Sky Cultures · 2 of 7
The Star That Brought the Flood
Why did one star’s return at dawn open the year in ancient Egypt?
Why Sirius vanishes each spring and returns one August dawn, Egypt's old new year, and why the Pleiades' return opens the Māori one.
You’ll be able to say when Sirius returns at dawn, and why that night once opened a year.
Before this: Four Minutes Earlier (6 min)
Where and which night
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Where
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Sources
- HYG stellar database v4.2 — star positions and magnitudes
- Schaefer, "Heliacal Rise Phenomena", Journal for the History of Astronomy 18, S19 (1987)
- Bretagnon (IMCCE) — the heliacal rise of Sirius: the Sun 7° down, Sirius 2–3° up
- King, "A Real Scorcher! Sirius at Heliacal Rising", Sky & Telescope (2016) — Cairo, 3 August
- Hannah, "Putting the astronomy back into Greek calendrics" (2020) — Schoch's 15.5° arc for the Pleiades
- Neugebauer, "The Egyptian 'Decans'", Vistas in Astronomy 1 (1955) — seventy days unseen
- Censorinus, De Die Natali 18 and 21 (238 CE) — the Sothic year and the coincidence of 139 CE
- Matamua for the Matariki Advisory Committee, "Matariki Dates 2022–2052" (MBIE, 2021)
- Te Papa — Matariki star facts
- Matamua, Matariki: The Star of the Year (Huia, 2017) — Matariki and her children, Pōhutukawa and the dead, Puanga in the west
- Parker, "The Calendars of Ancient Egypt" (University of Chicago, 1950) — the Sothic cycle and the Illahun rising
- Hesiod, Works and Days 383–384 — harvest at the Pleiades' rising, ploughing at their setting
- Orlove, Chiang & Cane, "Forecasting Andean rainfall and crop yield from the influence of El Niño on Pleiades visibility", Nature 403, 68 (2000)
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