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The dawn of astronomy (and astrology)

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Prometheus:
https://archive.org/details/dawnastronomyas00lockgoog

PREFACE.
THE enormous advance which has been recently made in our astronomical knowledge, and in our power of investigating the various t bodies which people space, is to a very great extent due to the introduction of methods of work and ideas from other branches of science..
Much of the recent progress has been, we may indeed say, entirely dependent upon the introduction of the methods of inquiry to which I refer. While this is generally recognised, it is often forgotten that a knowledge of even elementary astronomy may be of very great assistance to students of other branches of science; in other words, that astronomy is well able to pay her debt. Amongst those branches is obviously that which deals with man’s first attempts to grasp the meaning and phenomena of the universe in which he found himself before any scientific methods were available to him; before he had any idea of the origins or the conditionings of the things around him.
In the present volume I propose to give an account of some attempts I have been making in my leisure moments during the past three years to see whether any ideas could be obtained as to the eai’ly astronomical views of the Egyptians, from a study of their temples and the mythology connected with the various cults.
How I came to take up this inquiry may be gathered from the following statement:—
It chanced that in March, 1890, during a brief holiday, I went to the Levant. I went with a good Mend, who,
_85369
viii
THE DAWN OF ASTRONOMY.
one day when we were visiting the ruins of the Parthenon, and again when we found ourselves at the temple at Eleusis, lent me his pocket-compass. The curious direction in which the Parthenon was built, and the many changes of direction in the foundations at Eleusis revealed by the French excavations, were so very striking and suggestive that I thought it worth while to note the bearings so as to see whether there was any possible astronomical origin for the direction of the temple and the various changes in direction to which I have referred. What I had in my mind was the familiar statement tha^in England the eastern windows of churches face generally—if they are properly constructed—to the place of sunrising on the festival of the patron saint; this is why, for instance, the churches of St. John the Baptist face very nearly north-east^ This direction towards the sunrising is the origin of the general use of the term orientation, which is applied just as frequently to other buildings the direction of which is towards the west or north or south. Now, if this should chance to be merely a survival from ancient times, it became of importance to find out the celestial bodies to which the ancient temples were directed.
When I came home I endeavoured to ascertain whether this subject had been worked out. I am afraid I was a nuisance to many of my archaeological friends, and I made as much inquiiy as I could by looking into books. I found, both from my friends and from the books, that this question had not been discussed in relation to ancient temples, scarcely even with regard to churches outside England or Germany.
It struck me that, since nothing was known, an inquiry into the subject—provided an inquiiy was possible for a stay- at-home—might help the matter forward to a certain extent. So, as it was well known that the temples in Egypt had been
PREFACE.
IX
most carefully examined and oriented both by the French in 1798 and by the Prussians in 1844, I determined to see whether it was possible to get any information on the general question from them, as it was extremely likely that such temples as that at Eleusis were more or less connected with Egyptian ideas. I soon found that, although neither the French nor the Germans apparently paid any heed to the possible astronomical ideas of the temple-builders, there was little doubt that astronomical considerations had a great deal to do with the direction towards which these temples faced. In a series of lectures given at the School of Mines in November, 1890, I took the opportunity of pointing out that in this way archaeologists and others might ultimately be enabled to arrive at dates in regard to the foundation of temples, and possibly to advance knowledge in several other directions.
After my lectures were over, I received a very kind letter from one of my audience, pointing out to me that a friend had informed him that Professor Nissen, in Germany, had published some papers on the orientation of ancient temples. I at once ordered them. Before I received them I went to Egypt to make some inquiries on the spot with reference to certain points which it was necessary to investigate, for the reason that when the orientations were observed and recorded, it was not known what use would be made of them, and certain data required for my special inquiry were wanting. In Cairo also I worried my archaeological friends. I was told that the question bad not been discussed; that, so far as they knew, the idea was new; and I also gathered a suspicion that they did not think much of it. However, one of them, Brugsch Bey, took much interest in the matter, and was good enough to look up some of the old inscriptions, and one day he told me he had found a very interesting one concerning
X
THE DAWN OF ASTRONOMY.
the foundation of the temple at Edfft. From this inscription it was clear that the idea was not new; it was possibly six thousand years old. Afterwards I went up the river, and made some observations which earned conviction with them and strengthened the idea in my mind that for the orientation not only of EdM, but of all the larger temples which I examined, there was an astronomical basis. I returned to England at the beginning of March, 1891, and within a few days of landing received Professor Nissen’s papers.
I have thought it right to give this personal narrative, because, while it indicates the relation of my work to Professor Nissen’s, it enables me to make the acknowledgment that the credit of having first made the suggestion belongs, so far as I know, solely to him.1
The determination of the stars to which some of the Egyptian temples, sacred to a known divinity, were directed, opened a way, as I anticipated, to a study of the astronomical basis of parts of the mythology. This inquiiy I have earned on to a certain extent, but it requires an Egyptologist to face it, and this I have no pretensions to be. It soon became obvious, even to an outsider like myself, that/'the mythology was intensely astronomicaljj0x16. crystallised early ideas suggested by actual observations of the sun, moon, and stars. Next, there were apparently two mythologies, representing two schools of astronomical thought.
1 My lectures, given in November, 1890, were printed in Nature, April—July, 1891, under the title “On some Foints in the Early History of Astronomy,” with the following note:— 44 From shorthand notes of a course of lectures to working men delivered at the Museum of Practical Geology, Jermyn Street, in November, 1890. The notes were revised by me at Aswdn during the month of January. I have found, since my return from Egypt in March, that part of the subject-matter of the lectures had been previously discussed by Professor Nissen, who has employed the same materials as myself To him, therefore, so far as I at present know, belongs the credit of having first made the suggestion that ancient temples were oriented on an astronomical basis. His articles are to be found in the Rheinisehes Museum fur Philo logic, 1885.”
PREFACE.
xi
Finally, to endeavour to obtain a complete picture, it became necessary to bring together the information to be obtained from all these and other sources, including the old Egyptian calendars, and to compare the early Babylonian results with those which are to be gathered from the Egyptian myths and temple-orientations.
It will, I think, be clear to anyone who reads this volume that its limits and the present state of our knowledge have only allowed me really to make a few suggestions. I have not even attempted to exhaust any one of the small number of subjects which I have brought forward; but if I have succeeded so far as I have gone, it will be abundantly evident that, if these inquiries are worth continuing, a .very considerable amount of work has to be done.
Of this future work, the most important, undoubtedly, is a re-survey of the temple sites, with modern instruments and methods. Next, astronomers must produce tables of the rising and setting conditions of the stars for periods far beyond those which have already been considered. The German Astronomical Society has published a table of the places of a great many stars up to 2000 B.C., but to carry on this investigation we must certainly go back to 7000 B.c., and include southern stare. While the astronomer is doing this, the Egyptologist, on his part, must look through the inscriptions with reference to the suggestions which lie on the surface of the inquiry. The astronomical and associated mythological data want bringing together. One part of that work will consist in arranging tables of synonyms like those to which I presently refer in the case of the goddesses. My own impression is that this work will not really be so laborious as the statement of it might seem to imply. I have attempted to go over the ground during the last two years as well as
Xll
THE DAWN OF ASTRONOMY.
my ignorance would allow me, and I have arrived at the impression that the number both of gods and goddesses will be found to be extremely small; that the apparent wealth of the mythology depends upon the totemism of the inhabitants in the Nile valley—by which I mean that each district had its own special animal as the emblem of the tribe dwelling in it, and that every mythological personage had to be connected in some way with these local cults. After this work is done, it will be possible to begin to answer some of the questions which I have only ventured to raise.
I am glad to take this opportunity of expressing my obligations to the authorities in Egypt for the very great help they gave towards the furthering of the inquiries which were set on foot there. Many of my own local observations would, in all probability, never have been made if my friend Major A. Davis, of Syracuse (New York) had not invited me to join him in a cruise up the river in the s.s. Mohamet Aly, and practically given me full command of her movements. My best thanks are due to him not only for his hospitality, but for sympathetic aid in my inquiries.
Dr. Wallis Budge and Captain Lyons, R.E., have rendered continual help while this book has been in progress, and I cannot sufficiently thank them; to the fii-st-named I am especially indebted for looking over the proof sheets. I am also under obligations to Professors Maspero, Krall, and Max Muller for information on cei’tain points, and to Professors Sayce and Jensen for many valuable suggestions in the chapters dealing with Babylonian astronomy.
J. NORMAN LOCKYER.

Prometheus:
CHAPTER I.
THE WORSHIP OF THE SUN AND THE DAWN.
HEN we inquire among which early peoples we are
likely to find the first cultivation of astronomy, whatever the form it may have taken, we learn that it is generally agreed by archaeologists that the first civilisations which have so far been traced were those in the Nile Valley and in the adjacent countries in Western Asia.
The information which we possess concerning these countries has been obtained from the remains of their cities, of their temples—even, in the case of Babylonia, of their observatories and of the records of their observations. Of history on papyrus we have relatively little.
Not so early as these, but of an antiquity which is still •undefined, are two other civilisations with which we became familiar before the treasure-houses of Egypt and Babylonia were open to our inquiries. These civilisations occupied the regions now called India and China.
The circumstances of these two groups are vastly dissimilar so far as the actual sources of information are concerned; for iu relation to China and India we have paper records, but, alas ! no monuments of undoubtedly high antiquity. It is true
 
B
2
   
[CHAP. I.
that there are many temples in India in the present day, but, on the authority of Prof. Max Mtiller, they are relatively modern.
The contrary happens in Egypt, for there monuments exist more ancient than any of the inscribed records; monuments indicating a more or less settled civilisation; a knowledge of astronomy, and temples erected on astronomical principles for the purposes of worship, the astronomers being called “ the ^mystery teachers of Heaven.”
We go back in Egypt for a period, as estimated by various authors, of something like 6,000 or 7,000 years. In Babylonia inscribed tablets carry us into the dim past for a period of certainly 5,000 years; but the so-called “omen” tablets- indicate that observations of eclipses and other astronomical phenomena had been made for some thousands of years before this period. In China and in India we go back as certainly to more than 4,000 years ago.
When one comes to examine the texts, whether written on paper or papyrus, burnt in brick, or cut on stone, which archaeologists have obtained from all these sources, we at once realise that man’s earliest observations of the heavenly bodies in all the regions we have named may very fairly be divided into three perfectly distinct stages. I do not mean to say that these stages follow each other exactly, but that at one period one stage was more developed than another, and so on.
For instance, in the first stage, wonder and worship were^ the prevalent features; in the second, there was the need j of applying the observation of celestial phenomena in two] directions, one the direction of utility—such as the formation/ of a calendar and the foundation of years and months; and! the other the astrological direction.
Supplied as we modems are with the results of astronomical observation in the shape of almanacs, pocket-books,

CHAP, I.]   WONDER AND WORSHIP.   3
and the like, it is always difficult, and for most people quite impossible, to put ourselves in the place and realise the conditions of a race emerging into civilisation, and having to face the needs of the struggle for existence in a community which, in the nature of the case, must have been agricultural. Those would best succeed who best knew when “ to plow and sow,
and reap and mow; ” and the only means of knowledge was at   |
first the observation of the heavenly bodies. It was this, and not the accident of the possession of on extended plain, which drove early man to be astronomically minded.
The worship stage would, of course, continue, and the priests would see to its being properly developed; and the astrological direction of thought, to which I have referred, would gradually be connected with it, probably in the interest of a class neither priestly nor agricultural.
Only more recently—not at all, apparently, in the early
I   stage—were any observations made of any celestial object for
the mere purpose of getting knowledge. We know from the recent discoveries of Strassmaier and Epping that this stage was reached at Babylon at least 300 years B.c., at which time regular calculations were made of the future positions of moon and planets, and of such extreme accuracy that they could have been at once utilised for practical purposes. It looks as if rough determinations of star places were made at about the same time in Egypt and Babylonia.
This abstract inquiry is now practically the only source of interest in astronomy to us; we no longer worship the sun ; we no longer believe in astrology; we have our calendar; but we must have a Nautical Almanac calculated years beforehand, and some of us like to know a little about the universe 'which surrounds us.
It is very curious and interesting to know that the first' B 2
4
THE DA IfX OF ASTRONOMY.
(CHAP 1.
?j   stage, the .stage of worship, is practically: missing- in the
^   Chpiese__annals; the very earliest Chinese observations show
us the Chinese, a thoroughly practical people, trying to get
as much out of the stars as thev could for their terrestrial
•/
purposes.
In Babylonia it is a very remarkable thing that from the beginning of things—so far as we can judge from the records—the sign for God wras a star.
We find the same idea in Egypt: in some of the hiero- ^Cglyphic texts three stars represented the plural “ gods,.”
I have already remarked that the ideas of the early Indian civilisation, crystallised in their sacred books called Vedas, were known to us long before either the Egyptian or the Babylonian and Assyrian records had been deciphered.
Enough, however, is now known to show that we may take the Vedas to bring before us the remnants of the first ideas which dawned upon the minds of the earliest dwellers in Western Asia—that is, the territory comprised betweep the Mediterranean, the Black Sea, the Caucasus, the Caspian Sea, the Indus, and the waters which bound the southern coasts—say, as far as Cape Comorin. Of these populations, the Egyptians and Babylonians may be reckoned as the first. According to Lenormant—and he is followed by all the best scholars—this region was invaded in the earliest times by peoples coming from the steppes of Northern Asia. Bit by bit they spread to the west and east. There are strange variants in the ideas of the Chaldseans already recovered from the inscriptions and those preserved in the Vedas. Nevertheless, we find a sun-god1 and the following hymn:—
“ Oh Sun, in tlie most profound heaven thou shinest. Thou openest the locks which close the high heavens. Thou openest the door of heaven. Oh
1 Maspero, “Hietoire ancienne dcs Peuples de rOrient.’' p. 130.
CHAP. 1.]
THE VEDAS.
5
Sun, towards the surface of the earth thou turnest thy fyee. Oh Sun, thou spreadest above the surface, like a mantle, the splendour of heaven. ”
Let us consider for a moment what were the first conditions under which the stars and the sun would be observed. There- was no knowledge, but we can very well understand that there was much awe, and fear, and wonder. Man then possessed no instruments, and the eyes and the minds of the early observers were absolutely untrained. Further, night to them seemed almost death—no man could work; for them there was no electric light, to say nothing of candles ; so that in the absence of the moon the night reigned like death over every land. There is no necessity for us to go far into this matter by trying to put ourselves into the places of these early peoples; we have only to look at the records: they speak very clearly for themselves.   ^
But the Vedas speak fully, while as yet information on this special point is relatively sparse from the other regions. It is wise, therefore, to begin with India, whence the first complete revelations of this kind came. Max Muller and others during recent years have brought before us an immense amount of most interesting information, of the highest importance for our present subject.
They tell us that 1,500 years B.C. there was a ritual, a set of hymns called the Veda ( Veda meaning “ knowledge”). These hymns were written in Sanskrit, which a few years ago was almost an unknown language ; we know now that it turns out to be the nearest relation to our English tongue. The thoughts and feelings expressed in these early hymns contain the first roots and germs of that intellectual growth which connects our own generation with the ancestors of the Aryan races—“those very people who, as we now learn from the Vedas, at the rising and the setting of the sun, listened with
6
   
[CHAP. I.
trembling hearts to the sacred songs chanted by their priests. The Veda, in fact, is the oldest book in which we can study the first beginnings of our language and of everything which is embodied in all the languages under the sun.” The oldest, most primitive, most simple form of Aryan Nature-worship finds expression in this wonderful hymnal, which doubtless brings before us the rituals of the ancient Aryan populations, represented also by the Medes and Persians.
There was, however, another branch, represented by the Zend-Avesta, as opposed to the Vedas, among which there was a more or less conscious opposition to the gods of Nature, to which we are about to refer, and a striving after a more spiritual deity, proclaimed by Zoroaster under the name of Ahura-Mazda, or Ormuzd. The existence of these rituals side by side in time tends to tlirow back the origin of the Nature-worship of both. Now, what do we find ? In the Veda the gods are called Devas, a word which means “ bright ” 5 brightness or light being one of the most general attributes shared by the various manifestations of the deity. What were the deities ? The sun, the sky, the dawn, fire, and storm. It is clear, in fact, from the Vedas that sunrise was, to those from whom the ritual had been derived, the great revelation of Nature, and in time, in the minds of the poets of the Veda, tleva, from meaning “bright,” gradually came to mean “ divine.” Sunrise it was that inspired the first prayers of our race, and called forth the first sacrificial flames. Here, for instance, is an extract from one of the Vedas. “Will the sun rise again? Will our old friend the Dawn come back again ? Will the power of Darkness be conquered by the God of Light ? ”
These three questions in one hymn will show what a questionable stage in man’s history is thus brought before us, and how the antithesis between night and day was one of
CHAP. I.]
THE VEDAS.
7
the first things to strike mankind. We find very many names for Sun-gods—
Mitra, Indra (the day brought by the sun),
SArya, Vasishtha, Arusha (bright or red) ;
and for the Dawn-gods—
Ushas, Dyaus, DyotanA,
Ahanft, Urvasi.
We have only to consider how tremendously important must have been the coming of the sun in the morning, bringing everything with it; and the dying away of the sun in the evening, followed at once by semi-tropical quick darkness, to cease to wonder at such worship as this. Here is an extract from one hymn to the Dawn (Ushas):—
“ (1) She shines upon us like a young wife, rousing every living being to go to his work; when the fire had to be kindled by men she made the light by striking down darkness.
“ (2) She rose up spreading far and wide, and moving everywhere, she grew in brightness, wearing her brilliant garment [the mother of the cows (the mornings)], the leader of the days, she shone gold-coloured, lovely to behold*
“ (3) She, the fortunate, who brings the eye of the gods, who leads the white and lovely steed (of the sun), the Dawn, was seen revealed by her rays, with brilliant treasures, following everyone.
“ (4) Thou art a blessing when thou art near . . . Raise up wealth to the worshipper, thou mighty Dawn.
“ (5) Shine for us with thy best rays, thou bright Dawn. . . .
“ (6) Thou daughter of the sky, thou high-born Dawn. ...”
In addition to the Sun and the Dawn, which turn out to be the two great deities in the early Indian Pantheon, other gods are to be met with, such as Prithivi, the Earth on which we dwell; Varuna, the Sky; Ap, the Waters; Agni, the Fire; and Maruts, the Storm-gods. Of these, Varuna is especially interesting to us. We read:—
“ Varuna stemmed asunder the wide firmament; he lifted up on high the bright and glorious heaven; he stretched out apart the starry sky and the earth.”
8
   
[CHAP. I.
Again—
“This earth, too, belongs to Vanina, the king, and this wide sky with its ends far apart. The two seas (the sky and the ocean) are Varuna’s loins/’
Finally, the result of all this astral worship was to give an idea of the connection between the earth and the sun and the heavens, which are illustrated in later Indian pictures, bringing before us modernised and much more concrete views of these early notions, ultimately transformed into this piece of poetic thought, that the earth was a shell supported by elephants (which represent strength), the elephants being supported on a tortoise (which represents infinite slowness).
This poetical view subsequently gave way to one less poetical—namely, that the earth was supported by pillars; on what the pillars rested is not stated, and it does nofmatter. We must not consider this as ridiculous, and pardonable merely because it is so early in point of time; because, coming to the time pf Greek civilisation, Anaximander told us that the earth was cylindrical in shape, and every' place that was then known was situated on the flat end of the cylinder; and Plato, on the ground that the cube was the most perfect geometrical figure, imagined the' earth to be a cube, the part of the earth known to the Greeks being on the upper surface. In these matters, indeed, the vaunted Greek mind was little in advance of the predecessors of the Vedic priests.
i
 
CHAPTER II.
THE FIRST GLIMPSES OF EGYPTIAN ASTRONOMY.
IN the general survey, which occupied the preceding chapter, of the records left by the most ancient peoples, it was shown
that Egypt, if we consider her monuments, came first in the order of time. I have next to show that in the earliest
THE ROSETTA STONE, (//t the Jiritish Museum.)
10
   
[CHAP. IT.
monuments we have evidences of the existence and utilisation of astronomical knowledge.
It is impossible to approach such a subject as the astronomy of the ancient Egyptians without being struck with surprise that any knowledge is available to help us in our inquiries. A century ago, the man to whom we owe more than to all others in this matter; the man who read the riddle of those strange hieroglyphs, which, after having been buried in oblivion for nearly two thousand years, were then again occupying the learned, was not yet born. I refer to Champollion, who was bom in 1790 and died in the prime of his manhood and in the midst of his work, in 1832.
Again, a century ago the French scientific expedition, planned by the great Napoleon, which collected for the use of all the world facts of importance connected with the sites, the buildings, the inscriptions, and everything which could be got at relating to the life and language of the ancient Egyptians, had not even been thought of; indeed, it only commenced its labours in 1798, and the intellectual world will for ever be a debtor to the man who planned it.
I know of no more striking proof of the wit of man than the gradual unravelling of the strange hieroglyphic signs in which the learning of the ancient Egyptians was enshrined; and there are few things more remarkable in the history of scientific investigation than the way in which a literature has been already brought together which is appalling in its extent; and yet it may well be that, vast as this literature is at present, it is but the vanguard of a much more stupendous one to follow; for we are dealing with a nation which wo now know existed completely equipped in many ways at least seven thousand five hundred years ago.
It forms no part of the present work to give an account of
CHAP. II.]
THE ROSETTA STONE.
11
the unravelling to which I have referred, one which finds a counterpart in the results achieved by the spectroscope in another scientific field.
But a brief reference to one of the most brilliant achievements of the century may be permitted, and the more as it will indicate the importance of one of the most valued treasures in our national collections. I refer to the Rosetta Stone in the Egyptian Gallery of the British Museum. It was the finding of this stone in 1799 by Boussard, a captain of French artillery at Rosetta, which not only showed the baselessness of the systems of suggested interpretations of the hieroglyphics which had been in vogue from the time of Kircher downwards, but by its bilingual record in hieroglyphic, demotic and Greek characters, paved the way for men of genius like Thomas Young (1814) and Champollion (1822). The latter must be acknowledged as the real founder of the system of interpretation which has held its own against all opposition, and has opened the way to inquiries into the history of the past undreamt of when the century was young. Chateaubriand nobly said of him, “ Ses admirables travaux auront la duree des monuments qu’il nous a fait connaitre.”
The germ of Champollion’s discovery consisted in the bringing together of two sets of characters enclosed in cartouches. One of them is in the Rosetta inscription itself; the other, on the plinth of an obelisk in the island of Philse. The name of Cleopatra was associated with the one inscription, and that of Ptolemy with the other. It was clear that if the two names,
writ,en dH5HQand
were really Ptolemaios and Cleopatra, they must include several identical signs or letters; in Ptolemaios the quadrangular figure ?, being the first, must stand for P, and this in
12
   
