The Egypt Code (37 page)
Authors: Robert Bauval
Mystery of the
Hepet
Hepet
Just what the
hepet
(
hpt
) instrument is has never been satisfactorily explained. It is generally accepted by scholars as a navigational device, but whether this means it was used to steer a boat or to navigate one’s way through the desert (as a sighting implement) is not clear. In
heb-sed
reliefs it is shown in connection with an oar, the king carrying both on his run around the field. The hieroglyph is used in the spelling of the name Apis, as in bull, in words for ‘hidden’ and references to travel by boat (see Worterbuch, Vol. 3, pp. 67-70). Perhaps it is also to be seen in the design of the original entrance to the Pyramid of Khufu, over a horizon symbol. This would give the navigational instrument identification more credibility.
hepet
(
hpt
) instrument is has never been satisfactorily explained. It is generally accepted by scholars as a navigational device, but whether this means it was used to steer a boat or to navigate one’s way through the desert (as a sighting implement) is not clear. In
heb-sed
reliefs it is shown in connection with an oar, the king carrying both on his run around the field. The hieroglyph is used in the spelling of the name Apis, as in bull, in words for ‘hidden’ and references to travel by boat (see Worterbuch, Vol. 3, pp. 67-70). Perhaps it is also to be seen in the design of the original entrance to the Pyramid of Khufu, over a horizon symbol. This would give the navigational instrument identification more credibility.
Djoser’s pyramid-tomb stands at the northern edge of the field he traversed in his
heb-sed
run, and is more than just the marker of the final resting place of the king, when he did die in actuality. For Djoser it was also ‘The solar mountain, the Ben Ben, the obelisk dedicated to the sun. It was the primeval hill which first rose from the flood at the creation of the world . . . The pyramid, this mountain, was loaded with life-forming energy; it was the centre of the earth, the place where the nether and the upper worlds communicated.’
36
What more powerful and magical instrument could the king have constructed to draw down the majesty of heaven and thereby ensure the continuity of life and prosperity for himself and his people?
heb-sed
run, and is more than just the marker of the final resting place of the king, when he did die in actuality. For Djoser it was also ‘The solar mountain, the Ben Ben, the obelisk dedicated to the sun. It was the primeval hill which first rose from the flood at the creation of the world . . . The pyramid, this mountain, was loaded with life-forming energy; it was the centre of the earth, the place where the nether and the upper worlds communicated.’
36
What more powerful and magical instrument could the king have constructed to draw down the majesty of heaven and thereby ensure the continuity of life and prosperity for himself and his people?
APPENDIX 2
On the Possible Discovery of Precessional Effects in Ancient Astronomy
Giulio Magli
Dipartimento di Matematica, Politecnico di Milano
P.le Leonardo da Vinci 32, 20133 Milano, Italy.
Dipartimento di Matematica, Politecnico di Milano
P.le Leonardo da Vinci 32, 20133 Milano, Italy.
(NB: The following article has been published on the academic physics archives Website
http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0407108
(revised v.2, 1 August 2004). It is here reproduced with Dr. Magli’s permission and approval to correct some of the English text, as the article was originally written in Italian).
1.0 Introductionhttp://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0407108
(revised v.2, 1 August 2004). It is here reproduced with Dr. Magli’s permission and approval to correct some of the English text, as the article was originally written in Italian).
The earth rotates around its axis in 24 hours, and the earth’s axis rotates around the axis orthogonal to the ecliptic, describing a cone. Thus, the motion of the earth is similar to that of a spin: the earth precedes. The period of this movement of precession is extremely long with respect to human life, since the axis completes a circle in 25,776 years.
Precession has a very important consequence on long-term naked eye astronomy. First of all, the prolongation of the earth’s axis on the celestial sphere defines the astronomical north. The direction in which astronomical north points - possibly indicating a star, thereby a pole star - changes therefore continuously in time. Today’s pole star (Polaris) will therefore no longer be the pole star in a few centuries, and all the stars which lie close to the circle described by the pole (actually not exactly a closed circle, due to perturbations) may become ‘pole stars’ during the precessional cycle. For instance, in Palaeolithic times, the north pole crossed the Milky Way and the Pole star in 15,000 BC was Delta Cygnus, thus a northern sky which was completely different from ours (dominated by the two Ursine and Draco constellations) which are probably depicted in a fresco of the famous Lascaux grotto (Rappenglueck 1998).
