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The Heliacal Rise of Sirius and Ancient Egyptian Chronology
Abstract
This paper targets the question of the dates of Sirius's heliacal rise
from ancient Egypt with the full power of modern astronomy.
... This is a typical altitude bracket often cited. Schaefer has argued that a more realistic arcus visionis encompasses the altitude bracket of Sun at −6˚ and Sirius at +5˚ (Schaefer, 2000). 8 Belmonte gives 115˚-107 1/3 for 3000 B.C.-500 A.D. at Aswan. ...
... As was pointed out by Belmonte et al. (2005) 11 Schaefer presents data that Sirius Risings occurred 92.3 -95.8 days since a vernal equinox between 3000 B.C. and 2500 B.C., respectively (Schaefer, 2000 D. 782,877) and late August (e.g. J.D. 782,973) for a sunrise declination of circa 16˚, the earlier of which more closely coincided with the helical rising of the belt stars of Orion and was thus too early for Sirius to become visible. ...
... Factors which determine the timing and horizontal position of cosmic settings and heliacal risings of stars and planets have been reviewed by Belmonte (in Hornung et al., 2006: 380-385) and Schaefer (Schaefer, 2000). These factors conspire to produce an annular period of visual absence of Sirius of about 68-71 days at a latitude of 30˚ north, the parallel which runs through the area of Cairo, ancient Memphis, Giza, and Iunu (Gautschy, 2012). ...
... Sin embargo, lo que parecía presentarse como la imagen viable del transcurrir del tiempo, comenzó lentamente a desvanecerse. La idea de que el ciclo de 1 460 años julianos pueda usarse para reconstruir la historia de Egipto recibió fuertes críticas en los últimos 30 años (Depuydt, 1995, Krauss, 2006, Schaefer, 2000 invitando a los especialistas a buscar nuevos esquemas calendáricocronológicos basados en fenómenos astronómicos (e.g. Krauss 2006, Belmonte 2009, Gautschy et al. 2017. ...
... Krauss 2006, Belmonte 2009, Gautschy et al. 2017. Otra investigaciones expusieron la semejanza del ciclo sotíaco y del ciclo del año juliano (Schaefer, 2000). Esta semejanza fue muy popular entre los egiptólogos cuando en la Facultad de Filosofía y Letras (sección de Historia del Arte y Arqueología) de la Universidad Libre de Bruselas, Michel Graulich escribió su tesis de doctorado. ...
As it is known, several researchers observed that in the sixteenth century, the meanings of the names of the twenty-day cycles of the Mexica calendar do not match the cycle of the seasons. As the vague Mexica year (Xihuitl) of 365 is approximately a quarter of a day shorter than the tropical year (also known as a solar year) of 365.2422 days, the Mexica year (Xihuitl) used to supplant the tropical year at a steady rhythm. Mi chel Graulich (1976, 1979) assumed that the lack of coincidence between the names of the rituals and of the twenty-day cycles with the seasons of the year was due to the firm nature of the passage of time and by calculating backwards, he concluded that the names of the twenty-day cycles coincided with the seasons was during the period from 680 to 683 A.D. This paper reviews his concepts and calculations.
... Diskussionen, die diese Problematik behandeln, finden sich z. B. in Schaefer (2000) und Stephenson (2008). 10 Beispiele für Arbeiten in dieser Richtung für die antike Mathematik sind z. ...
... Una introduzione è offerta da De Meis 2013. Due testi specifici sono, ad esempio,Schaefer 2000 e De Jong 2006. Si è fatto riferimento a quest'ultimo per stimare l'arcus visionis, vale a dire la differenza di altezza angolare tra Sirio e il Sole, quando la stella appare: Tolomeo ha stimato circa 11° da Alessandria; in una regione ben più elevata sul livello del mare e in un clima più secco, si può ipotizzare 8-9°. ...
L'Inno avestico alla stella Sirio, il "Tištar Yašt", offre una serie di spunti per un approfondimento da un punto di vista astronomico.
Le riflessioni che seguono sono il frutto di una discussione maturata tra i due autori, stimolati a condividere le rispettive competenze scientifiche grazie a un convegno della Società Italiana di Archeoastronomia (Genova, 22-24 ottobre 2018).
