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Egyptian astronomy assignment
Egyptian astronomy assignment
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The existence of calendars and the concept of measuring the passage of time in yearly cycles is something we take for granted. It was the Ancient Egyptians who we have to thank for our understanding of astronomy. The calendars they created in roughly 4236 B.C.E provided a solid foundation for later civilizations to build off of, evident in the Julian and Gregorian calendars. They experimented with both sidereal and solar calendars that worked concurrently with each other as they served different purposes. The solar calendar followed civil commitments, whilst the lunar calendar had a more traditional role in recognizing religious celebrations and agricultural patterns. The ancient Egyptians were also pivotal in understanding how to successfully …show more content…
They used the motion of the stars to follow religious practices, because they believed the gods resided in the constellations. In order to pay respect to important powerful figures they erected pyramids with astronomical orientations. Orion, the god of death and afterlife, was present within the constellation of Orios, so they aligned the three pyramids of Giza Plateau with its belt. The horizon also held symbolic importance, as that was where the sun would rise and set.
The sun embodied three different gods depending on its location. The rising sun was Horus, the divine child of both Osiris and Isis, the god of Ra was reflected at noon due its prominence and strength, and the setting sun was Atum and its role was to lift the tombs of the pharos into the sky. The ancient Egyptian’s belief in immortality led them to associate the sun with rebirth and life and the night with death. Thus due to the grave importance of the stars, the Egyptians utilized a sidereal calendar.
The first ancient Egyptian calendar was originally dictated by the lunar phases. They recognized temporal days by the quarters of the moon, and divided night and day into 12 hours successively. The days were dictated by the rising and setting of the sun, which eventuated in the disappearance of the old moon, and so the months began when the waning crescent moon had
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H Breasted). This became known as the civil calendar as it was used for administrative purposes. The calendar followed the helical rising of Sirius, otherwise known as the ‘dog star’, which appeared before sunrise and preceded the annual flood. The calendar closely replicated the true solar year, but was 12 minutes short. The year was a 360-day cycle with 5 epagomenal days, which was broken down into 12 months of 30 days each. The extra epagomenal days in the calendar were denoted as ‘unlucky’ for the Ancient Egyptians as it was believed that the goddess of Sehkment was determined to destroy mankind during this period. The civil calendar was later referred to as the ‘wandering calendar’ as its synchronicity with the seasons slowly fell out of line due to its nature of being 1/4th of a day
The ancient Babylonian calendar was rather similar to our modern calendar today. All together, the Babylonian calendar had a total of 12
A group called the Powers had their own thrones of doom and were the “most holy gods.” They held council which shows already that order and rule was important. The Powers chose to give names to different times of the day spanning morning, afternoon and night and so on. This structure allowed for a calendar-like count of the days and years so that people could keep track of time. If the sun was visible in one position it was a certain time and they’d know that next the sun would set and then the moon would begin to rise marking the end of a
This book focuses on different types of calendars from a number of different places all around the world. This specific chapter, even more specifically this section, focuses on the Mayan calendar. These calendars were written by honored members of their aristocracy and were held to be of great value. The Spanish invaders believed them to be instruments of the devil and burnt great quantities of them. E. G. Richards explains that only four Mayan books are survive in the libraries of Europe, and one of those—The Dresden codex—suffered severe damage in another fire, one which was inflicted on that city in the Second World War. Richards says that the earliest record of a calendar survives from about 500 BC in Monte Alban near Oaxaca. This calendar employs a 260-day cycle, which was commonly used by several societies and is still in use among the present-day inhabitants of the region. The Maya used the calendar partly to anticipate propitious days to embark on wars and other activities. It was also used to record on stone pillars, or stelae, important events in the lives of their kings and to relate these to more mythical events of the past. The Mayan calendar system involved two major methods of specifying a specific date—the calendar round and the long count. The calendar round was used to specify a date within a period of about 52 years, while the long count served to relate such dates within a longer period named a great cycle. The calendar round involved three interlocking cycles of 13, 20, and 365 days respectively. The 365-day cycle was called a haab and was similar to the Egyptian wandering year. Each haab was divided into 18 periods called uinals; each uinal had 20 days and a name. The 18 uinal were followed by five epagomen...
