Ancient Egypt Weblog

Ancient Egypt Stellar Constellations and Nomes : What Historical Relation Exists to an Alleged Astronomical Decipherment of the Neolithic Camel Site in Northern Arabia?

2021-10-31T18:04:00.000+01:00

The Celestial River: Identifying the Ancient Egyptian Constellations, Sino-Platonic Papers, 253 (December 2014), Victor H. Mair, Editor, Dept. of East Asian Languages & Civilizations, Univ. of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, 19104-6305 USA, vmair@sas.upenn.edu, www.sino-platonic.org

authored by Alessandro Berio

-- as posted by Magdi Saleh at Academia.edu --

presents astronomical analysis that bears significantly upon our recent postings about the Northern Arabia "Camel Site", which we have -- allegedly --- deciphered as Neolithic astronomy, and which, in our opinion maps the stars of the starry night ca. 4800 B.C.

... with "the legs of the Camel" standing on the Celestial Equator at the Vernal Equinox, the left side of the camel marking the Summer Solstice and the right side of the camel marking the Winter Solstice, with the stars in the heavens being marked by carved figures and cupules (holes viz. indentations carved into stone).

We thank here the website Academia.edu for alerting us to the respective link to the article by Berio as found at https://www.academia.edu/23910738/The_Celestial_River_Identifying_the_Ancient_Egyptian_Constellations.

We are sympathetic to Berio's approach, but our present posting does not engage in individual analysis -- pro or contra -- of the ancient Egyptian Constellations identified in Berio's publication or the system of rising and setting stars that is said there to explain some of the hieroglyphs (viz. "emblems") of the nomes. Each reader can evaluate the material on their own starting at the above link.

Given our own knowledge and understanding of the use of rising and setting stars in ancient astronomy and given our own writings about MUL.APIN : Decipherment as Astronomy (see there for a start), we find that Berio has definitely produced a remarkable and highly interesting analysis which deserves our attention. See in this regard also our year 2004 postings on the astronomical and hermetic significance ("as above, so below") of the nomes of Egypt at:

What interests us here as a general matter is the star placement comparison of:

a map of the heavens that results from our decipherment of the ca. 4800 B.C. Neolithic Northern Arabia Camel Site

THE NEOLITHIC CAMEL SITE of NORTHERN ARABIA
ASTRONOMICAL DECIPHERMENT as ca. 4800 B.C. by ANDIS KAULINS

with Berio's Classical star map with Ptolemaic constellations compared to nome emblems overlaid on a map of the sky circa 3100 BC as seen from Memphis (30.57° N).

Classical Star Map with Ptolemaic Stellar Constellations and
Nome Emblems Overlaid on a Sky Map ca. 3100 B.C.
according to Alessandro Berio

Our decipherment placement of starry night stars at the Camel Site finds numerous comparables in depiction on the above map of Ancient Egyptian stellar constellations as represented by Berio, though we do not agree on all of them, but that latter is not the issue here. Some DO agree, and that is what is important.

Moreover, in terms of researching the importance of the Ancient Egyptian nomes as hermetic astronomy ("as above, so below"), perhaps marking rising and setting stars, take a look at our Camel Site decipherment finding that the dog, Anubis, is there at the position of the stars of Libra, which stellar location was a mystery to us initially, but which makes sense as a placement given the rising and setting star analysis for nome emblems by Berio, who writes as follows:

"Sirius, the brightest star of Canis Major, was identified with the goddess Isis-Sothis, the Egyptian mother goddess. Diodorus explains that the ritual procession of the Festival of Isis was led by dogs, an association illustrated in a passage by Diodorus:

On the stele of Isis it runs: “I am Isis, the queen of every land… I am she who riseth in the star that is in the Constellation of the Dog; by me was the city of Bubastus built.”

The capital of the 18th nome of Upper Egypt ... was a place for the worship of Anubis, the dog-headed god, as the city was known as the “House of Anubis.” This nome corresponded to the time at which Canis Major’s star, Aludra, known as the “Virgins” to early Arab astronomers, was in its lower culmination, and Spica, the brightest star in Virgo, the virgin, was setting ...."

It would seem, therefore, as a possibility, that the astronomy deciphered by us at the Neolithic Camel Site in Northern Arabia may be a precursor to the hermetic ("as above, so below") astronomy of the later Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt.

Obviously, the historical ramifications are substantial if the chronological dates in question -- starting with around 4800 B.C. -- are correct. And it also may raise the question of whether the creators of the Camel Site were indigenous inhabitants, or more distant nomads, or, indeed, especially because of the "megalithic" style of portrayal, were perhaps even more distant ancient surveyors, stargazers and/or navigators from elsewhere who first carved the astronomical figures in Northern Arabia.

See in this wider connection our previous postings at:

The Eye of Horus at Abydos Marks Stars at the North Celestial Pole ca 3360 BC

2019-05-06T10:53:00.001+02:00

The Eye of Horus is marked in the stars at Abydos to represent the eternal celestial eye at the North Celestial Pole. This decipherment is more or less indisputable, given our previous postings. Abydos shows us the origin of this symbol as a "sky" marker and later hieroglyph, which points correctly to the right and not to the left as erroneously found in Gardiner's hieroglyph sign list.

The Eye of Horus in the Stars Marked at Abydos as the North Celestial Pole
(click on the graphic for a larger image in case your graphic appears too small)

Note please that this posting follows the immediately previous postings, which should be consulted for full understanding. For further background, see also my article The Origin of the Cult of Horus in Predynastic Egypt

at Research Gate at the link
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265492234_The_Origin_of_the_Cult_of_Horus_in_Predynastic_Egypt.

The underlying star map above is via the astronomy software Starry Night Pro. We have added the labels and the drawing of the Eye of Horus within the stars.

Our drawing of the Eye of Horus above is based on an image online by Jeff Dahl at the link https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Eye_of_Horus_Right.svg, Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0), who writes:

"Eye of Horus (right eye). Following the sources, it must be the right eye (the left eye that is the original image has another meaning)."

The Wikipedia writes at Eye of Horus:

"The Eye of Horus was represented as a hieroglyph, designated D10 in Gardiner's sign list. It is represented in the Unicode character block for Egyptian hieroglyphs as U+13080 (𓂀)."

The left orientation of Gardiner's D10 is in error.

In fact, the Egyptologists over time have gotten the Eye of Horus backward, facing left, when it should properly be shown facing to the right, as it is actually found in the stars.

It is only later that the original meaning of the hieroglyph to mark the North Celestial Pole became confused with Ra, after its true meaning had been lost.

As written at Ancient Egypt Online:

"According to later traditions, the right eye represented the sun and so is called the “Eye of Ra” while the left represented the moon and was known as the “eye of Horus” (although it was also associated with Thoth)." [emphasis added]

The Eye of Horus mirrors lines shaped by stars around "the eye" in heaven, but those lines were in all probability also intended to represent similar eyelines of the lanner or peregrine falcon. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horus.

In any case, based on our decipherment as published in this posting, it is now possible to understand the initial significance of the Eye of Horus in the stars in predynastic Egypt at the inception of Pharaonic civilization. It marked the North Celestial Pole as the center of heaven.

Abydos: Correction of Google Earth Coordinates for the Tumps Representing Stars Near the North Celestial Pole

2019-05-06T10:51:00.002+02:00

Please note that we have corrected the coordinates
for the base Google Earth image in the previous posting!
(corrected April 12, 2019)

The correct coordinates for the image made November 7, 2018 are:
Google Earth 26°10'01.38N 31°54'36.72E
cross-checked at the online "Earth 3D Map"
which converts to 26°10'01.4"N 31°54'36.7"E and
is found online at
http://earth3dmap.com/#?l=26%C2%B010'01.38N%2031%C2%B054'36.72E
with the coordinate point at ca. the middle of the "eye-shaped" stars....

See the previous posting.

