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== Meteors as stars fired at devils ==
== Meteors as stars fired at devils ==


'''Definitions'''<ref><nowiki>https://www.dictionary.com/e/meteor-vs-asteroid-vs-comet/</nowiki>> </ref>''':'''
'''Technical definitions used throughout'''<ref><nowiki>https://www.dictionary.com/e/meteor-vs-asteroid-vs-comet/</nowiki>> </ref>''':'''


''Meteoroids'' are the somewhat small, rocky or metal-based objects flying around space, typically unseen except with sophisticated equipment. They are often fragments of asteroids or comets.
''Meteoroids'' are the somewhat small, rocky or metal-based objects flying around space, typically unseen except with sophisticated equipment. They are often fragments of asteroids or comets.
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''Stars''<ref>[https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-resources/what-is-a-star/#:~:text=But%20just%20what%20is%20a,the%20closest%20star%20to%20Earth. https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-resources/what-is-a-star/#:~:text=But%20just%20what%20is%20a,the%20closest%20star%20to%20Earth.]</ref> are a luminous ball of gas, mostly hydrogen and helium, held together by its own gravity. Nuclear fusion reactions in its core support the star against gravity and produce photons and heat, as well as small amounts of heavier elements. The Sun is the closest star to Earth.
''Stars''<ref>[https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-resources/what-is-a-star/#:~:text=But%20just%20what%20is%20a,the%20closest%20star%20to%20Earth. https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-resources/what-is-a-star/#:~:text=But%20just%20what%20is%20a,the%20closest%20star%20to%20Earth.]</ref> are a luminous ball of gas, mostly hydrogen and helium, held together by its own gravity. Nuclear fusion reactions in its core support the star against gravity and produce photons and heat, as well as small amounts of heavier elements. The Sun is the closest star to Earth.


==  '''Introduction''' ==
Local folklore around stars, before our modern understanding of them as gigantic balls of gases, creating light energy via nuclear fusion,<ref>[https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-earthscience/chapter/nuclear-fusion/#:~:text=The%20Sun%20is%20Earth's%20major,all%20stars%20is%20nuclear%20fusion. https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-earthscience/chapter/nuclear-fusion/#:~:text=The%20Sun%20is%20Earth's%20major,all%20stars%20is%20nuclear%20fusion.]</ref>  has been extremely creative and varied.


'''Introduction'''
Due to their similar size and appearance, many ancient people have confused meteors, which are small rocky masses or grains of debris which burn up after entering the earth's atmosphere as stars streaking across the sky, which is why they were often called shooting stars (as we do in English) or falling stars. Large increases in meteors occur on a predictable schedule each year as the Earth's orbit passes through the stream of particles and debris left in the wake of a number of comets (or in a few cases, of asteroids). The most visible is usually the annual [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perseids Perseid meteor shower] in August.
 
Local folklore around stars, before our modern understanding of them as gigantic balls of gases, creating light energy via nuclear fusion,<ref>[https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-earthscience/chapter/nuclear-fusion/#:~:text=The%20Sun%20is%20Earth's%20major,all%20stars%20is%20nuclear%20fusion. https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-earthscience/chapter/nuclear-fusion/#:~:text=The%20Sun%20is%20Earth's%20major,all%20stars%20is%20nuclear%20fusion.]</ref>  has been extremely varied. Due to their similar size and appearance, many ancient people have confused meteors, which are small rocky masses or grains of debris which burn up after entering the earth's atmosphere as stars streaking across the sky, which is why they were often called shooting stars (as we do in English) or falling stars. Large increases in meteors occur on a predictable schedule each year as the Earth's orbit passes through the stream of particles and debris left in the wake of a number of comets (or in a few cases, of asteroids). The most visible is usually the annual Perseid meteor shower in August.


