Talk:The Indestructibles

A fact from The Indestructibles appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 13 March 2015 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that two circumpolar stars known as The Indestructibles marked heaven as a destination for the Ancient Egyptian pharaohs?

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WikiProject Ancient Egypt to-do list:

Needed articles.

We should have an article on every pyramid and every nome in Ancient Egypt. I'm sure the rest of us can think of other articles we should have.

Cleanup.

To start with, most of the general history articles badly need attention. And I'm told that at least some of the dynasty articles need work. Any other candidates?

Standardize the Chronology.

A boring task, but the benefit of doing it is that you can set the dates !(e.g., why say Khufu lived 2589-2566? As long as you keep the length of his reign correct, or cite a respected source, you can date it 2590-2567 or 2585-2563)

Stub sorting

Anyone? I consider this probably the most unimportant of tasks on Wikipedia, but if you believe it needs to be done . . .

Data sorting.

This is a project I'd like to take on some day, & could be applied to more of Wikipedia than just Ancient Egypt. Take one of the standard authorities of history or culture -- Herotodus, the Elder Pliny, the writings of Breasted or Kenneth Kitchen, & see if you can't smoothly merge quotations or information into relevant articles. Probably a good exercise for someone who owns one of those impressive texts, yet can't get access to a research library.

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Not just two bright stars al stars surrounding the darkness that the sky revolves around —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.108.251.5 (talk) 07:21, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Other stars

What stars do the 2x vent shafts in the Khufu Queen's Chamber align with?Mifren (talk) 08:11, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Some believe that the southern one aligns with Sirius. A worksheet from NASA shows that this would have not been true until some 200 years after the construction. The Northern one has been assigned to Kochab [1] [2].

Neither shaft opens to the air, and one has a bend in it (to avoid the Great Gallery). The shafts end in doors, beyond which is (in one shaft at least) a 21cm gap and another set of doors. See here for exploration of the shafts. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 23:20, 26 January 2015 (UTC).

Possible sources

I don't have time or sources to improve this article. But I can say that the usual term for these stars in Egyptology is "the Imperishable Stars". "Indestructibles" is obviously an alternative translation of the same Egyptian term, but not as widely used in scholarship.

Two sources that would be very helpful in fleshing out this article are The Imperishable Stars of the Northern Sky in the Pyramid Texts (1990) by Joseph Bradshaw, and Astronomische Konzepte und Jenseitsvorstellungen in den Pyramidentexten (1997) by Rolf Krauss. I don't have either, and according to Worldcat they're not easy to come by. A. Parrot (talk) 16:47, 4 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

http://www.iac.es/proyecto/arqueoastronomia/media/Belmonte_Shaltout_Chapter_8_II.pdf a useful pdf. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 17:58, 19 February 2015 (UTC).
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=z15b2Z0HEJEC&pg=PA35&dq=%22Old+kingdom%22+of+heaven+circumpolar&hl=en&sa=X&ei=POPGVNm7LIjUOND3gdAH&ved=0CCUQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22Old%20kingdom%22%20of%20heaven%20circumpolar&f=false The Ancient Egyptians: Life in the Old Kingdom By Jill Kamil
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=xG1KbTevDccC&pg=PA139&dq=%22old+kingdom%22+heaven+circumpolar&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Gnf8VMfhM4vY7Ab7y4DQAg&ved=0CCwQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=%22old%20kingdom%22%20heaven%20circumpolar&f=false Architecture, Power, and Religion: Hatshepsut, Amun & Karnak in Context, David Warburton

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 16:14, 8 March 2015 (UTC).

Imperishables vs. indestuctibles

There is an interesting note in Gaston Maspero. History of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria, Babylonia and Assyria. Vol. unknown. p. unknown. "..texts found and cited by Brugsch show that the Akhimu Soku are the planets[sic] accompanying Ra in the northern sky, while the Akhumu Urdu are his escort in the south. The nomenclature of the stars included in the two classes is furnished by monuments of widely different epochs. ... Akhimu Soku, those who know not destruction, the indestuctibles; and Akhumu Urdu (Urzii), those who know know the immobility of death, the Imperishables." (supported by Isaac Myer (1900). Oldest Books in the World: An Account of the Religion, Wisdom, Philosophy, Ethics, Psychology, Manners, Proverbs, Sayings, Refinement, Etc., of the Ancient Egyptians: as Set Forth and Inscribed Upon, Some of the Oldest Existing Monuments, Papyri, and Other Records of that People... E.W. Dayton. p. 312.

Conversely we have "the imperishables in the north (circumpolar stars) .. and the unwearying ones in the south".James P Conner (2012). Mysterious Lands:Encounters with Ancient Egypt. David O'Connor, Stephen Quirke (editors). Taylor & Francis. p. 24. ISBN 9781135393830.

It is not clear to me that any southern stars would be perpetually visible from Egypt, in fact if the south celestial pole cannot be seen from there, it seems impossible.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 16:49, 9 March 2015 (UTC).