296 



NA TURE 



[January 28, 1892 



ON SOME POINTS IN ANCIENT EGYPTIAN 

 ASTRONOMY. 



I. Direction of Preliminary Inquiry. 

 T HAVE recently been prosecuting some inquiries on 

 -*• the orientation of Egyptian temples which have led 

 me to the conclusion that in all probability the temples, 

 and the gods and goddesses in the Egyptian Pantheon 

 to which they were dedicated, were in some way con- 

 nected with the sun and certain stars. The method 

 adopted in the research has been as follows : — 



(i) To tabulate the orientations of some of the chief 

 temples described by the French Commission, Lepsius, 

 and others. 



(2) To extend and check some of these observations 

 with special reference to my new point of view, in Egypt. 



(3) To determine the declinations to which the various 

 amplitudes correspond. In this direction I have made 

 use of the Berlin Catalogue of star places from 1800 a.d. 

 to 2000 B.c.,^ some places for Sirius and Canopus which 

 have been obligingly placed at my disposal by Mr. Hind, 

 and approximate values given by the use of a precessional 

 globe constructed for me by Mr. Newton. This globe 

 differs considerably from that previously contrived by 

 M. Biot, about which 1 was ignorant when I began the 

 work, and enables right ascensions and declinations, but 

 especially the latter, to be determined with a fair amount 

 of accuracy for twenty-four equidistant points occupied 

 by the pole of the earth round the pole of the ecliptic 

 (assumed to be fixed) in the precessional revolution. 



(4) Having the declinations of the stars thus deter- 

 mined for certain epochs, I have next plotted them on 

 Clirves, showing the amplitude for any year up to 5000 

 B C. at Thebes for a true horizon and when the horizon 

 is raised 1° or 2'' by hills or mist. 



(5) In cases where the date of the foundation of a 

 temple dedicated to a particular divinity has been 

 thoroughly known, there was no difficulty in finding the 

 star the declination of which at the time would give 

 the amplitude, and, in the case of series of temples 

 dedicated to the same divinity, an additional check was 

 afforded if the changes of amplitude from the latest to 

 the newest temple agreed with the changes of the 

 declinations of the same star. 



This method also enabled me to suggest that certain 

 temples, the date of foundation of which was not known, 

 if they formed part of the same series, would thus have 

 the date of original foundation determined. 



(6) These results led me to the conclusion that certain 

 stars had been used for temple purposes, to the exclusion 

 of others. 



(7) The next point, therefore, was to determine why 

 these stars had been selected, and not others ; and the 

 precessional globe was used to study these stars, in rela- 

 tion to their heliacal rising and setting at different times 

 of the year, but especially at the summer solstice. 



(8) The raison d'etre of the use of these stars at once 

 became evident in a very remarkable fashion, and indi- 

 cated that observations of them might certainly have 

 been made to heraki sunrise. 



In some cases the star rose heliacally with the sun, or 

 thereabouts ; in others, it set heliacally— that is, when 

 the sun was 10° below the eastern horizon. 



2. The Building Ceremonials recorded in the 

 Inscriptions. 

 In a paper presented to the Society of Antiquaries in 

 May last, and elsewhere, I have given reasons to show that 

 the temple of Amen-Ra at Karnak was 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 



' Vierteljahrsschr. der Astronoiuischcn Gesc'.hchnft, vol. xvi. p. 9, 18S1. 



NO. 1 161, VOL. 45] 



temple and penetrated along the axis (more than a 

 quarter of a mile in length) 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 pre- 

 cision, 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 time of the year. They are not therefore solar 

 temples, and they have not this use. The critical ampli- 

 tude 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 northly 

 or southly are precluded from having the sunlight enter 

 them at any time in the year. 



Thus at Karnak, to take an instance, there are two 

 well-marked series of temples which cannot, for the 

 reason given, be solar, since one series faces a few 

 degrees from the north, and the other a few degrees 

 from the south. There are similar temples scattered all 

 along the Nile Valley. The first question, then, to ask 

 of the inscriptions is if there are records that these 

 temples were directed to stars, as the solar temples were 

 to the sun .-' 



As a matter of fact numerous references to the cere nonial 

 of laying the foundation-stones of temples exist, and we 

 learn from the works of Chabas, Brugsch, Diimichen,* 

 and others, that the foundation of an Egyptian temple 

 was associated with a series of ceremonies which are 

 repeatedly described with a minuteness which, as Nissen 

 has pointed out,'' is painfully wanting in the case of 

 Greece and Rome. Amongst these ceremonies, one 

 especially refers to the fixing of the temple-axis ; it is 

 called, technically, " the stretching of the cord," and is 

 not only illustrated by inscriptions on the walls of the 

 temples of Karnak, Denderah, and Edfu — to mention 

 the best-known cases — but is referred to elsewhere. 



Another part of the ceremony consisted in the king 

 proceeding to the site where the temple was to be built, 

 accompanied mythically by the goddess Sesheta, who is 

 styled " the mistress of the laying of the foundation- 

 stone " 



Each was armed with a stake. The two stakes were 

 connected by a cord. Next the cord was aligned towards 

 the sun or star as the case might be ; when the alignment 

 was perfect the two stakes were driven into the ground 

 by means of a wooden mallet ; there was no difference 

 of procedure in the case of temples directed to the sun. 

 One boundary wall parallel to the jnain axis of the 

 temple was built along the line marked out by this 

 stretched cord. 



If the moment of sun- or star-rise or set were chosen, 

 as we have every reason to believe was the case, seeing 

 that all the early observations were made on the horizon, 

 it is obvious that the light from the body towards which 

 the temple was thus aligned would penetrate the axis 

 of the temple thus built from one end to the other in the 

 original direction of the cord. 



We learn from Chabas that the Egyptian word which 

 expresses the idea of founding or laying the foundation 

 stone of a temple is Senti — a word which still exists in 

 Coptic. But in the old language another word Put-ser, 

 which no longer remains in Coptic, has been traced. It 

 has been established that Put means to stretch, and Ser 

 means cord, so that that part of the ceremonial which con- 

 sisted in stretching a cord in the direction of a star was 

 considered of so great an importance that it gave its 

 name to the whole ceremonial. 



I will next refer to some of the inscriptions ; one, dating 

 from the last half of th,e third thousand B.C., occurs in 



' " Baugeschichte des Dendera-Tempels." 1877. 

 ^ Rheinisches Museum fiir Philologic, 1885, p. 39. 



