Greetings all,

Brad Sparks, in a March 12,2007 thread, here, entitled 'Babylonian
Chronology", said this:

"Moreover, as with other claims of "astronomical fixing" of ancient
chronology the dates were originally found by NON-astronomers
publishing in non-astronomical journals long before other thousands of
tablets were uncovered or studied."

Please see the following article:

"Dating Egypt's oldest star map"
"New Discovery In the World's Oldest Star Map"
http://www.moses-egypt.net/star-map/senmut1-mapdate_en.asp

There is a 3500 year old Egyptian star map on the tomb of the great
Senmut (Senenmut) ---- a star map containing a planetary and star
road map in Involving a solar eclipse. Such an alignment,
the article argues, can be used for dating purposes.

I would like to direct Brad and everyone to a section of this website,
"Evaluations, response, reviews", which has snippets from about 40
different reviewers, many of which are astronomers.

"This revelation is the result of investigations by Danish researcher
Ove von Spaeth, and is published in July-August 2000 in vol. 42 of
the international journal of the history of science, "Centaurus".
i.e:
"Centaurus International Magazine of the History of Mathematics,
Science, and Technology" 42;3, 2000, pp.159-179.

The website says only that this solar eclipse occurred in May, 1534bc
( "-1533" astronomical time). I found the exact date of this solar
eclipse, using the 'computer program' on the online planetarium at:
www.skyviewcafe.com, on May 21, -1533 (1534bc).

The star map has, in this order:
Venus,
Mercury,
Saturn,
Jupiter,
Sirius (a star in Canis Major),
Sun&Moon Solar eclipse in Orion,
and Mars.

What do you all think?

FWIW, on May 20 (or 21st (depending on your location on the earth),
1534bc;
Mercury, Jupiter and Venus are in the constellation Gemini,
Sun&Moon are in Orion's hand.
Saturn is in Taurus.
Mars is in Capricornus

They appear in that order along the ecliptic (the planetary 'road').
The star 'Sirius', though well off the road, would appear to fit
between 'Jupiter' and the 'Sun&Moon'.

At the time of the above eclipse, you could not see all of the above
planets. THere was a point in that day where you could perhaps see all
of them, however, Mars was on one horizon and the others were on the
other.

The critics, of Ove von Spaeth, argue that while there was a solar
eclipse in some parts of the world on May 1534bc; there was no such
eclipse in Egypt. So, I started looking for an eclipse, visible from
Cairo Egypt. The following is a list of eclipses or 'close' elipses
that I found, which were visible in Egypt:

July 31, -1564
May 30, -1561
Nov 24, -1561
Sept 11 -1557
Nov 3, -1551
Apr 29, -1550
Feb 15, -1546
April 20, -1541
Mar 29, -1539
Jan 26, -1536
July 11, -1535
Nov 25, -1534

May 9th, 1533bc at 17:55pm.
Jupiter in Cancer
Mars and Mercury in Gemini
Saturn was in Orion's hand
Venus was NOT visible during any portion of the eclipse, but it was
close by, near Pisces.

April 20, 1523bc 9:48am
an 'almost' total solar eclipse visible from Cairo, Egypt

Some other dates which might be worth looking into....

August 2, -1518
July 22, -1517
May 20, -1514
Sept 12 -1511
Sept 2, -1510

It is my GUESS that this is NOT a snapshot of the planets during the
time of the eclipse. IOW, not all of the planets were visible during
the eclipse or subsequent night. No doubt, some of them (maybe most of
them) were visible during the eclipse. But say, you were to look at
the sky "map", throughout the eclipse, and throughout the nite. And
image the planetary path, i.e. ecliptic through the sky as being like
a straight road on the map. Imagine the planets are like towns in a
certain country, the countries, of which are akin to the
constellations. You would see that the Venus is on one side of the
map, and Mars on the other. As you scanned this "road map" from left
to right, you would see the above planets, star, and SUN&MOON in the
order given above.

I'll take some time to verify that above GUESS.

Toby




Toby