Barbarossa's Declination One Period Ago, and Egyptian Temple Azimuth
Review. Above I mentioned that based on the four sky survey positions, Barbarossa's Declination, one period prior to Dec. 21, 2012, in heliocentric celestial coordinates of the equinox of date, would have been +12.10. Its Declination about 290yr later, at its most negative ecliptic latitude, would have been about +9.19. At the Nabta megaliths, this would give (without correction for atmospheric refraction) azimuths of 13.11 or 9.96deg (N of E for rising, and N of W for setting). Nabta's layout has azimuths NS, EW (off by only 1'), and about 26 N of E (the summer solstice sunrise then and now; it's uncertain whether this better fits the refraction-corrected or uncorrected value). The mysterious km-long "Alignment V" is, if my interpretation of the grossly erroneous Fig. 1 in the April 2, 1998, Nature article is correct, at 9.46 S of E, which would correspond to the setting of a star at Declination +8.73. The Nature article's Fig. 3b shows collinear stones at Nabta's central site with azimuth about 10.24 N of E, corresponding to the rising of a star at Declination +9.45.
Other Egyptian temples. "We have then a [histogram] peak at [azimuths corresponding to risings or settings, at that temple's latitude, of stars at Declinations + or -] ~ 11 1/4. In Paper 3 [Shaltout, Belmonte & Fekri, Journal for the History of Astronomy 38:141+, 2007; unavailable on the internet, except for a fee from a French company
www.cat.inist.fr
; it seems to be on Dr. Shaltout's website but I can't access the paper, nor, usually, the site] we had a long discussion about this peak. It mostly corresponds to temples facing an interval of declination between -10 1/2 and -12deg. These are the declinations of the sun at dates in the vicinity of Feb. 20th and Oct. 22nd and would mark the beginning of the actual sowing and harvest seasons [reference given], hence the name 'seasonal'."
- Belmonte, Shaltout, Fekri & Miranda, "On the orientation of ancient Egyptian temples: (4)", Sec. 1.2, p. 4 (available online).
These azimuths seem hardly needed to mark planting (Oct., in the earliest times typically pressing the grain into the mud after the Nile flood) and harvest (Feb.) sunrise. Surely the variety and even the species of grain (wheat vs. barley) grown would vary, as would agricultural practice. Not only harvest, but also optimum planting time would vary. Winter wheat in the "upper Midwest" U.S. region now is planted later than formerly, to avoid an insect ("Hessian fly date"). Climate change in 3000 yr would alter the times of Nile floods, and winter temperatures. One degree of arc difference in sunrise azimuth, corresponds roughly to only three days in February, in Egypt. Furthermore, planting after the Nile flood, and harvesting when the grain is ripe, need no calendar.
On the other hand (Shaltout & Belmonte, "On the orientation of ancient Egyptian temples: (1) Upper Egypt & Lower Nubia", J. for the History of Astronomy 36:273+, 2005; Table 1) there is a borderline significant trend, for Shaltout & Belmonte's 10.5 to 12 deg Declination orientation (or my 9 to 12) to be found oftener in later temples. Of 133 temples with Declinations tabulated, 40 are Ptolemaic or Roman era, 8 are Middle or Old Kingdom or archaic, at least when begun, and 85 are New Kingdom. Of 12 temples (in this preliminary group; eventually they studied three times as many) aligned at Declination 7.0 to 14.0 (+ or -), 6 were Ptolemaic/Roman and 6 New Kingdom. The exact probability that none of the 8 pre-New Kingdom, would have the alignment, is 46%. The exact probability that, given all are New Kingdom or Ptolemaic/Roman, at least half would be the latter, is only 11%. Furthermore all three temples facing the north Declination (+7 to +14, not -7 to -14) are Ptolemaic/Roman (exact probability 2.6%)(the Declinations of these three average +12.1 +/-0.6 SEM). A survival of 6000 BP should be strongest in the oldest temples, not the newest. Maybe as the freeborn culture of the Old & Middle Kingdoms gave way to the slave economy of the New Kingdom and Ptolemaic/Roman era, religious motivation became needed in agriculture.
Maybe Nabta was inspired by Barbarossa's brightening, then (the one Mayan association of "Bolon" which I discovered in my Google search but didn't mention above, because I didn't then know its relevance, is with seeds) the two crisscrossing direction lines (Barbarossa's rising and setting were at the northern ends of the lines) became associated with planting because the sun rises/sets at the southern ends of the lines, in February. So, Egyptian temples mostly face the southern Declination, not the northern; especially the southern sunrise, because that's more dramatic.
Maybe in the Ptolemaic/Roman era, Alexandrian scholars effected a renaissance of the oldest Egyptian knowledge, and began to make the temples face north again, correcting the sign of Barbarossa's Declination. This might have been the same time that the calendar knowledge was exported to Central America.
