Ahatmose Wrote:
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> Hi Byrd ... I am very disappointed at the lack of
> input into this hrst1 theory.
In general (or on my part) it's because of the lack of supporting evidence from the Old Kingdom. What's offered is Ptolemaic era for the most part, and that's thousands of years after the first cubit rod shows up.
> The first was the Tropic of Cancer coming out of
> the abyss or primal waters (The Nile of course)
No evidence has been presented that they knew or marked or understood during the Old Kingdom the idea of an invisible delineation of the sky called "tropic of Cancer". "Cancer" wasn't any sign they knew or used for any group of stars in the sky UNTIL the Greeks (with astronomy and astrology from the Babylonians) came in around 300 BC. There's no evidence that they knew what sign the sun "lay in" during previous times or that they had an interest in this. It's never mentioned or shown in star diagonals, etc, until the time of the temple of Dendera (Ptolemies, around 300 BC)
There hasn't been a response along the lines of "here's this star diagonal from the First Intermediate Period on the coffin of StarsTwinkleNightly that shows the sun and a date and a major solstice festival about the sun directly overhead. When asked about the Stride of Ra, it turns out to be a poorly mentioned concept from 300 BC and thereabouts.
So there's not much to discuss that we haven't already discussed.
>but another remarkable coincidence occurred , It was also The Helical Rising of Sirius occurring just 7 days after this event.
Which doesn't seem to have made any impression on the Egyptians. There's no 7 day festival between the solstice and the appearance of Sirius. (as you can see here on the list of known festivals [
www.ucl.ac.uk])
> (The 7 days of The Creation ? Well maybe in the myths) ) So if one reads hrst1's lead in and also remembers or re-read the creation myths it makes perfect sense.
There's only one cultural group with a 7 day creation story in their religious teachings, and that religion doesn't begin until around 1500 BC or later.
Again, no tie-in to a First Dynasty determination of the cubit measurement.
> As I have said of all the theories I have read and shredded for their errors this one is withstanding my scrutiny.
That's because you're checking the arithmetic first and not the history and cultural artifacts. I always check for the cultural artifacts first - particularly anything they had written down. If I ignore cultural artifacts, I could (with a little bit of work) "prove" that the Egyptians were the first to discover Lie Groups and Lie Algebra using things like the lotus columns (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lie_algebra) In spite of that, I can assure you that they had no idea of what a vector space is.
The idea would probably get a harsher reception from real Egyptologists, who could cite original works by the Egyptians of that time and cultural artifacts that I'm unaware of that date back to the time of the Predynastic Era.
What would have strengthened the argument?
* star tables or an observatory from the Predynastic Era showing that a particular "sun well" was of specific importance such as a temple complex similar to Karnak - maintained and expanded throughout the lifetime of the Egyptian Kingdom that focused on astronomy
* cubit measurements marked with astronomical references that date to the Old Kingdom
* Big Predynastic solar temples (solar temples don't show up until the mid-to-late Old Kingdom)
* Inscriptions showing that the "Stride of Ra" was used in other measurements (like the length of the king's run for the Heb Sed festival) and was measured in a standard cubit during the Predynastic or early Old Kingdom.
* Standardization of the cubit beginning in the early dynasties.
We do get people here who present ideas and then say "read my paper" or "watch my video" - as a grumpy old scholar, I find that an ineffective response. When I stood up for Orals at my Qualifying Exams, I couldn't say "just read my dissertation." I had to respond with "In my dissertation I used this argument from this source and respond to questions about my source (to prove that I understood the sources.) So I want to know how an idea is built up and whether the foundations hold up for it.
When the response is "read my paper, page xx" or "watch my video at timestamp yy" it doesn't really answer the question about the foundations. A response like "in Section 12.6. Allen says that the verb meaning “come, return” has two different stems: 3ae-inf (jjj) and 3ae-inf (jwj). Then he says “Both verbs behave like 3ae-inf roots in some respects … The stem jjj seems to be the base stem of this verb and jwj, its geminated counterpart.” (which is a copy-pasted line from a real discussion this week on hieroglyphs and translations) has a lot more weight than "read my paper."
And yeah, I am a picky critter. I try to not hop up and down on people over every little detail. I might have those details in mind when I respond but I try to not dump a whole dissertation full of skeptical and critical comments on anyone.
-- Byrd
Moderator, Hall of Ma'at