Medieval History
A statistical analysis of a 3000-year old calendar reveals that astronomers in ancient Egyptian must have known the period of the eclipsing binary Algol.
The Ancient Egyptians were meticulous astronomers and recorded the passage of the heavens in extraordinary detail. The goal was to mark the passage of time and to understand the will of the Gods who kept the celestial machinery at work.
Egyptian astronomers used what they learnt to make predictions about the future. They drew these up in the form of calendars showing lucky and unlucky days.
The predictions were amazingly precise. Each day was divided into three or more segments, each of which was given a rating lying somewhere in the range from very favourable to highly adverse.
One of the best preserved of these papyrus documents is called the Cairo Calendar. Although the papyrus is badly damaged in places, scholars have been able to extract a complete list of ratings for days throughout an entire year somewhere around 1200 BC.
Click here to read this article from Technology Review
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Medieval History
Ancient Egyptians Recorded Algol's Variable Magnitude 3000 Years Before Western Astronomers
The Ancient Egyptians were meticulous astronomers and recorded the passage of the heavens in extraordinary detail. The goal was to mark the passage of time and to understand the will of the Gods who kept the celestial machinery at work.
Egyptian astronomers used what they learnt to make predictions about the future. They drew these up in the form of calendars showing lucky and unlucky days.
The predictions were amazingly precise. Each day was divided into three or more segments, each of which was given a rating lying somewhere in the range from very favourable to highly adverse.
One of the best preserved of these papyrus documents is called the Cairo Calendar. Although the papyrus is badly damaged in places, scholars have been able to extract a complete list of ratings for days throughout an entire year somewhere around 1200 BC.
Click here to read this article from Technology Review
- ?jesus Said To Them, My Wife?? ? Discovery Of Early Christian Gospel Suggests Jesus Was Married
Four words on a previously unknown papyrus fragment provide the first evidence that some early Christians believed Jesus had been married, Harvard Professor Karen King told the 10th International Congress of Coptic Studies today. King, the Hollis...
- Baylor Undergrad Students Get Rare Chance For In-person Research On Ancient Manuscripts
Fragments of ancient, rare manuscripts of Greek classical poetry, Greek philosophy and Judeo-Christian Scriptures are being retrieved from papier-mâché-like mummy wrappings on loan to Baylor University ? all part of an international project that will...
- Sword Discovered In Japan Was Forged In The Year 570
An ancient sword bearing kanji characters that show the year 570 according to the Chinese sexagenary cycle has been unearthed from an ancient burial mound here, the local education board announced on Sept. 21. The discovery made by the Fukuoka Municipal...
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