La prima parte riguarda il colore di Sirio, variamente riportato nelle letterature antiche. Quella centrale riesamina i fenomeni celesti, che possono aver ispirato la battaglia tra Sirio e le stelle fisse contro le stelle cadenti. La terza accenna alla possibile origine fenomenica della dualità di stelle fisse e pianeti.
... Diskussionen, die diese Problematik behandeln, finden sich z. B. in Schaefer (2000) und Stephenson (2008). 10 Beispiele für Arbeiten in dieser Richtung für die antike Mathematik sind z. ...
... The use of the heliacal rising of a star as a marker for ritual, a new season and the new year is not without historical and ethnographic precedent. For instance, the ancient Egyptians timed their ritual calendar by the heliacal rise of Sirius (Schaefer 2000, Steele 2007) and, in the ethnographic present, South American Indians mark the heliacal rise of the Pleiades (Lévi-Strauss 1986). As is the case with the dolmen builders of the Mondego valley, the heliacal rises of the chosen stars coincide with important events in the subsistence economies of these peoples: in Egypt it coincided with the flooding of the Nile, rebooting the agricultural cycle; in South America it coincides with the shift from wet to dry season. ...
The Mondego platform of central Portugal is bordered by the Central Massif to the southeast, the Marginal Massif to the west and northwest, and the Douro basin to the north (see Fig. 1). The area covers most of the drainage basins of the upper Mondego, the Vouga and part of the Douro rivers. The Cen-tral Massif, especially Star Mountain Range, offers good pastures during the spring and summer seasons and has evidence of human usage since the fifth millennium BC (Cruz 2001: 297). Shortly after this early Neolithic occupation, megalithic dolmens and tumuli began to punctuate the surrounding land-scape and are especially concentrated around the most important rivers of the region. Passage graves, dolmens and other mega-liths throughout the Atlantic façade of Europe are located and oriented according to the landscape (Tilley 1994), but also towards particular astronomical events (Ruggles 1999). In the 1980s Michael Hoskin surveyed dolmens in this region of Portugal and con-cluded them to be loosely oriented towards sunrise/climb at the moment they were
... The most famous example is the heliacal rise of Sirius that occurred just before the annual flooding of the Nile, during the period of the Middle Kingdom (e.g. see Dodd, 2005;Schaefer, 2000). The ancient Egyptians based their calendar on this event and devised a method of telling time during the night according to the rising of 36 different stars (Parker, 1974). ...
The archaeological locality 'Taticev Kamen' (Tatic Rock) is located in
the north-eastern part of Macedonia, near the village of Kokino. During
the Bronze Age, it was used as a mountain sanctuary by the people living
in the region. The large number of excavated artefacts have confirmed
the practise of several different cults. The site also has many
characteristics of a megalithic observatory. The detailed
archaeoastronomical analysis of the locality indicates that the periodic
movements of the Sun and other celestial objects were observed from
three different platforms, and their positions on particular dates were
marked by notches on the nearby stone blocks. From the first platform,
a marker for the midsummer sunrise was carved for the purpose of
performing the ritual that has solar characteristics. The second
platform is a central site from which the Sun was observed throughout
the year, and the extreme sunrise positions on the days of the solstices
and the equinoxes were marked. The newly-discovered third platform
contains evidence of ritual activities similar to those at the Minoan
peak sanctuaries on Crete. Using this platform as an observational
site, we found four markers that pointed to the rising of Aldebaran over
an interval of several centuries (from 1900 BC to 1500 BC). The
heliacal rising of this star before summer and its rising in the evening
sky in early autumn were probably connected with vegetative cycles and
the organization of agricultural activities.
... Aucun de ces écrits ne mentionne le site d'observation du lever héliaque de l'étoile Sirius. Or, l'effet de la latitude sur la date de lever héliaque d'une étoile est semblable à celui du rapport de Snellen : en effet, une différence d'un degré se traduit par l'avancée ou le recul de cette date d'une journée (Schaefer, 2000). Ainsi, plus la latitude du site choisi pour l'observation augmente, plus le lever héliaque de l'étoile considérée tarde à survenir. ...
