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Your proposal that the stretched chord, the two poles, the mallets and the actions of the king were all used only to line up two stars horizontally is not very convincing.

Graham, I agree with your opinion that my reconstruction of the "stretching of the cord" ceremony is the most unconvincing part of the article.
Firstly, "stretching of the cord" ceremony was attested for the foundation of the temples, but not the pyramids.
Secondly, the object of observation is mentioned only in the texts belonging to the Ptolemaic period, and the pyramids that interest us are more than 2000 years older.
Therefore in the beginning of the article I can only make unverifiable assumptions that the same ritual was used for the pyramids and temples and that the object of observation (Meskhetiu) did not change during the whole period of the Dynastic Egypt.

Unfortunately, the article begins with the most unconvincing part and the readers could think that all further conclusions of the article lose their meaning, since they are based on the initial unconvincing assumption. But this is not true, since my reconstruction of the ceremony is no more than one of the hypothetical ways to identify the upper culmination of Meskhetiu. It is entirely possible to assume that the upper culmination (Aq) was identifying in some other way and the other conclusions of the article will not change from this.

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The name 'stretching of the chord' suggests that this action was the KEY part of establishing the direction

It is known that two different actions (called pd-ss and whawewet) of the ceremony were carried out with a cord.

Here is a quote from the article:

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Rossi (2004), p.153 wrote: «The ceremony of "stretching the cord" is described as consisting of two actions: pd-ss(r) and whawewet. The first can be translated as the "stretching of the cord" itself, while the second can be translated as "loosening" or "unravelling the cord". It may be intended as "unravelling the (ball of) cord", an obvious initial action for the ceremony of "stretching the cord". Since, however, the "unravelling of the cord" always follows the "stretching of the cord", the second action might actually refer to the moment when, having fixed the outline of the building, the cord was unravelled across it in order to mark significant points or subdivisions of the area».
We can see that in these two actions the cord is used in different ways: in the first it is depicted as a loop of cord and is accompanied by a bow pictogram, which indicates "stretching", and in the second as two lassoes accompanied by a coil of rope pictogram, which indicates actions with a rope such as "drag" or "tie". Thus, only in the second action, by all indications, a long single cord is used that has knots on sides and therefore this action is more relevant to the "geometrical determination of the corners of the building" or marking the future foundation on the ground.

Can you explain in more detail why you think that the name "stretching of the cord" indicates precisely the establishing of the direction? What is the connection between the name and the action?

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And I don't think it is possible to squint between the ropes at stars the way your diagram shows it.

I conducted field experiments and I can say that the idea works fine. It is only necessary to take the correct position with respect to the instrument and set the cord to the desired height. Stars are luminous objects and are perfectly identified in the "viewing gap" in darkness. When the time of horizontal establishment of two selected stars is approaching, you need to keep one of the stars in the "viewing gap" all the time, while the second will be closed by one of the branches of the cord and therefore not visible. As soon as the second star becomes visible in the gap, the horizontal is considered to be set (the "viewing gap" should be as small as possible).

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Intuitively, the two poles that are malleted into the ground and the stretched chord between them will establish the final direction of the building.

If two poles and the cord are used to fix the direction determined by the merkhet, then why:
1. The action of pd-ss in the accompanying texts always precedes observation with the merkhet (and precedes whawewet action too).
2. The cord has a looped shape.
3. The king, who is not engaged to the observations with the merkhet (the second participant works with the merkhet) recognizes the movement of Meskhetiu and his observations extended over time.

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The first pole has to be put into the ground at the first corner of the building by the king.
The second pole that was linked by the stretched cord will be moved in the direction of the next corner.
When the direction has been fixed by the merkhet the second pole is malleted into the ground.
The second corner was then established by measuring in the direction of the stretched cord and pole.

I will remove the cord from your reconstruction:

The first pole has to be put into the ground at the first corner of the building by the king.
The second pole [...] will be moved in the direction of the next corner.
When the direction has been fixed by the merkhet the second pole is malleted into the ground.
The second corner was then established by measuring in the direction of [...] the pole.

and nothing will change, since the cord does not perform any useful function in your reconstruction.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/03/2020 03:51PM by keeperzz.