Astronomy in ancient Egypt | Egyptian astronomy Facts, Astrology and horoscopes among the Pharaohs, discover the facts of cosmology in the Pharaonic civilization, the history of the development of the sciences of heaven and earth among the Pharaohs, what are the secrets of building the pyramids between astronomy and Pharaonic astrology, and more about Ancient Egypt History.
The instruments and tools of astronomical observation in the civilization of ancient Egypt Pharaohs.
the facts and history of the use by the Ancient Egypt of the sun dial and clepsydra and the secrets of the lunar calendar and the calendar of the seasons of the year and the Egyptian pharaonic time system in the civilization.
Astronomy in ancient Egypt
The decorated sun dial in the Pharaonic civilization:
In addition to using the column facing sunlight and measuring its length, the Egyptians used two other types of simple tools, such as the wooden or ivory ruler with a vertical edge and a hard wire, where the 12 points that represent the hours were carved on the ruler towards the corresponding hour, and this tool continued to be used to measure time and calculate the time measuring.
Responsible for turning the wheeled machines and fixing a time to open the dams in the fields. It took the use of a long ruler to measure the long shadows drawn in the morning and evening and thus built by the Egyptians so that the shadow was drawn on a curved surface where the necessary length is completely shortened. In both cases, the measurement of time was inaccurate.
What is a clepsydra in Egyptian civilization? Clepsydra?
Egyptian references show that this instrument was used around 1580 BC., but its conception dates back to the 15th century BC (1417 BC.) and was used to measure time at night.
The clepsydra consists of a vase decorated on the outside with images of stars, zodiac signs and Hieroglyphics “The ancient Egyptian Pharaonic language“, some of which say (each image at the time… In order to determine the hours of the night when the zodiacs sign, the right time for sacrifice can be determined all the time.
The inner surface of the vase contained the following (for each month there was a vertical row of twelve signs, each indicating one hour of the twelve hours of the night this month) and the sentence came to consider the different hours of the night and the hours of the day in summer and winter.
The vase had a small hole at the bottom that allowed the liquid to pass gradually and the vase was listed from the inside at a steady and constant rate of water flow within an hour.
Astronomy in ancient Egypt. But this device was not accurate, and they created a deviant cylindrical shape to avoid errors, but this was not enough to compensate for the decrease in pressure leading to a decrease in water drainage.
Creating an accurate clepsydra was only available after complex calculations that Egyptian scholars were not able to do, because the deviant cylindrical shape adopted after trial and error would certainly not correct some of the difficult error, but the result remains approximate. At the end of their time, the Egyptians tried to avoid scarcity by using a cylindrical clepsydra operating by the water filling system
The water flows gradually and there are lines indicating the hours gradually as the level rises systematically and this is due to a tank always filled, this device has become more accurate than the clepsydra based on water flow. But we don’t know if that’s true.
Astronomy of the Pharaohs – The Merkhet instrument for stargazing and determining the night:
It is a double device composed of:
It consists of a palm tree branch split in its wider section, the astronomer looked through the incision made in the branch to a lead wire called (Plum Bob).
This lead wire (Plumb Bob), which is held by an assistant sitting near the astronomer holding the Merkhet (the branch of the palm tree) and this Plumb Bob consists of a horizontal ruler that shaves the lead wire on it so that the lead wire corresponds to a mark in the wood.
The monitors sit opposite to each other on a north-south axis and the hours are determined when the rays of certain planets pass through the vertical wire passing through the heart, right or left eye or other parts of the viewer’s body.
The results are comparable to the graphs of pre-placed diagrams consisting of a square grid from which the viewer is separated, while the planets are arranged around it, and the texts determine the location of the planets in relation to the body of the auxiliary person.
The Ancient Egyptian Calendar | Astronomy in ancient Egypt
The Egyptian calendar originally comes from a deep mythology, and Egyptian mythology has stated that it was the God Thoth “The Egyptian Gods” who invented all science and brought it back to Earth, where he ruled for 3,000 years, and the character of God Thoth was associated with the Sumerian character of Hermes.
Legends had taught us that the oldest of the 36,000 books of knowledge written by Thot according to the Egyptian Hellenistic historian Manethon was astronomy and the calendar, and that the day was divided into ten hours, each hour was divided into 100 minutes. and each minute was divided into 100 seconds. According to Egyptian mythology, God Thoth is the first teacher of humanity and the inventor of writing.
This information shows that the system in the calendar was decimal and was not a sexagesimal system such as that of the Sumerians.
