Star Tradition from a Mysterious Past
Af  OVE VON SPAETH

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copyright © 2006 (& © 1983) -  www.moses-egypt.net


Even today it is still possible to find many clear signs of early knowledge about

the stars. Once, a worldwide astro-mythological teaching seems to have
existed based on several common ideas in a cosmological system.



The Pleiades constellation or cluster as depicted on Senmuts
star map and designated “the watery bodies”, “the humids”,
- and this group of celestial bodies is marking
the season of rain or an inundation.

Significant marker in the world’s oldest star map
In all ancient Mediterranean civilizations the constellation known to us as the Pleiades had a most important role. It served as a celestial marker or sign for one of the year’s great events, i.e. the springtime’s arriving rain or flood, inundation. In fact, these stars were thought to be connected, in a meta-astrological sense, with the concept “blessing”.

          Thus the Pleiades were signaling and initiating “the wet season” and then they became emphasized furthermore by other signals from a next following star group, the Hyades, in Greek ‘to rain’.

          Later in antiquity, Greek and Roman authors enjoyed to write about the especial popular stellar group of the Pleiades, to which there already existed several mythological accounts.
 

          For instance, the Pleiades group is depicted on the ancient Egyptian vizier Senmut’s 3,500-years old star map - i.e. these stars are placed on the map on the spot where the Pleiades are situated in the sky. More so, on the map the specific picture have been attached some hieroglyphs showing clearly to be read in the direction from the right to the left, displaying the name mw(jt) nwt ht , i.e. ‘the watery bodies’, ‘the humids’, or ‘...of moisture’.

          The now so famous Senmut map is adorning the ceiling of his tomb (Thebes Tomb 353, at Deir el-Bari near Luxor) which like a tunnel is leading beneath Queen Hatshepsut’s Temple of Hathor, goddess of the sky.
          That the Pleiades are to be seen on the Senmut star map was not hitherto mentioned in the literature about this map, which in fact contains a great amount of data many of which never before detected or investigated.

          However, a certain analysis of the map reveals such kind of information being of greatest importance in connection with the history and chronology of antiquity - the detection was made by Ove von Spaeth. His discovery was first published in 1984 (in the Magazine ‘Stjernerne’) - and later added further scientific details, now published as the treatise: “Dating Egypt’s Oldest Star Map”, in “Centaurus Magazine of the History of Mathematics, Science, and Technology” (Vol. 42:3, July 2000, pp. 159-179).
 

          The ancient knowledge on stars, concerning astronomy, celestial geometry, astrology, and the time keeping, was a particularly important issue in a comprehensive teaching which thus existed in the ancient communities. In Egypt an observatory at the top of the moongod-son Khonsu’s shrine in the temple of Karnak/Thebes is known from very early times. And even from the very earliest times astronomical lines of sight were used as a plan for the main axes in the temple constructions.

           Also in the construction of the three great pyramids at Giza, ca 2500 BC, studying the stars became a very great occupation. For instance, by observing the pattern of the form of the Orion constellation the ancient astronomers seem to have identified a pattern relationship by having this star system as the template used for the geographical _Layout of the three Great Pyramids and their specific location arrangement on the building site.
          A reflection of such kind of pattern principle can be seen as documented via Church Father, St. Augustine, who in 415 AD in his writings, “De Civitate Dei” (8:23), quoting the ancient Egyptian sage Hermes Trismegistos, ‘the Thrice Great Thoth’, saying:
                    “… Egypt is an image of the sky ... transferred from heaven down to Egypt. …”
          Concerning the placement of the three Great Pyramids it seems not only to have been arranged to reflect the three stars in Orion’s Belt, but it is a fact that also the so-called airshafts in the Great Pyramid are in an exact angle pointing in particular to Orion and other selected stars. Furthermore, these three pyramids have been built with the most incredibly exact celestial line of sight towards the North Star, i.e. at its position at that time. Kate Spence, the British Egyptologist, published an article, “Ancient Egyptian Chronology and the Astronomical Orientation”, on such method in “Nature”, November 16th, 2000 (Vol. 408, No. 6810, pp. 320-324).
 

          Also, ancient temples were considered literally as a holy piece of heaven reflected into the geography on Earth.

