What is the significance/importance of the "sirius star"to ancient civilisations?.?
Ancient Mayans,Egyptians, Hopi Indian Prophecy and others civilisations all mention this star.
Answers:
Sirius is the brightest star, and being just south of the celestial equator, is visible over virtually the entire inhabited part of Earth. And it is brighter than Saturn or Mercury, and is sometimes brighter than the other naked eye planets. All this makes it attract a lot of attention. Having the three stars that form Orion's belt point straight at it helps also.3500-4000 years ago, Sirius was rising in the predawn sky at the time the Nile floods began each year. Humans are really good at post hoc ergo propter hoc illogic, so this made Sirius get identified with the Egyptian god responsible for Nile floods.
The Mayans had a thing about the sky also, but Venus was more important to them than was Sirius.
also the dogon of west africa.
They set tteir watchs by it
They believe that a race of people came to earth from there. There are many tales from these ancient civilisations about this and they come from a time before modern science knew of the existence of Sirius which is very strange.
Well for Egypt, Sirius was associated with Osiris, who was among other things, a god of agriculture. When Sirius reappeared from behind the sun in the early morning before dawn each year, ancient Egyptians took it as a sign of the coming flooding of the Nile river, which followed soon after.
As for the other civilizations, that I don't know.
Adding to what Charlie said above, I feel that we may have possibly been visited by people from that solar system in some of humankinds early development. They may have tought some of our ancient civilizations things about math and astronomy, maybe even engineering - this would explain the South/Central American & Egyptian pyramids and other incredible construction projects that were made thousands of years ago.
Well, it's the brightest star in the sky, so it's not surprising that ancient people (who watched the sky a lot more than they watched television) thought it was important.
As Malcom G says, the first appearance of Sirius before dawn, which happens in June, coincided with the flooding of the Nile---the most important event in the Egyptian year.
The whole story of the Dogon people knowing about Sirius' companion star is bogus---there is no record of the Dogon people knowing this prior to its discovery in Europe. They were not so isolated that they couldn't have heard the news.
Most cultures looked and took an interest in the night sky - light pollution is a real educational tragedy in modern cities.
Sirius is bright - the brightest - and people tend to give names to the things that are most easily identified, even when they don't name other things. Also it is easilier for modern academics to identify which star they mean when they are talking about Sirius - easier than it is to be sure in relation to a lot of other stars.
So I guess its a combination of human psychology (looking for meaning and perceptual factors) and the benefits of being able to see the heavens in all their wonder.
It just means they didn't have TV.did you know that were there is no TV the people perish ...seriously they had to focus on something and maybe that star was shinning brightly then and lo and behold like religion the powerful had an icon maybe simple but maybe true
it was known as the dog star so ancient peoples would tell their wives they were taking it for a walk in order to get down the pub
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Answers:
Sirius is the brightest star, and being just south of the celestial equator, is visible over virtually the entire inhabited part of Earth. And it is brighter than Saturn or Mercury, and is sometimes brighter than the other naked eye planets. All this makes it attract a lot of attention. Having the three stars that form Orion's belt point straight at it helps also.3500-4000 years ago, Sirius was rising in the predawn sky at the time the Nile floods began each year. Humans are really good at post hoc ergo propter hoc illogic, so this made Sirius get identified with the Egyptian god responsible for Nile floods.
The Mayans had a thing about the sky also, but Venus was more important to them than was Sirius.
also the dogon of west africa.
They set tteir watchs by it
They believe that a race of people came to earth from there. There are many tales from these ancient civilisations about this and they come from a time before modern science knew of the existence of Sirius which is very strange.
Well for Egypt, Sirius was associated with Osiris, who was among other things, a god of agriculture. When Sirius reappeared from behind the sun in the early morning before dawn each year, ancient Egyptians took it as a sign of the coming flooding of the Nile river, which followed soon after.
As for the other civilizations, that I don't know.
Adding to what Charlie said above, I feel that we may have possibly been visited by people from that solar system in some of humankinds early development. They may have tought some of our ancient civilizations things about math and astronomy, maybe even engineering - this would explain the South/Central American & Egyptian pyramids and other incredible construction projects that were made thousands of years ago.
Well, it's the brightest star in the sky, so it's not surprising that ancient people (who watched the sky a lot more than they watched television) thought it was important.
As Malcom G says, the first appearance of Sirius before dawn, which happens in June, coincided with the flooding of the Nile---the most important event in the Egyptian year.
The whole story of the Dogon people knowing about Sirius' companion star is bogus---there is no record of the Dogon people knowing this prior to its discovery in Europe. They were not so isolated that they couldn't have heard the news.
Most cultures looked and took an interest in the night sky - light pollution is a real educational tragedy in modern cities.
Sirius is bright - the brightest - and people tend to give names to the things that are most easily identified, even when they don't name other things. Also it is easilier for modern academics to identify which star they mean when they are talking about Sirius - easier than it is to be sure in relation to a lot of other stars.
So I guess its a combination of human psychology (looking for meaning and perceptual factors) and the benefits of being able to see the heavens in all their wonder.
It just means they didn't have TV.did you know that were there is no TV the people perish ...seriously they had to focus on something and maybe that star was shinning brightly then and lo and behold like religion the powerful had an icon maybe simple but maybe true
it was known as the dog star so ancient peoples would tell their wives they were taking it for a walk in order to get down the pub
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