Part 4

The Sun Behind The Sun

A Special Day In Egypt's Remote Past

Richard Parker provides us with some information on the meaning of the first day of the first month (Thoth) of the Sothic year, called wp rnpt or later prt Spdt. By citing various classical sources, he suggests that “the primary meaning of wp rnpt was the helical rising of Sothis”, and believes that from the Middle Kingdom on it meant the first day of the 365-day civil calendar.

“It cannot, I believe, be sheer coincidence that the Middle Kingdom was the time when the term prt Spdt first appeared and when wp rnpt came to mean the first day of the civil year. The explanation is to be found, as I can see it, in the transfer of wp rnpt from its original special application. As “Opener of the Year” it would mean the heliacal rising of Sothis, assuming a lunar year based on Sothis. Thus, as a specific day, it did control, or open, the lunar year. When, however, the civil year had been developed, there came a time, the Middle Kingdom by all the evidence, when the first day of that year, the day which literally “opened” it, also came to be called wp rnpt. Here the emphasis was on the day itself, not on any astronomical event which took place on it. Since by then the civil year had supplanted the lunar year in the life of the people, wp rnpt as the rising of Sothis was of interest mainly to the priests and the temples, and another term, prt Spdt, “the going-forth of Sothis”, purely descriptive of the event, was adopted to name the feat in the civil calendar." ...."Wp rnpt was the rising of Sothis, the event which opened the new year but which, in itself, did not form part of it.”

R. Parker, "The Calendars of Ancient Egypt", Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization, No.26 (1950)

Variants of that name include meanings like “The going-forth of Horus”, “the birth of Re”, "the coming forth into Day" and even “the day of the creation of the universe”.

“According to Porphyry (de antro nympharum 24), ‘for the Egyptians the beginning of the year is not Aquarius, as for the Romans, but Cancer. For near Cancer is Sothis, which the Greeks call the dog-star. Their new moon is the rising of Sothis, which is the beginning of generation in the world’; and Solinus (Polyhistor 32. 12-13) states that ‘this time (the rising of Sirius) the priests have decided to be the birthday of the world, that is the time between the 13th and 11th day before the Kalends of August (July 20 –22)*.’ ”

* [around July 4th Gregorian]

R. Parker, "The Calendars of Ancient Egypt", Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization, No.26 (1950)

In the "Decree of Canopus" (238 BCE) we can still find a subtle reference to the ancient tradition: “On the day of the going-forth of Sothis, called wp rnpt in name in the writings of the House of Life.”

The Same Day Nowadays

For the purpose of accurately dating the entire period of Dynastic Egypt, astronomers and Egyptologist rely primarily on three recordings of the presumed ‘heliacal rising of Sirius’, which according to some astronomers required many successive observations but no calculations:

"The oldest of the three recordings of the heliacal rising of Sirius in terms of civil dates is based on an entry from a temple register from El-Lâhûn”:

"Year 7 [of the reign of Sesostris ?], [Month] III [of Season] Peret, Day 25 ... The Prince and Overseer of the Temple Nebkaure has said to the Chief Lector Priest Pepyhotep : "You should know that the Going Forth (i.e., the heliacal rising) of Sothis takes place on [Month] IV [of Season] Peret, Day 16... You might wish to inform (?) the lay-priests of the Temple of the city called "Mighty is Sesostris the Justified" and [of the Temple] of Anubis and of [that of] the Crocodile-god... And let this letter be produced for the announcement-board of the temple."

Karine Gadré, CultureDiff, Dossier on "The heliacal rising of Sirius: a source of dating", chapter "The heliacal rising of Sirius under the reign of Sesostris? (1/3)"

Obviously, this ancient text (as well as others according to Schwaller de Lubicz) makes reference to the "Going Forth" of Sothis, confirming that such a specific day was calculated and announced in advance (even for different temples regardless of terrestrial latitudes) rather than an observer waiting for the actual astronomical event to take place in relation to the annual flooding.

Egyptologists are more concerned as to when and where some king “Sesostris” I, II or III reigned. As long as the date found on a papyrus from some temple matches with the particular ruler of the given period, the otherwise irrefutable chronology of Egypt’s dynastic decline reflected by a continuous "monarchy replacement" remains intact for future generations to memorize.