Abydos Ground Plan as Astronomy Proved on the Ground: "Tumps" Mark Stars at the North Celestial Pole ca 3360 BC

2019-05-06T10:49:00.001+02:00

Please note that we have corrected the coordinates
for the base Google Earth image! (April 12, 2019)

The correct coordinates for the image made November 7, 2018 are:
Google Earth 26°10'01.38N 31°54'36.72E
crosschecked at the online "Earth 3D Map"
which converts to 26°10'01.4"N 31°54'36.7"E and is found online at
http://earth3dmap.com/#?l=26%C2%B010'01.38N%2031%C2%B054'36.72E
with the coordinate point at ca. the middle of the "eye-shaped" stars....
__________

We present here incontrovertible proof that the original ground plan of Abydos and its associated predynastic funerary significance was astronomical viz. (for religious purposes) "heavenly" viz. "heaven-centered" in nature.

As we have deciphered in past postings, the Processional Valley at Abydos marks the (tail) stars of Draco and ends at the North Celestial Pole.

Are there any stars marked there on the ground in hermetic fashion, i.e. "as above, so below"?

Let us take a look at that area on the ground via Google Earth, which is the image below into which we have included the latitude and longitude settings so that one can find this area of our planet more easily:

Image clip (below) Google Earth 2018 at 26°10'01.38"N 31°54'36.72"E

(please click on the image to view a larger graphic)

The round objects are like "tumps" or similar markings on the ground.

What caught our eye particularly in the above image were the group of tumps on the ground in an "eye-shape" towards the center right, a figure comparable to star positions that we recognized (26°10'01.38"N 31°54'36.72"E). Were those the positions of some stars near the North Celestial Pole ca. 3000 BC?

The image below is a clip from Starry Night Pro of the possibly comparable stars represented by the Abydos image above. See if you can find an eye-shaped comparable figure in these stars, just below the North Celestial Pole in 3360 BC.

Image clip (below) via Starry Night Pro

of the stars near the North Celestial Pole in 3360 BC

(please click on the image to view a larger graphic)

Now look at the Abydos ground plan next to the allegedly comparable stars.

Image clip (below) of the Comparable Stars (via Starry Night Pro)

next to the "Tumps" on the Ground at Abydos at a Position we have previously identified as marking the North Celestial Pole 3360 BC

26°10'01.38"N 31°54'36.72"E

(please click on the image to view a larger graphic
so that you can see the clear correspondence match)

Is that a match? ABSOLUTELY.

ABSOLUTELY. It is obvious.

We post these materials online, by the way, because we are interested in how the historical past of humankind actually was, and not how it is erroneously portrayed by errant mainstreamers, who are on the wrong path.

We have little hope of reaching the minds of financially established academic researchers in these fields because their minds are apparently closed and their pocketbooks full. God forgive them. "Pocketbooks" is used here in the broader sense to include things like "academic reputation" and the "years invested", all of which people are of course unwilling to give up by changing their course.

We DO reach out however to new, young minds in historical fields who are at least willing to consider astronomical solutions in their researches.
You do not have to agree, but you should at least LOOK. LOOK.

The probative evidence for the importance of astronomy to prehistoric humankind and the instances pointing to "heavenly" veneration of the stars by ancient cultures is overwhelming ... OVERWHELMING!

Religion did not start in a day and God is "in heaven" and not elsewhere for a reason. The ancients revered the starry sky and that is where they put their gods. It took thousands of years for our modern "heaven-oriented" beliefs to develop out of that. Why is this probative evidence ignored?

P.S. We continue on, nevertheless.
Do you see the profile of a Pharaoh-like person (with elongated beard) in the background of the Google Earth image above, facing right? There are more such man-made "figures" at Abydos. We shall present them in subsequent postings.

Abydos Boats, Umm El-Qaab, Kochab, Stars, Cepheus, Ursa Minor, Ursa Major, Cassiopeia, Draco

2019-05-06T10:46:00.004+02:00

Question: Why have we titled this posting "Abydos Boats, Umm El-Qaab, KKB, Kochab, Stars, Cepheus, Ursa Minor, Ursa Major, Cassiopeia, Draco and the Mother of Pots of Mainstream Bad Archaeology Lost in Yesteryear"?

Answer: Because the ancient predynastic Pharaonic Egyptian funerary site Umm El-Qaab epitomizes the wayward wrong path that mainstream Archaeology and related disciplines have been taking since their inception in their misunderstanding of the nature of the early history of Ancient Egypt.
The historical disciplines, lost in pots, have totally missed their boats, as it were, by failing viz. refusing to ask the simple question of whether much of what has been found in prehistory could be related to ancient religious beliefs as tied to the veneration of the stars above -- "in heaven" as it were.

According to current mainstream dogma, the name of Umm El-Qaab viz. Umm El Gaʻab, is (erroneously) traced to the Arabic term qa-ab "small bowl" and thus the site name is transliterated "Mother of Pots" because of all the ancient pot sherds found in the area and purportedly arising from offerings to the gods. But why here? People in Egyptology call their current view "science". We call it "folk etymology" and unsubstantiated guessing.

Aimo Edvard (Edward) Murtonen (1924-1996),
often written simplified with the initial A. Murtonen, formerly Department of Middle Eastern Studies, University of Melbourne, who was a student of Paul E. Kahle, University of Bonn, Germany,
in Section Bb, page 226 of
Hebrew in Its West Semitic Setting: A Comparative Survey of Non-Masoretic Hebrew Dialects and Traditions. Part 1. A Comparative Lexicon Volume 3 Sections Bb. Root System: Comparative Material and Discussions. Sections C, D and E: Numerals under 100, Pronouns and Particles, Hebrew MaterialSeries: Studies in Semitic Languages and Linguistics, a massive work described as "This ... lexical part of the work ... contains comparative material to the root system from cognate languages, including sixteen Semitic and three Cushitic fairly well represented languages as well as Tuareg, Hausa, old Egyptian and Coptic quoted systematically; Omotic; Berber other than Tuareg, and Chadic other than Hausa likewise as groups; other Semitic and Cushitic less regularly; etymological and semantic comments follow dictionary entries; phonological discussion, including an attempt at the determination of pre-Semitic phonemes on the basis of actual attestation, is mainly concentrated in the introduction...."

has the following entry for the consonantal combination "KB":

"Phoen /kkb/ star; Ug /kbkb/ (pl. /kbkbm/, /kkbm/) =; Aram /ko^wkb/ = ; Syr /kawkb/ = ; Amor /kabkab/ = ; Akk /kakkab/ = ; Arab /kawkab/ =, constellation; ESA /kwkb/ star .... Etymology uncertain; Aram etc. /kbb/ seems to mean primarily roasting rather than just burning...."

The above term has its Indo-European comparable, e.g. Latvian kūp- kūpt, written by Mühlenbachs-Endzelins as kûpt, kûpstu, kûpu meaning "qualmen, dampfen, rauchen" ... with the variants kvēp-, kvēpu "qualmen, rauchen". In English the best translation is perhaps a "fuming fire", as the ancients apparently originally viewed the stars, i.e. as red-hot wood-burning campfires.

Adding to our previous postings on the Abydos Boats as marking stars at the Harbor of Cepheus ...

... we can now view that central portion of the starry sky in a larger context at Abydos as follows, demonstrating that Umm El-Qaab marks the stars of Ursa Minor (with Qaab arguably specifically equivalent to Kochab) ... the curving Processional Way marking the stars of Draco and arguably the North Celestial Pole. In addition, the stars of Ursa Major and Cassiopeia are also marked on the ground surface in hermetic fashion by edifices, i.e. "as above, so below". Here is our composite decipherment of Abydos and Umm El-Qaab as marking the stars at the center of heaven and thus being the funerary center of predynastic Egypt. There are three images -- 1) the ground plan, 2) the corresponding stars, and 3) the composite ground plan and sky.