Résumé : L'étude de textes égyptiens qui mentionnent le lever héliaque de l'étoile Sirius sous les règnes des pharaons Sésostris ?, Amenhotep I, Toutmosis III, Ptolémée III, Ptolémée IV, ainsi qu'à l'Époque Romaine, permet de déterminer la valeur moyenne de l'acuité visuelle des astronomes égyptiens. S'ensuivent de nouvelles propositions de datation des dates de règne de quelques pharaons ainsi que la possibilité d'identifier les décans égyptiens, ces étoiles invisibles du ciel d'Égypte 70 jours par an. Abstract : The study of old Egyptian recordings of the heliacal rising of Sirius in the reigns of pharaohs Sesostris ?, Amenhotep I, Thutmosis III, Ptolemy III, Ptolemy IV and in Roman times, leads to determine the average value of the visual acuity of the Egyptian astronomers. Then follow new dating proposals of the beginning of the reign of several pharaohs as wall as the identification of the Egyptian decans, these stars which remained unseen 70 days each year from the sky of ancient Egypt.
Recently, tourist activities have been greatly impacted by festival tourism. Also, virtual events are new types of event experiences that the media world has proposed recently. These are thought to benefit the tourism sector as well as tourists in cases where physical attendance is not feasible. The purpose of this study is to clarify the New Year festival (wpt-rnpt festival) and revitalize it nowadays by using virtual reality (VR). In order to answer the study's questions, a questionnaire form was distributed among Egyptian tourists in a quantitative approach, and SPSS (Version 26) was used to examine the 440 valid submitted forms. The result revealed that Egyptian tourists who visited or might visit the Dendera Temple in Luxor and Egyptian tour guides who frequently had tours with tourists in the temple were excited about the idea of using VR technologies to revitalize the ancient New Year festival virtually. Therefore, it is recommended for the Egyptian tourist authorities to include festival events in the Egyptian tourist agenda, and they have to encourage Egyptian travel companies to include festival events in their programs or plan unique itineraries for attending festival events.
This is a comprehensive paper explaining most of the results tabulated in a new Egyptian chronological table on an academic level. It is not intended to be a criticism of any scholarly work, rather a humble contribution with the aim of preventing thousands of wasted hours for researchers progressing in wrong directions. The most essential part of it is the first scientific, astronomy-based chronology of ancient Egypt, from 2985 B.C. The table is self-explanatory for historians, archaeologists, radiometrists, and astronomers. The author has been unable to find any similar publication in which a collection of Egyptian solar, lunar, and Sothic dates from modern scholarly works constituted the base. In the next step, these – surprisingly great – astronomical and calendrical data has been interpreted impartially, by offering the best identifications for the many astronomical dates from ancient Egypt. The methodology of the author was entirely scientific and academic but not ‘scholarly.’ The last feature indicates that he has been reluctant or unwilling to join any ‘scholarly consensus’ unsupported by scientific data. He began and completed this work without any prejudice. The results reflect a new solution, a proposal to acknowledge radiometry as a true science, with the majority of its radiocarbon dates as a reliable source for further research.
In 139 AD, under the reign of Antoninus Pius, an astronomical event of great importance for Egypt took place: the Great Cycle of the star Sothis, identified with Sirius of the constellation of the Dog, in which the star touched the same point on the horizon reached by the Sun once every 1461 years: this moment began a new era, the Sothiac cycle. This millenary convergence, which marked a moment of great popular celebration, was an omen of prosperity and fortune for all Egypt. The Sothis-Sun alignment was commemorated by the Alexandria mint with a special issue focused on the Zodiac, datable to the year VIII of the reign of Antoninus Pius (144/5 AD) and marked by the programmatic iconographic triumph of the zodiac signs on the reverse of the coins, where the corresponding divinity is associated with the zodiac sign.
Periodic signals for outer space were first systematically used for measurement of time. The task of creating calendars, counting days, and measuring hours was facilitated by observing the periodic motion of bodies in the sky, principally the Sun and the Moon. Different types of calendars, Solar, lunar and lunisolar, were invented by different societies. Each calendar has its specific characteristics. Efforts were continuously made to improve the calendar as well as the divisions of time. Eclipses, though not useful for calendrical purposes, also provided another rhythm, one with much longer periodicity. Study of ancient eclipses helps us to synchronise ancient and modern calendars. The prime division of the day, the hour, initially followed the movement of the Sun. Periodic motion of the bodies in the solar system was used to find out the longitude both on land and on sea.
