Abstract
‘Skyscapes’ will focus on expounding the best and most spectacular results obtained by the Egyptian-Spanish Mission on ‘Archaeoastronomy of Ancient Egypt’ in the 2000s, upgraded and updated by the authors’ own research in the field over the last decade. A series of case studies on the most important pyramid complexes and great temples of Egypt will be examined. An excursus to ancient Kush will also be discussed. The interaction between Egyptian sacred landscapes, using the Nile as a paradigm, and solar, lunar and stellar skyscapes will be emphasized.
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Notes
- 1.
Arctic comes from the Greek ‘Arctos’, bear, while septentrional comes from septem triones, or the seven oxen the Romans saw in this important asterism.
- 2.
Most recent excavations in Abu Ghurob by an Italian team led by Massimiliano Nuzzolo have discovered the remains of an older sanctuary below the solar temple of Niuserre, perhaps either Sahure’s or Neferirkare’s lost solar temple.
- 3.
See: Last view, March 2021.
- 4.
Argo Navis was broken up by N. L de Lacaille in the eighteenth century into three separate constellations (the present Carina, Puppis, and Vela). Canopus is now in Carina (α Car).
- 5.
S. Wening, ‘Musawwarat es-Sufra, interpreting the Great Enclosure’, Sudan & Nubia 5, 2001, 72.
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Belmonte, J.A., Lull, J. (2023). Ancient Egyptian Land- and Skyscapes. In: Astronomy of Ancient Egypt. Historical & Cultural Astronomy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-11829-6_6
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