The calendars and the calculations made are very important to the people’s culture and the importance of time. The Egyptians, Gregorian's, and the Mayans calendar all represent the importance of time in their culture. Each of these has different forms of finding the times and the creations of the calendars. The Egyptians created their calendars based on the Sirius, the Gregorian's creation was based on the Julian calendar, and the Mayans calendar was due to their astronomical table calculations. Each of these shows the different creations based on the people's cultures and beliefs.
The Maya elite developed a complicated calendar system. There are two main cycles in their calendar; one was made up of 260 days and the other 365. Each day is named from both the 260 and 365-day calendars. Because of this each full day name could only repeat every 18,980 days or once every 52 years.
One of the earlier group of ancient people we have on record or we know about is the Egyptians. The Egyptians calendar was primarily based on the moon cycles but they later had realized that the " Dog Star" was next to the sun every 365 days.(Doc 1 pg.52) Now they believed this was the annual inundation of the Nile which was one of their cultural beliefs. This Means that they used their culture in combination with the sun and moon which they called the annual inundation of the Nile which became part of their culture. The Egyptians calendar was based on their beliefs such as the Mayan
The Mesoamerican calendar consists of two time counting pieces. The first part is the 260-day divinatory calendar, which was imperative in Mesoamerican cosmology as well as in their personal lives. This repea...
...was used to define the best ways to plant, harvest, build or go to war. The other calendar which called “Counting of years” was sacred. The Mayans had three calendars: the Tun-Uc, the Haab and the Tzolk’in. The first “Tun-Uc” followed the cycle of the moon. Another was Haab who used for planting, harvesting and other events. And finally the last calendar called “Tzolk’in”, it was a sacred calendar. Each calendar had something different and something similar to each other.
Informative Presentation Evrim Tonguç Kızıl 1739630 Mining Engineering Outline Technology of Ancient Egypt • Clocks • Calendar • Paper was made from the papyrus plant • Black Ink • First Ox-Drawn Plows • 360 Days Calendar • First Triangular Shaped Pyramids • Organized labor • Sails Ancient Egyptian Technology and Innovation (Shaw, 2012) Water Clock Sundial Water Clocks Two Main Parts • Up Pot • Bottom Pot Photo retrieved from: http://web.stanford.edu/group/kircher/cgi-bin/site/wp-content/uploads/kircher_053-824x1024.jpg How did ancient civilizations use sundials to tell time?
The Long Count calendar, also known as the astronomical calendar, (the one that caused all the doomsday panic and prophecies) was used to cover longer periods of time. The Mayans called these long periods of time the “Universal Cycle”. The Mayans believed the universe gets destroyed and is then recreated with the beginning of each universal cycle. This belief is what fuels end of the world prophecies, especially those stemming from the Mayan calendar.
The Chinese use the lunar calendar. “Although China has adopted the Gregorian calendar in common with most other countries in the world for official and business purposes, the traditional Chinese calendar continues to define the dates of festivals and used for horoscopes” (“Chinese calendar”). The lunar calendar is based on of the moon. It uses the moon phases to figure out each month.
People in Iran have used the Solar Hijri calendar for over two millennia which is one of the longest chronological records in human history. The Solar Hijri calendar is also known as the Iranian or the Persian calendar. I lived in Iran about eighteen years, and now for about three years that I have been living in the United States of America. So I am familiar with two kinds of calendar, the Iranian calendar and the Gregorian calendar, which we use in the United States of America. One important difference between these two calendars is that the Solar Hijri calendar is based on astronomical observation while the Gregorian calendar is based on mathematical rules. However, both have twelve months with four weeks each and four seasons in a
"The Egyptian sun god Ra, considered the father of all pharaohs, was said to have created himself from a pyramid-shaped mound of earth before creating all other gods. The pyramid’s shape is thought to have symbolized the sun’s rays" (Donald B. Redford, Ph.D., Penn State).[2]
One cultural group was especially important for their discoveries in astronomy, the Egyptians. They were especially important because they were one of the first groups of people to create an accurate calendar. This calendar was different than others because it was based off of the Sun and stars rather than the moon. The calendars purpose was to make correct estimates of when to plan...
Today’s seven day week originates from the Babylonians’ seven important bodies in the night sky: the Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn. The ancient Egyptians used the stars to align their pyramids and many of their corridors in almost perfect north-south or east-west directions. The Chinese are experts at predicting solar eclipses. They believed that a solar eclipse was a dangerous warning. Chinese astronomers were executed if they failed to predict an eclipse.