here is a short expalnation of hail bob and For some time, followers of the comet have been surprised about the comet's tail. Normally the tail follows the comet on its journey towards the sun - i.e. is on the other side of the sun. When Hale Bopp was first noticed, the tail was on the sunward side.
The only possible apparent explanation was that there was an invisible object, perhaps hidden by the comet, following the comet, emitting energy to cause the tail to precede the comet. Is the comet the eye, clothed in robes of flame from his mouth commanding Hapi and the object behind the "invisible one"?
Herodotus wrote about Egyptian wisdom around 400 BC:
Thus far I have spoken on the authority of the Egyptians and their priests. They declare that from their first king to this last-mentioned monarch, the priest of Vulcan (Hephaestus), was a period of three hundred and forty-one generations; such, at least, they say, was the number both of their kings, and of their high-priests, during this interval. Now three hundred generations of men make ten thousand years, three generations filling up the century; and the remaining forty-one generations make thirteen hundred and forty years.
Thus the whole number of years is eleven thousand, three hundred and forty; in which entire space, they said, no god had ever appeared in a human form; nothing of this kind had happened either under the former or under the later Egyptian kings.
The sun, however, had within this period of time, on four several occasions, moved from his wonted course, twice rising where he now sets, and twice setting where he now rises.
Egypt was in no degree affected by these changes; the productions of the land, and of the river, remained the same; nor was there anything unusual either in the diseases or the deaths.