did. Seti's temple (L) had been superseded; the temple M was a second

rectangular temple outside the great temple of Karnak (K). They said to themselves: "We will make Karnak more beautiful, and we will extend it. We can now build walls in continuation of the old walls, and we can build still another pylon, because Seti's temple is no longer being used, the worship having been transferred to the temple of Rameses III. (Khons). By building the northern wall we prevent the use of temple M, sacred to our enemy Sutech."

I should add that the opening in the wall, in prolongation of the axis of temple M, is _not_ directly opposite the temple M, but a little to the east; it was probably made later, possibly by the twenty-second dynasty, who were Set worshippers. Again, coming to the time of Taharqa, returning at the end of the exile of the priests of Amen in Nubia, the temple, M was again thrown out of use. Pillars were built in front of it, right in the fair-way, affording an instance that when a temple was thrown out of use, not by the precessional movement of the star to which it had been directed, but by the partisans of another creed, the fact of its being no longer in operation was insured by something being built in front of it, to prevent observation of the stellar divinity no longer in vogue.

It may be added that long after the temple of Seti II. fell out of astronomical use, and was on that account blocked by the walls of the twenty-first dynasty, the Ptolemies built a new temple of Osiris, which, if built before, would have been in the fair-way of the temple of Seti. Thus, there is a reason for all the changes made at all the dates referred to by Mariette.

I think we find in this result of the inquiry a valuable corroboration of Mariette's conclusions, and another reason why we should not cease to admire his magnificent works.

So far I have only referred to the relatively modern parts of Karnak. I now pass to the more ancient ones, in which we ought to note the same laws holding good, if there be any value in the view we are discussing.

We find that some of the most important temples given by Lepsius and Mariette (B, X, and W) are just as effectively blocked by the mass of the temple of Amen-Rā as those we have already considered were by the walls of the twenty-first dynasty and Taharqa's columns; and, looking at the plan, it seems at first perfectly absurd to continue to hold for one moment the idea that these temples were built for observations of stars on the horizon.

The temple X (Mut) is blocked by the pylon marked 3, the temple B by the eastern end of the great temple, the temple W by the temple O.

Mariette here again comes to our rescue to a certain extent. He shows, as I have stated in Chapter XI., that in the beginning of things, certainly in the twelfth dynasty, possibly in the eleventh dynasty, and possibly even before that, only the central part, marked 4, of the solar temple existed, less as a temple than as a shrine, with nothing to the west of it and nothing to the east of it.

That being so, the temple B gets its fair-way to the south, and the temple of Mut (X) and the smaller temple (W) to the north.

Mariette in his two plates shows the growth of the temple of Amen-Rā in a most admirable way, from the central portion of the temple to which I have referred--that, is, the small central court, which, he is careful to note, existed before Thothmes I.; how much before, he does not say. Afterwards, the pylons are added; then they are elaborated; then the sanctuary is thrown back to the eastward, and the temple O built, and B thereby blocked, and then thrown forward to the westward, thus blocking X and Z.

If there is anything in these considerations at all, it is suggested that all the temples to which 1 have referred were founded before these easterly and westerly extensions, of which Mariette gives us such ample evidence.

In a subsequent chapter it is suggested that this great lengthening of the original shrine of Amen-Rā was undertaken for the purpose of blocking temples X, Z, and W, all dedicated to Set. Thothmes III. and Taharqa had precisely the same objects in view, apparently.

Here, however, we meet a real difficulty. Mariette states that, so far as he has been able to find, the temple B, a temple of which the worship is Amen, and the temple X, in which the worship is Mut, were built by Amen-hetep III. If that were so, they would have been built blocked; none of the usual ceremonials could have been employed at their foundation. They could not have been used at all for astronomical purposes, because their horizons were blocked by these extensions of the temple of Amen-Rā.

Here I must refer specially to temple B. Its amplitude is, according to Lepsius, 63½° S. of W. I have already shown that the amplitudes of temples L (Khons) and T (Seti II.) are 62° and 63° S. of W., and that in the times of the Ptolemies and Seti II., each faced the star Canopus in turn. Hence the probability that we have three temples of nearly equal orientation sacred to the same divinity.

Temple. Orientation. Declination. Date. Khons 62 52½° 300 B.C. Seti II. 63 53½° 1350 B.C. B 63½ 54 1800 B.C.

The statement is that the part of the temple of Amen-Rā, the building of which blocked B, was commenced by Thothmes III., whose date, according to Brugsch, is 1600 B.C., and continued by Amen-hetep III. (1500 B.C.). Unless, then, some other provision was made, the observations of Canopus were not continued until another shrine was built. We know that another shrine was built, that of Seti II., and that its orientation gives a date of 1350 B.C. It might have been commenced by Seti I. after the Khu-en-Aten troubles, and finished by Seti II.

One is therefore tempted to ask whether we have not here one of those crucial cases which Mariette himself contemplated, in which the true foundation is so far anterior to the last restoration or the last decoration, from which, for the most part, the archæologist gets his information, that one is absolutely misled by the restorations or decorations as to the true date of the original foundation of the shrine.[49]

If the archæologists are right in attributing the granite temple of Osiris (?), near the sphinx, to a date anterior to, or even contemporaneous with, the second pyramid, we have evidence that in the early dynasties the temple building in stone, and even in granite brought from Aswân, was as perfect in the matter of workmanship as in the eighteenth dynasty; and that it was not then the fashion to inscribe walls, but only statues and stelas. May it possibly be that the fashion in question came in, or reached its greatest development, during the eighteenth dynasty, and that on this account so many temples are ascribed to that period, whereas they were actually in existence before?

If the prior dynasties built no temples, why did they not do so? and if they did, where are they, if some of those _inscribed_ by the eighteenth dynasty be not they?

In the absence of final archæological evidence--that is, admitting Mariette's own doubt as to the mere existence of inscriptions--are there any astronomical considerations which may possibly help us? Assuming that the temples were astronomically oriented, we have _one_ registering for us the time elapsed since the original direction of the axis was laid down, in terms of the change in the obliquity of the ecliptic.

We have others registering time in like manner in terms of the change due to precession, if we can get any light as to the stars towards which the temples were oriented.

I have already dealt with the temple of Amen-Rā in Chapter XI., and we found a foundation date of 3700 B.C. for the original shrine, so far as the rough observations already available can be trusted. Assuming the accuracy of this determination, it is clear that we must look for stars with appropriate amplitudes between that date and say 2500 B.C.

Let us take the temple of Mut (X of Lepsius); its amplitude is 72½ N. of E. This was the amplitude of γ Draconis about 3500 B.C. This temple, then, bore the same relation to M as T did to L! We have two cases of two temples erected at different dates to the same star.

Although it has been convenient to begin with Thebes for the reasons given, the records concerning any one temple there are far more restricted than those which relate to some temples elsewhere; while the cult can only be determined in few instances. I propose, therefore, for the present to content myself with the above general considerations showing the first application of the method of investigation adopted, and to pass on to Denderah, where we are sure of the cult and where many particulars are given.