[CHAP. II.
Cleopatra was found to occur in the right place, standing fifth in order. The third sign in Ptolcraaios must be an o, and the fourth ^ an l. Now the lion for l occurs second in Cleopatra, and the knotted cord for o fourth. In this way, proceeding by comparison with other names, that of Alexander, or
Alksantrs, was next discovered,
-2as>
 
degrees the whole Egyptian alphabet was recovered.
What had come down the stream of ages and were universally recognised as unsurpassed memorials of a mysterious past were the famous pyramids, successively described by Herodotus, Diodorus and Pliny among classical, and Abd el-Latif among Arabian, chroniclers.
Although the rifling of the most important of these structures for the purpose of finding treasure dates at least as far back as 820 A.I)., the Khalif El-Mamun being the destroyer, the scientific study of their mode and objects of construction is a work of quite modem times, and may be said to have been inaugurated by Colonel Howard Vyse in 1839.
Much that has been written has been wild and nonsensical,
but from the exact descriptions and measures now available,
it is impossible to doubt that these structures were erected by a
*
'people possessing much astronomical knowledge. The exact orientation of the larger pyramids in the pyramid-field of Gizeh has been completely established, and it is not impossible that some of the mysterious passages to be found in the pyramid of Cheops may have had an astronomical use.
Let us, to continue the subject-matter of the present chapter, come to the year 1820. It was about then that were gathered some of the first-fruits of the investigations carried on by the Commission to which I have referred ; that some translations of
 
14   TNEi DAWN OF ASTRONOMY.   ICHAF.IL
the inscriptions had been attempted, and that some of the new results were discussed by the members of the French Academy, while at the same time they astounded and delighted the outside world.
/ From the point of view which now concerns us, it may be ' said that the new discoveries might be arranged into three different groups. First of all, the land had been found full of temples, vast and majestic beyond imagination; among these the temples at Kamak were supreme, but there were others on a par with them in points of architectural detail. But besides these, then as now, above-ground and inviting inspection, there were many others which were then—as undoubtedly many are still—more or less buried in the sand; some of these have since been unearthed to reveal the striking features of their structure.
I shall show subsequently that, on the evidence of the ancient Egyptians themselves, these temples were constructed in strict relation to stars; they, then, like the pyramids, must \ be taken as indicating astronomical knowledge.
' If we deal with the general external appearance of the /_ temples, they may be arranged architecturally into two main groups. Edfft is the most perfect example of the first , () group, characterised by having a pylon- consisting of two ^ massive structures right and left of the entrance, which are somewhat like the two towers that one sometimes sees on the west front of our English cathedrals.
In Denderali we have an example of the second group,
. in which the_massiYe pylon is omitted. In these the front is entirely changed; instead of the pylon we have now an open front to the temple with columns—the Greek form of temple is approached.
Associated with many of the temples, frequently but not
 
GREAT COURT OF HEAVEN, AT THE ENTRANCE TO THE HATHOR TEMPLE
AT DENDERAH.
16
   
(.CHAV. U.
universally in close proximity to the propylon, were obelisks, often of gigantic proportions, exceeding one hundred feet in height and many hundreds of tons in weight, which it has since been discovered were hewn out of the syenite quarry at Aswan, and floated down the river to the various places where they were to be erected.
It is not necessary to go to Egypt to see these wonderful monoliths, for they have been carried away from their original temple sites at Thebes and Heliopolis to adorn more modern cities in the Western world. London, Paris, Rome, and Constantinople are thus embellished. It is obvious to anyone
 
TEMPLE GATE WITH PKOPYLOX AND OBELISKS.
 
acquainted with astronomical history and methods, that some of these structures, at all events, may have served as gnomons.
Sometimes these temples, instead of being entirely constructed of jit one fin a level surface, were either entirely or partly rock-hewn. Of the former class, the temple of Abu Simbel is the most striking example; of the latter, the temple of Der el-Bahari at Thebes.

 
 
THE CENTRAL PORTION OE THE CIRCULAR ZODIAC OK DENDERAH.
18   THE DA I   VNOF ASTRONOMY. [CHA*. 11.
The second revelation was that the walls of these temples, and of many funereal buildings, were, for the most part, covered with inscriptions in the language which was then but gradually emerging from the unknown, its very alphabet and syllabary being still incomplete. Hence there was not only a great wealth of temple buildings, but a still more wonderful wealth of temple inscriptions.
There was even more than this, and something more germane to our present purpose. In several temples which were examined, zodiacs—undoubted zodiacs, representing a
third group of finds—were discovered ; these, also, were accom panied by inscriptions of an obviously astronomical nature.
CUAF. II.]
Tj^E ZODIAC OF DENDERAH.   19
At the first bltish, then, it seemed to be perfectly certain that we had to deal with a people of an astronomical turn of mind; and here was the opportunity for the astronomer, which indeed the French astronomers did not fail to make use of. Where the philologist was for the moment dumb, it seemed as if the astronomer could be of use, giving explanations, fixing probable dates on the one hand ; while, on the other, he would certainly be gaining a fresh insight into, and possibly filling a tremendous gap in, the history of his science.
The figure on the preceding page gives an idea of the method of presentation generally employed in these zodiacs.
I shall show in the sequel—for I shall have to deal with this part of my subject at full length in a subsequent chapter—that many of the animal forms represent at once mythological personages and actual constellations.
CHAPTER III.
THE ASTRONOMICAL BASIS OF THE EGYPTIAN PANTHEON.
IT will be abundantly clear from the statements made in the foregoing chapter that, as I have said, the main source of information touching things Egyptian consists no longer in writings like the Vedas, but in the inscriptions on the monuments,. and the monuments themselves. It is true that, in addition to the monuments, we have the Book of the Dead, and certain records found in tombs; but, in the main, the source of information which has been most largely drawn upon consists in the monuments themselves—the zodiacs being included in that term.
It has been impossible, up to the present time, to fix with great accuracy the exact date of the earliest monuments. This should not surprise us. We must all feel that it is not a question of knowing so little—it is a question of knowing .anything at all. When one considers that at the beginning of this century not a sign on any of these monuments was understood, and that now the wonderful genius of a small number of students has enabled Egyptologists to read the inscriptions with almost as much ease and certainty as we read our morning papers: this is what is surprising, and not the fact that we as yet know so little, and in many cases lack certainty.
But we already know that probably some of these monuments are nearly 6,000 years old. This has been determined by the convergence of many lines of evidence.
One of the many points already profoundly investigated by Egyptologists has been the chronology of the kings of Egypt
 
TABLET OF KINGS AT ABYDOS.
22
   
[CHAP. III.
from their first monarch, whom all students recognise as Mena or Menes. All these inquirers have come to the definite conclusion that there was a King Mena, and. that he reigned a long time ago; but with all their skill the final result is that they cannot agree to the date of this king within a thousand years; one reason among many others being that in these early days astronomy was a science still to be cultivated, and therefore the early Egyptians had not a perfect mode of recording; perhaps even they had no idea of a hundred years as we have. We are told that all their reckonings were the reckonings of the reigns of kings. This is difficult to believe, and the statement may be a measure of our ignorance of their method of record. We now, fortunately for us, have a calendar which enables us to deal with large intervals of time, but still we sometimes reckon, in Egyptian fashion, by the reigns of kings in our Acts of Parliament. Furthermore, Egypt being then a country liable to devastating wars, and to the temporary supremacy of different kingly tribes, it has been very difficult to disentangle the various lists of kings so as to obtain one chronological line, for the reasons that sometimes there were different kings reigning at the same time in different regions. The latest date for King Mena is, according to Bunsen, 3600 years B.C. ; the earliest date, assigned by Boeckh, 5702 years B.C. ; Unger, Brugsch, and Lepsius give, respectively, 5613, 4455, 3892. For our purpose we will call the date 4000 B.C. —that is. 6,000 years ago—and for the present consider this as the start-point for the long series of remains of various orders to which reference has been made, and from which alone information can be obtained.
We come now to deal with the ideas of the early inhabitants of the Nile valley. We find that in Egypt we are in presence absolutely of the worship of the Sun and of the accompanying
CHAP. III.]
WORSHIP OF SUNRISE AND DAWN.
23
Dawn. Whatever be the date of the Indian
ideas to which we have referred, wo find
them in Egypt in the earliest times. The
ancient Egyptians, whether they were separate
from, or more or less allied in their origin to,
the early inhabitants of India, had exactly
the same view of Nature-worship, and we
find in their hvmns and the lists of their •/
gods that the Dawn and the Sunrise were the great revelations of Nature, and the things which were most important to man ; and therefore everything connected with the Sunrise and the Dawn teas worshipped.
Renouf, one of the latest writers on these subjects, says:1 “I fear Egyptologists will soon be accused, like other persons, of seeing the dawn everywhere,” and he quotes with approbation this passage from Max Muller relating to the Veda:—
“ I look upon the sunrise and sunset, on the daily return of day and night, on the battle between light and darkness, on the whole solar drama in all its details, that is acted every day, every month, every year, in heaven and in earth, as the principal subject.”
But we must now go somewhat further into detail. The various apparent movements of the heavenly bodies which are produced by the rotation and the revolution of the earth, and the effects of precession, were familiar- to the Egyptians, however ignorant they may have been of their causes; they carefully studied what they saw, and attempted to put their knowledge together in the most convenient fashion, associating it with their strange imaginings and their system of worship.
Dealing with the earth’s rotation, how did the Egyptians
 
1 Hibbert Lectures, 1879.
24
   
[CHAP. III.
picture it? How was this interaction, so to speak; between the earth and the sky mythologically represented ? They naturally would be familiar with the phenomena of dawn and sunset, more familiar certainly with the phenomenon of dawn than we are, because they had a climate much better suited for its study than ours. There can be no doubt that the wonderful
 
BA.
 
A1 IN-HA.
 
?U EX-BA.
scenes which they saw every morning and evening were the first things which impressed them, and they came to consider the earth as a god, surrounded by the sky—another god.
I have next to point out that, the sun being very generally worshipped in Egypt, there were various forms of the sun-god, depending upon the positions occupied in its daily course. We have the form of Harpocrates at its rising, the child sun-god being generally represented by the figure of a hawk. When
CHAP. III.]
FORMS OF THE SUN-GOD.
25
in human form, we notice the presence of a side lock of hair. The god Ra symbolises, it is said, the sun in his noontide strength; while for the time of sunset we have various names, chiefly Osiris, Turn, or Atmu, the dying sun represented by a mummy and typifying old age. The hours of the day were also personified, the twelve changes during 'the twelve hours
 

 
CHXEMU-RA.
being mythically connected with the sun’s daily movement across the sky.
We often find Ra compounded with other names, and in these forms of the god we possibly get references to the sun at different times of the year. Amen-Ra, Sebak-Ra, and Chnemu-Ra are cases in point. The former undoubtedly refers to the sun at the summer solstice. Min-Ra is an ithyphallic form.
[CHAP. III.
26
   
The names given by the Egyptians to the sun then may be summarised as follows:—
Hor, or Horus, or Harpocrates, and Chepera (morning sun).
Ra (noon).
Turn or Atmu (evening sun).
Osiris (sun when set).
I have not space to quote the many hymns to the Sun-gods which have been recovered from the inscriptions, but the following extracts will show that the worship was in the main at sunrise or sunset—in other words, that the horizon was in question : —
 
AXUBIS, OK 8ET.
 
ANUBIS-OSIRI8.
“Thou disk of the Sun, thou living God ! There is none other beside thee. Thou givest health to the eyes through thy beams, Creator of all beings. Thou goest up on the eastern horizon of the heaven to dispense life to all which thou hast created—to man, four-footed beasts, birds, and all manner of creeping things on the earth where they live. Thus they behold thee, and they go to sleep when thou settest.”
Hymn to Tmu—
“ Come to me, O thou Sun, Horus of the horizon, give me help.”
 
OSIRIS (AS A MUMMY).
Hymn to Horus—
“ O Horus of the horizon, there is none other beside thee,
Protector of millions, deliverer of tens of thousands.”
Hymn to Ra-Tmu- Horus—
“ Hail to thee of the double horizon, the one god living by Maat. ... I am the maker of heaven and of the mysteries of the twofold horizon.”
Hymn to Osiris—
“ O Osiris ! Thou art the
CHAI\ III.]
HYMNS TO SUN-GODS.
27
youth at the horizon of heaven daily, and thine old age at the beginning of all seasons. .   .
“The ever-moving stars are under obedience to him, and so are the stars which set."
 
OSIBIS SEATED.
Hymn to Ra—
O Ra ! in thine egg, radiant in thy disk, shining forth from the horizon, swimming over the steel (?) firmament.
“Tmu and Horus of the horizon pay homage to thee (Amen-Ra) in all their words.”
So far we have dealt with the powers of sunlight; but the ancient Egyptians, like ourselves, were familiar with the powers of darkness or of the underworld. The chief god antithetical to the sun was variously named—Sit, Set, Sut,
28
   
[CHAP. III.
Anubis, Typhon, Bes; and a host of other names was I given to him. As I shall show, the idea of darkness was I associated with the existence of those stars which never set, \ so that even here the symbolism was astronomical.
 
VARIOUS FORMS OF BES—AS WARRIOR, MUSICIAN, AND BUFFOON.
The contrast between the representations of Bes and of the other forms suggests that the former was imported. In the form of Typhon the goddess Taurt is represented as a hippopotamus, while for Anubis the emblem is a jackal.
In all illustrations of funeral ceremonies the above-mentioned figure largely. In the Book of the Dead we find that in the representations of the judgment of the dead, besides Osiris we have Anubis, both responsible for the weighing of the soul.
With the moon we find two gods connected—Thotli-
CHAP. III.]
KIIOXS, TIIOTH, SESHETA.
29
lunus and Khons-lunus—though the connection is not a very obvious one.
Thotli is also associated with the Egyptian year, and is variously represented; all forms, however, are based upon the ibis.
For the stars generally we find a special goddess, Sesheta.
 

 
Thotli as the sacred scribe and Sesheta as the star-goddess are often represented together engaged in writing.
Associated with the phenomena .of morning and evening we find the following divinities. The attributeiT'Stated are those now generally accepted. This is a subject which will occupy us in the sequel.
Isis represents the Dawn and the Twilight; she prepares the way for the Sun-god. The rising sun between Isis and Nephthys = morning.
 
THE WEIGHING OF THE SOUL BY HOItUS AND ANUBIS, IN PKESENCK OF OSIRIS.
CnAP. III.]
XEPHTIIYS A XI) SIIU.
31
Nephthys is the Dawn and the Twilight, sometimes Sunset.
Shu is also the Dawn, or sunlight. Tefnut represents the coloured rays at dawn. Shu and Tefnut are the eyes of Horus. Shu was also called “Neshem,’* which means green felspar, in consequence of the green colour observed at dawn- The green tint at dawn and sunset are represented further by the “ sycamore of emerald/1 Sechet is another goddess of the Dawn, the fiery Dawn.
 
THOTH AND SESHETA WRITING THE NAME OF RAMESE8 II. ON THE FRUIT OF THE PERSEA. {Belief from the Bamesumn at Theles.)
32
THE   DAWN OF ASTRONOMY.
[CHAT. III.
The red colours at sunset were said to be caused by the blood flowing from the Sun-god when he hastens to his suicide. A legend describes Isis as stanching the blood flowing from the wound inflicted on Homs by Set.
 
CLEOPATEA AS THE GODDESS ISIS.
llathm' is, according to Budge, identified with Nu or Nu-t, the sky, or place in which she brought forth and suckled Horus. She is the female power of Nature, and has some of the attributes of Isis, Nu-t, and Maat.
We next have to gain some general idea of the Egyptian
CHAP. III.)
COSMOGONY.
33
cosmogony—the relation of the sun and dawn to the sky; this is very different from the Indian view. The Sky is Nu or Nu-t, represented as a female figure bending over Seb, the Earth, with her feet on one horizon and her finger-tips on the other. Seb is represented by a recumbent figure,
 
I£IS (SEATED).
while the sky, represented by the goddess Nu-t, is separated from the earth by Shu, the god of air or sunlight. The daily journey of the sun is represented by a god in a boat traversing the sky from east to west. The goddess Nu-t is variously symbolised. Sometimes there is a line of stars along her
D
34
THE DA WX OF ASTRONOMY.
{CHAF. III.
back, which clearly defines her nature, but sometimes she is represented by a figure in which the band of stars is accompanied by a band of water. This suggests the Jewish idea of the firmament. We read of the firmament in the midst of the waters, which divided the waters from the waters, the
 
waters above being separated from the waters below the firmament.
It would seem that it was not very long before the Egyptians saw that the paths of the sun and stars above the horizon were extremely unequal: in the case of the sun, at different times of the year; in the case of the stars, depending upon their position near the equator or either pole. In this way, perhaps, we may explain a curious variant of the drawing of the goddess Nu-t, in which she is represented double, a larger one stretching over a smaller one.
CHAP. III.)
THE APPARENT DAILY MOTION.
35
Not only the Sun-gods, but the stars, were supposed to travel v in boats across the firmament from one horizon to the other. The under-world was the abode of the dead; and daily the sun, and the stars which set, died on passing to the regions of the west, or Amenti, below the western horizon, to be born again on the eastern horizon on the morrow.
In this we have the germ of the Egyptian idea of immortality.
Among other gods which may be mentioned are Chnemu, the “ Moulder,” who was thought to possess some of the attributes of Ra; and Ptah, the “ Opener,” who is at times represented with Isis and Neplithys, and then appears as a form of Osiris.
We can now begin to glimpse the Egyptian mythology.
Seb, the Earth, was the husband of Nu-t, the Sky; and D 2
 
THE GODDESS NU-T.
36
   
[CHAP. III.
the Sun- and Dawn-gods and -goddesses were their children, as also were Shu representing sunlight, and Tefnut representing the flames of dawn.
Maat, the goddess of law, was the daughter of Ra.
 
THE GODDESS NU-T REPRESENTED DOUBLE.
We know several points regarding Egyptian customs independently of the astronomical inscriptions, properly so- called, to which 1 have called attention. We know that there were sacrifices at daybreak ; we know that stars were watched before sunrise, and heralded the dawn; we know that these
CHAP. III.]
STAR OBSERVATIONS.
37
observations were among the chief duties of the sacrificial priests, and it is obvious that a knowledge of star-places, as well as star-names, must have been imperative to these morning watchers, who eventually compiled lists of decans— that is, lists of belts of stars extending round the heavens, the risings of which followed each other by ten days or so.
 
These are the exact equivalents of the moon-stations which the Indians, Arabians, and other peoples invented for the same purpose. We also find, more or less indeterminately from inscriptions in some graves at Thebes, that the daily risings of the chief stars were observed very carefully throughout the year. Unfortunately the inscriptions in question are very difficult indeed to co-ordinate. There have been
J
36
   
[CHAP. III.
the Sun- and Dawn-gods and -goddesses were their children, as also were Shu representing sunlight, and Tefnut representing the flames of dawn.
Maat, the goddess of law, was the daughter of Ra.
 
THE GODDESS NU-T REPRESENTED DOUBLE.
We know several points regarding Egyptian customs independently of the astronomical inscriptions, properly so- called, to which 1 have called attention. We know that there were sacrifices at daybreak; we know that stars were watched before sunrise, and heralded the dawn; we know that these
CHAP. III.)
STAR OBSERVATIONS.
37
observations were among the chief duties of the sacrificial priests, and it is obvious that a knowledge of star-places, as well as star-names, must have been imperative to these morning watchers, who eventually compiled lists of decans— that is, lists of belts of stars extending round the heavens, the risings of which followed each other by ten days or so.
 
