On the Orientation of Ancient Egyptian Temples: (4) Epilogue in Serabit El Khadim and Overview

Belmonte, Juan Antonio; Shaltout, Mosalam; Fekri, Magdi

doi:10.1177/002182860803900203

Cited by 24 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 8 publications

(5 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Furthermore, it is now sure that the ancient Egyptians orientated their monuments and sacred buildings toward the rising points of some bright stars, such as Sirius and Canopus, and that they used other stars (namely those of the constellation Ursa Major, or the Big Bear) to align temples and pyramids with the cardinal points (see Belmonte, Shaltout, & Fekri, 2008, and references therein).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Archaeoastronomical Study of the Main Pyramids of Giza, Egypt: Possible Correlations with the Stars?

Orofino¹,

Bernardini²

2016

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Since long time various qualitative speculations have been proposed about the link between the three major Giza pyramids and the stars. In particular, according to a popular and controversial hypothesis (the so-called Orion Correlation Theory), a perfect coincidence would exist between the mutual positions of the three stars of the Orion Belt and those of the main Giza pyramids. In the present paper, this apparent coincidence has been subjected to some statistical verifications, in order to assess the probability that the correlation between stars and pyramids, both in relative position and in luminosity/height, can be merely due to the case. These statistical analyses have been performed by means of Monte Carlo simulations and have been coupled with previous astronomical/astrophysical tests of the presumed correlation, finding that the coincidence does not seem to be fortuitous and that it is compatible with the naked-eye astrometry and photometry of the Orion Belt stars. On the contrary, unlike what stated by another popular and controversial theory (the so-called Cygnus-Giza Correlation), we have found no coincidence between the mutual positions of the three pyramids and those of the three stars of the short arm of the asterism of Northern Cross, in the Cygnus constellation.

show abstract

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Archaeoastronomical Study of the Main Pyramids of Giza, Egypt: Possible Correlations with the Stars?

Orofino¹,

Bernardini²

2016

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…10 C. L. N. Ruggles with the sun, moon or stars. The more recent work of Belmonte and his colleagues in their surveys of some 330 alignments at Egyptian temples and pyramids (Belmonte et al 2008;Belmonte & Shaltout 2009) also provides clear testimony to the success and value of such an approach.…”

Section: Data-driven and Onwardmentioning

confidence: 95%

Pushing back the frontiers or still running around the same circles? ‘Interpretative archaeoastronomy’ thirty years on

Ruggles

2011

Proc. IAU

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. This personal perspective on the development of archaeoastronomy over the last thirty years focuses on interpretative and methodological issues, picking up for example from the debate between Schaefer and Aveni at Oxford VII. How far we have actually progressed in the last three decades? Are we at last starting to achieve the correct fusion between the social science questions that our discipline addresses and the 'hard science' methods that are often involved in tackling them? In this paper I argue that the need for our hypotheses to be solidly grounded in social theory, which has rightly been recognised by most archaeoastronomers in recent years, is not an excuse for avoiding the need to be scientifically rigorous in assessing them against the actual evidence. I conclude that identifying robust methodologies for weighing together the different types of data with which the cultural astronomer is faced in different sitations, so as to infer the 'best' interpretation, remains at once the most challenging and the most pressing issue facing our 'interdiscipline' in the future.

show abstract

“…31 Moreover, by embodying such an alignment, the temple was also perpendicular to the local course of the Nile. 32 The texts have shown that the Feast of Amun of Gematen was celebrated in Kawa on I Ahket 1, commemorating the inauguration of the temple in Wepet Renpet c. 680 B.C. 33 At that epoch, the declination of the sun was of the order of -16¾º.…”

Section: Orienting the Amun Yemplesmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the Orientation of Ancient Egyptian Temples: (5) Testing the Theory in Middle Egypt and Sudan

Belmonte

Fekri²,

Abdel-Hadi

et al. 2010

Journal for the History of Astronomy

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In a series of papers published in this journal in recent years, some of the authors, members of the Egyptian-Spanish Mission for the Archaeoastronomy of Ancient Egypt, have made a number of interesting discoveries relating to the way in which the ancient Egyptians might have orientated their sacred buildings.1 In Paper 4, the last of the papers and an overview, a simple theory was postulated, 2 according to which a series of facts were established that clearly connect temple orientation to the local landscape, landscape being understood to include both the earth and the sky. Hence simple astronomical patterns or families were basically defined in relation to the stations of the sun (solstitial, equinoctial or seasonal, notably New Year's Eve or Wepet Renpet), 3 the brightest stars of the Egyptian skies (notably Sirius, ancient Egyptian Sopdet) and the cardinal directions. On several occasions, these patterns were in agreement with local topographic landmarks such as the course of the Nile. We considered our sample of 330 alignments to be statistically representative beyond doubt, and we were convinced that new data would serve only to reinforce (or slightly modify) our results. The moment has now arrived to attempt to falsify this statement.Two experiments have been selected with this purpose. On the one hand, a new campaign, the sixth, was conducted in Egypt in December 2008 at the few temples of Middle Egypt and the Oasis of Fayum (see Figure 1) that for various reasons could not be measured in previous campaigns. 4 The idea was to complete the sample of Egyptian temples almost to exhaustion. On the other hand, a completely new experiment was designed using temples in Sudan. Data were obtained from high-resolution images of Google Earth, covering a vast area of the country (but not all of it), and, in those sectors where high-resolution images were not available, from good quality maps derived from the specialist literature. The idea in this case was to carry out a significant test of our theories with a completely independent set of temples -independent not only from the geographical point of view, but also because most of them belong to an independent culture, the Kingdom of Kush, although this was admittedly heavily influenced by Egyptian schemes and traditions. 5As in previous reports, we wish to stress clearly that we are not seeking alignments of extreme precision, but we aim rather to obtain a statistically significant sample of monuments where we can perform our archaeoastronomical analysis. Bearing this is mind, we made our own fieldwork measurements using a high precision compass JHA, xli (2010)

show abstract

On the Orientation of Ancient Egyptian Temples: (4) Epilogue in Serabit El Khadim and Overview

Cited by 24 publications

References 8 publications

Archaeoastronomical Study of the Main Pyramids of Giza, Egypt: Possible Correlations with the Stars?

Archaeoastronomical Study of the Main Pyramids of Giza, Egypt: Possible Correlations with the Stars?

Pushing back the frontiers or still running around the same circles? ‘Interpretative archaeoastronomy’ thirty years on

On the Orientation of Ancient Egyptian Temples: (5) Testing the Theory in Middle Egypt and Sudan

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About