Speak about these subjects and more > Astronomy
The dawn of astronomy (and astrology)
Prometheus:
[CHAP. XV.
solar one; if the declination is greater it cannot have had anything to do with the sun- directly.
This being so, it will be understood why in an inquiry
GROUND PLAN OF THE TEMPLE OF HATHOR AT DENDERAH.
PLAN OF THE TEMPLE OF 8ETI AT ABYDOS.
of this kind it is obviously desirable to begin with a region in which the number of temples is considerable. Such a condition we have in the region near Thebes; and the directions of the axes of the different temples—that is, the orientation of each of them, or, in other words, the amplitude of the direction in which each temple points—have all been tabulated. Chief among these we have the large temple of Kamak, showing that the amplitude of its orientation is 26° north of west, and the temple of Mut, showing that its orientation
PLAN OF THE TEMPLE OF RAMESES II. IN THE MEMNONIA AT THEBES (FROM LEPSIUSX SHOWING THE PYLON AT THE OPEN END AND THE SANCTUARY AT THE CLOSED ONE.
160
[CHAP. XV.
is 72north of east. There is a temple at right angles to the Aornple at Karnak, and again another with an amplitude of 63° south of west, and so on.
It may be stated generally that at Karnak itself, not to go farther afield, there are two well-marked series of temples which cannot, for the reason given, be solar, since one series faces a few degrees from the north, and the other a few degrees from the south. There are similar temples scattered all along the Nile valley.
When we come to examine’these non-solar temples, the first question is, Do they resemble the solar ones in construction ? Are the horizontal telescope conditions retained? The evidence on this point is overwhelming. Take the Temple of Hathor at Denderah. It points very far away from the sun; the sun’s light could never have enfiladed it; in many others pointing well to the north or south the axis extends from the exterior pylon to the Sanctuary or Naos, which is found always at the closed end of the temple; we have the same number of pylons, gradually getting narrower and narrower as we get to the Naos, and in some there is a gradual rise from the first exterior pylon to the part which represents the section of the Naos, so that a beam of horizontal light coming through the central door might enter it over the heads of the people flocking into the outer courts of the temple, and pass uninterruptedly into the Sanctuary.
In this way the Egyptians had, if they chose to use it, a most admirable arrangement for observing, with considerable accuracy, either the rising or the setting of any celestial body, whether it were sun or star, and especially the possibility of observing a eosmical rising, as the eye was shielded from the sun-rise light, and the place of rising was completely indicated.
CHAP. XV.)
TEMPLE OF TYRE.
161
In these, as at Karnak, we have a collimating axis. We have the other end of the temple blocked; we have these various diaphragms or pylons, so that, practically, there is absolutely no question of principle of construction involved in this temple that was not involved in the great solar temple of Amen-Ra itself.
We made out that in the case of the temples devoted to sun-worship and to the determination of the length of the year, there was very good reason why all these attempts should be made to cut off the light, by diaphragms and stone ceilings, because, among other things, one wanted to find the precise point occupied by the sunbeam on the two or three days near the winter or summer solstice in order to determine the exact moment of the solstice.
But if a temple is not intended to observe the sun, why these diaphragms ? Why keep the astronomer, or the priest, so much in the dark ? There is a very good reason indeed.
From the account given by Herodotus of the ceremonials and mysteries connected with the temple of Tyre, it is suggested that the priests used starlight at night for some of their operations, very much in the same way as they might have used sunlight during the day. According to Herodotus, in the temple in question there were two pillars—the one of pure gold, and the other of an emerald stone of such size as to shine by night. Now, there can be little doubt that in the darkened sanctuary of an Egyptian temple the light of a Lyras, one of the brightest stars in the northern heavens, rising in the clear air of Egypt, would bo quite strong enough to throw into an apparent glow such highly-reflecting surfaces as those to which Herodotus refers.
/
1 Herodotus II., 14. (I am indebted to my friend l’rof. Kobcrtson Smith for this reference.)
L
162
[CHAP. XV.
Supposing such a ceremonial as this, the less the worshippers —who, reasoning from the analogy of the ceremonial termed the manifestation of Rii,1 would stand facing the sanctuary, with their backs to the chief door of the temple—knew about the question of a bright star which might probably produce the mystery, the better.
Again, the truer the orientation of the temple to the star, and the greater the darkness the priest was kept in, the sooner would he catch the star quivering in the light of either early or late dawn.
In the first place, the diaphragms would indicate the true line that he had to watch; he would not have to search for the star which he expected; and obviously the more he was kept in the dark the sooner could he see the star.
Is there any additional line of evidence beyond the structural conditions of the temples that the Egyptians used these temples to observe the stars? Here a very interesting question comes in: a temple built at one period to observe a star could not go on for ever serving its purpose, for the reason that the declination of the star must change, as we have seen, by precession. Therefore a temple built with a particular amplitude to observe a particular star at one period would be useless later on.
We have here possibly a means of testing whether or not any of these temples were used to observe the stars. In those very early days, 3000 or 4000 years B.C., we must assume that the people who observed the stars had not the slightest idea of these possible precessional changes; they imagined that they were just as safe in directing a temple to a star as they were in directing a temple to the sun. But with a star changing its declination in an average way, the same temple
1 See an(ey p. 111.
CHAP. XV.]
TEMPLE OF MEDiXET-HABd.
163
could not be used to observe the same star for more than 200 or 300 years; so that at the end of that time, if they still wished to observe that particular star, they must either change the axis of the old temple, or build a new one. I have mentioned an average time as the change of the star’s declination is involved.
Now this change of direction is one of the most striking things which have been observed for years past in Egyptian temples.
As a matter of fact, we find that the axes of the temples have been changed, and have been freely changed; that there has been a great deal of work done on many of the temples which are not oriented to the sun, in order to give them a twist.
. \ Once a solar temple, a solar temple for thousands of years; once a star temple, only that star .temple for something liko 300 years, so that the conditions were entirely changed.
We get cases in which the axis of a temple has had its direction changed, and others in which, where it has been difficult or impossible to make the change in a temple, the change of amplitude has been met by putting up a new temple altogether. We are justified in considering such temples as a series in which, instead of changing the orientation of a pre-existing temple, a new temple has been built to meet the new condition of things. That, I think, is a suggestion which we are justified in making to Egyptologists on astronomical grounds.
For an instance, I may refer to the well-known temple at Medinet-Habu. We have there two temples side by side— ^ a large temple, which was built later, with its systems of ’ pylons and sanctuaries; a smaller temple, with outside courts, \ ' and, again, a sanctuary built much earlier. The direction
164
[CHAP. XV.
1 1 *n* • •j
********
of these two temples is very different;
there is a difference of several degrees.
It is very difficult indeed to understand
whv these two structures should have •/
been built in that way if there were not some good reason for it. The best hitherto found is the supposed symmetrophobia of the Egyptians.
We find the same thing in Greece.
[‘LAN OF TWO TEMPLES AT MEDlNET- HABU.
There is the old Parthenon, a building which may have been standing at the time of the Trojan * war, and the new Parthenon, with an outer court very like the Egyptian temples, but with its sanctuary more nearly in the centre of the building. It was by the difference of direction of these two temples at Athens that my attention was called to the subject.
If we study the orientation of these, we find that, like those at Medinet- Habu, they are not parallel; there is a difference of orientation. This method of coping with the changes of amplitude of the star apparently represents that
THE BENT AXIS OF THE TEMPLE OF LUXOR, LOOKING TOWARD THE SANCTUARY.
166
(CHAP. XV.
adopted where there has been ample space to build another temple by the side of the old one when the star could no longer be seen from end to end of the old one. But another way was found where the space was more circumscribed, and that is well represented by the temple at Luxor, in which the addition is made end on. The suggestion is that, after the temple at Luxor had been built a certain number of years, the amplitude of the star had got a little out of the initial line, and the direction was changed at the time when it was determined to make the temple more beautiful and to amplify it by adding an outer court. There is another outer court and another very considerable change. There are four well-marked deviations.
CHAPTER XVI.
FURTHER INQUIRIES WITH REGARD TO THE STELLAR TEMPLES.
IN the preceding chapter I discussed the suggestion, quite independently of any records the Egyptians may have left on the subject, that certain of the temples were oiiented to stars; and I applied one test, that, namely, of the change of direction which was imperative if stars were observed for any lengthened period. In such an inquiry we must proceed with great caution.
We cannot make a statement regarding every particular temple with absolute certainty, for the reason that in the case of most of the temples the best Egyptologists cannot give us the most precious piece of information which we require from the astronomical point of view—that is, the date of the foundation of the temple. If in the case of these temples it were absolutely certain that each temple was built at a certain time with a certain orientation, we could tell at once whether or not that temple was pointed to any particular star.
In the absence of this precise information a general attack on the question has been necessary. The method adopted in the search has been as follows:—
(1) To tabulate the orientations of some of the chief temples described by the French Commission, by Lepsius and others.
Several interesting facts were soon revealed by this tabulation.
The first point that I have to note is that, in the case of some of these temples, we get the same, or nearly the same,
168
THE DAWX OF ASTRONOMY.
(CHAP. XVI.
amplitudes in different localities. To show this clearly it will be convenient to compare together the chief temples near Kamak and those having the same amplitudes elsewhere. We can do this by laying down along a circle the different amplitudes to which these various temples point. To begin with and to make the story complete, I draw, attention to the temples which we have already discussed with an amplitude of 27°, or 26°, at Thebes, Kamak, and elsewhere. These, of course, are solar temples. Next we have non-solar amplitudes at Karnak and Thebes, associated with temples having the same amplitude at Denderah, Annu, and other places.
Another point is that we have the majority of the non-solar temples removed just as far as they can be in amplitude from the solar ones, for the reason that they are as nearly as possible at right angles to them, so that if the sun were observed in one temple and a star in the other, there would be a difference of 90° between the position of the sun and the position of the star at that moment. This would, of course, apply also to two stars. Sometimes this rectangular arrangement is in the same temple, as at Karnak, sometimes in an adjacent one, as at Denderah.
If we study Denderah we find that we have there a large temple enclosed in a square temenos wall, the sides of which are parallel to the sides of the temple; and also a little temple at right angles to the principal one.
It is hardly fail’ to say that a rectangular arrangement, repeated in different localities, is accidental; it is one which is used to some extent in our modern observatories.
The perpetual recurrence of these rectangular temples shows, I think, that there was some definite view in the minds of those who built all the pairs of temples which are thus related to each other; what that view was I shall endeavour to discuss in the sequel.
CHAP. XVI.J
HORIZON KEPT CLEAR.
169
A third circumstance is that, when we get some temples pointing a certain number of degrees south of east, we get other temples pointing the same number of degrees south of west, so that some temples may have been used to observe risings and others settings of stars in the same declination. It is then natural, of course, to suggest that these temples wei*c arranged to observe the rising and setting of the same stars; but further inquiry has shown that there ai-e mythological objections to this explanation.
Finally, we have temples with the same amplitudes high north and high south, in different places—temples which could not have been built with reference to the sun ; just as we have at different places temples with the same amplitudes which could have been used for solar purposes.
(2) To extend and check some of these observations with special reference to my new point of view in Egypt itself.
In connection with the possible astronomical uses of these j temples, I find that when one of the temples has been built,
, the horizon has always been very carefully left open; there has ! always been a possibility of vision along the collimating axis V prolonged. Lines of sphinxes have been broken to ensure this;1 at Medinet-Habu, on the opposite side of the river to Karnak, we have outside this great temple a model of a Syrian fort. If we prolong the line of the temple from the middle of the Naos through the systems of pylons, we find that in the model of the fort an opening was left, so that the vision from the sanctuary of the temple was left absolutely free to command ^the horizon.
It may be said that that cannot be true of Karnak, because
1 For instance, in the lino of sphinxes in front of temple X, shown in the folding plato inserted in Chap. XVIII., the line was left incomplete to preserve the fair-way of the ruined temple north of Y outside the temenos wall.
170
[CHAP. XVI.
we see on the general plan that one of the temples, with an azimuth of 72g° N., had its collimating axis blocked by numerous buildings.. That is true; but when one comes to examine into the date of these buildings, as I propose to do in a subsequent chapter, it is found that they are all very late; whereas there is evidence that the temple in question was one of the first, if not the very first, of the temples built at Thebes.
h (3) To determine the declinations to which the various /amplitudes correspond. In this direction I have made use of I the German Catalogue of star places from 1800 A.D. to 2000 B.C., the places for dates beyond this, and for southern stars, having I been calculated chiefly by my son, Mr. W. J. S. Lockver, B.A. ; Some places for Sirius and Canopus have been obligingly j placed at my disposal by Mr. Hind, and approximate values ( obtained by the use of a precessional globe constructed for me by 1 Mr. Newton. This globe differs considerably from that previously contrived by M. Biot, about which I was ignorant when : I began the work, and enables right ascensions and declinations,
I but especially the latter, to be determined with a fair amount . of accuracy for forty-eight equidistant points occupied by the ' pole of the equator round the pole of the ecliptic (assumed to be fixed) in the precessional revolution.
Some simple astronomical considerations may here come to our help. If the north polar distance of a star is increasing— that is, if a star is increasing its distance from the north pole —its declination if north or south will be decreased or increased respectively, and the orientation of the temple would be gradually becoming more and more parallel to an E. and W. line; if the declination north or south of the star be increasing, then the orientation of the temple would have to be likewise increased. The change in the orientation, therefore, gives us information
CHAP. XVI.J
DECL1XAT10XS AXD AMPLITUDES.
171
towards determining in which quarter of the heavens each particular star might have been.
(4) In cases where the date of the foundation of a temple dedicated to a particular divinity has been thoroughly known, there was no difficulty in finding the star the declination of ?which at the time would give the amplitude; and, in the case of series of temples dedicated to the same divinity, an additional check was afforded if the changes of amplitude from the latest to the newest temple agreed with the changes of the declinations of the same star.
Having the declinations of the stars thus determined for certain epochs, I have next plotted them on curves, showing the amplitude for any year up to 5000 B.C. at Thebes for a true horizon and when the horizon is raised 1° or 2" by hills or mist; and, finally, a table has been prepared showing the declination proper to the amplitude of each of the chief temples when the needful information was available.
Although, however, these matters can be discussed in a way that will indicate that the inquiry is raised, I do not wish for one moment to speak of it as being settled, because the observations which have been made already in Egypt with regard to the orientation of these temples have not been made from such a very special point of view; and, further, considerable alteration in the amplitude would be made by the presence of even a low range of hills miles away in the case of stars rising or setting not many degrees from the north or south. No one would care to make the assertion with absolute definiteness until it was known whether or not the horizon in each case was interfered with by hills or any intervening objects—was or was not one, in fact, which might be regarded as a sea horizon from the
172
[CHAP. XVI.
point of observation; if there were impediments, the angular height of them must, of course, be exactly known; but this information is almost entirely lacking.
Now, however, that the question has been raised by observations of the temples themselves, it becomes interesting to ask of the inscriptions if there are records that these temples were directed to stars ?
It will be seen in the next chapter that the inscriptions give out no uncertain sound on this point.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE BUILDING INSCRIPTIONS.
NUMEROUS references to the ceremonial of laying the foundation-stones of temples exist, and we learn from the works of Chabas, Brugsch, Dilmichen,1 and others, that the foundation of an Egyptian temple was associated with a series of ceremonies which are repeatedly described with a minuteness which, as Nissen has pointed out,2 is painfully wanting in the case of Gi'eece and Rome. Amongst these ceremonies, one especially refers to the fixing of the temple-axis; it is called, technically, “ the stretching of the cord,” and is not only illustrated by inscriptions on the walls of the temples of Kamak, Denderah, and Edfft—to mention the best-known cases—but is referred to elsewhere.
Another part of the ceremony consisted in the king proceeding to the site where the temple was to be built, accompanied mythically by the goddess Sesheta, who is styled “ the mistress of the laying of the foundation-stone.” Each was armed with a stake. The two stakes were connected by a cord. Next the cord was aligned towards the sun or star, as the case might be; when the alignment was perfect the two stakes were driven into the ground by means of a wooden mallet; there was no difference of procedure in the case of temples directed to the sun. One boundary wall parallel to the main axis of the temple was built along the line marked out by this stretched cord.
1 “ Haugcsehiehte des Dendem-Tempels,” 1877.
3 “ Ilhfinischos Museum fiir Philologie,” 188o, p. 39.
174
[CHAP. XVII.
If the moment of sun- or star-rise or -set were chosen, as we have every reason to believe was the case seeing that all the early observations' were made on the horizon, it is obvious that the light from the body towards which the temple was
yi “!
VL
m pnJ
&
5 AWA
/?CS-o
S'?'
ool-
TEI r* ?HI * ?
! X
IT:
THE LATINO OP THE FOUNDATION-STONE CEREMONIAL.
aligned would penetrate the axis of the temple thus built from one end to the other in the original direction of the cord.
We learn from Chabas that the Egyptian word which expresses the idea of founding or laying the foundation-stone of a temple is Senti—a word which still exists in Coptic. But in the old language another word, Put-ser, which no longer remains in Coptic, has been traced. It has been established
CHAP. XVII.]
AX XU AXD ARY DOS.
175
that put means “ to stretch,” and ser means “ cord; ” so that that part of the ceremonial which consisted in stretching a cord in the direction of a star was considered of so great an importance that it gave its name to the whole ceremonial.
I will next refer to some of the inscriptions; one, dating from the last half of the third thousand B.C., occurs in the document describing the building of the temple of Annu (Heliopolis). We read:—“Arose the king, attired in his necklace and the feather crown ; all the world followed him, and the majesty of Amenemhat [first king of the Twelfth dynasty]. The Klier-heb read the sacred text during the stretching of the measuring-cord and the laying of the foundation-stone on the piece of ground selected for this temple. Then withdrew His Majesty Amenemhat; and King Usertsen [son and co-regent] wrote it down before the people.”
Nissen, from whom (loc. cit.) I quote the above, adds:— “ On account of the stretching of the measuring-cord, the Egyptian engineers were called by the Greeks apirehovaincu, whose art Democritus boasts of having acquired.”
We next turn to Abydos, possibly one of the oldest temple- fields in Egypt. There is an inscription relating to the rebuilding of one of them in the time of Scti I. (about 1380 B.C.). In this the goddess Sesheta addresses the king as follows:—“The hammer in my hand was of gold, as I struck the peg with it, and thou wast with me in thy capacity of Harpedonapt. Thy hand held the spade during the fixing of its [the temple’s] four corners with accuracy by the four supports of heaven.” On the pictures the king appears with the Osiris crown, opposite the goddess. Both hold in their right hand a club, and with it they each hammer a long peg into the ground. Round the two pegs runs a rope, which is stretched tight, the ends being tied together.
176
[CHAP. XVII.
In two cases the star used for the alignment is actually named. Of these I will take, first, the record of the ceremony used in the building of the temple of Hathor at Denderah.
THE ALIGNMENT OF THE TEMPLE OF HATHOR AT DENDERAH.
The inscriptions state that the king while stretching the cord had his glance directed to the ak of the constellation of the Thigh—the old name of the constellation which we now recognise as the Great Bear—and on this line was built the new temple, “ as had been done there before.”
The actual inscription has been translated as follows:— “ The living God, the magnificent son of Asti [a name of Thoth], nourished by the sublime goddess in the temple, the sovereign of the country, stretches the rope in joy. With his glance towards the ak [the middle?] of the Bull’s Thigh constellation, he establishes the temple-house of the mistress of Denderah, as took place there before.” At another place the king says : “ Looking to the sky at the course of the rising stars [and] recognising the uk of the Bull’s Thigh constellation, I establish the comers of the temple of Her Majesty.”
Here, then, we have more than evidence of the stretching of a cord towards a star; an actual constellation is named, and it may be easily imagined that in connection with this many interesting questions arise of the utmost importance to the subject we are considering.
Diimichen, in his references to this passage, discusses the meaning of the word ak in relation to some Theban grave- inscriptions, in which it is suggested that ak is used to represent the middle course of a star, or, astronomically speaking, its culminating point as it passes the meridian. But such a meaning as this will never do in this connection ; for if a cord was stretched towards a star on the meridian it would
CHAP. XVII.]
THE MEANING OF IK.
177
lie north and south, and therefore the temple would be built north and south. But this is by no means the orientation of the temple—a point to which I shall return presently.
But it may be suggested that the word uk, used in relation to the king’s observation, more probably referred to the brightest star, Dublie (a Ursae Majoris) in the asterism, or the il middle point” of the constellation, which would be about represented by the star 8, which lies nearly in the centre of the modern constellation of the Great Bear, supposing, indeed, that the same stars were included in the old constellation.
On this point we unfortunately have no definite knowledge, as the Thigh is so variously represented; sometimes there is a hind-quarter, represented evidently by the well-known seven -stars-; at others the body of a cow (with horns and disk) is attached.
However this may be, without such a reference to some particular part of the constellation it is obvious that the stretched cord may have had a most indeterminate direction.
In order to leave no stone unturned in attempting to explain this description—supposing it to represent an undoubted fact of observation — we may consider another possible interpretation of the word ak. The amplitude of the temple being 711° N. of E., shows conclusively that we cannot be dealing with the meridian, but may we be dealing with the most eastern elongation of the star in its journey qt round the Pole?
I have inquired into this matter for the time of the last building of the temple in the time of the Ptolemies, and find that the amplitude of the temple, instead of being 71 J°, would have been about 70°. It seems probable, then, that this interpretation will not hold, and it may be further stated that, in the case of a star at a considerable angle above the horizon,
M
178
T1IB DAWN OF ASTRONOMY.
[CHA1-. XVII.
the stretching of a cord in the building ceremonial—the “Ausspannung der Strickes,” as the words jmt-ser are translated by Diimiclien—would really have been no stretching of the cord at all; for the star being many degrees above the horizon, another method must have been employed, and in all probability would have been distinctly referred to in the careful statements of the ceremonies which exist. I think, then, that we are perhaps justified in dismissing this possible explanation, especially as rising stars- are referred to.
We now come to considerations of a different order. The inscription which we have quoted is put into the mouth of the Emperor Augustus, though he never was at Denderah.
This suggests that the temple built in the time of Augustus carried forward the account of the old foundation. There is evidence of this. The constellation of the Thigh neither rose nor set in the time of Augustus—it was circumpolar. The same statement may be made regarding the restoration in the time of Thothmes III. So we are driven to the conclusion that if we regard the inscription as true, it must refer to a time preceding the reign of Thothmes. I shall return to this subject in a subsequent chapter.
THK ALIGNMENT OF THE TEMPLE OF EDFO.
A reference to the same constellation (the Thigh) is also made in the account of the ceremonial used at the laying of the foundation-stone of the temple at Edffi. The king’s glance was directed—in the case of the building of that temple —to the Thigh, but no precise reference to any star or to any point ak is given.
As before, I give the full translation of the inscription,1 remarking that the last restoration was made n.c. 237—57.
Quoted from Xissen, up. rif.
CHAP. XVII.]
THE EDFfj C Ell EMO XIES.
179
The king is represented as speaking thus:—“ I have grasped the wooden peg and the handle of the club; I hold the rope with Sesheta; my glance follows the course of the stars; my eye is on Mes^et [that is, the ‘ Bull’s Thigh constellation,’ or Great Bear]; (mine is the part of time of the number of the hour-clock) ; I establish the corners of thy house of God.” And in another place :—“I have grasped the wooden peg; I hold the handle of the club; I grasp the cord with Sesheta; I cast my face towards the course of the rising constellations; I let my glance enter the constellation of the Great Bear (the part of my time stands in the place of his hour-clock); I establish the four corners of thy temple.” The translation is Brugsch’s. The phrases in parentheses are interpreted differently by Diimichen, who translates them:—“ Standing as divider of time by his measuring instrument,” or “ representing the divider of time {i.e. the god Thoth) at his measuring instrument.” The word nierech or merchet, in which Brugsch suspects hour- or water-clock, does not occur elsewhere.
In this case, seeing that the temple lies with its axis very nearly north and south, as I determined by my own (magnetic) observations, the stretching of the cord was certainly in or very near the meridian; and it may be remarked that in the Naos there is an opening in the roof, over the side of the second or third door from the sanctuary, and inclined at an angle of 40° (unlike any other opening that I have seen in the roof of any Egyptian temple), which may have been used to observe the transit of some particular star. The angle I was not able to determine with absolute accuracy, as the vertical circle of the theodolite I had with me was out of adjustment.
Taking the latitude of Edfil as 25°, and assuming the angle of 40° to be not far from the truth, the North Polar distance of the star observed would be 15°. M 2
180
ICHAI*. XY'II.
Within a degree or so—and this is as near as wo can get till more accurate observations have been made on the spot— this satisfies Dubhe, the chief star in the Great Bear in the time of the Ptolemies. Supposing the temple was originally oriented to Dubhe, its amplitude, 8C^° S. of W., gives us the date 3900 B.e. I shall show, however, that it is more probable that the temple was oriented on some southern star.
1 may here remark that, so far as 1 know, Edfu is the temple in Egypt nearest the meridian. If, therefore, it were used as, on my theory, all other temples were, it could only have picked up the light from each of the southerly stars, as by the precessional movements they were brought into visibility very near the southern horizon.
