Hallo Michael,
Eben dieser Elagabal wird auch in Burkes
Cosmic Debris mehrfach erwähnt:
1) p. 35: In the 1770s, Edward Gibbon, when describing the reign of
Elagabalus (A.D. 218-222) in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, referred scornfully to the superstitious reverence that the emperor compelled the citizens of Rome to offer to a
black conical stone alleged to have fallen from heaven.
2) p. 213: Lenain de Tillemont in 1693 wrote in astonishment about the
black conical stone that
Elagabalus had brought from Emesa to Rome in A.D. 218, and which he placed in a magnificent temple to be worshiped by the citizens.
3) p. 221: We also mentioned (both earlier in this chapter and in chapter 1)
Elagabalus and the stone of Emesa. At age twelve, Elagabalus became high priest at Emesa of the temple of the sun god, Heliogabalus, who, in the form of a black stone, resided therein. Because of the lavish ceremonies over which he presided, his manly beauty, and a rumor that he was the illegitimate son of the just-murdered Caracalla, to whom in fact he was related, the Roman troops at Emesa named the youth emperor under the name of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. When an attempt to put down the rebellion failed, the Senate recognized him as emperor in A.D. 218. He took the name
Elagabalus and made a triumphal entry into Rome, bringing with him the stone, which he insisted become an object of public worship. According to the contemporary historian Herodian, the idol was
a large black conical stone.
Elagabalus soon lost his popularity because of his profligacy, and was slain by the praetorian guard in 222. lt is not known what happened to the stone.
Quelle: BURKE J.G. (1986) Cosmic Debris, Meteorites in History (University of California Press, 445 pp.)
Bernd