          More examples:  the ancient Babylonians/Assyrians directly referred each of their major cities to certain stars - e.g. Nineveh (cf. Moses’ “Book of Genesis” 10:11), the city’s name meaning ‘wild boar’ also being the totem of that city and a name of the constellation “the wild Boar” (: our Great Bear/Charles’ Wain/Big Dipper). With their sky-yardstick the Babylonians measured degrees of arc by use of a certain terrestrial measure, ‘the royal cubit’.

          Through their many years of archaeo-astronomical studies, researchers Robert Bauval and Wayne Herchel independently of one another detected (in 2005-2006) that the ancient Egyptians used even very accurately the little group of pyramids in Abusir - which is located exactly on an extension line from Giza - to represent the Pleiades on this “celestial map on the ground”.

 

In all Mediterranean cultures the Pleiades were important regarding the agricultural calendar.


 

The temples and the stars
Connecting the stars with temples is from a very ancient practice at sacred sites. For example, in the Lascaux caves in France is found a 15,000-year depicting of the Pleiades’ stars and the moon - and the site was not used for habitation, but was a cultic site.
          The Pleiades cluster had constantly throughout the ages a particularly important role of religious connections - as well as a mark for astronomical orientation in the sky, and also the calendar calculations.
          Important temples of ancient times were created architectonical on geometrical harmonies and proportions - i.e. patterns founded on archetypical mathematical primeval images like crystalline forms and organic structures, and even music - and were planned with surveying lines aiming at solstitial points or certain mighty stars.  
          Even the soil under Greek temples may hold spiritual significance - this discovery may help explain why Homer and Plato wrote of “divine soil” and soil that can affect a person’s soul. It It can also suggest how the ancients selected locations for their sacred buildings.

          Gregory J. Retallack, professor of geological sciences at the University of Oregon, carried out a study exploring bedrock geology, topographic setting, compass orientation, soil profile and plant cover - at 84 temples of Classical (480-338 BC) mainland Greece, several Aegean islands and Cyprus (Antiquity, vol. 82, 2008, pp. 640-657). A striking pattern emerged:  the soil appeared to be directly connected to the mythology surrounding the god or goddess honoured by the particular temples.
          By further specific detail than presented here it became clear that, for example, temples dedicated to Athena and Zeus, were erected on soils of citadels. Shrines erected in honor of Poseidon, linked in myth to the sea, were built on arid soils near fishing harbors. However, sanctuaries of Demeter and Dionysus were found on fertile soils for mixed farming; according to Greek mythology, both of these deities were linked to this activity, and grain cultivation festivals were held in their honour. The cults in the early civilization seems to have been more in touch with geology and soil composition than later understood - as well as with the features of the firmament’s light and stars: - celestial circumstances approached in earthly conditions.

          Some of the Egyptian temples have been constructed in a way connecting to the star of Sirius when - each year in the summer after a period of invisibility of 70 days - it rose (i.e. its Heliacal rising) together with the sun that the light would travel down the temples’ main corridor. In that moment, Sirius would place its shining spot on the altar in the innermost sanctum of the temple.

          For instance, this is the case with the Egyptian temple of Isis in Denderah, a temple build as a copy of more ancient temples. When the altar was hit by the beam, the Sirius star was thought to be transformed into Sothis, Egyptian Sobdet, i.e. the name for Sirius as a star god. She was special version of Isis, the greatest goddess.

          On the basis of the same understanding a similar principle was already involved in connection with previously mentioned Hatshepsut’s Temple of Hathor, which, by its axis directed by the line of winter solstice, also could receive the beams of the (in the mythology: seven) stars of the Pleiades. This was interpreted in a way that the beams were being transformed into the Egyptian celestial goddess Hathor’s seven female judges to judge mankind.

          Similarly, the Greek temples later - for instance in the very Parthenon - were constructed with the direction to the beams of the stars of the Pleiades. Thus, when the temples were oriented geographically to receive these beams of light into the inner sanctums, the light-rays were described in a symbolic way as being “transformed into seven women”, i.e. “the Seven Sisters”, the Pleiades.
          Phidias, ca. 480–430 BC, was an ancient Greek sculptor, painter and architect, commonly regarded as one of the greatest of all Classical sculptors. His famous work, the seated statue of Zeus, 12 metres tall, occupied the whole width of the aisle of the temple in Olympia built to house it, and was one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world. The gigantic, precious sculpture of ivory and gold-plated bronze was made in Phidias’ huge building erected for that purpose at the site of the temple. The point here is that the ruins of this workshop still prove the old knowledge that it was placed precisely parallel with the line of sight used for the construction of the temple itself - in order to shape the statue for receiving the cosmic light in the very best way as it would appear in the temple. 