During the Pyramid Age, the ancient Egyptians erected some of the most iconic monuments in the world, but their method of alignment and the exact dates of construction remain in dispute. This paper presents new archaeoas-tronomical evidence that both explains the ostensibly erratic orientation of the Old Kingdom pyramids and offers a novel solution to the dating problem. An analysis of the alignment of pyramids built during the 3 rd to 6 th Dynasties reveals that they were not oriented to true north, as expected by one of the prevailing current models, but to prominent stars in the northern circumpolar region. A distinct pattern emerges when the time-dependent position of these stars is compared with the orientation of a series of pyramids whose alignments are known. The pattern explains all the available azimuth data of the pyramids from Djoser to Unas and predicts older dates of construction for these structures with an accuracy of no more than five years, up or down. In conclusion, the age of the Old Kingdom is approximately two centuries older than conventionally estimated, according to traditional textual reconstructions of Egyptian chronology. These results are consistent with previous ra-diocarbon data obtained from samples collected at known Old Kingdom sites A. Puchkov 4 Сходознавство, 2023, № 91 thereby aligning archaeological physical with archaeoastronomical evidence. The Egyptian chronology serves as a standard reference to establish chronologies in the entire ancient Near East of the 3 rd millennium BCE. Therefore, the revised chronology based on the findings presented here warrants a fresh look at the historical timelines of other ancient civilizations contemporary with Ancient Egypt.
The Sothic chronology of the Old Kingdom has not yet been securely established because of the small number of suitable dates from this period. An analysis of the Old Kingdom dates associated with seasonal events (wAgj feasts, expeditionary activity, the Nile cycles) reveals that seasonal activity was shifted about a month and a half earlier than would be expected given the actual seasons. This observation suggests that, in conventional chronological reconstructions, the age of the Old Kingdom is underestimated by about two centuries. A comparison of the dates of expeditions to Wadi Hammamat during the Old and Middle Kingdoms indicates that the discrepancy is due to incorrect assumptions about the length of the First Intermediate Period. This conclusion is consistent with the results of a large-scale radiocarbon dating project by G. Bonani et al., which revealed an extensive anomaly in the age of most Old Kingdom monuments, while for the Middle Kingdom the results coincided well with expectations. The significant increase in the length of the First Intermediate Period calls for a new look at this epoch, traditionally viewed as a period of struggle for power between two royal houses and the rapid succession of one Herakleopolitan to another.
В епоху пірамід єгиптяни спорудили деякі з найбільш знакових пам’ятників у світі, але їх метод вирівнювання та точні дати будівництва залишаються предметом суперечок. Ця стаття представляє нові археоастрономічні докази, які пояснюють як нібито нерегулярну орієнтацію пірамід Давнього царства, так і пропонують нове вирішення проблеми датування. Аналіз вирівнювання пірамід, побудованих під час 3–6 династій, показує, що вони були орієнтовані не на північ, як передбачається однією з панівних сучасних моделей, а на видатні зірки в північному циркумполярному регіоні. Чітка закономірність виявляється, коли залежне від часу положення цих зірок порівнюється з орієнтацією ряду пірамід, вирівнювання яких відомо. Шаблон пояснює всі наявні азимутальні дані пірамід від Джосера до Унаса та передбачає більш давні дати будівництва цих споруд із похибкою, що не перевищує п’ять років. Підсумовуючи, вік Давнього царства приблизно на два століття старший, ніж традиційно вважається згідно з наявними текстовими реконструкціями єгипетської хронології. Ці результати є сумісними з радіовуглецевими даними, отриманими зі зразків, зібраних у відомих спорудах Давнього царства, таким чином узгоджуючи археологічні дані з археоастрономічними доказами. Єгипетська хронологія служить стандартом для встановлення регіональних хронологій на всьому стародавньому Близькому Сході III тис. до н. е., отже, переглянута хронологія, заснована на представлених тут висновках, вимагає нового погляду на історичні шкали інших цивілізацій, сучасних Стародавньому Єгипту.
