Beliefs Hidden in our Calendar.

[Astronomer]

The Julian Calendar began on 1st January 0045 BC, it was based on the old Egyptian Calendar, however a leap day was added every 4 years, it was produced by Sosigenes, Cleopatra and Julius Caesar.
The Egyptians used sunrise as the start of the day and when Sirius rose with the Sun, this was the first of Thoth and New Year's Day.
Although Cleopatra thought of herself as Isis on Earth, and Sirius being the star of Isis, she was from the dynasty of Greek Ptolemaic rulers that become Pharaoh's after the conquest of Egypt by Alexander the Great, and the ancient Greeks used previous sunset as the start of the day.
Therefore in the ancient capital of Thebes, now called Luxor we find as the Sun set on Thursday 31st December 0046 BC at 17:19pm Sirius was rising! Perhaps Egyptian gods still rule our calendar!!

 

[Astronomer]

I will now start at the beginning, showing Sun Calendars up to our own Gregorian Calendar which is also aligned surprisingly to the brightest star in the sky, Sirius.
See brightest star Sirius at midnight on New Year’s Eve | EarthSky.org
The Paran (Paranatellona) and Sun Calendars
[Early Egyptian forerunners of the Paranatellonta?]. - PubMed - NCBI
The civil calendar that the ancient Egyptians used was 365 days long and although they knew that this was approx. 6 hours too short, it was against religious practices to add a leap year every four years. In 238 BC, the Greek Ptolemaic rulers saw that the Egyptian Calendar was nearly an accurate measure of the year, and thus decreed that every 4th year should be 366 days long, however the general populace didn't accept the ruling due to superstition, hence it was put on hold til the introduction of the Julian Calendar on 1st January 0045 BC.

 

[Astronomer]

Most general readers think that the heliacal rising of Sirius denoted the start of every year in the Egyptian Calendar, which simply wasn't the case, as it was a wandering year, and held in place by their knowledge and complicated adjustments involving the Moon etc. The Egyptians knew that Sirius would rise with the Sun in the same location along the Nile after 1460 years, a period called a Sothic Cycle and like a Millennium to them.
An early mention of Sirius can be found in Hesiod, Work and Days, "But when Orion and Sirius are come into the mid-heaven, and rosy fingered dawn see's Arcturus, then cut off the grape clusters Perses, and bring them home".
http://www.vinitywinecompany/producer/lantieri/
Sothic cycle - Wikipedia

 

[Astronomer]

There is a clue in "rosy-fingered dawn", early star alignments weren't made exactly on the horizon being a cosmic alignment, as very ancient Egyptians couldn't see stars as the Sun rose, so calculated this when the Sun was still below the horizon, but just showing pink in the East, however by 0045 BC mathematics had been advanced by the Greek masters, so true Cosmic alignments could be calculated with a star and Sun on the half way point on horizon.

The Egyptian Calendar of 365 days long started on "The First of Thoth", and had five days days added at the end of 12 months of 30 days, where birthdays of the gods were celebrated like Horus, Isis, and Osiris, but don't compare Osiris' birthday to Christ's as the Egyptian calendar began and ended in the Summer! It has been argued that before the joining of Lower and Upper Egypt approx. 3,150 BC, the countries developed their own calendars. In Lower Egypt the Winter Solstice was regarded as the birth of their Sun God RA, Upper Egypt the year was measured as the time between the flooding of the Nile, which was important for farming communities living along the banks, where they noticed Sirius, the Isis Star rising with the Sun.
Next i will write about the problems with the inaccurate Roman Calendar.

 

[Astronomer]

The Roman Calendar.
The original Roman calendar is thought to have been a lunar calendar, based on one of the Greek calendars, the ancient Greek's started the day by Sunset, the Romans and Egyptians started the day at Sunrise. The Roman calendar was closely linked to the science of the sky, gods and Claudius Ptolemaeus, and was used throughout the life time of the democratic period in Rome.

Ptolemy's teachings were based on those of Plato and Pythagoras, who thought that the Earth was the center of the universe, and the Sun, Moon and known planets all revolved around a stationary Earth, at the center of the Cosmos. We still retain 3 days from ancient Rome, being Dies Saturn, being Saturday, Dies Lunae being Moon Day and then Monday and finally Dies Solis become Sunday, other days of the week become entwined with Viking mythology. Like most of the ancient Mediterranean world, the Romans believed that each day of the week were ruled by a god, which related to the known planets being Saturn, Jupiter,Sun, Mars, Mercury, Venus and the Moon.

Apart from a Moon calendar not being accurate, the ancient Roman one was subject to political tinkering by the Roman Senate....no wonder Julius Caesar was looking for an "Accurate Calendar", as he was a student of astronomy, this leads us to the far more interesting "Julian Calendar"

 

[Astronomer]

In no way being patronizing, obviously there is a lot of info to get through with this thread before it gets interesting, so i thought that this thread section i would write about Cleopatra, the last Pharaoh, who has interested poets and writers for 2,000 years, it is a sad romantic story in a very brutal time, although Greek she thought of herself as Isis on Earth, and was heavily involved in constructing the Julian Calendar, the painter Rixens painted her suicide when she had lost everything to Rome, which is on link below:-
File:Death of Cleopatra by Rixens.jpg - Wikimedia Commons

 

[Astronomer]

The Roman Senate hated Cleopatra, they thought that Julius Caesar would want to become a god emperor, thus be influenced by her and the child between them being Caesarion! The Senate said she was ugly, however she managed to have an affair with two of the most powerful men in the world being Mark Antony and Julius Caesar!
Her Sister Arsinoe was good looking, so i suspect that Cleopatra was as well, link to face reconstruction of Arsinoe below:-

Have bones of Cleopatra's murdered sister been found? Archaeologists who made the discovery says there 'is hope' of positive ID | Daily Mail Online

 

[Debi]

In no way being patronizing, obviously there is a lot of info to get through with this thread before it gets interesting, so i thought that this thread section i would write about Cleopatra, the last Pharaoh, who has interested poets and writers for 2,000 years, it is a sad romantic story in a very brutal time, although Greek she thought of herself as Isis on Earth, and was heavily involved in constructing the Julian Calendar, the painter Rixens painted her suicide when she had lost everything to Rome, which is on link below:-
File:Death of Cleopatra by Rixens.jpg - Wikimedia Commons

I'm reading along!

 

[7Critter]

Good history lesson, Astronomer

 

[Astronomer]

Hi Debi and 7Christie,
The documentary below is very interesting to watch, i hope you enjoy it:-