Image 1 (below): Abydos and Umm El-Qaab Ground Plan

Image 2 (below): Abydos and Umm El-Qaab Corresponding Stars

Image 3 (below): THE COMPOSITE DECIPHERMENT IMAGE
Abydos and Umm El-Qaab Composite Ground Plan and Sky

(Please click on the image to obtain a larger graphic)

We thus do not have the banal "Mother of Pots" at Umm El-Qaab, as the pot-geeked archaeologists and related professions would have us believe, but rather, we have the "Father of Fumes", as it were, the Midheaven of Stars.

Since the astronomical nature of Abydos is thus made quite crystal clear by this decipherment, all the disciplines involved in trying to understand mankind's ancient history will have to abandon the misunderstood paths they have been following up to now, and will now have to follow the true hermetic path, "as above, so below". That is the origin of our (humankind's) "heavenly" beliefs, indeed, long before the Pharaohs.

The Abydos Boats Docked in the "Harbor" of Cepheus

2019-05-06T10:43:00.001+02:00

In our previous posting titled

Abydos Boats and Enclosures Mark the Stars of Cepheus, One of the Argonauts Immortalized in the Stars: Are These The Boats of Jason and his Minyans?

we showed that the Abydos Boats are "docked" at the "harbor" of Cepheus, which is marked in a figure at the Dolmen viz. Tumulus of Mane Lud Locmariaquer in Morbihan, France. See our previous posting on The Dolmen viz. Tumulus of Mane Lud viz. Mané Lud Locmariaquer Morbihan France Deciphered as Marking the Stars of the Vernal Equinox ca. 4320 BC.

The following graphic arguably shows why those boats were docked at Cepheus in ca. 3360 BC, being at a central astronomical location in the era of 3360 BC, not just in terms of the Milky Way, but also with regard to the North Galactic Pole, the North Ecliptic Pole, the North Celestial Pole, and the Winter Solstice, all of which are located on a line that sets off the Cepheus harbor.

We thus consider the era of 3360 BC to be a likely date for the real voyage of the legendary Jason and the Argonauts, coinciding with the start of protodynastic Egypt.

This may relate to the influx of "Gerzeh Culture" into Egypt.

As written in the Wikipedia: "Some symbols on Gerzeh pottery resemble traditional Egyptian hieroglyphs, which were contemporaneous with the proto-cuneiform script of Sumer."

Please click on the graphic below to obtain a larger, more readable image.

The general topic of ancient seafarers also has to do with significant changes in the European genetic picture, which changed dramatically ca. 4500 B.C., about the same time that we claim that the megalithic calendar was instituted in 4320 BC.

See Ker Than, Modern Europe's Genetic History Starts in Stone Age, National Geographic News, in which the sub-headline is that "Scientists create the first detailed genetic history of modern Europe".

As Ker Than writes:

"DNA recovered from ancient skeletons reveals that the genetic makeup of modern Europe was established around 4,500 B.C. in the mid-Neolithic...."

Abydos Boats and Enclosures Mark Stars of Cepheus

2019-05-06T10:40:00.006+02:00

We have a new decipherment -- the Abydos Boats and Enclosures, which we have found to mark the stars of Cepheus, as follows in the graphic below. By tradition, Cepheus is regarded to have been one of the Argonauts -- Minyans who "went out to measure" the Earth via astronomy in a pioneer seafaring voyage, by our calculations, ca. 5000 years ago. Were these the maritime boats by which Jason and the Argonauts conducted their mission? Perhaps.

For background, it might prove useful for the reader to read our past posting Ancient Seafaring, Megaliths, Egypt, Phoenicia, Carthage and the Periplus of Hanno (and for an inkling of what is to come in our forthcoming postings on a PNAS article just published by Bettina Schulz Paulsson, Radiocarbon dates and Bayesian modeling support maritime diffusion model for megaliths in Europe).

Click on the image to obtain a larger image for a better reading of the text. Enjoy.

EarthSky.org reports on Prehistoric Cave Art as Ancient Complex Astronomy with Animals representing Constellations in the Night Sky

2018-12-23T19:25:00.001+01:00

Eleanor Imster at Human World in EarthSky.org reports on the use of prehistoric cave art in ancient astronomy.

See Prehistoric cave art suggests ancient use of complex astronomy.

Ancient Cave Paintings Are Astronomy is the Latest News from the University of Edinburgh

2018-12-23T18:58:00.001+01:00

The latest news from the University of Edinburgh headlines that
Cave paintings reveal use of complex astronomy, reporting that:

"Some of the world’s oldest cave paintings have revealed how ancient people had relatively advanced knowledge of astronomy.

The artworks, at sites across Europe, are not simply depictions of wild animals, as was previously thought.

Instead, the animal symbols represent star constellations in the night sky, and are used to represent dates and mark events such as comet strikes, analysis suggests.

They reveal that, perhaps as far back as 40,000 years ago, humans kept track of time using knowledge of how the position of the stars slowly changes over thousands of years."

For the last 30 years we have been writing books and articles explaining that ancient rock art, cave paintings and megalithic sites, including carvings and markings on the megaliths themselves, represent "complex" ancient astronomy. See e.g. http://www.megaliths.net/

We are very happy to see that other researchers are now increasingly drawing similar conclusions to those we have been publishing for decades.

Hat tips to StonePages Archaeo News

and to EurekaAlert.org at
Prehistoric cave art reveals ancient use of complex astronomy

Just keep those congratulatory cards and letters coming ....

As we have written for decades, much of Ancient Egypt was also focused on astronomy.

The Out of Africa Migration Was Via Egypt and Not Ethiopia Says New Genetic Research

2015-05-29T15:50:00.002+02:00

We have always thought that the most logical topographically-determined path for the "Out of Africa" sojourn of humanity was via Egypt and the Nile and then along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea and beyond.

New genetic research, as reported by Joseph Dussault yesterday
at the Christian Science Monitor,
tell us that Early humans left Africa through Egypt.

Dussault discusses the results of a genetic study by Luca Pagani et al. in the American Journal of Human Genetics titled Tracing the Route of Modern Humans out of Africa by Using 225 Human Genome Sequences from Ethiopians and Egyptians.

That article is summarized at that open-access article CC BY-NC-ND as follows:

"The predominantly African origin of all modern human populations is well established, but the route taken out of Africa is still unclear. Two alternative routes, via Egypt and Sinai or across the Bab el Mandeb strait into Arabia, have traditionally been proposed as feasible gateways in light of geographic, paleoclimatic, archaeological, and genetic evidence. Distinguishing among these alternatives has been difficult. We generated 225 whole-genome sequences (225 at 8× depth, of which 8 were increased to 30×; Illumina HiSeq 2000) from six modern Northeast African populations (100 Egyptians and five Ethiopian populations each represented by 25 individuals). West Eurasian components were masked out, and the remaining African haplotypes were compared with a panel of sub-Saharan African and non-African genomes. We showed that masked Northeast African haplotypes overall were more similar to non-African haplotypes and more frequently present outside Africa than were any sets of haplotypes derived from a West African population. Furthermore, the masked Egyptian haplotypes showed these properties more markedly than the masked Ethiopian haplotypes, pointing to Egypt as the more likely gateway in the exodus to the rest of the world. Using five Ethiopian and three Egyptian high-coverage masked genomes and the multiple sequentially Markovian coalescent (MSMC) approach, we estimated the genetic split times of Egyptians and Ethiopians from non-African populations at 55,000 and 65,000 years ago, respectively, whereas that of West Africans was estimated to be 75,000 years ago. Both the haplotype and MSMC analyses thus suggest a predominant northern route out of Africa via Egypt."

The Ahmose Tempest Stela in New Translation as Describing the Explosion of the Volcano Santorini on Thera and the Resulting Need to Reconstruct Egyptian and Biblical Chronology

2014-06-16T15:22:00.001+02:00

We are pleased to report that a "new translation" of the Ahmose Tempest Stela by Nadine Moeller and Robert Ritner -- in our opinion correctly -- resurrects the clear and logical connection between that Tempest Stela and the modernly studied mega-eruption of the volcano Santorini on Thera. See Robert K. Ritner and Nadine Moeller, The Ahmose 'Tempest Stela', Thera and Comparative Chronology, Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 73, No. 1, April, 2014. 10.1086/675069. Full text at http://www.jstor.org/stable/full/10.1086/675069.
[For background, see generally also LiveScience.com.]

