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 not 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-Rā 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 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.

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 26° were oriented to stars if they were oriented at all by astronomical considerations. How 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 æon to æon; 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 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 processional 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 solar one; if the declination is greater it cannot have had anything to do with the sun directly.

This being so, it will be understood why in an inquiry of this kind it is obviously desirable to begin with a region in which the number of temples is considerable. Such a condition we have in the region near Thebes; and the directions of the axes of the different temples--that is, the orientation of each of them, or, in other words, the amplitude of the direction in which each temple points--have all been tabulated. Chief among these we have the large temple of Karnak, showing that the amplitude of its orientation is 26° north of west, and the temple of Mut, showing that its orientation is 72½° north of east. There is a temple at right angles to the temple at Karnak, and again another with an amplitude of 63° south of west, and so on.

It may be stated generally that at Karnak itself, not to go farther afield, there are two well-marked series of temples which cannot, for the reason given, be solar, since one series faces a few degrees from the north, and the other a few degrees from the south. There are similar temples scattered all along the Nile valley.

When we come to examine these non-solar temples, the first question is, Do they resemble the solar ones in construction? Are the horizontal telescope conditions retained? The evidence on this point is overwhelming. Take the Temple of Hathor at Denderah. It points very far away from the sun; the sun's light could never have enfiladed it; in many others pointing well to the north or south the axis extends from the exterior pylon to the Sanctuary or Naos, which is found always at the closed end of the temple; we have the same number of pylons, gradually getting narrower and narrower as we get to the Naos, and in some there is a gradual rise from the first exterior pylon to the part which represents the section of the Naos, so that a beam of horizontal light coming through the central door might enter it over the heads of the people flocking into the outer courts of the temple, and pass uninterruptedly into the Sanctuary.

In this way the Egyptians had, if they chose to use it, a most admirable arrangement for observing, with considerable accuracy, either the rising or the setting of any celestial body, whether it were sun or star, and especially the possibility of observing a _cosmical_ rising, as the eye was shielded from the sunrise light, and the place of rising was completely indicated.

In these, as at Karnak, we have a collimating axis. We have the other end of the temple blocked; we have these various diaphragms or pylons, so that, practically, there is absolutely no question of principle of construction involved in this temple that was not involved in the great solar temple of Amen-Rā itself.

We made out that in the case of the temples devoted to sun-worship and to the determination of the length of the year, there was very good reason why all these attempts should be made to cut off the light, by diaphragms and stone ceilings, because, among other things, one wanted to find the precise point occupied by the sunbeam on the two or three days near the winter or summer solstice in order to determine the exact moment of the solstice.

But if a temple is not intended to observe the sun, why these diaphragms? Why keep the astronomer, or the priest, so much in the dark? There is a very good reason indeed.

From the account given by Herodotus[42] of the ceremonials and mysteries connected with the temple of Tyre, it is suggested that the priests used starlight at night for some of their operations, very much in the same way as they might have used sunlight during the day. According to Herodotus, in the temple in question there were two pillars--the one of pure gold, and the other of an emerald stone of such size as to shine by night.[42] Now, there can be little doubt that in the darkened sanctuary of an Egyptian temple the light of α Lyræ, one of the brightest stars in the northern heavens, rising in the clear air of Egypt, would be quite strong enough to throw into an apparent glow such highly-reflecting surfaces as those to which Herodotus refers.

Supposing such a ceremonial as this, the less the worshippers--who, reasoning from the analogy of the ceremonial termed the manifestation of Rā,[43] would stand facing the sanctuary, with their backs to the chief door of the temple--knew about the question of a bright star which might probably produce the mystery, the better.

Again, the truer the orientation of the temple to the star, and the greater the darkness the priest was kept in, the sooner would he catch the star quivering in the light of either early or late dawn.

In the first place, the diaphragms would indicate the true line that he had to watch; he would not have to _search_ for the star which he expected; and obviously the more he was kept in the dark the sooner could he see the star.

Is there any additional line of evidence beyond the structural conditions of the temples that the Egyptians used these temples to observe the stars? Here a very interesting question comes in: a temple built at one period to observe a star could not go on for ever serving its purpose, for the reason that the declination of the star must change, as we have seen, by precession. Therefore a temple built with a particular amplitude to observe a particular star at one period would be useless later on.

We have here possibly a means of testing whether or not any of these temples were used to observe the stars. In those very early days, 3000 or 4000 years B.C., we must assume that the people who observed the stars had not the slightest idea of these possible precessional changes; they imagined that they were just as safe in directing a temple to a star as they were in directing a temple to the sun. But with a star changing its declination in an average way, the _same_ temple could not be used to observe the _same_ star for more than 200 or 300 years; so that at the end of that time, if they still wished to observe that particular star, they must either change the axis of the old temple, or build a new one. I have mentioned an average time as the change of the star's declination is involved.

Now this change of direction is one of the most striking things which have been observed for years past in Egyptian temples.

As a matter of fact, we find that the axes of the temples have been changed, and have been freely changed; that there has been a great deal of work done on many of the temples which are not oriented to the sun, in order to give them a twist.

Once a solar temple, a solar temple for thousands of years; once a star temple, only _that_ star temple for something like 300 years, so that the conditions were entirely changed.

We get cases in which the axis of a temple has had its direction changed, and others in which, where it has been difficult or impossible to make the change in a temple, the change of amplitude has been met by putting up a new temple altogether. We are justified in considering such temples as a series in which, instead of changing the orientation of a pre-existing temple, a new temple has been built to meet the new condition of things. That, I think, is a suggestion which we are justified in making to Egyptologists on astronomical grounds.

For an instance, I may refer to the well-known temple at Medînet-Habû. We have there two temples side by side--a large temple, which was built later, with its systems of pylons and sanctuaries; a smaller temple, with outside courts, and, again, a sanctuary built much earlier. The direction of these two temples is very different; there is a difference of several degrees. It is very difficult indeed to understand why these two structures should have been built in that way if there were not some good reason for it. The best hitherto found is the supposed symmetrophobia of the Egyptians.

We find the same thing in Greece. There is the old Parthenon, a building which may have been standing at the time of the Trojan war, and the new Parthenon, with an outer court very like the Egyptian temples, but with its sanctuary more nearly in the centre of the building. It was by the difference of direction of these two temples at Athens that my attention was called to the subject.

If we study the orientation of these, we find that, like those at Medînet-Habû, they are not parallel; there is a difference of orientation. This method of coping with the changes of amplitude of the star apparently represents that adopted where there has been ample space to build another temple by the side of the old one when the star could no longer be seen from end to end of the old one. But another way was found where the space was more circumscribed, and that is well represented by the temple at Luxor, in which the addition is made _end on_. The suggestion is that, after the temple at Luxor had been built a certain number of years, the amplitude of the star had got a little out of the initial line, and the direction was changed at the time when it was determined to make the temple more beautiful and to amplify it by adding an outer court. There is another outer court and another very considerable change. There are four well-marked deviations.