August 31, 1893] 



NA TURE 



417 



THE INFL UENCE OF EGYPT UPON TEMPLE- 

 ORIENTA TION IN GREECE. 



T HAVE shown in former articles that in our own days 

 -'• and in our own land the idea of orientation which I 

 have endeavoured to work out to the best of my ability 

 for Egypt still holds its own. It is more than probable, 

 therefore, that we shall find the intermediate stages in 

 those lands whither by universal consent Egyptian ideas 

 percolated. 



Among these lands Greece holds the first place. It is 

 perhaps proper that I should state here that the view as 

 to the possibility of temple orientation being dominated 

 by astronomical ideas first struck me at Athens and 

 Eleusis, and that I endeavoured to settle the question by 

 studying the Egyptian monuments, because they were the 

 only monuments I could study as a stay-at-home, thanks 

 to the labours of the French Commission and of Lepsius. 



When I found that the same idea had been held by 

 Nissen, and that the validity of it seemed to be beyond 

 all question, I consulted my friend, Mr. F. C. Penrose, 

 particularly with regard to Greece, as I knew he had made 

 a special study of some of the temples, and that, being 

 an astronomer as well as an archaeologist (for, alas, they 

 are not as I think they should be, convertible terms) it 

 was possible that his observations with regard to them 

 included the requisite data. 



I was fortunate enough to find that he had already 

 determined the orientation of the Parthenon with sufficient 

 accuracy to enable him to agree in my conclusion that 

 that temple had been directed to the rising of the Pleiades. 

 He has subsequently taken up the whole subject with 

 regard to Greece in a most admirable and complete 

 way,' and has communicated papers to the Society of 

 Antiquaries, February iS, 1892, and more recently to 

 the Royal Society, April 27, 1893, on his results.^ 



The problem in Greece was slightly different to that in 

 Egypt ; we had not such a great antiquity almost without 

 records to deal with, and moreover the feast calendars of 

 the various temples presented less difficulty. 



There was no vague year to contend with, and in some 

 cases the actual dates of building were known within a 

 very few years. Mr. Penrose has been convinced that in 

 Greece, as in Egypt, the stars were used for heralding 

 sunrise. He writes : — 



" The object the ancients had in using the stars was to 

 employ their rising and setting as a clock to give warn- 

 ing of the sunrise, so that on the special feast days the 

 priests should have timely notice for preparing the sacri- 

 fice or ceremonial, whatever it may have been : 



" Spectans orientia solis 

 Lumina rite cavis undam de flumine palmis 

 Sustulit," &c. 



In Greece, not dominated by the rise of the Nile, we 

 should not expect the year to begin at a solstice but 

 rather at the vernal equinox. I have shown that even in 

 pyramid times in Egypt the risings of the Pleiades and 

 Antares were watched to herald the equinoctial sun ; it 

 j is not surprising, therefore, to find the earliest temples 

 in Greece to be so oriented. Mr. Penrose has found the 

 following : — 



' J) Tauri Archaic temple of 1 ,., , ,, 



(The Pleiades) Minerva!.. .../^"'^"^ '^ 'S30 



Asclepieion Epidaurus R 1275 



The Ilecatompcdon 1 ... ,, 



siteofParlhenon|A">=°' ^ "50 



Temple of Bacchus Athens 

 Temple of Minerva Sunium 



R 



S 



1030 

 845 



1 In the lists of temples which follow all the orientations were obtained 

 from azimuths taken with a theodolite, either from the Sun or from the 

 planet Venus. In almost every case two or more sights were observed, and 

 occasionally aU;o the performance of the instrument was tested by stars at 

 night. The heights subtended by the visible horizon opposite to the axes of 

 the temples were also observed. 



" See Naturk, February 25, 1892, and May 4, 1893. 



■ R indicates a rising, and S a setting observation. 



NO. 1244, VOL. 



48] 



/Egina 



630 



Ant.ares HeriEum 



Earlier Erechtheum 



Temple at 



Temple on the moun- 1 



tain r 



Jupiter Panhellenius ) 



Here we find the oldest temple in a spot which by 

 common consent is the very cradle of Greek civilisation. 



It has also been shown that in Khu-en-Aten's time the 

 new sun-temple at Tell el-Amarna was oriented to Spica, 

 Spica too, we find, so used in Greece in the following 

 temples. 



B C. 



Spica The Heraeam at Olympia R 1445 



Nike Apteros Athens S 1 130 



Themis ... Rhamnus R 1092 



Nemesis ... Rhamnus R 747 



Apollo Bas3£e R 728 Eastern doorway 



Diana Epheius R 715 



When owingto precession the sun's springequinox place 

 had receded from Taurus and entered Aries, in Egypt the 

 equinoxes were no longer in question, since the solstitial 

 year was thoroughly established, and consequently we 

 find no temples to the new warning star a Arietis. 



In Greece, however, where the vernal equinox had now 

 been established as the beginning of the year, we find a 

 different state of things, no less than 7 temples oriented 

 to a Arietis are already known. 



a Arietis Minerva Tegea 



Jupiter Olympius Athens 



Jupiter Olympia ... 



Temple (perhaps \ „, 



Juno) ) *^'*'** - 



Jupiter Megalopolis 



Temple at thel ^ ■ 

 harbour ...j ° 

 Temple on Acropolis oil 

 Mycenje ... ... / " 



The Metroum ... Olympia ... 



The above are all intra-solstitial temples, that is, the 

 sunlight as well as the light of the star can enter them, 

 and this enables us to note a certain change of thought 

 brought about in all probability by the artistic spirit of 

 the Greeks. The Egyptian temples were all dark, often 

 with the statue of a god or a reptile obscure in the naos, 

 and many were oriented so that sunlight never entered 

 them. Mr. Penrose points out that almost all the Greek 

 temples are oriented so that sunlight can enter them, of 

 such temples we have the following 27. 



7 examples from Athens. 



I example from Sunium. 



Now in all these Greek temples, instead of the dark 

 naos of the Egyptian building, we find the cella fully 

 illumined and facing the entrance. Frequently, too, there 

 was a chryselephantine statue to be rendered glorious by 

 the coloured morning sunlight falling upon it, or if any 

 temple had the westerly aspect by the sunset glow. 



It was perhaps this, combined with the later invention 

 of water clocks for telling the hours of the night, which led 

 to the non-building of temples resembling those at Thebes 

 and Denderah facing nearly north. Still there are 

 scattered examples ; one of very remarkable importance, 

 as it is a temple oriented to 7 Draconis 1 130 r c, built 

 therefore not very long after the temple M at Karnak, 

 and this temple is at Boeotian Thebes ! A better proof of 

 the influence exerted by the Egyptians over the temple 



