Joanne Conman to speak at the Friday Local Author Series

Meeting Room #5, noon-1:00pm
Friday, March 21
Portland, Maine - Joanne Conman has written an exceptional book, Ancient Egyptian Sky Lore: Rethinking the Conventional Wisdom that challenges Egyptology’s most cherished dogma: the notion that ancient Egyptians practiced astronomy. Conman will speak at the Portland Public Library’s Friday Local Author Series on March 21st at noon in Meeting Room #5.  Before hieroglyphs could be read, before anyone actually knew anything factual about ancient Egypt, early scholars mistook ancient Egyptian astrological art for an astronomical map. Consequently, they concluded that ancient Egyptians invented and practiced modern astronomy. They were wrong, but their error has since taken on a life of its own. Over the last two centuries that error has spawned many subsequent errors. The situation is summed up nicely in the quote from John F. Kennedy that opens Ancient Egyptian Sky Lore:

“For the great enemy of truth is very often not the lie – deliberate, contrived, and dishonest – but the myth – persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the clichés of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.”

Some of Egyptology’s most long-standing comfortably held opinions are exposed to some much needed, discomforting thought in this groundbreaking book. Joanne Conman walks the reader through the ideas, skillfully building her case as she examines the rationales offered by the perpetuators and proponents of the well-established myth of astronomy in ancient Egypt. Conman challenges that myth by revealing the correct identities of the five planets in Pharaonic Egypt as found in an ancient Egyptian textbook. She continues with a review of what has been offered over the last two centuries as support for the belief that ancient Egyptians practiced astronomy, presenting evidence that contradicts the conventional thinking in both ancient Egyptian art and texts. She concludes by revealing the intriguing links she has found between very ancient Egyptian religious beliefs and modern astrology.

ABOUT JOANNE CONMAN

As an independent scholar, anthropologist Joanne Conman has spent over twenty years researching ancient astrology, focusing on ancient Egypt and the stars for over fifteen years. Her research discovered a demonstrably correct understanding of the ancient Egyptian decan zodiac. She has published several papers in scholarly journals and has been a presenter at learned society conferences in Egyptology. Ancient Egyptian Sky Lore: Rethinking the Conventional Wisdom is her first book.