Ritner writes in the introduction to that article:

"In 1994, the Aegeanist Karen Polinger Foster brought to my attention a presentation delivered by Ellen Davis five years previously. Within her lecture, Davis had introduced the evidence of a unique Egyptian stela into the complex discussions regarding the absolute date of the volcanic eruption at Thera (Santorini). Karen’s question to me was fairly simple: was there anything in the wording of the stela that could justify a link with the Thera event? After reviewing the Davis article and the edited text of the stela, I became convinced that the possibility existed, particularly since the text as translated intentionally suppressed its most striking phraseology.

Previously published for an Egyptological audience by Claude Vandersleyen, the fragmentary stela recounts the devastations and reconstructions resulting from an extraordinary cataclysm in early Eighteenth Dynasty Egypt. While storms can be noted in Egyptian literature, Ahmose’s Tempest Stela is without parallel in extending the destructive effects to the entirety of the country. The remarkable nature of the event, described in unprecedented detail, is stressed by the text itself, which attributes the disaster to divine displeasure (recto ll. 6–7), while yet declaring that it was greater than divine wrath and exceeded the gods’ plans (recto l. 10)."

Why has it taken so long for the academic community to recognize the obvious?!

Scholars in the historical disciplines "historically" have not had a good track record in interpreting ancient evidence, and one reason for this, as we have previously stated, is that they are not trained in their disciplines to analyze "Evidence", as is done in "Law" studies.

Many historical publications still have not learned that the opinions of professors, past or present, are NOT "evidence". They are merely that, OPINION.

Indeed, much historical research at the university level in these disciplines follows the German saying "Es kann nicht sein, was nicht sein darf", freely translated into English as "That can not be, which is not allowed [by our theories]". No professor wants to admit that the ancient world chronology he or she has been following all of his or her professional career is simply wrong.

As a result, the "historical professions" (Archaeology, Biblical Studies, Egyptology, Ancient Near East Studies, Historical Linguistics, Aegean Studies, etc.) have for years preferred to rely on the often deluded, self-fulfilling prophecies found in the publications of their own "authorities" (i.e. the authoritarian opinion leaders and journals in their respective fields) rather than taking the option of critically examining the developing facts at hand to determine what the current probative evidence actually tells them.

When push comes to shove, new facts have been twisted or ignored to fit the outdated theories of various erroneous schools of thought and their adherents -- and these are the dusty relics that still dominate historical research.

Mainstream chronology of ancient human history is thus bogged down in an erroneous quagmire of stubborn, outdated, academic wishful thinking which is simply not matched by the probative evidence of what the actual facts tell us.

Let us in this context take a look at a 1998 article Separate Lives: The Ahmose Tempest Stela and the Theran Eruption, Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Vol. 57, No. 1, Jan., 1998 in which a connection between the Ahmose Tempest Stela and the eruption of Santorini on Thera, as previouly proposed by C. Vandersleyen, H. Goedicke, E. N. Davis, K. P. Foster and R. K. Ritner is alleged "not to be supported by the evidence".

And what is the "evidence" referred to? Written, incredibly, is the following:

"Rather, we believe the description is inconsistent with what is known about the earthquake and the following eruption at Thera, consistent with the nature of monsoon-generated Nile floods, and characteristic of a genre of texts describing the restoration of order by rulers." [emphasis added]

That all has very little probative value. "Belief" is a conviction drawn on the ABSENCE of proof and is not science. Facts demand no "belief". Facts are facts.

Quite the contrary, absolutely nothing in the known factual record about the explosion of Santorini substantially contradicts the Tempest Stela.

Furthermore, it is doubtful that any ruler would ever have put up such a stela for a Nile flood, which was a standard annual occurrence in Egypt in those days.

Lastly, as far as we can see, no probative "genre of text" can be produced that convincingly approaches similarity to the Tempest Stela.

We have for years argued that the Thera explosion is integrally tied to identifiable Biblical events, e.g. at the LexiLine Journal in
New Revised Chronology of the Ancient World based on New Carbon Evidence of the Date for Thera and Santorini Eruption - LexiLine Journal 411.

We have for years also published online a revised chronology of the Ancient World, based on this knowledge.

The ultimate chronological answer is fairly clear. Mainstream Egyptian chronology must be reconstructed and Biblical chronology must be moved substantially "backward" in time. The other "backward" question is how we get the "backward" people in science to progress "forward" into the 21st century. That is the tougher question.

Ancient Sea Navigation and the Dhow Sailing Vessel

2014-05-11T11:00:00.001+02:00

What is the origin of the dhow sailing vessel?

See the nice photo of the dhow at
Compass - Yahoo Travel at Flickr Photo of the Day
at Echoes of Sinbad the sailor

See in this general context of ancient sea navigation our posting at the Ancient World Blog on
Ancient Seafaring, Megaliths, Egypt, Phoenicia, Carthage and the Periplus of Hanno

The Standing Stones (Megaliths) of Al Rajajil Deciphered as an Ancient Land Survey Triangulation: لرجاجيل في سكاكا al-Rajajeel Archeological Site

2013-03-22T17:52:00.001+01:00

In previous postings at
Land Survey Corner Stones of Ancient Egypt and Arabia: Sais (Sa al Hajar, Rosetta Stone), Nabta Playa (Table Rock Stone), Mecca (Kaaba), Dumat Al-Jandal (Missing Stone)
and at
Sais, Champollion, the Rosetta Stone and Google Earth in the Context of the Alleged Four Corner Stones of Sais, Nabta Playa, Mecca, and Dumat Al-Jandal viz. Sakaka and Al Rajajil

I suggested that there was an ancient land survey and triangulation via four "corner stones" in "prehistoric" Ancient Egypt and Arabia (4th millennium BC).

In my opinion, the standing stones of Al Rajajil (also written Al Rajajeel and Al Rajajeal), as shown in the images below, are a still existing documentation on the ground of that very calculation by ancient triangulation.

But first, let us obtain some information on Al Rajajeel.

The standing stones (megaliths) of Al Rajajil, لرجاجيل في سكاكا al-Rajajeel Archeological Site (also written Al Rajajeal), are described via the Saudi Commission for Tourism & Antiquities (SCTA) (Arabic: الـهـيــئة العـامـة للسيــاحة والآثــار )
at http://www.scta.gov.sa/, where Thamer Aud Al Malki writes in Archeological Sites in Al Jouf Province as follows:

Archeological Sites in Al Jouf Province:
by Thamer Aud Al Malki

3. Archeological Sites:

3-5 Al Rajajeal Antiquities "Erected Stones":
"The erected stones are located on 040.13.199 longitude and 29.48.664 latitude, 5 kilometers to the south of Garah administrative center.... [T]he site is on high ground overlooking a large area of low level to its north, and the current site has an area of approximately 300 m × 500 m with an extension in the west, where there are a number of separate groups of stone on the main site.” The site consists of a group of about fifty stone columns. The numbers of the columns in each group are differing from the other groups. [Columns also appear in] compact straight lines, some columns rise to more than 3.5 m, while others did not exceed 50 cm in height due to the fall of the upper parts of some of these columns and the thickness of 75 cm per column. There are also writings on some of the columns. The site dates back to the copper age or the fourth millennium BC.

These columns are believed to be primarily a religious site or second class graves. We hope researches and excavations will reveal to us the secrets of the site. It should be noted that the location of Al Rajajeal site to some extent, looks like the site of "Stonehenge" ... located 8 miles from Salisbury in England, a temple built from a combination of huge stones made in a circular motion ... topped by ... huge stone slabs." ...

3-10 Dumat Al Jandal Wall:
Dumat Al Jandal boundary wall is considered ... one of the ancient antiquities in the city.... The wall is located at the western side of the city. Its height reaches around 4.5 meters....