          In Pharaoh Ramses II’s Great Temple from ca. 1240 BC, constructed in massive rock at Abu Simbel in southern Egypt, the axis of the temple was precisely positioned by the ancient Egyptian architects in such a way that twice every year, on October 21 and February 21, the first rays of the morning sun would penetrate the entire length of the temple-cave sanctuary, ca. 61 metres, into the innermost shrine and illuminate the four sacred sculptures, the gods seated there at the back wall.

          In fact, according to calculations made on the basis of the heliacal rising of the star Sirius (Sothis) and inscriptions found by archaeologists, such date of Ramses II’s jubilee. the celebration of the thirtieth anniversary of his coronation day (often made to be a pharaoh’s official birthday) must have been ca. October 22. The image or statue of the king was considered as enhanced and revitalized by the energy of the solar star.
          For twenty minutes the sun shines on the holy statues of Ramses II (the king was considered as a god), and Amon Ra, the sun god, and Ra-Harakhty, god of the rising sun. Ptah, the god connected with the Underworld, seated at the far left of this row of gods, remains partly dark on these occasions.
          Today, still the most remarkable feature of the site - after UNESCO’s rescue operation in 1964 by dismantling and reconstructing the temple now 65 metres above the new lake outside in order to avoid the dangers of the encroaching water - is the fact that the whole construction again became exactly as the original orientation, except ca. 1 day later. Now the dates have changed to 22 February and 22 October - continually the same effect is achieved twice a year. The October date may have had an extra importance as it was also about the beginning of the planting season when the Nile begins to subside, however, there is nothing in the inscriptions at Abu Simbel that suggest the temple had any relation to agriculture.
          The dates (still) resulting in the same number of days will be before and after the winter solstice when the sun reaches its southernmost point of a year.
          The very concept of the rising sun sending shafts of sunlight - or important stars like Sirius or not least the Pleiades sending their beams of light - into the inner sanctuary is of an even more old origin than in this 3,300-year old temple.

The mystery  of the seventh Pleiades
The Greek scholar, philosopher, and astronomer, Eratosthenes in Alexandria (276-194 BC), was the director of the famous, enormous library of Alexandria and having admission to huge amounts of knowledge, and he described the Pleiades as “the seven stars of which the one of them is not visible”. Already the Greek writer Hesiod states ca. 700 BC that according to the old star lore this group of 7 stars represents the 7 daughters of Atlas.
          Atlas was mythological known as the giant who, out at the Atlantic Ocean, carried the very sky globe on his shoulders. One of Atlas’ daughters, the star Elektra, disappeared in the sky - and the mythic Atlantis, to which she is also mentioned in such connection, disappeared in the Atlantic Ocean. Concerning the ancient Egyptians’ familiar ambiguity in their texts the Pleiades as “the moist or wet” can - with regard to rain and flooding - also allude to this legendary flood.
          Even though we can see especially 6 Pleiades in the sky it is a fact that all the way from Greece and crossing throughout the South Pacific, and - notice - also in Pre-Columbian North America, accounts everywhere tell about “the seven stars of which one is gone”.

          Gajus Julius Hyginus (64 BC--17 AD), Latin author and the appointed (by Emperor Augustus) director of the Palatine Library, writes in his work “Astronomica” (Poeticon Astronomicon, 2:21):
                    “...  the Pleiades are called seven in number, but only six can be seen ...”.

          At all the places this constellation is, in addition, often called “the young women” or “girls”. I this way the star cluster was seen also by the ancient Hebrews as well as by America’s Coyote Indians in Oregon and the Iroques Indians.

          Also by e.g. the Dyaks and the Malaysians on Borneo these stars are exactly counted as “seven of which the one is invisible”; and by Australia’s Aboriginals who, too, call them “the young girls”. They are called by this name, likewise, on the Solomon’s Islands in the Pacific. And on the Northern Sumatra this 6-star constellation is called “Bindtang Tudjohc”, i.e. ‘of the 7 stars”.

          All this could refer to a much older age of the concept of the star system than most historians today would like to accept. Ancient, widespread civilizations of prehistoric times - being traced and discovered more and more by modern science - could have existed several places on earth. And from some of these connections the Hebrews, the Greeks, and the Egyptians seem to have possessed such a heritage - “the 7 young women”, “the sources of blessing”, “the humids” - and have carried it further on.
 

