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It has long been a subject of debate (mostly between esoteric-minded Historians and Egytologists like John Anthony West) about just how much the Ancient Kemetians knew about the stars and the solor system as a whole. What we DO know is that they had a very high and advanced understanding of it...but this (as far as I can tell) has either never been extrapolated on, or put into the proper context. Egyptian astrology is not talked about a whole lot I think, but the Kemetians were some of the first star-gazers in the world (not to take away anything from anyone else).
quote:The star-sprinkled Egyptian night sky that not only stuns visitors to Egypt was also studied intensely by special temple priests who soon discovered that the appearance of a star they named sepdet (which we know as Sirius) was associated with the beginning of the Nile flood . This was the start of the world's first calendar, invented over 5000 years ago....
...So in the Old Kingdom, a standard calendar with 12 months of 30 days each was introduced . Each month was divided into decades of 10 days.
The above website doesn't go into the role Nabta Playa and other pre-dynastic cultures may have had on this though.
It was Prof. Jean Yoyotte who said, "Where modern man wants to form an opinion of the ancient Egyptians' knowledge of celestial mechanisms and the theories which they derived from them, he will have a difficult time because of the immense proliferation of legends and mythical parabolae, and will always find several different representations for one and the same subject or event...Yet, at the same time, this mystic poetry encapsulates a logical, coherent cosmography and its implicit physics."
I'm going to stop here for now and see if anyone wants to share something. I also want to check out The Temple of Man by R. A. Schwaller de Lubicz. It's like 1088 pages and supposed to be one of the most important works (and exhaustive to read I assume) out there. I personally believe the Kemetians knew more than they're given credit for.
Posts: 1219 | From: North Carolina, USA | Registered: Jul 2004
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IIRC, the Egyptian calendar had 365 days, with a 5 day month at the end. The Ethiopian calendar, which is derived from it, is divided similarly. 12 months of 30 days, and then a short 13th "month," called P'agumen/P'agwimen.
-------------------- "Oh the sons of Ethiopia; observe with care; the country called Ethiopia is, first, your mother; second, your throne; third, your wife; fourth, your child; fifth, your grave." - Ras Alula Aba Nega. Posts: 1024 | Registered: Jun 2006
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Maybe someone who is a little more well read can answer this for me. How the hell did the Ancient Egyptians know about a planet like Jupiter which is invisible to the naked eye (I think).
Posts: 1219 | From: North Carolina, USA | Registered: Jul 2004
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The ancients acquainted themselves with cycles of sunrise and sunset, as well as that of seasons, the moon, not to mentioned other things seen from time to time by individuals on earth, like Halley's comet, the Sothis and so forth. This other stuff about far away planets like Jupiter or Saturn, is something I myself, would like to learn more about.
Posts: 1947 | Registered: Sep 2005
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The ancient Egyptians and other societies might have ultilized lenses to look deeper in space. The evidence that such lenses exist but whether they used them for star gazing is another question. Here is an interesting link from the BBC about the following:
posted
Several planets were known to the ancients: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. These planets are all visible to the naked eye. They can be differentiated from stars because, unlike stars, they don't maintain the same, seemingly fixed, position (relative to each other) in the sky, but rather appear to wander. Also planets have a subtly different appearance from stars in that they really don't twinkle like stars do. Hope this helps.
Posts: 1038 | From: Franklin Park, NJ | Registered: Aug 2005
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Stars seem to maintain the same fixed position relative to each other. Sometimes these positions resemble or seem to be shaped like everyday thinks we're aquainted with. These shapes, forms or arrangements of stars are called constellations. One of the most familiar is Orion in which several stars (some famous like Betelgeuse and Rigel) appear to be shaped like a man wearing a belt from which a buckler, or sword, is hanging. Another familiar constellation is the big dipper shaped like a dipping pan.
The brightest star in the firmament is Sirius which the Egyptians called Sothis. Its part of the constellation, with the not too flattering name, Canis Major: the big dog.
Posts: 1038 | From: Franklin Park, NJ | Registered: Aug 2005
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Observation of planets and stars as well as lunar and solar cycles all helped in the formation of calendars by ancient peoples in the first place.
Posts: 26236 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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The Denderah Zodiac at the Temple of Hathor. This complex (or certain parts of it), while built in Ptolemaic times...obviously is the product of older knowledge (meaning pre-Greek Kemet)...
More to come...