VARIOUS FORMS OF SHU.
These are the exact equivalents of the moon-stations which the Indians, Arabians, and other peoples invented for the same purpose. We also find, more or less indeterminately from inscriptions in some graves at Thebes, that the daily risings of the chief stars were observed very carefully throughout the year. Unfortunately the inscriptions in question are very difficult indeed to co-ordinate. There have been
38
   
[CHAP III.
various efforts made to connect them with certain stars, but, so far, I am afraid they have resisted all efforts to get a complete story out of them, though certain very important points have been made out. These points I shall consider later.
It is not too early to point out here that there is evidence
 
FORMS OF PTAH, THE GOD OF MEMPHIS.
that the Egyptian pantheon, as I have stated it, had not a simple origin. There are traditions that many of the gods came from a region indeterminately described as the land of Punt. Among these gods are Chnemu, Amen-Ra, Hathor, and Bes. On page 28 I have associated Bes with Typhon, following several authorities, but if they are right it is very difficult to understand his role. It may also be added
CHAP. III.]
THE PANTHEON.
39
that the temple-evidence supports the view of his foreign origin.1
When one comes to consider the Rig-Veda and the Egyptian monuments from an astronomical point of view, one is struck by the fact that, in both, the early worship and all the early observations related to the horizon/ This was true not only of the sun, with , which so far we have exclusively dealt, but it was equally true of the stars which studded the general expanse of sky.
In Egypt, then, as in India, the pantheon was astronomical and, to a very large extent, solar in origin! I shall have to show that the remainder—nearly the whole of it—had its origin in stellar relations.
1 See B&szlinsMi’s “ JTiatnry nf   Vol. IT., p. 134, for references on this subject.
CHAPTER IV.
THE TWO HORIZONS.
IT is not only of the first importance for our subject, but of great interest in itself, to study some of the astronomical problems connected with this horizon worship, which in the previous chapter we have found to be common to the early peoples of India and Egypt.
We must be perfectly clear before we go further what
 
APPARENT MOVEMENT OF THE STARS TO AN OBSERVER AT THE NORTH POLE.
this horizon really is, and for this some diagrams are necessary.
The horizon of any place is the circle which bounds our view of the earth’s surface, along which the land (or sea) and sky appear to meet. We have to consider the relation of the horizon of any place to the apparent movements of celestial bodies at that place.
We know, by means of the demonstration afforded by Foucault’s pendulum, that the earth rotates on its axis, but
CHAP. IV.)
THE HORIZON.
41
this idea was, of course, quite foreign to these early peoples. Since the earth rotates with stars, infinitely removed, surrounding it on all sides, the apparent movements of the stars will depend very much upon the position we happen to occupy on the earth: this can be made quite clear by a few diagrams.
An observer at the North Pole of the earth, for instance, would see the stars moving round in circles parallel to the horizon. No star would either rise or set—one half of the heavens would be always visible above his horizon, and the other half invisible; whereas an observer at the South Pole would see that half of the stars invisible to the observer at
 
APPARENT MOVEMENT OF THE STARS TO AN OBSERVER AT THE EQUATOR.
the northern one, because it was the half below the N. horizon. If the observer be on the equator, the movements of the stars all appear as indicated in the above diagram—that is, all the stars will rise and set, and each star in turn will be half its time above the horizon, and half its time below it. But if we consider the position of an observer in middle latitude, say in London, we find that some stars will always be above the horizon, some always below—that is, they will neither rise nor set. All other stars will both rise
42
   
[CHAP. IV.
and set, but some of them will be above the horizon for a long time and below for a short time, whereas others will be a very short time above the horizon and a long time below it.
At 0 we imagine an observer to be in latitude 45° (that is, half-way between the equator in latitude 0°, and the North Pole in latitude 90°), hence the North Celestial Pole will be half-way between the zenith and the horizon; and close to the pole he will see the stars describing circles, inclined, however, and not retaining the same distance from the horizon. As the
 
AN OBLIQUE SPHERE.
eye leaves the pole, the stars rise and set obliquely, describe larger circles, gradually dipping more and more under the horizon, until, when the celestial equator is reached, half their journey is performed below it. Still going south, we find the stars rising less and less above the horizon, until, as there were northern stars that never dip below the horizon, so there are southern stars which never appear above it. DD shows the apparent path of a circumpolar star; BB'B" the path and rising and setting points of an equatorial star; C C’ C" and A A'A" those of stars of mid-declination, one north and the other south.
ClIAP. IV.]
EARTH A SPHERE.
43
Wherever we are upon the earth we always imagine that we are on the top of it. The idea held by all the early peoples was that the earth was an extended plain: they imagined that the land that they knew and just the surrounding lands were really in the centre of the extended plain. Plato, for instance, as we have seen, was content to
 
A TERRESTRIAL GLOBE WITH WAFER ATTACHED TO SHOW THE VARYING CONDITIONS OF OBSERVATION IN A MIDDLE LATITUDE.
put the Mediterranean and Greece upon the top of his cube, and Anaximander placed the same region at the top of his cylinder.
We can very conveniently study the conditions of observation at the poles of the earth, the equator, and some place in middle latitude, by using an ordinary terrestrial globe.
44
   
(CHAP. IV.
The wooden horizon of the globe is parallel to the horizon of
a place at the top of the globe, which horizon we can represent by a wafer. In this way we can get a very concrete
We have next to deal with the astronomical relations of
the sun and stars at the times of rising or setting, when, of course, they are on or near the horizon; and in order to bring this matter nearer to the ancient monuments, it will be convenient to study this question for Thebes, where they exist in greatest number and have been most accurately described.
To adjust things properly we must rectify the globe to the latitude of 25° 40' N., or, in other words, incline the axis of the globe at that angle to the wooden horizon.
It will be at once seen that the inclination of the axis to the horizon is very much less than in the case of London. Since all the stars which pass between the North Pole and the horizon cannot set, all their apparent movement will take place above the horizon. All the stars between the horizon and the South Pole will never rise. Hence, stars within the distance of 25° from the North Pole will never set at Thebes, and those stars within 25° of the South Pole will never be visible there. At any place the latitude and the elevation of the pole are the same. It so happens that all these places with which archaeologists have to do in studying the history of early peoples, Egypt, Babylonia, Assyria, China, Greece, &c., are in middle latitudes, therefore we have to deal with bodies in the skies, which do set, and bodies which do not; and the elevation of the pole is neither very great nor very small. In each different latitude the inclination of the equator to the horizon, as well
idea of the different relations of the observer’s horizon in different latitudes to the apparent paths of the stars.
the horizon of any place in connection with the worship of
 
i
V
CHAP. IV.]
ASTRONOMICAL DEFINITIONS.
45
as the elevation of the pole, will vary, but there, will be a strict relationship between the inclination of the equator at each place and the elevation of the pole. Except at the poles themselves the equator will cut the horizon due east and due west. Therefore every celestial body which rises or sets to the north of the equator will cut the horizon between the east or west point and the north point; those bodies which do not set will, of course, not cut the horizon at all.
The sun, and stars near the equator, in such a latitude as that of Thebes, will appear to rise or set at no very considerable angle to the vertical; but when we deal with stars rising or setting near to the north or south points of the horizon they will seem to skim along the horizon instead of rising or setting vertically.
Now it will at once be obvious that there must be a strict law connecting the position of the sun (or a star) with its place of rising or setting. Stars at the same distance from either of the celestial poles will rise or set at the same point of the horizon, and if a star does not change its place in the heavens it will always rise or set in the same place.
Here it will be convenient to introduce one or two technical terms. Every celestial body, whether we deal with the sun, moon, planet, or star, occupies at any moment a certain place in the sky, partly, though not wholly, defined by what we term its declination, i.e., its distance from the /' celestial equator. This declination is one of the two coordinates which are essential for enabling us to state accurately the position of any body on the celestial vault; and we must quite understand that if all these bodies rise and set, and rise and set visibly, the place of their rising or setting must be very closely connected with their declination. Bodies with the same declination will rise at the same points
46
   
(CHAP. IV.
of the horizon. When the declination changes, of course the body will rise and set in different points of the horizon.
Next we define points on the horizon by dividing the whole circumference into four quadrants of 90° each=360°, so that we can have azimuths of 90° from the north or south points to the east and west points.
Azimuths are not always reckoned in this way, navigators preferring one method, while astronomers prefer another. Thus azimuth may also be taken as the distance measured in degrees from the south point in a direction passing through the
 
SHOWING AMPLITUDES RECKONED FROM THE EAST OR WEST POINTS TO N.P., NORTH POINT OF HORIZON, AND S.P., SOUTH POINT OF HORIZON,
west, north, and east points. On this system, a point can have an azimuth varying from 0° to 360°.
It is next important to define the term amplitude. The amplitude of a body on the horizon is its distance north and south of the east and west points; it is always measured to the nearest of these two latter points, so that its greatest value can never exceed 90°. For instance, the south point itself would have an amplitude of 90° south of west (generally written W. 90° S.), or 90° south of east (E. 90° S.), while a point 2° to the westward of south would have an amplitude of W. 88° S., and not E. 92° S.
CHAF. IV.]
AMPLITUDES AT THEBES.
47
We can say then that a star of a certain declination will rise or set at such an azimuth, if we reckon from the N. point of the horizon, or at such an amplitude if we reckon from the equator. This will apply to both north and south declinations.
The following table gives for Thebes the amplitudes of rising or setting (north or south) of celestial bodies having declinations from 0° to 64°; bodies with higher declinations than 64° never set at Thebes if they are north, or never rise if they are south, as the latitude (and therefore the elevation of the pole) there is nearly 26°.
AMPLITUDES AT THEBES.
Declination.   Amplitude.   Declination.   Amplitude.   Declinatiou.   Amplitude.
o   o   /   o   o   /   0   o   /
0   0   0   22   24   33   44   50   25
1   1   7   23   25   41   45   51   41
2   2   13   24   26   49   46   52   57
3   3   20   25   27   58   47   54   14
4   4   26   26   29   6   48   55   32
5   5   33   27   30   15   49   56   51
6   6   40   28   31   23   50   58   12
7   7   47   29   32   32   51   59   34
8   8   53   30   33   41   52   60   58
9   9   59   31   34   51   53   62   23
10   11   6   32   36   1   54   63   51
11   12   13   33   37   11   55   65   21
12   13   20   34   38   21   56   66   54
13   14   27   35   39   31   57   68   31
. 14   15   34   36   40   42   58   70   12
15   16   41   37   41   53   59   71   59
16   17   49   38   43   5   60   73   55
17   18   56   39   44   17   61   76   1
18   20   3   40   45   30   62   78   25
19   21   10   41   46   43   63   81   19
20   22   17   42   47   56   64   85   42
21   23   25   43   49   10         
48
   
[CHAP. IV.
v.
 
? l
The absolute connection, then, between the declination of a heavenly body and the amplitude at which it rises and sets is obvious from the above table: given the declination we know the amplitude; given the amplitude we know the declination.
Suppose we were dealing with a sea horizon: all the bodies rising or setting at the same instant of time would be in a great circle round the heavens, for the plane of the sensible horizon is parallel to the geocentric one.
But there are some additional points to be borne in mind. Ordinarily we should determine that the amplitude being so and so, the declination of the body which rose or set with that amplitude would be so and so, taking the horizon to be an all-round horizon like a sea one. But that would not be quite true, because we generally see the sun, to take an instance, some little time before it really rises and after it has set, owing to refraction. So that if we see the sun setting, say, north of west, we know that when we see it setting it appears really a little further to the north than it actually was at the moment of true sunset, because refraction gives us the position of the sun just below the true horizon. That is one point that we have to consider. Another is that, of course, we as a rule do not deal with sea horizons. Here we find a hill, there some other obstacle; so that it is necessary to make a correction depending on the height of the hill or other obstacle above the sea- or true-liorizon at the place. Only when we take these things completely into consideration, can we determine absolutely the declination, or distance from the celestial equator, of the body at the moment of rising or setting. Still, it is worth while noting that when only approximations are required, the refraction- and hill-corrections have a tendency to neutralise each other in the northern hemisphere. Refraction will tend to carry the sunrise or sunset place more to the north,
AMPLITUDES
 
DIAGRAM SHOWING THE VARIOUS AMPLITUDES AT WHICH STARR OF DIFFERENT DECLINATIONS RISE AND SET
IN DIFFERENT LATITUDES.
k
50
   
[CHAP. IT.
hills will cause the body to appear to rise or set more to the south.
It is important to point out that these corrections vary very considerably in importance according to the declination of the star with which we have to deal. With a high north or south declination the amplitude increases very rapidly, and the more it increases the more the corrections for refraction and elevation above the true horizon to which I have referred become of importance. In all cases the correction has to be made so that the amplitude will be increased or decreased from the true amplitude by this effect of refraction, according as the body— whether sun or star—is seen to the north or south of the oquator.
In the diagram given on page 49, the various amplitudes arc shown at which bodies of different declinations appear to rise and set in places with latitudes ranging from 19° to 51° N. It is a diagram to which frequent reference will be made in the sequel.
CHAPTER V.
THE YEARLY PATH OP THE SUN-GOD.
LET US, then, imagine the ancient Egyptians, furnished with the natural astronomical circle which is provided whenever there is an extended plain, engaged in their worship at sunrise, praying to the “Lord of the two Horizons.” The rising (and setting) of stars we will consider later; it is best to begin with those observations about which there is the least question.
In the very early observations that were made in Egypt and Babylonia, when the sun was considered to be a god who every morning got into his boat and floated across space, there was no particular reason for considering the amplitude at which the supposed boat left or approached the horizon. But a few centuries showed that this rising or setting of the sun in widely varying amplitudes at different parts of the year depended upon a very definite law. We now, more fortunate than the early Egyptians, of course know exactly what this law is, and with a view of following their early attempts to grapple with the difficulties presented to them we must pass to the yearly path of the sun, in order to “study the relation of the various points of the horizon occupied by the sun at different times in the year.
Not many years ago Foucault gave us a means of demonstrating the fact that the earth rotates on its axis. We have also a perfect method of demonstrating that the earth not only rotates on its axis once a day, but that it moves round the sun once a year, an idea which was undreamt of by the ancients. As a pendulum shows us the rotation, so the E 2
52
   
[CHAP. V.
determination of the aberration of light demonstrates for us the revolution of the earth round the sun.
We have, then, the earth endowed with these two movements—a rotation on its axis in a day, and a revolution round the sun in a year. To see the full bearing of this on our present inquiry, we must for a time return to the globe or model of the earth.
To determine the position of any place on the earth’s surface we say that it is so many degrees distant from the equator, and also so many degrees distant from the longitude of Greenwich : we have two rectangular co-ordinates, latitude and longitude. When we conceive the earth’s equator extended to the heavens, we have a means of determining the positions of stars in the heavens exactly similar to the means we have of determining the position of any place on the earth. We have already defined distance from the equator as north or south declination in the case of a star, as we have north latitude or south latitude in case of a place on the earth. With regard to the other co-ordinate, we can also say that the heavenly body whose place we are anxious to determine is at a certain distance from our first point of measurement, whatever that may be, along the celestial equator. Speaking of heavenly bodies, we call this distance right ascension ; dealing with matters earthy, we measure from the meridian of Greenwich and call the distance longitude.
\j The movement of the earth round the sun is in a plane ' which is called the plane of the ecliptic, and the axis of v rotation of the earth is inclined to that plane at an angle of something like 23^°. We can if we choose use the plane of the ecliptic to define the positions of the stars as we use the plane of the earth’s equator. In that case we talk of distance from the ecliptic as celestial latitude, and along the ecliptic
CHA*. V.)
YEARLY PATH ROUXD THE SUN.
53
from one of the points where it cuts the celestial equator as celestial longitude. The equator, then, cuts the ecliptie at two points: one of these is chosen for the start-point of measure- A ment along both the equator and the ecliptic, and is called the ' first point of Aries.
We have, then, two systems of co-ordinates, by each of which we can define the position of the sun or a star in the heavens: equatorial co-ordinates dealing with the earth’s equator, ecliptic co-ordinates dealing with the earth’s orbit. Knowing that the earth moves round the sun once a year, the year to us moderns is defined with the most absolute accuracy. In fact, we have three years: we have a sidereal year—that is, the time taken by the earth to go through exactly 360° of longitude; we have what is called the tropical year, which indicates the time taken by the earth to go through not quite 360°, to go from the first point of Aries till she meets it again; and since the equinoctial point advances to meet the earth, we talk about the precession of the equinoxes; this year is the sidereal year minus twenty minutes. Then there is also another year called the anomalistic year, which depends upon the movement of the point in the earth’s orbit where the earth is nearest to the sun; this is running away, so to speak, from the first point of Aries, instead of advancing to meet it, so that in this case we get the sidereal year plus nearly five minutes.
The angle of the inclination of the earth’s plane of rotation to the plane of its revolution.round the sun, which, as I have said, is at the present time something like 23}°, is called the obliquity of the ecliptic. This obliquity is subject to a slight change, to which I shall refer in a subsequent chapter.
In order to give a concrete idea of the most important . points in the yearly path of the earth round the sun, let us imagine four globes arranged on a circle representing the earth
54
THE DAWS OF ASTRONOMY.
(CHAP. V.
at different points of its orbit, with another globe in the centre representing the sun, marking the two practically opposite points of the earth’s orbit, in which the axis is not inclined to or from the sun but is at right angles to the line joining the earth in these two positions, and the two opposite and intermediate points at which the north pole of the axis is most inclined towards and away from the sun.
A diagram will show what will happen under these conditions. If we take first the points at which the axis, instead of being inclined towards the sun, is inclined at right angles to it, it is perfectly obvious that we shall get a condition of things in which the movement of the earth on its axis will cause the dark side of the earth and also the light side represented by the side nearest to the sun, both being of equal areas, to extend from pole to pole; so that any place on the earth rotating under those conditions will be brought for half a period of rotation into the sunlight, and be carried for half a period of the rotation out of the sunlight; the day, therefore, will be of the same length as the night, and the days and nights will therefore be equal all over the world.
We call this the time of the equinoxes; the nights are of the
 
same length as the day in both these positions of the earth with regard to the sun.

Prometheus:

In the next figure we have the other condition. Here the earth’s axis is inclined at the greatest angle of 23°|, towards, and
CHAP. V.]
EQUINOXES AND SOLSTICES.
55
away from, the sun. If I take a point very near the north pole, that point will not, in summer, be earned by the earth’s rotation out of the light, and a part equally near the south pole will not be able to get into it. These are the conditions at and near two other points called the solstices.
 
EARTH AND SUN AT THE SOLSTICES.
On each of these globes I have drawn a line representing the overhead direction from London. If we observe the angle between the direction of the zenith and that to the sun in winter we find it considerable; but if we take the opposite six-monthly condition we get a small angle.
In other words, under the first condition the sun at noon will be far from the zenith of London, we shall have winter; and in the other condition the sun will be as near as it can be to the zenith at noon, we shall have summer. These two cases represent the two points in the earth’s orbit at which the sun has the greatest declination south and north. With the greatest north declination the sun will come up high, appear to remain at the same height above the horizon at noon for a day or two, as it does at our summer solstice, and then go down again; at the other point, when it has the greatest southern declination, it will go down to the lowest point, as it does in our winter, stop, and come up again—that is, the sun will stand still, so far as its height above the horizon at noon is concerned, and the Latin word solstice exactly expresses that idea. We have, then, two opposite points in the revolution of the earth round the sun
56
   
[CHAP. V.
at which we have equal altitudes of the sun at noon, two others when the altitude is greatest and least.
f
j
 
\S
DIAGRAM SHOWING POSITION OF THE SUN IN RELATION TO THE ZENITH OF LONDON AT THE NORTHERN WINTER SOLSTICE.
 
S
DIAGRAM SHOWING POSITION OF THE SUN IN RELATION TO THE ZENITH OF LONDON AT THE NORTHERN SUMMER SOLSTICE.
We get the equal altitudes at the equinoxes, and the greatest and the least at the solstices.
These altitudes depend upon the change of the sun’s declination. The change of declination will affect the azimuth and amplitude of the sun’s rising and setting; this is why, in our northern hemisphere, the sun rises and sets most to the north in summer and most to the south in winter. At the equinoxes the sun has always 0° Decl., so it rises and sets due east and west all over the world. But at the solstices it has its greatest declination of 23^° N. or S.; it will rise and set, therefore, far
CHAP. V.)
EQUINOXES AND SOLSTICES.
67
from the east and west points; how far, will depend upon the latitude of the place we consider. The following are approximate values:
Latitude of   Amplitude of Sun
Place.   at Solstice.
25
30
35
40
45
50
55
26   5
27   24
29   8.
31   21
34 40 38 20 44   0
At Thebes, Lat. 25° 40' N., representing Egypt, we find that the amplitude of the sun at rising or setting at the summer solstice will be approximately 26° N. of E. at’ rising, and 26° N. of W. at setting.
These solstices and their accompaniments are among the striking things in the natural world. At the winter solstice we have the depth of winter, at the summer solstice we have the height of summer; while at the equinoxes we have but transitional changes; in other words, while the solstices point out for us the conditions of greatest heat and greatest cold, the equinoxes point out for us those two times of the year at which the temperature conditions are very nearly equal, although of course in the one case we are saying good-bye to summer and in the other to winter. In Egypt the summer solstice was paramount, for it occurred at the time of the rise of the Nile, the beginning of the Egyptian year.
Did the ancients know anything about these solstices and these equinoxes ? Were the almost mythical Hor-shesu or sun-worshippers familiar with the annual course of the sun ? That is one of the questions which we have to discuss.
CHAPTER VI.
THE PROBABLE HOR-SHESU WORSHIP.
AT the end of the last chapter I referred to the Hor-shesu or followers, that is worshippers, of the Sun-god Horus. I shall have to refer to the traditions relating to them at a later stage, but it is well that I should state here that those personages who preceded the true historic period are considered by De Roug£ and others to represent l(le type de TantiquiU la plus recuUe.”
Let us for the moment accept the truth of the various traditions relating to them, and suppose that they left traces of their worship; what, in the light of the last chapter, should we expect to find? The thing most likely to remain would be ancient shrines in all probability serving for the foundation of nobler structures built in later times.
This brings us to the question as to the probabilities of temple-building generally in relation to the heavenly bodies; but before I deal with it, it is important to consider a view first put forward, I believe, by Vitruvius, and repeated by all since his time who have dealt with the question, that the temples were built purely and simply to face the Nile.1
The statement is so far from the truth that it is clear that those who have made it had not studied the larger temple-fields. Indeed, we have only to note the conditions at Karnak
1 u The temples of tho gods ought to be so placed that the statue, which has its station in eella, should, if there be nothing to interfere with such a disposition, face the west; in order that those who come to make oblations and offer sacrifices may face tho east. .   .   . When
temples are built in the neighbourhood of a river, they should command a view of its banks, like the temples of Egypt upon the borders of the Nile.”- Vitruvius, Civil Architecture, Section Chapter V.
CHAP. VI.]
TEMPLE BUILDING.
59