Moses ‘took away’ the seventh daughter
The ancient Rabbinical Writings which are the original comments on the biblical texts incorporate a narrative from “Exodus” and expand the course of a romantic event, where the great initiated, Jethro, had the beautiful daughter Zipporah who was in love with Moses. For some time “she brought food to Moses” and later became married to him. Jethro is mentioned as being a priest at the Sinai - most likely at Sinai’s only temple, the sky goddess Hathor/Isis’ temple (in which there was also a cult room for Sirius star-god Sobdet). In the Rabbinical Writings the daughter is mentioned in rapt terms: “beautiful as the Morning Star and as the dove on the rock”.
           Later - in Greek mythology - the Pleiades are referred to as “the seven doves” who “brought food to Zeus”. Many features of Greek knowledge tradition came from or were inspired by Egypt. The name of the Pleiades is from Greek peleiades, ‘a flock of pigeons’ and is ambiguous by also meaning ‘more’ (stars).

           Jethro’s long-term historical reputation in the Middle East among Arabs, Jews, Druz, and other faiths bear witness that he was not any common priest, but a personality who after 3500 years remains honored as a significant sacred figure. (Further reference, cf. chap. 15 in Ove von Spaeth’s book: “The Suppressed Records”, vol. 1 of the series Assassinating Moses; reprinted 2004).
           Every year many people and the Druz people in particular go on pilgrimage to the sacred Jethro sepulcher at Kefar Hittim (where in recent times Jesus gave one of his famous sermons) near Lake Genesareth - between 23rd and 25th April. These dates do not seem arbitrary - astronomical calculation show that they indicate the important time in the ancient cultures when the sun crossed the then sacred seven stars, the Pleiades.
          In the later dominant Babylonian astronomy the Pleiades were called Mul-mul, the significance is also here ‘more stars’, i.e. ‘star group’. But there seems to have existed a relation to the above, as the Pleiades at Babel also were called Sippur  - and were here and in several countries known as “the seven rock pigeons” - and that the seven daughters of Jethro Rabbi scriptures called “rock doves” and this play on words regarding his daughter’s name, Zipporah, which in Hebrew means ‘bird’.
           In the Islamic Mystery teachings Jethro is regarded as an incarnation of Hudud, i.e. belonging to a particular group of exalted individuals where each of these was a so-called “emanation of the light from the al-Bari (the Creator)”. These incarnated beings are considered being spiritual leaders of the peoples of their contemporary generations, as Jethro, according to this doctrine is perceived to have been in the time of the era of Moses - and was given the Arabic nickname Nabi Shu’ayb, ‘the people’s prophet’ (e.g. as in the Quran Sura 11:91).

           Maybe, maybe not, an extraordinary connection is contained in “the Book of Job” - its narrative in the Bible is the most presented with archaic Hebrew and on a 3500-year-old background. The oldest parts were written by Moses according to all existing ancient traditions of the text’s origin. A famous quote could possibly be from an in earlier times still kept impression of a loss of the seventh Pleiade which apparently failed to remain being fixed on the firmament: “... Canst thou bind together the brilliant Pleiades? ...” (Book of Job, 38:31).
 

   
The constellation Great Bear shown as a bear with an unnatural tail (Beyer’s star atlas, ca. 1600).
Right:  the constellation photographed as it is on the sky.

Transatlantic versions of constellations 
It is a fact that reminiscences of our well-known zodiac system were found also with the Mayas prior to the arrival of the Spaniards in Central America in 1492.  Several of their star sign symbols are in principle identical with the ancient Middle East zodiacal symbols.

          As with the prehistoric world’s widespread, common ideas on the Pleiades something similar is seen regarding the constellation Ursa Major, i.e. Great Bear - also known as Big Dipper and Charles’s Wain. This constellation of its own seven-star-group is a non-existing tail-bear - strangely enough known all over the world. This is except on the Senmut star map where it is shown in quite another version. Yet it has still been placed correctly - near the top of the celestial World-axis.
          This axis was the most famous celestial line of sight - connecting the sky’s most bright main stars Canopus, Sirius, and Lyra/Wega. The axis is, possibly emphasized for the very first time, depictured on the Senmut map.
          Europeans, Asians, as well as the North American Indians prior to Columbus all conceived the constellation in question as the picture of a bear. In many cases they had the same designations for the same constellations; and concerning Great Bear, in the different continents with their several local languages, this same group of stars was called by the same designation, the “Great Bear”, which is remarkable as it does not at all look like a bear!

