Ahatmose Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> 1) Since the Royal Cubit was first introduced at
> Saqqara, can we not infer that it was, in all
> probability, of a "foreign" origin and not a home
> spun design unless Imhotep decided this on his
> own.

I'm dubious that it was foreign and acquired by Imhotep. He's brilliant enough to come up with something on his own, and using the king's palm to put a royal "seal" of sacredness on a cubit sounds like something a savvy courtier would do.

> 2) The decision as to the length of The Royal
> Cubit and the why of it is still very much under
> debate.

Agreed on this. However, the "add a palm" does explain the differences in the cubit lengths.

> 3) The planet [Mars] was known by the ancient
> Egyptians as "Horus of the Horizon",[7] then later
> Her Deshur[8] (7) Gurshtein, Alex A. (1997).
> "The evolution of the zodiac in the context of
> ancient oriental history". Vistas in Astronomy. 41
> (4): 507–525. Bibcode:1997VA.....41..507G.
> doi:10.1016/S0083-6656(98)00002-6.

Among other things, yes.

> In his cosmic aspect, Horus was closely related
> to the sun, particularly in the morning, as shown
> by one of Re's names, Horakhty, 'Horus of the
> Horizon', and the Sphinx of Giza bore the name
> 'Harmachis', 'Horus in the Horizon'. The sun and
> the moon were regarded as the eyes of the sky
> god.

This, however, doesn't "fly" so well. Re-Horakhty is a very late version of Re -- about New Kingdom times. Harmachis is even later, since that's a Hellenic version of Horus.

> and then we have Mars possibly related to
> embalming:

I'm skeptical of this.

> The mummification process took seventy days.
>(etc)
> I believe that the 70 days is relative to how
> w many days Mars is visible (or not visible) in
> the night sky but could not find an article that
> explains this so all in all Mars was indeed a part
> of Ancient Egypt.

Tanning (which is a variant of this) takes up to 30 days for just the skin. Doing a whole body with muscles, etc, is going to take longer. 70 days is the time for a good, dry mummy that will preserve well AND the time to sew things up and place wigs and padding and so forth so that it's a good looking mummy.

> By the way NASA has apparently changed an Earth
> Year to a "Sol" which is 668 days. Anything to
> mess up our calculations

Erm... no. A "Sol" is the length of the day on Mars. Mars' day is about 24 minutes longer than a Earth day.

-- Byrd
Moderator, Hall of Ma'at



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/16/2022 03:31AM by Hermione.