alone to determine whether there is any truth in the view that the temples face the river. We see at once that this idea cannot be true, because we have the chief temples facing in four directions, while the Nile flows only on one sidp.
Other archaeologists who have endeavoured to investigate the orientations of these buildings have found that they practically face in all directions; the statement is that their arrangement is principally characterised by the want of it; they have been put down higgledy-piggledy; there has been a symmetrophobia, mitigated perhaps by a general desire that the temple should face the Nile. This view might be the true one, if stars werjh^ not observed as well as the sun.
With regard to all the temples of the ancient world, whether they are located in Egypt or elsewhere, we must never forget that if astronomy is concerned in them at all, we have to deal with the observations of the rising or setting of the heavenly bodies; whereas the modem astronomer cares little for these risings or settings, but deals only with them on the meridian.
The place of rising or setting would be connected with the temple by the direction of the temple’s axis.
Now, the directions towards which’ the temples point are astronomically expressed by their “amplitudes!’—that is, the distance in degrees from the east or west'point of the horizon. For instance, a temple facing east would have an amplitude of zero from the east point. If we suppose a temple oriented to the north, it would have an amplitude of 90°; if halfway between the east and north, the amplitude would be 45° north of east, and so on. So that it is possible to express the amplitude of a temple in such a way that the temples in the same or different countries or localities, with the same or equivalent amplitudes, may be classified; and the more temples
X
60         [O«AP. vi.
which can be thus brought together, the more likely is any law relating to their structure to come out.
Let us take this, then, as a general principle. Now how would it be carried out ?
It becomes pretty obvious, when we consider the conditions of things in these early times, that the stars would be the objects which would first commend themselves to the attention of temple builders, for the reason that the movements and rising- and setting-places of the various planets by night, and of the sun by day, would appear to be so erratic, so long as the order of their movements was not known.
To go a step further. It is clear in the first place that no one would think of orienting a temple to the moon, as there is so little constancy about its path in the sky, and, therefore, in its place of rising or setting. . If the temple caught it each month, the intervals between which this occurrence takes place would vary very considerably, and in early times would have been impossible to predict. Similarly it would not be worth while to orient temples to the planets. But when we come to the stars, the thing is different. A few years’ observations would have appeared to demonstrate the absolute changelessness of the places of rising and setting of the same stars. It is true that this result would have been found to be erroneous when a long period of time had elapsed and when observation became more accurate; but for hundreds of years the stars would certainly appear to represent fixity, while the movements of sun, moon and planets would seem to be bound by no law.
Before, then, the yearly apparent movements of the sun had been fully made out, observations of a star rising or setting with the sun at some critical time of the agricultural cycle, say sowing-time or harvest, would be of the highest
CHAP. VI.]
SOLAR TEMPLES.
61
importance, and would secure the work being done at the right time of the—to the early peoples—still unforniulated year.
If a star was chosen in or near the ecliptic, sooner or later the sun-light as well as the star-light would enter the temple, and the use of a solar temple might have thus been suggested even before the solstices or equinoxes had been thoroughly grasped.
There is no doubt that if we are justified in assuming that the stars were first observed, the next tiling that would strike the early astronomers would be the regularity of the annual movement of the sun; the critical times of the sun’s movements as related either to their agriculture, or their festivals, or- to the year; the equinoxes and the solstices, would soon have revealed themselves to these early observers, if for no other reason than that they were connected in some way or other with some of the important conditions of their environment.
After a certain time, solar temples, if built at all, w6uld be oriented either to the sun at some critical time of the agricultural—or religious—year, or to the solstices and equi-. noxes. But at first, until the fixity of the sun’s yearly movements and especially the solstices and equinoxes had been recognised, it would have seemed as useless to direct a temple to the sun as to the moon. After a time, however, when the solstiees and equinoxes had been made out, it would soon have been found that a temple once directed to the sun’s rising place at harvest or sowing time, or at a solstice or an equinox, would continue for a long period to mark those critical points in the sun’s yearly course; and when this yearly course had been finally made out it would soon be observed that the sun at any part of the agricultural year was as constant (indeed, as we now know, more constant) in its rising- and setting-place as a star.
62
THE -DAWN OF ASTRONOMY.
[CHAP. VI.
But dealing with s/m-worshippcrs, and endeavouring to think out what the earliest observers probably would try to do in the case of a solar temple, we see that, in all likelihood, they would orient it to observe the sun at one of the chief points in the year which could be best marked. I have said “which could be best marked,” but how was this to be done ? Evidently, if terrestrial things were to be assisted, the marking must have been by something exterrestrial, otherwise they would have been reasoning in a circle; and moreover we must take for granted that what was wanted was a warning of what was to be done.
Now, in the earliest times, as I have said, the constant movements of the stars would have stood out in strong contrast to the inconstant movements of the sun, and I think that there can be little doubt that the first fixing of any point in the year was by the rising or setting of some star at sunrise— or possibly sunset.
It is obvious that this might have gone on even before the solstices and equinoxes were recognised.
When this came about, then temples might have been directed to the sun at a solstice or an equinox.
Was it difficult to do this ? Did it indicate that the people who built such temples were great astronomers ? Nothing of the kind; nothing is more easy to determine than a solstice or an equinox.
Let us take the solstice first. We know that at the summer solstice the sun rises and sets furthest to the north, at the winter solstice furthest to the south. We have only from any point to set up a line of stakes before the time of the solstice, and then alter the line of them day by day as the sun gets further to the north or south, until no alteration is wanted. The solstice lias been found.
CHAP. VI.]
THE GNOMON.
63
There is another way of doing it. Take a vertical rod. Such a rod, which I may state is sometimes called a gnomon and used to measure time, may be used with another object : we may observe the length of the shadow cast by the sun when it is lowest at the winter solstice, and when it is highest; at these two positions of the sun obviously the lengths of the shadows thrown will be different. When the noon-sun is nearest overhead in the summer the length of the shadow will be least, when the sun is most removed from the zenith the shadow will be longest.
The day on which the shortest shadow is thrown at noon will define the summer solstice; when the shadow is longest we shall have the winter solstice.
This, in fact, was the method adopted by the Chinese to determine the solstices, and from it very early they found a value of the obliquity of the ecliptic.
It may be said that this is only a statement, and that the record has been falsified; some years ago anyone who was driven by facts to come to the conclusion that #,ny very considerable antiquity was possible in these observations met with very great difficulty. But the shortest and the longest shadows recorded (1100 years B.C.) do not really represent the true lengths at present. If anyone had forged these observations he would state such lengths as people would find to-day or to-moiTow, but the lengths given were different from those which would be found to-day. Laplace, who gave considerable attention to this matter, determined what the real obliquity was at that time, and proved that the record does represent an actual observation, and not one which had been made in later years.1
Next suppose an ancient Egyptian wished to detennine the time of an equinox. We know from the Egyptian tombs that their stock-in-trade, so far as building went, was very
1 See Biot, ‘'Etudes sur rAstronomic Indienne,” p. 293.
64
THE DA TF.V OF A8TR0X0MY.
(CHAP. VI.
considerable; they had squares, they had plumb-lines, they had scales, and all that sort of thing, just as we have. He would first of all make a platform quite flat; he could do that by means of the square or plumb-line; then he would get a ruler with pretty sharp edges (and such rulers are found in their tombs), and in the morning of any day he would direct this ruler to the position of the sun when it was rising, and he would from a given point draw a line towards the sun; he would do the same thing in the evening when the sun set; he would bisect the angle made by these two lines, and it would give him naturally a north and south line, and a right angle to tills would give him east and west. So that from observations of the sun on any one day in the year he would practically be in a position to determine the points at which the sun would rise and set at the equinox—that is, the true east and west points.
Suppose that the sun is rising, let a rod throw a shadow; mark the position of the shadow; at sunset we again note where the shadow falls. If the sun rises exactly in the east and sets exactly in the west, those two shadows will be continuous, and we shall have made an observation at the absolute equinox. But suppose the sun not at the equinox, a line joining the ends of the shadows equally long before and after noon will be an east and west line.
It is true that there may be a slight error unless we are very careful about the time of the year at which we make the observations, because when the sun is exactly east or west at the time of rising or setting it changes its declination most quickly. So it is better to make the above observations of the sun nearer the solstices than the equinoxes, for the reason stated.1
1 See Biot, Sur divers points d* Astronomic ancicnne : Memoires, Academie dcs Sciences,” 1846, p. 47.
k.
CHAP. VI.]
SOLSTITIAL TEMPLES.
65
We have now got so far. If the Egyptians worshipped the sun and built temples to it, they would be more likely to choose the times of the solstices and the equinoxes than any other after its annual movement had been made out.
Is it possible to bring any tests to bear to see whether they did this or not? Certainly: examine the temples which still remain, and where they have disappeared examine the temenos walls which still exist as mounds in many cases.
Suppose we take, to begin with, as before, that region of the earth’s surface in the Nile valley with a latitude of about 26° N. The temples will have an amplitude of about 26° N. or S. if they have anything to do with the sun at the solstices. Any structures built to observe the sun will have an east and west aspect true if they have anything to do with the sun at the equinoxes. Dealing with a solstitial temple, the first thing to observe is the amplitude of the temple, which must depend upon the latitude in which it was Wished to note the rising or setting of the sun at either of the solstices. If we take the latitude 26° N., which is very nearly the latitude of Thebes, the amplitude has to be 26° as stated above; so that a temple at Thebes having an amplitude of 26° would be very likely to have been oriented to the sun at the moment that it was as far from the equator as it could be—i.e., at the time of the longest day of the year—in which case we should be dealing with the summer or northern solstice ; or of the shortest day of the year, if dealing with the winter or southern solstice.
As we deal with higher latitudes, we gradually increase the amplitude, until, if we go as far as the latitude of the North Cape, the sun at the summer solstice, as everybody knows, has no amplitude either at rising or setting, because it passes clear above the horizon altogether, and is seen at midnight.
F
66
   
[CHAP. VI.
Those are the conditions which will define for us a solstitial solar temple. We see the amplitude of the temple must vary with the latitude of the place where it is erected.
But the temples directed to the sun at an equinox will be directed to an amplitude of 0: that is, they vail point E. or W., and this will be the case in all latitudes.
The orientation of a temple directed to the sun at neither the solstices nor the equinoxes will have an amplitude less than the solstitial amplitude at the place.
As a matter of fact, as I shall show in the sequel, some of the temples recognised as temples of the sun in the inscriptions are of this latter class.
CHAPTER VII.
METHODS OF DETERMINING THE ORIENTATION OF TEMPLES.
THIS brings us at once to a practical point. It will be asked, How can such an inquiry be prosecuted ? How can the amplitudes of the temples be determined ?
 
AZIMUTH COMPASS.
Nothing is easier. An azimuth compass is all that is necessary for all but the most accurate inquiries.
The azimuth compass is an instrument familiar to many;
 
SECTION OP AZIMUTH COMPASS.
A, needle and card ; P, prism ; s v, directrix or frame carrying a wire directed to the object and seen over the prism while the prism reflects to the eye the division of the scale underneath it.
F 2
68
   
[CHAP. VII.
it consists *of a magnetic needle fastened to a card carrying a circle divided into 360°, which can be conveniently read by a prism when the instrument is turned toward any definite direction marked by a vertical wire. Its use depends upon the fact that at the same place and at the same time all magnetic needles point in the same direction, and the variation for the true north and south direction is either supposed to be known or can be found by observation.
 
THEODOLITE FOB DETERMINING AZIMUTH AND ALTITUDES.
A theodolite armed with a delicately hung magnetic needle, which can be rotated on a vertical axis, will do still better ; it has first of all to be levelled. There is a little telescope with which we can see along the line. When we wish, for instance, to observe the amplitude of a temple, the theodolite is set up on its tripod in such a position that we can look along a temple wall or line of columns, etc., by means of the telescope. We then get a magnetic reading of the direction after having unclamped the compass; this gives the angle made between the line and the magnetic north (or south), as in the azimuth compass.
What we really do by means of such an instrument is to
CHAr. VII.]
THE MERIDTAX LIXE.
69
determine the astronomical meridian by means of a magnetic meridian. Here some definitions will not be out of place.
The meridian (rneridm = midday) of any place is the great circle of the heavens which passes through the zenith (the point overhead) at that place and the poles of the celestial sphere.
The meridian line at any place is the intersection of the plane of the meridian with the plane of the horizon at that place, or, in other words, it is the line joining the north and south points. If we have the proper instruments, we can determine the meridian line astronomically at any place by one of the following methods:—
(1)   If only an approximate position is required, the best means of determining it is by fixing the direction of the sun or a star when it has the greatest altitude. The instrument to be used for this purpose would be a small theodolite with both a vertical and horizontal circle, and provided also with tangent screws to give slow motion to each of the circles as required.
By using stars of both .high and low altitudes, a greater exactness can be obtained, but, after all, the method only gives a first approximation, as its weakness lies in the very slow change of altitude as the meridian is approached.
(2)   A much more accurate method is that of observing with N , an altitude and azimuth instrument the azimuth (i.e., its angular distance east or west of the north or south) of a star when
at the same altitude east and west of the meridian. If the mean of the two readings given by the azimuth circle bo taken? the resulting reading indicates the direction of the meridian.
If we employ the sun in place of a star, its change of declination during the interval between the observations must be taken into account.
(3)   To find the meridian line by means of the pole star is a simple and accurate method, as a value can bo obtained at
70
   
[CHAP. VII.
any time at night by a simple altitude, provided the time of observation is known.5
If these means of directly determining the astronomical meridian line are not available, then we have to do it indirectly by using the magnetic meridian in the first instance.
If we take a magnetic needle and balance it horizontally on a vertical pivot, its ends will be directed to two points on the horizon. By drawing a great circle through these two points and the zenith point of the place, we obtain the magnetic meridian.
The magnetic meridian line is the intersection of the plane of the magnetic meridian with the plane of the horizon. The angle between the astronomical and magnetic meridian lines is called the variation, E. or W. according as the needle points to the W. or E. of true—that is, astronomical—north at any particular place at any particular time. The variation may vary from place to place, and always varies from time to time.
The bearing required has, in the first instance, to be determined by the instruments already referred to in relation to the magnetic meridian.
Having made such an observation, the next thing we have to do is to determine the astronomical or true north, which is the only thing of value.
If the magnetic variation has been determined for the
1 For a detailed account of the way in which the formula in use has been obtained, the reader had bettor turn to Vol. I., p. 253, of Chauvenet’s “ Spherical and Fractical Astronomy.’*
If wo denote the latitude by <p,
and let j»=the star’s polar distance, a= ,,   „ right ascension,
0 = sidereal time of observation, h — the star’s altitude, t= „   „ hour angle ;
then, knowing that
t = e -a,
the formula may be written as follows :—
<p~h — p cos. t + J p1 sin. 1" sin.2f tan. hm
The Nautical Almanac gives tables to facilitate the computations involved, but greater exactness is obtained by direct computation.
CHAP. VII.]
MAGNETIC VARIATION.
71
region, we may use a map. Such a map as that shown below gives us the lines along which in the British Isles the compass variation west of north reaches certain values. From such a map for Egypt we learn that in 1798 a magnet swung along a line extending from a little to the west of
 
MAGNETIC MAP OF THE BRITISH ISLES, SHOWING THE VARIATION AT DIFFERENT POINTS.
Cairo to the second cataract would have had a variation of 115° to the west; in 1844 of 8£° to the west; and at the present time the variation is such that observations made along the same part of the Nile valley will have a variation closely approximating 4^° to the west. By means of such a
\
72         [CH*P. VII.
map it is quite possible to get approximately the astronomical bearings of all temples which were observed by the French in 1798 or by the Germans in 1844, or which can be observed in the present day, provided always that there is no local magnetic attraction.
If we are not fortunate enough to possess such a map, the methods previously referred to for obtaining the astronomical north must be employed; observing the direction in which the sun culminates at noon will give us the south point astronomically; from observations of the pole star at night the astronomical north can also be determined. From the former of these observations the magnetic variation is obtained without any difficulty, even in the absence of accurate local time. When this is available other methods are applicable.
It is sad to think how much time is lost in the investigation of a great many of these questions for the reason that the published observations were made only with reference to the magnetic north, which is vastly different at different places, and is always varying. Few indeed have tried to get at the astronomical conditions of the problem. Had this been done with minute accuracy in all cases, either by the French or Prussian Commissions to which I have referred, it is perfectly certain that the solstitial orientation of Karnak and other temples, which I shall have to mention, would have been long ago known to all scholars.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE EARLIEST SOLAR SHRINES IN EGYPT.
NOT only can an inquiry like that referred to in the previous chapter be prosecuted—it has been prosecuted.
The French and Prussian Governments have vied with each other in the honourable rivalry of mapping and describing the monuments. The French went to Egypt at the end of the last century, while the Scientific Commission which accompanied the army, a Commission appointed by the Institute of France, published a series of volumes containing plans of all the chief temples in the valley of the Nile as far south as Philae.
In the year 1844, some time after Cliampollion had led the way in deciphering the hieroglyphics, we became almost equally indebted to the Prussian Government, who also sent out a Commission to Egypt, under Lepsius, which equalled the French one in the importance of the results of the explorations ; in the care with which the observations were made, and in the perfection with which they were recorded. In attempting to get information from ancient temples on the points to which I have referred, there is, therefore, a large amount of information available ; and it is wise to study the region round and below Thebes where the information is so abundant and is ready to our hand.
First, then, with regard to the existence of solar temples. Dealing with the monumental evidence, the answer is absolutely overwhelming. The evidence I bring forward consists of that afforded by some of the very oldest temples
74
   
ICHAP. VIII.
that we know of in Egypt. Among the most ancient and sacred fanes was one at Annu, On, or Heliopolis, which,- the tradition runs, was founded by the Shesu-Hor before the time of Mena; Mena, as we have seen, having reigned at. a date certainly not less than 4000, and possibly 5000 years B.C.
 
PL AX OF THE MOUNDS AT ABYDOS. (From Jffirhttc.')
The Nile valley holds other solar temples besides that we have named at Heliopolis. Abydos was another of the holiest places in Egypt in the very earliest times.
Since the temples and temple mounds at Abydos can be
CHAP. VIII.]
TEMPLE MOUNDS.
75
better made out than those at Heliopolis, I will take them first. The orientations given by different authors are so conflicting that no certainty can be claimed, but. it is possible that at Abydos one of the mounds is not far from the amplitude shown in the tables for the sun in the Nile valley at sunfeet at the summer solstice. If this were so, the Egyptians who were employed in building the temple must have known exactly what they were going to do.
At Heliopolis, as I have hinted, the matter is still less certain. Almost every trace of the temple has disappeared, but of remains of temenos walls in 1844, when the site was studied by Lepsius, there wer§ plenty. At Kamak, where- both temples and temenos walls remain, we can see how closely the walls reflect the orientation of the included temples, even when they seem most liable to the suggestion of symmetrophobia. I have before stated that the Egyptians have been accused of hating every regular figure, and the irregular figures at Kamak are very remarkable; in the boundary walls of the temple of Amen- Ra there are two obtuse angles; round the Mut temple we also have walls, and there again this hatred of similarity seems to come out, for we have one obtuse and ®no acute angle. But if we examine the thing a little carefully, we find that there is a good deal of method in this apparent irregularity. The wall of the temple of Amen-Ra is parallel to the face of the temple or at right angles to its length. One wall of Mut is perfectly parallel to the face of the temple or at right angles to the sphinxes. And the reason that we do not get right angles at one end of the wall is that the walls of the temple at Mut are parallel to the chief wall of the temple of Amen-Ra. Surely it must be that, before these walls were built, it was understood that there was a combined worship; that they stood or fell together. One thing was not attempted in one temple and
76
   
[CllAP. VIII.
another thing in another, but the worship, of each was i*eflected in the other. If this be true, there was no hatred of symmetry, but a definite and admirable reason why these walls should be built as they were.
With the knowledge we possess of both temenos walls and, temples at Kamak, and of the, I may almost say, symbolism of
TRUE NORTH.
 
THE MOUNDS AND OBELISK AT ANNU.
the former, it is fair to conclude that when temples have gone we may yet get help from the walls. The walls at Heliopolis are the most extraordinary I have met with in Egypt, as may be gathered from the accompanying reduction of Lepsius’ map.
The arrow in Lepsius’ plan is so wrongly placed that the plan is very misleading. It follows from Captain Lyons’ observations and my own that the longest mound heads 11° N. of W.
CHAP. VIILJ
SOLAR TEMPLE OF ANNU.
77
to 14° S. of E. within a degree; the condition of the mounds renders more accurate measures impossible.1 •
It is to he gathered from the inscriptions that the temple within these mounds, now only represented by its solitary obelisk, was styled a sanctuary or temple of the sun.3

Prometheus:

As the orientation of the N. and S. faces of the obelisk is 13° N. of W., the sun’s declination must have been 11° N. The times of our year marked by it, therefore, were 18th April and 24tli August. But it must not be forgotten that the temple may have been built originally to watch the rising or setting of a star which occupied the declination named, and possibly, though not necessarily, at some other time of the year. I shall return to this subject.
If Maspero and the great authorities in Egyptology are light—namely, that the Annu temple was founded before 4000 B.C.—the above figures drive us to the conclusion that we have
1 Since 1 left Egypt, in February, 1893, Captain Lyons has been good enough to comply with my request to repeat the observations. I give the following extract from his letter :—
“ The mounds are only within a degree, as it is only the general direction which can be taken. South mound old temenos wall, 2894° mag. bearing = 19J° N. of W.
Wall at right angles ...   189° mag. bearing = 71° S. of W.
Going to the West mound there are two higher humps wjth an opening between them, tons of limestone chips, sandstone blocks with Rameses II.’s name; so that I take this for the site of the great pylon. It is exactly opposite the obelisk, and distant, I should guess,
600 yards. gfte 0f S. pylon to obelisk, 1064° mag. bearing = 164° S. of E.
Pole of N. pylon to obelisk, 109J° mag. bearing = 194° S. of E.
So I think probably the remaining obelisk is the northern one {cf. Homer, “ Phil. Trans.,” MDCCCLV., pp, 124 and 131), and the temple axis was directed 2894° mag. bearing with corr. 64°= 284° = 14° N. of West true amplitude/'
3 Amenemat I., the founder of the sanctuary of the sun, entreats, after he has begun the great work (which was not finished till the time of his sop, Usertesen), “ May it not perish by the vicissitudes of time, may that which is made endure! ” This desire of a great king which has come down to us through the leathern roll now preserved at Berlin, has not been fulfilled; for of his magnificent structure, built for all eternity, nothing remains but the obelisk we have seen, and a few blocks of stone scarcely worth mentioning. The Persian Cambyses is unjustly accused of having destroyed the temple and city of the sun, for the city was minutely described in detail long after his time, and the temple was still flourishing i nay, many remains of the sanctuary, that have now long since vanished, were described even by Arab authors.—Ebcrs, “ Egypt,” p. 190.
78
   
(CBAP. mi.
in tliis temple a building which was orientated to the sun, not at a solstice, some 6000 years ago.
So much for two of the places known to be of the highest antiquity in Egypt. There remains another locality supposed to date from more modem times—I refer to Thebes. It is here that evidence of the most certain kind with regard to the solstitial temples is to be found.
At Karnak itself there are several temples so oriented, chief among them the magnificent Temple of Amen-Ra, one of the wonders of the world, to which a special chapter must be devoted. Suffice it to say here that the amplitude of the point to which the axis of the great temple of Amen-Ra points is 26° N. of W., which we learn from the table already given is the amplitude of the place of sunset at the summer solstice in the latitude of Thebes. The amplitude of the point to which the axis of an attached small temple points is 26° S. of E., exactly the position of sunrise at the winter solstice.
It must not be forgotten in this connection that the Colossi of the plain on the other side of the river, and the associated temple, also face the place of sunrise at the winter solstice.
The list of solar solstitial temples, so far probably traced, is as follows:—
Place and Temple.   Amplitude. Declination. Date.
Kasr Rerun    27° S. of E.   S.   23f
S.E. * 1   Karnak (O)      26f S. of E.   S.   23f
Temples.   Memnonia (Avenue   of Sphinxes) ' 27 S. of E.   S.   24
(orientation not to
l Erment    27i'S.ofW. S. 24F
Temples.1
N.W. ! Karnak (Q. K)   26V N. of W. K. 23i0
Temples.! Karnak (U)      27|°N.ofW. N. 24|°
THE COLOSSI OF THE PLAIN AT THEBES AT HIGH NILE, ORIENTED TO TIIE SUNRISE AT THE
WINTER SOLSTICE.
(These are statues of Amen-hetep III., and are monoliths (JO feet high.)
L   
 
80
   
[CHAI*. VIII.
We have seen that it did not require any great amount of astronomical knowledge to determine either the moment of the solstice or the moment of the equinox. The most natural thing
 
PLAN OP MEMPHIS. (From Leptiux.)
to begin with was the observation of the solstice, for the reason that at the solstice the sun can be watched day after day getting more and more north or more and more south until it comes to a standstill. But for the observation of the equinox, of course,
CB*P. VIII.J EQUINOCTIAL TEMPLES AND   SI
the sun is moving most rapidly either north or south, and therefore it would be more difficult to determine in those days the exact moment.
 
