Precession of the Equinox - A Miracle of Greek Science?

Before we can understand the obstinacy on the part of some astronomers and Egyptologists in their desire to belittle the skills and the knowledge of the ancient Egyptian “priest-astronomers”, we must first of all know more about the discovery of another cosmic phenomenon: the Precession of the Equinox.

The standard "party line" is that the phenomenon of precession was officially discovered by the Greek scholar Hipparchus, and nothing seems to lead our contemporary astronomers to think that the ancient Egyptians were aware of it. The trouble is that we know extremely few details (if any at all) about the alleged discovery of precession from Hipparchus himself. This includes some of his other major mathematical works.

Most of the information which we actually have about Hipparchus comes from the Almagest of Claudius Ptolemy, who evidently used Hipparchus’ observations to construct his own astronomical/astrological system. Strangely, Hipparchus did not use a consistent coordinate system to specify stellar positions. His observations may have been accurate to a third of a degree but apparently they were made from different latitudes.
The value of precession, which he figured was about 46” per year, was most likely obtained through his attempts to calculate the approximate length of the tropical year and by comparing his finding with earlier results, presumably Babylonian parameters or astronomical references of Chaldaean and Egyptian origin. It should be noted that Ptolemy’s fictive value for the precession (36”) differs significantly from Hipparchus’ assumptions, which were also based on a uniform circular motion of the sphere of the fixed stars and a fixed, non-rotating and non-orbiting Earth, since he used the wrong duration for the tropical year.

The question is from where and how did these early observers obtain the correct value of a sidereal year in order to determine precession; i.e. without knowing the exact length of the tropical year or the 360-degree revolution of the “Sun around the Earth”?

The late astronomer Robert R. Newton notes: “…comparing the kinds of years would not have given the Greek astronomers an accurate value p (precession). In view of the difficulty of measuring stellar longitudes, the most accurate method available to them was probably the measurement of stellar declinations.”

Robert R. Newton, “The Origins of Ptolemy's Astronomical Parameter”, Chapter V, “The Stars and the Precession of the Equinoxes”, Center for Archaeoastronomy, College Park, Maryland (1982)

Limited by the accuracy of the construction of the available instruments (astrolabe), the observations and recordings depended largely upon the adopted value of the obliquity of the ecliptic itself, which was by no means perfectly known. But it seems mathematical theories were more important than accurate observations. According to Neugebauer, "The ancient astronomers rightly had greater confidence in the accuracy of their mathematical theory than in their instruments."

Robert R. Newton, “The Origins of Ptolemy's Astronomical Parameter”, The Role of Observation in Ancient Greek Astronomy, Center for Archaeoastronomy, College Park, Maryland (1982)

Hipparchus' value may have been the result of such "technical" errors, but in the case of Ptolemy his "errors in observation" were more a problem of poor plagiarism.

Ptolemy’s own work, the Syntaxis or better known as the Almagest, a monumental book containing a multitude of observations, catalogues and calculations, reigned for almost 1400 years as a nearly undisputed source for astronomical information throughout medieval Europe and Arabia. It has certainly shaped the history of science, influencing many great thinkers. Some modern scholars say that Ptolemy preserved Greek astronomy and ancient observations, while others like Robert Newton (“The Crimes of Claudius Ptolemy”) are convinced that Ptolemy “lost for us the genuine astronomy of the ancient world”. Ptolemy apparently fabricated his observations and misreports those of earlier origin to match his own theories.

Newton concludes that, “The Syntaxis has done more damage to astronomy than any other work ever written, and astronomy would be better off if it had never existed. Thus Ptolemy is not the greatest astronomer of antiquity, but he is something still more unusual: he is the most successful fraud in the history of science.”

Robert R. Newton, “The Origins of Ptolemy's Astronomical Parameter”, Center for Archaeoastronomy, College Park, Maryland (1982)

Hipparchus and Ptolemy may have been victims of the age they lived in and neither one of them can defend themselves any longer against any allegations of “misconduct”, although some of their modern-day advocates could. But after 2000 years of “Greek astronomy” they probably feel they don’t have to. After all, Otto Neugebauer had made it clear for them that the Egyptian calendar “is certainly not derived from astronomy”.

And since no one can say for sure what went on in the mind of Hipparchus, who was one of the few well-known scholars of antiquity to have access to the Great Library of Alexandria where once more than five hundred thousand books, scrolls, papyri and manuscripts were kept, we will never know what he may have read about precession or what inspired him to start his own observations to confirm it; i.e. the motion of the sphere of the fixed stars.

