Dawn of Astronomy [Facsimile] [Paperback]

J. Norman Lockyer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1992

A Study of the Temple-Worship and Mythology of the Ancient Egyptians; Contents: The Worship of the Sun and the Dawn; First Glimpses of Egyptian Astronomy; Astronomical Basis of the Egyptian Pantheon; Two Horizons; Yearly Path of the sun-God; Probable Hor-Shesu Worship; Methods of Determining the Orientation of Temples; Earliest Solar Shrines in Egypt; Other Similar Shrines Elsewhere; Solar Temple of Amen-Ra at Karnak; Age of the Temple of Amen-Ra at Karnak; Stars-Their Risings and Settings; Egyptian Heavens-Zodiacs of Denderah; Circumpolar Constellations: The Myth of Horus; Temples Directed to the Stars; Further Inquiries with Regard to the Stellar Temples; Building Inscriptions; Star Temples at Karnak; Personification of Stars-Temple of Isis at Denderah; Temple of Hathor at Denderah; Star-Cults; Egyptian Year and the Nile; Years of 360 and 365 Days; Vague and the Sirian Years; Sothic Cycle and the Use made of it; Calendar and its Revision; Fixed Year and Festival Calendars; Mythology of Isis and Osiris; Temple-Stars; History of Sun-Worship at Annu and Thebes; Early Temple and Great Pyramid Builders; Cult of Northern as Opposed to Southern Stars; Origin of Egyptian Astronomy-Northern Schools; General Conclusions as to the North and South Races; Egyptian and Babylonian Ecliptic Constellations; Influence of Egypt Upon Temple-Orientation in Greece.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: Kessinger Publishing; Facsimile edition edition (January 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1564591123
• ISBN-13: 978-1564591128
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 8.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,363,228 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Classic; one of the first to challenge Classicism's inertia, September 3, 2002

By 

Earl Hazell (New York) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Dawn of Astronomy (Paperback)

When volleying back and forth in the specifically designed debate of the sociological value of Afrocentrism vs. Ye Olde Greco-Roman Classicism and traditional Egyptology, it is classic books like these that are purposely ignored by the establishment. This book, and Dupuis' LES ORIGINE DES TOUT LES CULTES (The Origin of All Cults) are two of the most cited books by the rogue scholar Martin Bernal (author of the contraversial BLACK ATHENA: THE AFROASIATIC ROOTS OF CLASSICAL CIVILIZATION) that his detractors, such as Mary Lefkowtiz (NOT OUT OF AFRICA; BLACK ATHENA REVISITED) puposely never mention in their diatribes against him.

Lockyer, the 19th century English mathematician and astronomer (not historian or literary scholar-- the source of most of the school of Classicism), did in his time the unthinkable for a scholar in a field that gradually depended upon scholarship devolved into non-scientific dogma: he came up with a theory about the intellectual, scientific and spiritual life of a pre-Hellenic culture in north Africa that went completely against the accepted truisms of common Egyptological opinion... and then proved it to be right. Under no uncertain terms, J. Norman Lockyer--even within the context of the prejudices of his time--completely revolutionized how a north African civilization, whose way of life predates the scientific, mathematical and cultural re-discoveries of the Greeks by thousands of years could be perceived. He did it so well that people are still ignoring it.

Ancient Egypt is shown in THE DAWN OF ASTRONOMY to be a civilization based on a philosophical foundation that made cutting edge science, advanced mathematics and esoteric religion one. Pythagorean and Euclidean geometry; the Fibonacci series; the golden section; Pi; the astronomical phenomenon known as the Precession of the Equinoxes (named by the ancient Greeks the "Socratic Year" some millenia later); the exact length of the solar year, within less than fifteen minutes; the foundational concepts and mathematical formulae of geodesy.... It is all not just written within ancient Egyptian writings, but exemplified in the architecture of every sacred temple built in Egypt from before the Pharonic period (3100 B.C.) on through the Pyramid Age and onward past the Valley of the Kings--millenia before the birth of Pythagoras, Euclid or the entirety of Greece as a culture. Their entire culture, from language to architecture, danced to the rhythm of the stars.

Lockyer shows this with an unprecedented detail that to my knowledge has yet to be surpassed. His work demands such a rethinking of our understanding of the roots of Western culture that ignoring his work has left the Freudian denial phase in American intellectual culture and become part of the secular religion of our academic times. (One other rule of the cult, of course, is fairly obvious: declare all provable theories whose nature demand a paradigm shift in our cultural self-perception a modern socio-political metaphor; i.e. nothing more than the amniotic fluid of multiculturalism. This way, regardless of their validity, they can be easily dissected and discredited in that context for the good of the Church of Classicism. Read Giorgio deSantillana's THE CRIME OF GALILEO, to learn how culturally deep the prejudices and egos of obsessive Greek-based scholarly thinking can impact the world; it becomes a religion more than a science in the blink of an eye.)

If so much of what we have seen and heard of this ancient North African culture could actually be reduced to the stuff of modern poetry and superstition (with the mystery of the Pyramids being a beautiful anomaly) as it has been consistently done since Lockyer's time by many (both in and out of the Afrocentric and Classicist/Egyptological schools), it would still be considered an extraordinarily impressive culture. But Lockyer, with painstaking research and enough evidence to fill a city's worth of museums and universities, shows how the rhythm of both the known astronomical universe and the corresponding cycles of nature lay at the center of Egyptian religion and daily life; high science meets high spirit. As much as many Classicists would swear we are still living in Plato or Caesar's world intellectually or culturally speaking, the staggering influence on Rome that Egypt was alone, as shown by Lockyer's explanation of the astronomical basis for their religious architecture and that fact's cultural implications (and how both of those influenced the scientists and architects of Greece and Rome from that point on), shows us how much of an *Egyptian world* we still are living in.

Anyone with a passing interest in Egyptology or Astronomy will absolutely love this book. Anyone fascinated by comparitive religions or the origins of astrolgy will be enthralled even moreso. And to anyone prepared to sheepishly quote neo-conservative dogma masquerading as Classicism and simply look for new evidence to boost a socio-political perspective designed to invalidate paradigm-shifting discoveries, I suggest the following: read this in tandem with THE SECRET ARCHITECTURE OF OUR NATION'S CAPITAL: THE MASONS AND THE BUILDING OF WASHINGTON, D.C., by David Ovason.

And then beware Dorothy: once you read this you won't be in Kansas anymore.

I highly recommend it.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding!, August 30, 2005

By 

Anonymous - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dawn of Astronomy (Paperback)

Anyone interested in the Ancient Egyptians, astronomy, astrology and mythology will love this book. It is a fascinating read!