CHAPTER XVI.

FURTHER INQUIRIES WITH REGARD TO THE STELLAR TEMPLES.

In the preceding chapter I discussed the suggestion, quite independently of any records the Egyptians may have left on the subject, that certain of the temples were oriented to stars; and I applied one test, that, namely, of the change of direction which was imperative if stars were observed for any lengthened period. In such an inquiry we must proceed with great caution.

We cannot make a statement regarding every particular temple with absolute certainty, for the reason that in the case of most of the temples the best Egyptologists cannot give us the most precious piece of information which we require from the astronomical point of view--that is, the date of the _foundation_ of the temple. If in the case of these temples it were absolutely certain that each temple was built at a certain time with a certain orientation, we could tell at once whether or not that temple was pointed to any particular star.

In the absence of this precise information a general attack on the question has been necessary. The method adopted in the search has been as follows:--

(1) To tabulate the orientations of some of the chief temples described by the French Commission, by Lepsius and others.

Several interesting facts were soon revealed by this tabulation.

The first point that I have to note is that, in the case of some of these temples, we get the same, or nearly the same, amplitudes in different localities. To show this clearly it will be convenient to compare together the chief temples near Karnak and those having the same amplitudes elsewhere. We can do this by laying down along a circle the different amplitudes to which these various temples point. To begin with and to make the story complete, I draw attention to the temples which we have already discussed with an amplitude of 27°, or 26°, at Thebes, Karnak, and elsewhere. These, of course, are solar temples. Next we have non-solar amplitudes at Karnak and Thebes, associated with temples having the same amplitude at Denderah, Annu, and other places.

Another point is that we have the majority of the non-solar temples removed just as far as they can be in amplitude from the solar ones, for the reason that they are as nearly as possible _at right angles_ to them, so that if the sun were observed in one temple and a star in the other, there would be a difference of 90° between the position of the sun and the position of the star at that moment. This would, of course, apply also to two stars. Sometimes this rectangular arrangement is in the same temple, as at Karnak, sometimes in an adjacent one, as at Denderah.

If we study Denderah we find that we have there a large temple enclosed in a square _temenos_ wall, the sides of which are parallel to the sides of the temple; and also a little temple at right angles to the principal one.

It is hardly fair to say that a rectangular arrangement, repeated in different localities, is accidental; it is one which is used to some extent in our modern observatories.

The perpetual recurrence of these rectangular temples shows, I think, that there was some definite view in the minds of those who built all the pairs of temples which are thus related to each other; what that view was I shall endeavour to discuss in the sequel.

A third circumstance is that, when we get some temples pointing a certain number of degrees south of east, we get other temples pointing the same number of degrees south of west, so that some temples may have been used to observe risings and others settings of stars in the same declination. It is then natural, of course, to suggest that these temples were arranged to observe the rising and setting of the same stars; but further inquiry has shown that there are mythological objections to this explanation.

Finally, we have temples with the same amplitudes high north and high south, in different places--temples which could not have been built with reference to the sun; just as we have at different places temples with the same amplitudes which _could_ have been used for solar purposes.

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(2) To extend and check some of these observations with special reference to my new point of view in Egypt itself.

In connection with the possible astronomical uses of these temples, I find that when one of the temples has been built, the horizon has always been very carefully left open; there has always been a possibility of vision along the collimating axis prolonged. Lines of sphinxes have been broken to ensure this;[44] at Medînet-Habû, on the opposite side of the river to Karnak, we have outside this great temple a model of a Syrian fort. If we prolong the line of the temple from the middle of the Naos through the systems of pylons, we find that in the model of the fort an opening was left, so that the vision from the sanctuary of the temple was left absolutely free to command the horizon.

It may be said that that cannot be true of Karnak, because we see on the general plan that one of the temples, with an azimuth of 72½°N., had its collimating axis blocked by numerous buildings. That is true; but when one comes to examine into the date of these buildings, as I propose to do in a subsequent chapter, it is found that they are all very late; whereas there is evidence that the temple in question was one of the first, if not the very first, of the temples built at Thebes.

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(3) To determine the declinations to which the various amplitudes correspond. In this direction I have made use of the German Catalogue of star places from 1800 A.D. to 2000 B.C., the places for dates beyond this, and for southern stars, having been calculated chiefly by my son, Mr. W. J. S. Lockyer, B.A.

Some places for Sirius and Canopus have been obligingly placed at my disposal by Mr. Hind, and approximate values obtained 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 I 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 forty-eight equidistant points occupied by the pole of the equator round the pole of the ecliptic (assumed to be fixed) in the precessional revolution.

Some simple astronomical considerations may here come to our help. If the north polar distance of a star is increasing--that is, if a star is increasing its distance from the north pole--its declination if north or south will be decreased or increased respectively, and the orientation of the temple would be gradually becoming more and more parallel to an E. and W. line; if the declination north or south of the star be increasing, then the orientation of the temple would have to be likewise increased. The change in the orientation, therefore, gives us information towards determining in which quarter of the heavens each particular star might have been.

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(4) In cases where the date of the foundation of a temple dedicated to a particular divinity has been thoroughly known, there was no difficulty in finding the star the declination of which at the time would give the amplitude; and, in the case of series of temples dedicated to the same divinity, an additional check was afforded if the changes of amplitude from the latest to the newest temple agreed with the changes of the declinations of the same star.

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(5) Having the declinations of the stars thus determined for certain epochs, I have next plotted them on curves, showing the amplitude for any year up to 5000 B.C. at Thebes for a true horizon and when the horizon is raised 1° or 2° by hills or mist; and, finally, a table has been prepared showing the declination proper to the amplitude of each of the chief temples when the needful information was available.

Although, however, these matters can be discussed in a way that will indicate that the inquiry is raised, I do not wish for one moment to speak of it as being settled, because the observations which have been made already in Egypt with regard to the orientation of these temples have not been made from such a very special point of view; and, further, considerable alteration in the amplitude would be made by the presence of even a low range of hills miles away in the case of stars rising or setting not many degrees from the north or south. No one would care to make the assertion with absolute definiteness until it was known whether or not the horizon in each case was interfered with by hills or any intervening objects--was or was not one, in fact, which might be regarded as a sea horizon from the point of observation; if there were impediments, the angular height of them must, of course, be exactly known; but this information is almost entirely lacking.

Now, however, that the question has been raised by observations of the temples themselves, it becomes interesting to ask of the inscriptions if there are records that these temples were directed to stars?

It will be seen in the next chapter that the inscriptions give out no uncertain sound on this point.