          And this is even a bear with a long tail - non-existing in any earthly zoological issue or concept - i.e. an identical “fantasy” product re-found across the oceans.

          The above mentioned idea about a past “intercontinental” range of even several cases of identical names of stars/constellations seems not only based on an apparently wide spread knowledge of a principally uniform astronomical system; especially with matching identical features in the symbols of the 12 sections of the zodiac. Such agreements concern several other identical astronomical names or descriptions.  

The Senmut map’s “mast”, the World-axis with its revolving constellation
Meshkitu (Great Bear) which has got a connection to Horus and his harpoon.
Above is placed the star goddess of the Scorpion star (which in the real sky
also is placed exactly here, and thus being near the constellation Cygnus-Swan).

The World-axis
The one part of Senmut’s star map is showing the largest and most dominant reproduction of the World-axis (axis mundi, not to be confused with the Earth-axis) known from any Egyptian star map. So far, the importance of the axis has been neglected by Egyptology - let alone that the very image has not at all been recognized as the World-axis.
          All over the ancient world the World-axis was known as the famous, celestial line of sight. It contains the sky’s three most radiant stars - Canopus, Sirius, and Vega (Lyra) - forming a straight line across the firmament following along “the center line” of the Milky Way.
 

          In the New Empire of Egypt of 18th Dynasty, from ca. 1580 BC, a very tall, new-type obelisk was often favoured in Upper Egyptian capital Thebes. All these cultic stone objects represented the first earthly (‘mountain’) top receiving the first golden beams that lit up the world.

          These, consequently, gold covered obelisks (with gold on the small pyramid shaped top - the capstone or pyramidion; - however, some researchers suggest the obelisks were covered entirely with gold) were named like persons and made sacrifices for, and had a sun cultic function. They expressed ideas of the same kind as the World-axis concerning relations to the primal light of the world.
          The World-axis is in its earliest known version depicted on Senmut’s star map. The star map is also graphically in accordance with the finest ancient Egyptian creation of timeless design in art, architecture, and objects - all without doubt among the finest to have been produced in world history. 

     
Left:  Egyptian hieroglyph for Re or Ra, ‘Sun’, was a circle with a dot in its

centre. Here, shown with a glyph, indicating the pharaoh’s extra name: Son of Ra.

Right:  The ancient Chinese sign Re or Ri, ‘Sun’, became for technical reasons of
writing more jagged, but is seen continuing as being a circle with dot in the middle.

World widespread sun symbol and scorpion sign
A very early example of intercontinental identical names is known in connection with the sun, called ‘Ra’  or ‘Re’  by the Egyptians; the Chinese called it ‘Re’, and so did the Polynesians. Also all over the Pacific Ocean it is called ‘Ra’  - despite the apparent lack of relation/affinity between the Egyptian, Chinese, and Polynesian languages - and irrespective of the huge geographical distances.

          To this it should be added that similarly with this almost identical pronunciation of Ra/Re (Ri) the Chinese still use in their special writing the very same pictographic sign for the sun as the ancient Egyptians. It is the well-known ancient symbol of a circle with a dot in the centre (in later Chinese pictography the circle has been changed to be square-like, for reasons of a calligraphic writing technique).

          When, for example, children make drawings of a sun it is always just a circle - possibly equipped with rays or a face - but never a circle with a dot in the middle. The very specific sun symbol consisting of a non-empty circle contour and “characteristically made” with its centre-dot as the ‘core’, is therefore no coincidence when it is found in the same special form both with the ancient Egyptians and the Polynesians, and in the Chinese script as well.

           Similarly, both the Chinese and the ancient Egyptians have a glyph or symbolic sign showing a scorpion. According to the ancient traditions of astrological significances, for instance in use among the Greeks and the Romans, the celestial sign of Scorpio (originally the constellation named Scorpio) may symbolize or refer to “huge quantities or numbers”; and when a picture of a scorpion is used as a hieroglyph in an Egyptian text - or as a writing sign in the Chinese writing still used - this also means the same thing in both of these written languages, i.e. “huge numbers”. In the same symbol concept at all the places the by nature toxic Scorpion signified also something concerning death, and America’s Mayas called this particular constellation also “the sign of the god of death”.