But it is the myths that have told us that there is a sexagesimal system implicit in the decimal system because the science of the Egyptian calendar has divided the year (12) months and each month into (20) days and divided the (360) days into three equal seasons as we will see, which means that it combines the decimal and the sexagesimal systems, which also happened with the Babylonian astronomical system.
Egyptian Lunar Calendar
The oldest time measuring system in Egypt was the lunar calendar, which was overseen by the God Osiris with his 28 guards.
There was a name for each lunar month and there was even a name for each day of the 28-day lunar month, and the lunar calendar seemed to have two phases: early (leap) and late (dotit).
The first 14 days, the crescent moon’s growth days to the full moon, had fourteen gods to take care of each day, as well as the 14 days of disintegration of the moon from the full moon to the crescent, which is described in this form.
What are the 3 seasons in ancient Egypt?
The months of the flood (Akhet):
the appearance of water on earth, which is the flood of the Nile River, which begins from mid-July to mid-November, and the word Akhet means the horizon, where the appearance of water on the horizon and the sowing of seeds and the appearance of the sun on the horizon, this chapter includes four Egyptian months (Thot, Babah, God Hathor and Kayahk).
The winter months (Peret): Astronomy in ancient Egypt
that is, the exit from planting the soil, which is the season of germination and rain, begins from mid-November to mid-March and includes four Egyptian months (Touba, Mekhir, Famont, Farmoti).
The summer months (Shemu):
that is, water scarcity, which is the drought season, begins from mid-March, until mid-July, during which the plant ripens and harvests, and the land is infected with water scarcity and drought, also called harvest or crop harvest, and includes four Egyptian months (Pakhons, Paona, Abib and Mess Ra or Mesri).
The days of Nessi‘.
Palm Calendar in ancient Egypt: Astronomy in ancient Egypt
The ancient Egyptians were introduced to the seasons and months of the year by the right palm, where the upper tips of the four fingers represent the flood season (Akhet) of four months that reaches its peak in the third month (Aqor).
the tips in the middle of the four fingers represent winter, (Peret).
the lower ends represent summer (Shemou).
The fifth finger (thumb) represents the last 5 days of the year called El-nessi’.
Egyptian farmers still use this method to know the seasons and months of the year.
What does the palm tree symbolize in Egypt?
Reading the palm features horoscope and astrology (Khamsa we Khmessa):
The Egyptians also used the reading of the lines of the right palm to reveal the horoscope and know the sign to which the person belongs, where the time of birth is found on the little finger.
the day of birth is on the ring finger, the month of birth is on the middle finger, and the lunar day of birth on the index finger, and the year on the go, and back to the tables of the zodiac signs can through this information know the sign to which the person belongs, and read its reading from it.
This method is still common among Egyptian farmers in what is known as “Khamsa we Khmessa”.
Drawing the two palms in the Pharaonic civilization:
There was a solar calendar that was parallel and matched to the two-stage lunar calendar, and here are the most famous names in the lunar and solar calendars in their ancient and late forms extracted and translated from Richard Parker’s Book of Calendars in Ancient Egypt.
There are the five days of El-Nessi’ which are excluded outside the calendar called “BeKoji Anafot”, the days of birth of the five gods (God Osiris, God Set, God Osiris, God Nephthys and God Horus), and they did not pay attention to the extra quarter of the day each year, so when this error in the calendar was rectified in the era of the Ptolemees, a sixth day of Nessi’ was added every four years called Sebedet.
The quarter day, which should have been added to the 365 days of the year, continued to accumulate until it began to confuse the Egyptian calendar, because 120 years after the match between the stellar year and the beginning of a calendar year, the calendar year was one month ahead of the astronomical year and 1,456 years had to pass until the calendar year again corresponded to the astronomical year.
This 1,456-year-long epoch was related to the star Sothis, which we call the star of Sirius or Sebedet of Egypt. This error in the Egyptian calendar indicates a flaw in their astronomy and timing, which forced them to take more than one calendar to try to adjust their time.
Thus, the Egyptians dominated the civil calendar over the stellar calendar (despite the accuracy of the latter) but also used the religious calendar which depended on the movement of the moon and used it to determine the dates of religious holidays.
the religious calendar stipulated that all 25 Egyptian years should be divided into lunar months of (309) months or (9125) days divided between groups of lunar months ranging from 29 to 30 days and the Periodic repetition of this very simple method corresponded to the facts and the lunar year containing On 13 festivals called the Little Lunar Year.
What is the Egyptian calendar called?
In short, the Pharaonic Year begins on September 11, a famous day in our contemporary calendar when terrorism hit the two trade towers of the United States, and we are now in 2014, corresponding to the year 6,255 in the Pharaonic calendar that seems to have begun 4,000 years before the Gregorian calendar (a hypothesis that we reserve).