Although at best visualized with the movement of the north pole (or the south pole, since the choice of north pole is only due to the latitude of the present author at the moment of writing), precessional effects act on all stars. For instance, precession slowly moves the point of rising on non-circumpolar stars and also their culmination. It follows, that the whole visible sky at any given point and time depends on the precessional moment. As an example, one can consider the group of stars Crux Centaurs in the mediterean sea (the “Southern Cross” was ‘isolated’ as a constellation only the 16 century AD). The group was quite brilliant and important for people in very ancient times as the research by Michael Hoskin on megalithic “sanctuaries” in Minorca and Majorca and in Malta has shown (we shall come back on this later). However, this asterism became lower and lower over the horizon during the centuries, and today it culminates below the south horizon due to precession and is, therefore, invisible (it will be visible again only in 12,000 AD).
Fig. 1
The circle describing the north celestial pole during a precessional cycle.
The circle describing the north celestial pole during a precessional cycle.
The question now arises, when was the discovery of precession actually achieved. Standard scientific point of view states the following:
1. Precession was first discovered in 117 BC by Hipparchus of Rhodes.
2. Precession was never discovered in pre-Columbian cultures. In other words it was not known in any place in the Americas before Columbus.
In spite of this, the very opposite idea that
all
archaic civilizations discovered precession very early has been around for a long time and was stated in an authoritative way by Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha Von Dechend in their famous book
Hamlet’s Mill
(1983). Although an extremely interesting book, and worth reading,
Hamlet’s Mill
, however, cannot be of any help when discussing the
basic
issue of the discovery of precession, since all the ‘proofs’ recorded in the book cannot be considered as true scientific proofs. Indeed the authors report an (albeit impressive) amount of occurrences of similar images, same numbers, similar situations in a great number of cosmological myths around the world. Although it is well known that myths have actually been used to sometimes convey a technical language, without independent verification of assertions in contextual environment it is impossible to accept ‘images’ and ‘numbers’ as ‘proofs’.
all
archaic civilizations discovered precession very early has been around for a long time and was stated in an authoritative way by Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha Von Dechend in their famous book
Hamlet’s Mill
(1983). Although an extremely interesting book, and worth reading,
Hamlet’s Mill
, however, cannot be of any help when discussing the
basic
issue of the discovery of precession, since all the ‘proofs’ recorded in the book cannot be considered as true scientific proofs. Indeed the authors report an (albeit impressive) amount of occurrences of similar images, same numbers, similar situations in a great number of cosmological myths around the world. Although it is well known that myths have actually been used to sometimes convey a technical language, without independent verification of assertions in contextual environment it is impossible to accept ‘images’ and ‘numbers’ as ‘proofs’.
The aim of the present paper is, therefore, to discuss which hints do we have about discovery of precession before Hipparchus in ancient cultures in order to stimulate further research in this field.
2.0 Astronomical DataIt would have been nearly impossible, even for a very experienced naked-eye astronomer in ancient times, to discover precession in the course of his own life using only his own observations, due to the extremely slow nature of the phenomenon with respect to the length of a human life. It is, however, sufficient to have astronomical data collected during, say, two or three centuries, like the height of transit of a bright star, and
to trust in them,
to become aware that ‘something is happening’ in the sky with a very low, but measurable, velocity (this is exactly what happened to Hipparchus: he collected a great quantity of astronomical data over more than 800 celestial objects coming from the Alexandria observatory and based his discovery on such data). I shall thus, of course, be concerned here with what I have called the discovery that ‘something is happening’. This means that I am not speaking about the possible discovery of the actual mechanism and/or of the length of the precessional cycle (although this discovery is not
a priori
excluded) but rather of the observation of a discrepancy of specific visual data which, from now on, I will call
precessional effects
. Typical examples may include the observation of the ‘Precessional Era’, namely the fact that the sun at the spring equinox rises in different places within a constellation and finally changes constellation every 2000 years, or the observation of the change in the declination of heliacal rising of a star.
2.1 Babylonian cultureto trust in them,
to become aware that ‘something is happening’ in the sky with a very low, but measurable, velocity (this is exactly what happened to Hipparchus: he collected a great quantity of astronomical data over more than 800 celestial objects coming from the Alexandria observatory and based his discovery on such data). I shall thus, of course, be concerned here with what I have called the discovery that ‘something is happening’. This means that I am not speaking about the possible discovery of the actual mechanism and/or of the length of the precessional cycle (although this discovery is not
a priori
excluded) but rather of the observation of a discrepancy of specific visual data which, from now on, I will call
precessional effects
. Typical examples may include the observation of the ‘Precessional Era’, namely the fact that the sun at the spring equinox rises in different places within a constellation and finally changes constellation every 2000 years, or the observation of the change in the declination of heliacal rising of a star.