In this respect, then, it is truly a temple .of Horus, in relation to the southern stars—the southern eyes of Horus. But it was not a sun-temple in the sense that Karnak was one; and if ceremonies were performed for which light was required, perhaps the apparatus referred to by the writer Dupuis1 was utilised. lie mentions that in a temple at Heliopolis—whether a solar temple or not is not stated—the temple was flooded all day long with sunlight by means of a mirror. I do not know the authorities on which Dupuis founds his statement, but I have no doubt that it is amply justified, for the reason that doubtless all the inscriptions in the deepest tombs were made by means of reflected sunlight, for in all freshly-opened tombs there are no traces whatever of any kind of combustion haring taken place, even in the innermost recesses. So strikingly evident is this that my friend M. Bouriant, while we wore discussing this matter at Thebes, laughingly suggested the possibility that the electric light was known to the ancient Egyptians.
1 44 Originc tics Cultes,” vol. i., p. 450.
CHAP. XVII.J
USE OF MIRRORS,
181
With a system of fixed mirrors inside the galleries, whatever their length, and a movable mirror outside to follow the course of an Egyptian sun and reflect its beams inside, it would be possible to keep up a constant illumination in any part of the galleries, however remote.
Dupuis quotes another statement that the greatest precautions were taken that the first rays of sunlight should enter a temple (of course, he means a solar temple).
But it is possible that there might have been another temple at right angles, facing nearly due oast. In this case, the larger temple would have been named after the worship to which the smaller one was dedicated. If so, unlike the solar temples at Heliopolis, Abydos, and Thebes, the Edffi temple was sacred to the Equinoctial Sun, or, at all events, to the Sun very near an equinox.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE STAR-TEMPLES AT KARNAK.
WHEN I began my studies of the Egyptian temples the building inscriptions referred to in the preceding chapter lay forgotten in the Egyptologist’s archives. I purpose now to give some account of my work at Thebes, where I made a special study of the temples, because there is a very great number there, and many are in a fair state of preservation. These investigations convinced me that temples were oriented to stars before the inscriptions in question were known to me, although the whole temple field is so crowded with temples, each appai’ently blocking up the fair-way of the other, that it seems well-nigh impossible that any such process as that described in the last chapter could have been applied.
This difficulty will be gathered from the accompanying folding plate giving a reproduction of Lepsius’s general maps of the temple region of Karnak, showing his reference letters and also the true north and the orientation of the chief temples. We have already dealt with the solar temple of Amen-Ra.
We find, beginning at the south, a large temple with a long line of sphinxes, the temple of Mut (x) facing the large temple of Amen-Ra (K). To the north of the latter is another temple system (A and B and c), also with an avenue of sphinxes. On the east side of K another temple (o) is only slightly indicated.
To the south of the large temple K is another one—that of Khons (T), also with its sphinxes. Connected with K are
CHAP. XVIII.]
STAR-TEMPLES AT KARXAK.
183
two other temples, T,, nearly, and M, exactly, at right angles to it. There is also such a rectangular temple (Y) added to the temple of Mut. I also call attention to the temples v and w, chiefly to point out that when I went over the ground with M. Bouriant it seemed to us as if the temple v faced S.E. and not N.W. as indicated by Lepsius. Very few traces of the temple are left.
Since the labours of the French and Prussian Governments gave full records of Karnak a memoir on the temples has been published by Mariette, which gives us not only plans, but precious information' relating to the periods at which, and the kings by whom, the various parts of the temples were constructed or modified. No doubt those which are still traceable form only a very small portion of those which once existed; but however that may be, I have now only to call attention to some among them.
I have previously shown that the magnificent work of Mariette has supplied us with building dates for the solar temple to which reference has been made; so that we have, with more or less accuracy, the sequence of the various parts of the completed building.
If we consider the plan without any reference to the building dates at all, the idea that the smaller temples were built for observations of stars seems to be entirely discountenanced. The temple L, for instance, instead of having a clear horizon, is blocked by the very solid wall (2) and its accompanying columns; the temple M, instead of having a clear horizon, is absolutely blocked by two of the line of pillars (1) very carefully built in front of it. But if we consult Mariette, we find in both cases that the wall was built long after one temple, and the pillars were built long after the other.
This result is satisfactory, inasmuch as it indicates that
184
(CHAP. XVIII.
a natural objection to the orientation hypothesis is invalid. But can we strengthen it by supporting Mariette’s statement as to the dates ?
Mariette states that the temple M was built by Kameses III., a king of the twentieth dynasty. With this datum, we consider the orientation of the temple. The problem is one of this kind:—Taking the Egyptologist’s date for Rameses III. at 1200 B.C., and taking the amplitude of the temple as 63i° N. of E., was there, when that temple was built, any star opposite to it, any star to which it accurately pointed ? We can translate the amplitude of that temple into the declination of a star, making a slight correction for the stated conditions of observation in Egypt, which would make the apparent amplitude less than the true one, because the star would appear to rise more to the south. In the absence of precise information, we are justified in taking the mean of the values referred to by Biot—that is, an apparent amplitude due to a stratum of haze 1^° high, especially as the temple looked away from the Nile.
Searching the astronomical tables, we find that there was a star visible along the temple axis. The star was y Draconis.
So much for the temple M. We now proceed to the other one lettered L, the temple of Seti II.
The amplitude of temple L is 63° S. of W., and the date, according to Mariette, 1300 B.C. We find the declination, proceeding as before, and assuming hills 1^° high, to be 53.}° S., and about that date the bright star Canopus set on the align ment of the temple.
It will hence be gathered that just as truly as the temple M seems to have been pointed to the northern star y Draconis rising, the temple L was pointed to the southern star Canopus, setting.
CHAP. XVIII.]
TEMPLE OF KI/OXS.
185
But this is not all. There is another temple to which I have already directed attention—the temple of Khons (r of Lepsius), founded by Rameses III., though as it comes to us it is a Ptolemaic structure, it having been enlarged and restored by the Ptolemies. It is very nearly, but not quite, parallel to the temple of Seti II.
My measures and those of Lepsius give, approximately, amplitudes as under—
Temple of Seti (T) 63° S. of W.
Temple of Khons (L) 62° „
Continuing, therefore, the same line of inquiry, and assuming that Mariette was right, and that the temple was really finally completed (and no doubt its axis revised) by the Ptolemies, and that they flourished about 200 B.C., we have the same problem. Was there a star towards which that temple could have been directed, and which could have been seen in that temple with its actual orientation ?
Calculation shows that the change of amplitude of Canopus due to the processional movement between 1300 B.C. and 200 B.C. is almost exactly 1°, the difference in the amplitude of the temples. We seem, then, to have in the temples L and T two temples directed to the same star at different times.
- These statements must be taken as provisional only. To render them absolute, careful measurements must be made, on the spot, of the heights of the hills towards which the temples point.
Leaving this for the moment on one side, we get in this manner astronomical dates of the reigns of Seti II. and Rameses III. within a very few years of those given by the Egyptologists.
More than this, the application of this method entirely justifies
186
ICiiAr. XVIII.
Mariette’s view with regard to these more modern temples at Thebes, and shows that when they were built the outlook was clear, so that the building ceremonials referred to in the last chapter might have been performed.
I am next anxious to point out that not only is this so, but, accepting it, we can explain exactly why the walls and temples and columns were erected in the sequence which Mariette indicates. We not only know when they were built, but we can presently understand why they toere built.
The first point to which I draw attention in this matter is the following:—Referring to the plan, we find that before the time of Rameses III. the temple of Seti II. was right out in the open. It thus represented just one of those external rectangular temples which have been found at Denderah and at very many other places in Egypt. It was one of the Egyptian ideas to have two temples at right angles to each other. That temple, then, stood alone. The next change seems to have been this: The star Canopus, the setting of which it was built to watch, was, through the processional movement to which I have referred, no longer conveniently observed in that temple. To obviate this the temple T was built by Rameses III. with a change of amplitude equivalent to the actual precessional change of the star’s declination, to carry on the observations.
Further, at the same time another temple (M) was built to observe 7 Draconis. It is now easy to understand what the 21st—a Theban—dynasty did. Seti’s temple (L) had been superseded; the temple M was a second rectangular temple outside the great temple of Karnak (K). They said to themselves: “ We will make Karnak more beautiful, and we will extend it. We can now build walls in continuation of the old walls, and wo can build still another pylon, because Seti’s temple is no longer being used, the worship having
CHAP. XV1H.)
SEQUENCE OF BUILDINGS.
187
been transferred to the temple of Raineses III. (Khons). By building the northern wall we prevent the use of temple M, sacred to our enemy Sutech.”
I should add that the opening in the wall, in prolongation of the axis of temple M, is not directly opposite the temple M, but a little to the east; it was probably made later, possibly by the twenty-second dynasty, who were Set worshippers. Again, coming to the time of Talmrqa, returning at the end of the exile of the priests of Amen in Nubia, the temple M was again thrown out of use. Pillars were built in front of it, right in the fairway, affording an instance that when a temple was thrown out of use, not by the precessional movement of the star to which it had been directed, but by the partisans of another creed, the fact of its being no longer in operation was insured by something being built in front of it, to prevent observation of the stellar divinity no longer in vogue.
It may be added that long after the temple of Seti II. fell out of astronomical use, and was on that account blocked by the walls of the twenty-first dynasty, the Ptolemies built a new temple of Osiris, which, if built before, would have been in the fair-way of the temple of Seti. Thus, there is a reason for all the changes made at all the dates referred to by Marietta.
I think we find in this result of the inquiry a valuable corroboration of Mariette’s conclusions, and another reason why we should not cease to admire his magnificent work.
So far I have only referred to the relatively modern parts of Karnak. I now pass to the more ancient ones, in which we ought to note the same laws holding good, if there be any value in the view we are discussing.
We find that some of the most important temples given by Lepsius and Mariette (is, x, and w) are just as effectively
188
ICHAP. XV1U.
blocked by the mass of the temple of Amen-.Ra as those we have already considered were by the walls of the twenty- first dynasty and Taharqa’s columns; and, looking at the plan, it seems at first perfectly absurd to continue to hold for one moment the idea that these temples were built for observations of stars on the horizon.
The temple x (Mut) is blocked by the pylon marked 3, the temple B by the eastern end of the great temple, the temple w by the temple o.
Mariette here again comes to our rescue to a certain extent. He shows, as I have stated in Chapter XI., that in the beginning of things, certainly in the twelfth dynasty, possibly in the eleventh dynasty, and possibly even before that, only the central part, marked 4, of the solar temple existed, less as a temple than as a shrine, with nothing to the west of it and nothing to the east of it.
That being so, the temple B gets its fair-way to the south, and the temple of Mut (x) and the smaller temple (w) to the north.
Mariette in his two plates shows the growth of the temple of Amen-Ra in a most admirable way, from the central portion of the temple to which 1 have referred—that is, the small central court, which, he is careful to note, existed before Thothmes I.; how much before, he does not say. Afterwards, the pylons are added; then they are elaborated; then the sanctuary is thrown back to the eastward, and the temple o built, and B thereby blocked, and then thrown forward to the westward, thus blocking x and z.
If there is anything in these considerations at all, it is suggested that all the temples to which I have referred were founded before these easterly and westerty extensions, of which Mariette gives us such ample evidence.
CHAP. XVIII.]
TEMPLE 11.
189
In a subsequent chapter it is suggested that this great lengthening of the original shrine of Amen-Ra, was undertaken for the purpose of blocking temples x, z, and w, all dedicated to Set. Thothmes III. and Taharqa had precisely the same objects in view, apparently.
Here, however, we meet a real difficulty. Mariette states that, so far as he has been able to find, the temple B, a temple of which the worship is Amen, and the temple x, in which the worship is Mut, were built by Amen-hetep III. If that were so, they would have been built blocked; none of the usual ceremonials could have been employed at their foundation. They could not have been used at all for astronomical purposes, because their horizons were blocked by these extensions of the temple of Amen-Ra.
Here I must refer specially to temple B. Its amplitude is, according to Lepsius, 63^° S. of W. I have already shown that the amplitudes of temples L (Khons) and T (Seti II.) are 62° and 63° S. of W., and that in the times of the Ptolemies and Seti II., each faced the star Canopus in turn. Hence the probability that we have three temples of nearly equal orientation sacred to the same divinity.
Temple. Orientation. Declination. Date.
Khons ... G2 ... 52»' ... 300 B.C.
Seti II. ... 63 ... 53i° ... 1350 KC.
B ... 63^ ... HV ... 1800 B.O.
The statement is that the part of the temple of Amen-Ra, the building of which blocked B, was commenced by Thothmes III., whose date, according to Brugsch, is 1600 B.C., and continued by Amen-hetep III. (1500 B.C.). Unless, then, some other provision was made, the observations of Canopus were not continued until another shrine was built. We know that another shrine was built, that of Seti II., and that its orientation
190
T1IE DAWN OF ASTRONOMY.
[CHAP. XV1I1.
gives a date of 1 -150 i$.o. It might have been commenced by Seti I. after the Khu-en-Aten troubles, and finished by Seti II.
One is therefore tempted to ask whether we have not here one of those crucial cases which Mariette himself contemplated, in which the true foundation is so far anterior to the last restoration or the last decoration, from which, for the most part, the archaeologist gets his information, that one is absolutely misled by the restorations or decorations as to the true date of the original foundation of the shrine.1
If the archaeologists are right in attributing the granite temple of Osiris (?), near the sphinx, to a date anterior to, or even contemporaneous with, the second pyramid, we have evidence that in the early dynasties the temple building in stone, and even in granite brought from Aswan, was as perfect in the matter of workmanship as in the eighteenth dynasty; and that it was not then the fashion to inscribe walls, but only statues and stelas. May it possibly be that the fashion in question came in, or reached its greatest development, during the eighteenth dynasty, and that on this account so many temples are ascribed to that period, whereas they were actually in existence before?
If the prior dynasties built no temples, why did they not
1 On this point I am permitted by Professor Maspero to print the following extract from a letter I received from him:—“Tons les temples ptolemaiques et hi plus grande pailie des temples pharaoniques sont des reconstructions. Ce que vous avez observe de Denderah, cst vrai d'Esneh, d’Ombos, d’Assouan, de Phi be, etc. Or, si les premiers construetours d’un temple—ou chez nous d’une eglise—pouvent choisir presque a leur gre remplacement, et par suite l’orientation, la plus convenable, il on est bien rarement de m6mo des recon• structeurs. Les maisons accumulees autour du temple les gdnaient, d’ailleurs les habitudes du eulte et’de la population etuient prises; on rebatissait le temple—commo d’ordinaire chez nous on rebatit 1’eglise—sur la metne orientation et sur les memos fondations. J'ai constate le fait a Kom-Ombo, ou les debris du temple decore par Amenhotpou I. et Thoutmofcis III. sont orientes exaetement commc ceux du temple ptolemal’que actuel, bati sur les ruines du precedent. Vous avez done le droit de dire, non seulement pour Denderah, mais pour beaucoup d'autres temples, qu’ils ont etc reconstruits sur l’orientation du temple qu’ils rompla(;aient, quand mtune cetto orientation no repondait plus il la realite des cho3es.’,
CHAP. Will.]
TEMPLE OF MUT.
191
do so ? and if they did, where are they, if some of those inscribed by the eighteenth dynasty be not they ?
In the absence of final archaeological evidence—that is, admitting Mariette’s own doubt as to the mere existence of inscriptions—are there any astronomical considerations which may possibly help us? Assuming that the temples were astronomically oriented, we have me registering for us the time elapsed since the original direction of the axis was laid down, in terms of the change in the obliquity of the ecliptic.
We have others registering time in like manner in terms of the change due to precession, if we can get any light as to the stars towards which the temples were oriented.
I have already dealt with the temple of Amen-Ra in Chapter XI., and we found a foundation date of 3700 B.C. for the original shrine, so far as the rough observations already available can be trusted. Assuming the accuracy of this determination, it is clear that we must look for stars with appropriate amplitudes between that date and say 2500 B.C.
Let us take the temple of Mut (x of Lepsius); its amplitude is 72j N. of E. This was the amplitude of y Draconis about 3500 B.C. This temple, then, bore the same relation to M as T did to L! We have two cases of two temples erected at different dates to the same star.
Although it has been convenient to begin with Thebes for the reasons given, the records concerning any one temple there are far more restricted than those which relate to some temples elsewhere; while the cult can only bo determined in few instances. I propose, therefore, for the present to content myself with the above general considerations showing the first application of the method of investigation adopted, and to pass on to Denderah, where we are sure of the cult and where many particulars are given.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE PERSONIFICATION OF STARS—THE TEMPLE OF ISIS
AT DENDERAH.
WE have now to pass from the building ceremonials and a general consideration of the temples at Karnak, to the
worships to which the various temples were dedicated. And to do this wc must face the problems of Egyptian mythology, so far as the names and origins of the various gods and goddesses are concerned.
There is ample evidence that each temple was sacred to
CHAT. XIX.)
THE 11 AT HOR TEMPLE.
193
some god or goddess, although in many cases the name of the patron divinity has been lost.
Fortunately, at Denderah the patron divinities are well known, so it will be well to begin with the temples there. We find a general plan of Denderah among the magnificent drawings which we owe to the French expedition of 1798. This shows the wall round the temple-space containing the temple of Hathor, the great temple; and the smaller temple of Isis at right angles to it. We find, roughly, that the great temple points to the north-east; the smaller temple of Isis points to the south-east. A later plan has been published by Maiiette in his work on Denderah.
These, then, are the main conditions of the temples at Denderah. But we can go a little more closely into them by referring to the map which accompanies Biot’s memoir, to which I have previously referred. He gives the axis of the Hathor temple pointing, not merely to the north-east, but to 18° E. of N. Since the other temple lies at right angles to the great one, its direction, according to Biot, is 18° S. of E.
Prometheus:
To show the uncertainty in these inquiries brought about by the absence of a proper survey, I may give the following later values:—
1. LEP8IU8, 1844—
Magnetic azimuth of the axis „ amplitude „ ,,
Correction 8|°
. Astronomical amplitude
2. MARIBTTE, 1870—
Astronomical azimuth ...
,, amplitude
3. LOCKYKR, 1891—
Magnetic azimuth of axis „ amplitude „
Assumed correction 4£°
Astronomical amplitude ... ... ... 71£°
N
65° N. of E.
731° N. of E.
N. 15° E.
75° N. of E.
N. 23° E.
67 N. of
194
(CHAP. XIX
As my value agrees closely with that of Biot, I adhere to it; and it gives, for the amplitude of the temple of Isis at right angles to the Hathor temple, 18£° S. of E.
Now, it is stated distinctly in the inscriptions that “ the place of the birth of Isis is to the north-west of the temple of Hathor, its portal is turned to the east, and the sun shines on its portal when it rises to illuminate the world.”1 We learn from this that the small temple was locally celebrated as the birthplace of Isis.
It is, then, a temple of Isis. Who was Isis ?
Let us begin by considering the temple, remarking that the inscriptions, apparently relating to both temples, are found in one only. On this point, I, for the present, content myself with quoting Plutarch’s statement2 that Isis and Hathor were the same divinities—at all events, in later Egyptian times. -
If we study the inscriptions—and this, thanks chiefly to Mariette’s magnificent book on Denderah, we can do—we find that they give out a very certain sound. Here is one of them:—
u She [i.e. her Majesty Isis] shines into her temple on New Year’s Day, and she mingles her light with that of her father Ra on the horizon.”
Here we have nothing more nor less than a distinct and perfectly accurate statement relating to the cosmical rising of a star, i.e., as I have before explained, of the sun and the star both rising at the same instant of time.
Further, in the inscriptions the “rising of Hathor'1'' is mentioned distinctly. “ La grande d^esse Sefekh [Sesheta] apporte les Merits qui se rapportent a ton lever, 0 Hathor, et au lever de Ra.”8 Everybody knows that “ Ra ” means the sun, and
1 Marictte, “ Denderah,” vol. i., p. 263.
2 Marietta, op. cil.> p. 142. Plutarch wrote in the first century A.D.
* Mariettc, op. citp. 206.
RUINS OF THE MAMISI (PLACE OF BIRTH) OR TEMPLE OF ISIS AT DENDERAH.
I
196
THE DA WN OF ASTRONOMY.
(CHAP. XIX.
therefore the rising of Ra is at once accepted by everybody as obviously meaning sunrise. But if we find “Hathor” treated in the same way as the sun, then Hathor must be a celestial body rising like the sun. I consider this a very important conclusion to arrive at, for many reasons.
But, further, Hathor was also worshipped, according to the inscriptions,1 under the name of Sothis.
Now we know, quite independently of all mythology, that Sothis is simply the Greek form of the Egyptian name (Sept) of the star Sirius.
Taking, then, all these inscriptions together, we hare an absolute astronomical demonstration of the fact that the “ rising of Hathor,” which is referred to mythologically in the inscriptions given by Mariette, was the rising of Sirius; that the star which “ shone into the temple, and which mingled her light with the light of her father Ra,” was really the star Sirius. We get the demonstration of the fact that mythologically the star Sirius was Hathor, or otherwise Isis.
In other words, we find a star personified; Sirius being \ personified as Hathor or Isis.
But we can go much further than this. It is possible, as I have shown, to determine the position of Sirius in past times, and therefore to determine whether the light of that star ever did fall along the axis of the temple. We know its orientation approximately—18£° S. of E.—so that any celestial body which rose at’that amplitude would shine upon any object enshrined in the sanctuary. In the case of Sirius, the conditions are such that, owing to the precessional movement, the distance of the star from the equator has been gradually lessening from the earliest times. Its declination in 8000 B.C. was 50° S.; it became something more than 17° S. in A.D. 1000.
1 Mariette, op. citp. 142.
CHAP. XIX.]
NEW YEAR’S DAY.
197
Knowing the declination, it is easy to determine tho amplitude—and given the conditions at the temple of Isis at Denderah, viz., that we are practically dealing with a sea horizon, we find that the temple really pointed to Sirius about TOO B.c., which is the date Biot found for the construction of the zodiac in the temple of Osiris, referred to in Chapter XIII.
Further, it is easy to show that Sirius at that date rose with the sun on the Egyptian New Year’s Day;1 in my tho- ^ logical language, she mingled her light with that of her father Ra on the great day of the year.
As this is the first instance of such personification that we have come across, it behoves us to study it very carefully. Why was Sirius personified and worshipped?
The summer solstice—that is, the 20th of June, the longest day—was the most important time of the Egyptian year, as it marked the rise of the all-fertilising Nile. It was really New ^ Year’s Day. It has been pointed out, times without number, that the inscriptions indicate that by far the most important astronomical event in Egyptian history was the rising of the star Sirius at this precise time.
Now it seems as if among all ancient peoples each sunrise, each return of the sun—or of the sun-god—was hailed, and most naturally, as a resurrection from the sleep—the death—of night: with the returning sun, man found himself again in full possession of his powers of living, of doing, of enjoying. The sun-god had conquered death; man was again alive. Light and warmth returned with the dawn in those favoured Eastern climes where man then was, and the dawn itself was a sight, a sensation, in which everything conspired to suggest awe and gratitude, and to thrill the emotions of even uncivilised man.
1 Hathor is termed “ I/i maitresse du commencement de run.*1 Mariette, loc. cit., p. 207.
198
[CHAP. XIX.
What wonder, then, that sunrise was the chief time of prayer and thankfulness ? But prayer to the sun-god meant, then, sacrifice; and here a practical detail comes in, apparently a note of discord, but really the true germ of our present knowledge of the starry heavens which surround us.
To make the sacrifice at the instant of sunrise, preparations had to be made, beasts had to be slaughtered, and a* ritual had to be followed; this required time, and a certain definite quantity of it. To measure this, the only means available then was to watch the rising of a star, the first glimmer of which past experience had shown to precede sunrise by just that amount of time which the ritual demanded for the various functions connected with the sunrise sacrifice.
This, perhaps, went on every morning, but beyond all question the most solemn ceremonial of this nature in the whole year was that which took place on New Year’s morning, or the great festival of the Nile-rising and summer-solstice, the 1st of Thoth. Besides the morning ceremonial there were processions of the gods during the day.
How long these morning and special yearly ceremonials went on before the dawn of history we, of course, have no knowledge. Nor are the stars thus used certainly known to us. Of course any star would do which rose at the appropriate time before the sun itself, whether the star was located in the northern or in the southern heavens. But in historic times there is no doubt whatever about the star so used. The warning-star watched by the Egyptians at Thebes, certainly 3000 B.C., was Sirius, the brightest of them all, and there is complete evidence that Sirius was not the star first so used.1
1 “ Besides the solstice and the beginning of the Nile flood, there was an event in the sky which was too striking not to excite the general attention of the Egyptian priesthood. We also know from the newly-discovered inscriptions from the ancient empire that the risings of Orion and Sirius were already attentively followed and mythologically utilised at the time of the building of the pyramids.”—KRALL.
CEREMONIAL PROCESSION IN AN EGYPTIAN TEMPLE. a Restoration the .)
i
200
[CHAft XIX.
The astronomical conditions of the rising of this star have, fortunately for us, been most minutely studied both by Biot and, in more recent times, by Oppolzer, and from their labours it seems to be abundantly clear that the rising of Sirius at the solstice was carefully watched certainly as early as 3285 B.C., according to Biot’s calculations; and, further, that the rising of the same star was still studied in a relatively modem time. At the earlier date its heliacal rising was observed, but in later times means had been secured of noticing its cosmical rising, because although it rose long before the sun on the longest day 3000 B.C., it rose with the sun on the same day in the later times referred to. This “cosmical rising” observation was doubtless secured by the construction of their temples, as I have shown.
We are, then, astronomically on very firm ground indeed. We have got one step into the domain of mythology. X assume it is agreed that we have arrived at the certain conclusion that the goddess Hathor or Isis personified a star, Sirius, rising at the dawn; and that the temple of Isis at Denderah was built to watch it.
CHAPTER XX.
THE PERSONIFICATION OF STARS (CONTINUED)-THE TEMPLE OF HATHOR AT DENDERAH.