‘Chronology’ discusses the different chronological approaches that have traditionally been proposed for the history of ancient Egypt. These are contrasted with the most recent and contradictory analyses on the topic. The peculiarities of each of these proposals, along with their advantages and disadvantages will be debated. Astronomical dating is confronted with its nemesis, C14 dating. This is a fascinating but convoluted topic that certain will awake the most challenging debates.
In this article we explore the papyrus archive from El Lahun using a strictly schematic Egyptian civil calendar and a modern astronomical date for the start of the calendar. This leads to the absolute accession years for three pharaohs of the Egyptian 12 th dynasty. The accession years are compatible with recent radiocarbon dates for dynastic Egypt and are confirmed by all twenty-six moon dates with explicit regnal years, as well as by the Sothic date and an additional incomplete moon date included in the archive. Our investigation also sheds light on periods of co-regency, Egyptian practices of Sirius and moon observations, and the reliability of the Turin king list.
This monograph explores the question of whether prehistoric cup and cup-and-ring petroglyphs should be given astronomical interpretations relating them to the agricultural calendar. A petroglyph discovered on Holy Moor in NE Derbyshire in 2003, is compared with the configuration of stars surrounding Sirius, whose heliacal rising may have signalled the start of harvest time. The degree of coincidence is markedly increased by varying the scale of one axis, which confirms an hypothesis as to how wide areas of the sky were mapped on to horizontal slabs. Two stones carrying petroglyphs, which were unearthed in the grounds of the Ashover Primary School in Derbyshire in 2000, are then shown to have a significant matches with the configuration of the Pleiades, whose heliacal rising marked the Vernal Equinox in the third millennium BCE. Other petroglyphs at Gardom’s Edge in Derbyshire and in the Kilmartin Valley in Argyllshire are briefly examined. The method proposed for creating a quantitative measure of similarity between such petroglyphs and specific constellations is explained. The author offers an open invitation to others to consider whether at least some of the earlier cup and cup-and-ring petroglyphs could be explained in a similar way and related to the rhythms of life in the late Neolithic and early Bronze Age periods.
Using modern astronomical parameters and based on handed-down dates for "days of the Feast of the New Moon", we propose the exact accession years for two Egyptian New Kingdom pharaohs:-1497 for Thutmose III, and-1297 for Rameses II. These accession dates comply well with recent radiocarbon dates. We also include some remarks about the eight years adjustment of the radiocarbon calibration curve (Intcal) which we have applied in our Egyptological studies. As it appears just now, this eventuality seems to be at least detected-but not yet acknowledged-in recent academic research.
Development of the astronomical science in estimating motion of stars has been of much help in solving the problem of the ancient chronology. The division on three chronologies could have been resolved with determining the time of building pyramid of Khufu.
In this article we take a closer look at the Egyptian civil calendar and its primary sources to see if this provides useful understanding for the Egyptian chronology. Scientific dates for e.g. the Egyptian New Kingdom do still not comply fully with the historical consensus chronology in force. This might be due to the lingering use of outdated scientific parameters, perhaps because of historical bias at Egypt's transition from sovereign kingdom to Roman province.
In the early morning darkness an Egyptian priest is hurrying to the place he comes every morning at this time of year. Memphis, the capital of the first dynasties of ancient Egypt, sits on the west bank of the Nile River, occupying a flat plain covered by palms and tall papyrus reeds, near the point where the river begins spreading into its broad delta. The priest’s destination is a location that has been carefully chosen to provide a clear, unobstructed view of the eastern horizon. He and other priests come to this place, in the pre-dawn hours, during this particular season each year, to watch the sky and wait. By the time the priest arrives, Re, the sun, is still well below the horizon. Although the eastern sky is beginning to brighten, the priest can easily see the stars of Osiris hanging above the horizon. His attention, however, is focused on a distant point, just above where the sky meets the low hills of the eastern desert, far beyond the quietly flowing Nile. He has been watching carefully for perhaps fifteen minutes before he imagines he sees it. At first the star Sopdet is a small, almost imperceptible, point of light very low in the sky. Initially it is a faint reddish-gray color but it quickly brightens, turning a pale yellow, as it rises. Sometimes Sopdet appears as a point of light, but frequently it appears to disintegrate into a cascade of color and almost disappears before reassembling itself. The entire event lasts only a short time before the approach of Re brightens the sky making it hard to see Sopdet, even when the priest knows exactly where to look.
