Ahatmose Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Another observation ...
>
> The Longitude of Perihelion (... The longitude of
> the perihelion represents the angular position of
> the perihelion of the orbit from the vernal
> equinox. This angle gives the position of the
> Earth on its orbit at the spring equinox. Knowing
> the longitude of the perihelion, it is possible to
> determine the Earth-Sun distance at any time in
> the year.) if one looks, is extremely close to 10
> times the value for "the cubit" . It also changes
> as the angle of The Tropic changes and is always
> increasing toward I guess 360 degrees. During The
> building of The Great Pyramid the longitude of
> Perihelion varied from 205.049 at 2600 BC to
> 206.723 at 2500 BC and 207.091 at 2478 BC
First you have to show how they measured the perihelion accurately (and how they wrote those fractions since they didn't have decimals.)
> Now this presents us with a couple of
> possibilities.
>
> 1) Could 1/10 the angle of longitude = the cubit
If they'd done latitude and longitude then they could have made accurate maps. None of the surviving maps (or any map from any civilization in those times) show a division of the Earth's surface into regular quadrants of latitude and longitude.
>
> 2) and interesting that at the end of The Pyramid
> age the longitude sat at -2478 0.018264
> 23.9722 207.091 and I believe that is as
> large as the cubit ever got in relationship to the
> inch.
>
> So was the measurement used ... The Longitude of
> Perihelion ?
I'll go you one better. I'm going to start maintaining that the cubit measurement is simply the length of a bull's tail (and the Apis bull in specific.) and unlike the speculation that you guys have been doing, I can actually point to cultural signs for this.
Namely:
* A bull's tail is about the same length as a cubit. No adjusting, no calculations, just lay it down and set up your measuring cord/rod/etc.
* the bull's been worshiped as a manifestation of the king's power going back to 3100 BC. And it's the king's power/edicts that get things built.
* One of the names of the pharaoh is "strong bull of his mother" which ties into Hathor and reinforces the association of the king with the bull. And the title goes back to the time of Narmer
* The Narmer palette shows the king with a bull's tail and as a bull defeating enemies.
* The hieroglyphs for the Apis Bull name includes two upside down "v" marks that are the exact shape of the relieving chambers found in every pyramid.
* the king's official regalia includes a bull's tail, as shown on the Narmer Palette.
* the spelling of the measurement called "setat" includes an animal pelt with a tail hieroglyph
* use of the Official Apis Bull tail versus another bull tail explains the difference in length between the "small cubit", the royal cubit, and the "reformed" cubit. Royal construction used the length of the Apis bull tail while other construction used a different bull tail (this explanation covers something that neither of your models do -- but should.)
* it also ties in with other measurements; the volume measurement D.wt (from the Old Kingdom) being a measurement of meat, according to Pommering.
* all other measurements used are related to observable things, and most of them are agricultural in nature
* models of workers (such as the grainery model) and inscriptions at Edfu show that the scribal palette was also used as a cubit measuring device. (Hirsch, p. 43)
* the Amenemope cubit artifact shows that two systems were in use simultaneously and each cubit was slightly different. The length of bulls' tails accounts perfectly for this.
In short, I have a lot more evidence for a bull's tail than both of you have for your mathematical musings - all of which seem to boil down to "well just LOOK at it! It's obvious!" or "Beautiful Math!" Your suggestions don't show the king directly associated with them (he's not wearing a maths t-shirt or carrying astrolabes) nor do they explain why there's two different cubits being used at the same time
References:
Stone, Mark H. "The cubit: a history and measurement commentary." Journal of Anthropology 2014 (2014): 1-11.
Hirsch, Antoine Pierre. Ancient Egyptian Cubits–Origin and Evolution. University of Toronto (Canada), 2013. [
central.bac-lac.gc.ca]
[
ancientegyptonline.co.uk]
[
en.wikipedia.org]
(note: I don't actually believe this. But as long as we're doing the "Egyptologists say stupid things so we should reexamine what they do and fix this by proposing new and more correct 'out of the box' explanations, I decided to do my own with something that was the same size as a cubit. Hence, bulls.)
-- Byrd
Moderator, Hall of Ma'at