3-11 Lake of Dumat Al Jandal:
The lake is ... one of the important sites where visitors to the region ... reflect the third dimension of the whereabouts of the old city's population, because the water is the main source of the continuity of life. A tour has been taken around the lake and to its surrounding areas for to be in touch with the ancient life and to specify how people were living as well as the area and the density of the population in Dumat Al Jandal. The lake is fed by the groundwater besides the excess water from farms which flow to the middle of the lake. This is a beautiful tourist lake outlet must be exploited."

See in this regard also:

In the presence of HRH President of SCTA, Al Jouf Amir to lay foundation stone of Al Jouf Museum, and see also the 360° views at:
Al Jouf Museum, Al Rajajeel Ruins, Dawmat Al Jandal Lake, and Mared Fortress

And now let us turn to the images:

Below is the image of the alleged four corner stones:

The Four Corner Stones of Ancient Egypt and Arabia

Below is an image from Google Earth in which I show how those same four corner stones are represented by standing stones (megaliths) at Al Rajajeel:

The Four Corner Stones of Ancient Egypt and Arabia
as represented by the Standing Stones (Megaliths) at Al Rajajeel

Below is an image from Google Earth in which I show how the actual triangulation was made, with two presumably triangulated "ties" of the triangulation marked by us at the blue circles.

The Triangulation of the Four Corner Stones of Ancient Egypt and Arabia
I cite to Surveyors.com: "Triangulation land survey technique uses series'
of connected triangles that join and overlap each other, and from there
the angles can be measure from determined stations. This is the most
commonly used land survey technique and is also very efficient as it
minimizes the number of measurement that need to be made."

The distances between the four corner stones on the ground at Al Rajajeel are thus simply fractions of the actual distance between the corner stones and the sides of the Al Rajajil four-corner triangulation. They run an average length of about .08 miles between corners using the measuring ruler at Google Earth.

The formula to discover the scale that they used is thus .08 miles times X = 580 miles (the average distance between the actual corner stones), which gives us a result of ca. 72.5 miles for X, which is the length in miles of one degree of latitude that we previously calculated for our stone age surveyors, and not that far off from the 69.172 miles calculated by modern land survey.

Perhaps the calculation of the ancients was more sophisticated than that -- but I leave that reckoning to others, who may wish to refine this pioneer work.

As we previously wrote:

"The modern-day value for the length of 1 degree of latitude is equal to
1 degree x 69.172 miles at the Equator. This does not vary significantly toward the poles.
The four corner stones of Sais, Nabta Playa, Mecca and Dumat Al-Jandal from North to South cover ca. 580 miles for ca. 8 degrees of latitude, which gives an ancient value (4000 years ago) by stone age astronomy of ca. 72.5 miles per degree of latitude. Some observers may expect more accuracy than that. We do not, for that era.
The modern-day formula for the length of 1 degree of longitude is equal to cosine (latitude) x length of degree (miles) at the Equator.
The four corner stones East to West give us separating distance values of ca. 570 miles (the distance between Sais and Al-Rajajil) for 10 degrees longitude at ca. 31 degrees North or a value of 57 miles for one degree of longitude,
and ca. 590 miles (the distance between Nabta Playa and Mecca) for 10 degrees longitude at ca. 23 degrees North or a value of 59 miles for one degree of longitude.
For comparison, the modern calculation is:
1° Longitude = cos (31 degrees North latitude) x 69.172 mi = ?? miles
1° Longitude = 0.8571673007 x 69.172 mi = ca. 59 miles
1° Longitude = cos (23 degrees North latitude) x 69.172 mi = ?? miles
1° Longitude = 0.92050485345 x 69.172 mi = ca. 64 miles
Those are in our opinion very good values for stone age astronomy 4000+ years ago. Others may disagree.
Recall that Al-Biruni for ca. 35 to 36 degrees latitude obtained a value of 56.25 miles, and that was more than 3000 years later."

Lastly, thus, in full appreciation of the seriousness with which the ancients revered cats and lions as guardian creatures, below is an image of the man-worked cat-like shape of Lake of Dumat Al Jandal near Al Rajajil, as seen via Google Earth, recalling that "lions" viz. "cat-like" creatures in Ancient Egypt guarded the four corners of the realm:

The cat-like shape of the lake at Dumat Al Jandal

A cat-like creature is also found in the shapes of the wadis etc. of Nabta Playa, not as clear, but definitely, possibly present.

We have more about Nabta Playa in a coming posting.

Sais, Champollion, the Rosetta Stone and Google Earth in the Context of the Alleged Four Corner Stones of Sais, Nabta Playa, Mecca, and Dumat Al-Jandal viz. Sakaka and Al Rajajil

2013-03-21T16:52:00.000+01:00

In our most recent previous posting we presented the alleged Four Corner Stones of a Land Survey in Ancient Egypt and Arabia: Sais (Sa al Hajar, Rosetta Stone), Nabta Playa (Table Rock Stone), Mecca (Kaaba), Dumat Al-Jandal (Missing Stone).

In this posting we take a cartographic look at the ancient Egyptian site of Sais (Ancient Greek: Σάϊς, modernly Sa al Hajar viz. Şān al Hajar al Qiblīyah), a location at which some observers -- in our opinion correctly -- place the original location of the Rosetta Stone, prior to the alienated use of that stone by Ptolemy V of Egypt and the even later alienated use of the Rosetta Stone for construction purposes in the nearby town of Rashid ("Rosetta").

The Wikipedia article on Sais presents an image derived from a drawing made by Jean-François Champollion during his 1828 expedition to Egypt. Either Champollion himself in his drawing or those who later published that drawing made a mistake by turning the drawing 90° from the correct North-South orientation of Sais, as a quick view of modern Google Earth can confirm.

The Champollion source drawing can be viewed at Bibliothèque nationale de France via http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k103771z.image.f45 where the image, now in the public domain, is described as follows:

Title : Lettres écrites d'Égypte et de Nubie en 1828 et 1829 (Nouv. éd.) / par Champollion le jeune ; nouv. éd. [par Z. Chéronnet-Champollion]
Author : Champollion, Jean-François (1790-1832)
Publisher : Didier (Paris)
Date of publication : 1868
Contributor : Chéronnet-Champollion, Z. (fils de Champollion le jeune). Éditeur scientifique
Subject : Égyptien ancien (langue) -- Écriture hiéroglyphique
Subject : Égypte -- Descriptions et voyages -- 19e siècle
Type : monographie imprimée
Language : French
Format : II-397 p.-[4] f. de pl. : ill. ; in-8
Format : application/pdf
Copyright : domaine public
Identifier : ark:/12148/bpt6k103771z
Source : Bibliothèque nationale de France, 8-O3a-25 (A)
Relation : http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb302193405
Provenance : bnf.fr
Gallica online date :15/10/2007
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k103771z.image.f45

Our images below show the directional correction that needs to be made.

Champollion's drawing turned 90 degrees

conforms to what we see at Google Earth for Sais.

It is thus probable that this is the original Sais location and that there are not other "older" locations, as some authors freely speculate. The "temple" dedicated to the geodetic survey of Egypt is right next to a water source, as are all of the locations of the four corner stones: 1) the "sinkhole" at Sais, 2) the now dry wadi oasis at Nabta Playa (with a cat-like figure formed by the wadis), 3) the perhaps not coincidental "cat-like" form of the man-made water at Dumat Al-Jandal, and, 4) as written at Sacred Sites for Mecca:

"[A]ncient Mecca [which] was an oasis on the old caravan trade route that linked the Mediterranean world with South Arabia, East Africa, and South Asia."

We say "not coincidental cat-like form" because the four corner-stone near-water locations were in our opinion "worked" in shape by the ancients to create animal figures. Mau viz. maa was the term for either "cat" or "lion" in ancient Egyptian and, indeed, in ancient Egypt lions guarded each corner of the realm, as written at the Institute for Biblical & Scientific Studies:

"In Egyptian drawings the "ends" of the earth are represented by lions...."

