|
2. In the course of investigating what other stars there could be which are represented in the G text we have come across an important such example, viz. the pair ω Gemini and α Lyrae (Vega):
Counting the number of glyphs from Ga2-11 to Ga8-15 gives as result 18 + 24 + 27 + 30 + 29 + 34 + 15 = 177. The difference in right ascension ought to be ca 177 / 365¼ * 24h or ca 11h 38m. In my astronomy book the right ascension value for Vega is given as 18h 35m, but ω Gemini is not mentioned, probably because it is such a weak source of light for the eye. To count the distance in right ascension minutes between these stars it was therefore necessary for me to use data from Wikipedia. To ascertain that I made no mistake in handling these data I have done it again but used a slightly different approach:
Converting 11h 35m to number of days (number of glyphs) results in 695 / 1440 * 365¼ = 176, close to but not exactly equal to the expected number 177. Earlier (cfr at Nabla) I relied on data for the bright star Castor in order to reach the same time period as that used in my astronomy book, otherwise it would not have been so easy to correlate the current right ascension of ω Gemini with the glyphs in the G text:
Indeed, I had mistakenly converted 36.00s into 0.06m instead of the correct 0.6m. Therefore ω Gemini was given a day value which was slightly wrong. It should be 522.4 - (34.6 - 2.41) / 1440 * 365¼ = 514.2 instead of 514.4. Maybe the difference between 177 and the current value 176 days is due to a change over time in the distance between Vega and ω Gemini. Once again I tried to use the program Cartes du Ciel to find out. However, it does not show the insignificant ω Gemini.
In 4000 years the precession ought to have moved Vega ca 4000 / 72 = ca 56 days forward in the year, and the difference, 56 - 33 = 23 days, should be due to the proper motion of the star - it does not stand still against the star vault. Like Sirius it moves in the opposite direction compared to the precession. Sirius, we remember, lagged with 12 minutes compared to Sun for each year (cfr at Procyon), and this accumulates to a day in 24 * 60 / 12 = 120 years. During the time needed for precession to move the sky vault 1 day Sirius will also move with 72 * 12 = 864 minutes. But this proper motion goes in the opposite direction and Sirius will therefore slowly drift against the movement caused by precession. This will cause Sirius to rise 1 day later than those stars which have no proper movement in 24 * 60 / (1440 - 864) * 72 = 180 years. If Sirius is referred to in Ga2-7, then its position there cannot be true for more than about (102.2 - 101.5) * 180 = ca 125 years ahead, counted from 1930 A.D. (presumably the approximate time for the right ascension values in my book), i.e. up to around 2055 A.D.
Looking in the other direction, we could say that Sirius cannot have been at Ga2-7 for more than ca (102.5 - 102.2) * 180 = 54 years prior to 1930 A.D. Before that it ought to have been at Ga2-8. According to Fischer the officers of the Chilean corvette O'Higgins received the G and H tablets from Father Roussel on Easter Island in 1870 and possibly G had been manufactured not much earlier. But this is pure speculation, we have no 'proof' than Sirius is referred to in the G text. The dilemma of proper motion for someone who attempts to pinpoint on a map the positions of the stars must result either in avoiding stars with high proper motion or to accept a 'best before' date. Worse, stars which are bright tend to be close to us and therefore also tend to have noticeable proper motions. Vega is like Sirus a very bright star. Sirius is lagging behind Sun, causing a drift towards lower right ascension (partly eliminating the precessional movement) with 1 day in 180 years, compared to the stationary stars. Vega moves slightly quicker than Sirius, with 1 day in ca 4000 / 23 = ca 174 years (compared to 180 years for Sirius). For every 174 years the position of Vega (on a map of the type which I guess the text of G is), another day number must be used, added to the effects of the precession. Maybe this explains why there is a repetition of the peculiar 'curve' at the top of the glyphs from Ga7-21 onwards to Ga8-15:
219 (at Ga8-15) - 191 (at Ga7-21) = 28 demands a time period of about 174 * 28 = ca 4900 years, or to be more exact: 29 * 174 =5046 and 1930 AD + 5046 = ca 6980 AD. Vega should like Sirius drift towards lower glyph numbers, not follow the precession, and around 1930 AD - 174 = ca 1756 AD Vega would have been rising 177 days later than ω Gemini - given that its proper motion is assumed to be negligible. When evaluating my idea that Vega could be indicated at several glyphs from Ga7-21 up to and including Ga8-15 the following excerpt from Allen should be considered: "Hewitt says that in Egypt it [Vega] was Ma'at, the Vulture-star, when it marked the pole, - this was 12000 - 11000 B.C. (!), - and Lockyer, that it was the orientation point of some of the temples at Denderah long antecedent to the time when γ Draconis and α Ursae Majoris were so used, - probably 7000 B.C., - one of the oldest dates claimed by him in connection with Egyptian temple worship. Owing to precession, it will be the Polaris of about 11500 hence, by far the brightest in the whole circle of successive pole-stars, and then 4½° from the exact point, as it was about 14300 years ago. In 1880 it was 51° 20' distant. Professor Lewis Boss and Herr Stumpe place near it the Apex of the Sun's Way." Everyone can keep track of the days of the year. The precession is today virtually unknown to common people, but once it probably was the opposite: "The verdicts concerning the familiarity of ancient Near Eastern astronomers with the Precession depend, indeed, on arbitrary factors; namely, on the different scholarly opinions about the difficulty of the task. Ernst Dittrich, for instance, remarked that one should not expect much astronomical knowledge from Mesopotamia around 2000 B.C. 'Probably they knew only superficially the geometry of the motions of sun and moon. Thus, if we examine the simple, easily observable motions by means of which one could work out chronological determinants with very little mathematical knowledge, we find only the Precession.' There was also a learned Italian Church dignitary, Domenico Testa, who snatched at this curious argument to prove that the world had been created ex nihilo, as described in the first book of Moses, an event that supposedly happened around 4000 B.C. If the Egyptians had had a background of many millennia to reckon with, who, he asked, could have been unaware of the Precession? 'The very sweepers of their observatories would have known.' Hence time could not have begun before 4000, Q. E. D." (Hamlet's Mill) The creator of the G text thus hardly used his valuable wooden board just to produce a calendar, and hardly was his ambition just to document the synodical cycles of Sun, Moon, Venus, and the other planets. Instead, I think, his primary goal should have been to define the proper motions of the so-called fixed stars. Polynesians were dependent on exact star maps for their long sea voyages. The temples of ancient Egypt and other durable stone monuments were probably not intended to worship the gods, instead they were the necessary tools for determining the proper motions of the important stars. The rest was common knowledge. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
