and modern science,
would you have been afraid, even terrified? Would you have feared for great
destruction befalling the sky?
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- Lost perspective
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- In contemporary times, when it seems like every single
celestial phenomenon is diagrammed, analyzed and broadcast on television,
it's easy to laugh off the fears that sky phenomena often inspired in ancient
people.
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- Still, although we understand what causes things such
as lunar eclipses, most of us have a difficult time even seeing them: The
light pollution that bathes our cities hides the night sky from us, and
were it not for news accounts, even dramatic phenomena such as lunar eclipses
would go largely unnoticed.
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- In times before ours, events such as lunar eclipses were
noticed by everyone and accorded great significance. On more than one occasion,
a lunar eclipse altered the course of history.
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- Omen in the sky
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- Ancient people did not understand the causes of eclipses
(though they could often predict them), but just as we do today, they tried
their best to explain them.
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- Based on the gradual appearance of a lunar eclipse, the
most obvious explanation was that something was consuming the moon, and
so it arose that the ancient Chinese term for an eclipse is chih, which
also means "to eat."
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- The dark-blood color of most lunar eclipses bolsters
the idea that the moon is being eaten, with "blood" spreading
across its face.
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- To moderns that seems very fanciful, but the idea of
the moon being consumed in an eclipse was quite common in ancient times.
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- Even more common was the view that a lunar eclipse was
a very bad omen. Ancient Chaldeans believed that the eclipse was a display
of the moon's wrath, and that famine, disease or natural disasters would
follow.
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- Babylonians went so far as to try to determine which
quadrant of the moon was most eclipsed (very obvious in a partial lunar
eclipse), using the direction as a geographical indicator of who would
suffer the worst consequences.
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- Changed history
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- With lunar eclipses widely believed to be omens, it was
inevitable that an inopportune eclipse could change the course of history,
and so it has happened on a number of occasions.
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- One of the earliest such incidents was recorded by Thucydides
in his account of the Peloponnesian War, which took place in the 5th century
BC.
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- In the outbreak of the second phase of that war, the
Athenians had attacked and blockaded the Sicilian city of Syracuse.
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- After a two-year siege the Athenians were ready to pull
out, but just before the departure signal was given there was a lunar eclipse
which the Athenians took as a very bad omen for their departure.
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- So the departure was delayed, and the delay allowed the
Syracusans to break out of the siege, turning the tables on Athens and
destroying the Athenian fleet and army.
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- Athens was sent reeling, its democracy was overthrown,
and Athens, ultimate defeat resulted in the permanent decline of the gem
of Greek civilization.
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- There were, of course, many causes for the fall of Athens,
but the lunar eclipse of 413 BC and the resultant military defeat that
arose from it were key contributors to this turn of history.
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- A clever trick
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- A more modern turn of history hinged on a lunar eclipse
that auspiciously occurred not only in the leap year of 1504, but on February
29th of that year.
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- That February found the famous explorer Christopher Columbus
on the small island of Jamaica, where he had been marooned for several
months.
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- Though the island natives had originally brought food
and provisions to Columbus while he awaited rescue, the arrogant and overbearing
Columbus had alienated the natives to the point that they ceased to provide
food to Columbus and his crew.
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- Facing starvation, the resourceful Columbus came up with
a desperate ploy: Consulting a shipboard almanac and finding that a lunar
eclipse was due, he called together the native chiefs and announced to
them that God would punish them if they did not supply his crew with food.
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- And as an omen of God's intent to punish them, there
would be a sign in the sky: God would darken the moon.
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- Right on cue, the moon started being eclipsed. Columbus
dramatically disappeared into his cabin, ignoring the loud pleas from the
natives to restore the moon.
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- After an interlude of more than an hour, Columbus emerged
from his cabin and announced that God was prepared to withdraw his punishment
if they agreed to continue supplying him and his crew with everything they
needed.
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- The native chiefs immediately agreed, and within minutes
the moon started emerging from shadow, leaving the natives in awe of Columbus,
power.
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- Columbus got his food and supplies, and from then until
he was rescued in June of 1504 the natives continued to supply him.
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- On down to today
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- Traditions and superstitions have a way of lingering,
and so it is that even today we still have with us some very curious beliefs
about eclipses.
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- In much of the world, for instance, it is still common
practice to make noise to frighten away whatever is attacking the sun or
moon.
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- As late as the 19th century, the Chinese navy fired its
cannons to frighten the dragon eating the moon. Even today in many cultures
around the world it's common to yell, chant, bang pots and shoot into the
air during an eclipse.
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- Much of it is more out of tradition than conviction,
but it's still done.
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- Another superstition that survives to this day is that
eclipses indicate a disease on the sun or moon, and that protection is
required to avoid incurring the diseases.
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- In Japan some still cover wells to avoid them being poisoned
by the celestial "sickness."
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- Some Eskimos turn over utensils to avoid them being contaminated,
and in India some people lock themselves in their homes to avoid the "bad
rays" from the eclipse.
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- A link to history
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- Though today we don't attach much meaning to such traditions
and superstitions, they serve as a historical record of the many ways we
have tried to explain these spectacular events, the greatest spectacles
that regularly occur in the sky.
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- When you go out to view Thursday's eclipse, think for
a moment about how such an event might have appeared to ancient peoples
and the awe it likely inspired.
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- But one need not allude to ancient superstitions to appreciate
the wonder of an eclipse. Knowing what we know today, an eclipse is even
more awe-inspiring, representing forces and powers that dwarf all the works
of humankind.
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- Go out and enjoy it, but don't overlook the grand scale
of the event. _____
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- Wil Milan is an astrophotographer who has witnessed a
couple of solar eclipses and seldom misses a lunar eclipse. Some of his
work can be seen at http://www.astrophotographer.com/
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