The Egyptian year begins on (9/11) each year and ends on 9/16 of the following year, and the Egyptians used to call New Year’s Day “River Day: Ni-Yara”, which is the date of the completion of the Nile flood.
Astronomy in ancient Egypt. This name can be changed later to Nayrouz, which marks the beginning of the New Year of Agriculture in Ancient Egypt, and we do not know to what extent the relationship between the Persian festival of Nowruz, which is the beginning of the Persian New Year on that day, although there is confirmation that the Persian festival of Nowruz was taken from the Babylonian Aquita, which was called “New Day”, and was translated into their language by the Persians and became Nowruz, meaning the New Day.
Today, for the Egyptians, the day has been estimated from midnight to midnight, which is currently in effect, and divided the day into 12 hours a day cut off by the Sun God from the eastern horizon to the western horizon, as well as the night has been divided into 12 hours during which the Sun God will go into the afterlife.
in the lower world (the other) during which he delegates difficulties and wars and triumphs over them until he rises again.
Egyptian Time Measuring system:
| The unity of time | Its name is in ancient Egyptian
|
Amount of a smaller unit.
|
| The year | Renpet
|
12 months
|
| Month | Abed
|
3 tens, 30 days
|
| Week (10 days)
|
Dakan
|
10 days
|
| Day | Herou | 24 hours
|
| Hour
|
Anout | 60 Minutes
|
| Minute
|
At | 60 Seconds
|
| Second
|
Hat
|
Astronomy in ancient Egypt
The calendar of the Egyptian Year belonged to the so-called “Stellar Year”, which does not depend on the sun or moon but on the star Sirius, where the beginning of the year announces the sight of this star before sunrise on 9/11, which was located at the time of the flood of the Nile, where the three seasons begin to separate the flood, and each season is formed of four months.
But the difference in the quarter of a day of the year caused the scholars great confusion in the calendar and they put a year every 1460 years, and it would have been better for them to increase every day every four years as the Babylonians did. The Copts took their calendar from the ancient Egyptians and kept their method.
Astronomy in ancient Egypt. The historian Snica said that the priests of Heliopolis were the first to discover that the beginning of the flood is compatible with the brilliance of the star of Sirius or (also called the morning star) which they called “Sebedet Sothis” in the Egyptian Temples (Temple of the Sun) once a year.
They took it as the beginning of the appearance of Sirius and the solar year, and they used their knowledge of this astronomical phenomenon to inspire people that the Nile does not overflow with its generosity until God accepts their invitations and sets them the date of the flood and declares it to the people.
During the Third Dynasty of Egypt during Old Kingdom, the priests of the Temple of Iuno corrected the Year of the Nile by adding five days, the days when the five gods (Osiris, Isis, Seth, Nephtis and Horus) were born.
according to some historians from 2800 BC. the Egyptian calendar became 365 days, and some historians have attributed this calendar to the great sage, minister, doctor “Medicine in ancient Egypt“, architect “Architecture in ancient Egypt“and astronomer Imhotep of the time of King Djoser, calling each of the twelve months the name of a god, or a religious occasion, as they called it every month, in this new calendar, the name of the God of Knowledge, to whom this calendar, which is supervised by the gods of astronomy, was revealed to them.
What were the dates of ancient Egypt? Astronomy in ancient Egypt
In the table below is the precise division of the ancient Egyptian months with its solar system and hieroglyphic names (in brackets) and Coptic, with the negation of its equivalent of the calendar of our current calendar, the God of each month and his evidence and cultures that appear that month, and the current popular Egyptian proverbs inherited from the past for each month and disseminated by the Egyptian peasants to this day:
Coptic and Pharaonic Calendar: What is the ancient Egyptian calendar today?
| No: | The name of the Coptic and Pharaonic month
|
Its equivalent in our calendar. Current (Gregorian)
|
His God.