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^Notice the circular shape symbolic of the cylce of time itself. Very similar to Meso-American calendars like that of the Maya.
Posts: 26236 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: ^Notice the circular shape symbolic of the cylce of time itself. Very similar to Meso-American calendars like that of the Maya.
Yea...and there were also some rectangular ones in the Temple as well.
Posts: 1219 | From: North Carolina, USA | Registered: Jul 2004
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Several planets were known to the ancients: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. These planets are all visible to the naked eye...
Interesting. Perhaps I should spend more time gazing at the sky to be on the lookout for particularly Jupiter and Saturn. Do you see these in daylight or at night with the naked eye?
Posts: 1947 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:Interesting. Perhaps I should spend more time gazing at the sky to be on the lookout for particularly Jupiter and Saturn. Do you see these in daylight or at night with the naked eye?
They can be seen only at night with the naked eye. During the day the brightness of the sun is so intense that although stars and planets are there the light they emit is too faint by comparison thus rendering them invisible.
The most easily identified planet is Mars because of its reddish color. However the most spectacular is Venus which is the third brightest celestial object after the sun and the moon. I remember reading somewhere that during the middle ages there was a brief period in which Venus was so bright that it could cast a shadow! Venus is also called the morning and evening star because it can be often seen shortly after sunset (evening star) and just before dawn (morning star).
If you can obtain a small telescope like maybe a four inch reflector or even a two inch refractor many of the details of these objects become clearly visible like rings around Saturn; the moons around Jupiter; and the canyons and mountains of the moon.
Posts: 1038 | From: Franklin Park, NJ | Registered: Aug 2005
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So what colour is Jupiter at night - with the naked eye? How do you tell the body in question is Jupiter? The same goes for Saturn, which I think would be rather easy, given its "rings".
Posts: 1947 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:So what colour is Jupiter at night - with the naked eye? How do you tell the body in question is Jupiter? The same goes for Saturn, which I think would be rather easy, given its "rings".
The colors are a bit complex and somewhat difficult to describe but I'd give it a shot by saying Jupiter has a pale whitish yellow color somewhat like moonlight. For a begginer the best way to tell which planet you're looking at is to look at the newspapers to see which planet can be seen that particular night - usually in the weather section. Saturn is not as bright as Jupiter and you definitely cannot see the rings unaided. But like I mentioned above the rings can be seen with a small telescope. If you can get a hold of one its a very rewarding experience.
A great method for tracking planets is to first get familiar with the contellations of the Zodiac. From our perspective the planets seem to travel in the Zodiac belt. A book which I keep as a handy reference is National Audubon Society Field Guide to the Night Sky it has pretty decent charts of all the contellations including the twelve in the Zodiac.
Posts: 1038 | From: Franklin Park, NJ | Registered: Aug 2005
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^Another thing. With a small telescope you can not only see the moons around Jupiter but you can also easily see the Great Red Spot. Its a truly awesome sight. But nothing compares to seeing the rings around Saturn for the first time.
Posts: 1038 | From: Franklin Park, NJ | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:So what colour is Jupiter at night - with the naked eye? How do you tell the body in question is Jupiter? The same goes for Saturn, which I think would be rather easy, given its "rings".
The colors are a bit complex and somewhat difficult to describe but I'd give it a shot by saying Jupiter has a pale whitish yellow color somewhat like moonlight.
You're right about the difficulty part of your description. I mean one can almost say the same about any celestial body like for example, the moonlight, as you said.
Posts: 1947 | Registered: Sep 2005
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Planets were known to ancient peoples as "wandering stars" because they did not stay in a fixed position like real stars.
I don't know about other planets, but I know Venus can be seen in just at sunrise, hence its nickname the 'morning star'.
There is some interesting info I came across the net before that I am trying to locate again so I can post here.
Posts: 26236 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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quote:You're right about the difficulty part of your description. I mean one can almost say the same about any celestial body like for example, the moonlight, as you said.
That's the problem: other than the sun and moon most celestial objects do look somewhat alike so descriptions of what they look like may not be the best way to go.
Let's try a different approach: Let's start by trying to identify Venus. Look for the moon over the next couple of nights then look to the right of the moon by (in my estimate) about 8 moonlenghts. You should see a bright object looking almost like the headlights of an incoming plane. The object should have a more or less steady light that doesn't twinkle too much. This is Venus. It sets about 45 minutes to an hour before the moon for the next couple of weeks. It should be the brightest object in the sky other than the moon. A couple of nights observation should suffice to confirm it.
