I have been investigating a possible linkage to Saturn in my Westcar Papyrus analysis. I thought I'd split out some of the investigation as it can stand independently of the Westcar Papyrus piece. The idea of Saturn being a time-marker for Egypt has been around for some time. in 2005, Kelley and Milone wrote:
“The names of the days of the lunar month (given in Table 8.2) include the 26th day, Peret and “going-forth,” “emergence,” and normally interpreted as “heliacal rise” with reference to Sirius may refer to the 26th year as the beginning of a lunar cycle. If this is accepted, then the reference to the 29th day as “Peret Min” may refer to the 29-year sidereal period of Saturn and would identify the ithyphallic Min as one aspect of Saturn, perhaps relating Saturn to the Sed festival."
David H. Kelley, Eugene F. Milone, Exploring Ancient Skies: An Encyclopedic Survey of Archaeoastronomy, Springer 2005, p261
Notwithstanding that Peret Min is the 30th entry in their Table 8.2, this shows that consideration by scholars of the possible marking of the sidereal period of Saturn. The Sed Festival certainly has linkages to the pyramid complex - in his paper on the discovery of the pyramidion of the satellite pyramid, Zahi Hawass declares he believes the satellite pyramid would have served as a changing room for the king during the Sed Festival.
This piqued my curiosity - could the number 1,760 (the perimeter of the Great Pyramid expressed in Royal Cubits) be related to Saturn in some way. According to Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn) Saturn has an orbital period of 10,759.22 days. 10759.22 / 365 (days to Egyptian Civil Calendar Year) = ~29.48. Now if we assume that the perimeter 1,760 represents years, there are approximately 59.71 Saturn orbital periods in 1,760 Egyptian Civil Calendar Years. 59.71 is close to a whole number 60 but there may be a purpose to the 59.7 here too. The Synodic Period of Saturn is 378.09 days (according to Wikipedia), if you were to attempt a synchronisation of the Synodic Period of Saturn with the Heliacal Rise of Sirius (365.25 days), you would need to capture 29.44 (365.25/(378.09 - 365.25)) cycles of the heliacal rise of Sirius, to confirm it is indeed a cycle, you would need to do that twice 58.89. Indeed in the Babylonian system for Jupiter, they find a Goal-Year period of 59 years. However, it is not clear to me why you would multiply this synchronisation period by the orbital period.
Further, if you were to slice the Pyramid at 265 Royal Cubits high, the remaining 15 Cubit High Pyramid would have a baselength of 23.57 Royal Cubits which when multiplied by a mathematical constant of the Golden Angle (137.5 degrees) yields 3240.8 degrees. Extremely close to the Babylonian system A numbers for Saturn which states in 265 years Saturn will complete 9 rotations or 3240 degrees per the following quote:
"For Saturn we do have such a text from Uruk (A 3418 = ACT No. 802) where we read in Section 4:
Concerning Saturn. 4,25 (265) years corresponds to 4,16 (256) first appearances and to 9 rotationsFootnote 13 and to 54,0 (3240) degrees."
Teije de Jong, A study of Babylonian planetary theory I. The outer planets, accessed from [link.springer.com]
This of course has several problems:
1. The use of degrees pre-dates any other known Egyptian usage;
2. The data thus encoded pre-dates the Babylonian texts by a wide margin;
3. The fourth dynasty Egyptians would have to have knowledge of the Golden Angle and therefore the Golden Ratio. Khafre's Pyramid expresses a design pattern based on multiples of 137.
However, the data is the data. Therefore I ask whether the design of the Great Pyramid is influenced by Saturn?
“The names of the days of the lunar month (given in Table 8.2) include the 26th day, Peret and “going-forth,” “emergence,” and normally interpreted as “heliacal rise” with reference to Sirius may refer to the 26th year as the beginning of a lunar cycle. If this is accepted, then the reference to the 29th day as “Peret Min” may refer to the 29-year sidereal period of Saturn and would identify the ithyphallic Min as one aspect of Saturn, perhaps relating Saturn to the Sed festival."
David H. Kelley, Eugene F. Milone, Exploring Ancient Skies: An Encyclopedic Survey of Archaeoastronomy, Springer 2005, p261
Notwithstanding that Peret Min is the 30th entry in their Table 8.2, this shows that consideration by scholars of the possible marking of the sidereal period of Saturn. The Sed Festival certainly has linkages to the pyramid complex - in his paper on the discovery of the pyramidion of the satellite pyramid, Zahi Hawass declares he believes the satellite pyramid would have served as a changing room for the king during the Sed Festival.
This piqued my curiosity - could the number 1,760 (the perimeter of the Great Pyramid expressed in Royal Cubits) be related to Saturn in some way. According to Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn) Saturn has an orbital period of 10,759.22 days. 10759.22 / 365 (days to Egyptian Civil Calendar Year) = ~29.48. Now if we assume that the perimeter 1,760 represents years, there are approximately 59.71 Saturn orbital periods in 1,760 Egyptian Civil Calendar Years. 59.71 is close to a whole number 60 but there may be a purpose to the 59.7 here too. The Synodic Period of Saturn is 378.09 days (according to Wikipedia), if you were to attempt a synchronisation of the Synodic Period of Saturn with the Heliacal Rise of Sirius (365.25 days), you would need to capture 29.44 (365.25/(378.09 - 365.25)) cycles of the heliacal rise of Sirius, to confirm it is indeed a cycle, you would need to do that twice 58.89. Indeed in the Babylonian system for Jupiter, they find a Goal-Year period of 59 years. However, it is not clear to me why you would multiply this synchronisation period by the orbital period.
Further, if you were to slice the Pyramid at 265 Royal Cubits high, the remaining 15 Cubit High Pyramid would have a baselength of 23.57 Royal Cubits which when multiplied by a mathematical constant of the Golden Angle (137.5 degrees) yields 3240.8 degrees. Extremely close to the Babylonian system A numbers for Saturn which states in 265 years Saturn will complete 9 rotations or 3240 degrees per the following quote:
"For Saturn we do have such a text from Uruk (A 3418 = ACT No. 802) where we read in Section 4:
Concerning Saturn. 4,25 (265) years corresponds to 4,16 (256) first appearances and to 9 rotationsFootnote 13 and to 54,0 (3240) degrees."
Teije de Jong, A study of Babylonian planetary theory I. The outer planets, accessed from [link.springer.com]
This of course has several problems:
1. The use of degrees pre-dates any other known Egyptian usage;
2. The data thus encoded pre-dates the Babylonian texts by a wide margin;
3. The fourth dynasty Egyptians would have to have knowledge of the Golden Angle and therefore the Golden Ratio. Khafre's Pyramid expresses a design pattern based on multiples of 137.
However, the data is the data. Therefore I ask whether the design of the Great Pyramid is influenced by Saturn?