EAST AND WEST PYBAMIDS AND TEMPLES AT GiZEH. {From Lepxivx.')
We next come to the question as to whether any buildings were erected from an equinoctial point of view—that is, buildings oriented east and west.
Nothing is more remarkable than to go from the description
c.
82
   
(CHAP. VIII.
and the plans of such temples as we have seen at Abydos, Annu, and Karnak, to regions where, apparently, the thought is totally and completely different, such as we find on the Pyramid Plains at Gizeh, at Memphis, Tanis, Sai's, and Bubastis. The orientation lines of the German surveyors show beyond all question that the pyramids and some of the temenos walls
at the places named are just as true to the sunrising at the equinoxes as the temples referred to at Karnak were to the sun-rising and setting at the solstices, and the Sphinx was merely a mysterious nondescript sort of thing which was
 
there watching for the
TEMPLE AND TEMENOS WALLS OF TANIS.   •   „ ,.C   „„„   -A.
r • N   rising ot the sun at an
(From Lcpsnt#.)   ©
• equinox, as the Colossi of the plain at Thebes were watching for the rising of the sun at the winter solstice.
Further, the temples at Gizeli, instead of being oriented to the north-west and to the south-east, are just as truly oriented to the east and west as the Pyramids themselves. We have either Temples of Osiris pointing to the sunset at the equinox, or temples of Isis pointing to the sunrise at the equinox, but in either case built in relation to the Pyramids. As an indication of the importance of the considerations with which we are now dealing, I may mention that it is suggested by them that the building near the Sphinx is really a crypt of a temple of Isis or Osiris. This is a view which may change the ideas generally held with regard to its age to the extent of something like a
CHAP. VIII.]
TEMPLES OF ISIS   OSIRIS.
83
thousand years. It has been imagined that it was at least one thousand years older than the second Pyramid; but if it be ultimately proved that this is really a temple of Isis or Osiris, then since it was built in just as strict relation to the side
 
of the Pyramid as the temple near the Pyramid was to its centre, both temples were most probably built at the same time as the Pyramid itself. However this may be, the important thing is that when we pass from Thebes, and possibly Abydos, to the Pyramids at Memphis, to Sais and Tunis, we find a
 
THE TEMPLE NEAR THE SPHINX, LOOKING WEST (TRUE), SHOWING ITS RELATION TO THE SOUTH FACE
OF THE SECOND PYRAMID.
(/Vow a photograph hij Mr. Fra ring,')

CHAP. VIII.]
THE XILE-RISE AT THE SOLSTICE.
85
solstitial orientation changed to an equinoctial one. There is a fundamental change of astronomical thought.
I confess I ain impressed by this distinction: from, the astronomical point of view it is so fundamental that almost a difference of race is required to explain it. 1 say this advisedly, although I know creed can go a great way, because among these early peoples their astronomy was chiefly a means to an end. It was not a story of abstract conceptions, or the mere expression of interesting facts whether used for religious purposes or not. The end was a calendar, of festivals and holydays if you will, but a calendar which would allow their tillage and harvest to prosper.
Now, it is almost impossible to suppose that those who worshipped the sun at the solstice did not begin the year at the solstice. It is, of course, equally difficult to believe that those who preferred to range themselves as equinoctials did not begin the year at an equinox. Both these practices could hardly go on in the case of the same race in the same country, least of all in the valley where an annudl inundation marked the solstice.
I shall show subsequently how the rise of the Nile, which took place at the summer solstice, not only dominated the industry, but the astronomy and religion of Egypt; and I was much interested in hearing from my friend Dr. Wallis Budge that the rise of the Tigris and Euphrates takes place not far from the spring equinox. This may have dominated the Babylonian calendar as effectually as the date of the Nile-rise dominated the Egyptian. If so, we have a valuable hint as to the origin of the equinoctial cult at Gizeh and elsewhere, which in all probability was interpolated after the nonequinoctial worship had been first founded at Annu, Abydos, and possibly Thebes.
CHAPTER IX.
OTHER SIMILAR SHRINES ELSEWHERE.
THE observations which have been made in Babylonia are very discordant among themselves, and at present it is impossible to say, from the monuments in any part of the region along the Tigris valley, whether the temples indicate that the solstices were familiar to the Babylonians.
The ancient cities which have so far been excavated and the modem names of the sites are as follows :
Let us take, for instance, the region in the valley near where the Upper Zab joins the main stream. We gather from the map published in 1867 by Place,1 that NimrCid, the modern Calah, is near the junction, while the mounds of Kouyunjik, Mosul, and Kliorsabad, representing the ancient Dur Sarginu, are to the north (36° N. latitude). There are two other mounds shown on the map at Djigan and Tel Hakoab.
Now, by inspection it is quite clear that none of the mounds except that of NimrCid lie east and west. It becomes important, therefore, to determine their orientation; but, alas! this is
Nineveh   =
Babylon   =
Calah   =
Erecli   =
Ur of the Clmldfees = Ashur   =
Dur Sarginu   =
Kouyunjik.
Birs Nimrud.
Niinrud.
Warka.
Mukeyyer.
Kalat Sherkat
Kliorsabad.
1 “ Ninive et PAssyrie,” par Victor Place. Imprimerie Imperial©, 1867.
CHAP. IX.]
MOUND,S' AT KHORSABAD.
87
nearly impossible with the sole exception of Khorsabad, for no measures appear to have been made.
At first sight the matter seems more hopeful in the case of Khorsabad, for we have not only the plans of Place, but those of Botta and Flandin.1 The plans seem oriented with care, so far as the existence of a compass direction is concerned—for that is present while it too often is lacking in such productions—but in neither series is it stated whether N. means true or magnetic north.
Both observers noted a well-marked temple facing N.E., and also an “ observatory.” About the temple there can be no mistake, for the fair-way of the light to it is carefully preserved, and there is a flight of wide steps on the northeast side of it.
Place gives the orientation 37° N. of E. in one plan and 39° in another. Botta and Flandin give 31^° in one plan and 32° in another! Now, the change in the magnetic variation between 1849 and 1867 will not explain this difference, nor indeed can it be accounted for by supposing that the magnetic north is in question in one set of plans and the true north in the other;* and it is clear that no perfectly certain conclusion can be arrived at till this work has been done over again. But it is known that M. Flandin was a skilled surveyor, and we have the remarkable fact, that if we take his value, we have the amplitude of the sun at the summer solstice in the latitude of Nineveh !
1 “ Monument de Xinive,” par Botta and Flandin. Imprimerie Nationale, 1849.
9 From a magnetic chart which has been prepared for me by the kindness of Captain Creak, R.N., F.R.S., of the Hydrographic Department of the Admiralty, it seems that the variation at Nineveh and Babylon may be taken as follows
Nineveh.   Babylon.
1800   ...   8°25'W    8‘25'W.
1900   ...   0°       0° 25 W.
The values for intermediate dates may be roughly arrived at by an interpolation curve
88
   
[CHAP. IX.
I certainly think the temple may be accepted as a solstitial solar temple provisionally; and if so, the question is raised whether the structures in Assyria, supposed to be oriented so that the angles face the cardinal points, are not all of them oriented to the sun at a solstice or to some other heavenly body. Certainly we must have more definite measures before the statement generally made can be accepted as final.
When we leave Assyria we find other countries, it is true still farther afield, in which the existence of solstitial temples of a great antiquity of foundation is fully recognised.
The great temple of the sun at Pekin is oriented to the winter solstice. The ceremonials which take place there are thus described by Edkins:—
“ The most important of all the State observances of China is the sacrifice at the winter solstice, performed in the open air at the south altar of the Temple of Heaven, December 21st The altar is called Nan-Tan, ‘south mound/ or Yuenkieu, * round hillock9—both names of the greatest antiquity.
“ Here also are offered prayers for rain in the early summer. The altar is a beautiful marble structure, ascended by twenty-seven steps, and ornamented by circular balustrades on each of its three terraces. There is another on the north side of somewhat smaller dimensions, called the Ch’i-ku-t’an, or altar for prayer on behalf of grain. On it is raised a magnificent triple-roofed circular structure 99 feet in height, which constitutes the most conspicuous object in the tout ensemble, and is that which is called by foreigners the Temple of Heaven. It is the hall of prayer for a propitious year, and here, early in the spring, the prayer and sacrifice for that object are prosecuted. These structures are deeply enshrined in a thick cypress grove, reminding the visitor of the custom which formerly prevailed among the heathen nations of the Old Testament, and of the solemn shade which surrounded some celebrated temples of ancient Greece.7’
The Temple of Heaven is thus described:—
“ The south altar, the most important of all Chinese religious structures, has the following dimensions: It consists of a triple circular terrace, 210 feet wide at the base, 150 in the middle, and 90 at the top. In these, notice the multiples of three :   3x3 = 9, 3x5=15, 3x7=21. The
heights of the three terraces, upper, middle, and lower, are 5*72 feet,
CHAP. IX.]
THE PEKIN SUN TEMPLE.
89
6-23 feet, and 5 feet respectively. At the times of sacrificing, the tablets to heaven and to the Emperor’s ancestors are placed on the top; they are 2 feet 5 inches long, and 5 inches wide. The title is in gilt letters; that of heaven faces the south, and those of the ancestors east and west. The Emperor, with his immediate suite, kneels in front of the tablet of Shang-Ti and faces the north. The platform is laid with marble stones, forming nine concentric circles ; the inner circle consists of nine stones, cut so as to fit with close edges round the central stone, which is a perfect circle. Here the Emperor kneels, and is surrounded first by the circles of the terraces and their enclosing walls, and then by the circle of the horizon. He thus seems to himself and his court to be in the centre of the universe, and turning to the north, assuming the attitude of a subject, he acknowledges in prayer and by his position that he is inferior to heaven, and to heaven alone. Round him on the pavement are the nine circles of as many heavens, consisting of nine stones, then eighteen, then twenty-seven, and so on in successive multiples of nine till the square of nine, the favourite number of Chinese philosophy, is reached in the outermost circle of eighty-one stones.
“ The_ same symbolism is carried throughout the balustrades, the steps, and the two lower terraces of the altar. Four flights of steps of nine each lead down to the middle terrace, where are placed the tablets to the spirits of the sun, moon, and stars and the year god, Tai-sui. The sun and stars take the east, and the moon and Tai-sui the west: the stars are the twenty-eight constellations of the Chinese zodiac, borrowed by the Hindoos soon after the Christian era, and called by them the Naksha-tras; the Tai-sui is a deification of the sixty-year cycle.” 1
We find, then, that the most important temple in China is oriented to the winter solstice.
To mention another instance. It has long been known that Stonehenge is oriented to the rising of the sun at the summer solstice. Its amplitude instead of being 26° is 40° N. of E.; with a latitude of 51°, the 26° azimuth of Thebes is represented by an amplitude of 40° at Stonehenge.
The structure consists of a double circle of stones, with a sort of naos composed of large stones facing a so-called avenue, which is a sunken way between two parallel banks.
^‘Journeys in North China,” Williamson. Yol. II., chap, xvi., by Belkins, p. 253.
90
   
[CHAP. IX.
This avenue stretches away from the naos in the direction of the solstitial sunrise.
But this is not all. In the avenue, but not in the centre of its width, there is a stone called the “ Friar’s Heel,” so located in relation to the horizon that, according to Mr. Flinders Petrie,1 who has made careful measurements of the whole structure, it aligned the coming sunrise from a point behind the naos or trilithon. The horizon is invisible at the entrance of the circle, the peak of the heel rising far above it; from behind the circles the peak is below the horizon. Now, from considerations which I shall state at length further on, Mr. Petrie concludes that Stonehenge existed 2000 B C. It must not be forgotten that structures more or less similar to Stonehenge are found along a line from the east on both sides of the Mediterranean.2
It will be seen that the use of the marking stone to indicate the direction in which the sun will rise answers exactly the
 
STONEHENGE, FROM THE NORTH.
'“Stonehenge: Plans, Descriptions, and Theories,” 1880, p. 20. 2 Ferguson : “Rude Stone Monuments.”
CHAP. IX.]
STONEHENGE,
91
same purpose as the long* avenue of majestic columns and pylons in the Egyptian temples. In both cases we had a means of determining the commencement and the succession of years.
South-West.
 
North-East.
STONEHENGE RESTORED.
Hence, just as. surely as the temple of Kamak once pointed to the sun setting at the summer solstice, the temple at Stonehenge pointed nearly to the sun rising at the summer solstice. Stonehenge, there is little doubt, was so constructed that at sunrise at the same solstice the shadow of one stone fell exactly on the stone in the centre; that observation indicated to the priests that the New.Year had begun, and possibly also fires were lighted to flash the news through the country. And in this way it is possible that we have the ultimate origin of the midsummer fires, which have been referred to by so many authors.1
We have thus considered solstitial temples scattered widely over the earth’s surface far from the Nile Valley.
1 See especially The Golden Bough,” by J. G. Fraser, for the midsummer and Beltaine fires.
 

92
   
[CHAP. IX.
We may now return to the equinoctial temples which can still be traced to the N.E. of that valley—the chief ones being those, remains of which still exist at Jerusalem, Baalbek, and Palmyra, where stone was available for the temple builders. These temples were apparently as perfectly squared to the equinox as the Pyramids at Glzeh. I will take the temple of Jerusalem first, as its history is moi’e complete than that of the others.
We learn from the works of Josephus that as early as Solomon’s time the temple at Jerusalem was oriented to the east with care;1 in other words, the temple at Jerusalem was parallel to the temple of Isis at the Pyramids; it was open to the east, closed absolutely to the west. In plan, as we shall see, it was very like an Egyptian temple, the light from the sun at the equinox being free to come along an open passage, and to get at last into the Holy of Holies. We find that the direction of the axis of the temple shows the existence of a cult connected with the possibility of seeing the sun rise at either the spring, or the autumn equinox.
All the doors being opened, the sunlight would penetrate over the high altar, where the sacrifices were offered, into the very Holy of Holies, which we may remember was only entered by the high priest once a year; it could have done that twice a year, but as a matter of fact it was only utilised once; whereas at Kamak the priest would only go into the Holy of Holies once a year, because it was only once illuminated by the sun in each year.
There is evidence, too, that the entrance of the sunlight on the morning of the spring equinox formed part of the ceremonial. The priest being in the naos, the worshippers outside, with their backs to the sun, could see the high priest by means
1 “ Antiquities,’* b. 8, c. 4, p. 401, Whiston’s edition.
CHAP. IX. I
THE TEMPLE AT JERUSALEM.
93
of the sunlight reflected from the jewels1 in his garments, thus referred to by Josephus:—
“I will now treat of what I befoie omitted—the garment of the high priest, for he [Moses] left no room for the evil practices of [false] prophets; but if some of that sort should attempt to abuse the Divine authority, he left it to God to be present *at His sacrifices when He pleased, and when He pleased to be absent. And he was willing this should be known, not to the Hebrews only, but to those foreigners also who were there. For as to those stones, which we told you before, the high priest bare on his shoulders, which were sardonyxes (and I think it needless to describe their feature, they being known to everybody), the one of them shined out when God was •present at their sacrifices.'2 I mean that which was of the nature of a button on his right shoulder, bright rays darting out thence, and being seen even by these who were most remote; which splendour yet was not before natural to the stone/'
Josephus3 states that the miraculous shining of the jewels ceased two hundred years before his time, “God having been displeased at the transgression of His laws.”
This remark of Josephus quite justifies the assumption that the effect of sunlight on the priest’s jewels formed part of the ceremonial, and in this way. In the earliest times there is no doubt that the equinoctial temples. were solar temples pure and simple, and the rising sun would always, in fine weather, shine into them at the equinox, which, while they were used as solar temples, marked New Year’s Day. The influence of the later Babylonian astronomy, however, at length replaced the sun by the moon, and the year would commence, not at the equinox, but by a new oi- a full moon near the equinox. If either of these happened at the equinox, well and good; but if not, then the sun’s declination might be widely different from 0°—it might amount roughly to 10° either N. or S.—and under these circumstances, as the amplitude
1 Josephus, “ Antiquities” III., c. 8, § 9.   8 The italics uro mine—J. N. L.
3 ‘‘Antiquities” III., e. 8, $ 9.
94
   
[CHAP. IX. •
would be greater, the sun’s light could not enter the temple at all at the date of the feast. More than this, a mistake of a month might be made, or a question of old style and new style might come in, and that of course would make matters worse. In this way, then, the withdrawal of the sunlight from the temple at Jerusalem admits of being astronomically explained.
It seems highly probable that the temple in question was built on a Phenician foundation, for some of the stones exceed 38 feet in length and weigh 90 tons.1 This remark is suggested by the fact that at Baalbek or Heliopolis, to which I next direct attention, the most ancient and most massive part of the structure is, in all probability, of Phenician origin. To give an idea of its massiveness, which is almost more than Egyptian, it may bo stated that there are three stones each about 64 feet long, 13 feet high, and 13 feet thick. There are smaller stones used in the filling in, of the same height and thickness, and 30 feet long.2 These form the western wall of the original naos or of its support.
Here the orientation is due E.s When we come to Palmyra, we find also another temple to the equinoctial sun; but here the sunset, and not the sunrise, is in question —the temple faces due west.
In the whole problem, then, of orientation as I have had to present it, and as it now stands, we seem for the moment to be face to face with two very remarkable and strange things; so strange that the argument may appear far-fetched and worthless, since we arc landed in a region apparently very far
1 Warren : •• Underground Jerusalem/’
3 Acosta, in his " History of Indies,” lib. vi., p. 459, quoted by Maurice (“ Observations Connected with Astronomy and Ancient History and Ruins of Babylon’*), states that some of the stones in the Mexican temples to sun and moon measure 38 feet by 18 feet by (» feet.
3 Set ** Palmyra and Baalbek.” R. Wood, 1827. Plates.
CRAP. IX. I THE DEIFICATION OF THE HEAVENLY HO DIES.
95
removed from our modem habits of thought. But is this really so ? I assume the personification or the deification of the sun: I shall subsequently have to include the stars ; I indicate special orientations of buildings devoted to the worship of the sun at one time of the year or another. But really both these things, though they seem improbable, have been carried down to our own day, quite independently of any question relating to Egypt. There is nothing new about them at all, and there is nothing really strange. When we go into an observatory we think nothing of turning our telescope towards Venus, or Jupiter, or Mars. Here we have the deification of the planets. It is perfectly true that this religious treatment of the planets is not of our own day: we have inherited it from the Greeks through the Latins; but we do not think it at all extraordinary that a planet should be called Venus or Jupiter. Thus we of to-day are completely in touch with the old Egyptians, except that the Egyptians were wiser in their generation, and looked after the sun at fixed points in the year and the constant stars instead of the variable planets.
Then, again, take the question of orientation. This is, after all, one which survives among ourselves. All our churches are more or- less oriented, which is a remnant of old sun-worship.1 Any church that is properly built to-day will have its axis
1 On this point I gather the following information from the article “ Orientation ” in the “ Grand Dictionnaire Universal du 19 Siecle,” by M. Pierre Larousse :—“From the fifth century to the time of the Renaissance, the orientation of churches was generally carried out. 'Hie mystical reasons furnished by the sacred writers—according to St. John of Damascus and Cassiodorus—were that Jesus on the Cross had His face turned towards the West, hence diristians during prayer must turn to the East to see it. Further, in the sacred writings Jesus is called the East [Orient ex alto). Again, Christians hope to see Christ descending in the East on the last day. Finally, the faithful when turning to the East during prayer establish a difference between themselves and the Jews and heretics, for the Jews w'hen praying turn West, and certain heretics South, and others North, hence the heathen said they w'ere sun-worshippers.” In the ninth century there was a stiong protest against orientation. Catholic churches were built any way, and it was said, “ JVune oremua ad omnem. partem quia Item ubiqiie eat.19
96
THE DAWN OF ASTRO FOXY.
[CHAP. IX.
pointing to the rising of the sun on the Saint’s Day, i.e., a church dedicated to St. John ought not to be parallel to a church dedicated to St. Peter. It is true that there are sometimes local conditions which prevent this; but if the architect knows his business properly he is unhappy unless he can carry
 
PLAN OF ST. PETER’S AT ROME, SHOWING THE DOOR FACING THE SUNRISE.
West.
East.
out this old-world tradition. But it may be suggested that in our churches the door is always to the west and the altar is always to the east. That is perfectly true, but it is a modem practice. Certainly in the early centuries the churches were all oriented to the sun, so that the light fell on the altar through the eastern doors at sunrise. The late Gilbert Scott, in his “ Essay on Church Architecture,” gives a very detailed account of these early churches, which in this respect exactly resembled the Egyptian temples.
In regard to old St. Peter’s at Rome,1 we read that “so exactly due east and west was the Basilica that, on the vernal equinox, the great doors of the porch of the quadriporticus were thrown open at sunrise, and also the eastern doors of the church itself, and as the sun rose, its rays passed through the outer
1 See Builder, Jan. 2, 1892.
 