Let me know if you've had any luck.
Posts: 1038 | From: Franklin Park, NJ | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Calypso: Mystery Solver wrote:
quote:You're right about the difficulty part of your description. I mean one can almost say the same about any celestial body like for example, the moonlight, as you said.
That's the problem: other than the sun and moon most celestial objects do look somewhat alike so descriptions of what they look like may not be the best way to go.
Let's try a different approach: Let's start by trying to identify Venus. Look for the moon over the next couple of nights then look to the right of the moon by (in my estimate) about 8 moonlenghts. You should see a bright object looking almost like the headlights of an incoming plane. The object should have a more or less steady light that doesn't twinkle too much. This is Venus. It sets about 45 minutes to an hour before the moon for the next couple of weeks. It should be the brightest object in the sky other than the moon. A couple of nights observation should suffice to confirm it.
Let me know if you've had any luck.
Actually, comparatively speaking Venus isn't that unusual to see, which is why I'm focusing my energy on Jupiter and Saturn, without having to use anything else but my naked eye, as you noted earlier. I was under the impression that if someone thought they saw what could only be Jupiter, they would have seen something unique about the body to be able to discern it from other bodies in the first place.
Posts: 1947 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:Actually, comparatively speaking Venus isn't that unusual to see, which is why I'm focusing my energy on Jupiter and Saturn, without having to use anything else but my naked eye, as you noted earlier. I was under the impression that if someone thought they saw what could only be Jupiter, they would have seen something unique about the body to be able to discern it from other bodies in the first place.
This is the very reason that it takes a little initial effort to learn to recognize the planets: to the naked eye they're not bodies but merely points of light.
Posts: 1038 | From: Franklin Park, NJ | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Calypso: This is the very reason that it takes a little initial effort to learn to recognize the planets: to the naked eye they're not bodies but merely points of light.
I’m afraid you are reading too much into the word ’body’, which simply meant “Jupiter”…you know, the planet itself [stars, planets and satellites are also called ’celestial bodies’]; my bad for assuming that this would have been understood. On that note, you are now saying that Jupiter and all the rest are “merely points of light”, which makes it all the more interesting, with regards to how then one would be able to distinguish “Jupiter” as a single “point of light” from other “points of light”, with the naked eye. To avoid confusion, perhaps I should have phrased my earlier statement like this:
I was under the impression that if someone thought they saw what could only be Jupiter, they would have seen something unique about Jupiter [or as you understand it, “point of light”] to be able to discern it from other bodies [celestial bodies, or in your terms, “points of light”] in the first place. Posts: 1947 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:I’m afraid you are reading too much into the word ’body’, which simply meant “Jupiter”…you know, the planet itself [stars, planets and satellites are also called ’celestial bodies’]; my bad for assuming that this would have been understood. On that note, you are now saying that Jupiter and all the rest are “merely points of light”, which makes it all the more interesting, with regards to how then one would be able to distinguish “Jupiter” as a single “point of light” from other “points of light”, with the naked eye. To avoid confusion, perhaps I should have phrased my earlier statement like this:
I was under the impression that if someone thought they saw what could only be Jupiter, they would have seen something unique about Jupiter [or as you understand it, “point of light”] to be able to discern it from other bodies [celestial bodies, or in your terms, “points of light”] in the first place.
The bad, indeed, is all mine for misunderstanding. A most grievous and egregious bad no doubt.
Nonetheless, let's continue. These points of light: Saturn and Jupiter, in and of themselves, barely exhibit any qualities that would differentiate them from stars when viewed with the naked eye. But, there are clues you can use: 1)they're relatively bright; 2)they don't twinkle as much as stars; 3)they're located in the zodiac belt.
If its night where you are right now, as it is where I am, look at the moon. It is between two bright objects. The one to its left is Regulus a star in the constellation Leo. The object to its right is the planet Saturn. The bright side of the moon is facing Saturn. Tomorrow night the moon will be closer to or even to the left (East)of Regulus so you'll have two bright objects just to the right (West)of the moon. The one farther away will be Saturn.