IN Chapter XVII. I quoted from the inscriptions relating to the alignment of the axis of the temple of Hathor at Denderah. It will be remembered that the king, while stretching the cord, had his glance directed to the dk of the constellation of the Thigh. Further, we saw in the last chapter that the amplitude of the temple axis is 71£° N. of E.
A copy of Biot’s plan giving his value of the orientation is given on the next page.
I have shown how truly the temple of Isis was pointed to Sirius. We have now to try to find a star towards which the temple of Hathor may have been pointed in like manner.
It will be generally understood that in an inquiry of this kind there are very many difficulties, chiefly depending upon the uncertainty of the building-date of the original foundation, and upon the indeterminate nature of the information available. But although we meet with these difficulties in the case of the temple of Hathor, there are many from which we are free. In the case of many of the temples in Egypt we have no knowledge of the tutelary divinity. For a great many temples no observational data exist; they have not been properly measured—that is, we do not know exactly in what direction they point or what their amplitudes are; and, further we do not know anything of the horizon at the temple building, so as to be able to make the necessary corrections due to heights of hills.
202
THE DAWN OF
[CHAP. XX.
This premised, I will now return to the statement regarding the temple of Hathor, to see what can be made of it on the view that either the middle or the chief point,
ORIENTATION OF THE TEMPLE OF HATHOR AT DENDERAH (BIOT). (THE TEMPLE OF OSIRIS ON THE ROOF IS ALSO SHOWN ON A LARGER SCALE.)
that is, the brightest star, of the constellation of the Great Bear as we now know it, was the one referred to, and that the cord was stretched to the star on the horizon.
The first question which arises is, Was there any reason why S Urste Majoris at the centre, or a the brightest, should
CHAP. XX.]
CIRCUMPOLAR STARS.
203
have been used as the orientation point at any time? Was there any reason why any special sanctity should have been associated with either? Certainly not, in the case of 8, on account of its magnitude, because Dubhe, not far from it, is much brighter; and possibly not, in the case both of 8 and a, on account of the time of their heliacal rising. We seem therefore in an impasse along this line of inquiry; but a further consideration of the question brings out the remarkable fact that at three widely-sundered points of time the stars a Lyra?, a Ursae Majoris, and 7 Draconis have been the brightest stars nearest the North Pole, and with such declinations that a Lyrae would be visible at one of the dates, a Ursae Majoris at another, and r Draconis at another still—all rising in nearly the same amplitude far to the north.
In Chapter XVIII. I have shown that one of the temples, and possibly a series of them, at Thebes were directed to 7 Draconis. It is interesting, then, to carry the inquiry further. It may possibly explain how it is that we get a definite statement about the ak of the Great Bear in one case and a certain sure orientation to y Draconis in the other.
In the first place, it has. to be borne in mind that when a star is circumpolar—that is, never sets—no temple can be directed to its rising. Now, accepting the ak as the brightest star (and as I stated in Chapter XVII., it might, indeed, have been the central one as well in the old constellation, for we do not know its limits), we have to deal with the facts concerning a Ursae Majoris, called by the Arabians Dubhe.
The latitude of Denderah is a little over 26° N., therefore all stars with a less polar distance than that—or, to put it another way, all stars with a declination greater than (90°—26°=) 64° N.—will be circumpolar. Now, the declination of Dubhe was greater than 64° between 4000 B.C. and 1500 A.D. (I neglect
204
[CHAP. XX.
refractions and hills); hence, if there is any truth in the statements made in the building ceremonials, the temple could not have been founded between those dates.
But what are the records concerning this temple? We know that the structure as we see it was built in the time of the last Ptolemies and the first Roman emperors, and I have already shown that at those dates the Great Bear (the old Thigh) did not rise at all, as it was circumpolar.
It is also known that there was a temple here in the time of Thothmes III., and even earlier, going back to the earliest times of Egyptian history. King Pepi, of the Sixth Dynasty (circ. 3233 B.C.), is portrayed over and over again in the crypts.
Even this is not all the evidence in favour of a high antiquity. In one of the crypts (No. 9), according to Ebers and Dumichen, there are two references to the earliest plans of the temple. One inscription states jthat the great ground-plan (Senti) of Ant (Denderah) waa :found in old writing on parchments of the time of the followers of Horus (sun-worshippers) preserved in the walls of the temple during the reign of King Pepi. Another inscription goes further, referring to the restoration by Thothmes III. (circ. 1600 B.C.) of the temple to the state in which it was found described in old writings of the time of the King Chufu (Cheops) of the Fourth Dynasty (circ. 3733 B.C.). If any faith is .to be placed in this inscription, it seems to me to suggest a still higher antiquity. There would have been more reason for, describing-an antique shrine than a brand-new one.
Still another inscription runs:—
u King Tehuti-mes III. has caused this building to be erected in memory of his mother, the goddess Hathor, the Lady of An (Denderah), the eye of the Sun, the heavenly queen of the gods. The ground plan was found in the city of An, in archaic drawing on a leather roll of the time of the Hor-Shesu : it was
CHAP. XX.]
THE DATE OF THE TEMPLE.
205
found in the interior of a brick wall in the south side of the temple in the reign of King Pepi.”1
But let us see what the facts are regarding the date supplied by the temple itself, accepting the statement made regarding the actual operations at the laying of the foundation stone originally.
To determine the dates approximately, we find that an amplitude of 71£° N. of E. in the latitude of Denderah gives a declination of 57f° N., with a sea horizon (correcting for refraction) 58f° N. with hills 1° high, and 59f° N. with hills 2° high, which is not far from the exact conditions.
The star Dubhe had the declination of 60° N. in 5000 B.C.
If, then, I am right in my suggestion as to the word ak referring to a Ursae Majoris, we find the closest agreement between the astronomical orientation; the definite statement as to a certain star being used in the building ceremonies; the inscriptions in the crypts referring to Cheops as the earliest historical personage who describes the building, and to the Shesu-Hor as the original designers of the building. According to most authorities, 5000 B.C. lands us in the times of the Shesu-Hor before Mena.
I must Confess that this justification of the double record strikes me as very remarkable, and I think it will be generally conceded that further local observations should be made in order to attempt to carry the matter a stage beyond a first approximation.
We have got so far, then. If we take the history as we find it, and further take the trouble to work out the very definite statements made, we find that the temple was founded pointing to the rising of Dubhe before it became circumpolar, and that in those times this star was symbolised by the name of Hathor.
‘ 1 Brugsch, “Egypt,” Edition 1891, p. 189.
206
[CHAP. XX.
We may accept, then, the possibility that as the temple of Isis was oriented to Sirius, that dedicated to Hathor was directed to Dubhe.
It will have been obvious from what has preceded, that if the worship of Hathor was to go on at all, and if it were in any way connected with the observations of a star rising near the north point of the horizon, a new star must be chosen when a Ursae Majoris became circumpolar. That is the first point.
I have already stated that a Ursae Majoris began to be circumpolar at Denderah 4000 B.C. I may now add that' 7 Draconis ceased to be circumpolar about 5000 B.C. They had the same declination (62° N.) and the same amplitude (78° N.) 4400 B.C.
Mariette’s plan shows a second temple oriented to N. 6° E., which we may perhaps be justified in taking as N. 9’ E., since his azimuth of the great temple differs from Biot’s and my own by 3°.
The corresponding declination would be 63° N. of E., the declination of Dubhe in 4200 B.C. and of 7 Draconis in 4300 B.C. The temple may well, therefore, have been erected when both stars had the same amplitude, the apparent difference of 100 years being due to the uncertainty of the measures available.
The second point, then, is that when Dubhe, which, while it rose and set, was the brightest star near the pole which did so, became circumpolar; 7 Draconis, when it ceased to be circumpolar, fulfilled these conditions; astronomically, then, it became the natural successor of a Ursae Majoris.
I have before pointed out that it is not impossible that a temple once oriented to a certain star, and long out of use on account of the precessional movement, may be utilised for another, and be rehabilitated in consequence, when that same
CHIP. XX.)
THE DATE OF KING PE PI.
207
movement brings another conspicuous star into the proper rising amplitude.
This consideration at once leads to my third point, which is, that after Dubhe became circumpolar the temple of Hathor at Denderah would become • useless—there would be no star to watch—unless a new star was chosen.
Now, let. us suppose this to have been so, and that the natural successor of the star in question were chosen. Studying the facts as before approximately, as final data are not yet available, we have the declination 59f° N. This was the declination of 7 Draconis about 3500 B.C., assuming hills 2° high, which I think is too much ; 3300 B.C., with hills 1^° high.
In the present case the orientation fits 7 Draconis in the lristoric period, but it also fits Dubhe in the times of the Hor- shesu, the dimly-seen followers of Horus, or sun-worshippers, before the dawn of the historic period.
Next let us go back to the inscriptions. We found that King Pepi is portrayed over and over again in the crypts, and, which is more important, that the plan of the temple on parchment, dating from the times of the Shesu-Hor, had actually been walled up in the temple during, the reign of the same king, no doubt at the ceremony of restoration or laying a new foundation stone, as is sometimes done to this day.
Now, Pepi’s date, according to the chronologists, is 3200 -B.C., a difference of 100 years only from the rough orientation date.
We see, therefore, the full importance of the work done in Pepi’s reign. The ak of the Thigh was no longer of use; but a new star was now available. Hathor was rehabilitated. Perhaps even the priests alone knew that the star had been changed.
By the temple of Hathor, then, if we assume that the
208
THE DAWK OF ASTRONOMY.
[CHAP. XX.
record is absolutely true,(and I, for one, believe in these old records more and more), and that Cheops only described a shrine founded by the Hor-shesu, we are carried back to circ. 5000 B.C. I am indebted to my friend Dr. Wallis Budge for the suggestion that the position of Denderah as the terminus of the highway from the Red Sea—which may soon again be reached by a railway from Keneh to Kosseir!— would have made it one of the most important places in ancient Egypt.
It is important to note that at a very early date the traffic between the Nile Valley and the Red Sea, and thence probably with Arabia and South Africa, flourished, and grew to be a by no means insignificant commerce.
According to Ebers,1 “ the oldest and most famous of all these highways is that which led from Koptos (Keneh, Denderah) to the Red Sea, through the valley now known as the Wady Hammamat, and called by the ancient Egyptians Rohanu. Jt was a busy high-road, not alone for trading caravans, but from time to time for stonemasons and soldiers, whose task it was to hew the costly building materials from the hard rocks, which here abound, and to prepare the vast monoliths which were finished in situ, and then to convey them all to the residence of the Pharaohs. A remarkably beautiful kind of alabaster, of a fine honey yellow or white as snow, is found in these mountains.” Another road led from , Esneh or Edffi to the ancient port of Berenice. We shall ' see in the sequel that the temple of Redisieli on this route was dedicated to the same cult as that at Denderah.
If the above results be confirmed, we have a most definite indication of the fact that in the rebuilding in the times of Pepi, Thothmes III., and the Ptolemies, the original orientation
1 Ebers, “ Egypt,” p. 335.
CHAP. XX.]
PRESIRIA X TEMPLES.
209
of the building was not disturbed; and that in the account of the building ceremonies we are dealing as surely with the laying of the first foundation-stone as with the original plan.
In any case the consideration has to be borne in mind that the series of temples with high northern (and southern) amplitudes at Denderah, Thebes, and possibly other places, were nearly certainly founded before theu-time at which the heliacal rising of Sirius, near ffreT^ne of the summer solstice, was the chief event of the year, watched by priests, astronomers—if the astronomers were not the only priests—and agriculturists alike. Now we know, from Biot’s calculations, that this became possible circ. 3285 B.C., and that Sirius—though, as I am informed by Prof. Maspero, not its heliacal rising—is referred to in inscriptions in pyramid times.
Subsequent research may possibly show that these temples had to do with the heralding of sunrise throughout the year, the Sirian temples being limited to New Year’s Day.
o
CHAPTER XXL
STAR-CULTS.
THE last two chapters, then, have brought us so far. There are two principal temples at Denderah. The smaller is called the temple of Isis. It is oriented 18 S. of E. The inscriptions tell us that the light of Sirius shone into it, and that Sirius was personified as Isis. We can determine astronomically that the statement is true for the time about 700 B.C., which was the date determined independently by Biot for the circular zodiac referred to on page 18.
The larger temple is called the temple of Hathor. It is oriented 71 N. of E. The inscriptions very definitely tell us what star cast its light along its axis, and give also definite statements about the date of its foundation, which enable us to determine astronomically that in all probability the temple was oriented to Dubhe somewhat later than 5000 B.C.
Now we are certain that Isis personified Sirius. That “ Her Majesty of Denderah” was Sirius, at all events in the later times referred to in the inscriptions, is not only to be gathered from the inscriptions, but has been determined astronomically.
It is also probable that Hathor. personified Dubhe. Now this looks very satisfactory, and it seems only necessary to test the theory by finding temples of Isis and Hathor in other places, and seeing whether or not they were oriented to Sirius and Dubhe respectively.
But, unfortunately for us, we have already learned from Plutarch that Isis and Hathor are the same goddesses, although they certainly personify different stars, if they personify stars at all.
CHAP. XXI.)
VARIANTS FOR HATUOR.
211
We seem, then, in a difficulty, and at first sight matters do not appear to be made any clearer by the fact that Hathor (and, therefore, Isis) was worshipped under different names in every nome.
Lanzoni, in his admirable volumes on Egyptian mythology, gives us, not dealing with the matter from this point of view at all, no less than twenty-four variants for Hathor !
In the temple at Ed fit no less than 300 names are given with the various local relations and forms used in the most celebrated shrines.1
In the inscriptions at Denderah itself a great number of variants is given.2 It is important to give some of them in this place; the full value of the information thus afforded will be seen afterwards.
Prometheus:
Hathor of Denderah = Sekhet of Memphis.
ft tt Neith >> Sais.
tt tt Saosis >> Heliopolis.
>> >J Nehem-an it Hermopolis.
tt tt Bast ) Bubastis.
>i tt Bes-t )
tt >> Anub-et Lycopolis.
tt a Anien-t Thebes.
>» »> Bouto n Unas.
tt Sothis ft Elephantine.
A pet
>1 >> Mena-t
>» »» Horus Edfu.
(female)
One variant is of especial importance in the present connection, and is emphasised in a special inscription in one of the chambers of the temple of Hathor—not, be it remarked, in the temple of Isis.
“ Elle est la Sothis de Denderah, qni remplit le eiel et la terre de ses bien- faits. Elle est la rdgente et la reine des villes. . . . Au Sud elle est la reine du
1 Marietta, pp. 168 and 178.
2 Diimichen, “ Banurkundo der Tempelanlagon von Dendcra,” p. *20.
o 2
212
ICHAP. XX!.
maitre divin; au nord elle est la reine des divins ancetres. Rien n’est dtabli sans elle. . . . Elle est la grande dans le ciel, la reine parmi les dtoiles.” 1
Well may Marietta remark on this:
“ Cette invocation a Sotliis, dans une chambre consacrt£e k la consecration de certains produits de la terre, n’a rien qui doit surprendre. Sothis est le symbole du renouvellement de l’annee et de la resurrection de la nature. Au lever hdliaque de Sothis, le Nil sort de son lit. Jusqu’k ce moment la terre de rtigypte est sterile et nue. Fecondde par la fleuve, elle va se couvrir (Tune verdure nouvelle.”
But the Sothis hero in question is Sirius, the star to the rising of which the temple of Isis, and not the temple of Hathor, was directed !
We have, then, at Denderah a temple not pointed to Sirius, the woi’ship in which is that of Hathor, and there can be little doubt that we have astronomically determined the fact that “ Her Majesty of Denderah ” was really the star Sirius.
We can pass from Denderah to the temple of Hathor at Thebes. The general plan of Thebes prepared by Lepsius indicates the orientation of the temple of Der el-Bahari, to * which I refer, the temple in the western hills of Thebes, embellished by Queen Hatshepset (circ. 1600 B.C.). This temple, instead of being oriented 71|° N. of E., lies 24^° S. of E.; it can never, therefore, have faced the star observed in the temple of Hathor at Denderah. There is also another temple annexed to the temple of Amen-Ra, which received the light of Sirius in former years. These temples were, in all probability, intended to observe the same star which was subsequently observed in the temple of Isis at Denderah.
That is one point; here is another. We have it from Plutarch2 that Isis=Mut=Hathor=Methuer.
The amplitude of the temple at Denderah dedicated to
1 Mariette, p. 156.
- “ Isis and Osiris,” Parthey, cap. 56.
OHU\ XXI.]
TEMPLE OF MUT.
213
Hathor is 71J° N. of E. (59° N. declination). That of the temple dedicated to Mut at Karnak is 72N. of E. (58f° N. declination), which, assuming for a moment the same star to have been used, corresponds to a date (according to the height of the horizon) of circ. 3000 to 3500 B.C. This is therefore later than the original foundation of the Hathor temple of Denderah, but not far from the date of its restoration by Pepi.
It is fundamental to the orientation theory that the cult shall follow the star. But we have here the same cult, according to Plutarch; we are hence permitted to suggest that in dealing with the temples of Hathor at Denderah and Mut at Thebes we are dealing with local names of the same goddess personifying the same star.
Two lines of argument may be followed to strengthen this conclusion.
The first has to do with the orientation of the temple of Mut at Thebes. There is no statement of its great antiquity, as in the case of the temple of Hathor at Denderah. Here we find again one of the great difficulties in our way, the impossibility of running back to the original foundation among the many restorations effected of the most important among the Egyptian temples. The temple of Mut is ascribed to Amen-hetep III., but I cannot hold this to be the original foundation, for the following reasons:—
1. With its orientation in the time of Amen-hetep III. it pointed to no star in particular.
2. There is a series of four temples at Thebes turned to the same part of the horizon nearly, their amplitudes ranging from 62° to 72.}° X. of E. Of these temples that of Mut has the highest amplitude; the one with the lowest but one is the temple lettered M by Lepsius. There is no question
214
THE DA JO’ OF ASTRONOMY.
(CHAP. XXI.
about tho real founder of this temple, and there is not much question as to the date of the founder, Rameses III.
Now in the time of this king a temple erected with the orientation given pointed precisely to 7 Draconis. (See Chapter XVIII.) The amplitude was 62° N. of E.; the time, 1200 B.c. If we take the simplest case in the orientation theory—that the amplitudes
62° N. of E.
were given to the various temples to enable observations to be made of the same star, which was being carried nearer the equator by the precessional movement, we can not only date the temple of Mut, but find an explanation of Plutarch’s equation Ilathor = Mut.
In other words, we watch the' Mut-Hatlior worship provided for from 3000 B.C. to the times of the Ptolemies.
So that here we have a very concrete case of the cult following the star, not only in the same place, but at different places, and we are driven to the conclusion that Hathor at Denderah and Mut at Thebes, exoterically different goddesses, were esoterically the same star, 7 Draconis.
We are not, however, limited to a comparison between Denderah and Thebes. We have Annu and Abydos, and other places, to appeal to, since there are temples remaining there also facing N.E. Those at Abydos, however, we must leave out of consideration here, as their exact orientation is not determined. With regard to Heliopolis, and dealing with the obelisk which tradition tells us was erected by Usertsen I., the orientation of its N.E. face, according to my own observations, taking the present variation at 4£° W., is 77° N. of E.
CHAP. XXI.]
TOTEMS.
215
This corresponds approximately to a declination of 57^° N., which was the declination of 7 Draconis in 2500 B.C. The date given to Usertsen I. by Brugsch is 2433 B.C.
This is very satisfactory so far, but we can go further. Here we are landed evidently in the worship of one of the local divine dynasties, that of Set; and we may justly, therefore, ask if Usertsen did not do at Heliopolis what it is very probable Pepi did at Denderah—namely, embellish an old temple which had in the first instance been used for observations of Dubhe and appropriate it to the use of the new Hathor 7 Draconis. If this were so, then the original foundation stone was laid about 5100 B.C.
\/ The next line of argument is furnished by the emblems which are associated with the various goddesses. These obviously indicate that they arose in a time of totemism, when each tribe or nome had its special totem, which would be certain to be associated with the local goddesses or the stars which they personified.
The local totem of the special warning-star in use at any time or place may be anything: hippopotamus, crocodile, hawk, vulture, lion, or even some other common living thing into which the totem degraded when the supply of the original fell short.1
Hence, as the number of warning-stars was certainly very restricted, they—or, rather, the goddesses which typified them—had different names in almost every nome. Hence Egyptian mythology should bo, as it is in fact, full of synonyms; each local name being liable to be brought into prominence at some time or another, owing to adventitious circumstances relating either to dynasties or the popularity of some particular shrine.
1 Have we such instances of degradation in the cat replacing the lion and the black pig the hippopotamus, to give two instances ?
216
[CHAP. XXI.
Applying this test of symbolism, we find in the case of Hathor that the symbolism was double.
The Denderah Hathor was connected with the hippopotamus, while at Thebes Mut was represented by a hippopotamus.
Now this symbol of the hippopotamus helps us greatly, because it allows evidence to be gathered from a consideration of the old constellations. I do not think it is saying too much to remark that among these the attention of the North Egyptians was almost exclusively confined to the circumpolar ones. Further, the mean latitude being, say, 25°, the circumpolar region was a restricted one; 50° in diameter, instead of over 100°, as with us. But not quite exclusively, for to them in later times, as to us now, the Great Bear and Orion wore the two most prominent constellations in the heavens; for them, as for us, they typified the CAPITAL, WITH MASKS OF HATHOR northern and southern regions of
WITH COWS’ EAES. . .
the sky.
There can be no question that the chief ancient constellation in the north wras the Great Bear, or, as it was then pictured, the Thigh (Mesxet). After this came the Hippopotamus. I had come to the conclusion that this had been replaced on our maps by part of Draco before I found that Brugsch and Parthey had expressed the same opinion.
The female hippopotamus typified Taurt, the wife of Set (represented by a jackal with erected tail, or hippopotamus),
CHAP. XXI.)
T1IE COW
217
and one of the most ordinary forms of Hathor is a hippopotamus. There is evidence that the star we are considering, 7 Draconis, occupied the place of the head or the mythical headgear.
Here, then, in the actual symbolism of Hathor we find 7 Draconis as distinctly pointed to as by the orientation of the temples.
THE COW OF ISIS.
The other symbolism is quite different; instead of a hippopotamus we deal with a cow.
In the inscriptions at Denderah we find the star Sirius represented by a cow in a boat. In the circular zodiac we have the cow in the boat, the point of the beginning of the year, and the constellation Orion, so located as to indicate clearly that, at that time, the beginning of the year fell between the heliacal rising of Sirius and of the stars in Orion. Sirius was Isis- Sothis.
If we go to Thebes, we pass there from the cow Isis-Sothis to Isis-Hathor, and there we find the mythology retains the
218
ICHAP. XXI.
idea of the cow, the cow gradually appearing from behind the western hills. There is not a doubt, I think, that the basis of this mythological representation was, that the temple which was built to observe the rising of the star at a time perhaps
HA’l'HOR AS A COW.
somewhat later than that given by Biot (3285 B.c.) was situated in the western hills of Thebes, so that Hathor, the goddess on which the light was to fall in the sanctuary, was imaged as dwelling in the western hills. At Phil® we get no longer either Isis-Sothis or Isis-Hathor, but Isis-Sati.1
1 It has been assumed by several authorities in Egyptology that Sati is a variant for Sirius. It is quite certain that in late times there was a temple at Phil® oriented to Sirius ; but there are many grounds for supposing that both Sati and Anuqa referred to special southern stars. There were several points of dissimilarity between Phike (and Elephantine) and Thcles.
CHAP. XX I.J
SIRIUS AS A COW.
219
Now just as certainly as the hippopotamus had to do with the constellation Draco, the cow had to do with Sirius, for Sirius was represented as a cow in a boat.
HATHOR, THE COW OP THE WESTERN HILLS.”
It may be gathered from this how truly astronomical in basis was the mythologic symbolism to which we have been driven in the effort to obtain more light; and, indeed, it is necessary for us to consider it still more closely.
CHAPTER XXI r.
STAR-CULTS (CONTINUED)—AMEN-T AND KHONS.
WHEN I had the privilege of discussing at Thebes the orientation hypothesis with M. Bouriant, the distinguished head of the French School of Archaeology in Egypt, he suggested that I should accompany him one day to Medinet-IIabfi, at which place he was then superintending excavations, and where there are three temples dedicated to Amen.
M. Bouriant, from the first, saw that if there were anything in the new views, the cult must follow the star; and it was natural, therefore, that the three temples dedicated to the same divinity at the same place should be directed to the s&nie star. The three temples to which I refer are the two well- known temples the lack of parallelism of which has been so often remarked, and a third much smaller one, built more recently, lying to the south-west. The amplitudes I found to be as follows:—
Amplitude S. of E.
Ethiopian or Ptolemaic Temple ... ... ... 45°
Great Temple ... ... ... ... ... ... 46|°
Ancient Temple ... ... ... ... ... 51£°
On the orientation hypothesis we were dealing with a star the S.E. amplitude of which was decreasing like that of Sirius; it was therefore in the same quarter of the heavens.
But which star ? To investigate this it was best to deal in the first instance with the orientation of the great temple, since its building date was supposed to bo that most accurately known; and there is not much danger in doing this in the
CHAP. XXII.]
MEDiXET-HABti TEMPLES.
221
present case, because the king obviously had not expanded an old temple, for there it still is alongside.
The king was Rameses III., the date, according to Brugsch, 1200 B.C., and the hills to which the temples arc directed may be taken as 1° high. With these data wc get the declination appropriate to the amplitude of the temple 40° S. Now, this was nearly the declination of the star Pliact or a Columbae in the time of Rameses III.; the orientation date is 1250 B.C.