ST. PETEK’S AT ROME; FACADE FACING THE EAST (TRUE).
I
98
   
[CHAP. IX.
doors, then through the inner doors, and, penetrating straight through the nave, illuminated the High Altar.” The present church fulfils the same conditions.
But we have between our own churches and the Egyptian temples a link in the chain which has just been magnificently completed by Mr. Penrose by his study of the Greek temples. These interesting results will occupy us in a later chapter.
CHAPTER X.
THE SOLAR TEMPLE OF AMEN-RA AT KARNAK.
So much having been premised concerning the early temple- worship of the sun in Egypt and the adjacent countries, and the survival of some of the ideas connected with it down to our own day, I next propose to describe the finest Egyptian solar temple which remains open to our examination—that of Amen-Ra at Kamak.
Of the chief solar temples referred to in a previous chapter, two have passed away; even the orientation of the one at Heliopolis I was only able to determine by the mounds, assuming them to bear the same relation to the temple as other mounds do, and the remaining obelisk.
The temple at Abydos is also a mound; but in the case of the temple of Amen-Ra at Thebes the case is different: instead of being a mere heap, the orientation of which is obtainable only by the general lie of the remains, this temple is still in such preservation that Lepsius in the year 1844 could give us a large number of details about it, and locate the position of the innumerable courts. Its orientation to the solstice we can claim, as I hope to be able to show, as an early astronomical observation. So it is quite fair to say that, many thousand years ago at all events, the Egyptians were perfectly familiar with the solstices, and therefore more or less fully with the yearly path of the sun.
This temple of Amen-Ra is beyond all question the most majestic ruin in the world. There is a sort of stone avenue in the centre, giving a view towards the north-west, and this axis
100
THE   DAWXOF
(CHAP. X.
 
is something like five hundred yards in length. The whole object of the builder of the great temple at Karnak—one of the
most soul-stirring temples which have ever been conceived or built by man—was to preserve that axis absolutely open; and all the wonderful halls of columns and the like, as seen on one side or other of the axis, are merely details; the point being that the axis should be absolutely open, straight, and true. The axis was directed towards the hills on the west side of the Nile, in which are the tombs of the kings. From the external pylon the South-eastern outlook through the ruins shows the
AXIS OF THE TEMPLE OF AMEN-RA FROM THE   .   .   .   .   -
WESTERN PYLON, LOOKING SOUTH-EAST.   AVilOlC length Ol
CHAP. X.J
THE GREAT TEMPLE "KARNAK.
101
the temple, and we see at the very extremity of the central line a gateway nearly six hundred yards away. This belonged
SOUTH-EAST.

 
RK 1- f
****«?
 
HL
IV
V
VI.
VII.
vm
Olitfftmt Sanctuary.
Obeli« is,
Hull <>f Columns.
InttTinr Pylon. Outer Court. y. \ ? enm 1 w astern Pylon- Sphinxes.
1 Temple M. r<f Lisp.
H ins.
-! Teuiph ? d Hcti i [. Hide Entrance.
t South Wii LI,
">? f Pyl. 'I .- of Sf Mltlt it ) ConrtA

10
H / Inner Court A near 0 j the Sanctuary.
i i
fmr]
NORTH-WE8T.
^ | N. Wall.
c ) Columns in Outer d l‘ Court, N. Side, e ) Columns in Outer / j’ Court, S. Side. g Taharqa's Columns.
PLAN OF THE TEMPLE OF AMEN-RA AND SOME OF ITS SURROUNDINGS. INCLUDING THE
SACRED LAKE.
102
" ‘' THE ' HA WN 'OF ASTRONOMY.
[CHAP. X.
to a temple pointing towards the south-east. There were really two temples in the same line back to back, the chief one facing the sunset at the summer solstice, the other probably the sunrise at the winter solstice. The distance which separates the outside entrances of both these temples is greater than that from Pall Mall to Piccadilly; the great temple covers about twice the area covered by St. Peter’s at Rome, so that the whole structure was of a vastness absolutely unapproached in the modem ecclesiastical world.
Some Egyptian temples took many tens of years to build; the obelisks, all in single blocks, were brought for hundreds of miles down the Nile. The building of a solar temple like that of Amen-Ra meant to the Egyptians a very serious undertaking indeed.
Some of the structural details are of a very curious nature, while the general arrangement of the temple itself is no less extraordinary. First, with regard to the temple axis. It seems to be a general rule that from the entrance-pylon the temple stretches through various halls of different sizes and details, until at last, at the extreme end, what is called the Sanctuary, Naos, Adytum, or Holy of Holies, is reached. The end of the temple at which the pylons are situated is open, the other is closed. These lofty pylons, and even the walls, are sometimes covered with the most wonderful drawings and hieroglyphic figures and records. Stretching in front of the pylons, extending sometimes very far in front, are rows of sphinxes. This principle is carried to such an extent that in some cases separate isolated gates have been built right in front and exactly in the alignment of the temple.
From one end of the temple to the other we find the axis marked out by narrow apertures in the various pylons, and many walls with doors crossing the axis.
 
VIEW TO THE SOUTH-WEST FROM THE SACRED LAKE OF AMEN-RA.
i
104
THE DAWN OF ASTRONOMY
[CHAP. X.
In the temple of Amen-Ra there are 17 or 18 of these apertures, limiting the light which falls into the Holy of Holies or the Sanctuary. This construction gives one a very
 
RUINS OF DOOR AT ENTRANCE OF THE SANCTUART.
definite impression that every part of the temple was built to subserve a special object, viz., to limit the light which fell on its front into a narrow beam, and to carry it to the other extremity of the temple—into the sanctuary, so that once a
 
106
   
[CHAP. X.
year when the sun set at the solstice the light passed without interruption along the whole length of the temple, finally illuminating the Sanctuary in most resplendent fashion and striking the Sanctuary wall. The wall of the Sanctuary opposite to the entrance of the temple was always blocked. There is no case in which the beam of light can pass absolutely through the temple.
The point was to provide an axis open at one end and absolutely closed at the other, the open courts being only found towards that end towards which the temple opened, the other end being all but absolutely dark and quite blocked up at the extremity.
These sunlight effects were fully appreciated. Referring to the obelisks erected by Queen Hatsliepset as a monument to her father Amen, an inscription at the base of one of these says, “ They are seen an endless number of miles off: it is a flood of shining splendour when the sun shines between the two ; ”1 and again, “ The sun’s disc shines between them as when it rises from the horizon of heaven.”2
Passing from the temple at Karnak to others in a better state of preservation, we can gather that the part of the axis furthest from the entrance was covered, so that in the penetralia there was only a dim religious light. The entrance is also, as it were, guarded by a massive exterior pylon, as in the more or less modern temple of Edfu. This, again, reduces the light in the interior.
It is easy to recognise that these arrangements bear out the idea of an astronomical use of the temple.
First of all we know that the temple was directed to the place of the sun’s setting; and if the Egyptians wished to lead
1   Brugseh, “ Egypt,” p. 174.
2   Inscription south side of obelisk quoted in “ Records of the Past,” Vol. XII. (Letter from C'apt. Lyons).
 
m
108
   
[CHAP. X.
the narrow shaft of light which was bound to enter the temple, since it was directed to the sunset, they would have contrived the very system of gradually narrowing doors which we have found to be one of the special features of the temple.
The doors were considered as very important—and no wonder. In the account given of Thothmes III.’s restoration of the temple of Amen-Ra, we read that after the building had been constructed in a “position corresponding to the four quarters of heaven ” the great stone gateways were erected.
“ The first had doors of real acacia wood covered with plates of gold, fastened with black bronze and iron.”
Then came a propylon (Bekhen) with three other gates connected with it covered with plates of copper, and the sacrifices were brought through these.1
This idea is strengthened by considering the construction of the astronomical telescope. Although the Egyptians knew nothing about telescopes, it would seem that they had the same problem before them which we solve by a special arrangement in the modern telescope—they wanted to keep the light pure, and to lead it into their sanctuary as we lead it to the eyepiece. To keep the light that passes into the eyepiece of a modern telescope pure, we have between the object-glass and the eyepiece a series of what are called diaphragms; that is, a series of rings right along the tube, the inner diameters of the rings being greatest close to the object-glass, and smallest close to the eyepiece; these diaphragms must so be made that all the light from the object-glass shall fall upon the eyepiece, without loss or reflection by the tube.
These apertures in the pylons and separating walls of Egyptian temples exactly represent the diaphragms in the modem telescope.
1 Brugsch, “ Egypt,” p. 177.
CHAP. X.]
THE SANCTUARY.
109
What then was the real use of these pylons and these diaphragms ? It was to keep all stray light out of the carefully roofed and darkened Sanctuary; but why was the Sanctuary to be kept in darkness ?
The first point that I wish to make is that these temples— whatever view may be entertained with regard to their worship or the ceremonial in them—were undoubtedly constructed among other reasons for the purpose of obtaining an exact observation of the precise time of the solstice. The priests having this power at their disposal, would not be likely to neglect it, for they ruled by knowledge. The temples were, then, astronomical observatories, and the first observatories that we know of in the world.
If we consider them as horizontal telescopes used for the purpose I have suggested, we at once understand the long axis, and the series of gradually narrowing diaphragms, for the longer the beam of light used the greater is the accuracy that can be obtained.
Independently of ceremonial reasons—there is a good deal to be said under that head—it is quite clear that the darker the sanctuary the more obvious will be the patch of light on the end wall, and the more easily can its position be located. It was important to do this on the two or three days near the solstice, in order to get an idea of the exact time at which the solstice took place. We find that a narrow beam of sunlight coming through a narrow entrance some 500 yards away from the door of the Holy of Holies would, provided the temple were properly orientated to the solstice, and provided the solstice occurred at the absolute moment of sunrise or sunset according .... to which the temple was being utilised, practically flash into ^ the sanctuary and remain there for about a couple of minutes, and then pass away. The flash would be a crescendo and
110
   
[CHAP. X.
diminuendo, but the whole thing would not last above two minutes or thereabouts, and might be considerably reduced by an arrangement of curtains. Supposing the solstice did not occur at the precise moment of sunrise or sunset, and provided the Egyptians by any means whatever were able to divide the days and the nights into more or less equal intervals of time, two or three observations of the sun rising at the solstice on three different mornings, or of the sunset at the solstice on three different evenings, would enable a careful observer to say whether the solstice had occurred at the exact moment of sunrise or sunset, or at some interval between two successive sunrises or sunsets, and what that interval was.
We may conclude that there was some purpose of utility to be served, and the solar temples could have been used undoubtedly, among other things, for determining the exact length of the solar year.
I now come to my next point, which is that here we have the true origin of our present means of measuring time; that our year as we know it was first determined in these Egyptian temples and by the Egyptians. The magnificent burst of the light at sunset into the sanctuary would show that a new true solar year was beginning. It so happens that the summer solstice was the time when the Nile began, and still begins, to rise; so that in Egypt the priests were enabled to determine, year after year, not only the length of the year, but the exact time of its commencement. This, however, they apparently kept to themselves, for the year in use, called the vague year, began at different times of the true year through a long cycle, as I shall show in subsequent chapters.
If the Egyptians wished to use the temple for ceremonial purposes, the magnificent beam of light thrown into the temple at the sunset horn- would give them opportunities and even
Cmp. X.J   THE MANIFESTATION OF RA.   Ill
suggestions for so doing; for instance, they might place an image of the god in the sanctuary and allow the light to Hash upon it. We should have a “ manifestation of Ra ” with a vengeance during the brief time the white flood of sunlight fell on it; be it remembered that in the dry and clear air of Egypt the sun casts a shadow five seconds after the first little point of it has been seen above the horizon. So that at sunrise and sunset in Egypt the light is very strong, and not tempered as with us. They did this: we not only find the exact allocation of words “the manifestation of Ra,” but what happened is described. One of the inscriptions relating to the manifestation of Ra has been translated by De Rougd as follows :—
“ II vint en jj&ssant vers le temple de Ra; il entra dans le temple en adorant (deux fois). Le ^er-heb [celebrant] invoqua (celui qui) repousse les plaies du roi; il reinplit les rites de la porte; il prit le seteb, il se puritia par Tencens; il fit une libation; il apporta les fleurs de Habenben [a part of the temple]; il apporta le parfum (]). Il monta les degr^s vers l’adytum grand, pour voir Ra dans Habenben; lui-m6me se tint seul; il poussa le verrou; il ouvrit les portes; il vit son p&re Ra dans Habenben; il venera la barque de Ra et la barque de Turn. Il tira les portes, et posa la terre sigillaire (qu’il) seel la avec le sceau du roi. Lui-meme ordonne aux pretres, * J’ai plac^ le sceau ; que n’entre pas quelqu’un dedans de tout roi qui se tiendra (lh).’ ” 1
In the quotation the apparatus of doors is referred to, and it is not difficult to understand that by a particular arrangement of them it would be easily possible to allow the flash which lighted up the image of the god to be of very brief duration. Remember that the sanctuary was dark, that the king stood with his back to the pylon (and therefore to the sun). Under these circumstances, to an excited imagination it would be the god himself and not his image which appeared. Maspero2 adduces much evidence to show that the priests were not
1 “ Chrestomathie iSgyptiennc,” De Rouge, iii., p. GO. a “ Egyptian Archaeology,** English edition, p. 105.
112
   
[CHAP. X.
above pious frauds even in the worship connected with the Holy of Holies:—
“ The shrines [in the sanctuary] are little chapels of wood or stone, in which the spirit of the deity wTas supposed at all times to dwell, and which on ceremonial occasions contained his image. The sacred barks were built after the model of the Bari, or boat in which the sun performed his daily course. The shrine was placed amidships of the boat and covered with a
veil or curtain, to conceal its contents from all spectators   We have
not as yet discovered any of the statues employed in the ceremonial, but we know what they were like, what part they played, and of what materials
they were made. They were animated   They spoke, moved, acted—
not metaphorically, but actually   Interminable avenues of sphinxes,
gigantic obelisks, massive pylons, halls of a hundred columns, mysterious chambers of perpetual night—in a word, the whole Egyptian Temple and its dependencies were built by way of a hiding-place for a performing puppet, of which the wires were worked by a priest.”
In an inscription which covers, according to Brugscli, an entire wall near the Holy of Holies in the temple of Amen-Ra it is stated that a beautiful harp, inlaid with silver and gold and precious stones, on which to sing the praises of the god, statues of the god himself, and numerous gates (Sclkhet) with locks of copper and dark- bronze, to protect the Holy of Holies from intrusion, were among the gifts to the priests.1
Thothmes III., in his account of his embellishments at Karnak, says of the statues of the gods and of their secret place (possibly the Adytum) that they were “ more glorious than what is created in heaven, more secret than the place of the abyss, and more [invisible] than what is in the ocean.” 2
1 Brugseh, “Egypt,” p. 174.
2 Brugseh, op. cit.f p. 187.
CHAPTER XI.
THE AGE OF THE TEMPLE OF AMEN-RA AT KARNAK.
IF it be accepted that the arguments already put forward justify us in regarding the temple of Amen-Ra as a solstitial solar temple, we are brought face to face with the fact that if it be of any great antiquity its orientation should be such that it will no longer receive the light of the setting sun at the summer solstice along its axis.
This results from the fact that there is a slow change in what is called the obliquity of the ecliptic—that is, the angle between the plane of the earth’s equator and the plane of the ecliptic; this change is brought about by the attraction of the other planetary bodies affecting the plane of the ecliptic. If these planes approach each other, the obliquity will be reduced; the present obliquity is something like 23° 27'; wre know that 5,000 B.C. it was 24° 22', nearly a degree more. A difference of 1° means, then, a difference of time of about seven thousand years. It may go down to something below 21°. Since the obliquity has been decreasing for many thousand years, a temple directed to the rising or setting sun at the solstice some thousands of years ago had a greater amplitude than it requires now.
It will be readily understood that if the orientation of the temple and the height of the hills towards which it points be accurately known, knowing also the precise obliquity of the ecliptic at different epochs, we have an astronomical means of determining the date of the original foundation of the temple,
i
114
   
[CHAP. XI.
supposing, of course, that it was founded to observe the solstice.
But before I go into these matters it is essential that the evidence of Egyptologists should be considered. Very fortunately for us in these inquiries the temple of Amen-Ra is one of those most carefully studied by Mariette, so that the dernier mot of the archaeologist is at our disposal.
Mariette, in his magnificent memoir on Karnak,1 surpassed himself in the care and sagacity which he displayed in endeavouring to fix dates for the various structures in that wonderful temple-field, and among them the various parts of the temple of Amen-Ra.
In his maps, to which I now refer, each part of the temple is coloured 'according to the supposed date of its building. He points out first of all that the inscriptions on the walls must be disregarded, as they could have been put there at any date after the temples were built. On this point I quote Mariette’s own words:—2
“ Les couleurs marquees sur le plan servent k indiquer, au moyen de la Idgende explicative plac6e en marge, les 6poques diverges de la construction des temples et de leurs parties. Quelques mots ^explication sont ici necessaires. Un mur porte les cartouches de Menephtah ; mais il peut avoir 4t6 construit deux-cent- cinquante ans plus tot par Thoutmes III. Les 6poques de 1^ decoration ne sont ainsi pas toujours les ^poques de la construction. Pour avoir les 6poques de la ddcoration, il ne s’agit que de regarder les murs et les inscriptions dont ils sont couverts. Pour avoir les ^poques de la construction, tout un travail de confrontation, de comparaison, est necessaire. Il faut s’assurer si les memes mains qui ont construit le mur l’ont d^cor^ ; dans le cas contraire, il faut faire inter- venir l’avch&dogie dans toutes les branches de cette science qui touchent & l’observation des lieux, au mode de construction, a l’agencement des pierres, au choix et k l’appareillage des mat6riaux.”
Taking the temple in its generality, he finds that, so far as his inquiries had carried him, parts were certainly built' at a
1   “ Karnak. £tude topographiquc et areheologique.”
2   Mariette, op. cit.f text, p. 2.
CHAI\ XI.]
THE AGE OF THE KARXAK TEMFLE.
115
time as ancient as the twelfth dynasty—say 2400 or 3000 u.<\, according to the authority in these matters that we may prefer.
Then again we have dates given and indications of kings through the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties, and then again on to the times of the Ptolemies.
In such an inquiry we must have archaeological dates on which we can rely. In the date assigned to the time of Mena by various Egyptologists we find a difference of nearly—in fact, rather more than—a thousand years in our authorities. In the twelfth dynasty we find a difference of five hundred years; but in the later dynasties, such as the eighteenth, the difference is reduced in some cases to ten years or so. So that in the later dynasties we know pretty well what time is in question. We are therefore on firm ground.
The first point to which I wish to call attention is that, according to Mariette the building dates change along the open axis of the temple. From photographs I took when in Egypt I found reason to believe that the direction of the axis has been slightly changed at the west end.
If we refer to the plan of the temple, the point of importance to us in our present inquiry has relation to the circumstances connected with the buildings of the temple itself. We have in the outer court to the north-west certain pillars which were built by one of the Ethiopian kings. These I mark I, I (see page 118). There is the temple M, built by Rameses III., according to Mariette. There are walls with columns, marked 2,2, built by the twenty-second dynasty, north and south of this outer court; and then there is the temple L in the outer court., supposed to have been built by Seti II. The western part of the temple, therefore, is of no high antiquity. To find this we have to go some 200 yards to the south-east. Near the central
i 2
118
   
[CHAK XI.
 