=== Ancient beliefs of stars and meteors ===
'''Meteors as stars'''
'''Meteors as stars'''


{{Quote|{{url=https://ia802907.us.archive.org/1/items/TheLiteratureOfAncientEgyptKellySimpsonBySamySalah/The%20Literature%20of%20Ancient%20Egypt%20-%20Kelly%20Simpson%20By%20Samy%20Salah.pdf title=Literature of Ancient Egypt : An Anthology of Stories, Instructions, Stelae, Autobiographies, and Poetry
For example, in Ancient Egypt civilisation, we see a strong resemblance of a shooting star by the author of ‘[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tale_of_the_Shipwrecked_Sailor The Shipwrecked Sailor]’ (c. 2000-1900 BC), which recounts a series of many adventures fantastic adventures, including  a star falling to Earth:
page=51}}|And then a star fell.
{{Quote|{{cite web| url=https://ia802907.us.archive.org/1/items/TheLiteratureOfAncientEgyptKellySimpsonBySamySalah/The%20Literature%20of%20Ancient%20Egypt%20-%20Kelly%20Simpson%20By%20Samy%20Salah.pdf | title=Literature of Ancient Egypt : An Anthology of Stories, Instructions, Stelae, Autobiographies, and Poetry. William Kelly Simpson, ed., The Literature of Ancient Egypt (Cairo, 2003), p. 51. }}|...Then a star fell.  
And because of it these went up in fire.  
And because of it these went up in fire.
It happened utterly.}}
This happened utterly...}}
 
The relevant section can can be found [https://ia802907.us.archive.org/1/items/TheLiteratureOfAncientEgyptKellySimpsonBySamySalah/The%20Literature%20of%20Ancient%20Egypt%20-%20Kelly%20Simpson%20By%20Samy%20Salah.pdf here] on page 51, a PDF of ''Literature of Ancient Egypt : An Anthology of Stories, Instructions, Stelae, Autobiographies, and Poetry. William Kelly Simpson, ed., The Literature of Ancient Egypt (Cairo, 2003), p. 51.''
https://ia802907.us.archive.org/1/items/TheLiteratureOfAncientEgyptKellySimpsonBySamySalah/The%20Literature%20of%20Ancient%20Egypt%20-%20Kelly%20Simpson%20By%20Samy%20Salah.pdf
 
'the unknown Egyptian author of ‘The Shipwrecked Sailor’ (c. 2000 BC), which recounts a series of fantastic adventures, including surviving something resembling a cosmic impact: Then a star fell. And because of it these went up in fire. It happened utterly. (Source = William Kelly Simpson, ed., The Literature of Ancient Egypt (Cairo, 2003), p. 51. For a discussion of a theoretically catastrophic impact in ancient Egypt, see Aly Barakat, ‘Did the Kamil Meteorite Fall Contribute to the Downfall of the Old Kingdom?’, The Ostracon: Journal of the Egyptian)
 
 
Golia, Maria. Meteorite: Nature and Culture (Earth) (p. 131). Reaktion Books. Kindle Edition.
 
A further discussion of this as being a meteorite can be found [https://hcommons.org/deposits/objects/hc:27978/datastreams/CONTENT/content?download=true here]<ref>https://hcommons.org/deposits/objects/hc:27978/datastreams/CONTENT/content?download=true</ref> and


For a discussion of a theoretically catastrophic impact in ancient Egypt, see ''Aly Barakat, ‘Did the Kamil Meteorite Fall Contribute to the Downfall of the Old Kingdom?’, The Ostracon: Journal of the Egyptian Study Society, XXIV (Fall 2013), pp. 12–21.''<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_T0MWfFWfo</ref>


A further discussion of this as being a meteorite can be found [https://hcommons.org/deposits/objects/hc:27978/datastreams/CONTENT/content?download=true here]<ref>https://hcommons.org/deposits/objects/hc:27978/datastreams/CONTENT/content?download=true</ref> (“Then a Star Fell:” Folk-Memory of a Celestial Impact Event in the Ancient Egyptian Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor? Dr Lloyd D. Graham. 2022).<ref>https://www.academia.edu/35137388/_Then_a_Star_Fell_Folk_Memory_of_a_Celestial_Impact_Event_in_the_Ancient_Egyptian_Tale_of_the_Shipwrecked_Sailor</ref>


'''Weapons against demons'''
'''Weapons against demons'''


