Posted on 11/14/2010 8:31:22 PM PST by SunkenCiv
New research on a 2,400 year old star table shows that the Ancient Egyptians kept close tabs on the Big Dipper, monitoring changes in the constellation's orientation throughout the course of an entire year... Ancient Egyptians represented it as an ox's foreleg...
Professor Sarah Symons, of McMaster University in Hamilton Canada, carried out the new research. She presented her results on Sunday at an Egyptology symposium in Toronto. The star table she analyzed is located inside the lid of a 2,400 year old granite sarcophagus, constructed in the shape of a bull, which is now in the Egyptian Museum. The table is, "unique, though interesting, a very provocative astronomical object," she said... the sarcophagus dates to the 30th dynasty... the last point of time in antiquity where Egypt would be ruled by native born rulers...
Inside the sarcophagus there is an astronomical table, a section of which has rows that show the foreleg of an ox in a wide range of different positions... This section, although confusing to read, includes notation for the three Egyptian seasons, Akhet, Peret and Shemu. Each season is broken down into four months. It also has symbols representing the beginning, middle and end of the night -- although it isn't known at what exact time these points would have been set... Symons decided to focus on the orientation of the forelegs, re-drawing them as arrows. When she did this a pattern started to appear...
But there were problems. Over the course of a year the forelegs sometimes went the wrong way -- as if the stars had stopped obeying the rules of astronomy... This table, she said in an interview, it not made up of casual observations of the Big Dipper but "looks more like a record of it."
(Excerpt) Read more at heritage-key.com ...
I was driving along some cool old two lane highway, rolling through forested country, glanced over, and figured that was you.
with no electricity, the heavens must have been brilliant, even better than they were when we wuz all kids and lived in or visited the boonies.
The light pollution part.
Same thing with meteor showers and auroras.
From the size of the plough tool, I'm going to go out on a limb (no pun intended) and restate the tool went in the mouth, dislodged the jaw and allowed for the evacuation of the contents of the cranium (not through the nasal passage as you suggest).
What we call pagan superstition, they called science.
What we call science, will one day be called pagan superstition.
We’re the “big tent” ping list here. :’)
Not Egypt-related, but some historians and literary scholars think King Arthur’s Round Table was a reference to the great (and imaginary) wheel of the heavens — Arthur himself being a personification of Arcturus. Interestingly, the Great Bear (which was also known as the Plough in Roman Britain) in Latin is Ursa Majorus. In Welsh, the word for bear is “Arth” (really “rl”, but anyway), so a macaronic version is Arthursa, viz Arthur, the great bear, king of the Britons.
It’s good that you noticed that; the reason I chopped out a good bit (besides the 300 word limit — I used 296 up there) including her method of trying to fit it, is that it’s not the only time this is found in ancient records, and it ain’t about poor observing or lazy scribes, it’s found pretty much everywhere that records survive. And each time it is, those studying it try to make sense of it as if it represents the same conditions we have today.
I’ll have to track that down on YouTube, I believe you’ve stumped me. :’)
Well put!
I think the Big Dipper went down on that plane in 1959.
I thought everyone knew Arthur was a smith. He brought the secrets of metallurgy to Britain. Taught them how to “draw the sword from the stone”.
Obama!!???
Why wait? Ever hear of global warming? ;-)
All of our ‘mythology’ is real. It’s just our ‘translation’ and ‘romancing’ of the story that turns them into fairy tales.
You know how it is when you pass a story from person to person... it gets wildly distorted.
Imagine passing it from civilization to civilization.
You mean like after the world catastrophe that caused the last great civilization to fall there was some knowledge saved but in the struggle just to survive the ability to implement of that technology was lost and it took genius level people at later dates, probably members of the various priesthoods, to reconstitute it?
The locals saw the pools of liquid metal that were left, and after they cooled, dug up the congealed metal. They could see the value in this extremely hard and tough material, so they decided that if they could get a fire hot enough, they could produce some more of this.
This need was fulfilled by a young inventor named Arthur. He invented this, which enabled him to draw the sword from the stone.
So actually, you are ALL CORRECT.
Its shape looks like a ladle with a scoop attached.
Ladle
scoop
DIPPER I see the ladle, but "Where's the scoop?!?"
Nit, the Second:
It is the last point of time in antiquity where Egypt would be ruled by native born rulers.
Their parents or grandparents may have been immigrants, but many of those rulers were born there. This guy is accidentally sounding like he doesn't consider Obama a "native born" ruler. ;-')
Quibble:
This section, although confusing to read, includes notation for the three Egyptian seasons, Akhet, Peret and Shemu. Each season is broken down into four months. It also has symbols representing the beginning, middle and end of the night although it isnt known at what exact time these points would have been set.
I'm betting on after dusk; at the crack of dawn; and about half way in between them.
I'm also betting it was even harder to read with the lid of the sarcophagus closed! Or did the mummy include a hand of glory to light up its life?
And, lo, and behold! We get to the end of the article, and what, to our (non)surprise do our wandering eyes see? A ridiculous conclusion that it "may have helped with time keeping"! Just what does she think the sun, solstice points, the moon, and Sirius were for? Not to mention the fact that they were obviously keeping pretty good time already, what with their three seasons, and ability to divide the night...and presumably also the day. *<]8-D
Oh; now I understand: it was ceremonial & tied to rituals...but was very inaccurate...again mainly because it is hard to inscribe accurately inside the dark interior of a closed sarcophagus?
Still, interesting report on what was actually found, and the (supposed) fact the arrangement was changed from columns to rows.
Imagine passing it from civilization to civilization."
Really.
When In Rome, do as the Romans.
Who me?
Ever hear of global warming?
Ancient Egyptians were smart enough, 2400 years ago, to understand that the Sun was the source of daily/local/yearly/global warming and cooling.
We may be an 'advanced' technological civilization, but I am not sure we are a very 'wise' one.
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