Posts: 1038 | From: Franklin Park, NJ | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:I’m afraid you are reading too much into the word ’body’, which simply meant “Jupiter”…you know, the planet itself [stars, planets and satellites are also called ’celestial bodies’]; my bad for assuming that this would have been understood. On that note, you are now saying that Jupiter and all the rest are “merely points of light”, which makes it all the more interesting, with regards to how then one would be able to distinguish “Jupiter” as a single “point of light” from other “points of light”, with the naked eye. To avoid confusion, perhaps I should have phrased my earlier statement like this:
I was under the impression that if someone thought they saw what could only be Jupiter, they would have seen something unique about Jupiter [or as you understand it, “point of light”] to be able to discern it from other bodies [celestial bodies, or in your terms, “points of light”] in the first place.
The bad, indeed, is all mine for misunderstanding. A most grievous and egregious bad no doubt.
Nonetheless, let's continue. These points of light: Saturn and Jupiter, in and of themselves, barely exhibit any qualities that would differentiate them from stars when viewed with the naked eye. But, there are clues you can use: 1)they're relatively bright; 2)they don't twinkle as much as stars; 3)they're located in the zodiac belt.
If its night where you are right now, as it is where I am, look at the moon. It is between two bright objects. The one to its left is Regulus a star in the constellation Leo. The object to its right is the planet Saturn. The bright side of the moon is facing Saturn. Tomorrow night the moon will be closer to or even to the left (East)of Regulus so you'll have two bright objects just to the right (West)of the moon. The one farther away will be Saturn.
Will look into it. Sounds like a fun little project.
Posts: 1947 | Registered: Sep 2005
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Here is an interesting article I came across which explains about ancient astrological beliefs which tied astronomy to the religous and spiritual beliefs of ancient peoples, especially in the numbering of deities. It gives good explanation on why the Olympian deities of Greece were numbered as 12 which corresponds to the months of the year and the signs of the Zodiac.
THE SIGNS and the planets are obviously closely related. When we interpret a planet in the birthchart we do so in terms of where the Sign(s) it rules are located among the houses. In interpreting the meaning of a Sign we relate it to the strength and location of its planetary ruler. The standard allocation of the seven classical planets to the various Signs of the Zodiac (Mars ruling Aries and Scorpio, Venus ruling Taurus and Libra, etc.) is listed in virtually every textbook from Ptolemy to Tyl.
I've been trying to learn how and why these rulerships were originally allocated. My search was mainly unsuccessful yet in the process I came across another rulership scheme that existed for at least two thousand years - it probably even pre-dates the Signs of the Zodiac for it existed in 1600 B.C. This older rulership scheme co-existed with our standard rulership scheme for several centuries. It disappeared in the early 6th century when it was effectively banned by the Catholic Church. This article presents the evidence for this older rulership scheme and then discusses some of the implications knowledge of it may have to us today. One important implication is that reference to Greek mythology as a way of getting at the meanings of the planets may not be as valid as many writers on astrology seem to believe.
The Evidence
WHILE THE ZODIAC, the narrow strip in the sky in which we observe and measure the movements of the Sun, Moon and the planets, was undoubtedly recognized in Babylon 4,000 or so years ago it was not apparently until about 520 B.C. that the twelve Signs were actually defined. This seems to have been done by Cleostratos of Tenedos [1], who divided the ecliptic into twelve equal parts and is said to have "recognized the Signs of the Zodiac." He reputedly described them in a now-lost poem, Astrologia.
Before there were Signs there were months. The earliest calendars were lunar, a month lasting either from first crescent to first crescent or from full moon to full moon. Twelve 30-day months and five extra days made up the year. And each month was believed to have a separate god as its ruler or guardian. Evidence of this concept can be traced to both ancient Babylon and Egypt.
The month gods first appear in Egyptian art as early as the Eighteenth Dynasty, some 1,600 years before Christ. In Western Europe this was the Bronze Age, the period when Stonehenge was being built. Twelve gods for twelve months, originally the month gods seem to have been deities in whose honor a festival was held on the first day of each month.
The Egyptian month gods at this time were, in sequence, Thy, goddess of the first month, Ptah, Hathor, Sekhmet, Min, Rkh-Wr, Rkh-Nds, Rnwtt, Khonsu, Khnt-Khnty, Ipt, and Re-Harakhty, god of the twelfth month. They included five goddesses, five gods, and two hippopotami (Rkh-Wr and Rkh-Nds). These gods appear in the above order on an alabaster waterclock from the reign of Amenhotep III (1397-1360 B.C.).[2] Except that the hippopotami are replaced by jackals, they are in the same order on ceilings in the temples of Ramses I (1290-1223 B.C.) and Ramses II (1174-1147 B.C.). On these two ceilings, in the center of the band, a dog-headed ape squats on a pillar, the symbol of Thoth, god of the five intercalary days.