Taking this star, then, and correcting for heights of hills and refraction, we get approximately the following dates:—
B.C.
Modem Temple ... ... ... ... ... 900
Great Temple ... ... 1250
Ancient Temple 2525
If the hills are taken as 1^° high, these dates will stand 750, 1150, and 2400.
The date 700 B.C. we have already found as the probable date of the undertaking of the restoration at Denderali. It is the time of the victorious march of the Theban priests northwards from their exile at Grebel Barkal.
The date 2400 B.C. lands us in the times of the great solstitial king, Usertsen I., about whom more in a subsequent chapter. Although the more ancient temple is generally ascribed to Thothmes III., traces of the work of Amen-hetep I. have been discovered. I think we have a case here where the eighteenth dynasty enlarged and embellished a shrine erected by the twelfth dynasty, precisely as the temple of Amen-Ra at Karnak has been traced back to the twelfth dynasty.
If I am right, then, it follows that temples erected to stars associated in any way with the chief cult, such as that of Amen-Ra, may either be dedicated to the god or goddess personified by the star or to the associated solar deity. Thus at
222
(Ciur. XXII.
Thebes we have the temple of Mut, so-called, though Mut was the wife of Amen-Ra; and the temples now under consideration, called temples of Amen, though they are dedicated to the goddess Amen-t, the wife of Amen. This may or may not be connected with the fact that the first of them was dedicated possibly before the cult of Amen alone had been intensified and expanded by the Theban priests—probably in the eighteenth dynasty—into the cult of the solstitial sun-god Amen-Ra.
There is evidence, indeed, that Amen-t replaced Mut in the Theban triad. With regard to these triads, a few words may be said here from the astronomical point of view, though the subject, I am told, is one on which a great diversity of opinion exists on the part of Egyptologists.
I have collected all the most definite statements I can find on this head, and it is certainly interesting to see that in many cases, though not in all, the ti*iad seems to consist of a form of the sun-god, together with two stellar divinities, one of them certainly associated with the heliacal rising of the sun at some time of the year, and therefore a recognised form of Isis or Hatlior. Thus we have:—
Place.
Thebes
Triad.
Amen-Ra
(Greater Triad)
Mut
Xonsu
(Lesser Triad)
Xem-Ra
Tamen (? Amen-t) Harka
Denderah ...
Atmu
Isis
Hathor
Memphis
... Atmu
Sekhet
Ptali
Hermonthis
Men0u-Ra
Ra-Ta (= Hathor)
Ho r-Para
CHAP. XXII.]
AMEX-CULTS.
’ 223
Not only may this table enable us to see how Amen-t was sunk at Medinet-Habft in the term Amen, but it enables us to consider a similar case presented by those temples at Thebes, some of them associated with Khons and another with Amen, referred to in Chapter XVII.
The temple of Khons is among the best known at Karnak; the visitor passes it before the great temple of Amen-Ra is reached. M.. Bouriant was able to prove, while we were together at Karnak, that the temple of Seti II., nearly parallel to it, was also dedicated to Khons; but the temple B of Lepsius, nearly parallel to both, is sacred to Amen. It is seen at once that the main cult is the same, although the amount of detail shown in the reference is different—we have the generic name of the triad in one case, the specific name of the member of the triad in the other.
As this is the first time a setting star has been in question, it is well to point out that in this case the ancient Egyptians no longer typified the star as a goddess but as a god—and, more than this, as a dying god; for Khons is always represented as a mummy—the Osiris form. Egyptologists state that both Tliotli and Khons wore moon-gods. Perhaps the lunar attributes were assigned prior to the establishment of sun-worship.
I shall show, subsequently, that the temples now being considered find their place in continuous series stretching back in the case of Amen-t to 3750 B.C., and in the case of Khons to possibly a long anterior date.
In the case of Amen-t and Khons, therefore, where wo are free from the difficulties connected with the interchange of the titles of Isis and Hathor at Denderah, the star-cults stand out much more clearly, and we get a step further into the domain of mythology.
But what did the cults mean ? What was the utility of
224
[CHAP. XXII.
them ? What their probable origin ? The cult of Sirius we already understand.
I will deal with Amen-t first. No doubt it will have been already asked how it came that such an unfamiliar star as Pliact had been selected.
Here the answer is overwhelming. This star, although so little familiar to us northerners, is one of the most conspicuous of the stars in the southern portion of the heavens, and its heliacal rising heralded the solstice and the rise of the Nile before the heliacal rising of Sirius was useful for that purpose !
In Phact we have the star symbolised by the ancient Egyptians under the name of the goddess Amen-t or Te^i, whose figure in the month table at the Ramesseum leads the procession of the months.
Amen-t, the wife of the solstitial sun-god Ra, symbolised the star the rising of which heralded the solstice; and the complex title Amen-Ra signified in ancient times, to those who knew, that the solstitial sun-god Ra, so heralded, was meant.
The answer is clear, though not so simple in the case of Khons. The setting of Canopus marked the autumnal equinox about 5000 B.C. We have found that the first Khons temple at Karnak was possibly built as late as 2000 B.C., -when the utility of the observations of Canopus from this point of view had therefore ceased; but it is also known that Khons was a late addition to the Theban triad, and I shall subsequently give evidence that the worship was introduced from the south, where it had been conducted when the condition of utility held. The time of introduction to Thebes was the beginning of the eighteenth dynasty, when the priests wished to increase their power by conciliating all worships; and we now see that with their local sun-god Amen-Ra and the goddess Amen-t, with the Northern Mut (Isis) and the Southern Khons, the Theban
CHAP. XXII.]
THE BAX POLITICS.
225
triad represented the worship of Central, Northern and Southern Egypt.
It is an important fact to bear in mind that in the North of Egypt in early times the stellar temples were more particularly directed to the north, while south of Thebes, so far as I know, there is only one temple so directed. It is suggested, therefore, that the Theban priests amalgamated the northern and southern cults, probably for political purposes. There is evidence that the priests were at heart more sympathetic with the southern cults, and a further investigation of this matter may eventually help us in several points of Egyptian history.
It will have been noticed also that so far as we have gone, < whether discussing solar or stellar temples, we have had to associate the cults earned on in most of them with some particular season of the year. If I aui right, in the worships at Denderah, Medinet-Habu, and Karnak, we have a strict reference to the year, and in Egypt the year was always, as it is now, associated with the rise of the river.
The sacred river must now occupy our attention for awhile; we must become familiar with its phenomena, and the divisions of time and the calendar systems which were associated with them.
I
P
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE EGYPTIAN YEAR AND THE NILE.
OUR researches so far leave no doubt upon the question that a large part of the astronomical activity of the earliest Egyptians had reference to observations connected especially with New Year’s Day. It has been made abundantly clear, too, that in very early times the Egyptians had a solar year commencing at the Summer Solstice, and that this solstice was then, and is now, coincident with the arrival of the Nile flood at Heliopolis and Memphis, the most important centres of northern Egyptian life during the early dynasties.
In the dawn of civilisation it was not at all a matter of course that the sun should he taken as the measurer of time, as it is now with us; and in this connection it is worth while to note how very diverse the treatment of this subject was among the early peoples. Thus, for instance, it was different in Egypt from what it was in Chaldrea and Babylonia, and later among the Jews. In the Egyptian inscriptions we find references to the moon, but they prove that she occupied quite a subordinate position to the sun, at least in the later times. The week of seven days was utterly unknown amongst the Egyptians. Everything that can be brought forward in its favour belongs to the latest periods. The passage quoted by Lepsius from the Book of the Dead proves nothing, since, according to Krall, an error has crept into his translation. In Babylonia it would seem that the moon was "worshipped as well as the sun; and it was thus naturally used for measuring time; and, so far as months were concerned, this, of course, was
CHAP. XXIII.)
THE AGE OF METHUSELAH.
227-
quite right. In Babylonia,, too, where much desert trav.eLhad to_ he nndprtfllfftn at nighty the-movements of the moon would Jbe-naturally watched with giTPf <‘arA
fjf An interesting point connected with this is that, among, these ancient peoples, the celestial bodies which gave them the unit period of time by which they reckoned were practically looked upon in the same category. Thus, for instance, in Egypt the sun being used, the unit of time wan a year; but in Babylonia the unit of time was a month, for the reason that the standard of time was the moon. Hence, when periods of time were in question, it was quite easy for one nation to conceive that the period of time used in another was a year when really it was a month, and vice versa. It has been suggested that the years of Methuselah and other persons who are stated to have lived a considerable number of years were not solar years but lunar years—that is, properly, lunar months. This is reasonable, since, if we divide the numbers by twelve, we find that they come out very much the same length as lives are in the present day, and there is no reason why this should not be so^
There seems little doubt that the country in which the sun was definitely accepted as the most accurate measurer of time was Egypt.
Ra, the sun, was the chief god of ancient Egypt. He was worshipped throughout the various nomes. Even the oldest texts (cf. that of Menkaura in the British Museum) tell of the brilliant course of Ra across the celestial vault and his daily struggle with darkuess.
“ The Egyptians,” says Ranke in the first chapter of his ‘‘ Universal History,” which is devoted to Egypt, “ have determined the motion of the sun as seen on earth, and according to this the year was divided, in comparison with
228
THE DAWK OF ASTRONOMY.
[CRAP. XXIII.
Babylon, in a scientific and practically useful way, so that Julius Caesar adopted the calendar from the Egyptians and introduced it into the Boman Empire. The other nations followed suit, and since then it has been in general use for seventeen centuries. / The calendar may be considered as
the noblest relic of the most ancient times which has iuflu-
//
enced the world.’/)'
Wherever the ancient Egyptians came from—whether from a region where the moon was the time-measurer or not—so soon as they settled in the valley where the Nile then, as now, like a pendulum slowly beat the years by its annual inundation at the Summer Solstice, the solar basis of their calendar was settled. Hence it was Nature, the Nile—on the regulation of which depended the welfare of the country— which facilitated the establishment of the Egyptian year. Solstice and Nile-flood are the turning-points of the old Egyptian year
That Egypt is the gift of the Nile is a remark we owe to the Father of History, who referred not only to the fertilising influence of the stream, but to the fact that the presence of the Nile, and its phenomena, are the conditions
CHAP. XXIII.)
229
XILE AXD EUPHRATES GODS.
upon which the habitability of Egypt altogether depends. That the Egyptian year and that part of Egyptian archaeology and myth which chiefly interests astronomers are also the gift of the Nile, is equally true.
The heliacal rising of Sirius and other stars at the time of the commencement of the inundation each year; all the myths which grew out of the various symbols of the stars so used; are so many evidences of the large share the river, with its various water-levels at different times, had in the national life. It was, in fact, the true and unique basis of the national life.
In this the Nile had a compeer or even compeers. What the Nile was to Egypt the Euphrates and Tigris were to a large region of Western Asia, where also we find the annual flood a source of fertility, a spectacle which inspired poets, and an event with which astronomers largely occupied themselves.
What more natural than that Euphra- 1 tes, Tigris, and Nile were looked upon as deities; that the gods of the Nile valley on the one hand, and of the region watered by the Euphrates and Tigris, on the other, were gods to swear by; that they were worshipped in order that their benign influences might be secured, and that they had their local shrines and special cults ?
The god sacred to the Euphrates and Tigris was called Ea.
The god sacred to the Nile was called Hapi. The name is the same as that of the bull Apis, the worship of which was
HAPI, THE GOD OP TH* NILE.
230
[CHAP. XXIII.
attributed to Mena.1 Certainly Mena, Mini, or Menes, as lie is variously called, was fully justified in founding tlie cult of the river-god, for he first among men appears to have had just ideas of irrigation, and I have heard the distinguished officers who have lately been responsible for the irrigation system of to-day speaking with admiration of the ideas and works of Mena. Whether the Tigris had a Mena in an equally early time is a point on which history is silent; but, according to the accounts of travellers, the Tigris in flood is even more majestic than the Nile, and yet the latter river in flood is a sight to see—a whole fertile plain turned, as it were, into an arm of the sea, with here and there an island, which, on inspection, turns out to be a village, the mud houses of which too often are undermined by the lapping of the waves in the strong north wind.
There is no doubt th&tjjthe dates of the rise of these rivers not only influenced the national life, but even the religions of the dwellers on their banks. The Euphrates and Tigris rise at the Spring Equinox—the religion was equinoxial, the temples were directed to the east. The Nile rises at a solstice—the religion was solstitial and the solar temples were directed no longer to the east .If To the Egyptians the coming of the river to the parched land was as the sunrise chasing the darkness of the night; the sun-god of day conquering the star-gods of night; or again the victorious king of the land slaughtering his enemies.
Egypt, in the words of Amru, first appears like a dusty plain, then as a fresh sea, and finally as a bed of flowers.
It might be imagined at first sight that as the year was thus determined, so to speak, by natural local causes, the divisions or seasons would be the same as those which Nature
1 Maspero, “ Hist. Anc.” xi. 10.
CHAP. XXIII.]
LOW NILE.
231
has given us. This is not so. The river and land conditions are so widely different.
By no one, perhaps, have the actual facts been so truly and poetically described as by Osborn, who thus pictures the low Nile1
“ The Nile has shrunk within its banks until its stream is contracted to half its ordinary dimensions, and its turbid, slimy, stagnant waters scarcely seem to flow in any direction. Broad flats or steep banks of black, sun baked Nile mud, form both the shores of the river. All beyond them is sand and sterility ; for the hamseen, or sand-wind of fifty days’ duration, has scarcely yet ceased to blow. The trunks and branches of trees may be seen here and there through the dusty, hazy, burning atmosphere, but so entirely are their leaves coated with dust that at a distance they are not distinguishable from the desert sand that surrounds them. It is only by the most painful and laborious operation of watering that any tint approximating to greenness can be preserved at this season even in the pleasure-gardens of the Pacha. The first symptom of the termination of this most terrible season is the rising of the north wind (the Etesian wind of the Greeks), blowing briskly, often fiercely, during the whole of the day. The foliage of the groves that cover Lower Egypt is soon disencumbered by it of the dust, and resumes its verdure. The fierce fervours of the sun, then at its highest ascension, are also most seasonably mitigated by the same powerful agency, which prevails for this and the three following months throughout the entire land of Egypt.”
Then comes the inundation :—
“ Perhaps there is not in Nature a more exhilarating sight, or one more strongly exciting to confidence in God, than the rise of the Nile. Day by day and night by night, its turbid tide sweeps onward majestically over the parched sands of the waste, howling wilderness. Almost hourly, as we slowly ascended it before the Etesian wind, we heard the thundering fall of some mud-bank, and saw, by the rush of all animated Nature to the spot, that the Nile had overleapt another obstruction, and that its bounding waters were diffusing life and joy through another desert. There are few impressions I ever received upon the remembrance of which I dwell with more pleasure than that of seeing the first burst of the Nile into one of the great channels of its annual overflow'. All Nature shouts for joy. The men, the children, the buffaloes, gambol in its refreshing waters, the broad waves sparkle with skoals of fish} and fowl of every wing flutter over them in clouds. Nor is this jubilee of Nature confined to the higher orders of creation. The moment the sand becomes moistened by the
1 ‘ ‘ Monumental Egypt,” chapter i.
232
[CHAP. XXIII.
approach of the fertilising waters, it is literally alive with insects innumerable. It is impossible to stand by the side of one of these noble streams, to see it every moment sweeping away some obstruction to its majestic course, and widening as it flows, without feeling the heart to expand with love and joy and confidence in the great Author of this annual miracle of mercy/’
After the flood comes the sowing time. The effects of the inundation, as Osborn shows in another place,
“ exhibit themselves in a scene of fertility and beauty such as will scarcely be found in another country at any season of the year. The vivid green of the springing corn, the groves of pomegranate-trees ablaze with the rich scarlet of their blossoms, the fresh breeze laden with the perfumes of gardens of roses and orange thickets, every tree and every shrub covered with sweet-scented flowers. These are a few of the natural beauties that welcome the stranger to the land of Ham. There is considerable sameness in them, it is true, for he would observe little variety in the trees and plants, whether he first entered Egypt by the gardens of Alexandria or the plain of Assouan. Yet is it the same everywhere. only because it would be impossible to make any addition to the sweetness
CiiAr. XXIII.]
THE EGYPTIAN MONTHS.
233
of the odours, the brilliancy of the colours, or the exquisite beauty of the many forms of vegetable life, in the midst of which he wanders. It is monotonous, but it is the monotony of Paradise.”
The flood reaches Cairo oh a day closely approximating to that of the Sutnmer Solstice. It attains its greatest height, and begins to decline near the Autumnal Equinox. By the Winter Solstice the Nile has again subsided within its banks and resumed its blue colour. Seed-time has occurred in this interval.
Beginning with the inundation (Summer Solstice) we have—
(1) The season or tetmmene of the inundation, July—October. 1
(2) „ „ „ sowing, November—February.
(3) „ ,, „ harvest, March—June.
From the earliest times the year was divided into twelve months, as follows, the leading month being dedicated to the G-od of Wisdom, Thoth (Tehuti):—
/ Thotli ... ... End of June (Gregorian).
Inundation .. j Phaophi ) Athyr ... ,, ... M J uly. August..
v Choiak ... ... n September.
/ Tybi ... ,, October.
Seed-time j Menchir j tPhamenoth ... ,, ... >> November.
December.
* Pharmouthi ... ,, J anuary.
/ Pachons 1 Payni ... i Epiphi ... ' Mesori ... ... ,, February.
Harvest ... M ... ,, ... ,, March.
April.
May.
The terms for the seasons and months are found even on the building material of the largest pyramid of DasliAr, and in the oldest records we already find calendar indications. On the steles of the Mastabas, in which the deceased prays Anubis for a good sepulture, we find a list of the festal days on which sacrifices are to bo offered for the dead.
234
(CHAP. XXIII.
A modem calendar (given both by Brugsch and De Rouge) is, doubtless, a survival from old Egyptian times. It is good for the neighbourhood of Cairo, and the relation of the important days of the inundation to the solstice, in that part of
the river, is as follows:—
Night of the drop 11 Payni ...
15 „ Summer solstice.
Beginning of the inundation 18 „ 3 days after.
Assembly at the nilometer 25 „ 10
Proclamation of the inundation ... 26 „ 11
Marriage of the Nile 18 Mesori ... 63
The Nile ceases to rise 16 Thofch ... 96
Opening of the dams 17 „ ... 97
End of the greater inundation 7 Phaophi... 117
In order to show how the astronomy of the ancient Egyptians—to deal specially with them—was to a large extent concerned with the annual flood and all that depended upon that flood; and how the first tropical year used on this planet, so far as we know, was established, it is important to study the actual facts of the rise somewhat closely, not only for Egypt generally, but for several points in the line, some thousand miles in extent, along which in the earliest times cities and shrines were dotted here and there.
Time out of mind the fluctuations in the height of the river have been carefully recorded at different points along the river. In the “Description de l’Egypte” we find a' full description of the so-called nilometer at Aswan (First Cataract), which dates from a remote period, perhaps as early as the fifth dynasty.
In Ebers’ delightful book on Egypt space is given to the description of the much more modern one located at Roda.
The nilometer, or “ mikyas,” on the island of Roda, now
THAI-. XXIII.1
KILOMETERS.
235
visible, is- stated to have replaced one which was brought thither from Memphis at some unrecorded date. Makrlzi in 1417, according to Ebers, saw the remains of the older nilometer.
) older nilometer.
The present mikyas is within a covered vault or chamber, the roof being supported on simple wooden pillars. In a quadrangular tank in communication with the river by a canal is an octagon pillar on which the Arabic measurements are inscribed. These consist of the pic (variously called ell or cubit) = 054 metre, which is divided into twenty-four kirats. In consequence of the rise of the river bed in relatively recent times, the nilometer is submerged at high Nile to a depth of two cubits.
The rise of the Nile can now be carefully studied, as gauges are distributed along the river. We have the Aswan gauge from 1869, the Armant gauge from 1887, the Suhag gauge from 1889, and the Asyut gauge from 1892. The distances of these gauges from Aswan are as follows:—
SCALE OP THE NILOMETER AT R6DA.
Aswan
Armant
Suhag
Asyut
Roda
Kilometres.
0
200
447
550
941
The Roda gauge is not to be depended on, as the movements of .the barrage regulation destroy its value as a record.
[CHAP. XXIII.
236 TIlE DAWX OF ASTRONOMY.
The heights of these gauges above mean sea-level are as follows:—
Metres.
AswAn 84-158
Armant 69-535
Suhag 56-00
Asyut 53-10
Rocla ... ... ... , 13*14
THE ISLAND OP R6DA.
Great vagueness arises in there being no very obvious distinction between the gauge readings reached in summer and that from which the rise is continuous. There are apparently rainfalls in the end of spring of sufficient power to raise the Nile visibly in summer, just as muddy rises have been seen in winter to pass down the valley, leaving a muddy mark on the
CUP. XXII1.1
THE GREEX WATER.
237
rocks at Aswan and Manfalut. Independently of the actual gauge-reading of the rise, there are facts about it which strike every beholder. At the commencement of the rise we have the green water. This occurs in June, but varies in date as much as the top of the flood varies.
From the fact that modern observations show that the very beginning of the rise, and the first flush, second flush and final retirement vary, it seems evident that the ancient Egyptians could not have had any fixed zero-gauge or time for the real physical fact of the rise, but must have deduced from a series of observations either a mean period of commencement, or a mean arrival of the red water, or a mean rising up to a certain gauge.
First, to deal with the green water. Generally when the rise of an inch or two is reported from the nilometer at Roda, the waters lose the little of clearness and freshness they still possessed. The £reen colour is the slimy, lustreless hue of brackish water within the tropics, and no filter that has yet been discovered can render such water dear. The colour is really due to algae.
Happily, the continuance of this state of the water seldom exceeds three or four days. The sufferings of those who are compelled to drink it in this state, from vesical disease, even in this short interval, are very severe. The inhabitants of the cities generally provide against it by Nile ?water stored in reservoirs and tanks.
Colonel Ross, R.E., noticed in 1887 and in 18§0, when, owing to the slow retreat of the Nile, the irrigation officers had to hold back many basins in the Gizeh province, and also in 1888 when the water remained long stagnant, that the basin water got green—showed the algfe and smelt marshy—just as the June green water does.
238
THE DAWX OF ASTRONOMY.
[CHAP. XXU1.
Hence it has been argued that, as the Nile water in the bed of the stream—even in very slow-flowing back-waters—does not become green, the greenness must be produced by an almost absolute stagnation of the water. We know of great marshes up above Gondokoro, and hence it is thought that the green water of summer, which comes on suddenly, is this marsh-water being pushed out by the new water from behind, and that is why it heralds the rise. No one has so far minutely observed the gradual intrusion of the green water.
The rise of the river proceeds rapidly, and the water gradually becomes more turbid. Ten or twelve days, however, elapse before the development of the last and most extraordinary of all the appearances of the Nile, thus described by Mr. Osborn1:—
“ It was at the end of—to my own sensations—a long and very sultry night, that I raised myself from the sofa upon which I had in vain been endeavouring to sleep, on the deck of a Nile boat that lay becalmed off Benisoueff, a town of Middle Egypt. The sun was just showing the upper limb of his disc over the eastern mountains. I was surprised to see that when his rays fell upon the water a deep ruddy reflection was given back. The depth of the tint increased continually as a larger portion of his light fell upon the water, and before he had entirely cleared the top of the hill it presented the perfect appearance of a river of blood. Suspecting some delusion, I rose up hastily, and, looking over the side of the boat, saw there the confirmation of my first impression. The entire body of the water was opaque and of a deep red colour, bearing a closer resemblance to blood than to any other natural production to which it could be compared. 1 now perceived that during the night the river had visibly risen several inches. While I was gazing at this great sight the Arabs came round me to explain that it was the Red Nile. The redness and opacity of the water, in this extraordinary condition of the river, are subject to constant variations.
()n some days, whefi the rise of the river has not exceeded an inch or two, its waters return to a state of semi-transparency, though during the entire period of the high Nile they never lose the deep red tinge which cannot be separated from them. It is not, however, like the green admixture, at all deleterious; the Nile water is never more wholesome or moro deliciously refreshing than during the overflow. There are other days when the rise of the river is much more rapid, and then the quantity of mud that is suspended in the water exceeds, in 1 “ Monumental Egypt,” chapter i.
CHAP. XXIII.]
THE RED XILE.
239
Upper Egypt, that which I have seen in any other river. On more than one occasion I could perceive that it visibly interfered with the flow of the stream. A glassful of it in this state was allowed to remain still for a short time. The upper portion of it was perfectly opaque and the colour of blood. A sediment of black mud occupied about one-quarter of the glass. A considerable portion of this is deposited before tire river reaches Middle and Lower Egypt. I never observed the Nile water in this condition there, and indeed no consecutive observations exist of the reddening of the water. It is quite clear that the reddening cannot come from the White Nile, but must be the first floods of the Blue Nile and Bahral Azral coming down.”
One of the most important matters for the purposes of our present inquiry is connected with the influence upon local calendars, in different parts of the Nile valley, of the variations of the phenomena upon which the Egyptians depended for the marking of New Year’s Day.
If the solstice had been taken alone, the date of it would have been the same for all parts of the valley; but certainly the solstice was not taken alone, and for the obvious reason, that they wanted something to warn them of the Nile rise, and in the lower reaches of the river the rise precedes the solstice. Nor was the heliacal rising of Sirius, of which more presently, taken alone.
But it was chiefly a question of the arrival of the Nile flood, and the date of the commencement of the Nile flood was by no means common to all parts of Egypt.