Astronomers, however, using the method of back-dating cannot afford to be so vague about astronomical dates. If they wish to take into account the chronological divergences of centuries on the basis of a 365.25 day interval of the heliacal rising of Sirius and claim* that the [Month] IV [of season] Peret, Day 16 somehow corresponds to either June 29th 1800 BCE or August 18th 2000 BCE, then we need to ask why there is a difference of 50 days in just 200 years?

* “In 2000 BC, IV Peret 16 coincided with August, the 18th; in 1800 BC, with June, the 29th.” (K. Gadré, “The heliacal rising of Sirius: a source of dating”)

Of course, by going back in time and converting these dates to our modern civil calendar we arrive at June 14th and August 1st respectively. According to Neugebauer's suppositions regarding ancient Egyptian astronomy, the priests based their reckoning of time on the irregular flooding of the Nile and an agricultural year of exactly 365 days. Thus we are led to believe that the day provided by the ancient text (the 16th day of the eights month of the year) could corresponded to any possible day in a 365-day calendar with respect to the Summer solstice, or the more easily observable equinoxes. That is the reason for the above noted 50 day difference in 200 years (200 × the missing ¼ day every four years).

But do we really want to assume that the ancient Egyptian priests failed to realize that around 2000 BCE their own calendar date was off by nearly three weeks with respect to the solstice and more importantly with respect to the predicted heliacal rising of Sirius?

Hipparchus and Ptolemy relied on imprecise drawings of stars in the sky, an inaccurate tropical year and only a few years of personal observations, but the ancient Egyptians, who successively observed Sirius and other stars for several thousands of years, had supposedly no clue that these stars in relation to the position of Sirius, and their calendar in relation to the Summer solstice or the seasons, would have drifted noticeably apart in a period of already less than a hundred years.
It almost sounds as if Mother Nature never offered the people of Egypt (unlike the Mayan) any other signs and means besides an irregular inundation of the Nile and variable lunar months to correct the calendaric situation.

Who can really say whether the enlightened Hermetic priests at Dendera, Heliopolis and other temples across Egypt would have felt pressed at all to express themselves in alignment with any ceremonial "state" calendar?

Knowledge of a systematic motion of Sirius in the celestial sphere and in relation to the seasons can only be the result of profound wisdom and/or many centuries of careful observations carried out with mathematical exactitude.

Let's not forget that the ancestors of the ancient Egyptians solved quadratic equations in order to construct the Great Pyramid; a design that is based beyond any reasonable doubt on the harmonic Phi-relation, given the mathematical fact that the surface area of each face of the pyramid is exactly equal to the square of its height.

Conclusion

Nowadays, Earth's aphelion is on or around July 4th, which is also the time when Sun and Sirius are in conjunction. For the ancient priests the day of the "Going Forth" or "Shining Forth" of Sirius represented the day of the "New Year", and therefore the beginning of the calendar marked by the position of Sirius relative to the Sun.

So when astronomers assert that the "Going Forth" of Sirius took place shortly after the time of the Summer solstice (i.e. projected backwards to around July 18th to 20th Julian or July 2nd to 4th Gregorian), then we must seriously question the assumption that the astronomically precise Sirius or Sothic year would be equal to a Julian year of 365.25 days.

It would be much more reasonable to conclude that the length of a sidereal year as measured with respect to Sirius is nearly identical to the equinoctial or tropical year of our Earth.

As a final thought, we would like to leave the reader with a wise observation by one of India’s greatest sages, Swami Sri Yukteswar, for it takes vision and courage to clearly see and rectify our mistakes.

“…we may observe that the different planets, exercising their influence over the various days of the week, have lent their names to their respective days; similarly, the different constellations of stars, having influence over various months, have lent their names to the Hindu months. Each of the great Yugas has much influence over the time covered by it; hence, in designating the years it is desirable that such terms should indicate to which Yuga they belong.
As the Yugas are calculated from the position of the equinox, the method of numbering the years in reference to their respective Yuga is based on scientific principle; its use will obviate much inconvenience which has arisen in the past owing to association of the various eras with persons of eminence rather than with celestial phenomena of the fixed stars.”

Swami Sri Yukteswar, “The Holy Science”, 1894

In that sense, and in the tradition of the hermetic wisdom of an ancient and pre-dynastic Egypt, may the "Truth Come Forth Into Day"!

© Sirius Research Group

December 2004

[revised July 2005]

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