aa r X i v : . [ a s t r o - ph ] J a n SENENMUT: AN ANCIENT EGYPTIAN ASTRONOMER
Bojan Novakovi´c
Astronomical Observatory, Volgina 7, 11160 Belgrade 74, Serbia
Abstract.
The celestial phenomenon have always been a source ofwonder and interest to people, even as long ago as the ancient Egyptians.While the ancient Egyptians did not know all the things about astronomythat we do now, they had a good understanding of the some celestialphenomenon. The achievements in astronomy of ancient Egyptians arerelatively well known, but we know very little about the people whomade these achievements. The goal of this paper is to bring some lighton the life of Senenmut, the chief architect and astronomer during thereign of Queen Hatshepsut.
Key words:
History and philosophy of astronomy, Senenmut1. INTRODUCTIONAs early as several thousand years ago people were interested in as-tronomy and they have had some knowledge about celestial phenomenon.This kind of interest existed in almost all ancient civilization, althoughit raised from different purposes and motivations. The ancient Egyptianswere interested in astronomy, mainly for practical and religious purposes.This paper is devoted to achievements of ancient Egyptians astronomy(section 2.) and to the life of an ancient Egyptians astronomer Senenmut(section 3.).2. ASTRONOMY IN ANCIENT EGYPTAstronomy was very important to the ancient Egyptians and playeda different part for that people than it does in many cultures. Althoughtheir achievements were far less advanced than those of some other ancientcivilization, many of them are very important and deserve our attention.Here, we will mention some of them.The invention of the 365-days calendar, based on astronomical obser-vation. The development of this type of calendar probably took place atleast as far back as 2,000 B.C., but the first calendar developed in Egyptwas lunar calendar and it was developed about 3000 B.C - Mankind’s firstmeasurement of time. The beginning of the Egyptian year was declaredwhen there was a flood, as they noticed that the flood begins with the starSirius, the brightest star in the sky. This incident represented the beginningof the agricultural year in Egypt. The year had 365 days divided into 12months and each month had 30 days. They made the remaining five daysfeast days, called the Epagomenal Days, or the days upon the year, andadded them at the end of the year. Months of the year were divided intothree seasons, namely: the flood season, the planting season, and the har-vest season. The year, the season, the month and the day in which the kingassumed power was usually recorded by the Egyptians in their documents.The development of instruments of quantitative astronomical measure-ment. These included the sundial, water clocks, and the merkhet. Theancient Egyptians used instruments or indicators for observing the cir-cumpolar stars. They would then draw a north-south axis line on theground marking its direction, which was required for the proper orienta-tion of important building projects. One of the instruments used was called”Merkhet,” (similar to an astrolabe), which could mean ”indicator.” It con-sisted of a horizontal, narrow wooden bar with a hole near one end, throughwhich the astronomer would look to fix the position of the star. The otherinstrument, called the ”bay en imy unut,” or palm rib, had a V-shaped slotcut in the wider end through which the priest in charge of the hours lookedto fix the star.Telling time by the stars. Astronomy in ancient Egypt was the bestway to tell the time during the night. They recognized a number of con-stellations and other groups of stars. These groups of stars, called decans,were used for telling time at night. Each group of stars rose forty minuteslater each night. Observing the position of a group of stars in relation tothe day of the year would tell a person what time it was. Theoretically,there were 18 decans, however, due to dusk and twilight only twelve weretaken into account when reckoning time at night. Since winter is longerthan summer the first and last decans were assigned longer hours. Tablesto help make these computations have been found on the inside of coffinlids. The columns in the tables cover a year at ten day intervals. Thedecans are placed in the order in which they arise and in the next column,the second decan becomes the first and so on.The achievements in astronomy of ancient Egyptians also include: • Knowledge of stellar constellations - at least 43 constellations werefamiliar to the Egyptians in the 13th century B.C. • Knowledge of planetary astronomy - five planets were known to theEgyptians; the retrograde motion of Mars was known; the revolutionof Mercury and Venus around the Sun was known. • Astronomy was also used in positioning the pyramids. They arealigned very accurately, the eastern and western sides run almostdue north and the southern and northern sides run almost due west.3. SENENMUTThe earliest known star maps in Egypt are found as a main part of adecor in a tomb (TT 353) at Thebes on the