Now it is to be gathered from the modem gauges that it takes the flood some time, as we can easily imagine, to pass down the 600 miles between Elephantine and Cairo.
In the early flood, rising from, say, one cubit Aswan to six cubits, where there are many dry sandbanks, and the spreading out of the river is considerable, and there is an absence of overlapping flushes from behind, the rate goes up to fifteen days, and the eartiest indication of the rise may take longer still, but this is very difficult to observe.
240
THE DA IKiV OF ASTRONOMY.
[CHAP. XXIII.
The rate in flood is If days from Wady Haifa to Aswan, and six days from Aswan to Roda (941 kilometres). In very high Niles this is perhaps accelerated to five days.
There is, therefore, a very great difference in time and rate between Green and Red Nile.
The rise is 45ft. at Asw&n, 38 at Thebes, and 25 at Cairo.
From the data obtained at the gauges named, which have been kindly forwarded to me by Mr. Garstin, the Under Secretary of State of the Public Works Department of Egypt, I have ascertained that the average time taken by the first indication of the flood to travel between Thebes and Memphis is now about nine days.
It must be remembered, however, that the river-bed is now higher than formerly; the land around Thebes, according to Budge, has been raised about nine feet in the last 1,700 years.
If, therefore, at each great city, such as Thebes and Heliopolis, New Year’s Day depended absolutely on the arrival of the inundation, not only would the day have been uncertain, but the difference of time in the arrival of the flood at various places along the river would represent a difference in the New Year’s Days of those places, compared to which our modern differences of local time sink into insignificance, for they only touch hours of the day.
Prometheus:
The great difficulty experienced in understanding the statements generally made concerning the Nile-rise is due to the fact that the maximum flood is, as a rule, registered in Cairo upwards of forty days after the maximum at Asw&n.
For the following account of how this is brought about I am indebted to the kindness of Colonel Ross, R.E.:—
“ The behaviour of the flood at the Aswan gauge is as follows : Between August 20 and 30 a good average gauge of 16 cubits is often reached, and between August 27 and September 3 there is often a drop of about
CHAP. XXIII.]
THE RISE AND FALL OF THE NILE.
241
30 centimetres. The August rise is supposed to be mostly due to the Blue Nile and Atbara River. Between September 1 and 8 the irrigation officers generally look for a maximum flood-gauge of the year at Aswan. This is supposed to be the first flush of the White Nile. In the middle of September there are generally two small flushes, but the lost twenty days of September are generally distinctly lower than that of the first week. The final flush of the Nile is seldom later than the 21st to 25th September.
“ All this water does not merely go down the Nile ; it floods the different basins. The opening of these basins begins from the south to the north. This operation is generally performed between the 29th September and the 22nd October. The great Central Egypt basins are not connected with the Nile for purposes of discharge into the river between Asyfit and near Wasta, or a distance of 395—90 kilometres = 305 kil.
“ The country in the middle or Central Egypt is broad, and thus there is an enormous quantity of water poured out of these basins into the lower reaches of the river about the 20th October, which seriously raises the Nile at Cairo, and in a good average year will bring the Cairo gauge (at R6da) up to the maximum of the year on or about October 22, and hence it is that the guide-books say the Nile is at its highest in the end of October.
“A gauge of 16£ cubits at Aswan while the basins are being filled does not give more than 21 cubits at^ R6da (Cairo), but, as the basins with a 16£ gauge will fill by the 10th September, it follows that a 16-J to 1G cubit gauge at Asw&n will not give a constant Cairo gauge, as the great mass of water .passes by the basins and reaches Cairo. Hence we have frequently the paradox of a steady or falling gauge at Aswan showing a steady rise at Cairo.
“If the gauge at Aswan keeps above 16 cubits to near the end of September, the basin-emptying is much retarded, as the emptying at each successive basin fills the Nile above the 16 cubit level; htnce the lower halves of the basins do not flow off, and thus, when the great Middle Egypt basins are discharged, they do not raise the Nile so much as they do when the last half of September Nile is below 16 at Aswan.
“In years like 1887 and 1892, which differ from each other only in date of maximum gauge at Aswan, the river, having filled the basins in fifteen to twenty days instead of in twenty-five to thirty days, comes down to Cairo in so largely increased a volume that a really dangerous gauge of 25 cubits at Cairo is maintained for over a fortnight (the average October gauge in Cairo is about 23 cubits), and from September 10 to October 25 the river remains from 24 cubits to 25 J cubits, and the Middle Egypt basins discharge so slowly that the opening day is hardly traceable on the Cairo gauge.
Q
242
[CHAP. XXIII.
“ In the 1878 flood, which was the most disastrous flood possible, the river rose in the most abnormal fashion, and on October 3 attained 18 cubits at Asw&n. This breached the Delta, and in addition so delayed the Upper Egypt basins emptying, from the reason before given, that the wheat was sown too late, and got badly scorched by the hot winds of March and April.” 1
1 The modem Egyptians still hold to the old months for irrigation. 7 Taba=January 15, is commencement of wheat irrigation; 30 Misra is the last safe date for sowing maize in the Delta; 1st Tut is the date of regulating the bridges = September 8 in Upper Egypt.
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE YEARS OF 360 AND 366 DAYS.
WHETHER the Egyptians brought their year with them or invented it in the Nile valley, there is a belief that it at first consisted of 360 days only, that is, 5j days too little. It is more likely that they brought the lunar month with them, taking it roughly as 30 days (30 x 12 = 360), than that they began with such an erroneous notion of the true length of the solar year, seeing that in Egypt, above all countries in the world, owing to the regularity of the inundation, the true length could have been so easily determined, so soon as that regularity was recognised. We must not in these questions forget to put ourselves in the place of these pioneers of astronomy and civilisation; if we do this, we shall soon see how many difficulties were involved in determining the true length of such a cycle as a year, when not only modem appliances, but all just ideas too, were of necessity lacking.
Since 360 days do not represent the true length of the year, it is clear that any nation which uses such a year as that will find the seasons and festivals sweeping through the year. Further, such a year is absolutely useless for the agriculturist or the gardener, because after a time the same month, to say nothing of the same day of the month, will not mean reaping-time, will not mean sowing-time, or anything else.
Still, it is right that I should state that all authorities are not agreed as to the use of this year of 360 days; at all events, during the times within our ken. Maspero1 states:—
1 “ Histoire ancienne des Peuples de rOrient,” p. 72.
244
[CHAI*. XXIV.
“ Des observations nouvelles, faites sur le cours clu soleil, deciderent les astronomes a intercaler chaque annee, apr&s le douzifeme rnois, et avant le premier jour de l’annee suivante, cinq jours compl^mentaires, qu’on nointna les cinq jours en ms de Vannie ou jours epagomenes (epacts). L’^poque de ce changement &ait si ancienne que nous ne saurions lui assigner ancune date, et que les Egyptiens eux-m&nes l’av&ient reportee jusque dans les temps mythiques ant^rieurs a Fav&nement de Mini.”
Ideler1 is of the same opinion as Maspero :—
“ I do not hesitate to declare that the existence of such a time cycle
—used without reference to the course of the sun or moon simply for the sake of simple figures—is extremely doubtful to me.”
Krall remarks (p. IT):—
“ It is probable that the year of 360 days dates from the time before the immigration into the Nile valley, when the Egyptians were unguided by the regular recurrence of the Nile flood. In any case, this must soon have convinced the priests that the 360-days year did not agree with the facts. But it is well known to everybody familiar with these things how long a period may be required before such determinations are practically realised, especially with a people so conservative of ancient usages as the Egyptians.”
And on this ground, apparently, he joins issue with the authorities already quoted:—
“ The Egyptian monuments have contradicted Ideler in this respect. The trilingual inscription of Tanis testifies expressly that it has only ‘ later become usual to add the five epagomenes ; * that, therefore, the year originally had 360 days, which were divided into twelve months of thirty days each.”
Krall also argues that the expressions great and little year and their hieroglyphics referred to the years of 365 'and 360 days respectively, and adds :—
“ If we inquire into the time at which the epagomenes were introduced, we can only fix approximate dates. If the calendars of the Mastabas, complete as they are, do not mention the epagomenes, whereas inscriptions of the period of the Atnenamhats refer to them, this can only be due to the circumstance that the epagomenes were only introduced in the meantime, but probably nearer the upper than the lower limit. . . . For the sake of completeness, we may mention that, according to Censorinus, the five epagomenes were introduced by the King Arminon Louth conjectures that Arminon is identical with Amenamhat I.,
1 “ Chronologic,” i.. p. 70.
CHAP. XXIV.l
THE YEAR OF 360 HAYS.
245
under whom the epagomenes are first met with. But since, between Nitokris and Amenamhat L, there is a period of 500 years void of records, and the name Arminon has nothing to do with Amenamhat, we can hardly share this view.”
However this knotty point may subsequently be settled by Egyptologists, from the astronomer’s point of view the words of Ideler1—“ Had ignorance lead to the establishment of a year of 360 days, yet experience would have led to its rejection in a few years ”—will carry conviction with them. Indeed, one may ask whether it is not possible that the use of the 360-day year, and the complications which it involved, may have had something to do with the foundation of the solar temples.
Let us attempt to put ourselves, in imagination, in the place of the ancient Egyptians after the use of this 360-day year had been continued for any length of time. It is perfectly certain that now in this part of the Nile valley, nowin that, everybody, from Pharaoh to fellah, must have got his calendar into the most hopeless confusion, compared with which “the year of confusion” was mere child’s-play, and that the exact determination of the times, either of state functions or sowing, reaping, or the like, by means of such a calendar would have been next to impossible.
As each year dropped 5j days, it is evident that in about seventy years & cycle was accomplished, in which New
Year’s Day swept through all the months. The same month (so far as its name was concerned) was now in the inundation time, now in the sowing time, and so on. Of fixed agricultural work for such months as these there could be none.
It must have been, then, that there were local attempts to retain the coincidences between the true and the calendar year —intercalation of days or even of months being introduced, now in one place, now in another; and these attempts, of course,
1 Op. cit., p. 187.
246
(CHAP. XXIV.
would make confusion worse confounded, as the months might vary with the district, and not with the time of year.
That this is what really happened is, no doubt, the origin of the stringent oath required of the Pharaohs in after times, to which I shall subsequently refer.
To acknowledge that the calendar year was wrong implied that they knew the length of the true one. How had they found it out ? I think there can be no question that this knowledge had come to them by observations either of the solstices or the equinoxes. It is true they had the inundation ; but, as we have seen, the rise is not absolutely regular, and the inundation takes many days to travel from Philse to Cairo (Memphis). If, then, the inundation had fixed the beginning of the year, each nome would have its special New Year’s Day, and this would never have been tolerated by a settled government embracing the whole Nile valley, especially as each king’s reign was supposed to commence on New Year’s Day.
It seems, then, that the solstitial temples and the pyramids were, if not actually requisite for settling the matter, at all events all that was necessary, if they existed.
But now comes in a most interesting and important point. If observations of the sun at solstice or equinox had been alone made use of, the true length of the year would have been determined in a few years. But the next scene in Egyptian history shows us that the true length of the year was not determined, but only an approximation to it.
How was this ? The astronomical answer is very simple.
1 have already referred to the common practice of all ancient peoples that we know of to make sacrifices at dawn, and have shown how, in order to do this, they took their time from a star rising before the sun. An observation of the
CHAP. XXIV.]
THE HELIACAL RISING.
247
so-called “ heliacal rising ” of a star—if the star were properly chosen—would give them the interval necessary for their preparations before the sun itself appeared; and, as the highest festival of all was that of New Year’s Day, it was especially important that the work should be well done then.
Now, if the stars had no processional movement, the sun and stars, after each interval of a true year, would be in'exactly the same position; but in consequence of the stars having the precessional movement to which I have before referred, the star so observed and the sun will not be in exactly the same position after the interval of a true year. On this account, then, the difference of time between the heliacal risings will not represent the length of a true year. But, further, the heliacal rising of the star will not take place on the same day for the whole of Egypt, the difference between Thebes and Memphis, depending upon their latitudes, amounting to about four days; and, further still, the almost constant mists in the mornings in the Nile valley prevent accurate observations of the moment of rising.
Still, as a matter of fact, the Egyptians defined their new yew by the rising of a star, and the length of it by the interval separating two heliacal risings. Such a year could not be accurate; and again, as a matter of fact, their correction was not accurate, for the year was defined now as consisting of 365 days. It seems clear from this that the correction was made before the solar temples were in use.
In any case the year of 360 days had naturally to give way, and it ultimately did so, in favour of one of 365. The precise date of the change is, as we have seen, not known.1 The five days were added as epacts or epagomena; the original months were not altered, but a “ little month” of five
1 Krall, loc. eitp. 20.
248
(CHAP. XXIV.
days was interpolated at the end of the year between Mesori of one year and Thoth of the next, as already stated.
When the year of 365 days was established, it was evidently imagined that finality had been reached; and, mindful of the confusion which, as we have shown, must have resulted front the attempt to keep up a year of 360 days by intercalations, each Egyptian king, on his accession to the throne, bound himself by oath before the priest of Isis, in the temple of Ptah at Memphis, not to intercalate either days or months, but to retain the year of 365 days as established by the Antiqui.1 The text of the Latin translation preserved by Nigidius Figulus cannot be accurately restored; only thus much can be seen with certainty.
To retain this year of 365 days, then, became the first law for the king, and, indeed, the Pharaohs thenceforth throughout the whole course of Egyptian history adhered to it, in spite of their being subsequently convinced, as we shall see, of its inadequacy. It was a Macedonian king who later made an attempt to replace it by a better one.
We may reckon upon the conservatism of the priests of the temples retaining the tradition of the old rejected year in every case. Thus even at Phil® in late times, in the temple of Osiris, there were 360 bowls for sacrifice, which were filled daily with milk by a specified rotation of priests. At Acanthus there was a perforated cask into which one of the 360 priests poured water from the Nile daily.
Indeed, these temple ceremonials are an evidence of their antiquity, and the further we put back the change from the 360 to 365 days, the greater the antiquity we must assign to them, and therefore to the temples themselves.
1 Mommsen, u Chronologic,” p. 258.
CHAPTER XXV.
THE VAGUE AND THE SI RIAN YEARS.
DURING three thousand years of Egyptian history the beginning of the year was marked by the rising of Sirius, which rising took place nearly coincidently with the rise of the Nile and the Summer Solstice.
I have insisted upon the regularity of the rise of the Nile affording the ancient Egyptians, so soon as this regularity had been established, a moderately good way of determining the length of the year, but we have seen they did not so employ it.
It is also clear that so soon as the greatest northing and southing of the sun rising or setting at the solstices had been recognised, and the intervals between them in days had been counted, a still more accurate way would be open to them. The solstice must have occurred with greater regularity than the rise of the river, so that as accuracy of definition became more necessary the solstice would be preferred. The solstice was common to all Egypt; the commencement of the inundation was later as the place of observation was nearer the mouth of the river. This means they also did not employ, at all events in the first instance. Of the three coincident, or nearly coincident, phenomena, the rise of the Nile, the Summer Solstice, and the rising of Sirius, they at first chose the last.
According to Biot the heliacal rising of Sirius at the solstice took place on July 20 (Julian), in the year 3285 B.C. ; and according to Oppolzer it took place on July 18 (Julian), in the year 3000 B.C.
250
ICHAP. XXV.
But this is too general a statement, and it must be modified here. There was a difference of seven days in the date of the heliacal rising, according to the latitude, from southern Elephantine and Philae, where the heliacal rising at the solstice was noted first, to northern Bubastis. There was a difference of four days between Memphis and Thebes, so that the connection between the heliacal rising and the solstice depended simply upon the latitude of the place. The further south, the earlier the coincidence occurred.
Here we have an astronomical reason for the variation in the date of New Year’s Day.
There no doubt was a time when the Egyptian astronomer- priests imagined that, by the introduction of the 365-days year, marking its commencement, as I have said, by the rising of one of the host of heaven, they had achieved finality. But, alas, the dream must soon have vanished.
Even with this period of 365 days, the true length of the year had not been reached; and soon, whether by observations of the beginning of the inundation, or by observations of the solstice in some of the solar temples when these had been built, it was found that there was a difference of a day every four years between the beginning of the natural and of the newly-established year, arising, of course, from the fact that the true year is 365 days and a quarter of a day (roughly) in length.
With perfectly orientated temples they must have soon found that their festival at the Summer Solstice—which festival is known all over the world to-day—did not fall precisely on the day of the New Year, because, if 365 days had exactly measured the year, that flash of bright sunlight would have fallen into the sanctuary just as it did 365 days before. But what they must have found was that, after an interval of
CHAP, xxv.) THE FIXED AND THE VAGUE YEARS.
251
four years, it did not fall on the first day of the month, but on the day following it.
The true year and the newly-established year of 365 days, then, behaved to each other as shown in the following diagram, when the solstice, representing the beginning of the calendar year, occurred on the 1st Thoth of the newly-established calendar year- We should have, in the subsequent years, the state of things shown in the diagram. The solstice would year
Recurrent solstices
Recurrent 1st of Thoth I
by year occur later in relation to the 1st of Thoth. The 1st of Thoth would occur earlier, in relation to the solstice; so that in relation to the established year the solstice would sweep forwards among the days: in relation to the true year the 1st of Thoth would sweep backwards.
Let us call the true natural year a fixed year: it is obvious that the months of the 365-day year would be perpetually varying their place in relation to those of the fixed year. Let us, therefore, call the 365-day year a vague year.
Now if the fixed year were exactly 365j days long, it is quite clear that, still to consider the above diagram, the 1st of Thoth in the vague year would again coincide with the solstice in 1,460 years, since in four years the solstice would fall on the 2nd of Thoth, in eight years on the 3rd of Thoth, and so on (365 x 4 = 1460).
But the fixed year is not 365^ days long exactly. In the time of Hipparchus 365‘25 did not really represent the true length of the solar year; instead of 365• 25 we must write 365‘242392—that is to say, the real length of the year is a little less than 365| days.
252
[CHAP. XXV.
Now the length of the year being a little less, of course we should only get a second coincidence of the 1st of Thoth vague with the solstice in a longer period than the 1460-years cycle; and, as a matter of fact, 1506 years are required to fit the months into the years with this slightly shortened length of the year. In the case of the solstice and the vague year, then, we have a cycle of 1,506 years. *
The variations between the fixed and the vague years were known perhaps for many centuries to the priests alone. They would not allow the established year of 365 days, since called the vague year, to be altered, and so strongly did they feel on this point that, as already stated, every king had to swear when he was crowned that he would not alter the year. We can surmise why this was. It gave great power to the priests; they alone could tell on what particular day of what particular month the Nile would rise in each year, because they alone knew in what part of the cycle they were; and, in order to get ttyat knowledge, they had simply to continue going every year into their Holy of Holies one day in the year, as the priests did afterwards in Jerusalem, and watch the little patch of bright sunlight coming into the sanctuary. That would tell them exactly the relation of the true solar solstice to their year; and the exact date of the inundation of the Nile could be predicted by those who could determine observationally the solstice, but by no others.
But now suppose that, instead of the solstice, we take the heliacal rising of Sirius, and compare the successive risings at the solstice with the 1st of Thoth.
But why, it will be asked, should there be any difference in the length of the cycles depending upon successive coincidences of the 1st of Thoth with the solstice and the heliacal rising of Sirius? The reason is that stars change their places, and the star to which they trusted to warn them of the beginning
CHAP. XXV.)
BIOT AND 01T0LZER.
253
of a new year was, like all stars, subject to the effects brought about by the precession of the equinoxes. Not for long could it continue to rise heliacally either at a solstice or a Nile Hood.
Among the most important contributors to the astronomical side of this subject are M. Biot and Professor Oppolzer. It is of the highest importance to bring together the fundamental points which have been made out by their calculations. We have determinate references to the heliacal rising of Sirius, to the 1st of Thoth, to the solstice, and to the rising of the Nile in connection with the Egyptian year; but, so far as I have been able to make out, we find nowhere at present any sharp reference to the importance of their correlation with the times of the tropical year at which these various phenomena took place. The question has been complicated by the use by chronologists of the Julian year in such calculations; so the Julian year and the use made of it by chronologists have to be borne in mind. Unfortunately, many side-issues have in this way been raised.
The heliacal rising of Sirius, of course—if in those days a true tropical year was being dealt with—would have given us a more or less constant variation in the time of the rising over a long period, on account of its precessional movement; and M. Biot and others before him have pointed out that the variation, produced by that movement, in the time of the year at which the heliacal rising took place was almost exactly equal to the error of the Julian year as compared with the true tropical or Gregorian one. The Sirius year, like the Julian, was about eleven minutes longer than the true year, so that in .3,000 years we should have a difference of about 23 days. Biot showed by his calculations, using the solar tables extant before those of Leverrier, that from 3200 B.C. to 200 B.C. in the Julian year of
254
[CHiP. XXV.
the chronologists, Sirius had constantly, in each year, risen heliacally on July 20 Julian ==» June 20 Gregorian. Oppolzer, more recently, using Leverrier’s tables, has made a very slight correction to this, which, however, is practically immaterial for the purposes of a general statement. He shows that in the latitude of Memphis, in 1600 B.C., the heliacal rising took place on July 18-6, while in the year 0 it took place on July 19*7, both Julian dates.
The variation from the true tropical year brought about by the processional movement of Sirius or any other star, however, can be watched by noting its heliacal rising in relation to any physical phenomenon which marks the true length of the tropical year. Such a phenomenon we have in the solstice and in the rising of the Nile, which, during the whole course of historical time, has been found to rise and fall with constancy in each year, the initial rise of the waters, some little way above Memphis, taking place very nearly at the Summer Solstice.
Again, M. Biot has made a series of calculations from which we learn that the heliacal rising of Sirius AT THE SOLSTICE occurred on July 20 (Julian) in the year 3285 B.C., and that in the year 275 B.C., the solstice occurred on June 27 (Julian), while the heliacal rising of Sirius took place, as before, on July 20 (Julian), so that in Ptolemaic times, at Memphis, there was a difference of time of about 24 days between the heliacal rising of Sirius and the solstice, and therefore the beginning of the Nile flood in that part of the river. This, among other'things, is shown on the next page.
We learn from the work of Biot and Oppolzer, then, that the processional movement of the star caused successive heliacal risings of Sirius at the solstice to be separated by almost exactly 365y days—that is, by a greater period than the length of the
CONDITIONS OF THE HELIACAL RISING .OF SIRIUS FROM 4000 B.C. TO 600 A.D.
The diagram shows (1) by white horizontal lines the Gregorian and Jnlian dates for the rising at Thebes and at Memphis ; (2) by the full diagonal line the Julian date of the solstice or beginning of the inundation in each century, at a point of the river near Memphis. The fainter lines show the Julian dates for other places where the time of the beginning of the flood differs by three days from the Memphis dates. The interval between each line represents a difference of three days in the arrival of the flood ; (3) the interval in days between the heliacal rising and the inundation at different periods and at different points of the river. This can be determined for each century by noticing the interval between the proper diaeonal line and that indicating the heliacal rising; (4) by dots at the
top of the diagram the commencement of the Sothic period as determined by Oppolzer, Biot, and the author.
256
[CHAP. XXV.
true year. So that, in relation to this star, two successive heliacal risings at the 1st of Thoth vague are represented by a period of (365j x4=) 1461 years, while in the case of the solstices we want 1506.
Now in books on Egyptology the period of 1461 years is termed the Sothic period, and truly so, as it very nearly correctly measures the period elapsing between two heliacal risings at the solstice (or the beginning of the Nile flood) on the 1st of Thoth in the vague year.
But it is merely the result of chance that 365£ x 4 represents it. It was not then known that the precessional movement of Sirius almost exactly made up the difference between tlie true length of the year and the assumed length of 365j days. It has been stated that this period had not any ancient existence, but was calculated back in later times. This seems to me very improbable. I look upon it rather as a true result of observation, the more so as the period was shortened in later times, as Oppolzer has shown.
It will be seen that our investigations land us in several astronomical questions of the greatest interest, and that the study is one in which modern computations, with the great accuracy which the work of Leverrier and others gives to them, can come to the rescue, and eke out the scantiness of the ancient records.
To consider the subject further, we must pass from the mere question of the year to that of chronology generally.
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE SOTHIC CTCLE AND THE USE MADE OF IT.
ALTHOUGH it is necessary to enter somewhat into the domain of chronology to really understand the astronomical observations on which the Egyptian year depended and the uses made of the year, I shall limit myself to the more purely astronomical part. To go over the already vast literature is far from my intention, nor is it necessary to attempt to settle all the differences of opinion which exist, and which are so ably referred to by Krall in his masterly analysis,1 to which I own myself deeply indebted. The tremendously involved state of the problem may be gathered from the fact that the authorities are not yet decided whether many of the dates met with in the inscriptions really belong to a fixed or a vague year!
Let us, rather, put ourselves in the place of the old Egyptians, and inquire how, out of the materials they had at hand, a calendar could be constructed in the simplest way.
They had the vague year and the Sirius year, so related, as we have seen, that the successive coincidences of the 1st Thoth in both years took place after an interval of 1460 years. Now, for calendar purposes, they wanted not only to know the days of the years, but the years of the cycle. This latter is the only point we need consider here. How were they to do this ? The easiest way would be to conceive a great year or annus magnus, consisting of 1460 years, each day of which would represent four years in actual time; and further, to consider everything that happened, which had to be thus chronicled, to take place
1 “ Studien zur Geschichte der Alten Acgypten,” I. Wien, 1881.
