Wednesday, October 12, 2005

7 - The Cult of Horus and the Origins of Astronomy - Nr. 7

7 - The Cult of Horus
and the Origins of Astronomy - Nr. 7
Significant for our discussion of ancient celestial poles is the fact that the Arabic Bedouins in Egypt, instead of a dragon, saw a circle of camels at heaven’s center that was being attacked by hyenas.[16] We can thus understand why the Arabs have a heavenly "wolf" Al-Dhib (Thuban) where Ptolemy places the Draco the dragon. The Arabs did not originally have either dragon or falcon as symbols for heaven’s poles but rather visualized dog-like animals. Thuban (al-Dhib) did not belong to Draco, but rather marked the Arabic center of heaven as either a dog, wolf, jackal or hyena.

We have thus solved one of our two initial problems. The dragon of the ancients did not occupy both heavenly poles but only one pole, the pole of the ecliptic, without the star Thuban.

According to R.H. Allen and Patrick Moore,[17] Kochab and Pherkad, both neighboring stars in Ursa Minor and the brightest stars in the vicinity of the North Celestial Pole, were seen as "the guardians (or guards) of the pole". Kochab (magnitude 2.08), is virtually as bright as the present-day pole star Polaris (1.99). Pherkad has a magnitude of 3.05. In comparison, the more weakly shining Star Thuban has only a magnitude of 3.65. (The lower the magnitude number, the brighter the star.)

It is therefore astronomically understandable that Ursa Minor was seen as the "heavenly throne of the Thor" in Iceland and in Denmark.[18] Lockyer wrote that the traditions of Horus (the Egyptian falcon) and of the prehistoric people of "Hor-she-shu" - or "Schemesu-Hor"- (the Followers of Horus in predynastic Egypt) related in some manner to the stars of Ursa Minor.[19] Is there a connection between them?

In order to find that out, we must take our discussion to predynastic Egypt. Was it actually the falcon that marked the North Celestial Pole (the pole-star) in Egypt in ancient times?

B. The Falcon in Predynastic Egypt

The so-called "Followers of Horus" were the people who first occupied Egypt and who created Pharaonic Civilization, starting in the predynastic era. Horus, the Pharaonic falcon, was not only their "God of the Heavens" but also served as the symbol of the first Pharaonic kings, the Pharaohs, and their predecessors:[20]
__________
[16] Gerardus D. Bouw, Draco the Dragon, Biblical Astronomer, Number 100: "Thus, in Draco, instead of the head of a dragon, they saw a ring of mother camels ... surrounding a baby camel.... The camels were seen protecting the baby from a line of charging hyenas (Al Dhih, q, h, and z)."
[17] Patrick Moore, Grosser Atlas der Sterne, Naumann & Göbel, 2000.
[18] Richard Hinckley Allen, Star Names, Dover, NY, 1963, p. 450.
[19] Richard Hinckley Allen, Star Names, Dover, NY, 1963, p. 205.
[20] Alfred Grimm and Sylvia Schoske, Am Beginn der Zeit, Ägypten in der Vor- und Frühzeit; Ausstellungskatalog, Heft 9, Schriften aus der Ägyptischen Sammlung (SAS); München, Staatliches Museum Ägyptischer Kunst, 24.12. 2000 - 22.4.2001, pp. 2, 11.

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Sky Earth Native America


Sky Earth Native America 1:
American Indian Rock Art Petroglyphs Pictographs
Cave Paintings Earthworks & Mounds as Land Survey & Astronomy
,
Volume 1, Edition 2, 266 pages, by Andis Kaulins.

  • Sky Earth Native America 2:
    American Indian Rock Art Petroglyphs Pictographs
    Cave Paintings Earthworks & Mounds as Land Survey & Astronomy
    ,
    Volume 2, Edition 2, 262 pages, by Andis Kaulins.

  • Both volumes have the same cover except for the labels "Volume 1" viz. "Volume 2".
    The image on the cover was created using public domain space photos of Earth from NASA.

    -----

    Both book volumes contain the following basic book description:
    "Alice Cunningham Fletcher observed in her 1902 publication in the American Anthropologist
    that there is ample evidence that some ancient cultures in Native America, e.g. the Pawnee in Nebraska,
    geographically located their villages according to patterns seen in stars of the heavens.
    See Alice C. Fletcher, Star Cult Among the Pawnee--A Preliminary Report,
    American Anthropologist, 4, 730-736, 1902.
    Ralph N. Buckstaff wrote:
    "These Indians recognized the constellations as we do, also the important stars,
    drawing them according to their magnitude.
    The groups were placed with a great deal of thought and care and show long study.
    ... They were keen observers....
    The Pawnee Indians must have had a knowledge of astronomy comparable to that of the early white men."
    See Ralph N. Buckstaff, Stars and Constellations of a Pawnee Sky Map,
    American Anthropologist, Vol. 29, Nr. 2, April-June 1927, pp. 279-285, 1927.
    In our book, we take these observations one level further
    and show that megalithic sites and petroglyphic rock carving and pictographic rock art in Native America,
    together with mounds and earthworks, were made to represent territorial geographic landmarks
    placed according to the stars of the sky using the ready map of the starry sky
    in the hermetic tradition, "as above, so below".
    That mirror image of the heavens on terrestrial land is the "Sky Earth" of Native America,
    whose "rock stars" are the real stars of the heavens, "immortalized" by rock art petroglyphs, pictographs,
    cave paintings, earthworks and mounds of various kinds (stone, earth, shells) on our Earth.
    These landmarks were placed systematically in North America, Central America (Meso-America) and South America
    and can to a large degree be reconstructed as the Sky Earth of Native America."


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