Archaeoastronomy, following the beliefs of the ancient cults

[Sosigenes]

Hi Everyone,

i'm new here, and have a lot of astronomy programmes, and have a fair knowledge of the beliefs of ancient cults and the association to the stars. Lots of times Archaeology cannot give answers to complex questions, as evidence is missing, many records of the Roman period are missing, and studying where the stars were on a particular day in regards to the beliefs of the period can give valuable insight.

 

However this insight is confined to the Julian Calendar period, before this time the Roman Calendar was hopeless due to some extent to political tinkering, i was wondering if any members are interested in Archaeoastronomy and could follow some of my research that i would like to share?

 

Archaeoastronomy's goal is to understand how the skywatchers of the past fashioned and refined systems for regulating calendars and memorializing celestial events, astrology, scorned by today's technology driven science, was integral to humankind centuries ago, and can be fascinating when we go back through the centuries!

 

I wish to start showing research on 1st January 0045 B.C., the start of the Julian Calendar, where several religions were active in the form of Cleopatra, Julius Caesar and the astronomer, Sosigenes.

 

Would you be interested how Rome joined Egypt, and how the modified Egyptian calendar become the Julian Calendar, but more interestingly still had the gods of ancient Egypt hidden in the new calendar!

 

I ask as this topic is fairly specialist.

[Nephele]

Would you be interested how Rome joined Egypt, and how the modified Egyptian calendar become the Julian Calendar, but more interestingly still had the gods of ancient Egypt hidden in the new calendar!

 

I ask as this topic is fairly specialist.

 

I'd be interested in knowing which gods of ancient Egypt were hidden in the Julian Calendar, and how they were hidden. Can a correlation be made between the Egyptian gods corresponding to various seasons, and those Roman gods described in Ovid's Fasti?

 

-- Nephele

[Sosigenes]

Hi Nephele,

 

The ancient Greek poet Hesiod wrote The Works and Days, and listed days on which it is best to pursue various activities, such as harvesting grapes and defined them according to the rising of a particular star:- "When Orion and Sirius shall have reached mid-heaven, then oh Perses, gather your grapes and bring them home".

 

Here is something interesting, in looking at the start of the Julian Calendar, Pliny had something to say about Julius Caesar, which is as follows:- "There were three main schools, the Chaldeans, the Egyptians and the Greeks, and to these a fourth was added in our country by Julius Caesar during his dictatorship, who with the assistance of the learned astronomer, Sosigenes, brought the separate years back into conformity with the course of the Sun!"

 

Obviously Pliny was talking about the events starting the Julian calendar, but more interestingly, did he mean Caesar had started a new mystery school dedicated to the Isis star, Sirius?

Sosigenes was Cleopatra's astronomer and had spent his time studying in the great library in Alexandria, sadly burned down in later centuries. He had a good grasp of astronomy, as the Julian Calendar was only out of true by 11 minutes, not bad for over 2,000 years ago, considering until quartz watches, we were unlikely to own a watch that was accurate to 11 minutes in a year!

 

Without going into the politics of the meeting of Cleopatra and Julius Caesar, which all the learned members know, lets pick out a few points in a general way.

 

1)Cleopatra was extremely political and saw that having babies with important Romans could see her children on the throne of Rome, she threw the dice and lost!

 

2)It seems that Julius Caesar was interested in the god kings that he vanquished in his military career, and especially interested in Cleopatra, who he had a son by, named Caesarion.

The senate suspected that he wanted to be a god king, which obviously they would find dangerous, in fact it was one of the reasons that he was assassinated.

 

3)The Greek ploemaic rulers had seen that the Egyptian calendar was nearly exact in around 238 BC, and had tried to add a leap day every four years, however the secretive priests of Thoth and the Egyptian populance didn't want their sacred calendar messed with, so it was put on hold till Julius Caesar arrived in Egypt.

 

4)The Egyptian New Year was governed by the Sothic Cycle, didn't have a leap day every 4 years, thus was a wandering year, so the First of Thoth being New Year only occured with the heliacal rising of the Isis star once in 1460 years, however if a new calendar was introduced i would expect it to start with an alignment between Sirius and the Sun, involving Egyptian beliefs!

 

5)Julius Caesar chose 1st January as New Year, probably as since 0153 BC that Roman consuls had taken office on that date, however Sosigenes was CLEOPATRA'S ASTRONOMER, therefore tuned to her beliefs. The Roman calendar was hopeless, and it was difficult to know where 1st January fell in it, indeed Sosigenes had to make 0046 BC 445 days long, so he could have tinkered with this to promote Egyptian beliefs, whether Julius Caesar know what he was doing, i cannot say!