There are many examples of ancient cultures that kept written track of astronomical data for centuries. First of all, of course, the Mesopotamian cultures (usually referred to, collectively, as Babylonian). We have astronomical data collected by Babylonian astronomers on clay tablets which contain observations which are more precise than one minute of arc. Since it is nearly impossible to obtain such an accuracy with the naked eye, it was probably obtained with the first spyglasses ever invented (Pettinato 1998). One example of a Babylonian star catalogue is the famous
Mul-apin
. Probably written around 1000 BC, it contains astronomical data which can be traced back in time up to 2048 BC. The content includes:
Mul-apin
. Probably written around 1000 BC, it contains astronomical data which can be traced back in time up to 2048 BC. The content includes:
1. A list of 71 celestial objects (constellations, single stars and the five planets) divided in three “courses” (Enlil, Anu and Ea).
2. A list of heliacal rising of many stars.
3. A list of simultaneous rising/settings of couples of stars.
4. A list of time delays between the rising of the same stars.
5. A list of simultaneous transit/rising of some other couples of stars.
It is difficult to believe that astronomers possessing data so accurately did not notice the effect of precession, for instance on heliacal risings. However, no written record citing the phenomenon explicitly has been discovered so far.
2.2 The Indo-Savrastati CultureThe history of the Indian civilization has been plagued until twenty years ago or so by the foolish and anti-historical idea of the so called Arian invasion. The basis of this idea was that civilization was brought to India by indo-European people, the Arians, around 1000 BC. After the discovery of the 2500 BC towns of Harappa and Moenjo-daro, the Arians started to be considered warriors and invaders, but the idea remained that the fundamental books of the Hindu religion, the Vedas, were conceived after this invasion. Today we finally know that the Arians simply never existed and that the Indian civilization (traditionally associated with the sites of Harappa and Moenjo-daro, but actually much more spread than the area individuated by these two cities) developed between two rivers, the Indo and the Savrastati rivers (Feuerstein, Kak, and Frawley 1995). The Veda contains explicit reference to the latter river, which was however dry at about 1900 BC, and thus the books (actually memo-books learned by memory by Brahmins) are at least as old as that period.
Together with this new approach to the Veda, in recent years a new approach to what we can now call Vedic astronomy emerged (Kak 2000).
In Vedic astronomy a fundamental role is played by the five visible planets, the sun and the moon, identified with seven fundamental deities. However, to keep track of their motions, 27 astronomical objects were used, the
naksatras
, asterisms/constellations used to divide the ecliptic in equal parts, in each one the sun “resting” about 13 and ⅓ days.
Naksatras
occur in ordered lists. For instance, one can identify (using modern names) the Pleiades,
alfa-tauri
(Aldebaran),
beta-tauri, gamma-gemini, beta-gemini
(Pollux),
delta-cancri
, Hydra, Regulus, and so on. Interestingly enough, lists of
naksatras
belonging to different periods contain the same objects but begin at different points. The starting point is individuated by the sun at the spring equinox, and this means that Vedic astronomers were almost certainly aware that the Sun was ‘changing naksatra’ with a velocity of more than one naksatra per roughly one millennium (25,776 ÷ 27).
2.3 Egypt: Middle and New Kingdom Astronomical Datanaksatras
, asterisms/constellations used to divide the ecliptic in equal parts, in each one the sun “resting” about 13 and ⅓ days.
Naksatras
occur in ordered lists. For instance, one can identify (using modern names) the Pleiades,
alfa-tauri
(Aldebaran),
beta-tauri, gamma-gemini, beta-gemini
(Pollux),
delta-cancri
, Hydra, Regulus, and so on. Interestingly enough, lists of
naksatras
belonging to different periods contain the same objects but begin at different points. The starting point is individuated by the sun at the spring equinox, and this means that Vedic astronomers were almost certainly aware that the Sun was ‘changing naksatra’ with a velocity of more than one naksatra per roughly one millennium (25,776 ÷ 27).
The study of ancient astronomy in Egypt has been plagued for many years by the influence of the most important scholar in the field, Otto Neugebauer, who stated in several occasions view such as ‘Egypt did not contribute to the history of mathematical astronomy’ (Neugebauer 1969, 1976). But it just suffices to read the information contained in the monumental books by Otto Neugebauer himself and by Richard Parker on ancient Egyptian astronomical texts (1964) to realise how such an assertion is far from being true. Another serious problem generated by the negative influence of Neugebauer is the idea that astronomy was not present in the Pyramid Age (Old Kingdom). In fact the Neugebauer-Parker book begins with the Middle Kingdom (we shall see later that also this assertion is clearly false).
Much of the confusion arises from the fact that we do not have any Egyptian text of explicit astronomical nature, a thing that, in my opinion, is probably due to the fact that papyri were simply not part of the funerary items, and almost only such items are being recovered. In any case, it is obvious that Egyptian astronomers did actually keep track of many astronomical data. This is readable from those “astronomical texts” which were used in funerary contexts and are written in Middle Kingdom sarcophagi and in many New Kingdom tombs, such as the famous tomb of Semnut, architect of the Queen Hatshepsut, and many of the Ramesside tombs of the King Valley.
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