<HTML>Dave wrote:
“So the question that springs to my mind is - if RB &GB are correct, then why would the
Egyptians use a constellation that would only have been half visible for the previous millenia?”
Assume for the moment that there was an advanced civilization in existence c.10500 BC.
1. It probably would have taken a long time to develop.
2. They probably travelled.
Go back in time another 2000 years (to give time for this advanced civilization time to
develop), to c.12500 BC, and Orion would have been seen as a very large, distinctive pattern
of stars in the southern sky well above the horizon about 5 degs higher than in 10500 BC. As
the civilization developed, Orion would progressively cross the meridian at a lower altitude,
but Orion would probably have been noticed and known as a large distinctive pattern of stars
well before 10500 BC.
Viewed from Syrene in the south of Egypt in 10500 BC, Orion would also have been seen as a
very distinctive pattern of stars in the southern sky well above the horizon about 6 degs higher
than at Giza. When our intrepid star gazers travelled up and down the country they would
have noticed that Orion would progressively appear to cross the meridian at a lower or higher
altitude the further north or south they went.
Sirius does not appear to be represented on the ground at Giza.
Around 10500 BC, Orion reached it’s lowest point in the precessional cycle. This a significant
if an association with the arrangement of pyramids at Giza is made. If this civilization wanted
to record in some way this moment on the ground at Giza by preserving a record of the event,
it would not have mattered to the hypothetical ‘advanced’ ‘lost’ civilization if one of the stars
of Orion was not seen or that the others were fainter, for the reasons I have outlined above.</HTML>