R
258
ICUAP. XXVI.
on the 1st of Thoth in each year. How would this system work ? During the first four years, at the beginning of a cycle, the 1st Thoth vague would happen on the 1st Thoth of the cycle. During the next four years the 1st Thoth of the vague year would fall on the fifth epact, and so on; so, as the cycle swept onward, each group of four years would be marked by a date in the cycle, which would allow the place of the group of years in the cycle to be exactly defined. But as the cycle swept onward, the date would sweep backward among the months of the great sacred year until its end.
To make this clear, it will be well to construct another diagram somewhat like the former one.
Let us map out the 1-460 years which elapsed between two successive coincidences between the 1st of Thoth in the vague year and the heliacal rising of Sirius at the solstice, so that we can see at a glance the actual number of years from any start- point (=0) at which the 1st of Thoth in the vague year occurred successively further and further from the heliacal rising, until at length, after a period of 1460 years, it coincided again. As the Sirius-year is longer than the vague one, the first vague year will be completed before the first Sirius-year, hence the second vague year will commence just before the
THE DISTRIBUTION’ OF THE 1ST OF THOTH (REPRESENTING THE RISE OF SIRIUS) AMONG THE EGYPTIAN MONTHS IN THE 1460-YEAR SOTHIC CYCLE.
CHAP. XXVI.]
THE CYCLE-YEAR.
259
end of the fixed year, and that is the reason I have reversed the order of months in the diagram.
Now it is clear that, if the Egyptians really worked in this fashion, the date of the heliacal rising of Sirius, given in this way, would enable us to determine the number of years which had elapsed from the beginning of the cycle.
This calendar system, it will be seen, is good only for groups of four years. Now, a system which went no further than this would be a very coarse one. We find, however, that special precautions were taken to define which year of the four was in question, and the fact that this was done goes some way to support the suggestion I have made. Brugsch,1 indeed, shows that a special sign was employed to mark the first year of each series of four.
Next, as a matter of fact it is known (I have the high authority of Dr. Krall for the statement) that each king was supposed to begin his reign on the 1st Thoth (or 1st Pachons) of the particular year in which that event took place, and the fact that this was so further supports the suggestion we are considering. During the reign its length and the smaller events might be recorded in vague years and days so long as the date of its commencement had been referred to a cycle.
The diagram will show how readily the cycle year can be determined for any vague year. If, for instance, the 1st Thoth in the vague year falls on 1 Tybi of the cycle, we see that 980 years must have elapsed since the beginning of the cycle, and so on.
Here, then, we have a true calendar system. If the Egyptians had not this, what had they ?
Dealing, then, with the matter so far as we have gone, we find that the system suggested enabled the place of the
1 “Materioux pour scrvir a la Reconstruction du Calendrier,” p. 29.
260
THE DAWX OF ASTRONOMY.
[CHAP. XXVI.
beginning of each vague year and of each king’s reign to be dated in terms of the cycle of 1460 years; and further that, if they had not such a system as this, they had no means of recording any lapse of time which exceeded a year. It is not likely that any nation would put itself in such a position, least of all the ancient Egyptians.
The existence of periods of 365 years and of 120 years among the Egyptians is easily explained when the existence of this great year is recognised; the 365 years’ period, marking approximately the intervals from solstice to equinox and equinox to solstice, in the natural year.
Let us next try to get a little further by assuming the supposed method of dating to have been actually employed, and finding the year of the beginning of one or more of these cycles thus obtained. This should eventually help us to determine whether or not the Egyptians acted on this principle, or used one widely different. In such an investigation as this, however, we are terribly hampered by the uncertainty of Egyptian dates; while, as I have said before, there is great divergence of opinion among Egyptologists as to whether, from very early times, there was not a true fixed year.
But let us suppose that the vague year was in common use as a civil year, and that the rising of Sirius started the year; then, if we can get any accepted date to work with, and use the diagram to see how many years had elapsed between that date and the start-point of the cycle, we shall see if there be any cyclical relation; and if we find it, it will be evidence, so far as it goes, of the existence not only of a vague year, but. of the mode of reckoning we are discussing.
Now it so happens that there are three references, with dates given, to the rising of Sirius in widely different times; and, curiously enough, the month references are nearly the
CHAP. XXVI.]
TESTS OF THE SYSTEM SUGGESTED.
261
same. I begin with the most recent, as in this case the date can be fixed with the greater certainty. It is an inscription at Philae, described by Brugseh (p. 87), who states that, when it was written, the 1st of Thoth = 28th of Epiplii. That is, according to the view we are considering, tlxe heliacal rising of Sirius—that is, the 1st Thoth of the vague year fell on the 28th Epiphi of our cycle. He fixes the date of the inscription between 127 and 117 B.C. Let us take it as 122. Next, referring to our diagram to find how many years had elapsed since the beginning of the cycle, we have—
Days.
5 Epacts.
30 Mesori.
2 Epiphi.
37 x 4 = 148 years elapsed.
The cycle, then, began in (148 + 122 =) 270 B.C.
We next find a much more ancient inscription recording the rising of Sirius on the 28th of Epiphi. Obviously, if the Sothic cycle had anything to do with the matter, this must have happened 1458 years earlier, i.e., about (1458 + 122 = ) 1580 B.C. Under which king? Thothmes III., who reigned, according to Lepsius, 1603-1565 B.C. ; according to Brugseh, 1625- 1577. Now, the inscription in question is stated to have been inscribed by Thothmes III., and, it may be added, on the temple (now destroyed) at Elephantine.
There is yet another inscription, also known to be of a still earlier period, referring to the rising of Sirius on the 27th of Epiphi. We may neglect the difference of one day in the cycle (representing four years); and again, if the use of the Sothic cycle were the origin of the identity of dates, we have this time, according to Oppolzer, a period of 1460 years to add: this gives us (1580 + 1460 =) 3040 B.C. Again under which
THE DA WJV OF ASTBONOMY.
[CHAP. XXVI.
king ? Here we are face to face with one of the difficulties of these inquiries, to which reference has already been made. It may be stated, however, that the inscription is ascribed to Pepi, and that, according to various authorities, that king reigned some time between 3000 and 3700 B.C.
We come, then, to this: that one of the oldest dated inscriptions known seems to belong to a system which continued in use at Phil® up to about 100 B.C., and it was essentially a system of a vague year, the 1st Thoths of which were represented as days on a 1460-years’ cycle.
Now, assuming that the approximate date of the earliest inscription is 3044 B.C., and that it represented the heliacal rising of Sirius on the 27th of Epiphi, the year 3044 must have been the [(5 + 30 + 3) x 4 =]] 152nd after the beginning of the cycle. The cycle, then, must have commenced (3044 + 152 =) 3196 B.C.
If we assume that the real date of Pepi, who, it is stated, reigned 100 years, included the year*3044 B.C., it maybe, then, that the inscriptions to which I have directed attention give us three Sothic cycles beginning—
122 + 148 = 270 B.C.
1580 + 148 = 1728 RC.
3044 + 148 = 3192 RC.
According to Biot’s calculation, the first heliacal rising of Sirius at the solstice took place in the year 3285 B.C. ; it is possible, then, that the Egyptians utilised this heliacal rising within a hundred years of the date on which it would have been first possible for them to do so. This shows how keenly alive they were in these matters, and also, I think, that they had been trained by watching some other star previously.
It would also follow that the vague vear was in common
O
CHAP* XXVI.]
THE YEAR USED.
263
use. There is ample evidence to show, however, that by this time the priests were fully acquainted with the true year, which was called the sacred year, and that every four years an additional epact was interpolated. Their solar temples, then, at last had been utilised.
One argument which has been used to show that a vague year was not in use during the time of the Ramessids has been derived from some inscriptions at Silsilis which refer to the dates on which sacred offerings were presented there to the Nile-god. As the dates 15th of Thoth and loth of Epiphi are the same in all three inscriptions, although they cover the period from Rameses II. to Rameses III.—120 years —it has been argued by Brugsch that a fixed year is in question.
Brugsch points out that the two dates are separated by 65 days; that this is the exact interval between the Coptic festivals of the commencement of the flow and the marriage of the Nile—the time of highest water; and that, therefore, in all probability these are the two natural phenomena to commemorate which the offerings on the dates in question were made.
But Brugsch does not give the whole of the inscription. A part of it, translated by De Roug^,1 runs thus :—
u I (the king) know what is said in the dep6t of the writings which are in the House of the Books. The Nile emerges from its fountains to give the fulness of life-necessaries to the gods,” etc.
De Roug£ justly remarks:
“ Le langage singulier que tient le Pharaon dddicateur pourrait meme faire soupqonner qu’il ne s'agit pas de la venue effective de Veau sainte dn XU a Vnm des deux dates precise*”
Krall (loc. cit., p. 51) adds the following interesting remarks:—
1 “Aeg. Zeit.,” 1886, p. 5, quoted by Krall.
264
[CnA!\ XXVI.
“ Consider, now, what these 1 Scriptures of the House of Life ’ were like. In a catalogue of, books from the temple of Edfu we find, besides a series of purely religious writings, ; The knowledge of the periodical recurrence of the double stars (sun and moon)/ and the * Law of the periodical recurrence of the stars.”
“ . . The knowledge embodied in these writings dated from the
oldest times of the Egyptian empire, in which the priests placed, rightly or wrongly, the origin of all their sacred rolls ” (of. Manetho’s “ History/’ p. 130).
Now, to investigate this question we have to approach some considerations which at first sight may seem to be foreign to our subject. I shall be able to show, however, that this is not so.
Imprimis we must remember that it is a question of Silsilis, where we know, both from tradition and geological evidence, in ancient times the first cataract was encountered. The phrase “ the Nile emerges from its fountains ” would be much more applicable to Silsilis, the seat of a cataract, than as it is at present. We do not know when the river made its way through this impediment, but we do know that after it took place and the Nile stream was cleared as far as the cataract that still remains at Elephantine, a nilometer was erected there, and that during the whole of later Egyptian history, at all events, the time of the rise of the river has been carefully recorded both there and at Roda.
From this it is fair to infer that in those more ancient times the same thing took place at Silsilis; if this were so, the reason of the record of the coming of the inundation at Silsilis is hot far to seek, and hence the suggestion lies on the surface that the records in question may state the date of the arrival in relation to Memphis time..
It has been rendered, I hope, quite clear in Chapter XXIII. that there is a difference of fifteen or sixteen days between the arrival of the inundation at Elephantine and at Memphis.
CHAI\ XXVI.}
THE SIL,SIUS IXECRIPTIOXS.
26 5
Hence, if in Pepi’s time a Nile rise were observed at Silsilis, there might easily be a difference of fifteen days between the rise of the Nile at Silsilis and the Memphic 1st of Thoth. If both at Silsilis and Memphis the Nile rise marked 1st Thoth, the day of the rise at Memphis would correspond to 15th Thoth at Silsilis, so that a king reaching Silsilis with Memphis local time would be struck with this difference, and anxious to record it. May not this, then, have been the important datum recorded in the sacred books ? If so, it would not touch the question of the fixed or vague year at all.
Let it, then, be for the present conceded that there was a vague year, and that at least some of the inscriptions which suggest the use of only a fixed year in these early times may be explained in another way.
CHAPTER XXVII.
THE CALENDAR AND ITS REVISION.
IN the last chapter the so-called Sothic cycle was discussed, and dates of the commencement of the successive cycles were suggested.
These dates were arrived at by taking the very simplest way of writing a calendar in pre-temple times, and using the calendar inscriptions in the most natural way.
The dates for the coincidence of the heliacal rising of Sirius and the 1st Thoth of the vague year at, or near, the solstice, were—
270 B.C.
1728 B.C.
3192 B.C.
Here, in limine, we meet with a difficulty which, if it cannot be explained, evidently proves that the Egyptians did not construct and use their calendar in the way we have supposed.
We have it on the authority of Censorinus that a Sothic period was completed in 139 A.D., and that there was then a vague year in partial use. It is here that the work of Oppolzer is of such high value to ushe discussed all the statements made by Censorinus, and comes to the conclusion that his account is to be depended upon. It has followed from the inquiries of clironologists that in this year the 1st of Thoth took place on July 20 (Julian), the date originally of the heliacal rising of Sirius, the beginning of the year.
This being so, then, in the year 23 A.D.—in which the
CIIAP. XXVII.j COINCIDENCE OF FIXED AND VAGUE YEARS.
267
Alexandrine reform of the calendar, of which more presently, was introduced—the 1st of Thoth would take place on August 29, a very important date. Censorinus also said that in his own time (A.D. 238) the 1st of Thoth of the vague year fell on
JULIAN DATES OF THE 1ST OF THOTH (VAGUE) FROM 23 A.D. AND 240 A.D.
June 25. ' The diagram will show the connection of these three dates in reference to the vague year. The relations of the statements made as to the years 139 and 238 are very clearly discussed by Prof. Oppolzer.
Oppolzer, then, being satisfied as to the justice of taking the year 139 A.D. as a time of coincidence of the fixed and vague years—the latter being determined alone by the heliacal rising of Sirius, and, be it remembered, not by the solstices— calculated with great fulness, using Leverrier’s modern values,
268
(CHAP. XXVH.
the years in which, in the various Egyptian latitudes, chiefly taking Memphis (lat. 30°) and Thebes (lat. 25°), the coincidence between the two Thoths occurred in the previous periods of Egyptian history. He finds these dates for latitude 30°
as follow:— Julian year. Historical year.
0 -4235 ... -4236
1 -2774 ... -2775
2 -1316 ... -1317
3 + 139 ... + 139
4 + 1591 ... +1591
5 + 3039 +3039
Now, the date which Oppolzer gives for the coincidence which is nearest the date we had previously determined at 270 B.C. is 139 A.D. There is a difference of 409 years.
The question is, Can this fundamental difference be explained ? I think it can.
1 It should be observed that a distinction is made between the Julian and the historical year. This comes from the fact that when astronomical phenomena are calculated for dates B.C., it must be remembered that chronologists are in the habit of designating by 1, or rather by —1, the first year which precedes the instant of time at which the chronological year commenced, while astronomers mark this year in their tables by 0. It follows, therefore, that the rank of any year B.C. is always marked by an additional unit in the chronological dates. For the Christian era, of course, chronologists and astronomers work in the same way. The following table, given by Biot, exhibits the connection between these two methods. In the latter Biot showB the leap-years marked B, and the corresponding years in the Scaligerinn chronological period are also given.
DATES OF JULIAN YEARS COMMENCING ON JANUARY 1.
According to According to Corresponding
Chronologists. Astronomers. years of the period of Scaliger.
—6 ...? ... —5 4708
—5B —4B 4700
- — ?
—4 3 4710
—3 o 4711
—2 -1 4712
-IB —0B 4713B
Physical instant when the era commenced.
+ 1 +1 4714
+2 +2 4715
+ 3 + 3 4716
+ 4B + 4B 4717B
CHAP. XXVII.]
THE CHANGE OF SIGN MEANINGS.
269
In the first place, it is beyond doubt that, in the interval between the Ramessids and the Ptolemies, the calendar, even supposing the vague year to have been used and to have been retained, had been fundamentally altered, and the meanings of the hieroglyphics of the tetramenes had been changed—in other words, the designations of the three seasons had been changed.
On this point I quote Krall:—
“ It is well known that the interpretation of the seasons and the months given by Champollion was opposed by Brugsch, who propounded another, which is now universally adopted by experts. Something has happened here which is often repeated in the course of Egyptian history—the signs have changed their meaning. Under the circumstance that the vague year during 1461 years wanders through the seasons in a great cycle, it is natural that the signs for the tetramenes should have changed their significations in the course of millenniums.
“ While Thoth was the first month of the inundation in the documents of the Thutmosids and Ramessids, we have in the time of the Ptolemies the month Pachons as the first month of the flood season. Whilst Brugsch’s explanation is valid for the time of the Ramessids, it is not so for that of the Ptolemies, to which Champollion’s view is applicable.”
The signs used for the tetramenes are supposed to represent water, a field with growing plants, and a barn; the natural order would be that the first should represent the inundation, the second the sowing which succeeds it, and the last harvest-time. If this be conceded, the initial system would have had the month Thoth connected with the water sign, as Thoth in early Egyptian times was the first inundation month. But in the times of the Ramessids even this is not so. Thoth has the sowing sign assigned to it. In the time of the Ptolemies the flood is no longer in Thoth, but in Pachons, and Pachons has the barn sign attached to it, while the month 1
1 Loc. cit., ]». 29.
270
(CHAP. XXVII.
Thotli is marked by the water sign, thereby bringing back the hypothetical relation between the name of the month and the sign, although, as we have seen, Thoth is no longer the flood month.
Egyptologists declare that all, or at least part, of this change took place between the periods named; they are undoubtedly justified as regards a part.
At one point in this interval we are fortunately supplied with some precise information. In the year 238 B.C. a famous decree was published, variously called the decree of Canopus and the decree of Tanis, since it was inscribed on a stone found there. It is perfectly clear that one of the functions of this decree was to change, or to approve an already made change in, the designation of the season or tetramene in which the inundation commenced, from Thoth to Pachons.
Another function was to establish a fixed year, as we shall see presently. We must assume, then, that a vague year was in vogue prior to the decree. Now the decree tells us that at its date the heliacal rising of Sirius took place on 1 Payni. Assuming that this date had any relation to the system we have been considering, the cycle to which it belonged must have begun
Days.
5 Epacts 30 Mesori 30 Epiphi 30 Payni
05 x 4 — 380 years previously—that is, in the year 618 B.C.
Here at first sight it would seem that the Sotliic cycles we have been considering have no relation to the one now in question ; for, according to my view, the last Sothic cycle began in 1728 B.C. A little considei’ation, however, will lead to the contrary view, and show that the time about 600 B.C. was very convenient for a revision of the calendar.
CHAT. XXVII.)
REVISIOX OF THE CALENDAR.
271
In the first place, nearly a month now elapsed between the coming of the flood and the heliacal rising; and in the second, by making the year for the future to begin with the flood, a change might be made involving tetramenes only.
Thus, commencement of cycle ... 1728 B.C.
Epacts ... ... 5
Two tetramenes ... 240
Month between flood and rising of Sirius ... 301
275 x 4 = 1100
628 ac.
Nor is this all. A very simple diagrammatic statement will
TtT«T ^ ass
£-- l <d-» AVNAAA
1728
B.C.
a ?§ *2 i|s
fi •£ ^ 5 £ Ji * If'S. J
E-IPk^OE-IrSfl.PuPL.PL.HE
show what might also have happened about 618 B.C. if a reformer of the calendar (and one especially of conservative tendencies) appeared upon the scene, who believed that the ancient sign for the inundation-tetramene was the water sign, and that the ancient name was Thoth. Finding the cycle beginning in 1728 B.C. with the signs as shown above—
CSTD
/wwv\
A/VWW
/WWW
B.C.
618
1 Probably too great a value by two or three days.
272 icu*r. XXYII.
when starting fresh, he would seize the opportunity of effecting a change, not only by dealing with a tetramene, but he would change the names of the tetramenes allocated to the signs; as Krall remarks, it was almost merely a question of a change of the sign ! It really was more, because tho new tetramene began with the flood.
Assuming this, we can see exactly what was done in 238 B.C., i.e., about 380 years later. We have seen that the 380 years is made up of
5 Epacts 30 Mesori 30 Epiphi 30 Payni
95 x 4 = 380
—the heliacal rising of Sirius occurring on 1 Payni, having swept backwards along the months in the manner already explained. We had, to continue tho diagrammatic treatment—
<3> AAAAAA AAAAAA AAAAAA
B.C.
238
luiiilbl
&c.
To sum up, so far as we have gone, we have the three inscriptions at Philm, Elephantine and the still more ancient one of Pepi (?), indicating on the simple system we have suggested beginnings of Sothic cycles on the 1st Thoth about the years
270 )
1728 > n.c.
3192 )
On the other hand, we have the decree of Canopus, giving us by exactly the same system a local revision of the calendar
CHAP, XXVII.] CEXSORIXUS’ ST ATE ME XT EXPLAIXED.
273
about 600 B.C. I say about 600 B.C. because it must be remembered that a difference of 2^ days in the phenomena observed will make a difference of 10 years in the date, and we do not know in what part of the valley the revision took place, and therefore at what precise time in relation to the heliacal rising the Nile-rise was observed.
Whenever presumably it took place, New Year’s Day was reckoned by the Flood, and the rising of Sirius followed nearly, if not quite, a month afterwards. The equivalent of the old 1st Thoth was therefore 1 Payni. In months, then, the old 1st Thoth was separated from the new one (=1 Payni) by three months (Payni, Mesori, Epiphi) and the Epacts.
In this way, we can exactly account for the difference of 409 years referred to above as the dates assigned by Censor- inus and myself for the beginning of the Sirius cycle.
Difference between 270 and 239 = 31 years.
3 months = 90 days x 4 = 360 „
5 epacts x 4 = 20 „
The difference of two years is equal only to half a day!
It seems, then, pretty clear from this that the suggestion I have ventured to make on astronomical grounds may be worth consideration on the part of Egyptologists. If our inquiries have really led us to the true beginnings of the Sothic periods, it is obvious that those who informed Censorinus that the year 139 A.D. was the end of a cycle omitted to tell him what toe now can learn from the decree of Tunis.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE FIXED TEAR AND FESTIVAL CALENDARS.
THE reformation of the Egyptian calendar, to be gathered, as I suggested in the last chapter, from the decree of Tanis, is not, however, the point to which reference is generally made in connection with the decree. The attempt recorded by it to get rid of the vague year is generally dwelt on.
Although the system of reckoning which was based on the vague year had advantages with which it has not been sufficiently credited, undoubtedly it had its drawbacks.
The tetramenes, with their special symbolism of flood-, seed-, and harvest-time, had apparently all meant each in turn; however the meanings of the signs were changed, the “winter season ” occurred in this way in the height of summer, the “ sowing-time ” when the whole land was inundated and there was no land to plant, and so on. Each festival, too, swept through the year. Still, it is quite certain that information was given by the priests each year in advance, so that agriculture did not suffer; for if this had not been done, the system, instead of dying hard, as it did, would have been abolished thousands of years before.
Before I proceed to state shortly what happened with regard to the fixing of the year, it will be convenient here to state a suggestion that has occurred to me, on astronomical grounds, with regard to the initial change of sign.
It is to be noted that in the old tables of the months, instead of Sirius leading the year, we have Texi with the two feathers of Amen. In later times this is changed to Sirius.
Cn*p. XXVIII.)
MONTH-TABLE.
275
I believe it is generally acknowledged that the month-table at the Ramesseum is the oldest one we have; there is a variant at Edfu. They both run as follows, and no doubt they had their origin when a 1st Thoth coincided with an heliacal rising and Nile flood.
Egyptian month, j Tropical month.
Ramesseum.
Edfd.
1. Thoth ! June—July Te^i
2. Phaophi July—Aug. Ptah (Ptah-res-aneb-f)
.3. Atliyr Aug.—Sep. Hathor
4. Choiach i Sep.— Oct. j Pa\t
5. Tybi j Oct.—Nov. Min
6. Menchir . Nov.—Dec. Jackal (rekh-uv)
7. Phamenothj Dec.—Jan. „ (rekh-netches)
8. Pharmuthi; Jan.—Feb. Rennuti
9. Pachons Feb.—Mar. xensu
10. Payni j Mar.—Ap. Horus (xonti)
11. Epiphi : Ap.—May j Apet
12. Mesori j May—June j Horus (Hor m-^ut)
TeX
Ptah Menx
Keliek
Set-but
Hippopotamus (rekh-ur) Hippopotamus (rekh- netches)
Renen
Xensu
Horus (Hor-xent-xati) Apet
Horus (Hor-ra-m-xut)
I am informed that Texi, in the above month-list, has some relation to Thoth. In the early month-list the goddess is represented with the two feathers of Amen, and in this early stage I fancy we can recognise her as Amen-t; but in later copies of the table the symbol is changed to that of Sirius. This, then, looks like a change of cult depending upon the introduction of a new star—that is, a star indicating by its heliacal rising the Nile-rise after the one first used had become useless for such a purpose.
I have said that the Ramesseum month-list is probably the oldest one we have. It is considered by some to date only from Rameses II., and to indicate a fixed year; such, however, is not Krall’s opinion.* 1 He writes:—
t
270 ICHAP. xxvm.
“ The* latest investigations of Diimichen show that the calendar of Medinet-Habu is only a copy of the original composed under Ramses II. about 120 years before
“ But the true original of the calendar of Medinet- Habti does not even date from the time of Rainses II. It is known to every Egyptologist how little the time of the R&messids produced what was truly original, how much just this time restricted itself to a reproduction of the traditions of previous generations. In the calendar of Medinet-Habu we have (p. 18) not a fixed year instituted under Ramses II., but the normal year of the old timev the vague year, as it was, to use Dschewhari’s words -quoted above (p. 852) in the first year of its institution, the year as it was before the Egyptians had made two unwelcome observations: First, that the year of 365 days did not correspond to the reality, but shifted by one day in four years with regard to the seasons; secondly—which, of course, took a much longer time —that the rising of Sirius ceased to coincide with the beginning of the Nile flood.
“We are led to the same conclusion by a consideration of the festivals given in the calendar of Medinet-Habfl. They are almost without exception the festivals which we have found in our previous investigation of the calendars of Esne and Edfu to be attached to the same days. We know already the Uaya festival of the 17th and 18th Thoth, the festival of Hermes of the 19th Thoth, the great feast of Amen beginning on the 19th Paophi, the Osiris festivals of the last decade of Choiak, and that of the coronation of Horuz on the 1st Tybi.