As written at the Wikipedia at Aker (god):

"In Egyptian mythology, Aker (also spelt Akar) was one of the earliest gods worshipped, and was the deification of the horizon. There are strong indications that Aker was worshipped before other known Egyptian gods of the earth, such as Geb.... Aker itself means (one who) curves because it was perceived that the horizon bends all around us....

As the horizon, Aker was also seen as symbolic of the borders between each day, and so was originally depicted as a narrow strip of land (i.e. a horizon), with heads on either side, facing away from one another, a symbol of borders....

As the Egyptians believed that the gates of the morning and evening were guarded by Aker, they sometimes placed twin statues of lions at the doors of their palaces and tombs. This was to guard the households and tombs from evil spirits and other malevolent beings. This practice was adopted by the Greeks and Romans, and is still unknowingly followed by some today...."

Diane E. Wirth and Steven L. Olsen of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship at Brigham Young University, write in Reexploring the Book of Mormon in Chapter 41, titled Four Quarters:

"[T]he ancient Egyptian determinative glyph for "city" was a circle divided diagonally into four quarters....

In Egyptian texts, four beings or creatures often depicted the four cardinal points of the earth."

This tradition of the four corners of the realm was maintained for at least 3000 years. László Török at page 4 in the Preface to The Kingdom of Kush: Handbook of the Napatan-Meroitic Civilization writes:

"The term T -sty, "Nubia" occurs on the 4th century BC Nastase Stela as part of a remarkable definition of universal regency, in terms of which the ruler is granted the kingship "of the Bow-land (i.e. Nubia), Are, the Nine Bows (the Egyptian term for foreign countries), the Two Banks (of the Nile), and the Four Corners (of the Land)". [emphasis added]

Sir Ernest A. Wallis Budge in his An Egyptian Hieroglyphic Dictionary (Volume II viz. Part 2) refers to the "Nastasen Stele" and its use of the term qāḥ in connection with:

"the four quarters of the country or of the world".

In The Gods of the Egyptians, Volume 1, Studies in Egyptian Mythology, Chapter XV, The Horus Gods (here excerpted by us, also leaving out the hieroglyphic signs, for which see the original source) Budge writes starting at p. 466, (with thanks for the text to Wisdom Library at wisdomlib.org):"

"It has already been stated that the hawk was probably the first living creature which was worshipped generally throughout Egypt, and that as the spirit of the heights of heaven, and as the personification of the god who made the sky he was called Ḥeru, [glpyhs], i.e., “he who is above,” or, “that which is above.” ...

[W]hether due to the similarity in sound between the name “Ḥeru” and the word for face,”Her or Ḥrȧ”, the idea which became associated with the god Ḥeru was that he represented the Face of heaven, i.e., the Face of the head of an otherwise unknown and invisible god.

[T]his view was an ancient one even in the time when the Pyramids were built, for several allusions are made in the funeral texts of the Vth and VIth Dynasties to the “hair” or “tresses,” [glyphs], of the Face of Ḥeru as the Face of heaven, and four gods who are called the “children of Horus,” [glyphs], are declared to have their abodes in these tresses.

The Face of heaven was supported by the four gods by means of the four sceptres which they held in their hands, and these four sceptres took the place of the four pillars, [glyphs], of the god Shu which, according to an older myth, supported the four corners, i.e., the four cardinal points of the great iron plate that formed the floor of heaven and the sky above the earth....

The forms of Horus mentioned in Egyptian texts are numerous, but the following are the most important: ...

Ḥeru-ur, [glyphs] "Horus the elder” (or the “aged”), the ’Αρωὴρις of the Greeks, so called to distinguish him from Ḥeru-pa-kharṭ, or, “Horus the younger.” He is depicted in the form of a man with the head of a hawk, and also as a lion with the head of a hawk; he usually wears the crowns of the South and North united....

There was also a Ḥeru-ur of the South ... the seat of whose worship was at Mākhenut, [glyphs] near El-Kâb in Upper Egypt, and a Ḥeru-ur of the North, the seat of whose worship was at Sekhemet [glyphs] or [glyphs] or Seshemet [glyphs], the Latopolis of the Greeks, and the [glyphs] of the Copts, which lay a few miles to the north of Memphis; other shrines of Ḥeru-ur were at Ombos, [glyphs, ancient Nubt], at Smennut, [glyphs], and at Apollinopolis.

The most important shrine of the god was at Sekhem, where stood the sanctuary Pa-Ȧit, [glyphs]; in its shrine was preserved the shoulder, mākhaq [glyphs], of the god Osiris, and close by grew the famous Nebes [glyphs], and Shent [glyphs] trees. Ḥeru-ur of Sekhem is called “lord of the Utchati [glyph],” i.e., lord of the Sun and Moon. In the Book of the Dead (xviii.c) it is said that the sovereign princes in Sekhem are Ḥeru-khent-ȧn-maati and Thoth, but it is clear that locally the great gods of the city were Isis, Osiris, and Horus. The form in which Ḥeru-ur was worshipped at Sekhem and other places was a lion." [emphasis added]

The Sekhem Scepter appears twice in the royal serekh of the calendric Pharaoh Khasekhemwy (qāḥ-Sekh-emwy), a name which could literally have meant "to the end(s) of the Earth (under the Sun)", since, according to Budge, one meaning of qāḥ was "Earth" and several meanings of sekh center on "breadth, width, to stretch out to the sky".

The standing stones of Al-Rajajil (Al Rajajeel) are located just to the East of Dumat al-Jandal and just to the South of Sakakah, "end of the realm", which may find its ancient Egyptian comparable in Budge as the hieroglyphic location Sakakhi "[allegedly] a district in Syria, situation unknown". The "Sekhkem Scepter" is found even today as a symbol together with a sun-like "Ra" symbol at various ground locations in Saudi Arabia via Google Earth (e.g. 27.275139 N, 37.262782 E). We think these were hermetic (as above -- so below) geodetic markers in an ancient land survey.

One must now ask in this geodetic context why there is a 10° inclination at the temple of Sais, rather than a simple East-West orientation. This would make sense if Sais represented one corner of the alleged ancient land survey of Egypt and Arabia, with four corner stones marking what the ancients calculated as 10° of the great circle of the Earth, with Sais being the stone at the northwest corner of that system.

Can we find "probative evidence" for such a four-corner geodetic land survey?

Our next posting suggests in fact that the standing stones of Al Rajajeel (Al Rajajil) in Saudi Arabia are an ancient record of that 4th millennium BC land survey, perhaps marking inter alia the calculation of those four corners of that land survey triangulation on the ground.

We must add here, because it is important, that in a later era, Al Biruni made a similar land survey to calculate 1° of the great circle of the Earth. See Alberto Gomez Gomez, Biruni's Measurement of the Earth at http://www.jscimath.org/uploads/J2011172AG.pdf where Gomez writes:

"The story begins before Biruni, when Sultan al-Mamun ordered two teams of surveyors to measure the earth. They did so by departing from a place in the desert of Sinjad, nineteen farsangs from Mosul and forty-three from Samarra, heading north and south respectively, and both determining that the length of one degree of latitude is somewhat between 56 and 57 Arabic miles (Biruni Tahdid, tr. Ali 1967:178-80). Among the several extant accounts of this survey, Habash al-Hasib (tr. Langermann 1985:108-28) quotes at length from a direct account from Khalid:

‘The Commander of the Faithful al-Mamun desired to know the size of the earth. He inquired into this and found that Ptolemy mentioned in one of his books that the girth of the earth is so and so many thousands of stades. He asked the commentators about the meaning of stade, and they differed about the meaning of this. Since he was not told what he wanted, he directed Khalid ibn Abd al-Malik al-Marwarrudhi, Ali bin Isa al-Asturlabi [from his surname, evidently an instrument maker], and Ahmad ibn al-Bukhturi al-Dhari [from his surname, the Surveyor] with a group of surveyors and skilled artisans, including carpenters and brass makers, who were to maintain the instruments they needed. He led them to a place, which he chose in the desert of Sinjar. From there, Khalid and his party headed for the North Pole of the Little Bear, and Ali and Ahmad and their party headed to the South Pole. They proceeded until they found that the height of the Sun at noon had increased (or differed) by one degree from the noon height they had taken at the place from which they had separated, after subtracting from it the sun’s declination along the path of the outward journey. They put arrows there. Then they returned to the arrows, testing the measurement a second time, and so found that one degree of the earth was 56 miles, of which one mile is 4000 black cubits. This is the cubit adopted by al-Mamun for the measurement of cloths, surveying of fields, and the distribution of way-stations.’

