Ken B Wrote:
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> Hi Chris,
>
> I don't want to derail the thread but isn't this a
> factually incorrect statement, "This means the top
> of the south shaft was facing an area of the sky
> where the distinctive 3-star asterism in the
> centre of Orion (sAH) crossed every 24 hours
> c.2570 BC . . ."?
>
> The distinctive 3-star asterism in the center of
> Orion wasn't even visible in the sky from Giza for
> a good part of the year, c. 2570 BC, so how could
> it cross the sky every 24 hours?
You've restated my "daytime hours" question above, Ken.
In order for this "24 hour" claim to be valid, the Egyptian underworld, the place where the stars went during the day, would have to be exactly paralled behind the daytime sky.
For that to be true, the Egyptians would have had to imagine the stars slipped below the visible horizon (into the Akhet) and made an immediate U-turn and started their flight right back over the top again, from west to east.
In order for this to be true, the circumpolar stars become completely inexplicable, since they make no such U-turn, but continue in their circular motion in the sky, all year round, without exception.
I can't think of any possible way of making this idea work within the known Egyptian cosmology or cosmography. What you have stated above is exactly correct: the king's soul would be launched into oblivion for several months of the year, at which times the stars never cross the path of the shafts.
This was one of the reasons I clearly cited in my own work on the shafts as to why they could not possibly be targeting specific stars. It simply does not fit into Egyptian cosmology or mortuary practices.
Anthony
You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him think.