Byrd Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> But there's no feature that points to Sirius.
You mean geometrically pointing to the star or by symbols?
Geometrically, the facade and the backside wall are aligned perfectly to the heliacal rising location on the horizon. But you are right that there is no visor, or door, or any help for the casual visitor directly at the temple. There is the outer wall east gate which is a visor, but only from the center of the Isis temple, which is separate from the Hathor building.
> There are other temples with similar alignments,
Yes, from the 115 analyzed in that paper, there is definitely a clustering around the Sirius heliacal rising location visible. The most perfect are:
Hathor, Dendera
Isis, Dendera
Mut, Karnak
All others are more than 1° away.
> There is no way of observing the event from within the temple grounds.
Correct, nothing for pit tickets, only from the upper floors.
> you have to show that they kept this standard; aligned the temple so that the heliacal rising of Sirius could be seen from the naos in the main part of the temple itself.
Not sure. I think they were busy with other stuff there than astronomical observations as it would be impractical to try astronomical observations from the cella(r) room.
> See Shaltout, Mosalam, Juan Antonio Belmonte, and Magdi Fekri. "On the orientation of ancient Egyptian temples, Part II." Journal for the History of Astronomy 38.4 (2007): 413-442.
Will do, have only read the part I yet.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/18/2022 08:27PM by Holger Isenberg.