Heliacal Rising of Sirius & the Sothic Year

FACT & FICTION

It is generally known that Sirius “disappears” for about 70 consecutive days each year. That is the period between May 28th and August 6th, when the light of the Sun makes the bright Sirius invisible to our eyes.

We are also being told that in ancient times the heliacal rising of Sirius was coupled to or coincided with the annual flooding of the Nile, which occurs regularly during the summer after the June beginning of the rainy season in the Ethiopian highlands, where the Blue Nile rises. Obviously, the yearly flooding of the Nile was of agricultural importance for the ancient Egyptians. Nowadays, the artificial Aswan dam and chemical fertilizers have replaced the living force of the Nile.

We are furthermore told that the more or less regular occurrence of the Nile flood and the punctual heliacal rising of Sirius on August 6th went gradually out of tune over many centuries due to two separate reasons:

Lunisolar Precession

Let’s take the time period of 4500 years, the orthodox date for the appearance of the Great Pyramid. The heliacal rising of Sirius did not occur on August 6th but about 64 days earlier on June 3rd. (4500 ÷ 70.64* = 64 * [25800 ÷ 365.2422 = 70.64]). That means the heliacal rising preceded the flood by about two months. Keep in mind that it was the rising of the star that was predicted, not the rising of the river. Evidently, the flood cannot occur two months prior to the massive rains in Ethiopia.

Erroneous time-keeping of the calendar

Aside from Otto Neugebauer’s ridiculous notion of a 365-day Sirius related agricultural calendar, we know that the old Egyptians used a so-called Sothic calendar of exactly 365.25 days. The same simple yet incorrect calendar period led to the calendar reform of 1582 AD, when after a time span of 1300 years a correction of 10 days was required.

http://www.siriusresearchgroup.com/articles/Sothis4.shtml

It is easy to see that Dynastic Egyptians had a similar calendar problem as Medieval Europeans. But the Egyptians didn’t have to correct the position of Sirius for something that doesn’t occur – i.e. lunisolar precession.

Just as Sirius is once a day always aligned with 45° shaft* of the Great Pyramid, so does the calendar year always start on New Years Day on January 1st (or July 4th in very ancient times, i.e. when Sun and Sirius are in the conjunction). Therefore, the heliacal rising of Sirius would always have to occur on August 6th.

In other words, aside from certain proper motions of the Sirius system itself, Sirius does not merely stay in synch with tropical time but rather determines it.

* (Here it is interesting to note that the orientation, angle and dimensions of this shaft are predetermined for a wavelength of 38 cm. Using a superluminal double prism, the physicist Dr. G Nimtz achieved already in 1992 with the so-called tunnel-effect signal transmission at 4.7 times the speed of light. It cannot be excluded that a wavelength of 38 cm produces a delay of “zero- time”. http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/physics/pdf/0104/0104063v1.pdf )

But more importantly, Egyptologists, astronomers and so-called pyramid experts like Robert Bauval believe and argue that “Sirius, being only circa 8.5 light years away, registers a fairly large apparent proper motion whose vector, by a lucky fluke, makes the “Sirius (Sothic) year” almost exactly 365.25.”

The question to these experts is:

IF

a)       lunisolar precession and/or the fairly small annual proper motion of Sirius causes the sidereal year, as measured with respect to Sirius, to be almost exactly 365.25 mean solar days (days) nowadays and throughout Egyptian history, which had its orthodox beginning approx. a quarter precession cycle ago, while

b)       the entire sphere of the fixed stars is said to move at a fixed rate of 365.2564 days relative to the fixed tropical year of 365.2422 days, and

c)       modern astronomical software programs show that the position of Sirius is 180° opposite to its current tropical position and therefore at its lowest declination in the sky half a precession cycle ago (i.e. about 47° lower than nowadays)

What extraordinary cosmic force would cause Sirius to move at a rate of 365.25 days for roughly a quarter precession cycle, yet returning to its original position (e.g. relative to the Orion constellation) half a precession cycle from now?

In other words, given the current position of Sirius above the horizon, if the ‘Sothic year’ is almost exactly 365.25 days then after half a precession cycle, Sirius is not going to be about 47° lower but situated somewhere in between. Unless of course, it “catches up” eventually moving at a rate significantly different from 365.25 days or from any of the other established values.

Since Lunisolar Precession makes no exception for any star, Sirius is truly extraordinary…

http://www.siriusresearchgroup.com/articles/Sothis6.shtml

August 24, 2007

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