|
Its importance and cultures
|
Contemporary and ancient folk proverbs about the months
|
| 1. | Thot | 10/10-9/11 | Thot
Wisdom
|
Immortalize the God of Wisdom and Scripture and set the calendar celebrated by the Copts for a week and they call his feast Nowruz. (Pomegranate, olives, cotton and quince) | I plant and I don’t stop |
| 2. | Paopi | 11/10-10/11 | Pa Upet
Agriculture
|
The goddess of agriculture, where the land is covered with crops, the original name of Luxor Upet feast, moved Amun from Karnak to Luxor. (Dates, raisins, and taro) | If this is true, plant. Babah beat the thieves of the crops. |
| 3. | Hathor | 12/10-11/11 | Hathor
Beauty
|
The name Venus is the goddess of beauty, love, and music where (Cultures adorn the surface of the earth). | Hathor and his gold scattered in the fields |
| 4. | Kayahk | 1/10-12/11 | Ka Ha Ka
Good
|
The God of Good or the sacred Calf means “consort with a woman”, which is the feast of the meeting of spirits among the Pharaohs (memory of the deceased). (Sowing of wheat, barley and clover is integrated) | You finish your breakfast and prepare your dinner. |
| 5. | Touba | 2/10-1/10 | Touba
Emso (Khim) |
The God of Rain (T-Tubia) is nicknamed the highest and whose name derives the name of Tiba (green beans and buckthorn appear) | Touba transforms (because of the cold) the girl into an old woman |
| 6. | Mekhir | 3/10-2/11 | Montou
(Tornadoes)
|
The God of tornadoes and war, who turns into the God of tornadoes, amsher. Whirlwind day. | Amshir and its storms. |
| 7. | Peremhat | 4/10-3/11 | Peremhat
(Heat)
|
The god of heat where crops mature because of heat, a festival related to King Amenophis (Amenhotep III). (The trees are decorated, and the curd is curdled) | Go to the fields and bring. |
| 8. | Permuda | 5/10-4/11 | Rnoda (Harvest) Reno: Snake
|
The God of the Dead and the Court, in which the harvests end and harvest (His roses = harvest. (Roses abound and grow Cucumber and purple and pick the first honeybees) | Crushes the (grains) with the column.
Grinding the grains |
| 9. | Pashans | 6/10-5/11 | Khonsu (Moon)
|
The God of the Moon, where night and darkness increase, is the son of a good triad (Mut, Amun, Khonsu). (The appearance of watermelons, sun, peaches, and white roses) | Bashans sweeps the earth well.
|
| 10. | Paouna | 7/10-6/11 | Enet. Amon.
|
The God of Minerals and Stones is understood by depreciation (the stone building), capital on, and the Valley of Stones in Luxor. You: Wadi Day, where Amun moves from east to west of the Nile. (Peaches, apricots, and black berries) | With its big heat. |
| 11. | Abib | 8/10-7/11 | Hapo, Hapi, God of the Nile, Abib (Joy)
|
The God of Minerals and Stones is understood by depreciation (the stone building), capital on, and the Valley of Stones in Luxor. You: Wadi Day, where Amun moves from east to west of the Nile. (Peaches, apricots, and black berries) | Abib Grape and Raisin Cooker |
| 12. | Mesri | 9/10-8/11 | Ra (Sun)
|
The birth of the sun, Mess Ra, Ra was born. (Ripening of bananas, lemon, apples and pomegranates) | Water passes through all dry channels |
| 13. | Pi Kogi Anafot | The five El-Nessi’ days when the five gods were created.
9/10-9/6 |
Every day for Gods Osiris and Seth. Otherwise, we will have a good time. Horus.
|
The birthdays of the five major gods. |
The Table of the Egyptian Calendar (Coptic and Pharaonic) General: Astronomy in ancient Egypt
It should be known that the Egyptians did not know the seven days of the week, which came from the first Sumerian then Babylonian, then the Greeks took it and introduced it to Egypt in Hellenistic times, they divided the month into three periods each ten days.
We can not call it a week in Arabic but we can call it metaphorical (tenths) and no specific name for that, and in doing so, they are similar to the Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans in the past (and the French later in their post-Republic calendar).
What helped develop the Egyptian calendar?
Ptolemy’s reforms on the Egyptian calendar:
In 238 BC, Ptolemy III Euergetes introduced important reforms to the Egyptian calendar due to its differences from the Greek calendar, which were marked by a decree called the Canopus Decree, and the most important thing in these reforms was the quarter of the day when a day (leap year) was added every four years.
Astronomy in ancient Egypt. In 25 BC, the Roman Emperor Imperator Augustus applied this idea, and the Copts took this amendment and worked on their calendar, where the thirteenth month consists of five days of oblivion and increases to six days in leap years. That is, the Coptic New Year in leap years begins at 12/9, not at 11/9.
The Coptic New Year was called the “Day of Nayrouz”, which was dedicated by the Arab conquerors when they merged it on Persian New Year’s Day, and the name continued between Pharaonic and Persian and was consecrated.
The Copts began this calendar on 9/11/284 AD, the beginning of the reign of the Roman Imperator Diocletian “Greek-Roman era” (who persecuted Christians) and was named Martyrs’ Day. That is, 282 AD = 1 Coptic = 4525 (Pharaonic).