NORTH-WEST.
PLAN OF THE TEMPLE OF AMEN-Rl, SHOWING THE POINTS REFERRED TO IN THE PRESENT CHAPTER.
between D A prolonged and A E; I therefore accepted the line D C A as the true axis.
“ From an inspection made on June 20th, it appeared to me that the setting sun would not be visible from any of the points indicated by Professor Norman Lockyer. I therefore placed the theodolite at A. I regret to say that my above supposition was correct, as even from A I was only able to see a portion of the setting sun, the remainder being hidden behind the south wall of the Great Pylon. I obtained, however, one reading, the right limb at, as nearly as I could judge, the moment of impact of the sun’s diameter with the hill.”
Of the measures given the most important are the angle between the axis of the temple looking south-east from A and the north point 116° 23'40" (amplitude 26° 23') and the angle between the top of the hills and the horizontal 2° 36 20".* These measures, therefore,. entirely justified the result of the calculations I have before given,
1 Nissen in his important memoir does not refer to this hill; his conclusions, therefore, are not absolutely justified by the facts as he states them.
CHAP. XI.]
ASTROXOMICAL DATE OF TEMPLE.
119
and prove that the interval of over 5000 years is sufficient to cause us to detect the change in the obliquity of the ecliptic by this method of observing the sunset at a solstice with an instrument built on so large a scale.
Taking the orientation as 26°, and taking hills and refraction into consideration, we find that the true horizon sunset amplitude would be 27° 30'. This amplitude gives us for Thebes a declination of 24° 18'.
This was the obliquity of the ecliptic in the year 3700 B.C., and this is therefore the date of the foundation of the shrine of Amen-Ra at Kamak, so far as we can determine it astronomically with the available data; but about these there is still an element of doubt, for, so far as I learn, the recent magnetic readings have not been checked by astronomical observations.
J
CHAPTER XII.
THE STARS—THEIR RISINGS AND SETTINGS.
FROM what has been stated it is not too much to assume that the Egyptians observed, and taught people to observe, the sun on the horizon.
This being so, the chances are that at first they would observe the stars on the horizon too, both stars rising and stars setting; this indeed is rendered more probable by the very careful way in which early astronomers defined the various conditions under which a star can rise or set, always, be it well remembered, in relation to the sun. n It must not be forgotten that the ancients had no telescopes,

I
and had to use their horizon as the only scientific instrument which they possessed. They spoke of a star as rising or setting cosmically, achronically, or heliacally.
The cosmic rising meant that the star rose, and the cosmic setting meant that the star set, at the same moment as the sun—that is, that along the eastern horizon we should sec the star rising at the moment of sunrise, or along the western horizon a star setting at the moment of the sun setting; but unless certain very obvious precautions were taken it is clear that neither the rising nor the setting star would be seen, in consequence of the presence of daylight. The aclironical rising or setting is different from the cosmic in this respect—that we have the star rising when the sun is setting, or setting when the sun is rising. Finally we have the heliacal rising and setting; that is taken to be that the star appeared
CHAP. XII.)
RISING AND SETTING TERMS.
121
in the morning a little in advance of the sunrise, or set at twilight a little later than the sun.
It is quite clear that if we observe a star rising in the dawn, it will get more and more difficult to observe the nearer the time of sunrise is approached. Therefore, what the ancients did was to determine a time before sunrise in the
early dawn at which the star could be very obviously and clearly seen to rise. The term “heliacal rising” was coined to represent a star rising visibly in the dawn, therefore, before the sun. Generally throughout Egypt the sun was supposed to be something like 10° below the horizon when a star was stated to rise heliacally.
The following table from Biot should make matters quite clear:—
Morning ..
Star at Eastern Horizon (Rising)    '
Evening ..
Evening ..
Star at Western Horizon (Setting)    '
Morning ..
V
{True or Cosmic... Apparent or Heliacal ' True or Achronic Apparent or Heliacal
' True or Cosmic... Apparent or Heliacal I True or Achronic ? Apparent or Heliacal
f
f
l
Sun rising.
Sun not yet risen, but depressed below horizon sufficiently to enable the star to be seen.
Sun setting.
Sun set, and depressed below horizon sufficiently to enable the star to be seen.
Sun setting.
Sun set, and depressed below horizon sufficiently to enable the star to be seen.
Sun rising.
Sun not yet risen, but depressed below horizon sufficiently to enable the star to be seen.
It is Ideler’s opinion that, in Ptolemy’s time, in the case of stars of the first magnitude, for heliacal risings and settings, if the star and sun were on the same horizon, ’a depression of the sun of 11° was taken; if on opposite horizons, a depression of 7°. For stars of the second magnitude these values were
122
   
[CHAP. XII.
14° and 8|-°. But if temples were employed as I have suggested, even cosmic and achronic risings and settings could be observed in the case of the brightest stars.
But it must not be imagined that, even in Egypt, all stars can be observed the moment they are above the horizon. In the morning, especially, there are mists, so that all but the brightest stars are often invisible till they are 1° or 2° high. On this point I quote Biot:—
“Comme le rapporte Nouet, Tastronome de l’expedition frantjaise, on n‘y apergoit jamais & leur lever les dtoiles de 2° et de 3° grandeur m&rne dans les plus belles nuits, a cause d’une bande constant de vapeurs qui borde l’horizon.1 Aussi en expliquant le calcul des levers heliaques dans PAlmageste, Ptol&ntk* a-t-il soin de remarquer3 que les annonces qu’on voudrait faire de ces phenom&nes seront toujours tres-incertaines, h. cause de l’£tat des couches d’air dans lesquelles on les observe, et a cause de la difficulty optique qu’on dprouve a saisir la premiere apparition, comme il dit lui-meine en avoir fait l’experience. ” 8
Before we begin to consider the question of stars at all, we must be able to describe them—to speak of them in a way' that shall define exactly which star is meant. We can in these dayrs define a star according to its constellation, or its equatorial or ecliptic co-ordinates, but all these means of reference were unknown to the earliest observers. Still we may assume that the Egyptians could define some of the stars in some fashion; and it is evident that we here approach a matter of the very highest importance for our subject, to which I shall have to return in a subsequent chapter.
So far as we have been dealing with the sun and the observations of the sun at rising and setting, we have taken for granted that the amplitude of the sun at the solstices does not change; the amplitude of 26° at Thebes for the solstices is
1   “ (Euvres do Volney,” vol. v., p. 431.
2   “ Ptolemy Almagest VIII.chap, vi.
8 “ Reeherches sur l’annee vague des Egyptians,” by M. Biot, Acidemie des Sciences 4th April, 1831.
CHAP. XII.]
CHANGES OF AMPLITUDE.
123
practically, though as we have seen not absolutely, invariable for a thousand years; but one of the results of astronomical work is that the stars are known to behave quite differently. In consequence of what is called precession the stars change their place with regard to the pole of the equator; and further, in consequence of this movement, the position of the sun among the stars at the solstices and equinoxes changes also.
In reference to the sun’s path we considered what are called the ecliptic and the equatorial co-ordinates. The ecliptic defines the plane in which the earth moves round the sun, and 90c from that plane we have the pole of the heavens; celestial latitude we found reckoned from the plane of the ecliptic north and south up to the pole of the heavens, and celestial longitude was reckoned along the plane of the ecliptic from the first point of Aries. We had also declination reckoned from the equator of the earth prolonged to the stars, and right ascension reckoned along the equator from the first point of Aries.
The pole of the heavens or of the ecliptic, then, we must regard as practically, but not absolutely, fixed; but the pole of the earth’s equator is not fixed, it slowly moves round the pole of the heavens. In consequence of that movement there is a change of declination in a star's place.
Going back to the diagram (p. 49), we find that the amplitude of a body rising or setting at Thebes or anywhere else depends upon its declination; so that if from any cause the declination of a star changes, its amplitude must change.
That is the first point where we meet with difficulty, V because if the amplitude changes it is the same as saying that ' the place of star-rising or star-setting changes; that is, a star which rises in the east in a certain amplitude this year will change its amplitude at some future time.
; In the last chapter I referred to one of the difficulties
124
THE DAWS OF ASTROXOMY.
[CHAP. XII.
of modern inquiries into the orientation of ancient temples, which arises from the fact that the sun lias not always, at the solstices, risen or set at exactly the same points of the horizon. We now find oui'selves face to face with the fact that the stars do not rise or set at the same points century after centuiy. We saw that the change in the position of the sun on the hoiizon at the solstices is due to a vei’v small change of obliquity of the ecliptic, so that in a matter of something like
6,000   years the position of the sun at sumise and sunset on the hoiizon may be varied by, roughly speaking, 1 degree. But in the case of the stars the matter is very much more serious, because in the course of something like 13,000 years the rising- or setting-places of a star may vary by something like 47° along the horizon north or south.
So that in the cases both of sun and stars there-is no real fixity in the places of rising or setting, although of course those who made the first observations and built the first temples were not in a position to know this.
The real cause of this precessional movement which causes the stars to change their places lies in the fact that the earth is not a sphere, its equatorial diameter being longer than its polar diameter, so that there is a mass of matter round the equator in excess of what we sh

Prometheus:
a mass of matter round the equator in excess of what we should get if the earth were spherical. Suppose that matter to be represented by a ring. The ring is differently presented to the sun, one part being nearer than the other, the nearer part being attracted more forcibly. If we take the point in the ring nearest the sun where there is the greatest attraction, and draw a line to the opposite point where the attraction is least, we can show that the case stands in this way: the sun’s pull may be analysed into two forces, one of them represented by the line joining the centre of the sun and the centre of the ring, and another at right angles
CHAP. XI I. J
PRECESS10X.
125
to it let fall from the point most strongly attracted on to the first line. The question is, what will that force at right angles do?
The figure below represents a model illustrating the rotation of the earth on its axis, and the concurrent revolution of the sun round the earth once a year. To represent the downward
 
MODEL ILLUSTRATING THE PRECESSION OP THE EQUINOXES.
force it is perfectly fair if I add a weight. The moment this is done the axis of the gyroscope representing the earth’s axis, instead of retaining its direction to the same point as it did before, now describes a circle round the pole of the heavens.
It is now a recognised principle that there is, so to speak, a wobble of the earth’s axis round the pole of the heavens, in consequence of the attraction of the sun on the nearer point of this equatorial ring being greater than on the part of the ring further removed from it. That processional movement is not quite so simple as it is shown by the model, because . what the sun does in this way is done to a very much larger ' [/ extent by the moon, the moon being so very much nearer to us.
126   THE DA WX OF ASTRONOMY.   tew. XII.
In consequence, then, of this luni-solar precession we have a variation of the points of intersection of the planes of the earth’s equator and of the ecliptic; in consequence of that we have a difference in the constellations in which the sun is at the time of the solstices and the equinoxes; and, still more important from our present point of view, we have another difference, viz., that the declinations, and therefore the amplitudes, and therefore the places of setting and rising of the stars, change from century to century.
Now that we have thus become acquainted with the physical cause of that movement of the earth’s axis which gives rise to what is called the precession of the equinoxes, we have next to enter with somewhat greater detail into some of the results of the movement.
The change of direction of the axis in space has a cycle of something between 25,000 and 26,000 years. As it is a question of the change of the position of the celestial equator, or rather of the pole of the celestial equator, amongst the stars in relation to the pole of the heavens, of course the declinations of stars will be changed to a very considerable extent; indeed, we have seen that the declination of a star can vary by twice the amount of the obliquity, or say 47°, so that a star at one time may have zero declination—that is, it may lie on the equator—and at another it may have a declination 47° N. or S. Or, again, a star may be the pole star at one particular time, and at another it will be distant from the pole no less than 47°. Although we get this enormous change in one ? equatorial co-ordinate, there would from this cause alone be ,,   practically no change with regard to the corresponding ecliptic
I co-ordinate—that is to say, the position of the star with re- 1 | ference to the earth’s movement round the sun. This movement takes place quite independently of the direction of the
CHAP. XII.)
CHANGES IN THE POLE-STAR.
127
> axis, so that while we get this tremendous swirl in declination, ' the latitudes of the stars or their distances from the ecliptic north or south will scarcely change at all.
 
STAB-MAP. REPRESENTING THE PRECESSIONAL MOVEMENT OP THE CELESTIAL POLE FROM THE YEAR 4000 B.c. TO THE YEAR 2000 A.D. (From Piazzi Smyth.)
JSumMt nJepkdt U r4frt»uU>   juAub# cr l/^iAufiv «/*At/iUrt, *1?
 
Among other important results of these movements dependent upon precession we have the various changes in the pole- star from period to period, due to the various positions occupied
128
THE DA WIT OF ASTRONOMY.
[CHAP. XII.
by the pole of the earth’s equator. We thus see how in this period of 25,000 years or thereabouts the pole-stars will change, for a pole-star is merely the star near the pole of the equator for the time being. At present, as we all know, the pole-star is in the constellation Ursa Minor. During the last
25.000   years the pole-stars have been those lying nearest to a curved line struck from the pole of the heavens with a radius equal to the obliquity of the ecliptic, which, as we have seen, is liable to change within small limits; so that about
10.000   or 12,000 years ago the pole-star was no longer the little star in Ursa Minor that we all know, but the bright star Vega, in the constellation Lyra. Of course 25,000 years ago the pole-star was practically the same as it is at present.
Associated with this change in the pole-star, the point of intersection of the two fundamental planes (the plane of the earth’s rotation and the plane of the earth’s revolution) will be liable to change, and the period will be the same—about
25.000   years. Where these two planes cut each other we have the equinoxes, because the intersection of the planes defines for us the vernal and the autumnal equinoxes; when the sun is highest and lowest half-way between these points we have the solstices. In a period of 25,000 years the star which is nearest to an equinox will return to it, and that which is nearest a solstice will return to it. During the period there will be a constant change of stars marking the equinoxes and the solstices.
The chief points in the sun’s yearly path then will change among the stars in consequence of this precession. It is perfectly clear that if we have a means of calculating back the old positions of stars, and if we have any very old observations, we can help matters very much, because the old observations—if they were accurately made — would tell us J that such and such a star rose with the sun at the solstice
CHAP, XII.J CALCULATION OF OLD STAR PLACES.
129
or at the equinox at some special point of ancient time. If it be possible to calculate the time at which the star occupied that position with regard to the sun, we have an astronomical means of determining the time, within a few years, at which that particular observation was made.
^ Fortunately, we have such a means of calculation, and it has been employed very extensively at different periods, chiefly by M. Biot in France, and quite recently by German astronomers, in calculating the positions of the stars from the present time to a period of 2000 years B.C. We can thus determine with a very high degree of accuracy the latitude, longitude, right ascension, declination, and the relation of the stars to an equinox, a solstice, or a pole, as far back as. we choose. Since we have the planes of the equator and ecliptic cutting each other at different points in consequence of the cause which I have pointed out — the attraction of the sun and moon—we have a fixed equator and a variable equator depending upon that. In consequence of the attraction of the planets upon the earth, the plane of the ecliptic itself is not fixed, so that we have not only a variable equator, but also a variable ecliptic. What has been done in these calculations is to determine the relations and the results of these variations.
The calculations undertaken for the special purposes of ^ this book will be referred to later.
A simpler, though not so accurate a method consists in he use of a precessional globe. In this we have two fixed points at the part of the globe representing the poles of the heavens, on which the globe may be rotated; when this is done the stars move absolutely without any reference to the earth or to the plane of the equator, but purely with reference to the ecliptic. We have, then, this globe quite independent

A
130
   
[CHAP. XII.
of the earth’s axis. How can we make it dependent upon the earth’s axis ? We have two brass circles at a distance of 23^° from each pole of the heavens (north and south); these represent the circle described by the pole of the earth in the period of 25,000 years. In these circles are forty-eight holes in which I can fix two additional clamping screws, and rotate the globe with respect to them by throwing out of gear the two points which produced the ecliptic revolution.
If I use that part of the brass circle which is occupied by our present pole-star, we get the apparent revolution of the heavens with the earth’s axis pointing to the pole-star of to-day. If we wish to investigate the position of things, say
8,000   years ago, we bring the globe back again to its bearings, and then adjust the screws into the holes in the brass circles which are proper for that period. When we have the globe arranged to 6000 years B.C. (i.e., 8,000 years ago), in order to determine the equator at that time all we have to do is to paint a line on the globe in some water-colour, by holding a camel’s-hair pencil at the east or west point of the wooden horizon. That line represents the equator 8,000 years ago. Having that line, of course, the intersection of the equator with the ecliptic will give us the equinoxes, so that we may affix a wafer to represent the vernal equinox. Or if we take that part of the ecliptic which is nearest to the North Pole, and, therefore, the N. declination of which is greatest, viz., 23^° N., we have there the position of the sun at the summer solstice, and 23^° S. will give us the position of the sun at the winter solstice. So by means of such a globe as this it is possible to determine roughly the position of the equator among the stars, and note those four important points in the solar year, the two equinoxes and the two solstices. I have taken a period of 8,000 years, but I might just as easily have
CHAP. XII.]
PRECESSIONAL GLOBE RESULTS.
131
taken a greater or a smaller one. By means of this arrangement, therefore, we can determine within a very small degree of error, without any laborious calculations, the distance of a star north or south of the equator, i.e., its declination, at any point of past or future time.
The positions thus found, say, for intervals of 500 years, may be plotted on a curve, so that we can, with a considerable amount of accuracy, obtain the star’s place for any year. Thus the globe may be made to tell us that in the year 1000 A.D. the declination of Fomalhaut was 35° S., in 1000 B.C. it was 42°, in 2000 it was about 44°, in 4000 it was a little over 42° again, but in 6000 B.C. it had got up to about 33°, and in 8000 B.C. to about 22°.
The curve of Capella falls from 41° N. at 0 A.D. to 10° at 5500 B.C., so we have in these 5500 years in the case of this star run through a large part of that variation to which I have drawn attention.
I have ascertained that the globe is a very good guide indeed within something like 1° of declination. Considering the difficulty of the determination of amplitudes in the case of buildings, it is clear that the globe may be utilised with advantage, at all events to obtain a first approximation.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE EGYPTIAN HEAVENS—THE ZODIACS OP DENDERAH.
WE can readily understand that in the very beginning of observations in all countries, the moment man began to observe anything, he took note of the stars, and as soon as he began to talk about them he must have started by defining, in some way or other, the particular stars he meant.
Observers would first consider the brightest stars, and separate them from the dimmer ones; they would then discuss the stars which never set, and separate them from those which did rise and set; then they would take the most striking configurations, whether large or small. They would naturally, in a Northern clime, choose out the constellation the Great Bear, or Orion, and for small groups the Pleiades. These would attract attention, and be named before anything else. Then, later on, it would be imperative, in order to connect their solar with their stellar, observations, that they should name the stars which lay along the sun’s path in the heavens, or those the rising of which heralded the sunrise at their festivals. They would confine their attention to a belt round the equator rather than consider the configuration of stars half-way between the equator and the north pole. In all countries—India, China, Babylonia, Egypt—they had eventually such a girdle round the heavens, called by different names in different countries, and the use of this girdle of stars, which sometimes consisted of twenty-eight stations, sometimes of twenty-seven, and sometimes of less, was to enable them to define the place
CHAP. XIII.]
EARLY CONSTELLATIONS.
133
of the sun, moon, or of any of the planets in relation to any of these stars.
Not very many years ago, when the literature of China and India was as a sealed book, and the hieroglyphics of Egypt and the wedges of Babylonia were still unread, we had to depend for the earliest traces of astronomical observation upon the literatures of Greece and Syria, and according to these sources the 'asterisms first specialised and named were as follows:—
The Great Bear Orion
Pleiades, Hyades Sirius and the Great Dog
Aldeb&ran, the Bull ... Arcturus The Little Bear The Dragon ...
Job (xxxviii. 31), Homer.
Job (ix. 9), Homer, Hesiod.
Job (xxxviii. 31), Homer, Hesiod.
Hesiod (viiL), the name; Homer called it the Star of Autumn.
Homer, Hesiod.
Job (ix. 9; xxxviii. 32), Homer, Hesiod. Thales, Eudoxus, Aratus.
Eudoxus, Aratus.
In the Book of Job we read, “ Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion ? Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season? or canst thou guide Arcturus with his sons ? ”
Here we have the difficulty which has met everybody in going back into these old records, because there was no absolute necessity for a common language at the time ; it was open to everyone to call the stars any name they chose in any country, therefore it is difficult for scholars to find out what particular stars or constellations were meant by any particular words.^In the Revised Version, Arcturus has given place to “ the Bear with its train,” and even our most distinguished scholars do not know what Mazzaroth means. I wrote to Professor Robertson Smith to ask him to give me.the benefit of his great knowledge, and he tells me that Mazzaroth is probably that band of stars
134
   
ICHAP. XIII.
round the ecliptic or round the equator to which I have referred, but he will only commit himself to the statement that it is a probable enough conjecture; other people believe that it was. a reference to the Milky Way.
I mention this to show how very difficult this inquiry really is. The “ seven stars ” are held by many to mean the Pleiades, and not the Great Bear; but this, I think, is very improbable.
Much is to be hoped from the study of the Babylonian records in relation to the Egyptian ones. This is a point I shall return to in the sequel.
In observing stars nowadays, we use a transit circle which is carried round by the earth so as to pick up the stars in different circles round the axis of the earth prolonged, and by altering the inclination of the telescope of this instrument we can first get a circle of one declination and then a circle of another.
f The Egyptians did not usually employ meridian observa- s tions. Did the Egyptians make star maps ? They certainly did, as we shall see.
The first bit of solid information specially bearing upon ancient Egyptian constellations was gained at the temple of Denderah, a place which the traveller up the Nile reaches before be arrives so far as Thebes. Perhaps among the reasons why BO great attention was given to the so-called zodiacs of Denderah was the fact that one of them, having been rudely wrenched from its resting-place in the platform of one of the temples, had been carried to the museum in Paris, so that the thing itself was en Evidence and capable of being examined by experts whose opinions were of value, and by all the world besides.
]   ! The chief temple, when explored by the French expedition,
CHAP. XIII.)
ZODIACS OF DEN DERAIL
135
was deeply buried in the sand. In the front part of it, covering the ceiling, before one enters the temple itself, there is displayed the square zodiac, so called, to which I shall have to refer briefly. The temple was pointed within a few degrees of north; at the north-east comer of the zodiac is a device, since found to represent the sunlight falling upon a statue of the Goddess of the Shrine. Investigations have shown that the zodiac includes a reference to a great many celestial phenomena of the utmost importance. There is no difficulty in recognising some of the zodiacal signs, but there the resemblance to the modem zodiac ends, for the reason that each of the strange processions of mythological personages represents not only constellations, with some of which we may be familiar, but a great deal more. It is noteworthy that the illustration of the very first astronomical point which we have to consider brings out the fact that it is impossible to disconnect Egyptian mythology from astronomy.
In the southern half of the zodiac, the lower part is occupied by stars represented in the guise of different mythological personages, sailing along in boats; and above them we get half of the zodiac with the signs of the Fish, the Ram, the Bull and the Twins represented. In the middle section the sun’s course in different parts of the day, and different parts of the year, is given: whilst, outermost of all, we get the twelve solar positions, occupied by the sun each hour from rising to setting, represented by twelve boats. It may be here mentioned that in ancient Egypt, as in the modern Eastern world, both day and night always consisted of twelve hours; unequal, of course, the length of the hours varying according to the time of the year.
Now, if we take the opposite side, that is the north-west comer, we find that we have to do chiefly with the opposite
 
