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168405

A great cosmic phenomenon in the heritage

Article

Last updated: 25 Dec 2024

Subjects

-

Tags

Historical and Geographical Studies
Humanities
Social studies

Abstract

Despite the important role that the Sun played in the daily life and religion of the ancient Egyptians, direct references to solar eclipse were not mentioned in an early era.
It seems uncertain, to some scholars, how did the Egyptians describe a solar eclipse since their astronomical records written on papyrus have not survived, however, external sources confirmed the Egyptians' possession of an accurate knowledge of solar and lunar eclipses. (Brewer, 1991 ; McMurray, 2003)
In the history of cultural astronomy, virtually every ancient civilisation viewed the sudden chewing-up of the Sun as a bad omen."Eclipse" itself is derived from the Greek word ekleipsis "abandoned". (Park, www.academia.edu)
It is clear that the Egyptians, like most ancient cultures, also associated the observation of this solar phenomenon with the occurrence of misfortunes; since they used to cloudless, clear skies, the sudden appearance of stars during the daytime would have been terrifying.
Perhaps, at the base of their fear is the fact that the eclipse seems to break, to some extent, the order of the celestial vault, or of mAat, which could be threatened by strange events such as eclipses. (Lull, Arqueoastronomia).

DOI

10.21608/buijhs.2021.168405

Keywords

History of solar eclipse, Solar eclipse in the ancient world, Egyptian astronomy

Authors

First Name

Mona

Last Name

El-Shaieb

MiddleName

Zoheir

Affiliation

Department of Egyptology - Faculty of Archaeology - Cairo University

Email

drmonazoheir@hotmail.com

City

Giza

Orcid

-

Volume

3

Article Issue

2

Related Issue

21390

Issue Date

2021-12-01

Receive Date

2021-01-28

Publish Date

2021-12-01

Page Start

9

Page End

30

Print ISSN

2314-8802

Online ISSN

2314-8810

Link

https://buijhs.journals.ekb.eg/article_168405.html

Detail API

https://buijhs.journals.ekb.eg/service?article_code=168405

Order

2

Type

Conference papers

Type Code

1,078

Publication Type

Journal

Publication Title

Beni-Suef University International Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

Publication Link

https://buijhs.journals.ekb.eg/

MainTitle

A great cosmic phenomenon in the heritage

Details

Type

Article

Created At

22 Jan 2023