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It was used to track the alignment of certain stars called decans or "baktiu" in the Ancient Egyptian. When visible, the stars could be used to measure the time at night. There were 10 stars for the 10 hours of the night; the day had a total of 24 hours including 12 hours for the day, 1 hour for sunset, and 1 hour for sunrise.
Ancient Egyptian sundial (c. 1500 BC), from the Valley of the Kings, used for measuring work hour. Daytime divided into 12 parts. The ancient Egyptians were one of the first cultures to widely divide days into generally agreed-upon equal parts, using early timekeeping devices such as sundials, shadow clocks, and merkhets (plumb-lines used by early astronomers).
An Egyptian method of determining the time during the night, used from at least 600 BC, was a type of plumb-line called a merkhet. A north–south meridian was created using two merkhets aligned with Polaris, the north pole star. The time was determined by observing particular stars as they crossed the meridian. [24]
The Horus of the night deities – Twelve goddesses of each hour of the night, wearing a five-pointed star on their heads Neb-t tehen and Neb-t heru, god and goddess of the first hour of night, Apis or Hep (in reference) and Sarit-neb-s, god and goddess of the second hour of night, M'k-neb-set, goddess of the third hour of night, Aa-t-shefit or ...
Subdivisions of the day include the hour (1/24 of a day), which is further subdivided into minutes and seconds. The second is the international standard unit (SI unit) for science. Celestial sphere-based: as in sidereal time, where the apparent movement of the stars and constellations across the sky is used to calculate the length of a year.
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Anthropomorphic Iron Age wooden cult figures, sometimes called pole gods, have been found at many archaeological sites in Central and Northern Europe. They are generally interpreted as cult images, in some cases presumably depicting deities, sometimes with either a votive or an apotropaic (protective) function. Many have been preserved in peat ...
But aside from being the most ancient of the three chief goddesses of Mecca, [7] she was also very possibly among the most ancient of the Semitic pantheon as well. [ 8 ] [ 9 ] Her now-lost major shrine was between Mecca and Medina on the coasts of the Red Sea , [ 10 ] likely in al-Mushallal where an idol of her was erected. [ 11 ]