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1. A fundamental point in my model for arranging the glyphs in the G text in parallel with the right ascension data for prominent stars is its origin, viz. from my guess that Aldebaran corresponds to Ga1-4 and Antares to Ga7-16:
Counting the number of glyphs from Ga1-4 to Ga7-16 gives the result 26 + 29 + 24 + 27 + 30 + 29 + 16 = 181. The difference in right ascension between these two stars ought - according to my interpretation of the G text - to be ca 181 / 365¼ * 24h (= ca 11h 54m). In my astronomy book the right ascension values are as follows:
A difference with 1m from the expected value is not important because the right ascension seconds are not given in my book. Furthermore, I have assumed each glyph represents 1 day, and 1 / 365¼ * 24h = 0.0657h = ca 3.94m. It would have been exactly 4m if we had counted with a 360 day long year. To eliminate the risk that my astronomy book should happen to have a misprint at Antares or Aldebaran we can compare with data from Wikipedia:
I have also used the sky program Cartes du Ciel to find out if the distance from Aldebaran to Antares (once probably regarded as the length of summer north of the equator) has been constant over the last 4000 years or if the number of days between them has changed:,
4000 years ago the distance between them was less, only about 704 / 1440 * 365¼ = 179 days. Once the distance must have been exactly 180 days, and we can interpolate to find when. 180 * 1440 / 365¼ = 710m and (713 - 710) / (713 - 704) * 4000 = ca 1300 years ago. 181 days between Aldebaran and Antares is a measure which is useful not only today but has been so for several hundred years back in time. Anciently 177 days (= 6 synodical months) was presumably more relevant than 180 days. Using the method above to extrapolate we can estimate 177 days to have been the perfect distance from Aldebaran to Antares around 5000 B.C.: 177 * 1440 / 365¼ = 698m and (713 - 698) / (713 - 704) * 4000 = ca 6700 years ago. |