The Egyptian month gods were still considered sacred nine hundred years later in the time of Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.). There are extant representations of Alexander and later Macedonian rulers of Egypt making offerings to these month gods. Representations of these same native month gods continued to be used in Roman times. On two water clocks depicting the appropriate month gods the Latin name of the months are incised on the rims.
The twelve Egyptian gods began as month gods. Later, some time before the third century B.C., they also became protectors of the Zodiac Signs. At that time Appollonius Rhodius, a Greek poet who was chief librarian at Alexandria, wrote "the Egyptians call the twelve Zodiac Signs' counselor gods by name, and the planets attendants." It was the Twelve Gods then who ruled the Signs of the Zodiac, not the planets. Herodotus, the man Cicero called 'the father of history' in the second book of his Histories, also refers several times to an Egyptian set of Twelve Gods. He wrote "each month and each day belongs to one of the gods."
The Babylonians also believed there were twelve major gods, each of whom watched over a month and one of the twelve Zodiac Signs. This we learn from the Bibliotheca Historica written by Diodorus Siculus, a first century B.C. Greek historian.
The Greeks were familiar with the concept of twelve leading gods. They had their own twelve Olympians. In Athens, the Olympians were the patrons of the city state, concerned with the maintenance and prosperity of the civic order, especially justice, and also bestowing upon Athens primacy among Greek cities.
The individual Egyptian month gods were not the exact equivalent of the twelve Olympians whom the Romans later also recognized as month gods, only Ptah presides over the same month as his Greco-Roman equivalent Hephaistos/Vulcan. The twelve Egyptian month gods are not regarded as the source for the Greek Twelve (they were worshipped and invoked individually while the Greeks invoked them as a group; the Greek twelve were wholly anthropomorphic, the Egyptian included the two hippos, later jackals), but knowledge of this similar set of deities may have led to the later association of the twelve gods of Greece and Rome with the months...
As a side note, this does not mean that the Greeks derived their 12 gods from Egypt. On the contrary, theirs seems more derived from the pantheon of early Anatolian people which also numbered as 12 and is a feature shared also by the Etruscans of ancient Italy whom their successors- the Romans, later adopted.
REFERENCES IN classical literature to altars to the Twelve Gods founded by Greek heroes imply that the cult existed in Greece during the late Bronze Age: the sixth century B.C. Greek lyric poet Pindar refers to altars founded by Herakles at Olympia, Hellanicus (a fifth century historian) wrote that Deukalion founded an altar in Thessaly, while Herodotus cites Jason's sacrifice to the Twelve Gods by the Bosphoros. In the Homeric Hymn to Hermes, probably composed in the 8th century B.C., the infant god, after killing Apollo's cattle, set aside twelve portions for the gods.
Plato (c.427-c.347 B.C.) believed the Twelve should have a central role in the ideal city. In his Laws, he proposed that the citizens be divided into twelve tribes, each to be named for one of the Twelve Gods, who would serve as its patron deity. He also proposed that the ideal city should hold a festival each month for one of the Twelve and that the festival of the twelfth month be devoted to Plouton.
Plouton, the Greek god of the underworld, was not one of the Greek Twelve. The last month of the Greek year, to which Plato's twelfth month corresponded, was Skirophorion, named after the Skira festival which took place during the month. The Skira seems to have been connected with the rape of Persephone/Kore by Plouton. It is roughly equivalent to June, when today the vegetation dries up and dies in Greece. Thus, the death of vegetation coinciding with the death of the year made it a particularly suitable month to be dedicated to Plouton, and there was already a festival during the month with which he was associated. Plato interpreted Plouton as 'the giver of wealth'. In art, Plouton regularly holds a cornucopia, symbol of wealth and fertility.
There is no evidence before Plato's time that the Greek Twelve as a group had any connection with the months. Eudoxos of Cnidos, who is known today as 'the founder of scientific astronomy', is thought to have been responsible for identifying the twelve Olympians with the Signs of the Zodiac. In doing so, he was obviously following the Egyptian tradition; he is known to have spent sixteen months in Egypt sometime in the period 378-364 B.C.
