Archaeologica.org

Thanks John. The part about the two stars in the Big Dipper pointing to the North Star I learned in the Boy Scouts. The rest is new to me. Especially the hematite.

Can't help you with the retirement fund.

Cool.

Hey John - any ideas where the north star (Polaris) and big dipper were in 2500BC when the pyramids were likely being laid out?

That's some cool program you've got there FM.

I wouldn't be able to answer your question.

Thank you Monk. And for the solar method I've mentally been trying to do it standing upto my knees in sand with no way of telling noon till just past it, at least without a lot of preparation, and no time piece.
It looks a bit more difficult that way if you are attempting the sort of accuracy the Egyptions gained.
Question Monk. 3 seconds of arc from true north for the great pyramid, great!
Which north would that be? Now or when they were supposed to have been built.
I'm just an observer who hasn't tended to get into the maths, were they more or les accurate at the time of construction or are we crediting them with a greater degree of skill than they in fact had?

You guys are great! I've got visions of you alternately standing on piles of rocks or up to your knees in sand waving plum bobs around and sprinkling them with hematite, trying to work this all out!

Anyway on the subject of who had the Zodiac first, I've found these candidates for our consideration.

Acharya mentions a Karanova Zodiac from Bulgaria (circa 4,000 BC), but I can’t find anything on it. Has anyone heard of this?

But there is also the one that was found in the Hathor temple in Denderah, Egypt. The building itself is only about 2,000 years old, but clues within the iconography itself, according to some, place its zodiac much earlier:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dendera_Temple_complex

The sculptured Dendera zodiac (or Denderah zodiac) is a widely known Egyptian artefact, containing images of Taurus (the bull) and the Libra (the balance). The relief, which was on the ceiling of the pronaos (or portico) of Hathor temple, has been conjectured to be the basis on which later astronomy systems were based.[4] During the Napoleonic campaign in Egypt, Vivant Denon drew the circular zodiac, the more widely known one, and the rectangular zodiacs. In 1802, Denon distributed, after the Napoleonic expedition, pictures of the temple ceiling. There existed a controversy as to how old the zodiac was, ranging from tens of thousands to a thousand years to a few hundred, and if the zodiac was a planisphere or an astrological chart.

The controversy around the zodiac, called the "Dendera Affair", involved people of the likes of Joseph Fourier (who estimated that the age was 2500 BC), Thomas Young, Jean-François Champollion, and M. Biot.

Johann Karl Burckhardt and Jean-Baptiste Coraboeuf held that, after analysis of the zodiac, the ancient Egyptians understood the precession of the equinoxes.

Champollion, among others, believed that it was a religious zodiac. Champollion deciphered the names of Tiberius, Claudius, Nero, and Domitian on the ceiling of Dendera's temple and placed the zodiac in the era of Rome's rule over Egypt.

My bolding, btw.

I'm quite prepared to accept that the ancients were aware of precession, the fact that written evidence is much later reminds me of another argument that I had with Marduk, that written accounts almost certainly are predated by oral ones.
What I want to know is not so much the 'how' as the why?
What drove them to spend the amount of time needed to measure it and prove it, and how did they notice it in the first place. It takes about 70yrs to move one degree of arc, and few people are likely to have lived long enough to have noticed it.
And how did the constellation's names come about? The patterns in the sky are hardly obvious, and some downright misleading.

Well, I can only give a possible 'why' answer by telling you about what I learned in India at the 'feet of a Vedic master'. And after that, you'll never speak to me again.

So here goes:

I learned that there are certain auspicious times for communing with the spirits. Spirits are what shamans call them. In the Indian scriptures, they're known in Sanksrit as 'devas'. The Greeks called these spirits 'daemons' and the Christians changed 'daemons' into 'demons' and thus, demonised them.

I don't know how or why these same spirits/devas/daemons/demons became known as 'gods', but there was that eventual transition at some point.

So when we read about the ancients and their gods, we're really hearing about shamans and their spirits. And this is where I'm going to really stick my neck out - and it will be undoubtedly chopped off and I will lose all credibility with you guys forever! - but I know and have practically experienced, just from my very early stumblings with shamanism, that the spirits do exist.

OK, so if you've stopped laughing now and you're still with me.....I'll continue.

So, the early shamans (read 'Vedic priests', Druids, etc) knew that there were certain times of the year when the 'veil' between the world of the spirits and our world was thinner and thus communication between the two worlds was easier. These times were at the equinoxes and the solstices, and also where the planets were in their orbits also had an effect as well as the constellations.

So that's why astrology, in India anyway, was developed. And mathematics (which we know India was first with) and astronomy, according to what I've been told, were only developed to support the astrology, which came first.

EDIT: I've just realised that I've answered 'why' instead of 'how'. OK, how? As you say, the knowledge was passed orally and in secret to accolytes to the Brahmin priesthood. The Surya Siddhanta, the Indian star book, has recorded events such as a winter solstice in 8,000 BC.

Right, I know I'm going to get slaughtered now, particularly by FM! So go ahead. Do your worst!

Which brings me back Ish to why do all the cultures you listed earlier recognise, and name, the constellations as they do?
As I said earlier, this implies a common history for all mid east-Asia cultures, or that the 'mysteries' were not particularly secret.

This might answer that question, Dig.