The five planets they observed were called (AkmoWardaj):
The five planets are moving planets visible in the night sky observed by the Egyptians and linked their movement to certain atmospheric nuances and linked certain minerals to them and emphasized their spiritual and intellectual significance.
Astronomy in ancient Egypt. The planets of the solar system have been called “the stars that do not get tired, the car stars” (Akmo Wardaj) and in some references they have called “Akhmo Weres”, and the names of these planets are arranged from their proximity to the sun:
| No. | Planet
|
Her name
In hieroglyphics |
God
|
Distance
Seven |
Metal
|
Indication
Intellectual
|
The title and form of God
|
| 1 | The sun
|
Aten | Ra | 0 | Gold
|
Energy
|
Zero |
| 2 | Mercury
|
Sabgu | Seth | 7 | Tin
|
The mind
|
The enemy of Horus and his father
|
| 3 | Venus | Ba’ah Seba-djai | Osiris | 14 | copper | To share | The star that crosses, the morning star, the woman with the head of a falcon or with two faces |
| 4 | Moon | Aah | Thot | 21 | Money | passion
|
Ibis. Monkey |
| 5 | March | Heru- Deshet
|
Ra | 28 | iron | Work | Horus red horizon Horus |
| 6 | Jupiter | Her -Weges -Tawy | 35 | Amber
|
The growth | Horus that surrounds the earth,
Horus who Illuminates the two lands, Horus who opens the secret, Horus the bull of the sky |
|
| 7 | Saturn | Heru-ka-pet | Horus | 42 | Lead
|
Perfect | Bull with human head and serpentine tail
|
Facts, History Egyptian Astrology Signs in Pharaonic Civilization, Secrets Ancient Egyptian Astrology and more…
Discover the facts and history of astronomy and stars in the ancient Pharaonic civilization of Egypt, the secrets it contains, and more.
Zodiac in Ancient Egypt | Astronomy in ancient Egypt
Did ancient Egypt have zodiac signs?
Observing constellations and stars:
The Egyptians had a different system in observing the sky astronomically, as the names and locations of their constellations differed from others, and they had a map of the sky different from what the ancient nations knew.
Horoscopes of the Pharaohs | Pharaoh’s Signs of the Zodiac | Astronomy in ancient Egypt
Some drawings of the sky in some Egyptian tombs showed the shapes and names of the Egyptian constellations, some of which we have mentioned, but they developed another system for dividing the sky based on dividing it into 36 levels, ranks, or towers, and each house contains ten degrees, and these houses had different names, such as:
- Usher of the South
- Usher of the North
- The God Who Crosses Heaven…etc
Each house consisted of ten days or a decade, and the houses started from a tropical region starting with the planet Sirius (Sirius, Sothis, Sepedet), which is the first planet or star and it was called (The Lady of the Year) because it is the first star to appear in The beginning of the year in the month of the flood.
Astronomy in ancient Egypt. The degrees that “appear in heavenly pictures or drawings in the Egyptian Tombs were associated with sacred biblical legends.
These mysterious texts for us, we must also be for the Egyptians themselves, because the Papyrus Carlsberg, written a thousand years ago after the texts that accompanied the funeral star drawings, is an interpretation and interpretation of it.
The ancient original text, written in priestly language, is accompanied by a literal translation into the popular language and sometimes by an interpretation that indicates its meaning.
Sometimes the usual hieroglyphic signs were replaced by symbolic forms that concealed the true meaning from the uninformed reader.
What did ancient Egyptians think about stars?
The Egyptians imagined the stars and planets as divine beings as well, and distinguished them as follows:
The stars: Astronomy in ancient Egypt
They used to call it (which never sets), and it is the group of stars of the North Star that shine in the sky, and they portrayed them as forming the crew of the sun’s ship during its journey during the day, and it is not visible during the day because the sunlight obscures it.
As for the stars observed by the Egyptians, they are many, and a distinction has been made between them and the planets, which were called (stars that never rest), and the most important of these stars was (the polar stars), which were seen every year.
The planets: Astronomy in ancient Egypt
They used to call them (the one that never gets tired), that is, the one that always moves, and they are the five moving planets that appear in the east, and form the staff of the night star, and they disappear one after the other on the western horizon when the sun god departs in the hidden part of the universe.
These are the names of the five planets (except for the sun and the moon) are:
- Venus: the morning star
- Jupiter: the brilliant star.
- Saturn Horus Taurus.
- Mars: Horus the Red.
- Mercury.
The Egyptian horoscope system settled in two forms: (the Pharaonic system, and the traditional system).
It is a way to divide the path of the sun in the sky into twelve equal sections, and what distinguishes the constellations from the moving (moving) planets is that the planets are divisions to define a map of the whole sky with its bodies.