NORTHERN HALF OF T1IE SO-CALLED SQUARE ZODIAC OF DENDERAH.
CHAP. XIII.)
THE SQUARE ZODIAC.
137
part of the sky, including the signs of the Lion, the Scales, and Sagittarius, and below them other stars are represented as mythological personages in boats. The courses of the sun and moon are next given, and some of the lunar mythology is revealed to us. We see Osiris represented by the moon, and by an eye at the top of fourteen steps, which symbolise the fourteen days of the waxing moon.
In the square zodiac, then, there is an immense amount of astronomy. In the round zodiac, found in another temple (see p. 18), there are some points which at once claim our attention. There is, first, a mythological figure of a cow in a boat, and, near it, another mythological figure, which the subsequent reading of inscriptions has proved to represent the constellation Orion. In the centre of the zodiac we have a jackal, and there is very little doubt that it represents the constellation which we now call the Little Bear, which then, as now, was near the pole. Not far away, we get the leg of an animal; this, we now know, was a constellation called the Thigh, and there seems to be absolutely no question that it represents the constellation which we now call the Great Bear. Again, close by is another mythological form, which we know represents the Hippopotamus. This was made up out of some of the group of stars which forms the present constellation Draco. There are also two hieroglyphs which subsequent research has proved to represent setting stars and rising stars, so that, whatever may have been the date of this round zodiac of Denderah, it is clear that we are dealing with a time when the stars had been classed in constellations, one of which, the constellation Orion, even survives to our own day.
It is little to be wondered at that, when these revelations first burst upon the scientific world, great excitement was
138
   
[CHAP. XIII.
produced. It was obvious that we had to do with a nation which had very definite ideas of astronomy, and that the astronomy was very closely connected with worship. It was also certainly suggested by so many animal forms, that we had to do with a people whose condition was not unlike that of the American Indians—to take a well-known r instance—at the beginning of this century, one in which jA each tribe, or clan, had chosen a special animal totem.
It so happened that, while these things were revealing themselves, the discussions concerning them, which took place among the scientific world of France, were partly influenced by the writings of a man of very brilliant imagination and of great erudition. I refer to Dupuis, according to whose views an almost fabulous antiquity might be assigned to ancient traditions in general and astronomical traditions in particular. It is needless to say, however, that there were others to take the extreme opposite view—who held the opinion that his imagination had run away with his learning.
With all this new work before them, and with a genius like Champollion’s among them, it was not long before the French savans compelled the hieroglyphs to give up some of their secrets. First one word gave two or three letters, then another two or three more, and finally an alphabet and syllabary were constructed. So it was not long before some of the inscriptions at Denderah were read. Then it was found that the temple, as it then stood, had certainly been, partly at all events, embellished so late as the time of the Roman Emperors.’ Naturally there was then a tremendous reaction from the idea of fabulous antiquity which had been urged by the school of Dupuis. There were two radically opposed camps, led by Letronne, a distinguished archaeologist, and Biot, one of the most eminent
I
CHAP. XIII.1
THE   DENDERAII
139
astronomers of his day, and both of these savans brought papers before the Academy of Inscriptions. Biot’s first paper was read in 1822, and was replied to by Letronne in 1824; Biot wrote his next paper in 1844, in which he held to everything that he had stated in his first memoir; and this was replied to, the next year, by Letronne.
Biot had no difficulty whatever in arriving at the conclusion that, precisely as in the case of the sphere of Eudoxus, a prior bone of contention, however true it might be that
 
the circular zodiac had been sculptured in the time of the Roman emperors, still it certainly referred to a time far anterior; and he suggested that we have in it sculptures reproducing very old drawings, which had been made long before on parchment or on stone. He pointed out that in the condition of astronomy one would expect to be extant in ancient times, it was far easier to reproduce old drawings than to calculate back what the positions of the stars had been at some prior date, so that in his magnificent summing- up of the case in his last paper, he rested his scientific reputation on the statement that the sculptures of Denderah .represent the celestial sphere on a plane round the north
 
ASTRONOMICAL DRAWINGS FROM BIBAN EL-MULUK (18TII DYNASTY). (From “ Description dc VAgypte.'")
CHAP. XIII.]
BRVGSCU'S OPIXIOX.
141
pole of the equator at a year not far removed from TOO B.C. More than this, he stated that the time of the year was the time of the summer solstice, and the hour was midnight. He also showed that, calculating back what the position of the stars would have been at midnight on the 20th of June (Gregorian), 700 B.C., the constellations, and even many of the separate stars shown in the medallion, would occupy exactly the places they did occupy in the projection employed.
Let us then, for the moment, assume this to be true. What does it tell us ? That 700 years B.C. in Egypt the solstice was recognised; a means of determining the instant of midnight with more or less precision was known; observations of the stars were regularly made; the risings of some of them were associated with the rising of the sun, and many of them had been collected into groups or constellations.
This is a wonderful result. I suppose that Biot is universally held to have proved his case; in fact, Brugs6h, who is now regarded as one of the highest authorities in Egyptian history, has shown that almost every detail seen in the zodiac of Denderah reproduces inscriptions or astronomical figures, unearthed since the date of Biot’s memoir, which, without doubt, must be referred to the time of the Eighteenth Dynasty—-that is, 1700 B.C. or thereabouts; so that practically the Egyptologist has now chapter and verse for many things in the zodiac of Denderah dating 1,000 years before the period assigned to it by Biot.
The next point to notice is connected with the astronomical drawings which have been found in the Ramesseum at Thebes —drawings which also have very obvious connections with the zodiac of Denderah. On these we find the liieroglyphics for the different months—the constellations Orion, Hippopotamus, and Jackal, as we saw them at Denderah, and another form
 
KUIXS OF T11E KAMESSEUM, WHERE THE MONTH-TABLES WERE FOUND.
CHAP XII!.]
RAMESSEUM INSCRIPTIONS.
143
of the constellation of the Thigh. There is certainly the closest connection between the two sets of delineations.
Biot set himself to investigate what was the probable date to which the inscriptions in the Ramesseum referred. When we have the months arranged in a certain relationship to certain constellations we have an opening for the discussion of the precessional. movements; in other words, for the consideration of the various changes brought about by the swinging of the pole of the equator round the pole of the ecliptic. Here, again, there was no uncertain sound given out by the research. Biot pointed out that we are here in presence of records, no longer of a summer solstice, as in the case of Denderah, but of a spring equinox, the date being 3285 B.C. He further suggested that, in all probability, one of the mythological figures might be a representation of the intersection of the ecliptic and the equator in the constellation Taurus at the date mentioned. This undoubtedly, to a large extent, justifies what Dupuis had long before pointed out—that the perpetual reference to the Bull found in ancient records and mythologies arose from the fact that this constellation occupied an important position at a critical time in the year, which would indicate a very considerable lapse of time. This idea was justified by the researches of Biot, because we are driven back by them to a date preceding 3000 years B.C. We find in the table at the Ramesseum distinct references to the Bull, the Lion and the Scorpion, and it is also clearly indicated that at that time the star Sirius rose heliacally at the beginning of the Nile-rise.
The month-table at Thebes tells us that the sun’s journey in relation to some of the zodiacal constellations was perfectly familiar 5000 years ago.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE CIRCUMPOLAR CONSTELLATIONS: THE MYTH OF HORUS.
THERE was to all early peoples all the difference in the world, of course, between day and night, while we, with our firm knowledge, closely associate them. There was no artificial illumination such as we have, and the dark night did not
so much typify rest as death; so that the coming of the glorious morning of tropical or sub-tropical climates seemed to be a re-awakening to all the joys and delights and activities of life; thus the difference between night and day was to the ancient Egyptians almost the difference between death and life. We can imagine that darkness thus considered by a mythologically- thinking people was regarded as the work of an enemy, and hence, in time, their natural enemies were represented as being the friends of darkness.
Here a very interesting astronomical point comes in. With these views, there must have been a very considerable difference in the way the Egyptians regarded those stars which were always visible and those which rose and set.
The region occupied by the stars always visible depends,
 
THE GOD OF DABKNESS—SET.
CHAP. XIV.]
THE POWERS OF DARKXEhVS.
145
of course, upon the latitude of the place. Taking Thebes, with its latitude of 26°, as representing Egypt, the area of stars always visible was about one-fourth of that visible to us, so that there would be a very sharp distinction between the stars
 
VARIOUS FORMS OF ANUBIS.
constantly seen at night, and those which rose and set, the rising stars being regarded as heralds of the sunrise. It seems very probable that the circumpolar stars were quite early regarded as representing the powers of darkness, because they were there, visible in the dark, always disappearing and never appearing at sunrise. If that were so, no doubt prayers would be as necessary to propitiate them as those powers or gods which were more beneficent; and, as a matter of fact, one finds that the god Set—identified sometimes with Typhon, Anubis, and Tebha—was amongst the greatest gods of ancient Egypt.
t The female form of Typhon—his wife—was called
K
H6
THE   DAWN OF ASTRONOMY.
(CJIAP. XIV.
Taurt or Thoueris, represented generally as a hippopotamus.
It is probable that the crocodile was a variant of the
 
FOBM8 OK TTPHOX.
hippopotamus in some nomes, both having reference to our modern constellation Draco.
If we return for a moment to the zodiac of Denderah, we find that the constellations which I indicated—the Thigh, the Hippopotamus and the Jackal—represent our present constellations of the Great Bear, Draco, and the Little Bear, which were all of them circumpolar; that is, they neither rose nor set at the time of the inscription of the zodiac of Denderah. It therefore will not surprise us, with the above suggested explanation in mind, to hear that the Hippopotamus was called the Wife of Set, the Thigh the Thigh of Set, and the Jackal the Jackal of Set.
In the Book of the Dead, Chapter XVII., we read the
CHAP. XIV.]
THE NORTHERN GENII.
147
following reference to some of the northern stare and constellations :
“ The gods Mestha, Hapi, Tuamautef, and Qebhsennuf are those, namely, 'which find themselves behind the constellation of the Thigh in the northern heavens.”
Again, inscribed in the kings’ graves at Thebes we read:
“ The four Northern Genii are the four gods of the follower [some constella- / tion]. They keep back the conflict of the terrible one [Typhon]. He is a great /X quarrel lei\Thcv trim the foresail and look after the mizen in the bark of Ha, in company with the sailors, who are the four constellations1 [a^emu-sek], which are found in the northern heavens. The constellation of the Thigh appears at the late rising. When this constellation is in the middle of the heavens, having
 

 

 

 
come to the south, where Orion lies [Orion typifying the southern part of the skies], the other stars are wending their way to the western horizon. Regarding the Thigh; it is the Thigh of Set, so long as it is seen in the northern heavens
1 /.<*., the stars which never sot.
K 2
148
   
[CHAP. XIV.
/ there is a band [of stars ?] to the two [sword handles ?] in the shape of a great V bronze chain. It is the place of Isis in the shape of a Hippopotamus to guard.”
In the square zodiac at Denderah we find an illustration of the Hippopotamus and the Thigh, and the chain referred to in the inscription is there also. It will be quite worth while to see whether this chain is not justified by some line of stars between the chief stars in Draco and those in the Great Bear.
Let us now turn to the associated mythology. We see that the astronomical ideas have a most definite character; we learn also from the inscriptions dating from the Eighteenth Dynasty, that the Egyptians at that time recognised three different risings. There was the rising at sunset, the rising at midnight, and the rising at dawn. Plutarch says that the Hippopotamus was certainly one of the forms of Typhon, and a reference to the myth of Horus, so beautifully told twenty years ago and illustrated by Naville by the help of inscriptions at Edffi, will show how important this identification is.
Naville rightly pointed out how vital the study of mythology becomes with regard to the advancement of any kind of knowledge of the thoughts and actions of the ancient Egyptians. Mythology, as Bunsen said, is one of the poles of the existence of every nation; hence it will be well not to neglect the opportunity thus afforded of studying the astronomical basis of one of the best-known myths.
First a word about the mythology of Horus. Generally we begin with the statement usually made that Horus meant the young (or rising) sun. But inquiry shows that Horus was something more than this; the Egyptians were great generalises.
If we put the facts already known into diagrammatic
CHAP. XIV.]
MYTH OF HORUS.
149
form, we find that the condition of things is something like the following:—
HORUS = SUN, PLANET, or CONSTELLATION RISING.
SUN.   PLANETS.   CONSTELLATIONS.
1   *'   ?   <s
Horns   Mars as   Orion Northern constellations
Hor-xuti   Sah-Horus Set-Horns.
(Laughing Horns)
(Red Horus)
The table shows that, although the Egyptians undoubtedly called the rising sun Horus, the planets and constellations when rising were in certain cases called Horus too. We do not get any individual star rising referred to as Ilorus; they were always considered as goddesses. Hence, Horus seems to include constellations—that is, groups of stars rising—but not single stars.
Since the northern constellations were symbolised by the name of Set, the god of darkness, we should take Set-Horus to mean that the stars in the Dragon were rising at sunrise. This may explain the meaning of a remarkable figure which has set Egyptologists thinking a great deal. It is the combination of Ilorus and Set—a body of Horus with two heads, those of the hawk and jackal.
Now then for the myth. The reason why Naville went to the temple of Edfu for his facts is that in the later-time temples—and this is one of them—the inscriptions on the walls have chiefly to do with myth and ritual, whereas in the period covered by the earlier dynasties the temple inscriptions related chiefly to the doings of the kings. When we come
 

 
150
   
[CHAP. XIV.
to read the story which Naville brings before us, it looks as though the greatest antiquity must be conceded to it from / the fact that the god Horus—the rising sun—is accompanied , by the Hor-shesu, the followers or worshippers of Horus. These people are almost prehistoric, even in Egyptian history. De Rouge says of them, as I have previously pointed out, (Test le type de VantiquitS la plus reculee. They represent,
| possibly, the old sun-worshippers at a time when as yet there j was no temple of the sun. Now, in this famous myth of ' Horus, Horus, accompanied and aided by the Hor-shesu, does battle with Typhon, the god of darkness, who had killed /his father Osiris, and Horus avenges his father in the manner indicated in the various inscriptions and illustrative drawings given in the temple of Edfu. How does he do it ? We find that in this conflict to revenge his father Osiris, he is represented in a boat killing a hippopotamus with ten darts, f the beast being ultimately cut up into eight pieces. In some drawings it is a hippopotamus that he is slaying; in others, possibly for some totemic reason, a crocodile has been selected, but we can only see that it has been a crocodile by the fact that a little piece of the tail remains. Doubtless the reference had been found objectionable by some crocodile- I worshipping people.
In very many inscriptions the constellation which, as I have stated, represents the hippopotamus, is really represented as a crocodile, or as a crocodile resting on the shoulders of a hippopotamus, so that there is no doubt that the crocodile and the hippopotamus were variants; and we can quite understand, further, that the hippopotamus must have been brought into Egypt by a tribe with that totem, who must have come from a very long way up the Nile, since the hippopotamus was never indigenous in the lower reaches of the river; so that we
CHAP. XIV.]
EXPLAINED ASTRONOMIC A LL Y.
151
have in the myth to do with a hippopotamus-worshipping tribe, which, for that reason, probably came from a region very far to the south. There is evidence of local tribes in ! Egypt among which the crocodile was sacred.
The astronomical explanation of this myth is, I think, very clear. The inscriptions relating to one of the very earliest
 
ILLUSTRATION FROM A THEBAN TOMB, SHOWING THE ASSOCIATION OF THE CROCODILE AND HIPPOPOTAMUS, AND HJ>RU8 SLAYING THE CROCODILE, AND THE CONSTELLA-
\\ i. ^   r. CcV* V t. v)‘j   ' W
TION OF THE THIOH.
of the illustrations refers to Horus, “ the great god, the light of the heavens, the lord of Edfh, the bright ray tohich appears on the horizon.” The myth, therefore, I take it, simply means that the rising sun destroys the circumpolar stars. These stars are represented in the earliest forms of the myth either by \ the crocodile or the hippopotamus; of course they disappeared i (or were killed) at sunrise. Horus, the bright ray on the i horizon, is victorious by destroying the crocodile and the hippopotamus, which represent the powers of darkness.
This is a general statement. I should not make it if I could not go a little further. There is an astronomical /test of its validity, to which I must call attention. The effect of precession is extremely striking on the constellations near
V
152
THE DA WE OF ASTRONOMY.
[CHAP. XIV.
 
the pole, for the reason that the pole is constantly changing, and the changes in the apparent position of the stars there soon become very obvious. The stars in Draco were circumpolar, and could, therefore, have been destroyed (or rendered invisible), as the hippopotami were destroyed in the myth by the rising sun, about
5000 vears B.C. : and be
*' *
it noted that at that time there was only one star in the Great Bear (or the Thigh) which was circumpolar. But at 2000 years B.C. the stars in Ursa Major were the circumpolar ones, and the chief stars in the constellation Draco, which formed the ancient constellation of the Hippopotamus, rose and set; so that, if there is anything at all in the ex- HORUS AND CROCODILES.   pltination of the myth
which I have given, and if there is anything at all in the idea that the myth is very ancient and refers to the time when the constellation of the Hippopotamus was really circumpolar—a time 7000 years ago—we ought to find that as the myth existed in more recent times, we should no lonsrer be dealiner with Draco or
CHAP. X1V.J
THE THIGH AND
153
the Hippopotamus, because Draco was no longer circumpolar.
As a matter of fact, in later times we get Horus destroying no longer the Hippopotamus or the Crocodile, but the Thigh of Set; and, as I have said, 2000 years B.C. the Thigh occupied exactly the same position in the heavens with regard to the pole as the Hippopotamus or the Crocodile did 3000 ^years before.
Thus, I think, we may claim that this myth is astronomical from top to bottom ; it is as old as, and probably rather older than, Naville thought, because it must certainly have originated in a period somewhere about 5000
years B.C, otherwise the constellation of the Hippopotamus would not have figured in it.
The various illustrations of Horus on the crocodiles are a reference to the myth we have just discussed.
It is easy to understand that if the myth were astronomical in origin there was no reason why it should be limited to Horus representing the rising sun; we accordingly find it extended to the god Ptah.
But although I hold that the astronomical meaning of the myth is that the rising sun kills the circum-
 

 
154         IOUP. xiv.
[ polar stars, I do not think that is the last word. A conflict is suggested between a people who worship the rising sun and i another who worship the circumpolar stars. I shall show in the sequel that there is an astronomical suggestion of the existence of two such distinct races, and that the companions of the sun-god of Edffl must probably be distinguished from the northern Hor-shesu.
Here we may conclude our reference to the stars which, in the latitude of Egypt, do not rise and set—or, rather, did not rise and set at the epochs of time wo have been considering.
CHAPTER XV.
TEMPLES DIRECTED TO THE STARS.
•
I HAVE now to pass from the circumpolar stars to those which both rise and set. The difference between the two groups— those that do hot rise and set and those which do—was fully recognised by the Egyptians, and many references are made to the fact in the inscriptions.
In a previous chapter I have given reasons to show that some of the earliest solar temples in Egypt were not oriented to the solstice.
The temple of Amen-Ra at Karnak, however, and others elsewhere were built in such a manner that at sunset at the summer solstice—that is, on the longest day in the year—the sunlight entered the temple and penetrated along the axis to the sanctuary. I also pointed out that a temple oriented in this manner truly to a solstice was a scientific instrument of very high precision, as by it the length of the year could be determined with the greatest possible accuracy, provided only that the observations were continued through a sufficient period of time.
All the temples in Egypt, however, are not oriented in such a way that the sunlight can enter them at this or any other I time of the year. They are not therefore solar temples, and they cannot have had this use. The critical amplitude for a temple built at Thebes so that sunlight can enter it at sunrise or sunset is about 26° north and south of east and west, so that any temples facing more northerly or southerly are precluded from having the sunlight enter them at any time in the year.
156
   
[CHAP. XV.
It is imperative to be perfectly definite and clear on the question of the amplitudes above 26° at Thebes. I repeat, therefore, that any amplitude within 26° means that up to that point the sun at sunrise or sunset could be observed some day or days of the year—once only in the year if the amplitude is exactly at the maximum, twice if the maximum is not reached. But in the case of these temples with greater amplitudes than 26°, it is quite clear that they can have had nothing to do with the sun.
This being so, we have the problem presented to us whether or not temples were built so that starlight might fall along their axes in exactly the same way that the sunlight could- fall along the axes of the solar temples when the sun was rising in the morning or setting in the evening.
It is abundantly clear that temples with a greater amplitude' than 20° were oriented to stars if they were oriented at all by astronomical considerations. IIow can this question be studied ? What means of investigation are at our disposal ?
Suppose that the movements of the stars are absolutely regular; that there is no change from year to year, from century to century, from aeon to aeon; then, of course, the question as to whether or not these temples were pointed to a star, at rising or setting, would be easily and sufficiently settled by going to see; because if the stars did not change their apparent places in the heavens—accurately speaking, their declinations—and, therefore, the amplitudes at which they appear to rise and set, then, of course, a temple consecrated to Sirius ten thousand years ago would view the rising or setting of Sirius now as it did then.
But, as a matter of fact, astronomy tells us, as we have seen, that the apparent positions of the stars are liable to change. The change is much greater in the case of the stars
CHAP. XV.]
PRECESSIOXAL MOV EM EXT OF STARS.
157
than it is in the case of the sun, referred to in Chapters VI. and XI.; but still we have seen that the latter is one which has to be reckoned with the moment it becomes a question of inquiry into any time far removed from the present.
Hence, although in the case of the sun, there is, of course, no precessional movement, and although a temple once oriented to the sun would remain so for a long time; still, after some thousands of years, the change in the obliquity of the ecliptic would produce a small change in the amplitude at which a solstice is observed.
But while, in the case of the sun, we have to deal with a change of something like 1° in seven thousand years; we have to face in the case of the stars a maximum change of something like 47° in a period of thirteen thousand years.
The change of declination must be accompanied by a change of amplitude, and therefore by a change in the direction of the temples.
Hence, when we get a temple of known date, with an amplitude which has been accurately measured, we can determine from that amplitude the exact declination of the body the temple was intended to observe, supposing, of course, that the temple was oriented upon any astronomical considerations at all. If the declination of the body turns out to be 23° 30' or less, the temple may have been, in all probability was, a
 
GROUND PLAN OF EDFO.
158

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