It's an extract from Acharya's book:

"The best known astrological priestly caste was that of the Assyro-Babylonian culture called the Chaldeans who, with the demise of the Assyro-Babylonian empire, were eventually dispersed into other parts of the world, including Greece.

"After this development, the Chaldean occult science became less hidden and more known to the masses. From ancient authorities, it is evident that the term "Chaldean" ceased to be descriptive of an ethnicity but came to be considered an appelation for the astrological priestly order, from which the Hebrew priesthood, among others, was, in large part, derived, although the biblical narrators never reached the subliminity of the original. "

Hope this helps.

Makes sense Ish.

Dig - here I think is your 'how' in the sense of 'how they did the measurements'. It's from Manly L Hall's The Secret Teaching of all the Ages:

"Ruins of astronomical observatories have been discovered in all parts of the world, although in many cases, modern archaeologists are unaware of the true purpose for which these structures were erected.

"While the telescope was unknown to ancient astronomers, they made remarkable calculations with instruments cut from blocks of granite or pounded from sheets of brass and copper.

"In India such instruments are still in use, and they possess a high degree of accuracy. In Jaipur, Rajputana, India, an observatory consisting largely of immense stone sundials is still in operation. The famous Chinese observatory on the wall of Peking consists of immense bronze instruments, including a telescopw in the form of a hollow tube without lenses."

We can also get a clue about how these ideas spread around from the life of Pythagorus, circa 600 BC who, on top of everything else, was also an astrologer.

http://www.sacred-texts.com/eso/sta/sta15.htm

The teachings of Pythagoras indicate that he was thoroughly conversant with the precepts of Oriental and Occidental esotericism. He traveled among the Jews and was instructed by the Rabbins concerning the secret traditions of Moses, the lawgiver of Israel. Later the School of the Essenes was conducted chiefly for the purpose of interpreting the Pythagorean symbols.

Pythagoras was initiated into the Egyptian, Babylonian, and Chaldean Mysteries. Although it is believed by some that he was a disciple of Zoroaster, it is doubtful whether his instructor of that name was the God-man now revered by the Parsees. While accounts of his travels differ, historians agree that he visited many countries and studied at the feet of many masters.

"After having acquired all which it was possible for him to learn of the Greek philosophers and, presumably, become an initiate in the Eleusinian mysteries, he went to Egypt, and after many rebuffs and refusals, finally succeeded in securing initiation in the Mysteries of Isis, at the hands of the priests of Thebes.

Then this intrepid 'joiner' wended his way into Phoenicia and Syria where the Mysteries of Adonis were conferred upon him, and crossing to the valley of the Euphrates he tarried long enough to become versed in the secret lore of the Chaldeans who still dwelt in the vicinity of Babylon.

Finally, he made his greatest and most historic venture through Media and Persia into Hindustan where he remained several years as a pupil and initiate of the learned Brahmins of Elephanta and Ellora." (See Ancient Freemasonry, by Frank C. Higgins, 32°.) The same author adds that the name of Pythagoras is still preserved in the records of the Brahmins as Yavancharya, the Ionian Teacher.

Digit wrote: And how did the constellation's names come about? The patterns in the sky are hardly obvious, and some downright misleading.

http://www.sacred-texts.com/eso/sta/sta12.htm

The word zodiac is derived from the Greek ζωδιακός (zodiakos), which means "a circle of animals," or, as some believe, "little animals." It is the name given by the old pagan astronomers to a band of fixed stars about sixteen degrees wide, apparently encircling the earth. Robert Hewitt Brown, 32°, states that the Greek word zodiakos comes from zo-on, meaning "an animal." He adds: "This latter word is compounded directly from the primitive Egyptian radicals, zo, life, and on, a being."

The Greeks, and later other peoples influenced by their culture, divided the band of the zodiac into twelve sections, each being sixteen degrees in width and thirty degrees in length. These divisions were called the Houses of the Zodiac. The sun during its annual pilgrimage passed through each of these in turn, Imaginary creatures were traced in the Star groups bounded by these rectangles; and because most of them were animal--or part animal--in form, they later became known as the Constellations, or Signs, of the Zodiac.

There is a popular theory concerning the origin of the zodiacal creatures to the effect that they were products of the imagination of shepherds, who, watching their flocks at night, occupied their minds by tracing the forms of animals and birds in the heavens. This theory is untenable, unless the "shepherds" be regarded as the shepherd priests of antiquity. It is unlikely that the zodiacal signs were derived from the star groups which they now represent. It is far more probable that the creatures assigned to the twelve houses are symbolic of the qualities and intensity of the sun's power while it occupies different parts of the zodiacal belt.

On this subject Richard Payne Knight writes: "The emblematical meaning, which certain animals were employed to signify, was only some particular property generalized; and, therefore, might easily be invented or discovered by the natural operation of the mind: but the collections of stars, named after certain animals, have no resemblance whatever to those animals; which are therefore merely signs of convention adopted to distinguish certain portions of the heavens, which were probably consecrated to those particular personified attributes, which they respectively represented." (The Symbolical Language of Ancient Art and Mythology.)

I've got visions of you alternately standing on piles of rocks or up to your knees in sand waving plum bobs around and sprinkling them with hematite, trying to work this all out!

I have lots of free time!