Am I right in thinking that the brightest object in the sky after the sun and moon is Venus?

I suppose the ancient Egyptians regarded the stars and wandering stars (planets) as very much smaller than the sun and moon in the third millennium BC.

It seems natural for the kings of Egypt in the Pyramid Age to have identified themselves with the sun and the moon as the greater light governing the day and the lesser light governing the night.

The kings also identified themselves with the stars, most importantly the imperishable circumpolar stars and almost as important Sirius and Orion, so we might then wonder why Venus or other bright planets did not feature more prominently in a system of belief.

Would it be a better approach if your paper were to list (say) the brightest five planets with whatever measure of luminosity astronomers use and then propose that (say) the brightest four planets may correspond to texts which are not properly understood (as the subject of longstanding debate) rather than picking a particular planet for which there is no consensus that it was even of any importance in the Pyramid Age?

Have you read 'The Great Pyramid of Giza (History and Speculation) by James Bonwick (1877) which was re-published under this title in 2002? It does seem so easy to attach credible astronomical theories to pyramid dimensions only to find that the survey data or the supposed facts are wrong which was your point to me.

The most notable theory in 1840 was that the Great Pyramid was precisely 4000 years old because Alpha Draconis would have been visible from the descending passage at its lower culmination in 2160 BC. In 1840 Egyptologists thought the pyramid was about 4000 years old.

Is Venus a more important planet than Saturn in your theory given that we would expect it to be so assuming brightness is the most important factor?

I suppose even a faint planet might be of greater interest if its cycle could be related to the Egyptian calendar in a simple way.

Your observation that the perimeter of Khafre's pyramid is 73 cubits may be related to a cattle count every two years because 73 Egyptian weeks of 10 days is two calendar years.

This appears to be a coincidence in the context of my geometric model but perhaps the architect chose the geometric model because of this coincidence with the period of two years more important than the geometric model (to the architect).

The geometric model is more important (to us) in tracing back the development of cognition in the history of the world.

My geometric model of Khafre's pyramid is quite dull with no potential for a book like the Orion Mystery even if were possible to show that the Egyptian calendar is latent in the design.

A star theory is more attractive to some as if the ancients knew something more about a distant star that has not yet been discovered.

A planet theory does not have the same allure given that we know that other planets in our solar system did not support a civilisation advanced enough to visit Earth, and possibly not even any life form.

What is your agenda? Are you hoping to write a popular book?

I recall Dr Steele saying that he would be pleased if his book sold more than a thousand copies.

Mark



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 05/04/2021 01:42PM by Mark Heaton.