lost to the view of the observer. Others will rise or set at night, but instead of disap-
pearing from view altogether, they will lose touch with the horizon and spend the
whole night being visible in the night sky. Yet both types of stars will eventually
return to rising or setting during the night, with each individual star doing so on a par-
ticular date of the year. However, there is also another set of stars that does not par-
take of this pattern; these are always visible, and never sink beneath the horizon,
spending every night circling around the pole.
To the Egyptians, the stars were deities, and so these annual star patterns had
strong religious significance. The never-setting circumpolar stars were considered to
be the Immortals, for these were the deities that never died, the stars that never set. It
was therefore considered significant when a star that would normally rise or set would
appear to act like a circumpolar star by being visible for the whole night. This event
would always commence on the same calendar date, from one year to the next. Fur-
thermore, and considered of even greater significance, this same star would return to
the pattern of setting during the night, at another set calendar date. Such a star was
considered to be a deity who spent time not only walking in the world of the Immor-
tals, but also walking in the world of humans, and was therefore open to prayer and
offerings. The return of such a star on a particular date is known as the heliacal setting
star, and its phase, as named by Ptolemy, is “curtailed passage.”
The stars that were never seen, the stars that never rose during the night and
remained permanently out of sight, were considered by the Egyptians to be the deities
that lived in the Underworld. However, at set dates some visible stars would disappear
from view and fail to rise during the night. These stars were believed to be deities that
died at a set time of the year and then spent time walking through the Underworld.
However, such a star would reappear in the night sky (rise from the dead) by rising just
before dawn at a precise calendar date. This star was considered a deity who had risen
from the Underworld and now walked again upon the earth. It was believed to be the
ruling deity for the period of time until the next deity returned from the land of the
dead. The return of such a star is known as the heliacal rising star, and its phase, as
named by Ptolemy, is arising and laying hidden.
So important were these times of the return of a star that, as Norman Lockyer
(1836–1920), considered the founding father of archeoastronomy, pointed out in his
work Dawn of Astronomy(1894), the Egyptians based their religious calendar around
such events and built temples designed to capture the returning star’s light onto the
altar of the deity.
The principles embodied in the work of such writers as Robert Hand, Norman
Lockyer, and Anonymous of 379 C.E., and also demonstrated by Ptolemy’s The Phases
of the Fixed Stars,were taken up and expanded upon by Bernadette Brady’s book
Brady’s Book of Fixed Stars(1998), in which she recommends that astrologers should
once again return to the older observational techniques of working with fixed stars as
well as move away from the star/planet delineations of Plato and Ptolemy and, by
researching the symbolism and mythology linked to the ancient constellations, use
these to explore far older meanings of the stars.—Bernadette BradyFixed Stars
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