Ancient Egyptian Astronomy Research Paper

For the Ancient Egyptians, astronomy was big: from huge temples to pyramids, they were built in somewhat of a relation to astronomy. Although many of the religious characteristics of Egyptian life were known for years, it wasn’t until lately that some of archaeon astronomers tried to find out how significant astronomy really was in Egypt.

One of the major archaeon astronomers was Sir Norman Lockyer (1836-1920). He studied Egyptian astronomy for most of his life. In the book he wrote called “The Dawn of Astronomy”, Lockyer separates ancient astronomy into three different stages. First, he stated a civilization goes through the worship stage. This is where the first astronomical curiosities are believed to be actions and signs from the gods. Second, a civilization then advances to using astronomy for things, such as for agriculture or movement. The last stage is to research and learn more about astronomy just to gain more knowledge. The Ancient Egyptians began in the first stage, which was the worship stage, and gradually jumped to the third stage which was the gaining knowledge stage. They wanted to see how astronomy could help them in their everyday lives.

The Egyptians were aware that in a year there was about 365 days. Knowing this they divided the year into 12 months with each month being 30 days with five special days called the “Epagomenic days”. The calendar they created lost one day every four years, and they had no intention of fixing this. They eventually created another calendar based around the star “Sirius”, which also consisted 365 days, but it included an extra quarter day. Ironically, they kept a 360 day ceremonial calendar, being together with the others, and these calendars overlapped every 1461 years. This was looked at as a time of celebration and the start of a new