They are star clusters that we see with the naked eye on the page of the entire sky at night, while the constellations are divisions of a part From the sky, which is the circle through which the sun, moon and the eight planets pass, of which the ancient peoples knew five of them.
Did ancient Egypt use astrology?
The zodiac is divided into 12 constellations, each with 30 degrees of arc on the path of the sun, and the sun passes through one constellation in a specific solar month.
The constellations, at the beginning of their development, reflected the human attempt to monitor the movement of the sun monthly, because it changes its position every month relative to the earth, or vice versa. The Sumerians placed the first zodiac signs, and the Babylonians followed their lead.
Astronomy in ancient Egypt. the zodiac has become a magical way to know the future of man, based on the idea that the stars, planets, and the sun are gods that rule our destinies, and thus astrology was born.
Astrology is a kind of divination by which the movement of planets, stars, and signs is read and interpreted in order to read the unseen of the state, the king, or the individual.
Astrology, astro (star) and logy (science), is different from astronomy (astro) and nomos (law). In that the former is of a magical tendency while astronomy relies on rigorous scientific measurement.
There was a special system in the zodiac, so they see that the circle of the sun’s path consists of 36 decans, and each decan contains an important bright star called by its name and the sun spends ten days in it. That is, an ancient Egyptian week, where their week consisted of 10 days).
This means that each month of the most famous (30 days) will include three bright stars, along with other stars of low brightness supervised by one god (for each monthly constellation), and the constellation is called by his name, as we shall see, and this system is completely different from the Sumerian-Babylonian zodiac system of origin.
We see that the ancient Egyptian astrological system has its own situation, which is still not known accurately, as the Egyptian constellations were different from the constellations that we know today of Babylonian origin, and although it is very difficult to analyze their material and identify them accurately, we can recognize their names as well. follows…
List Of The Ancient Egyptian Constellation Names
- Taurus thigh constellation: which includes the Big Dipper group.
- The Swan Tower: which appears in the form of a man with open arms.
- Gemini: who appears in the form of a man running while looking over his shoulders.
- Cassiopeia Tower: which appears in the form of puppets with outstretched arms.
- Pisces.
- Thuraya Tower.
- Scorpio.
- Aries.
Even the twelfth tower, and these zodiac signs were drawn on the ceilings of some tombs and were decorated with the familiar stars in their astronomical circles.
What is the Dendera zodiac controversy?
Temple of Dendera in Qena, for example, was one of these astronomical circles that depicted the sky rippling with images of the Egyptian zodiac in its traditional forms, and its planets and the following signs that were derived and added. For indigo style with images of the twelve zodiac signs, then the thirty-six zodiac zones.
We have documents referring to the magical or astrological uses of these zodiac signs, but we do not deny this because scientific astronomy was used as astrology, on a popular basis, especially when societies were dominated by waves of injustice, despair and occupation.
Astronomy in ancient Egypt. One of the manifestations of astrology is the belief of the Egyptians that the stars are gods, and soothsayers were astrologers. They formulate from their shape, color, movements, and locations predictions related to the horoscopes of events in the country and the future actions of the Egyptian Pharaohs kings.
ecause the gods ruled these stars, they therefore rule the entire time and have all the days, but these days reflect what happened of good and evil to the gods as well, and on this basis the priests divided the days into three types are.
What were the days called in ancient Egypt?
The Day of Sacrifice:
It is described as three inverted spoons with arms that have grooved ends with two lines
Bad luck:
Described as three cups overflowing
The day of happiness and misfortune:
It is described in several forms according to the percentage of happiness and misfortune in terms of spoons and cups.
There are days in the Egyptian calendar and its occasions that refer to the days of bad luck and happiness.
27th of the month of Hathor:
It is a happy day because it is the day of reconciliation between Horus and Set.
The first day of the month of Amshir:
a happy day because the sky was lifted up.
14th of the month of Tuba:
a day of misfortune, because Isis and Nephthys mourned Osiris.
The days of Osiris’ death were bad days.
Astronomy in ancient Egypt. people refrained from holding parties in the days of misfortune, and avoided music and singing, such as the day of mourning for Osiris (14 bricks), and washing was forbidden on the sixteenth day of his brick, and it was preferable to abstain from fish on certain days and avoid mentioning the name of the God Set on the twenty-fourth Bermuda month.
We see that days like these and those before them have a specific location in the Egyptian zodiac, and are linked to the appearance of certain stars or planets or their movement in their zodiac regions, and therefore the zodiac was linked to the destinies of people on earth.
