Related papers: Senenmut: An Ancient Egyptian Astronomer
We suggest an earlier date for the accession of the pharaoh Akhenaten of the New Kingdom in Egypt. His first year of reign would be placed in 1382 BCE. This conjecture is based on the possible witness of three annular eclipses of the sun…
Astronomy is an observationally-led subject where chance discoveries play an important role. A whole range of such discoveries is continually made, from the trivial to the highly significant. What is generally needed is for luck to strike…
The history of astrometry, the branch of astronomy dealing with the positions of celestial objects, is a lengthy and complex chronicle, having its origins in the earliest records of astronomical observations more than two thousand years…
The modern usage of the words astronomy and astrology is traced back to distinctions, largely ignored in recent scholarship. Three interpretations of celestial phenomena (in a geometric, a substantialist and a prognostic versions) coexisted…
This is a historian's view of how modern astronomy data can be used to discuss the shifting historical worldview of Late Antiquity. In this article an attemp is made to construct an approximate model of how the cycles of astronomical…
From al-Sufi's tenth-century observation of the Andromeda Galaxy as a "little cloud" to contemporary space missions, Islamic astronomy represents a millennium-spanning tradition of innovation and knowledge. This study traces its trajectory…
Africa has amazing potential due to natural (such as dark sky) and human resources for scientific research in astronomy and space science. At the same time, the continent is still facing many difficulties, and its countries are now…
The Great Pyramids of Egypt hide mathematic information unknown up to date. The measurements of the three Great Pyramids of Egypt at Giza show that Egyptians knew how to calculate the circumference, the volume and the area of the sphere…
The possible discovery of astronomical effects due to precession - such as the shift in the declination of heliacal raising of bright stars or the precession of the equinoxes - is reviewed for various ancient cultures in the world. Although…
An ancient engineering firm worked successfully in the construction of one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The engineers used inclined planes, bags of sand and shafts of columns and architraves as wheels and axels.
Hipparchus is considered the greatest astronomer of antiquity. However, his fame is due, more than to what he has done, or said, or written, to what the scientists of some generation or of a few cen-turies later have written of him: above…
By the twelfth century, northern European scholars gradually embraced Arabic innovations in science and technology. England naturally developed into a significant centre of the new learning in western Europe. Hereford, and specifically its…
During the first few centuries CE, the centre of the known world gradually shifted from Alexandria to Constantinople. Combined with a societal shift from pagan beliefs to Christian doctrines, Antiquity gave way to the Byzantine era. While…
The architectural complexes composed by the two main pyramids of Giza together with their temples are investigated from an inter-disciplinary point of view, taking into account their astronomical alignments as well as their relationships…
The past fifty years have been an epoch of impressive progress in the field of astronomical technology. Practically all the technical tools, which we use today, have been developed during that time span. While the first half of this period…
Edwin Hubble is famous for a number of discoveries that are well known to amateur and professional astronomers, students and the general public. The origins of these discoveries are examined and it is demonstrated that, in each case, a…
The use of the observed positions of celestial bodies to determine the location of a navigator and to direct vessels, was an aspiration of ancient seafarers. Various peoples, in the Mediterranean as much as in the Indian Ocean, in China as…
It is widely believed that the advance of science in the Islamic world after the mid-fifteenth century A.D. suffered a decline. For the purpose of examining this belief, a manuscript by Qasim ali al-Qayini (ca. A.D.1685) was chosen based on…
Conceptual landscapes in Egypt show a remarkable continuity - for as long as 2000 years - in the use of symbols and in the interplay between natural and man-built features. Directionality, both in the sense of succession of elements and of…
The Ancient Egyptians wrote Calendars of Lucky and Unlucky Days that assigned astronomically influenced prognoses for each day of the year. The best preserved of these calendars is the Cairo Calendar (hereafter CC) dated to 1244--1163 B.C.…