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Mapping the Stars: The Skies of Ancient Egypt

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Astronomy of Ancient Egypt

Part of the book series: Historical & Cultural Astronomy ((HCA))

Abstract

‘Mapping’ is where the constellations, stars and other celestial bodies of ancient Egypt will be presented, all within the framework of a highly developed astral eschatology. A main research topic of the authors since decades ago, we visit beautiful astronomical ceilings, such as Senenmut’s celestial diagram that will serve as a master model for our hypotheses, and we will try to reveal the keys hidden at the famous Zodiacs of Dendara. These will be discussed along with many other interesting topics, such as the evolving planets, stellar clusters, among many other minor celestial phenomena.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    This passage could also refer to the the standstill between prograde and retrograde motion, which must have been familiar to the Egyptians. We thank Terry Mahoney (IAC) for this comment.

  2. 2.

    In many works carried out by specialists, such as Pogo (1930: 305), Clagett (1995: 112), Leitz (1995: 35), etc., a recurring error persists in placing the astronomical ceiling in chamber C of TT 353, a chamber with a vaulted ceiling that is located at the end of the tomb, and that would correspond to the burial chamber. However, the truth is that Senenmut’s chamber C does not have any decoration on its ceiling, and it is in chamber A, the first chamber, that we find this example.

  3. 3.

    ED1, ED2, ED3, etc. were catalogued by Parker and Neugebauer as A, B, C, etc.

  4. 4.

    We fear that Priskin (2019b) is an example of how the programme Stellarium must not be used to identify ancient Egyptian constellations without making use of further astronomical (e.g. intervals in RA) and textual information, and, indeed, a deep knowledge of what the sky really looks like.

  5. 5.

    Colour index is the difference between the apparent magnitudes of a star at two different wavelengths. We are citing colour indexes calculated from B and V magnitudes. Higher magnitude values refer to fainter stars.

  6. 6.

    Consulted in the database of the Starry Night Pro astronomical program.

  7. 7.

    ‘Her’, taking into account that ‘Sky’ is a feminine noun in Egyptian.

  8. 8.

    There is also a small late example at the Greek National Archaeological Museum, Athens.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias and Universidad de La Laguna, La Laguna, Spain

    Juan Antonio Belmonte

  2. Departament de Ciències de l’Antiguitat i de l’Edat Mitjana, Instituto de Estudios del Próximo Oriente Antiguo (IEPOA), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, Barcelona, Spain

    José Lull

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Belmonte, J.A., Lull, J. (2023). Mapping the Stars: The Skies of Ancient Egypt. In: Astronomy of Ancient Egypt. Historical & Cultural Astronomy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-11829-6_4

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