Bibcode
Belmonte, J. A.; Shaltout, Mosalam
Bibliographical reference
Advances in Space Research, Volume 46, Issue 4, p. 532-539.
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8
2010
Journal
Citations
0
Refereed citations
0
Description
For various reasons, Archaeoastronomy has not been one of the favourite
disciplines of the Egyptologists in the past. Probably because of that,
important questions such as the orientation of Egyptian temples and the
relevance of astronomy in this respect had never been afforded with the
necessary seriousness and deepness. The Egyptian-Spanish Mission for the
Archaeoastronomy of ancient Egypt has, among its various priorities, the
solution of this problem. In order to achieve that, we have measured the
orientation of some 330 temples in the Valley, the Delta, the Oases and
the Sinai so far. The aim is to find a correct and almost definitive
answer to the question of whether the ancient Egyptian sacred
constructions were astronomically aligned or not. Our data seem to
answer this question in the affirmative sense. Besides, they offer a
very interesting new perspective in the field of landscape archaeology,
a new discipline hardly worked in Egypt so far, in which terrestrial
landscape, dominated by the Nile, and celestial landscape, dominated by
the sun and the stars, would combine in order to permit the
establishment of Ma’at, the Cosmic Order, on Earth.
Related projects
Archaeoastronomy
The main objective of this project is to study the importance of astronomy as a fundamental part of human culture and civilization from Paleolithic to the present day. Our interest is mainly devoted to the people of the ancient Mediterranean cultures from the Atlantic to the Middle East, with a special dedication to Spain, its geographical
Juan Antonio
Belmonte Avilés