4. Wikipedia has the following relevant information: "Antares is visible in the sky all night around May 31 of each year, when the star is at opposition to the Sun. At this time, Antares rises at dusk and sets at dawn. For approximately two to three weeks on either side of November 30, Antares is not visible in the night sky, because it is near conjunction with the Sun; this period of invisibility is longer in the Northern Hemisphere than in the Southern Hemisphere, since the star's declination is significantly south of the celestial equator." We can compare with the G text:
November 30 ± two to three weeks - at present - ought to correspond to 'November 28 ± two to three weeks at the time of G. But I have suggested the date 'November 25 for mago at Ga7-16. Maybe the definite conjunction of Antares with Sun was regarded by the creator of the text to occur at Ga7-19. Anyhow, in the time of Scorpius this conjunction was close to equinox. It could have been a Sun-day (see my planetary colour for Ga7-19). Sun is evidently visible at bottom in the glyph. The time of opposition to Sun should at the time of G have been around 'May 29 (instead of the present May 31):
Theemin is υ² Eridani where the River makes a sharp bend, cfr at Beid and Theemin. When Antares was visible all night long then Aldebaran would have been rising heliacally and could not be seen (and vice versa). The shark rising in Ga1-4 resembles that in Ga7-16.
From the date when Antares was visible all night long ('May 29) to the date when Antares was invisible because of the conjunction with Sun ('November 28) there ought to have been around 332 - 149 = 183 days if counted mechanically from the heliacal risings of stars put in parallel with the dates in our calendar. On the other hand, according to e.g. Allen, the number of days needed to wait from a star's culmination at midnight to its heliacal rising should be around 229 (same as the number of glyphs on side a of the G tablet) - see Culmination. This is because Earth moves around Sun once in a year and the stars in the background will appear to move in the opposite direction. The observer down on Earth is not still but moves - both in the daily round and in the yearly round - and therefore the mechanical result must be increased by ca 46 days. 183 + 46 = 229. I have suggested a correspondence between the glyphs on side a of the tablet and dates for heliacal risings of stars, but to move in time from the culmination at midnight of a specific star to its heliacal rising is quite another matter. |
