Bibcode
Belmonte, J. A.
Bibliographical reference
The Role of Astronomy in Society and Culture, Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union, IAU Symposium, Volume 260, p. 74-86
Advertised on:
6
2011
Citations
0
Refereed citations
0
Description
Over the past five years, the Egyptian-Spanish Mission on the
archaeoastronomy of ancient Egypt and its collaborators has been
performing an ambitious scientific project with the aim of studying the
cosmovision of the ancient civilization of the pharaohs. Part of the
project has consisted of a re-analysis of the iconographic and
historical sources that has allowed, among other things, a reassessment
of the calendar theory and a new proposal for the sky-maps of ancient
Egypt. For various reasons, Archaeoastronomy has not been one of the
favourite disciplines of egyptologists in the past. Probably because of
this, important questions such as the orientation of Egyptian temples
and the relevance of astronomy in this respect had never been afforded
with the requisite seriousness and depth. Our work has had among its
various priorities, the solution of this problem. In order to achieve
this, our team has so far measured the orientation of some 330 temples
in the Valley, the Delta, the Oases and the Sinai. 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 results may provide an affirmative answer.