Many cultures had mythology surrounding meteors and meteorites, with some believing they were weapons. For example:
Many cultures had mythology surrounding meteors and meteorites, with some believing they were weapons, such as in ancient Africa and Mesopotamia:{{Quote|Golia, Maria, Meteorite: Nature and Culture (Earth), Reaktion Books, p. 72 (Kindle Edition)|'The indigenous San people of southern Africa also consider meteorites dangerous: ‘They can kill people, and at the times of the meteor showers when many are moving about and falling, the sky is very bad.’ Echoing themes from Mesopotamian and classical antiquity, the San god Koa xa, ‘lord of the animals’, used a meteorite to fight lions that attacked his son.'}}




stars set men apart, as evidenced in the emergence of the prophet Zoroaster around 1100 BC. An early Christian text suggests that Zoroaster, ‘a very great observer of the stars’, used his wisdom to his advantage: ‘wishing to be regarded as a divine being [he] began to elicit sparks from the stars and show them to people’. This brief passage and a story recorded in the first century AD have been interpreted as describing a meteor shower that Zoroaster may have anticipated.13 The oldest portions of Avestan scripture, thought to record Zoroaster’s words, say the sky is made of ‘hardest stone’ and worn as armour by Ahura Mazda, god of creation and cosmic order. Avestan texts contain many astronomical references, and the word asana means both ‘sky’ and ‘stone’. On one occasion, Zoroaster was said to have defeated demons with ‘a massive stone received from God’.
And for example in [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroastrianism Zoroastrianism,] (which was a prominent religion in the Persian (Iranian) empire both before and during the time of the prophet Muhammad and beginning of Islam)), we see the link between stars and meteors:


Golia, Maria. Meteorite: Nature and Culture (Earth) (p. 57). Reaktion Books. Kindle Edition. {{Quote|Golia, Maria, Meteorite: Nature and Culture (Earth), Reaktion Books, p. 57 (Kindle Edition)|The oldest portions of Avestan scripture, thought to record Zoroaster’s words, say the sky is made of ‘hardest stone’ and worn as armour by Ahura Mazda, god of creation and cosmic order. Avestan texts contain many astronomical references, and the word asana means both ‘sky’ and ‘stone’. On one occasion, Zoroaster was said to have defeated demons with ‘a massive stone received from God’.}}
{{Quote|Golia, Maria. Meteorite: Nature and Culture (Earth) (p. 57). Reaktion Books.|..an understanding of the stars set men apart, as evidenced in the emergence of the prophet Zoroaster around 1100 BC. An early Christian text suggests that Zoroaster, ‘a very great observer of the stars’, used his wisdom to his advantage: ‘wishing to be regarded as a divine being [he] began to elicit sparks from the stars and show them to people’. This brief passage and a story recorded in the first century AD have been interpreted as describing a meteor shower that Zoroaster may have anticipated. The oldest portions of Avestan scripture, thought to record Zoroaster’s words, say the sky is made of ‘hardest stone’ and worn as armour by Ahura Mazda, god of creation and cosmic order. Avestan texts contain many astronomical references, and the word asana means both ‘sky’ and ‘stone’. On one occasion, Zoroaster was said to have defeated demons with ‘a massive stone received from God’...}}


{{Quote|Golia, Maria, Meteorite: Nature and Culture (Earth), Reaktion Books, p. 72 (Kindle Edition)|'Echoing themes from Mesopotamian and classical antiquity, the San god Koa xa, ‘lord of the animals’, used a meteorite to fight lions that attacked his son.'}}


And many confusing them with stars moving across the sky, for example:


Meteor showers were generally of unknown cause to 7th Century Arabs, as the historian and geographer Al-Ya'qubi reports several meteor showers that happened just before and during Muhammad's lifetime (In 571 AD and 609 AD), attributing them to shooting stars and planets striking devils<ref>https://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?bibcode=1992QJRAS..33....5R&db_key=AST&page_ind=6&plate_select=NO&data_type=GIF&type=SCREEN_GIF&classic=YES</ref>, with the multitude of them potentially leading to the idea they are 'pelted from every side'.
Meteor showers were generally of unknown cause to 7th Century Arabs, as the historian and geographer Al-Ya'qubi reports several meteor showers that happened just before and during Muhammad's lifetime (In 571 AD and 609 AD), attributing them to shooting stars and planets striking devils<ref>https://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?bibcode=1992QJRAS..33....5R&db_key=AST&page_ind=6&plate_select=NO&data_type=GIF&type=SCREEN_GIF&classic=YES</ref>, with the multitude of them potentially leading to the idea they are 'pelted from every side'.
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