Date: Saturday, April 17, 2010, 2:00 p.m. 

Presenter: Dr. Edward Krupp, Griffith Observatory

Chapter: Orange County, California

Location: Bowers Museum, Norma Kershaw Auditorium, 2002 N. Main, Santa Ana, California

This lecture is free and open to the public.

Description: Magical incantations inscribed on the interior walls of some Egyptian pyramids pinpoint the destiny of pharaohs once buried within them. These prayers are known as the Pyramid Texts, and they tell us that the final destination of a dead king's soul was the sky. In particular, many pharaohs flew to the circumpolar stars. Neither rising nor setting, these stars migrate around the north celestial pole without ever slipping into the underworld below the horizon. To ancient Egyptians they were the "undying" stars, and their immortality would naturally attract a soul in search of everlasting life. In ancient Egyptian belief, these stars advanced as a celestial army, parading eternally around the hub of heaven and keeping the cosmos on course with the daily rotation of the sky.

For his ARCE-OC lecture on April 17, Dr. Krupp focuses on archeoastronomy of the Giza Plateau. He also looks closely at several popular myths and theories through the lens of science, revealing impossibilities and misinterpretations not easily discerned by the casual observer. For example, Dr. Krupp explains why you have to turn Egypt upside-down to make the Giza pyramids match the Belt of Orion and shows why the Sphinx is on the wrong side of the Nile to symbolize the stars.

About the Speaker: Dr. Krupp has been the director of Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles for over thirty years. He is known for his extensive publications about astronomical and science education topics. Several of his books have won notable awards from institutions such as the American Institute of Physics and the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. In particular, Krupp is noted for his specialist contributions and investigations in the field of archaeoastronomy. He has written widely in the field, publishing books such as "In Search of Ancient Astronomies" (1977) and "Archaeoastronomy and the Roots of Science" (1984).