In search of cosmic order: Astronomy and culture in Ancient Egypt

Abstract

Over the past five years, the Egyptian-Spanish Mission on the archaeoastronomy of ancient Egypt and its collaborators has been performing an ambitious scientific project with the aim of studying the cosmovision of the ancient civilization of the pharaohs. Part of the project has consisted of a re-analysis of the iconographic and historical sources that has allowed, among other things, a reassessment of the calendar theory and a new proposal for the sky-maps of ancient Egypt. For various reasons, Archaeoastronomy has not been one of the favourite disciplines of egyptologists in the past. Probably because of this, important questions such as the orientation of Egyptian temples and the relevance of astronomy in this respect had never been afforded with the requisite seriousness and depth. Our work has had among its various priorities, the solution of this problem. In order to achieve this, our team has so far measured the orientation of some 330 temples in the Valley, the Delta, the Oases and the Sinai. The aim is to find a correct and almost definitive answer to the question of whether the ancient Egyptian sacred constructions were astronomically aligned or not. Our results may provide an affirmative answer.

Astronomy Tourism in Egypt: A New Trend-Ancient Origin sector

“…(Furlong, 2007)  The solar orientation that was principally linked to important time marks of the annual cycle and specific dates in the civil calendar such as Wepet Renpet (New Year"s Eve) or the eves of the other two seasons of the calendar, Shemu and Peret. (Belmonte, 2009) Both solar and stellar orientations were most probably already in operation during the Neolithic Period in Nabta Playa (Fig. 1) (Holbrook, Medupe, and Urama, 2008).…”

“…2.a). (Belmonte, 2009)  The stellar orientation following the movement of the two brightest stars of Sirius (Sopdet) and Canopus, such as the small temple of goddess Isis to the rear of the Hathor temple at Dandara was aligned to the rising of Sirius at the time of its foundation and the Middle Kingdom temple of Qasr al-Sagha (Fig. 2.b) located in the former northern shore of Lake Moeris and now ten kilometers inland inside the desert was orientated to Canopus at the moment of its construction.…”

“…The solstice alignment is defined as the time or date (twice each year; midsummer and midwinter sunrises and sunsets) at which the sun reaches its maximum or minimum declination, marked by the longest and shortest days. A series of temples were orientated to sunrise at the winter solstice (Belmonte, 2009). Among the ancient Egyptian temples that were aligned to the midwinter sunrise are; the central meridian line of the temple of Amun-Ra at Karnak Complex (Fig.…”

Beyond the landscape: analysis of Neolithic circular ditch systems of Lower Austria with advanced virtual archaeoastronomy

“…We, therefore, can frequently observe that the main axis of such building points towards the point on the horizon where the sun rises or sets on a particular day of the year, for example, winter or summer solstice, or some festival day fixed in a solar calendar. Examples include temples of Egypt (Belmonte, 2011), early Christian churches (McCluskey, 2015) or Mesoamerican architecture (Šprajc, 2015). The most famous prehistoric site with astronomical orientation is surely Stonehenge.…”

Astronomy Tourism in Egypt: A New Trend-Ancient Origin

“…The solar orientation that was principally linked to important time marks of the annual cycle and specific dates in the civil calendar such as Wepet Renpet (New Year"s Eve) or the eves of the other two seasons of the calendar, Shemu and Peret. (Belmonte, 2009) Belmonte, 2009, 80, 81, Figs. 6, 7) Both solar and stellar orientations were most probably already in operation during the Neolithic Period in Nabta Playa (Fig.…”