Who was Sisyphus? A Metaphor for Halley’s Comet 1404 BC?

© Nicholas Costa 2025

The Wikipedia entry for Sisyphus runs as follows: “In Greek mythology, Sisyphus or Sisyphos is the founder and king of Ephyra (now known as Corinth). He reveals Zeus’s abduction of Aegina to the river god Asopus, thereby incurring Zeus’s wrath. His subsequent cheating of death (twice) earns him eternal punishment in the underworld…the gods forced him to roll an immense boulder up a hill only for it to roll back down every time it neared the top, repeating this action for eternity. Through the classical influence on contemporary culture, tasks that are both laborious and futile are therefore described as Sisyphean”

There have been suppositions that, “Sisyphus is the disk of the sun that rises every day and then sinks below the horizon” or “a personification of the waves rising to a height and then suddenly falling, or of the treacherous sea” or that “the legend is symbolical of the vain struggle of man in the pursuit of knowledge.” (1911 Encyclopædia Britannica).

For Albert Camus he was a metaphor for the absurdity of existence. (Myth of Sisyphus 1942)

Each of these assumptions fall wide of the mark in terms of the real reason the myth came into being.

Triptolemus

Dated to 1404 BC, St Jerome refers to a ‘ship’ in the form of a ‘winged dragon’ distributing ‘grain’ The ship was steered by a figure named Triptolemus. The name Triptolemus is derived from Greek and generally interpreted to mean “he who pounds the husks.” As demonstrated in Adam to Apophis by the author such metaphors relate directly to the manifestation of a meteor shower or a comet or incoming asteroid resulting in an airburst showering the earth with meteoric fragments. (The Parian chronicle dates Triptolemus to 1409/8 BC. For an explanation for the discrepancy see below.)

1404 BC is the date, numerically integrated by Yeomans and Kiang in their 1981 paper entitled the Long Term Motion of Comet Halley, as the year in which Halley’s Comet made a close encounter with the earth.

Ehud

Likewise for the same year,1404 BC, Jerome allocates the period of the Biblical figure Ehud ben Gera He is signified in Judges as Israel’s 2^nd Judge (Judges 3:12–30). Although the exact etymology of the name Ehud is considered unknown by contemporary linguists, the online Abarim Publications Biblical Name Dictionary refers to the rabbinical tradition of linking Ehud to the noun hod, meaning “splendor, majesty, vigor, glory or honor”. The biblical story depicts Ehud as a left handed man who stabs his adversary Eglon with a “double-edged sword about a cubit long”. His full name was Ehud ben Gera (son of grain).

Eglon

The text in Judges 3:17 repeatedly uses variations of the phrase “a very fat man” or “an extremely fat/obese man” to describe Eglon. The name Eglon derives from the word for round or rolling/ rotating. The underlying verb agal suggests going in circles or being round. It should be evident therefore that one is dealing not with a real human but with a metaphor relating ultimately to an airburst, this is underlined by the information that after Ehud sounded a trumpet 10,000 Moabites were killed.

Sisyphus’ name

Aeolus: Sisyphus was depicted as the son of Aeolus. The name Aeolus comes from the ancient Greek word meaning ‘quick-moving,’ ‘nimble,’or ‘changeable,’linked to the verb aello (to storm/drive) and reflecting his role as the keeper of the winds in Greek mythology

Sisyphus: sisys (goatskin), German mythographer, Otto Gruppe in Griechische Mythologie und Religion-Geschichte (1906), proposed that the name derived from ‘sisys’, a word for a ‘goatskin’, or ‘cloak of goat’s hair’. The second element ‘phos’ is likely connected to the Greek word meaning ‘light’. This is evidently a metaphor for a comet or asteroid in much the same way as the appearance of Elijah is described in the Bible, he was ‘a hairy man’ (2 Kings 1. 8), as detailed in Adam to Apophis.

Ephyra:

Sisyphus the son of Aeolus was described as living in Ephyra. (Homer Iliad, Book VI)

St Jerome dates this to 1409 BC “§B1409… Ephyra, which is now called Corinth, founded by Sisyphus”. (Chronicon)

The Ephyra name root, in this context, is evidently related to the Greek word pyrha meaning ‘fiery’ or ‘reddish’, a root which also appears in the name of Deucalion’s wife Pyrhha. Thus Sisyphus delineated a flaming celestial object.

Metaphor for Halley’s Comet?

