(ORDO NEWS) — Papers sold at Sotheby’s show evidence of British scholar’s research into ancient Egyptians and the Bible
Messages about the coming apocalypse that can be decoded using architectural measurements?
Keys to the mysteries of the Bible found in the Great Egyptian Pyramid?
All this may seem like nonsense, far from the world of science. But for Isaac Newton, these were real obsessions, detailed in three pages of notes sold recently at Sotheby’s for £378,000 (about $504,700).
“He tried to find evidence for his theory of gravity, but he also believed that the ancient Egyptians held the secrets of alchemy, which have since been lost,” Gabriel Heaton, a Sotheby’s manuscript specialist, told the Observer’s Harriet Sherwood.
“Today these areas of research seem disparate, but to Newton in the 17th century they did not seem so.”
Many of Newton’s unpublished notes concerning alchemy, occult matters, and the biblical apocalypse did not surface until after his death in 1727. In the time of the British scholar himself, church leaders would have considered many of his ideas on these matters heretical.
His descendants made sure that very few people saw these papers, because they were a treasure trove of compromising evidence on this man,” says Sarah Dry, author of The Newton Papers: The Strange and True Odyssey of Isaac Newton’s Manuscripts, “… His papers were full of proof of how heretical his views were.”
Newton was perhaps the most significant figure in the scientific revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries. He formulated the three laws of motion that underlie modern physics, discovered that white light is made up of different colors of light, and helped develop the number system, among many other advances.
Newton began studying pyramids in the 1680s. At the time, he was in self-imposed exile at his family home, Woolsthorpe Manor in Lincolnshire, recovering from attacks on his work by Robert Hooke, a scientific rival and member of the early scientific organization the Royal Society.
The notes are burned around the edges – the damage is attributed to Newton’s dog, Almaz, who knocked over the table and knocked over the candle.
Like some other European scientists of his time, Newton believed that the ancient Egyptians had knowledge that had been lost over the centuries.
“Unraveling ancient occult secrets was a central theme in alchemy that Newton studied in depth,” Sotheby’s auction listing says.
Newton was interested in the cubit, the unit of measurement used by the builders of the Great Pyramid. He believed that with its help you can find out the exact dimensions of other ancient structures.
In particular, he hoped to learn the dimensions of the Temple of Solomon, which, in his opinion, could be the key to understanding the biblical apocalypse.
The pioneering scientist also linked his interest in the pyramid to his attempts to understand gravity. He believed that the ancient Greeks had successfully measured the circumference of the earth using a unit called herds, which he believed was borrowed from the Egyptians. By translating ancient measurements, Newton hoped to confirm his theory of gravity.
Although his discoveries influenced the course of science for many centuries, Sotheby’s notes that “for Newton himself, they were secondary to his ‘great’ studies in alchemy and theology. It was the latter that was the greatest motivation for his research in the field of ancient metrology”.
Newton held religious beliefs that went against mainstream Christianity, rejecting the Holy Trinity and viewing Jesus Christ as the mediator between God and humanity. He was also interested in biblical prophecy and hoped to decipher its clues in order to understand future events, in particular the Second Coming.
“These are really fascinating works because you can see how Newton is trying to unravel the secrets of the pyramids,” says Heaton.
It’s a wonderful combination of Newton and these great objects of classical antiquity that have fascinated people for millennia. “These works surprisingly quickly lead you straight to the heart of some of the deepest questions that Newton explored.”
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