 

6)Both Sosigenes and Cleopatra were Greek, the last pharoah was very involved with the Egyptian religion, she often dressed as Isis, and was thought of as Isis on Earth by her subjects. She was clever as she spoke nine lanquages.

 

7) Midnight wasn't used as the start of the day, that early as it was difficult to measure using water clocks, Romans and Egyptians used Sunrise, Babylonians and Greeks used Sunset as the start of the day....indeed Israel uses Sunset even today.

 

8) As Cleopatra was Greek perhaps she used Sunset to start the Julian calendar, to leave an alignment for the Isis Cults, so we wouldn't be looking at sunrise on 1st January 0045 B.C., we would be looking for the location in Egypt that Sosigenes picked to view the stars from at Sunset on 31st December 0046 B.C.

 

9)The three main locations in Egypt at that time were Alexandria, Memphis or the ancient capital Thebes now called Luxor which is 25*N41' 32*E39'

There is only one place where Sirius has any connection during this date in history, Being Thebes/Luxor, the ancient Capital of Egypt, near the sacred temples of Karnak, and not far from the Valley of the Kings!

 

Ask an astronomer, exactly at 17:19pm on 31st December 0046 BC, the Sun set at the location of Thebes, as it set, Sirius the Isis star was rising in the East along the horizon!

 

I have no idea if Julius Caesar knew this, the calendar he brought back to Rome was set to sunrise, so this alignment was secret, joining Egyptian and Greek mythology at the start of the day valued by the Greeks!

 

Web-link to Greek start of day, please scroll down.

 

www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Greek_weights_and_measures

[Sosigenes]

It has to be understood that the ancient mathematicians used an one degree orb, therefore if two planets, or a planet and a star were within one degree, they thought of this as being conjunct, (very close together, therefore co-joined). Jupiter was highly valued as beneficial, and has been used countless times down the centuries, and was very important to Roman mythology, as the King of planets!

 

Lets look at the Orthodox church during the Byzantine period......The Patriarch of Alexandria, Egypt is the archbishop of Alexandria and Cairo, historically this office has included the designation of Pope, and did so earlier than the Bishop of Rome. The first Bishop to be called "papa" was the thirteenth Coptic Patriarch of Alexandria, Papa Heraclas. There were many different starts to New Year in Christian fundamentalism throughout the centuries.

 

Emperor Constantine had been converted to Christianity, as you know and built a new capital city away from Rome, being Byzantium/Constantinople/Istanbul, and died in 337 A.D. Even though Constantinople was the new capital, Alexandria remained a powerful centre of learning, so you can see that both cities needed astronomical alignments regarding religious beliefs of the period, and New Year

 

This means that they couldn't use a heliacal rising star, (star rising with the Sun), attached to New Year, as this only happens in a straight line of latitude, and these Cities aren't on the same line, Istanbul is 41*N01' and Alexandria is 31*N11' latitude. If you were to look on a day that a star rises with the Sun in New York, being latitude 40*N42', the same star would rise with the Sun in Madrid, Spain, as it is 40*N24' latitude. Therefore a political agreement had to be reached between Alexandria and Constantinople!

 

The Orthodox New Year was originally Emperor Augustus' birthday, being 23rd September, however this was moved to 1st September in 0462 A.D.,.....So why did they do this?

 

On 1st September 0462 A.D. the Sun was very close in degrees to Jupiter, the Sun at 9*15 and Jupiter was at 8*18', both within a degree, so as the Sun rose in Alexandria and Constantinople, so did Jupiter! Lets concentrate on Alexandria, the Sun/Jupiter rose at 05:36am Now if you have an astronomy programme, keep the Sun rising, but scroll around your programme to find Due South, and draw a line upwards from this point, this will show the exact centre of the sky, and any stars that are culminating. Now what was rising is connected to what is culminating in ancient beliefs, and was a way that the two cities could experience the same astronomical alignments on 1st September!

 

You may experience a wry smile, knowing that the early church wasn't keen on female influence, and the Isis star would be regarded as female, so don't expect to see Sirius culminating, however there is a very Egyptian male flavour to the stars that are culminating as the Sun and Jupiter are rising!

 

Pyramid Text.

 

I fly from you, oh men,

I am not for the Earth,

I am for the sky.

I have soared to the sky as a heaven.

I have kissed the sky as a falcon.

I am the essence of a god,

the son of a god.

Behold the faithful and loving Osiris,

has come as the stars of Orion, the beautiful one.

I have come that i may glory Orion.

My soul is a star of gold,

and with him i will traverse the sky forever!

 

As the Sun/Jupiter rose in both Alexandria and Constantinople, the point that was culminating in the centre of the sky cut through the Belt of Orion, you will find my astronomy calcalations correct!

 

The Belt of Orion has three stars being Alnitak, Alnilam and Mintaka.