It will deal with the pharaonic system | Astronomy in ancient Egypt
Duration of time The deity who patronizes him The name of the constellation T
- 9/27-8/29 God of wisdom, writing and magic, Thoth
- 10/27-9/28 The sunrise god Horus
- 11/26-10/28 The Royal Snake is a symbol of wisdom and knowledge God Wadj-wer
- 12/26-11/27 God of war and competition, God Sekhmet
- 1/25-12/27 The guardian of the treasure that changes its shape according to its location, the Sphinx
- 2/24-1/26 God of sunlight and air God Shu
- 3/26-1/25 Mother Goddess, Lady of the Rites of the Mysteries, Isis
- 4/25-3/27 God of fertility and the underworld Osiris
- 5/25-4/26 God of the sun and civilization, God Amun
- 6/24-5/26 Goddess of Heaven and Earth Hathor
- 7/24-6/25 Bird of Life, Energy and Rebirth, Phoenix
- 8/28-7/25 Anubis, god of death, the underworld, and necropolis of the dead.
Greek era: Astronomy in ancient Egypt
In the year 1798, Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Egypt, and the scholars who were accompanying him visited Upper Egypt.
They saw two towers in the ceilings of the Dendera Temple of Hathor and two other towers in two temples near Esna, and noticed that the rules of division in these zodiac signs are all the same, but the signs and the regions of the planets are different.
In The Temple of Esna, the zodiac begins with the Virgin, and in Dendera Temple, it begins with the Lion, so they concluded that the purpose is to indicate the time in which the temples were built, and that the two temples of Esna were built when the sun was in the orbit of the Virgin, and that the Dendera Temple was built when the sun was in the orbit of the Lion.
it was not long until we got to know the Greek time in which the two temples were built. Another part of it was built during the reign of Emperor Augustus. As for the Esna Temple, it was proven that they were built during the reign of Emperor Commodus.
At the same time, he proved that the zodiac is modern and that it was made at the time when the temples were built, that is, during the rule of the Romans in Egypt.
Radical changes took place in all the Egyptian sciences of astronomy, timing and astrology when the Greeks and then the Romans introduced their astronomical, timing and astrological systems (derived from the Babylonian civilization with Sumerian roots).
The calendar reform was carried out with Ptolemy, as well as the Babylonian astronomy and zodiac systems were introduced, which we see in the following examples:
The Babylonian zodiac, then the Greek one, and the Egyptian astrology: We cannot neglect the period of Hellenistic cross-fertilization in the secret sciences, including astrology.
Astronomy in ancient Egypt. The Egyptian zodiac in the ancient Temple of Dendera had original Egyptian roots, as we can see its forms in the following pictures, and the Ptolemies kept it when the new temple was rebuilt. In the Hellenistic phase and lost some of its local specificities in the three cultures.
Facts Horoscopes a and Egyptian astrology, History How was astrology used in Pharaonic Civilization, Secrets and more about Stellar Scientists …
Facts about the star symbol and astronomy Astronomical constellations in the civilization of ancient Egypt, discover the secrets and facts about the relationship of stars to the pharaonic tombs and the ancient Egyptian’s ingenuity in astronomy among the ancient Egyptians in the pharaonic civilization.
The mythological origins of Egyptian astronomy and astrology:
Perhaps the marking of Egyptian religion and Egyptian mythology since ancient times with the solar tint made Egyptian astronomy and astrology walk in a special path different from the path in which Sumerian and Babylonian astronomy and astrology walked.
Caring for the sun in an almost absolute manner, and considering it as the central deity in the life of the ancient Egyptians, greatly reduced the importance of other planets such as the moon, car planets, and stars, and made its status secondary because it rises at night, i.e. after sunset.
As the Egyptians were following the sun’s nocturnal journey in the world of tools. (The other world), and they invent paths for her and the difficulties that she encounters while she spends the night hours there, only to return at dawn and rise again.
The solar mythology of the Egyptians made the sun god the first god to appear from the heavenly waters (Nun) on the lotus flower or on the pillar of (Ben Ben) or on the stork (Benu).
The names of the gods (God Khepri, God Ra, Atum) refer to the sun in its three phases (sunrise, noon, and sunset). The Pharaonic Lotus Flower that surrounded him more than once when he used to return to it in the evening, or that it arose in the form of the Phoenix or the Phoenix, which is a brown bird and lit up on the hierarchical top of the obelisk (Ben Ben), and this unites him with the God Atum.
Astronomy in ancient Egypt
The god Ra is often depicted with the body of a man and the head of a falcon, or with the image of a falcon radiating on his head, the symbol of the sun disk surrounded by the serpent Khot. And when he was represented as a man holding the symbol of life, the ankh, in his right hand, and a scepter in his left hand.