Ancient cultures have left written evidence of a variety of scientific texts. But how can/should they be translated? Is it possible to use modern concepts (and terminology) in their translation and which consequences result from this practice? Scholars of various disciplines discuss the practice of translating ancient scientific texts and present examples of these texts and their translations.
Fortuitous stellar alignments can be fitted to structural orientations with relative ease by the unwary. Nonetheless, cautious approaches taking into account a broader range of cultural evidence, as well as paying due attention to potential methodological pitfalls, have been successful in identifying credible stellar alignments—and constructing plausible assessments of their cultural significance—in a variety of circumstances. These range from single instances of alignments upon particular asterisms where the corroborating historical or ethnographic evidence is strong to repeated instances of oriented structures with only limited independent cultural information but where systematic, data-driven approaches can be productive. In the majority of cases, the identification and interpretation of putative stellar alignments relates to groups of similar monuments or complex single sites and involves a balance between systematic studies of the alignments themselves, backed up by statistical analysis where appropriate, and the consideration of a range of contextual evidence, either derived from the archaeological record alone or from other relevant sources.
The orientations of European prehistoric structures have been studied independently by landscape archaeologists and archaeoastronomers. Despite their similar interests, the two fields have failed to converge primarily because of their differing epistemologies. This paper argues that
archaeology has much to gain by integrating the two fields to provide a fuller and more balanced exploration and understanding of the location and orientation of the European megaliths. It is suggested that prehistoric archaeoastronomy needs to become more grounded on the archaeological record
and context of the prehistoric structures it studies. If it is to generate knowledge of value to archaeology it needs to become a “skyscape archaeology.” This paper looks at current archaeoastronomical approaches through the lens of archaeological practice. It identifies some limitations
and discusses how landscape archaeology can inform archaeoastronomy on overcoming them. A methodology that attempts this necessary cross-fertilization, by shedding unfounded assumptions and developing a more phenomenological approach to pattern-recognition, is proposed. This methodology is
applied to a case study in central Portugal. The emergent narrative, linking a cluster of dolmens to a local mountain range and the star Aldebaran, not only fits the archaeological record, but is mirrored by local folklore, lending further support to the validity of this methodology.
In this paper the question of prediction of the Nile flood based on the
first morning visibility of Sirius is considered. It is shown that the
only text that describes this event is formulated very vaguely. It makes
impossible to derive a reliable astronomical dating. Modern
interpretations of this text are based on the free interpretation of the
original source, and often do not match. According to historical
evidence of Greek authors and later Egyptian texts, flooding of the Nile
based on heliacal rising of Sirius could be predicted at the beginning
of I millennium AD. This fact is confirmed by astronomical calculations.
1 Water on Earth, Properties of Water.- 2 Life and Water.- 3 Water on Planets and Dwarf Planets.- 4 Satellites of Planets in the Solar System.- 5 Water on Small Solar System Bodies.- 6 Water on Extrasolar Planets?- 7 Water in Interstellar Space and Stars.- 8 Water - Where does it Come From?.- 9 Appendix.
Water has always played an important role for civilizations. Some ancient civilizations used complex systems to exploit the
water supplies that were available to them. The role of water to civilizations like ancient Romans or Greek or ancient Egypt
is reviewed in the first sections of this chapter. Water is a unique molecule and the special chemical and physical properties
of it are explained. Water is a dipolar molecule which explains its special properties. Also the special phases of water are
discussed amongst them the different properties of ices. Without these water would not play a substantial role for the evolution
of life. Also the abundance of the constituents of water, hydrogen and oxygen in the universe is discussed.
Tables are presented which give the rise-set azimuths of prominent celestial bodies and the heliacal rise-set dates of bright stars for a combination of epochs, latitudes, and horizon elevations.
Astronomy and the calendar in ancient Egypt: The contribution of the Illahun Archive
- R Krauss