Another report is given by Ibn Yunus (Hakimite Tables 2), based on the accounts of Sind ibn Ali and Habash al-Hasib:

‘Sind ibn Ali reports that al-Mamun ordered that he and Khalid ibn Abd al-Malik al-Marwarrudhi should measure one degree of the great circle of the earth’s surface. “We left together,” he says, “for this purpose.” He gave the same order to Ali ibn Isa al-Asturlabi and Ali ibn al-Bukhturi, who took themselves to another direction. Sind ibn Ali said, “I and Khalid ibn Abd al-Malik travelled to the area between Wamia and Tadmor, where we determined a degree of the great circle of the earth’s equator to be 57 miles. Ali ibn Isa and Ali ibn al-Bukhturi found the same, and these two reports containing the same measure arrived from the two regions at the same time.”

‘Ahmad ibn Abdallah, named Habash, reported in his treatise on observation made at Damascus by the authors of the Mumtahan [Verified tables] that al-Mamun ordered the measurement of one degree of the great circle of the earth. He said that for this purpose they travelled in the desert of Sinjar until the noon heights between the two measurements in one day changed by one degree. Then they measured the distance between the two places, which was 56¼ miles of 4000 cubits, the black cubits adopted by al-Mamun’.

Biruni’s take on the matter (tr. Ali 1967:178-80) is that the figure that eventually became generally accepted as the length of 1º of latitude is 56⅔ miles (111.747 km), which is quite close to the actual value (110.95 km) for the latitudes involved (35º to 36º N). 360 times this number yields the earth’s girth (20400 mls), and from it the radius is easily deduced (6402.612 km). Mamun’s teams had got a nearly perfect hit!" [footnotes omitted]

The modern-day value for the length of 1 degree of latitude is equal to
1 degree x 69.172 miles at the Equator. This does not vary significantly toward the poles.

The four corner stones of Sais, Nabta Playa, Mecca and Dumat Al-Jandal from North to South cover ca. 580 miles for ca. 8 degrees of latitude, which gives an ancient value (4000 years ago) by stone age astronomy of ca. 72.5 miles per degree of latitude. Some observers may expect more accuracy than that. We do not, for that era.

The modern-day formula for the length of 1 degree of longitude is equal to cosine (latitude) x length of degree (miles) at the Equator.

The four corner stones East to West give us separating distance values of ca. 570 miles (the distance between Sais and Al-Rajajil) for 10 degrees longitude at ca. 31 degrees North or a value of 57 miles for one degree of longitude,
and ca. 590 miles (the distance between Nabta Playa and Mecca) for 10 degrees longitude at ca. 23 degrees North or a value of 59 miles for one degree of longitude.

For comparison, the modern calculation is:

1° Longitude = cos (31 degrees North latitude) x 69.172 mi = ?? miles
1° Longitude = 0.8571673007 x 69.172 mi = ca. 59 miles

1° Longitude = cos (23 degrees North latitude) x 69.172 mi = ?? miles
1° Longitude = 0.92050485345 x 69.172 mi = ca. 64 miles

Those are in our opinion very good values for stone age astronomy 4000+ years ago. Others may disagree.

Recall that Al-Biruni for ca. 35 to 36 degrees latitude obtained a value of 56.25 miles, and that was more than 3000 years later.

Our posting on the standing stones of Al Rajajil (Al Rajajeel) is next.

Land Survey Corner Stones of Ancient Egypt and Arabia: Sais (Sa al Hajar, Rosetta Stone), Nabta Playa (Table Rock Stone), Mecca (Kaaba), Dumat Al-Jandal (Missing Stone)

2013-03-08T23:29:00.000+01:00

The image below shows that an ancient land survey of Ancient Egypt and Arabia was "anchored" in the Predynastic Era of Egypt (we estimate 3400 B.C.) by four massive corner stones that survive today as:

The Rosetta Stone of Rashid (Rasheed), Egypt, which was used in a later era by Ptolemy, and in more recent times as a building stone. It has clearly been moved from its original location, which some have paced -- in our opinion correctly -- at Sais, today the city Sa al Hajar
Sa al Hajar means "Sa of the Stone"
30.96 N, 30.77 E [update corrects 30.86 to 30.96, also on image below]
.
Nabta Playa (massive Table Rock Stone), Egypt
22.53 N, 30.70 E
Nabta Playa has been falsely dated. The charcoal at the oasis right next to the megaliths dates to ca. the middle of the 4th millennium BC as does the charcoal of the Table Rock Stone. Older charcoal at the oasis is evidence of previous use of the oasis, but has nothing to do with the megaliths. Fred Wendorf and Romuald Schild write in Late Neolithic megalithic structures at Nabta Playa (Sahara), southwestern Egypt:
"The test excavations recovered charcoal from a shelf on the edge of the pit under the structure, and this charcoal yielded a calibrated radiocarbon age between 5600 and 5400 years ago (4800 +- 80 years bp; DRI 3358). This is the only date available for these structures, and it is about 1500 years later than we had estimated from the stratigraphic evidence. This cluster differs from the other complex structures, and it may relate to a late phase in this phenomena; however, there is no other reason to reject the date."

Mecca (Kaaba), the Black Stone, Saudi Arabia, damaged in antiquity
21.42 N, 39.83 E
.
Dumat Al-Jandal, Saudi Arabia, ("the Missing Stone" of the four),
Dumat Al-Jandal means "Dumah of the Stone"
29.82 N, 39.87 E
The nearby Rajajil megaliths have been dated to ca. 3000 BC. See Dharmendra, Saudi Arabia: Rajajil Stones Conjures Vision of England’s Stonehenge.

The longitudes and latitudes of these locations show that the ancients achieved substantial accuracy in their measurements. That these locations would form this kind of a measurement by chance is virtually impossible.

The Ancient Land Survey of Ancient Egypt and Arabia

As related by Peter Tompkins in Secrets of the Great Pyramid, Galahad Books, New York, 1971 and in that book's geodetic appendix by Livio Catulio Stecchini, there is no doubt that many ancient monuments of Earth were geodetically significant, especially in Egypt - which called itself To-Mera "the land of the mr triangulation", a line of interpretation first followed by the Egyptologist Karl H. Brugsch (Tompkins, p. 292).

Tompkins writes further ... p. 184:

"The Moslem shrine of Mecca is 10 degrees east of the western meridian of Egypt and 10 degrees south of Behdet. According to Stecchini the sacred black stone of the Kaaba was originally part of a set of four, placed in what he calls a pyramidical triangle from which the trigonometric functions of the shrine could be derived. Islamic tradition stresses the point that the Kaaba was originally a geodetic center. The essential element of the Kaaba consisted of four stones marking a square with diagonals running north-south and east-west. The diagonal north-south with the northeast and southeast
sides formed what the Egyptians call a pyramid. The angle formed by the diagonal with the southeast side was 36 degrees, from which Stecchini concludes that the trigonometric functions of the shrine were measured along the northeast side." The Rosetta Stone was originally surely one of these black geodetic stones [in the time of Ptolemy reused for the message which is placed upon it]." [emphasis added]

We predict that a massive large stone
will ultimately be found
in Dumat al Jandal or nearby to it
as the currently "missing" stone of the four.