          Also the stars known by us as the Gemini have the same Greek and Babylonian name or meaning, and the same is the case with the ancient inhabitants of the southern Pacific Ocean.

          Heritage from earlier civilizations? Archetypes? For all these examples too it goes that the concepts and designations they had in common are hardly each time just a coincidence, but could indicate a form of transport of traditions. For example, this could have taken place via the ancient seafarers, who, all over the world at all times navigated by means of the stars. Thus, the spreading of some of the mutual ideas could also have been done in this way; although it was not necessarily the only way.
 

           
The constellation Big Dipper depicted as a oxen shank, Meshkitu, on many Egyptian images.
Right: segment of the constellations, including Meshkitu, from the temple at Denderah.
Ideas on previous forms seem to have survived in Egypt - through the millennia these stars own
celestial movements are changing concerning the shape of Great Bear, Ursa Major (Big Dipper).
 

Older symbolism on Senmut’s star map

Regarding the former, often a worldwide common star symbolism, it is interesting that the Egyptians did not let the constellation Great Bear/Big Dipper called by such name, but either Kepesh (hpsh) or especially Meshkitu, i.e. ‘ox shank’.

           In ancient myths, and also in the Bible, the hip, loin, thigh, or lower back can refer metaphorically to the birth process or rebirth and was also known as a euphemism for the reproductive organs. The New Testament’s text, “The Revelation of St. John the Divine”, is mentioning the “whore of Babylon”; - this was a symbol of Charles’ Wain (Great Bear) - according to Dante’s “Divina Commedia” from ca. 1300 AD, when the cultic initiated in their knowledge still had kept a part of ancient cosmology tradition. 

           There is a difference between the constellation’s internal unity and movement speed. For example, the Pleiades star group is considered fairly stable - especially the seven or six key stars out of its entire group of more than 40 stars - as precise measurements show that the Pleiades are moving in exactly the same direction and with quite the same slow pace, i.e. they stick together in relatively close group over many millennia which is quite unique in the universe. The Aztecs in Central America based their calendar on the Pleiades stable group.

           It is a different story when it concerns the Great Bear constellation who changed dramatically through the millennia. On Senmut’s star maps from around 3,500 BC and in numerous other ancient Egyptian images the constellation Meshkitu can be seen - the Great Bear/Big Dipper - with its shape in a version being is unusually flat. In addition, in this version on the Senmut star map it is even given head with horns to underline the ox symbolism.
          While the Egyptian mythological tradition seems to have many, often enigmatic references to earlier cultures, an idea or knowledge about the special feature on Great Bear’s very slow change through time distances of many thousands of years may have been faithfully passed on from there?

Ove von Spaeth
 m
Author and Researcher, -  Copyright © 2006 (& © 1983).
Parts of the text are from volumes 2 and 4 of Ove von Spaeth’s book-series “Assassinating Moses”.
( C.A.Reitzels Publisher and Bookstore, Ltd., phone +45 3312 2 00  &  info@careitzel.com )

More information:  www.moses-egypt.net
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Bibliography, orientating

Allen, Richard Hinckley:  Star Names, Their Lore and Meaning, (1899) rev. ed. (Dover), New York, 1963.
Baring-Gould, S.:  Legends of Old Testament Characters..., vol. II, London, 1871.
Churchward, Col. James:  The Sacred Symbols of Mu, (1935) reprint (Brotherhood of Life), 1988.
Ginzberg, Louis (ed.):  The Legends of the Jews, vol. 2, Philadelphia, 1909.

 Mallwitz, Alfred, & Wolfgang Schiering:  Die Werkstatt des Pheidias in Olympia, I, Olympische Forschungen, V, (Walter de Gruyter), Berlin (1964), 1991.

Retallack , Gregory J.:  Rocks, views, soils and plants at the temples of ancient Greece, Antiquity, Vol. 82, No. 317, 2008, pp. 640–657.
Smith, Earl Baldwin:  Egyptian Architecture as Cultural Expression, New York (Appleton-Century), 1938.

 Spaeth, Ove von:  Dating Egypt’s Oldest Star Map, Centaurus Magazine of The History of Mathematics, Science, and Technology, vol. 42:3, July 2000, pp. 159-179.

- -  : The Suppressed Record, (”De Fortrængte Optegnelser”), vol. 1 of the author’s series ”Assassinating Moses”, updat. reprint 2004, chap.15.