[Sosigenes]

Okay, lets liven up the party, use a search engine on following " earthsky midnight culmination", this should show a very scientific weblink to what happens at the exact minute of new year in our Gregorian Calendar, i could show how this was achieved by calendar reform if you like?

 

The odds of Sirius culminating, and being the brightest star in the sky, are extremely slim by chance at the exact minute of New Year......i think you will agree?

 

Please be aware that i am very tolerant of religious beliefs, my motives are purely a fascination of beliefs of the mystery schools, that seem to be brought forward into the modern era!

 

After Sirius gets out of sinc with the centre of the sky at new year, it will take approx. 24,000 years to return to 1st January, if that is still New Year!

 

http://www.earthsky.org/radioshows/51953/b...lmination-new...

[Monk]

I must apologize to moderators, for forgetting that i did join this forum in 2008 under the avatar Sosigenes, i will only use Monk in future, however there are diagrams that i need to add.

I did start a wordpress on this some time ago that does show diagrams to i will just show links, the name of the journal was just a spoof as it was called M.A.G.I.C.

Below is the link to the start to the Julian Calendar:-

https://wintertriangle.wordpress.com/the-paran-paranatellona-and-sun-calanders/

More below regarding the Assasination of Julius Caeser:-

There is a thing called electional astrology, that you choose the day to go to war etc, and wait for favourable stars at location, and a good astronomer can spot when this happens regarding the beliefs in ancient times.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electional_astrology

please remember that i'm not saying astrology works, but those that believed in astrology in ancient times used to wait for auspicious day's before changing history, i follow the oldest of all astrological practices called Paranatellona or parans for short, link below:-

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10705808

The day starts are used, and in ancient times this would be either Roman Sunrise at location or ancient Greek day marker, being previous sunset. There are four other directions to ponder, being Due East, being the eastern horizon, Due West being the western horizon, Due South being the culminating angle, and Due North being the Nadir, so if the Sun was setting within one degree of the star Sirius culminating, an astrologer would pick that day for action.

In fact the permutations are that this can happen eight day's in 365 day's in any one location in ancient times.  The Romans thought of Sirius as "The door keeper of Hell, explained below as The Dog Day's of Summer."

https://www.stephenmorrisauthor.com/dog-days-summer/

Another Culture, the ancient Egyptians thought of Sirius as the Isis Star.

On 15th March 0044 BC an event happened in Rome that appears to have been marked in the heavens by human hand, being the Assassination of Julius Caesar, that was marked in the sky by ancient Greek style being previous sunset to date being 14th March, this could mean that the reason Caesar was killed was because of a Greek person, Cleopatra came from the Greek Ptolemaic Dynasty, so not an Egyptian Pharaoh, but she was fiercely patriotic and thought of herself as Isis on earth symbolized by Sirius.

The Senate hated Cleopatra who had Caesar's son Caesarion, they thought that Caesar was influenced by her, and thought he was going to declare himself a god, banish the Senate become an emperor and have Caesarion follow him onto the throne.

The message in the sky over Rome for 15 March 0044 BC was set at ancient Greek daymarker being sunset on 14 March as Sirius was culminating  "Nothing personal, just business, you were a great leader but had to be assassinated because of your association with Cleopatra.

I have no idea who the astrologer was who chose the day for his senate masters, but what he wrote will stay in the heavens for that era, some would believe it become part of the Akashic Records, Ha Ha!

Hopefully i'll be able to show an image of this below:-

 

 

 

[caldrail]

Just a couple of points to raise on peripheral issues -

Females and religion. This was not abhorred by pagan Rome. After all, the Vestal Virgins had a vital religious role in preserving the spirit of the eternal city. yes, it is true that Rome was a very chauvanistic society but at the same time, women were accorded the potential to become matriarchs of the family, running the household though never master of it. That said, we find by imperial times that women had found legal loopholes to assert certain rights and this was not effectively countered by legislation. 

In fact, early christianity shows evidence of women as leading affiliates, bearing in mind this was before their attempted unification courtesy of Constantine. Once largely coherent in the late 4th century, the ugly side of masculine domination arrives and images of leading female clerics were erased. This was especially true in the east of the empire.

Isis was a popular religion in Rome. It did not persist in the face of the rising competition between Mithras and Christianity, but still for a long time acceptable to the Principatal Romans who had a habit of treating foreign religions, especially those from Syria, as fashionable.

Cleopatra was indeed from a dynasty of Greek origin but still regarded as Egyptian at the time, the land of her birth. Although originally earthly kings, pharoahs were also the religious leaders of Egypt and came to be seen as divine in their own right. By the time of Cleopatra, divine status was part of the job. Appearing as Isis was simply a ritual affirmation, a display expected of her by the people, and please not that with her Marc Antony dressed as Dionysus in public appearances at least once.

