Sterling wrote: "It is the *heliacal rising of Sirius*, the *Dog Star*, which achieved conjunction with the Sun on July 31, but won't be briefly visible on the eastern horizon at dawn until August 7th or so...It was the basis of the Egyptian calendar, for the appearance of Sirius marked the start of the rising of the Nile to flood. Anciently, the heliacal rising of Sirius at that time and latitude happened on July 23 every year."
Hi Sterling and List, As for the heliacal rising of Sirius, I totally agree. That's why the first sighting of the brilliant star Sirius in the morning sky (shortly before sunrise) was regarded as the true New Year's Day by the ancient Egyptians. Unfortunately "not every year", at least for the ancient Egyptians because they used a civil year of 365 days instead of 365 ΒΌ days. They did not use our leap-year so that after about 120 years the civil year would be a whole month in advance of the astro- nomical year. Because of this defect in the civil year, it sometimes happened that the real summer fell in the winter of the civil calendar, and vice versa. Reference: GARDINER A. (1994) Egyptian Grammar (Third Edition, Revised, pp. 204-205). Best wishes, Bernd ______________________________________________ Visit the Archives at http://www.meteoritecentral.com/mailing-list-archives.html Meteorite-list mailing list [email protected] http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
