Mark Heaton Wrote:
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> 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.
>
Venus did feature in their belief system. Brugsch (1897), p322 suggests that both Saturn and Venus feature in the Pyramid Texts. Whilst the suggestion of Saturn has largely been forgotten, Krauss (1997) took up Brugsch suggestion and produced an analysis demonstrating that Venus was known. Krauss analysis appears to have been accepted by Allen in compiling his translation of the Pyramid Texts and in the glossary on page 437 we find:

"Morning God. Designation of the planet Venus, associated with Horus as a harbinger of the sunrise."

Again, in the Pyramid Texts we find various texts that relate the Pharoah to the Morning God. Thus, Venus could be a candidate for selection. It is not a candidate that I have studied in any detail.

References:
Allen, J.P., The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts, Society of Biblical Literature, Atlanta, 2005
Brugsch, Die Aegyptologie. Abriss der Entzifferungen und Forschungen auf dem Gebiete der aegyptischen Schrift, Sprache und Alterthumskunde, Leipzig, 1897, pp322, 331, 336 accessed from [archive.org]
Krauss, R. (1997). Astronomische konzepte und jenseitsvorstellungen in den pyramiden- texten. Ägyptologische Abhandlung Band 59, Wiesbaden.

> 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?
>

Possibly but the only two planets that we have any confidence of in the Old Kingdom are Saturn and Venus. I will think a little further about the differentiation of Why Saturn vs Venus.

> 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.
>
My observation on Khafre is essentially throw-away - I've not studied Khafre's pyramid in any detail and the observation was based on a very limited data set.

> 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.
>
This statement is only true if the geometry was understood by the architect. You don't appear to be fully convinced that is the case in your posts. How do you propose to evaluate the extent the architect understood the geometry?

> 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 have developed this paper out of natural curiosity - the research has been totally undertaken in my spare time after work and family commitments. I've not thought about monetising the work at all. As an interesting aside here, I have another paper on the Academia.edu site which has recently experienced an uptick in interest. I don't subscribe to the premium features of Academia.edu so I couldn't really tell why. One of the readers left some feedback on why they were interested in my paper. "All this talk of aliens and electricity." I think he or she would have been bitterly disappointed that there were no aliens or electricity. So the data I have is that aliens and electricity are where its at if you're aiming for a popular theory that might sell books!

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