“Let those who, believing in observations, cause the stars to move around the poles of the zodiac by one degree in one hundred years toward the east, as Ptolemy and Hipparchos did before him, know … that the Egyptians had already taught Plato about the movement of the fixed stars. Because they utilized previous observations which the Chaldeans had already made long before them with the same result, having again been instructed by the gods prior to the observations. And they did not speak just a single time, but many times … of the advance of the fixed stars. (Proclos Diadochos, Commentaries on the Timaeus, IV)

R.A. Schwaller de Lubicz, “Sacred Science”, Inner Traditions (1982)

Part 2

The Rise and Fall of the Calendar

"Sosigenes' Calendar Reform" - A Glimmer of Hope In Dark Times

By the time Ptolemy wrote his Syntaxis the world was already in turmoil, it was the beginning of the death of Greek astronomy and mankind was descending into a cataclysmic dark age. Almost two centuries earlier, when Julius Caesar’s forces conquered Egypt in 48 BCE, part of the Great Library of Alexandria had gone up in flames – the first of a series of disasters to befall that grand repository of scientific and philosophical knowledge. Ultimately, the fate of the Library of Alexandria paralleled the widespread, silent disappearance
of the ancient science and wisdom from the face of the Earth.

Neither the Greeks* nor the Romans ever had a functional calendar that was in tune with the seasons. By the time Julius Caesar ruled over Egypt, the old Greco-Roman lunar style calendar was off by more than two months from the date of the equinox. What a defeat for the ‘mightiest’ man in the world to realize that only someone initiated in the Hermetic Tradition of ancient Egypt would be capable to restore the calendar to its original form.

* Apparently, around the fourth century BC the Greek Callippus had improved the earlier Athenian calendar of Melon and Euctemon by omitting one day every 76 years (Callippic cycle). However, his "365.25-day calendar reform" did not survive the following centuries.

From the Roman author Gaius Plinius Secundus (a.k.a. Pliny the Elder) we learn that "... There were three main schools, the Chaldaean, the Egyptian, and the Greek; and to these a fourth was added in our country by Caesar during his dictatorship, who with the assistance of the learned astronomer Sosigenes (Sosigene perito scientiae eius adhibito) brought the separate years back into conformity with the course of the sun." (http://www.rxs.bigstep.com/generic.html?pid=8)

Had it not been for the great Alexandrian scholar and astronomer Sosigenes, who was brought to Julius Caesar in 46 BCE to help him “overhaul” the Roman calendar, there would have never been any spring equinox occurring on March 21st in the subsequent years until roughly 300 CE – i.e. shortly before the Fathers of the Church debated their Easter problem due to their inadequate lunar based solar calendar.

Thus, the wise Sosigenes not just re-introduced the ancient Egyptian solar calendar with its well-known four-year leap day cycle, but also accounted for the secular error of one (leap) day every 128.18 solar years.
According to Hipparchus’ wrong calculation of the tropical year that error would have amounted to one day in about 300 years.

For it is remarkable that Sosigenes’ tropical calendar (a.k.a. Julian calendar) was kept accurate until approximately 300 CE, as the knowledge of its additional leap-day was being lost again for nearly another 1300 years!

Neither historians nor scientists can offer us any conclusive document (like a decree or reform) which shows that the Julian calendar had in any way been corrected by omitting three leap days over a period of less than 400 years following "Sosigenes' reform". Given the historical uncertainty as to which years from 43 BCE to 8 CE were counted as leap years, it appears Modern Science would rather attribute the accuracy of the calendar to coincidence.

As a reminder and symbol of a genuine surviving fragment of ancient wisdom, Sosigenes began the “new year” on the 1st of January 45 BCE, representing the first day of the month of Thoth in the tradition of the ancient “Sirius” calendar. Our New Years Day (Silvester) is a reflection of the age-old ritual, celebrating the return of Sirius to the mid-heaven position at midnight, which occurs around the first of January. Interestingly enough, for 2005 Earth's perihelion is also on January 1st - an event which hasn't happened in centuries.

The accuracy of the calendar was not the result of sheer coincidence, but the direct influence of an ever wakeful and periodically re-emerging flow of the perennial wisdom and knowledge coming forth throughout the ages, as in the tradition of the ancient Hermetic school.

By around 200 CE Clement of Alexandria still made reference to a catalogue of Egyptian Books, which contain in thirty six works the entire philosophy of the Egyptians. Among them were “eight books dealing with the knowledge of what are called hieroglyphics and including cosmography, geography, the positions of the sun and moon, the phases of the five planets, the chorography of Egypt, the charting of the Nile and its phenomena, a description of the temples and of the places consecrated to them and information regarding the measures of all that is used in sacred rites. … Four books dealing with the stars, one regarding moving stars, the other about the conjunction of the sun and moon, the other about their risings, confided to the Astronomer whose symbols are a clock and a palm branch.”

R.A. Schwaller de Lubicz, “Sacred Science”, Inner Traditions (1982)

This most valuable collection of books was known to the Greeks under the name of Hermetic Books or the Books of Thoth, as they considered the author of these books to be the Egyptian sage Thoth – the god of wisdom.

next page 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7