In mythology Sisyphus gained infamy for his ability to cheat death which he did on at least two occasions by dying and coming back to life. He was known for his punishment in the underworld. His eternal task was to roll a boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down before he could reach the top. He is evidently a metaphor for a comet.

A comparison of the dates of Halley’s apparitions and those allocated to Sisyphus by St Jerome.

Thus Halleys Comet:

1404: (1409 founding of Ephyra)

1334: (1352 founding of Isthmian Games, Melicertes, Phrixus)

1260: (1258 Parian Chronicle founding of Isthmian Games )

Key Astronomical Perspectives on the 1404 BC Approach of Halley’s Comet

1404: Orbital Integration Starting Point taken by Yeomans and Kiang: The calculated orbit is considered valid back to 1404 BC. Due to a potential close approach to Earth that year (around 0.04 AU) the gravitational perturbations make accurate calculations for earlier periods unreliable without using ancient observations as constraints. Therefore, 1404 BC serves as a crucial “anchor” point for backward integration models. (The long-term motion of comet Halley, December 1981, Yeomans and Kiang.)

Jupiter Resonance: Astronomical models indicate that from 1404 BC until 690 BC, Halley’s orbit was in a 1:6 mean motion resonance with Jupiter (one orbit of Halley for every six of Jupiter). Studying this resonance helps astronomers understand how planetary gravity affects the comet’s path over millennia. This in effect resulted in the increased incidence of heavy meteor showers. (Resonant Behavior of Comet Halley and the Orionid Stream, 2013, Sekhar and Asher.)

Meteor Stream Analysis: Debris released by the comet during the 1404 BC passage (and similar ancient apparitions) is a major focus of study. Astronomers model this debris to explain the structure and activity of the annual Eta Aquariid meteor shower in May. The specific behavior of these meteor showers is directly linked to the ancient orbital history of the parent comet. In short, the 1404 BC event is primarily considered to be a theoretical benchmark in celestial mechanics and a source of the modern Eta Aquariid meteoroids, not a documented historical sighting.

However as determined by the current study of the mythological records, the mythical dates directly mirror the astronomers calculations and merit closer examination. They are certainly not the total fantasy that many modern academics assume they are.

An explanation for the 1409 BC date

In her paper Galina Ryabova noted that the: “ejection of particles proceeds during several years before and after the corresponding perihelion passage…” (The comet Halley meteoroid stream: just one more model, G. O. Ryabova 2003)

In the Abstract of her paper she writes: “The present attempt to simulate the formation and evolution of the comet Halley meteoroid stream is based on a tentative physical model of dust ejection of large particles from comet Halley.”

Galina O. Ryabova

An astronomer who has been involved in the analysis and modeling of the Halley’s Comet meteor stream, with specific reference to the 1404 BC passage and the Eta Aquariid meteor shower, is Galina O. Ryabova. She is a Principal Researcher at Tomsk State University, Russia, and a leading expert in meteoroid stream dynamics. She specializes in the mathematical modeling of the Eta Aquariids and 1P/Halley meteoroid stream. Her extensive work on the Halleyids (the stream encompassing both the Eta Aquariids and Orionids) concluded that the portion of the stream manifesting as the Orionids likely formed before 1404 BC, while the Eta Aquariids were likely born between 1404 BC and 837 AD. Her modeling focused on tracing specific dust trails back to known cometary returns. In papers where specific ancient returns are mentioned as sources for modern activity, the following dates are given: 1265 BCE, 1197 BCE, and 910 BCE. Ryabova’s published research that is currently available focuses on the returns mentioned above as contributors to specific modern showers/outbursts, or uses the more general boundary date of 1404 BCE as a point to start her numerical integration to identify periods within later eras when outbursts might have occurred.

Electrical Discharges

Notably Greek mythology in the period following the 1404 BC apparition notes the demise of a number of metaphorical characters who were either destroyed by lightning such as Sisyphus and Salmoneus. As indicated by the mythology lightning would indeed have been part and parcel of any such event, since the extreme conditions created by an airburst generate intense electrical fields that can produce significant electrical discharges. 

The myth speaks of others who fell or jumped into the sea and drowned as were figures such as Ino and her son Melicrates, or Helle sister of Phryxus. The latter being the one who rode on a flying golden ram all the way to Colchis where the ram was sacrificed and it its golden fleece was hung up guarded by a fire breathing dragon!

Next: Tantalus and Atlantis