Please note that our analysis here does not involve modern religious matters. Religion anciently involved geodetic land survey. Our interest concentrates on megalithic sites. This alleged survey is a major event of the megalithic era. See also megaliths.net at the geographic discussion of Africa.

We wrote about this topic previously in German. See:

Das Tanum-System – ein alteuropäisch-afrikanisches Vermessungssystem?

What is vitally new in this posting is the recognition that the Rosetta Stone was originally at Sais, which completes the geodetic measurement picture.

Egyptian Antiquities Ministry Reopens Serapeum And Invites Tourists to Visit Egypt

2012-10-01T21:19:00.001+02:00

Ancient Egypt News: Telegraph writes and with video that Egypt reopens ancient tombs after renovation:

At the Huffington Post, Ted Thornhill has a posting with pictures at Egypt Reopens Renovated Ancient Serapeum Tomb In Saqqara.

Zannanza and the Egyptian Queen: Uluburun Shipwreck Shaking Views of the History of Ancient Egypt and the Ancient World

2012-06-05T01:19:00.001+02:00

The Uluburun Shipwreck is slowly -- and rightly -- changing many of the false conceptions that mainstream scholars have been propagating erroneously over the years about the ancient world, especially in terms of ancient navigation and seafaring traders.

Take a look at the About.com Guide about the Uluburun Shipwreck by K. Kris Hirst, and the links you find there. Especially read the material on the origin of the ingots found on board the ship, which involve Egypt.

I refer to the Uluburun Shipwreck in my book Ancient Signs
and reveal there some interesting analysis
of what was found on the Uluburun shipwreck
as bearing on important questions of ancient history.

Here is a sample;

Zannanza [designated to wed the Egyptian Queen] died before reaching Egypt [but his fate remained a mystery]..... Irene E. Riegner writes about the Akkadian term zanÄnu and notes that a derivative term Zununnê means "marriage gifts". It is likely that Zannanza was a name reference to a son as "the marriage gift" as it were for the Egyptian Queen, together with the royally laden ship."

The Uluburun Shipwreck could have been Zannanza's fate.
We have more about that in the book.

Do we know more than mainstream Egyptologists about Ancient Egypt?

Yes, we do, at least in this case.

Exhibition: The Dawn of Egyptian Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City Through August 5, 2012

2012-05-18T14:16:00.002+02:00

Tom L. Freudenheim at the Wall Street Journal online WSJ.com in Ancient Egypt's Limber Youth reports on the exhibition, The Dawn of Egyptian Art, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City through August 5, 2012.

Freudenheim writes:

"While the Pre- and Early Dynastic Egyptian periods (c. 4400–2649 B.C.) are not wholly new fields of study, the exhibition aims "to examine and reflect upon the finest representations created by the early Egyptians"....

Read the entire article here.

Howard Carter 138th Birthday Honored by Google Doodle: Financed by Lord Carnarvon He Found King Tut's Tomb (Tutankhamun), a Find Totally Misinterpreted by the Archaeologists

2012-05-09T20:03:00.000+02:00

Nearly 6000 (!) artifacts in this tomb, gold and riches beyond comprehension, and in all the remaining tombs of Ancient Egypt of its many great Pharaohs, its illustrious kings and queens, not anything nearly comparable?! The archaeologists have a gullible answer -- everything else has been stolen by grave robbers -- and apparently melted into butter. Nonsense.

The right answer is that many of the things found in this tomb did not belong there but were hurriedly put into it before being sealed away and buried under tons of rubble at the entrance to keep the tomb's valuable contents from being discovered "40 steps deep" (so the Mishnayot) at the time Pharaonic civilization collapsed to invaders : The Ark of the Covenant and the priestly treasures of the Cohen Gadol are what was actually found.

The Google Doodle for today
is in honor of the 138th birthday of Howard Carter,
the discoverer of King Tut's Tomb,

As written by Sara Gates at the Huntington Post in

Howard Carter Honored On His 138th Birthday With Google Logo

"The Google doodle depicts Carter gazing upon the golden riches and artifacts within the tomb. Behind the treasures is the faint outline of Google's usual logo."

Who was King Tut?
See
Who was Tutankhamun? The DNA Evidence is Clear: Tut was the Son of Akhenaten (Echnaton) but the Cause of his Death remains Speculative

But what did Howard Carter really find?
See
Ark of the Covenant

More stories about the Google Doodle:

The Guardian staff at
Howard Carter celebrated in Google doodle

Chris Matyszczyk at CNET in
Google's doodle for Harrison Ford, wait, Howard Carter.

Rene Lynch at the Los Angeles Times has the Google Doodle story also in
Howard Carter, first superstar tomb-finder, gets a Google Doodle

Who Deciphered the Hieroglyphs?

2012-03-25T00:18:00.001+01:00

Andrew Robinson at Nature magazine goes to the heart of who deciphered the hieroglyphs at A clash of symbols.

Ancient Signs -- The Alphabet and the Origins of Writing

2012-03-24T23:52:00.000+01:00

Ancient Signs: The Alphabet and the Origins of Writing
by Andis Kaulins is now available in 4 versions
(b/w, color, and both of those also as ebooks)
at
http://www.epubli.com/shop/autor/Andis-Kaulins/3682.

In Ancient Signs, the author traces the origins of writing and the alphabet to syllabic writing systems in ancient cultures and shows that these have one common origin.

print b/w version black and white inside
B/W inside
200 pages, 90 gram paper
Price: €35.99 (about US $47 on day of posting)
for the B/W print version of Ancient Signs
Ancient Signs traces the origins of the alphabet to syllabic writing.
Softcover - print b/w, cover in color

eBook b/w version black and white version
B/W inside
200 pages
Price: €27.99 (about US $37 on day of posting)
for the B/W eBook version of Ancient Signs
Ancient Signs traces the origins of the alphabet to syllabic writing.

color print version color inside
COLOR inside
200 pages, 150 gram glossy paper
Price: €149.00 (about US $196 on day of posting)
for the color print version of Ancient Signs
Ancient Signs traces the origins of the alphabet to syllabic writing.
Hardcover - print and cover in color

color eBook version color inside
COLOR inside
200 pages
Price: €39.99 (about US $52 on day of posting)
for the color inside eBook version of Ancient Signs
Ancient Signs traces the origins of the alphabet to syllabic writing.

Enjoy Reading.

Ashmolean Museum Oxford Opens New Ancient Egypt and Nubia Galleries

2011-11-30T22:59:00.000+01:00

As written at

Ashmolean Museum: News & Events

"The Ashmolean is delighted to announce the opening date of the new galleries of Ancient Egypt and Nubia (present day Sudan) on Saturday 26 November 2011."

Read the whole report.

Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs Tickets at De Young Museum, 2/25/2010 - SF Gate

2010-02-25T00:51:00.000+01:00

Talk about good timing....

Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs Tickets at De Young Museum, 2/25/2010 - SF Gate:

"This exhibit will feature more than 130 artifacts from the 18th Dynasty king's opulently appointed tomb and other ancient Egyptian sites."

Tutankhamun and "Where the Great Akhenaten Lies" : Asharq Alawsat Newspaper (English)

2010-02-22T01:42:00.000+01:00

Tutankhamun and "Where the Great Akhenaten Lies" : Asharq Alawsat Newspaper (English)

Zahi Hawass reports on the great discovery made regarding the identification of Akhenaten among the mummies of Egypt, inter alia writing:

"At a press conference for international media figures held by the Supreme Council of Antiquities last Wednesday at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, I announced that important [archeological] discoveries had been made that shed more light on the dynasty of the golden pharaoh Tutankhamen. These discoveries marked the beginning of a new chapter in using modern techniques and advanced technology in the field of archeological discoveries."

Read the rest here, where it appears quite clearly from the Hawass statements that Akhenaten has been convincingly identified.

The Egyptian Chronicles

2010-02-21T20:15:00.000+01:00

The Egyptian Chronicles is the name of an electronic monthly magazine with one of its features on Ancient Egyptian History.