CHAPTER XVII.

THE BUILDING INSCRIPTIONS.

Numerous references to the ceremonial of laying the foundation-stones of temples exist, and we learn from the works of Chabas, Brugsch, Dümichen,[45] 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,[46] 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 Edfû--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 main 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 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 consisted 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 the third thousand B.C., occurs in the document describing the building of the temple of Annu (Heliopolis). We read:--"Arose the king, attired in his necklace and the feather crown; all the world followed him, and the majesty of Amenemhāt [first king of the Twelfth dynasty]. The Kher-heb read the sacred text during the stretching of the measuring-cord and the laying of the foundation-stone on the piece of ground selected for this temple. Then withdrew His Majesty Amenemhāt; and King Usertsen [son and co-regent] wrote it down before the people."

Nissen, from whom (_loc. cit._) I quote the above, adds:--"On account of the stretching of the measuring-cord, the Egyptian engineers were called by the Greeks ἁρπεδονάπται whose art Democritus boasts of having acquired."

We next turn to Abydos, possibly one of the oldest temple-fields in Egypt. There is an inscription relating to the rebuilding of one of them in the time of Seti I. (about 1380 B.C.). In this the goddess Sesheta addresses the king as follows:--"The hammer in my hand was of gold, as I struck the peg with it, and thou wast with me in thy capacity of Harpedonapt. Thy hand held the spade during the fixing of its [the temple's] four corners with accuracy by the four supports of heaven." On the pictures the king appears with the Osiris crown, opposite the goddess. Both hold in their right hand a club, and with it they each hammer a long peg into the ground. Round the two pegs runs a rope, which is stretched tight, the ends being tied together.

In two cases the star used for the alignment is actually named. Of these I will take, first, the record of the ceremony used in the building of the temple of Hathor at Denderah.

THE ALIGNMENT OF THE TEMPLE OF HATHOR AT DENDERAH.

The inscriptions state that the king while stretching the cord had his glance directed to the _āk_ of the constellation of the _Thigh_--the old name of the constellation which we now recognise as the Great Bear--and on this line was built the new temple, "as had been done there before."

The actual inscription has been translated as follows:--"The living God, the magnificent son of Asti [a name of Thoth], nourished by the sublime goddess in the temple, the sovereign of the country, stretches the rope in joy. With his glance towards the _āk_ [the middle?] of the Bull's Thigh constellation, he establishes the temple-house of the mistress of Denderah, as took place there before." At another place the king says: "Looking to the sky at the course of the rising stars [and] recognising the _āk_ of the Bull's Thigh constellation, I establish the corners of the temple of Her Majesty."

Here, then, we have more than evidence of the stretching of a cord towards a star; an actual constellation is named, and it may be easily imagined that in connection with this many interesting questions arise of the utmost importance to the subject we are considering.

Dümichen, in his references to this passage, discusses the meaning of the word _āk_ in relation to some Theban grave-inscriptions, in which it is suggested that _āk_ is used to represent the middle course of a star, or, astronomically speaking, its culminating point as it passes the meridian. But such a meaning as this will never do in this connection; for if a cord was stretched towards a star on the meridian it would lie north and south, and therefore the temple would be built north and south. But this is by no means the orientation of the temple--a point to which I shall return presently.

But it may be suggested that the word _āk_, used in relation to the king's observation, more probably referred to the brightest star, Dubhe (α Ursæ Majoris) in the asterism, or the "middle point" of the constellation, which would be about represented by the star δ, which lies nearly in the centre of the modern constellation of the Great Bear, supposing, indeed, that the same stars were included in the old constellation. On this point we unfortunately have no definite knowledge, as the Thigh is so variously represented; sometimes there is a hind-quarter, represented evidently by the well-known seven stars; at others the body of a cow (with horns and disk) is attached.

However this may be, without such a reference to some particular part of the constellation it is obvious that the stretched cord may have had a most indeterminate direction.

In order to leave no stone unturned in attempting to explain this description--supposing it to represent an undoubted fact of observation--we may consider another possible interpretation of the word _āk_. The amplitude of the temple being 71½° N. of E., shows conclusively that we cannot be dealing with the meridian, but may we be dealing with the most eastern elongation of the star in its journey round the Pole?

I have inquired into this matter for the time of the last building of the temple in the time of the Ptolemies, and find that the amplitude of the temple, instead of being 71½°, would have been about 70°. It seems probable, then, that this interpretation will not hold, and it may be further stated that, in the case of a star at a considerable angle above the horizon, the stretching of a cord in the building ceremonial--the "Ausspannung der Strickes," as the words _put-ser_ are translated by Dümichen--would really have been no stretching of the cord at all; for the star being many degrees above the horizon, another method must have been employed, and in all probability would have been distinctly referred to in the careful statements of the ceremonies which exist, I think, then, that we are perhaps justified in dismissing this possible explanation, especially as rising stars are referred to.

