Once a year, the rays of the sun bathed the walls, the golden light filtered through the only portal of the building and majestically illuminated the statue placed in the main room of a tomb located in front of Elephantine Island, on the west bank of the river Nile. This tomb, built at the end of the 12th Dynasty (around 1830 BC) and dedicated to a governor of the city, is the oldest in Egypt oriented to the winter solstice.
Researchers from the Universities of Málaga and Jaén have just discovered the pantheon in the Qubbet el-Hawa necropolis (near the modern city of Aswan). The space perfectly recorded the entire solar cycle, related to the idea of the rebirth of the dead.
While the winter solstice represented the beginning of the victory of sunlight over darkness, the summer solstice generally coincided with the beginning of the annual flooding of the Nile, so both events had important symbolism linked to the resurrection of the sun. late governor, according to the experts in an article published in the Mediterranean Archeology and Archaeometry magazine.
To achieve perfection in the orientation of the tomb, the archaeologists say, the Egyptian architect simply relied on a two-cubit pole about a meter long, a square and some tunics, with which he was able to perfectly calculate the orientation of the tomb. funeral chapel and the location of the statue of the governor.
In addition, the specialists explain that the architect not only achieved the perfect orientation, but also designed its volume with great precision, calculated to prevent it from coinciding with any previous tomb. The tomb was possibly built by the governor Heqaib-ankh.
The Andalusian researchers reached these conclusions thanks to the identification of the period in which the mausoleum was built, which allowed them to use specific software (Dialux Evo) that reproduces the position of the sun with respect to the horizon in ancient times.
“This study shows that the Egyptians were capable of calculating the position of the sun and the orientation of its rays to design their monuments. Although Qubbet el-Hawa tomb No. 33 is the oldest example ever found, it is certainly not the only one.
The analysis carried out based on the lighting of this architectural space throughout the year has also confirmed that the continuous movement of the sun during its cycle can be observed inside.
This knowledge of the star king can be seen in the Egyptian calendar itself, which emerged at the beginning of the third millennium BC and is the first known solar calendar. In the texts it is mentioned that it had 365 days and that it was divided into 12 months of 30 days each, organized into three periods of 10 days.
At the end of the last month of each year, the five days (epagómenos) that were missing to complete the solar year were added, dedicated to various Egyptian gods. "The Egyptians were the first of all men to discover the year, and they said that they found this from the stars," wrote the Greek historian Herodotus.