“ Festivals somehow differing from the ancient traditions and general usage are unknown in the calendar of Medinet-Habu, and it is just such festivals which have enabled us to trace fixed years in the calendars of Edfu and Esne.
“ We are as little justified in considering the mythologico astronomical representations and inscriptions on the graves of the time of the Ramessids as
CHAP. XXVIII.]
PRE-SIRlAN MONTH-8IGNS.
277
founded on a fixed year, as we can do this in the case of the Medinet-Habu calendar. In this the astronomical element of the calendar is quite overgrown by the mythological. Not only was the daily and yearly course of the sun a most important event for the Egyptian astronomer, but the priest also had in his sacred books many mythological records concerning the god Ra, which had to be taken into account in these representations. The mythological ideas dated from the oldest periods of Egyptian history; we shall therefore be obliged, for their explanation, not to remain in the thirteenth or fourteenth century before Christ, but to ascend into previous centuries. I should think about the middle of the fourth millennium before Christ, that is the time at which the true original of the Medinet-Iiabd calendar was framed. Further, we must in these mythological and astronomical representations not overlook the fact that we cannot expect them to show mathematical accuracy—that, on the contrary, if that is a consideration, we must proceed with the greatest caution. We know now how inexact were the representations and texts of tombs, especially where the Egyptian artist could suppose that no human eye would inspect his work ; we also know how oftefi representations stop short for want of room, and how much the contents were mutilated for the sake of symmetry.”
There is also, as I have indicated, temple evidence that Sirius was not the first star utilised as a herald of sunrise. We have, then, this possibility to explain the variation from the
i~m
/VWW\ r . A/WW\ I '2 I /WWVA d_
Pre-Sirian
Texi
Sirian, 3192 B.C.
a •a*, a
.11 2
* e llfl'i's
3 '5 |3 5 d SO ®
5 ^5 £ Jd Jj> ^3 fa «8 c8
*3 A
o
C-i CL, *6
?2-Z O +3
u g ^ *
IS 2 i o —1S*C
o 9 £ a - *
© .O M cS cC ®
SM®-p* a
r*i u S Qu ft_i Q_i G3 s
SYRIAN AND PRE-SYRIAN TETRAMENE-SIGNS.
true meaning of the signs in Kamessid times. And it may be gathered from this that the calendar was reorganised1 when
1 Goodwin has already asked, “Does the Smith Papyrus refer to some rectification of the calendar made in the fourth dynasty, similar to that made in Europe from the old to the new style?” Quoted by Kiel, “ Sonnen- und Sirius-Jahr,” p. 361.
278
(CHAP. XXVIII.
tlie Sirius worship came in, and that the change effected in 619 B.e. brought the hieroglyphic signs back to their natural meaning and first use.
The whole story of calendar revision may, therefore, possibly have been as follows :—
Pre-Sirian
Texi
Sirian, 3192 B.C. 1st Cycle
AAAAAA
AAAAAA
o
2nd Cycle.
1728 B.C.
??
B.C.
618
cm
AAAAAA
AAAAAA
AAAAAA
CHAP. XXVHl.J
SUX MYTHOLOGY.
279
The revision of 618 B.C. was not universally accepted, so from that time onward there was an old and a new style in force.
Before I pass on, it may be convenient, in connection with the above month-tables, to refer in the briefest way to the mythology relating to the yearly movement of the sun, in order to show that when this question is considered at all, if it helps us with regard to the mythology connected with the rising and setting of stars, it will as
Prometheus:
assuredly help us with regard to the mythology of the various changes which occur throughout the year.
We have, as we have seen, in the Egyptian year really the prototype of our own. The Egyptians, thousands of years ago, had an almost perfect year containing twelve months; but, instead of four seasons, they had three—the time of the sowing, the time of the harvest, and the time of the inundation. Unfortunately, at various times in Egyptian history, the symbols for the tetramenes seem to have got changed.
The above-given inscriptions show that they had a distinct symbolism for each of the months. Gods or goddesses are given for ten months out of the twelve, and where we have not these we have the hippopotamus (or the pig) and the jackal, two circumpolar constellations. I think there is no question that we are dealing here with these constellations, though the figures have been supposed to represent something quite different.
There are also myths and symbols of the twelve changes during the twelve hours of the day; the sun being figured as a child at rising, as an old man when setting in the evening. These ideas were also transferred to the annual motion of the sun. In Macrobius, as quoted by Krall, we find the statement
280
T1IE DAWN OF ASTROXOMY.
ICHAP. XXVIII.
that the Egyptians compared the yearly course of the sun also with the phases of human life.
Little child = Winter Solstice.
Young man = Spring Equinox.
Bearded man = Summer Solstice.
Old man = Autumnal Equinox.
With the day of the Summer Solstice the sun reaches the greatest northern rising amplitude, and at the Winter Solstice its greatest southern amplitude. By the solstices the year is divided into two approximately equal parts; during one the points of rising move southwards, during the other northwards.
This phenomenon, it is stated, was symbolised by the two eyes of Ra, the so-called Utchats, which look in different directions. They appear as representing the sun in the two halves of the year.
We have next to discuss the fixed year, to which the Egyptian chronologists were finally driven in later Egyptian times. The decree of Tanis was the true precursor of the Julian correction of the calendar. In consequence of this correction we now add a day every four years to the end of February. The decree regulated the addition, by the Egyptians, of a day every four years by adding a day to the epacts, which were thus six every four years instead of being always five, as they had been before.
In fact, it replaced the vague year by the sacred year long known to the priests.
But if everything had gone on then as the priests of Tanis imagined, the Egyptian New Year’s Day, if determined by the heliacal rising of Sirius, would not always afterwards have been the 1st of Payni, although the solstice and Nile flood would
CHAP. XXVIlt.]
THE ALEXAXDRIXE YEAR.
281
have been due at Memphis about the 1st of Pachons; and this is, perhaps, one among the reasons why the decree was to a large extent ignored.
Hence, for some years after the date of the decree of Tanis, there were at least three years in force—the new fixed year, the new vague year, reckoning from Pachofis, and the old vague year, reckoning from Thotli.
But after some years another attempt was made to get rid of all this confusion. The time was 23 B.C., 216 years after the decree of Tanis, and the place was Alexandria. Hence the new fixed year introduced is termed the Alexandrine year.
This new attempt obviously implied that the first one had failed; and the fact that the vague year was continued in the interval is sufficiently demonstrated by the fact that the new year was *1® = 54 days en retard. In the year of Tanis it is stated that the 1st Pachons, the new New Year’s Day, the real beginning of the flood, fell on the 19tli of June (Gregorian), the Summer Solstice, and hence the 1st of Thotli fell on the 22nd of October (Gregorian). In the Alexandrine year the 22nd of October is represented by the 29th of August, and the 19th of June by the 20th of April.
It is noteworthy that in the Alexandrine year the heliacal rising of Sirius on the 23rd of July (Julian) falls on the 29th of Epiphi, nearly the same date as that to which I first drew attention in the inscriptions of the date of Thothmes and Pepi. This, however, it is now clearly seen, is a pure accident, due to the break of continuity before the Tanis year, and the slip between that and the Alexandrine one. It is important to mention this, because it has been thought that somehow the “Alexandrine year” was in use in Pepi’s time.
It would seem that the Alexandrine revision was final,
282
(CHAP. XXVIII.
and that the year was truly fixed, and from that time to this it has remained so, and must in the future for ever remain so. It must never be forgotten that we owe this perfection to the Egyptian Festival Calendars.
One of the chief uses of the Egyptian calendar that has come down to us was the arrangement and dating of the chief feasts throughout the year in the different temples.
The fact that the two great complete feast-calendars of Edfti and Esne refer to the only fixed years evidenced by- records—those of Tanis and Alexandria—one of which was established over 200 years after the other, is of inestimable value for the investigation of the calendar and chronology of ancient Egypt.
In an excellent work of Brugsch, “Three Festival Calendars from the Temple of Apollinopolis Magna (Edffi) in Upper Egypt,” we have two calendars which we can refer to fixed years, and can date with the greatest accuracy. In the case of one of these, that of Esne, this .is universally recognised; as to the other, that of Apollinopolis Magna, we are indebted to the researches of Krall, who points out, however, that “ it is only when the province of Egyptian mythology has been dealt with in all directions that we can undertake a successful explanation of the festival catalogues. Even externally they show the greatest eccentricities, which are not diminished, but increased, on a closer investigation.”
About some points, however, there is no question. The Summer Solstice is attached in the Edfil calendar to the 6th Pachons, according to Krall, while the beginning of the flood is noted on the 1st of that month. In the Esne calendar the 26th Payni is New Year’s Day. We read:—“ 26th Payni, New Year’s Day, Feast of the Revelation of Kahi in the Temple. To dress the crocodiles, as in the month of Menchir, day 8.”
CHAP. XXVIII.]
THE MEMPHIS SET-FESTIVALS.
283
Peculiar to the Esne calendar, according to Krall, is the mentioning of the “ New Year’s Festival of the Ancestors ” on the 9th of Thoth; to the Edfi\ calendar, publication No. 1 of Brugsch, the festival “of the offering of the first of the harvested fruits, after the precept of King Amenemha I.,” on the 1st Epiphi, and “ the celebration of the feast of the Great Conflagration” on the 9th of Menchir. In feast-calendar No. 1, the reference to the peculiar Feast of Set is also remarkable; this was celebrated twice, first in the first days of Thoth (? 9th), then, as it appears, in Pachons (10th). This feast is well known to have been first mentioned under the old Pharaoh Pepi Merinra.
It is a question whether in the new year of the ancestors and the feasts of Set, all occurring about the 9th Thoth and Pachons, we have not Memphis festivals which gave way to Theban ones; for, so far as I can make out, the flood takes about nine days to pass from Thebes to Memphis, so that in Theban time the arrival of the flood at Memphis would occur on 9th or 10th Thoth. There is no difficulty about the second dating in Pachons, for, as we have seen, this followed on the reconstruction of the calendar.
It is also worthy of note that the feast of the “ Great Conflagration ” took place very near the Spring Equinox.
Let us dwell for a moment on the EdfCi inscriptions to see if we can learn from them whether or not they bear out the views brought forward with regard to this reconstruction.
As we have seen, it is now acknowledged that the temple inscriptions at Edffi (which are stated to have been cut between 117 and 81 B.C.1) are based upon the fixed year of Tanis; hence we should expect that the rising of Sirius would be referred to
1 On the 7th Epiphi of the tenth year of Ptolemy III. the ceremony of the stretching off thd cord took place. Dumichen, Ary. Zeit., 2, 1872, p. 41.
284
THE DAWX OF ASTRONOMY.
(CHAR XXVIII.
on 1 Payni, and this is so. But here, as in the other temples, we get double dates referring to the old calendars, and we find the “wounding of Set” referred to on the 1st Epiphi and the rising of Sirius referred to under 1 Mesori. Now this means, if the old vague year is referred to, as it most probably is, that
5 Epacts
30 Mesori
35 x 4 = 140 years
had elapsed since the beginning of a Sothic cycle, when the calendar coincidences were determined, which were afterwards inscribed on the temple walls. We have, then, 140 years to subtract from the beginning of the cycle in 270 B.C. This gives us 130 B.C., and it will be seen that this agrees as closely as can be expected with my view, whereas the inscription has no meaning at all if we take the date given by Censorinus.
I quote from Krall1 another inscription common to Edfu and Esne, which seems to have astronomical significance.
“ 1. Phamenoth. Festival of the suspension of the sky by Ptali, by the side of the god Harscliaf, the master of Heracleopolis Magna (Al). Festival of Pt&h. Feast of the suspension of the sky (Es).
“Under the 1st Phamenoth, Plutarch, de I side el Osiride, c. 43, b, notices the t/i/Jfcfftc ’OaipduQ elg TIJV <re\ijvriv. These are festivals connected with the celebration of the Winter Solstice, and the filling of the Uza-eye on the 30th Menchir. Perhaps the old year, which the Egyptians introduced into the Nile valley at the time of their immigration, and which had only 360 days, commenced with the Winter Solstice. Thus we should have in the 1 festival of the susj>ensioii of the sky/ by the ancient god Ptah—venerated as creator of the world—a remnant of
the time when the Winter Solstice marked the beginning of the year,
and also the creation.”
The reconstruction of the calendar naturally enhanced the importance of the month Pachons; this comes out very clearly from the inscriptions translated by Brugscli. On this point Krall remarks:—
1 Oj). cit.} p. 37.
CHAP. XXVIII.)
THE EEXE CALEXDAR.
285
“It is, therefore, quite right that the month Pachons, which took the place of the old Thoth hy the decree of Tania, should play a prominent part in the feast-calendars of the days of the Ptolemies, and the first period of the Empire in general, but especially in the Edfd calendar, which refers to the Tanitic year. The first five days of Pachons are dedicated in our calendar to the celebration of the subjection of the enemies by Horus ; we at once remember the above-mentioned (p. 7) record of Edfu of the nature of a mythological calendar, describing the advent of the Nile flood. On the 6th of Pachons—remember the great importance of the sixes in the Ptolemtean records—the solstice is then celebrated. The Uza- eye is then filled, a mythical act which we have in another place referred to the celebration of the solstice, and ‘ everything is performed which is ordained * in the book * on the Divine Birth.’ ”
Next let us turn to Esne. The inscriptions here are stated to be based on the Alexandrine year, but we not only find 1st Thoth given as New Year’s Day, but 26 Payni given as the beginning of the Nile flood.
Now I have already stated that the Alexandrine year was practically a fixing of the vague Tanis year—that is, a year beginning on 1st Pachons in 239 B.C.
If we assume the date of the calendar coincidences recorded at Esne to have been 15 B.C. (we know it was after 23 B.c. and at the end of the Roman dominion), we have as before, seeing that, if the vague Tanis year had really continued, it would have swept forward with regard to the Nile flood,
Pachons 30 Payni 26
56 x 4 = 224 years after 239 B.c.
This double dating, then, proves the continuation of the vague year of Tanis if the date 15 B.C. of the inscription is about right.
Can we go further and find a trace of the old cycle
286
THE DA WN OF ASTRONOMY.
[CHAP. XXVIII.
beginning 270 B.C. ? In this case we should have the rising of Sirius
270
- 15
4)255 years
64 = say, five Epacts and two months.
This would give us 1 Epiphi. Is this mentioned in the Esne calendar ? Yes, it is, “ 1 Epiphi. To perform the precepts of the book on the second divine birth of the child Kahi.”
Now the 26th Payni, the new New Year’s Day, is associated with the “revelation of Kahi,” so it is not impossible that “ the second divine birth ” may have some dim reference to the feast.
It is not necessary to pursue this intricate subject further in this place; so intricate is it that, although the suggestions I have ventured to make on astronomical grounds seem consistent with the available facts, they are suggestions only, and a long labour on the part of Egyptologists will be needed before we can be said to be on firm ground.
CHAPTER XXIX.
THE MYTHOLOGY OF ISIS AND OSIRIS.
A LONG parenthesis has been necessary in order to inquire fully into the yearly festivals of the Egyptian priests, the relation of the feasts to the rising of stars, and the difficulties which arose from the fact that a true year was not in use till quite late.
It is now time to return to the subject-matter of Chapters XIX. — XXII. in order to show that since the goddesses chiefly worshipped at Dendcrah and Thebes were goddesses whose cult was associated with the year, it is open to us to inquire whether we may not use the facts with which we are now familiar to obtain a general idea of that part of mythology which refers to them.
I will begin by taking a certain group of goddesses.
1. There is evidence that many of the goddesses under discussion personified stars in exactly the same toay that Isis personified Sirius and Mut y Draconis.—If we leave Denderah and Thebes for the moment, and consider the pyramid region of Gizeh, we find that the temples there, which are associated with each of the pyramids, are not oriented to Sirius; but yet they are temples of Isis, pointing due east; therefore they could not have pointed to the same Isis worshipped at Denderah, or the same Hathor worshipped at Thebes.
Thus, in the case of the temple of Mut at Thebes, of Isis at Denderah, and the temples of Isis at the pyramids, and in many towns facing East, obviously different stars were in question, whatever the mythology might have been.
BLACK GRANITE STATUE OF SEKHET FROM THE TEMPLE OF MUT AT THEBES.
CHAI>. XXIX.)
THE HORUS EMBLEM.
289
Further, it seems quite certain that the star symbolised as Isis in the pyramid worship was the star Antares (Serk-t) heralding the autumnal equinox, and it is probable that the Pleiades (Nit) were so used at the vernal equinox.
2. There is evidence that many of the names of these goddesses are pure synonyms.—That is to say, we have the same goddess (or the same star) called different names in different ] duces, and associated with different animal emblems, in consequence of the existence of
THE GODDESS TAURT.
THE GODDESS SERK-T OR SELK-T. (Hath with horn# and disk.')
different totems in different nomes. I have already referred to the symbolism of the goddess Mut. In one form she \' is a hippopotamus; in another she has a cow’s horns and disk. The temple of Hathor at Denderah was probably associated with the crocodile or the hippopotamus; so that from the symbolism referred to we get the suggestion that the goddess Mut was really the Theban form of the goddess Hathor at Denderah. There is another delineation which shows that even more clearly: it is a drawing of the goddess with both the lion’s and crocodile’s head. One of the most
T
290
[CHAP. XXIX.
wonderful things to be seen at Thebes is that marvellous collection of the statues of Sechet in the temple of Mut, all of them lion-headed. From evidence of this kind in addition to the temple inscriptions already referred to, we get a clear indication of the fact that Apet, Mut, Taurt, Sechet, Bast, were the same goddess under different names, and I may add that they, in all probability, symbolised the star 7 Draconis.
A
t
BAST.
3. All these goddesses have a special symbol.—Hathor wears the cow’s head and the horns with the disk. Taurt, the hippopotamus-goddess, is also represented with horns and disk. The horns and disk are also worn by Serk-t, Sati and JRa-t, the wife of the sun-god Ra; many other goddesses might be added to this list. Indeed, it looks as if all the goddesses who are stated to be variants either of Isis or Hathor have this same symbol.
CH.tr. XXIX.)
GENERIC SYMBOLISM.
291
This generic symbolism suggests that the names Isis and Hathor are themselves generalisations, meaning an accompaniment of sunrise, whether that light be the dawn, or an heliacally-rising star, or even the moon. The generic symbol is the sun’s disk and horns, which, I think, may not impossibly be a poetic development of the^ sign for sunrise. Isis and Hathor are two different ways of defining or thinking about
a rising star—that is, a star heralding the sunrise, for such were the rising stars par excellence.
All the goddesses so symbolised are either different forms of Isis or Hathor, or represent goddesses who personify or bring before us mythologically stars the rising of which was observed at the dawn at some time of the year or another.
But it must be added that these goddesses are not always
ANUQA.
8ATI.
T 2
292
THE DAWN OF
(CHAP. XXIX.
represented with this head-gear, possibly because they had other functions besides their astronomical one.
The extent of this variation may be gathered from the two forms of Neith or Nit given on page 290.
4. Many of the goddesses are represented as Isis nursing Horns.
—It is very important not to forget that stars were chiefly observed rising in the dawn, and that mythologically such an event was represented by the Egyptians as Isis (the rising star-goddess) nursing Horus (the rising sun-god). The sun
1818 NURSING HORUS. (The last form is Serk-t-Isis, the scorpion goddess.)
was supposed to be a youth in the morning, to be very young therefore at the moment of rising, and the goddess Isis was supposed to be then nursing him. Many of the goddesses are thus portrayed. I may mention Renen-t, Serk-t, Rii-t, Amen-t, as instances. Thus I hold that we get in this series of goddesses the statement, put mythologically, that certain stars
CHAP. XXIX.]
MEANING OF ISIS.
293
to which the goddesses were sacred rose heliacally at some time of the year or another. Of course the record is far from complete, and probably it will become more complete when inquiries are made from "this point of view. The original symbolism is that Isis or Hathor is a star rising in the dawn, watching over the sun or taking him from his cradle; and the young Horus, the rising sun, is, of course, the son of Isis. The emblem of the mother and child is thus shown to have been in established use for the expression of high religious thought at least 5000 years ago.
These and other facts may be brought together in a tabular form, to show what apparently the complete mythology of Isis meant.
ISIS = ANYTHING LUMINOUS TO THE EASTWARD HERALDING SUNRISE.
DAWN. MOON. y DRACONIS. ANT A RES. a COLUMB.E. SIRIUS. DOUBTFUL.
(3000 B.C.) (3700 B.C.) (Before 3000 B.C.) (After 3000 B.C.) (Probably late
Isis Isis Isis Serk-t Texi Isis Anuqa
Hathor (hawk and (N. Egypt) Amen-t Hathor (cow) Hak
hippopotamus) Ra-t Haka
Mut (vulture) Hak-t
Sechet \ Lion or a Centauri Hequet
Bast ) cat 3700 B.C. Maloul
Menkh (S. Egypt)
Tafnet
Apet
Nebun
It will be seen that in the case of Isis we are not dealing merely with a rising star, while, so far as I know, Hathor is limited to stars.
If we accept the general statement regarding Isis, namely, that it was a term applied to anything appearing to the eastward and heralding sunrise, many of our difficulties at once disappear. The Isis of the pyramid-temples and of the smaller temple of Denderah symbolised different celestial bodies, though they served the same purpose. The Hathor of the greater temple of Denderah, and the Hathor of Der el-Bahari,
294
(CHAP. XXIX.
symbolised different celestial bodies, but their function was the same. On the other hand, the Hathor of Denderah and the Mut of Thebes were neither different divinities, nor did they personify different stars; they were simply local names of y Draconis.
We are thus enabled to understand the doubling of the symbolism in the case of Hathor. The hippopotamus and the cow generically are dealt with as rising stars; specifically we deal with VIDraconis in one case, and Sirius in the other.
The evidence goes to show that these two stars were those to the risings of which very great importance was attached, but they did not stand alone. We get another form of Isis (referring, it is possible, to the star a Columbte, before even Sirius was used), so that we have a northern star and a southern star observed at the same time—the two eyes of R&. The other goddesses which have not yet been worked out probably refer to one or other of these stars, or to others which lie more to the south. These are represented rather in the temples above the first cataract than in those below. This fact will be enlarged upon in the sequel.
The study of orientation, then, combined with mythology, supplies us with other rising stars besides Sirius, and, indeed, although the date given by Biot for the first heliacal rising of Sirius at the solstice—3285 B.c.—seems a very remote one, it is practically certain that a Columbte was previously used, because before that time it was conveniently situated to give warning of the sunrise at the Summer solstice, as Sirius was subsequently. The worship would be kept up after the utility had gone.
Diimichen’s view with regard to the local cult of Hathor and its astronomical origin is not very different from mine. He writes:—
CHAP. XXIX.]
OSIRIS.
295
“ Der Cult der Gottin Hathor geht in die altesten Zeiten der agyptischen Geschichte zuriick. Schon die Pyramideninschriften erw&hnen eine Helio- politische Hathor und Priester und Priesterinnen dieser Gottin werden in denselben Grabkapellen nicht selten genannt. Die Hathor war keine speciell lokalisirte Gottheit, sondern eine allgemem in sammtlichen Tempeln Aegyptens verehrte Form eines Cultes, dessen Urgedanke, im weitesten Sinne, die Auf- fassung des weiblichen Principes gegenuber dem mann lichen Principe der Gottheit war. In dieser AufFassung erscheint sie geradezu identisch mit der Isis, weshalb auch beiden Gottinnen die Kuh das geheiligte Thier war. Da in jeder Stadt, vor alien aber in jeder Nomos-H&uptstadt eine Hathor als Schutz- gottin des betreffenden Ortes aufgefiihrt wird, so ist es erklarlich, dass die lokalen Fornien dieser Gottin in den Inschriften der Tempel in grosster Anzahl auf- gefiihrt werden. Im Tempel von Edfu werden Beispiels halber an der Decke des Pronaos tiber 300 Namen der Gottin mit ihren lokalen Beziehungen hergezahlt mit besonderer Bevorzugung derjenigen lokalen Forinen, welche in den einzelnen Nomos-Hauptstadten sich eines hervorragenden Cultes erfreuten. Die letzteren beriihren vorziiglich eine Sieben-Zahl von Hathoren, welche als die grossen bezeichnet werden und von denen fast in alien grbsseren Tempeln Listen an den Wanden zu lesen sind.
“ In der alteren Zeit bezeichnet Hathor einen kosmischen TTrbegriff*. Schon ibr Name verrath aufs Deutlichste die kosmogonische VVurzel. Ha. t. bor wortlich iibersetzt “ Wohnung des Horus—Behausung Gottes” d. i. die Welt, die Darstellung Gottes in der sichtbaren Welt, die Natur, in welcher die Gottheit wirksam ist.” 1
Before I pass on, it will, I think, be well to point out that the argument I have used to show that Isis was really a generic name is enforced when we consider the allied points relating to Osiris.
It is quite clear that some of the gods symbolised setting stars. We already know that the setting sun became Osiris, Atmu, or Tniu, and, whatever the names, they were all represented as mummies. But the sun was not the only body that was symbolised as Osiris; the moon and stars were at times symbolised in the same way. We may, indeed, venture to make the following generalised statement:—
1 Diimichen,41 Bftuurkunde der Tompclanlagcn von Dendera,” p. 20.
296
THE DA WN OF ASTRONOMY.
[CHAP. XXIX.
OSIRIS = ANT CELESTIAL BODY BECOMING INVISIBLE.
SUM SBTTINO. MOON WANINQ. PLANET SKTTINO. STARS SETTING. BODIES PA LINO AT DAWN.
Z' A '" -N
Stars. Planets.