And the old pictures of Nut were in the form of a cow, whose legs represented the four pillars that raised the sky, and (Ra) used to blow on her back to supervise the world, then he began to travel on her stomach with his boat, and this cow was based on the eight gods of Heh (Heh is a million) and became her son ( Shu) under her and raised his hand to support her stomach and guard (Hah) the eight.
And now Ra in his chariot reaches the top of her belly, for he is on his way to absence, and therefore the cow’s belly is decorated with stars that appear at night.
At least since the era of The New Kingdom, the image of (Nut) has changed from a cow to a woman with a rectangular body and curved on the ground, touching her with her hand, and the stars adorning her body.
It enters her mouth and dives into her body at night, so the stars appear shining on her body, shining at night, and so on.
The sun appeared in a boat on the back of the goddess Nut, the sky goddess, as shown in this figure:
Important celestial drawings and maps appeared, such as a celestial map of the ceiling of the Senenmut tomb from the Eighteenth Dynasty, which depicts, in an astronomical way, the movement of the sun.
Ancient Egyptian Divination – Astronomy in ancient Egypt
Divination differs from magic or astrology among the Pharaohs in that it requires the presence of a power in the musician that makes him able to receive signs and signs, natural and artificial, outside him, so that he works on their interpretation, interpretation and knowledge of the unseen.
It is practically the opposite of magic, because magic works to remove this power from the magician and influence nature with it. As for the soothsayer, he receives his signs from nature, so that his inner strength can interpret them.
Astronomy in ancient Egypt. We do not notice a wide spread of divination in Egypt, and we do not know its familiar diversity that appeared among other ancient nations, but it is certain that the ancient Egyptians knew types of fortune-tellers and fortune-tellers.
The works of divination carried out by scholars were known, including what was mentioned about King Kamose, who went out to fight the Hyksos based on the promise of Amun, the wise man who promised him victory through the fortune-tellers, and it is (i.e. divination) that determined in advance the date of the invasions and the victory that King Thutmose I will meet in them, and divination Amun is the one who sent Queen Hatshepsut with her mission to Land of Punt.
It was customary for fortune-tellers to look into the unseen through (the mandel), which was performed by a boy looking into vessels filled with water and a layer of oil on it, as he told about everything he saw when light reflected on oil and water, and this procedure was tantamount to communicating with the gods.
It was called deification (transformation into a god), and this artificial method of divination was known and common in the ancient world, just as reading the forms of censer smoke was a common and simple matter for fortune-tellers. Reading the movement of sacred animals, especially bulls, was part of ancient Egyptian divination.
Prophecy of Neferti
Perhaps we find in a literary text that specialists have known to call it (Prophecy of Neferti) a kind of political divination that heralds the emergence of a new king who will eliminate the chaos that prevailed in the country.
Astronomy in ancient Egypt. This papyrus divination dates back to the early era of the Twelfth Dynasty of Egypt During Middle Kingdom and perhaps to the era of its founder, King Amenemhat I, but its writer attributed it to an ancient era, as he claimed that it was cast in the presence of King Sneferu, the founder of the Fourth Dynasty of Egypt, that is, before the era of the Dynasty Long twelve.
The papyrus includes two main topics, the first: the bad state that the country has reached, and the second is the prediction of the emergence of a new king who will rid the country of chaos “Revolutions in Ancient Egypt” and evil and will make those who live in his age happy.
In the first section of the papyrus, Neferti describes what will happen in the country, while the second section describes the coming savior.
Prophecy of Neferti papyrus texts: Astronomy in ancient Egypt
I will show you the country and it has become a scattered fragment, the wreath has become the owner of power and weapons, and the people have come to venerate those who revere them, I will show you the country and the country has become at the top who was in the lowest gendarmerie, and the people will live in the cemetery, and the destitute will be able to get rich, and the beggars will eat the offering bread, while the servants will rejoice in what happened.
A king will come from Upper Egypt, called “Amini” to him be glory, the son of a woman from Taste” (Aswan Island), and he will be born in Upper Egypt in “Khen Nakhen” (Al-Busalia, Edfu Center, Aswan Governorate), and he will receive the crown White, and crowned with the red crown, be happy, then, people of his time, and the Son of Man will perpetuate his reputation forever, as for those who have plotted evil against him.
They plan sedition, so they will close their mouths for fear of him, and the Asians will fall by his sword, and the Libyans before his flames, and the revolutionaries will surrender before his anger, and he will build the Prince’s Wall, and the Asians will not be able to enter Egypt by force, but they will beg for water from it
References Astronomy in ancient Egypt: The Book of Egyptian Civilization, Egypt
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