West bank of the Nile (e.g.Leser 2006). The tomb was build during of the Egyptian 18th dynasty, andit belonged to Queen Hatshepsut’s vizer and calendar registrar Senenmut(also known as Senmut or Senemut).But, who really was Senenmut? Senenmut was of low birth, born toliterate provincial class parents, Ramose and Hatnofer. Despite his non-royal origin Senenmut was given more prestigious titles and became highsteward of the king. There is no doubt that much more is known aboutSenenmut than any other non-royal Egyptian.The list of Senenmut’s titles are very long, but the first of all he was anarchitect, government official and tutor of Neferure - Queen Hatshepsut’sdaughter. Senenmut originally entered the royal court during the reign ofTuthmosis II, under Hatshepsut he would eventually hold over 80 titles(Dorman 1988) during his period as an official and administrator workingin the royal court. Other dimensions of his career are suggested by thepresence of an astronomical ceiling in his tomb at Deir el Bahari and about150 ostraca in his tomb at Qurna, including several drawings, as well as lists,calculations, various reports and literary works. No doubt the workmenwere instructed to decorate his tomb with items of interest in the life ofSenenmut.The social classification of the family has also been a central point of thediscussion. Probably at that time about 5% of the population was able ofreading and writing. Therefore, Tyldesley (1996) placed the family in the”upper” social class, which mastered these stages of civilization, because inher opinion Senenmut would not have been able to start successfully intohis career without these abilities. In this connection is also unclear, howor where Senenmut has started his career. Able to read and write he couldhave started his career as a low civil servant. However, it is also possiblethat he had started with a military career and then changed into the ad-ministration. As far as we know it was quite usual that retiring officerswere awarded with an administrative position. The destroyed inscriptionsin his monument, TT71, which contain text fragments possibly give someinformation about the beginning of his career.Beside the offices mentioned above, which he surely executed, he also gotnumerous ”courtly titles” - like the one called ”Only friend of the Pharao”.These titles most likely testify the extraordinary confidence of Hatshepsut.Concerning the end of Senenmut there are more speculations than facts.At least until regnal year 16 of Hatshepsut/Thutmosis III. he held his of-fices. Apparently thereafter, his tracks are lost. His unfinished monument,TT353, was closed, some his figures therein, and also in TT71, were de-stroyed. There is no information that he had been buried in one of histombs.The astronomical ceiling in Senenmut’s tomb (TT 353) is divided intotwo sections representing the northern and the southern skies. The south-ern (Figure 1.) is decorated with a list of decanal stars, as well as con-stellations of the southern sky belonging to it like Orion and Canis Major.Furthermore, the planets Jupiter, Saturn, Mercury and Venus are shownand associated deities who are travelling in small boats over the sky. Thus,the southern ceiling marks the hours of the night. The northern showsconstellations of the northern sky with the large bear (Ursa major) in thecenter. The other constellations could not be identified. On the right andleft of it there are 8 or 4 circles shown and below them several deities eachcarrying a sun disk towards the center of the picture. The inscriptions asso-Figure 1: The southern part of the astronomical ceiling in Senenmut’s tomb(TT 353)ciated with the circles mark the original monthly celebrations in the lunarcalendar, whereas the deities mark the original days of the lunar month(Meyer 1982).The map on the southern panel proves to reflect a specific conjunctionof planets around the longitude of Sirius. The four planets Jupiter, Saturn,Mercury and Venus are relatively easily recognizable. The planet Mars isnot included in the actual grouping and at first sight seems to be missingin the map. However, Mars is also pictured in the Senenmut map, but itis represented by an empty boat in the west. This seems to refer to thefact that Mars was retrograde so that in this backward movement (wellknown phenomenon to the Egyptians) the Mars position was perhaps notconsider to be ”concrete”. Using these facts, Egyptologist were able to datethat this particular configuration of planets occurred in the sky in 1534 BC(van Spaeth 2000).Modern chronologists tend to agree that Hatshepsut reigned as pharaohfrom 1479 to 1458 BC, but there is no definitive proof of the beginningdate. Some other sources proposed that Hatshepsut could have assumedpower as early as 1512 BC. Consequently, it is not clear whether or not thecelestial phenomenon, mentioned above, was happened within the lifetimeof Senenmut.4. CONCLUSIONSA short review of the achievements in astronomy of ancient Egyptians,
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