Part 3

Sirius and the Summer Solstice

The Effect of Precession

At this point we may rightfully ask, "What has all of this to do with the phenomenon of Precession?” The calendar reform was not due to precession, although a hypothetically longer solar year leads to the same effect!

Precession is an observed celestial phenomenon that involves the apparent motion of the stars relative to the ‘fixed’ position of the Equinoxes and Solstices. For the record - and one can already hear some astronomers huffing and puffing (because they can’t prove otherwise) - the length of the tropical year does not depend upon any adopted value of the precession!

Unfortunately, most astronomers do not study theoretical precession dynamics and are unfamiliar with all the required hypothetical movements, including the motion of Sirius.

Just as the motion of the Moon serves as a witness (solar eclipse phenomenon) for the Earth’s 360-degree orbital motion around the Sun in a tropical year, so does Sirius.

It seems that against all of its beliefs, Modern Astronomy has actually proven that our entire heliocentric solar system moves around the Zodiac; not because of occult forces acting on the Earth, but because astronomers have completely failed to demonstrate that the Earth wobbles relative to the fixed position of an immovable Sun

Sirius & Precession

It is recognized that from the beginning of the empire and during the entire dynastic period the rising of Sirius with the Sun always occurred around the time of the Summer solstice. Unless the ancient astronomers had some still unexplained means (like an underground hollow from which special shafts opened towards the horizon in certain directions) to directly observe Sirius in conjunction with the Sun, it is extraordinarily hard, if not impossible, to observe Sirius in broad daylight. And during several months before and after it enters in conjunction with the Sun, Sirius is no longer visible at night. Therefore, given the difficulty to locate the Summer solstice and the exact position of Sirius relative to the Sun by naked-eye observations, it is a truly remarkable accomplishment of the ancient astronomers to "choose" from among all of the precessing stars this particular star Sirius as the important and lasting marker for time.

The implication of this astronomical fact is best explained by Jed Z. Buchwald, a distinguished Professor of History and Science, in his paper “Egyptian Stars under Paris Skies” (Caltech, Engineering & Science No. 4, 2003), where he discusses the meaning of the Zodiac that has been engraved in the ceiling of the temple of Dendera in Egypt:

“The solstice is, after all, extraordinarily hard to pin-point by observation, and in any case it was known from Greek texts that the Egyptians were particularly concerned with the heliacal rising of the brightest star in the sky, Sirius—that is, with the night when Sirius first appears, just before dawn. In Egyptian prehistory this event certainly preceded the annual flooding of the Nile, which was of obvious agricultural importance. Would not precession have moved Sirius along with the zodiacal stars, eventually decoupling its heliacal rising from the solstice, and so from the annual inundation? We know today that the inundation occurs after the June beginning of the rainy season in Ethiopia, where the Blue Nile rises. And yet Sirius’ heliacal rising remained a central marker of the year throughout Egyptian history.” (p 25)

".... despite precession, Sirius and the solstice must remain about the same distance in time from one another during most of Egyptian history. Indeed they do, though it’s doubtful that Burckhardt and Coraboeuf had thought it through. Because of Sirius’ position, and the latitudes at which the Egyptians observed the sky, both Sirius’ heliacal rising and the summer solstice remained nearly the same number of days apart throughout Egyptian history even though the zodiac moves slowly around the ecliptic." (pp 29)

Buchwald, who produced a revealing diagram on the ‘Heliacal Risings of Sirius’ in relation to the vernal points (for the period of 2900 BCE to 2941 CE at intervals of 1460 years) using TheSky software, makes it very clear that "Sirius remains about the same distance from the equinoxes - and so from the solstices - throughout these many centuries, despite precession".

In a personal correspondence with this author, Jed Buchwald also noted that “the effect was actually first discovered long ago by Tycho Brahe in fact, who informed the chronologer Scaliger about it.”

Buchwald’s account appears to be very different from the established notion that the phenomenon of the ‘Precession of the Equinox’ was not known to the ancient Egyptians - a notion which the astronomer Johann Karl Burckhardt and the engineer Jean-Baptiste Coraboeuf of the early 18th century were not at all convinced of.

Earlier on, as we can learn from Buchwald, Charles Dupuis argued that astronomy itself was born near the Nile over 14000 years ago. And Constantin Francois Chasseboeuf (a.k.a. Volney) maintained that history amounts to a succession of continually reemerging ancient civilizations.

Again, this idea is supported by the Yuga theory of ancient India, as expounded by Swami Sri Yukteswar in the introduction of his book “The Holy Science” which he wrote in 1894. In fact, Sri Yukteswar advanced the argument by asserting that the celestial phenomenon which causes the backward movement of the equinoctial points around the zodiac is due to the motion of our entire solar system around its dual.

Yet the assertion that Sirius plays the role of a center for the circuit of our entire solar system has been proposed about six decades later by the mathematician and Egyptologist R.A. Schwaller de Lubicz, who studied the findings of Jean-Baptiste Biot. De Lubicz remarked in his book "Sacred Science - The King of Pharaonic Theocracy" that the Sirius year of almost exactly 365.25 days was established according to the heliacal rising of Sirius.

"For it is remarkable that owing to the precession of the equinoxes, on the one hand, and the movement of Sirius on the other, the position of the sun with respect to Sirius is displaced in the same direction, almost exactly to the same extent."

R.A. Schwaller de Lubicz, “Sacred Science”, Inner Traditions (1982)

next page 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7