Osiris Osiris Venus as Osiris Khons-Osiris Sah-Osiris Venus
Ptah-Osiris Star of Osiris
M in-Osiris
It will be observed with what fulness the antithesis of Isis is indicated.
I have already pointed out that the possible temple of Osiris at the pyramids points to the westward, but our special reference now is to stars. When we come to look for this mummy-symbolism among the gods other than sun-gods (it is entirely and remarkably absent among the goddesses), we find Khons, Ptah, and Khcm pictured as mummies; that is, they become a sort of Osiris. Supposing that these gods were worshipped, there would probably be temples dedicated to them ; still, the absence of such temples would not be decisive, since they might have been destroyed. However, very fortunately for this inquiry, there are two temples still extant at Thebes, known as the temples of Khons and Ptah. If there is anything, then, in the idea that there must be some relation with the western horizon in the case of these gods represented as mummies, these temples should point to the west. They do point to the west.
Very fortunately, also, these temples have a pretty good history: that is, one knows, within some hundreds of years at all events, when they were founded. Therefore, by help of those astronomical methods to which I have previously referred, it is not difficult to get at the stars. They turn out to be a southern star—Canopus—in the case of the temple of Khons, and Capella in the case of the temple of Ptah. Now, there is another very important temple at Thebes, it is a temple without a name, at right angles to the temple of Mut. This also points to the west. Although the evidence is not complete,
CHAP. XXIX.]
THE MUMMY FORM.
297
it clearly suggests that this temple was dedicated to the god Min or Klicm, and was oriented to the star Spica; so that at Thebes alone it looks as if the three gods represented by mummies—different stellar forms of Osiris—Klions, Ptali and Min, have all been run to earth in the three stars Canopus, Capella, and Spica.
Provisionally, we may hazard the assertion that the mummy form marks a setting star, as the horns and disk mark a rising one. We get the antithesis between Osiris and Isis.
ISIS, OSIBI8 AND HORU8.
We gather, then, that the wonderful old-world myth of Isis and Osiris is astronomical fi’om beginning to end, although Osiris in this case is not the sun, but the moon. But I have not yet finished with the mummy form; the waning moon is also Osiris. It is supposed to be dying from the time of full moon to new moon. The Egyptians in their mythology were nothing if not consistent; the moon was called Osiris from the moment it began to wane, as the sun was Osiris so soon as it began to set. A constellation paling at sunrise was also Osiris.
A "CIIANUK OK CULT" AT LtJXOlt.
CHIP. XXIX.J
CHANGE OF CULT.
299
I have previously noted the symbolism of Sirius-Hathor as a cow in a boat associated with the constellation of Orion. There is a point connected with this which I did not then refer to, but which is of extreme importance for a complete discussion of the question now occupying us. We get associated with the cow in the boat, Orion (Sah) as Horus, but in other inscriptions we get Orion as a mummy—that is to say, in the course of ' ^ Egyptian history the same constellation is symbolised as a rising , sun at one time and a setting sun at another. Now, that must have been so if the Egyptian mythology were'consistent and rested on an astronomical basis, because Sah rose in the dawn in one case and faded at dawn in the other. From the table giving a generalised statement with regard to Osiris, similar to that we have already considered for Isis, it looks as if the mythology connected with Osiris is simply the mythology connected with + any celestial body becoming invisible. We have the sun setting, the moon waning, a planet setting, stars setting, constellations fading at dawn. We see, therefore, that the Egyptian mythology was absolutely and completely consistent with the astronomical conditions by which they were surrounded; that, although it is wonderfully poetical, in no case is the poetry allowed to interfere with the strictest and most accurate reference to the astronomical phenomena which had to be dealt with.
The argument, then, for the use of Isis as a generic name is greatly strengthened by the similar way in which the term Osiris, which is acknowledged to be a generic name, is employed.
Now to return to Denderah in the light of the preceding discussion. A curious and interesting thing is that we find that the temple of Isis, which is very much ruined, does not contain emblems of the Sirius worship ; but that all these appear in the temple of Hathor, which, of course, pointing as it does to the
300
[CHAP. XXIX.
north-east, could never have received any light from a star south of the equator. There has been a change of cult.
On the other hand, the temple of Isis presents so many emblems thought to relate to the worship connected with y Draconis, to which the temple of Hathor was in all probability directed, that it was named the Typhoneum by the French Commission.
There has been an apparent change of role and cult, due either to the fact that in time the observation of the rising of Sirius superseded that of the rising of 7 Draconis, or that the worship of Set was replaced.
With regard to this change of cult, we moderns should have no difficulty. We go to Constantinople and see Mahommedans worshipping in St. Sophia; we go to Gree^ . or Sicily and find Christian worship in many of the old temples. Thus the change of cult in Egypt, which I claim to have demonstrated on astronomical grounds at Denderah, is a thing with which we are perfectly familiar nowadays. The great point, however, is that in Egypt the change of cult might depend upon astronomical change—upon the precession of the equinoxes, as well as upon different schools of religious or astronomical thought. We gather from this an idea of the wonderfully continuous observations which were made by the Egyptians of the risings and settings of stars, because, if the work had not been absolutely continuous, they would certainly never have got the very sharp idea of the facts of precession which they undoubtedly possessed; and it is also, I think, pretty clear that future astronomical study will enable us to write the history of those changes which are now hidden by that tremendous mythological difficulty, which has not yet been faced. That, of course, is not the only difficulty, because the question is clouded by the absence of authentic dates and the perpetual
CHAP. XXIX.)
HOME DIFFICULTIES EXPLAINED.
301
reference to the past which is met with in all the monuments. The Egyptians were much more anxious to bring back to knowledge what happened 1000 years before than to give an idea of the current history of the country.
We have, then, at length arrived at a possible explanation of the difficulties acknowledged in regard to the temples of Denderah in Chapters XIX. and XX.
It is, briefly, that at some epoch observations of the star Sirius replaced, or were added to, those made of 7 Draconis. Mythologically, a new Isis would be born.
This point will be referred to later; one of the longest- lasting astro-theological strifes in Egypt was the fight for supremacy between the priests of Amen and the priests of Set. At Denderah the f raier were ultimately victorious, and hence the change of cult.
This suggestion is based on the following considerations :—
(1) While the Denderah Hathor was represented by the disk and horns on a hippopotamus, at Thebes (the city of the “ Bull ” Amen) Hathor is represented by a cow with a like head-dress.
(2) Isis, represented originally as a goddess with the two feathers of Amen, standing in a boat, is now changed to a cow with the disk and horns.
(3) Hathor was the “ cow of the western hills” of Thebes. It is in these hills that the temple Der el-Bahari lies ; and this temple, if oriented originally to Sirius, would have been founded about 3000 B.c., when Sirius at rising would have an amplitude of 26° S. of E.
(4) A temple was built or restored later at Denderah, and Sirius with the cow’s horns and disk became the great goddess there; and when her supremacy all over Egypt became
302
[CHAP. XXIX.
undoubted, her birthplace was declared—at Denderah—to have been Denderah.1
(5) In the month-list at the Ramesseum the first month is dedicated to Sirius, the third to Hathor. This is not, however, a final argument, because local cults may have been in question.
(6) “ Set ” seems to have been a generic name applied to the northern (? circumpolar) constellations, perhaps because Set = darkness, and these stars, being always visible in the night, may have in time typified it. Taurt, the hippopotamus, was the wife of Set. The Thigh was the thigh of Set, etc. 7 Draconis was associated therefore with Set, and the symbolism for Set- Hathor was the hippopotamus with horns and disk. Now if, as is suggested, Sirius replaced 7 Draconis, and the cow replaced the hippopotamus, the cult of Set might be expected to have declined; and as a matter of fact the decline of the worship of Set, which was generally paramount under the earlier dynasties, and even the obliteration of the emblems on the monuments, are among the best-marked cases of the kind found in the inscriptions.
(7) The Isis temple of Denderah was certainly oriented to Sirius; the Hathor temple was as certainly not so oriented. And yet, in the restorations in later times (say, Thothmes III.— Ptolemies), the cult has been made Sirian, and the references are to the star which rises at the rising of the Nile.
So far, then, mythology is with me; but there is a difficulty. According to the orientation theory, the cult must follow the star; this must be held- to as far as possible. But
1 Brugsch thus translates one of the inscriptions:—“Horae in weiblicher Gestalt ist die Furstin, die Machtige, die Thronfolgerin und Tochter eines Thronfolger. Ein fiiegender Kiifer wird (sie?) geboren am Himmel in der uranfanglichen Stadt (Denderah) zur Zeit der Nacht des Kindes in seiner Wicge. Es strahlt die Sonne am Himmel in der D&punerung, wann ihre Geburt vollbracht wird.” Brugsch, “ Astron. Inscript.,” p. 97.
CHAP. XXIX.]
CULTS AND PRECESSION.
303
suppose the precessional movement causes the initial function of a star to become inoperative, must not the cult—which, as we assume, had chiefly to do with the heralding of sunrise at one time of the year or other—change ? And if the same cult is conducted in connection with another star, will not the old name probably be retained ?
I do not see why the Egyptians should have hesitated to continue the same cult under a different star when they apparently quite naturally changed Orion from a form of Osiris (Sah-Osiris) and a mummy (as he was represented when the light of his stars was quenched at dawn at the rising of Sirius) to that of Sah-Horus (when in later times the constellation itself rose lieliacally).
And, moreover, the antagonism of rival priesthoods has to be considered. It is extremely probable that the change of a Set temple at Denderah into a Theban Hathor-temple was only one example of a system generally adopted, at least in later times.
CHAPTER XXX.
THE TEMPLE-STARS.
THE two preceding chapters should have suggested that if there be any truth in the astronomical and mythological views therein put forth, there should be other stars to deal with besides Sirius and 7 Draconis, and other temples besides those at Annu, Den- derah and Thebes which have to be studied.
This is so, and I now propose to give a general account of the conclusions so far arrived at, but I must in limine state that the account must be a brief one and more suggestive than iinal, for the reason that the lack of accurate local data stops the way.
In an inquiry of this kind it is well to work slowly out from the known. The facts which have been given will, I think, cause it to be generally agreed that in the temple of Isis at Dcnderah we have a structure which the inscriptions, as well as astronomical inquiry, show was certainly a temple oriented to Sirius. The other fact that New Year’s Day in the Nile valley was determined for thousands of yearn by the heliacal rising of that star, is among the most familiar in the domain of Egyptology".
Obviously", then, the first inquiry must refer to the possible existence of other Sirian temples.
From 3285 B.c., when Sirius rose heliacally at the solstice, its declination has varied from 21° S. to 1 G|° S. in 500 B.c. The corresponding amplitudes for Thebes being 26^° and 18° S. of E.
Between these amplitudes we find the following temples:—
CHAP. XXX.)
SIRIUS TEMPLES.
30 5
SIRIUS.
Place and Temple. Amp. Rea Horizon. Hills 1° High. ' Hills r High. I
Remarks.
S. of E. Dec. S. Year*. Dec. 8 Years. Dec. 8.
I | Years.
Kftfualr
(Temple O) (Gr.) 26°$ 24° 3300 23 J° 3150 23° 3050 This may have been a solar temple, as its amplitude is nearly equal to that of
D6r el-Bah&ri
(Gr.) 24$° 22J° 2850 21J° 2700 i
24° 2575 the sun at the winter solstice.
Doache 21$° 20*° 2225 19j° 2050, 19J0 2000
K&rn&k
(Temple D) (Gr.) 21$° 19J° 2000 19° 1800 18J° 1600
Naga
(Temple G) (Gr.) 19° o
oo 1500 18° 1400 l?f 1250 i 1
Phils
(Ethiopian Temple) 19$° 18° 1400 17i° 1100 17° 800 Hills at least 2° high.
Denderah
(N.W. Temple) 18$° 16j° 700 1 j ! Hills very low.
It is quite clear that we must not look for Sirian temples before 3200 B.c., because the heliacal rising of Sirius at Thebes before that time did not take place near the solstice. The above table shows that the earliest Sirian temple really dates from about 3000 B.C.1
But what star did Sirius replace ? An inspection of a processional globe shows at once that the star which rose heliacallv at the solstice before Sirius was a Columbse (Pliact). Its declination has varied from 57° S. at 5000 B.C. to 37° S. at 0.
We have the following temples which might have been oriented to this star; and here I must repeat that once a star has been symbolised as a god or a goddess on account of its astronomical utility, the cult would be continued after the utility had ceased—that is, in this case, after Sirius had replaced Pliact astronomically.
1 In this and the following tables the dates connected with the heights of hills where they are known are given in heavy type. Where tho local conditions are unknown, hills 1* high have been assumed.
U
306
(CHAP. XXX.
PHACT.
Amp. Sea Horizon. Hills 1* High. Hills r Hlgb.
Place and Temple. Remark*.
8. of E. 1
Dec. S.j Years. Dec. 8 Years. Dec. S.| Years, j
Memnonia
(Western Temple) 58£° 504° 3750 49|° “1
3700 49" 1
3550 Hills low.
Barkal
(Temple B) 531” 50° 3250 49J° 3600 ,48r 3500
Karnak V 56J° 49° 3550 48i° 3400 1 47£° 3250
Abu Simbel
(Hathor Temple) ; 54° o
•a*
00 3500 48° 3350 1 *7£° 3250 Hills nearly 2° high.
D6r el-Medinet
(Gr.) 544° 47J” 3250 46r 3050 1
46a 2900
Saboa 51±° 46” ! 2900 2750 45° 2650 I
Karnak 1
(Temple J)
(Gr.) 514° 451” : 2700 44 £° 2525 43|° 2300
Medlnet Habit
(Small J J) ! (Gr.) i
5l£° 451” i
2700 44£° 2525 43}° 2300 i
Barkal
(Temples J and H) 47£° 441” 2325 44° 2400 43J° 2250
Sorarieh 51° 431” 2250 42|° 2050 42° 1850
Medlnet Habit i
(Palace K K)
(Gr.) 46J° 40J” !
1
1500 40° 1250 39J° 1050
Medlnet Habit
(Ethiopian Temple) 45° 40” i 39° 900 38 £° 500 ! The hills may be taken as a
j 1250 i
! l 1 little oyer 1° high.
1
The temple of Hathor at Abu Simbel, embellished by Rameses II., was in all probability a shrine dedicated to Ainen-t- Hathor about 3200 B.C. Amen-t seems to have been an Ethiopian goddess, for we hear nothing of her at Heliopolis or Memphis,
It follows that if this be so, Sirius succeeded to a Columba* precisely as y Draconis succeeded to Dubhe; but temples could still be dedicated to the old Hathor a Columbse, while this was not possible for Dubhe, because it became circumpolar and never rose.
It may also be pointed out that the temple V of Lepsius at Karnak finds its place in a series by supposing it to have been
YEARS B.C.
S
CURVES SHOWING THE DECLINATIONS OF SOME OF THE STARS USED BY THE EGYPTIAN ASTRONOMERS AT DIFFERENT EPOCHS*
U 2
(The dotted lines show the resnlts obtained by means
308
[CHAP. XXX
oriented to the S.E. instead of the N'.W. as shown in Lepsius’ maps. Such a mistake might easily have arisen in consequence of its ruined condition. It may be stated in favour of my view that I am acquainted with no temple in Egypt directed between the amplitudes 35° and 90° N. of W.
But so far we have dealt only with the summer solstice, and yet in Egypt there were people who lived in towns with E. and W. walls who, I take it, must have had a worship depending upon the equinoxes.
About 3500 B.C., Antares (o Scorpii) rose heliacally at the autumnal equinox as a Columbae did, as we have seen, at the summer solstice. There is not much doubt, from the symbol of Serk-t that this goddess represented a star in the Scorpion. Further, at that date its rising took place due east, so any E. and W. temple—and many existed in Lower Egypt—might have been then used for observations of this star.
But about the same time the southern star, a Centauri, could have been used to herald the sunrise at the autumnal equinox.
a CENTAURI.
Amp. Sea Horizon. Hills 1 * High. Hills 2° High.
Place and Tcmplo. Remarks.
8. of H. Dec. 8. Years. Dec. 6. Years. Dec. 8. Years.
B&rk&l E 33J° 3i r 3623 m° 3700 30|o 3800
Kfirn&h
(Sefci I.) Wi 31j° 3625 31*° 3700 30J° 3800 Hills low.
Kfimah
(Palace) se0 32i° 3500 31|° 3625 31° 3750 Hills low.
Wady Haifa
(Thothmes II.) 38J° 35f° 2900 35±° 3000 34f° 3075
Barkal L Wady Haifa 38° 36° 2850 35i° 2950 35° 3030
(Thothmes III.) 10° 36J° 2725 36£° 2800 35 3° 2900
Wady E. Sofra 38i° 3 7° 2675 36f 2700 363° 2800
Memnonia
Rameses II.
(Mean of Fr. & Gr.) 43° 3«i° 2473 37J° 2600 37° 2700 Hills low.
Korn Ombo
(Little Temple) m°
1 39° 2375 38i° 2450 37J° 2575
CHAP. XXX.]
SET-TEMPLES.
309
It would appear that several temples were directed to this star in Upper Egypt from 3700 B.C. onward. The series of them is shown in the preceding table.
For the venial equinox, so far, I have found no temples besides those directed due E. in which the rising of the Pleiades may have been watched. It is more than probable that the worship of the sacred bull by the Mcmphitic inhabitants of Egypt may have been connected with this constellation. Certainly in pyramid times Neith and Serk-t were both worshipped, and the goddesses under whose protection the Canopic vases were supposed to be—Isis, Nephthys, Neith, and Serk-t —may have symbolised the two solstices and the two equinoxes.
We may next consider the complete series of N.E. temples represented at Heliopolis, Denderah and Thebes. These we must, as I have shown in Chapter XX., divide into two series, dealing with a Ursae Majoris before it became circumpolar, and 7 Draconis afterwards.
I have already (p. 203) stated that a Lyrae may possibly have preceded both a Ursae Majoris and y Draconis as a representative of Set, but no table is necessary.
The first series, dealing with a Ursae Majoris, is as follows:—
a UKS.E MAJORIS.
Amp. Sea Horizon. Hills 1* High. Hills 3* High. 1
Place and Temple. — 1 Remarks.
N. of E. Dec. N. Years. Dec. N. Years. Doc. N’.i Years.
i
Annu 77° 57° 5200 1 1
58° 5050 59° 49001 Hills low.
Denderah 71 J° 57f 5100 5 8 |° 4950 59J° 14800 | Hills 2° high.
Denderah 78° 60J° 4600 62° 4400 63° ! M001 „ „ v
I
The second series, dealing with y Draconis, is naturally much fuller.
310
THE DA WN OF ASTRONOMY.
[CHAP. XXX.
7 DEACONIS.
: Amp. Sea Horizon. , , Hills 1 “ High.' Hills ‘I 9 High.
Place and Temple. I - — | , — Remarks.
N.ofK. Doc. N. Years. Dec. N. Years. Dec. N. Years.
Redesieh ? 77i° 61 J° 4250 62f° 4600 63}° 4850
1Tn.ina.1r
(Z and X) 1
72}“ B8|° 3100 59|° 3600! 60$° 8900 •
D&kkeh 69^ 1 68J° 3100 1 59$° 3500 | 60$° 38001
Denderah 1 nr! 57|° 2650 58|° 3100 j B»I# 3500 , Hills 2° high.
Anna
(Restoration) , 1
77° 1 1
573 2300 58° 2800 59° 3200 1
Kamak
W 68J° 56J° 2100 57i° 2660 58| 2900
Kamak
1A M C 1
| 634° 53i° 300 1
54P 1 J
Kxxr 1 1 55° ,
1 1400
1 ' Hills iy high. | 54y. 1300.
The table brings before us the remarkable fact that at Redesieh and Denderah, which both lie on the two old roads from the Red Sea into Upper Egypt, we have the first traces of the worship of Set: in other words, of observations during the night in that region, as we found it at Annu.
As a Ursae Majoris and 7 Draconis were observed in the extreme north, so several stars appear to have been observed near the south point, among them Canopus (« Argfts), towards which star the temples shown in the following table seem to have been directed, among them the well-known temple of Khons at Kamak, so that provisionally we may take that divinity as a personification of the star. Granting this, it will be noted that the introduction of this cult into Thebes was late; this is quite in harmony with the statements of Egyptologists, who point out that this god has the side-lock, indicating youth, and that he was the latest addition to the Theban Triad.
In later times the curve of declination of this star is so flat that most accurate measures are required.
1 With regard to the temple A of Lepsius, it may be stated that in the time of the Ftolemies it received considerable and curious enlargements and embellishments which make it unique among Egyptian temples.
CHAP. XXX.]
SOUTHERN TEMPLES.
311
CANOPUS.
Amp. j Sea Horizon. I Hill* 1° High. | Hills J° High. Place and Temple. , 1
Remarks.
>8.of W:»Dcc. 8. Tears.; Dec. 8.
I 1 Year*. Dec. 8. Years.
Karnak B 68J° 54$' 21501 53$° 1300 1 Hills 14° high give ns
1 1800 B.C.
Naga (/) 57' 53|' 1700 53±° 1300 521° 300 Hills 14° high give us
1400 B.C.
Karnak (Seti II.) 63° 53|° 1700,53* 1000
K&mak
(Khons) , 1 1 | 62° 58° : 1000 521* 300 A.D. Hills 14° high give us
! ! i
L 300 B.C.
When we attempt to trace the most southerly stars to which temples were erected in Upper Egypt, we find a series of temples which are very remarkable in several respects from the orientation point of view. Their amplitudes are all above 74°, one being as high as 86^.° They all face South of West, and when their latitudes are taken into account, the very striking thing comes out that the declination of the star observed was very nearly the same—that is, that probably all the temples were founded at about the same time to observe the same star.
The facts are as follows:—
Temple.
Edfft PhilJB 7 Semneh Aiwds
Amplitude 8. of W. Declination 8.
.. 86J° .. 04}°
764° .. 64°
76J° .. f>4$°
744° .. f)4J°
Hills 1° high.
Hills 2° high.
| Local conditions not known.
With regard to the Philae temple, the amplitude is uncertain, as the measures do not agree ; but if we reject Philae the other coincidences are too remarkable to be neglected.
It is to be hoped that a complete survey of the island will soon be undertaken.
Now, I cannot find any important stars to fit this declination since 7000 B.C. except Canopus and Phact, and the latter is barred because it was used as a rising star, and indeed was the first solstitial Isis.
312
[CHAP. XXX.
If we inquire into the conditions relative to Canopus, we find that star had the declination of 64° about 6400 B.C., and that, as determined by the preeessional globe, it then set heliacally at the autumnal equinox.
If wo assume that Canopus is in question, the break between the dates 6400 B.C. and 2150 B.C. has to be explained. There may have been temples at Thebes now desfroyed, There seems no doubt that the temple at Phil®, lettered Y by the French and L in Baedeker’s Handbook, was the most ancient one on the island, and that the cult was similar to that at Edffi.1
It will be most interesting to see whether the suggestion that Canopus was observed in early times at Phil® and Edfu especially, be confirmed.
It is clear that for these and other southern temples an examination of the local conditions and a determination of the places of the southern stars are necessary before the other southern gods and goddesses can be worked out.
We next come to the N.W. quadrant. Here, apparently, we have only to deal with Capella and Spica. Summarising the information detailed in a previous chapter, we find the following temples probably erected to these stars:—
CAPELLA.
Amp. Sea Horizon. Hills V High. ? Hills r High.
Place and Temple. 1 I | 1 - | — Remarks.
SAtW. Dec. N. Yean*. | Dec. N. Years. Dec. N. Years.
Memphis 12° 10° 15500' 1 10}° | _
83601 lip 5300
An mi 13° 11° 1 1 5325 111° 5250! 12“ 5200
Kam&k U 27J' 24£° 3250 24}° 81501 25$“ 3050
Thebes 1 i |
(Petit Temple cfu
Sud) 3U° 27J° 2600 28F 2500 | 29° 2400
Karnak Q 3:>° 30|J 2050 1 1 31i° 1925 32° 1850 32J°. 1750. Hills 3° high
1 Baeleker, *• Ober-Aegypten,v p. 3*20.
CHAP. XXX.)
MIN-TEMPLES.
313
SPICA.
Place and Temple. Amp. Sea Horizon. Hills 1* High. Hills r High. Itemarks.
N.ofW. 'Dec. S. Tears. Dec. N. Tears.
2950 Dec. Is*. Years.
K&m&k 7 Tell el-Amaraa 17j“
13* 15J°
10}* j 2850
1900 16° 16J° | 8050
1 17°. 3200. Hills 3°.
The temples oriented to Capella and Spica are discussed in the next chapter.
The information given in the present chapter may be completed by a table showing the warning stars available for heralding sunrise about the times when the orientations suggest that the various temples were originally founded.
To prepare this table I have used the precessional globe previously referred to. The results are therefore rough, as the ecliptic has been taken as fixed; but they are useful for the purpose of a reconnaissance. The table shows the stars on the horizon, or near it, at the equinoxes and solstices when the sun was 10° below the honzon. When the star was not exactly on the horizon when the sun was 10° below, its position above or below at that moment is indicated in the table by giving the number of degrees the star was above (+) the horizon or below it ( —) at the time.
The dates taken are those most conveniently given by the globe, being those in fact occupied by the pole of the equator at some one or other of twenty-four equidistant points on a circle round the pole of the ecliptic starting from 1880 A.D. as zero.
It will be seen that all the stars referred to in the preceding tables occupied positions of great importance between 6000 B.C. and 2500 B.C., and that there are several southern stars indicated which eventually may be useful in the discussion of the southern temples.
314
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version