And finally, Cleopatra's children were all allocated large regions of the projected Romano-Egyptian Empire. Hope that helps.

[Monk]

Hi Caldrail,

More on the children of Cleopatra below:-

https://www.knowledgesnacks.com/articles/cleopatras-children/

The date of Cleopatra's suicide, is disputed some think 10th August, others think 12th August 0030 BC.

If it was 12th August 0030 BC. it looks likely she planned it to show in the heavens, to show her the way to Osiris being the Constellation of Orion, the day was marked by ancient Greek day marker at sunset on 11th at location, where the Nadir, Due North points to Alnilam, centre star of the Belt of Orion.

Graph at bottom of page, links below:-

On 12/9/2008 at 11:13 AM, Sosigenes said:

Pyramid Text.

 

I fly from you, oh men,

I am not for the Earth,

I am for the sky.

I have soared to the sky as a heaven.

I have kissed the sky as a falcon.

I am the essence of a god,

the son of a god.

Behold the faithful and loving Osiris,

has come as the stars of Orion, the beautiful one.

I have come that i may glory Orion.

My soul is a star of gold,

and with him i will traverse the sky forever!

https://www.italyrometour.com/what-happened-on-august-12th-in-history/

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Death_of_Cleopatra_by_Rixens.jpg

[Novosedoff]

On 10/4/2021 at 9:28 PM, caldrail said:

 

In fact, early christianity shows evidence of women as leading affiliates, bearing in mind this was before their attempted unification courtesy of Constantine. 

That's likely to be a Jewish thing initially. Babylonian Hammurabi code is known to envisage rather advanced property rights for women, so Jewish Abraham must have been well aware of that too. Salo Baron also mentions the fact that during the exile time there used to be a certain shortage of women among the exiled Jews, which also contributed to the rising role of women (or widespread sodomy, I suppose 😉). But Constantine's new laws on family and children were crucial for Romans too, concubinage was criminalised as well as the selling of children. This must have been influenced by Christians to some degree.

[Monk]

There is a fascinating documentary below about the Fate of Cleopatra's sister Arsinoe :-

 

[caldrail]

That's likely to be a Jewish thing initially.

Possibly, but equally as likely to be influenced by Syrian customs, a region known as a hotspot for alternative religions in classical times. Also the the nature of early Christianity was very fragmented into individual sects which basically followed their own teachings. Many rituals would have been similar, but certainly not all. It was only with the attempted unification of Christianity after 325 that dominant church leaders applied Roman chauvanism, and in quite an ugly form too. Many of these female clerics were positively persecuted.

[Monk]

The Christain religion was very like other religions, that it borrowed events from earlier ones.

When Julius Caesar, Sosigenes and Cleopatra started the Julian Calendar on 1st January 0045 BC, the Winter Solstice was falling on 25th December, but when the Gregorian Calendar was produced in Rome in 1584, they didn't rectify the whole calendar, but only rectified back to 325 AD and the First Council of Nicaea, which is why the Winter Solstice falls on 21 December today:-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Council_of_Nicaea

It was a custon for Gods to be born on the Winter Solstice as Edward Carpenter explains, however i wouldn't agree totally, an example would be Osiris that the myth say's was born in the last five days of the Egyptian Calendar, however New Year was in the Summer.

https://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/pcc/pcc03.htm

 

[Monk]

The other documented birth of Christ is also dubious on 6th January, remembered as Three King's Day or Epiphany, the Pilgrim Egeria noted in 381-4 that the nativity was celebrated in Bethlehem on this date, the early church celebrated the Birth,  First Miracle and Baptism on Epiphany, as shown below:-

https://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/holydays/epiphany.shtml

https://nationaltoday.com/three-kings-day/

Egeria information below:-

http://ldysinger.stjohnsem.edu/@texts/0381_egeria/00a_start.htm

I will show soon some archaeoastronomy regarding 6th January in Bethlehem soon.

[Monk]

Sometimes earlier religions muscle into new ones, and so it seems regarding Christ's birth, we don't know the birthday, however we can see an Egyptian feel to the date of 6th January in Bethlehem during that era  Axial Precession means we don't have to show an exact year, as the alignment in Bethlehem would remain the same during the period.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axial_precession

The Jews did and still does use previous sunset as the start of the day, so we would be looking at Bethlehem at sunset on 5th January at around 0004 BC.   As the Sun set, the brightest star in the sky was rising, being Sirius.   I could have followed this alignment from Persia, being an Archaeoastronomer.

The Three King's would have had to have date of birth before they set out, though!

The alignment can be seen below on link:-

https://imgur.com/tx7HuAP