We now come to considerations of a different order. The inscription which we have quoted is put into the mouth of the Emperor Augustus, though he never was at Denderah.

This suggests that the temple built in the time of Augustus carried forward the account of the old foundation. There is evidence of this. The constellation of the Thigh neither rose nor set in the time of Augustus--it was circumpolar. The same statement may be made regarding the restoration in the time of Thothmes III. So we are driven to the conclusion that if we regard the inscription as true, it must refer to a time preceding the reign of Thothmes. I shall return to this subject in a subsequent chapter.

THE ALIGNMENT OF THE TEMPLE OF EDFÛ.

A reference to the same constellation (the Thigh) is also made in the account of the ceremonial used at the laying of the foundation-stone of the temple at Edfû. The king's glance was directed--in the case of the building of that temple--to the _Thigh_, but no precise reference to any star or to any point _āk_ is given.

As before, I give the full translation of the inscription,[47] remarking that the last restoration was made B.C. 237-57. The king is represented as speaking thus:--"I have grasped the wooden peg and the handle of the club; I hold the rope with Sesheta; my glance follows the course of the stars; my eye is on Mesχet [that is, the 'Bull's Thigh constellation,' or Great Bear]; (mine the part of time of the number of the hour-clock); I establish the corners of thy house of God." And in another place:--"I have grasped the wooden peg; I hold the handle of the club; I grasp the cord with Sesheta; I cast my face towards the course of the rising constellations; I let my glance enter the constellation of the Great Bear (the part of my time stands in the place of his hour-clock); I establish the four corners of thy temple." The translation is Brugsch's. The phrases in parentheses are interpreted differently by Dümichen, who translates them:--"Standing as divider of time by his measuring instrument," or "representing the divider of time (_i.e._ the god Thoth) at his measuring instrument." The word _merech_ or _merchet_, in which Brugsch suspects hour-or water-clock, does not occur elsewhere.

In this case, seeing that the temple lies with its axis very nearly north and south, as I determined by my own (magnetic) observations, the stretching of the cord was certainly in or very near the meridian; and it may be remarked that in the Naos there is an opening in the roof, over the side of the second or third door from the sanctuary, and inclined at an angle of 40° (unlike any other opening that I have seen in the roof of any Egyptian temple), which may have been used to observe the transit of some particular star. The angle I was not able to determine with absolute accuracy, as the vertical circle of the theodolite I had with me was out of adjustment.

Taking the latitude of Edfû as 25°, and assuming the angle of 40° to be not far from the truth, the North Polar distance of the star observed would be 15°.

Within a degree or so--and this is as near as we can get till more accurate observations have been made on the spot--this satisfies Dubhe, the chief star in the Great Bear in the time of the Ptolemies. Supposing the temple was originally oriented to Dubhe, its amplitude, 86½° S. of W., gives us the date 3900 B.C. I shall show, however, that it is more probable that the temple was oriented on some southern star.

I may here remark that, so far as I know, Edfû is the temple in Egypt nearest the meridian. If, therefore, it were used as, on my theory, all other temples were, it could only have picked up the light from each of the southerly stars, as by the precessional movements they were brought into visibility very near the southern horizon.

In this respect, then, it is truly a temple of Horns, in relation to the southern stars--the southern eyes of Horus. But it was not a sun-temple in the sense that Karnak was one; and if ceremonies were performed for which light was required, perhaps the apparatus referred to by the writer Dupuis[48] was utilised. He mentions that in a temple at Heliopolis--whether a solar temple or not is not stated--the temple was flooded all day long with sunlight by means of a mirror. I do not know the authorities on which Dupuis founds his statement, but I have no doubt that it is amply justified, for the reason that doubtless all the inscriptions in the deepest tombs were made by means of reflected sunlight, for in all freshly-opened tombs there are no traces whatever of any kind of combustion having taken place, even in the inner-most recesses. So strikingly evident is this that my friend M. Bouriant, while we were discussing this matter at Thebes, laughingly suggested the possibility that the electric light was known to the ancient Egyptians.

With a system of fixed mirrors inside the galleries, whatever their length, and a movable mirror outside to follow the course of an Egyptian sun and reflect its beams inside, it would be possible to keep up a constant illumination in any part of the galleries, however remote.

Dupuis quotes another statement that the greatest precautions were taken that the first rays of sunlight should enter a temple (of course, he means a solar temple).

But it is possible that there might have been another temple at right angles, facing nearly due east. In this case, the larger temple would have been named after the worship to which the smaller one was dedicated. If so, unlike the solar temples at Heliopolis, Abydos, and Thebes, the Edfû temple was sacred to the Equinoctial Sun, or, at all events, to the Sun very near an equinox.