In his Phaedrus, Plato described the Twelve Gods as astral deities who drive through the heavens, maintaining order in the heavens. This has been interpreted as supporting the association of the Twelve Gods with the Signs of the Zodiac. In Plato's thought, the Twelve Gods were no longer the parochial set who watched over the prosperity of Athens and ensured its dominance over other cities, but universal deities concerned with the well-being of the Kosmos.
In 293 B.C., the months of the city of Demetrias in Thessaly were named after the twelve Olympians. This is the earliest association of the twelve Olympians as a group with the months. We know only the names of ten of the months: Aphrodision, Areios, Artemision, Athenaion, Deios (of Zeus), Demetrion, Hephaiston, Hermaion, Hestios, and Poseidon. Unfortunately, we do not know the order of the months.
The Twelve were represented in various ways, possibly the most interesting being a circle containing a ring of twelve dots at Epidauros. However, there is no evidence that the association of the Olympians with the months was expressed in Greek art.
THE EARLIEST Babylonian list of relations between months and deities has been dated to approx. 1,000 B.C. The gods of three of the Babylonian months can be equated with the Olympian associated with the same month - Ishtar with Demeter/Ceres, Marduk with Ares/Mars, and Sin with Apollo. In each instance, however, the Babylonian deity has a different Greco-Roman counterpart in the system established for the planetary gods.
THE TWELVE GODS, also known as Di Consentes, were introduced to Rome some time before the third century B.C. In 217 B.C., after Rome had suffered a serious defeat at the hands of the Carthaginian Hannibal, the Roman Senate ordered the Roman priestly college of the decemviri to consult the Sibylline books and determine how the wrath of the gods could be appeased. In due course, they were informed that a sacred banquet should be held to honor the gods. Six couches were set up in public, one for Jupiter and Juno, a second for Neptune and Minerva, a third for Mars and Venus, a fourth for Apollo and Diana, a fifth for Vulcan and Vesta, and the last for Mercury and Ceres, twelve gods in all. Only heads of gods were originally represented on the couches. In the event, Rome was saved from Hannibal; so this unusual banquet was justified.
Saturn was not one of the twelve. In the first century B.C., a set of bronze statues of the twelve Di Consentes stood in the Roman Forum. They were juxtaposed with the public treasury, which was kept in the Temple of Saturn, and the public records kept in the Tabularium. The Di Consentes were thus admirably suited to the protection of the state, able to supervise the business of government and watch out for financial or administrative wrong-doing.
The Twelve Gods appeared in Rome at a time of crisis. The Twelve promptly displayed their ability to protect Rome and cause it to flourish. The cult the Romans had imported was the old Greek municipal cult, and it remained attached to the city of Rome.
The Latin names for the months are not generally derived from those of the Olympians. The two obvious exceptions are March (Martius) and June (Iunis), named for Mars and Juno. The association of Mars with March persisted in illustrated calendars into the middle ages, long after the month gods disappeared as a set. The Latin poet Ovid connected Venus with April (Aprilis), while May (Maius) can be said to relate to Maia, the mother of Hermes/Mercury. Only these four months were initially named, the rest were numbered, with our July the fifth month (March was the first) being Quintilis, our month of August was Sextilis, and so on. This Roman custom of naming the first four and numbering the remainder is fascinating; it occurred also in Roman families, the children after the first four being called Quintus, Sextus, etc.[3] The month of Quintilis was later renamed July to commemorate Julius Caesar in 44 B.C., and Sextilis was changed to August to honor Augustus in 8 B.C. The naming of January and February had occurred earlier, at the time the start of Rome's civil year was moved from March to January...
You can read the rest from the webpage.
But I have more to come dealing specifically with the Egyptians.
Posts: 26236 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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quote:Will look into it. Sounds like a fun little project.
Mystery Solver I'm hoping you've had some luck with locating Saturn. Also, I saw Jupiter last night (around midnight) fairly high in the sky, rough estimate about 40-45 degrees above the horizon, to the east of the moon. It was in the constellation Virgo and is by far the brightest object east of the moon (away from the bright side) so its hard to miss.
Posts: 1038 | From: Franklin Park, NJ | Registered: Aug 2005
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^To be frank, I haven't exactly had much time to gaze into the night sky lately, with work and all, not to mention having to deal with what now seems like a rainy season in my neck of the woods.
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