CHAPTER XIX.

THE PERSONIFICATION OF STARS--THE TEMPLE OF ISIS AT DENDERAH.

We have now to pass from the building ceremonials and a general consideration of the temples at Karnak, to the worships to which the various temples were dedicated. And to do this we must face the problems of Egyptian mythology, so far as the names and origins of the various gods and goddesses are concerned.

There is ample evidence that each temple was sacred to some god or goddess, although in many cases the name of the patron divinity has been lost.

Fortunately, at Denderah the patron divinities are well known, so it will be well to begin with the temples there. We find a general plan of Denderah among the magnificent drawings which we owe to the French expedition of 1798. This shows the wall round the temple-space containing the temple of Hathor, the great temple; and the smaller temple of Isis at right angles to it. We find, roughly, that the great temple points to the north-east; the smaller temple of Isis points to the south-east. A later plan has been published by Mariette in his work on Denderah.

These, then, are the main conditions of the temples at Denderah. But we can go a little more closely into them by referring to the map which accompanies Biot's memoir, to which I have previously referred. He gives the axis of the Hathor temple pointing, not merely to the north-east, but to 18° E. of N. Since the other temple lies at right angles to the great one, its direction, according to Biot, is 18° S. of E.

To show the uncertainty in these inquiries brought about by the absence of a proper survey, I may give the following later values:--

1. LEPSIUS, 1844-- Magnetic azimuth of the axis N. 25° E. " amplitude " " 65° N. of E. Correction 8½° ∴ Astronomical amplitude 73½° N. of E.

2. MARIETTE, 1870-- Astronomical azimuth N. 15° E. " amplitude 75° N. of E.

3. LOCKYER, 1891-- Magnetic azimuth of axis N. 23° E. " amplitude " 67 N. of E. Assumed correction 4½° Astronomical amplitude 71½°

As my value agrees closely with that of Biot, I adhere to it; and it gives, for the amplitude of the temple of Isis at right angles to the Hathor temple, 18½° S. of E.

Now, it is stated distinctly in the inscriptions that "the place of the birth of Isis is to the north-west of the temple of Hathor, its portal is turned to the east, and the sun shines on its portal when it rises to illuminate the world."[50] We learn from this that the small temple was locally celebrated as the birthplace of Isis.

It is, then, a temple of Isis. Who was Isis?

Let us begin by considering the temple, remarking that the inscriptions, apparently relating to both temples, are found in one only. On this point, I, for the present, content myself with quoting Plutarch's statement[51] that Isis and Hathor were the same divinities--at all events, in later Egyptian times.

If we study the inscriptions--and this, thanks chiefly to Mariette's magnificent book on Denderah, we can do--we find that they give out a very certain sound. Here is one of them:--

"She [_i.e._ her Majesty Isis] shines into her temple on New Year's Day, and she mingles her light with that of her father Rā on the horizon."

Here we have nothing more nor less than a distinct and perfectly accurate statement relating to the cosmical rising of a star, _i.e._, as I have before explained, of the sun and the star both rising at the same instant of time.

Further, in the inscriptions the "_rising of Hathor_" is mentioned distinctly. "La grande déesse Sefekh [Sesheta] apporté les écrits qui se rapportent à ton lever, ô Hathor, et au lever de Rā."[52] Everybody knows that "Rā" means the sun, and therefore the rising of Rā is at once accepted by everybody as obviously meaning sunrise. But if we find "Hathor" treated in the same way as the sun, then Hathor must be a celestial body rising like the sun. I consider this a very important conclusion to arrive at, for many reasons.

But, further, Hathor was also worshipped, according to the inscriptions,[53] under the name of Sothis.

Now we know, quite independently of all mythology, that Sothis is simply the Greek form of the Egyptian name (Sept) of the star Sirius.

Taking, then, all these inscriptions together, we have an absolute astronomical demonstration of the fact that the "rising of Hathor," which is referred to mythologically in the inscriptions given by Mariette, was the rising of Sirius; that the star which "shone into the temple, and which mingled her light with the light of her father Rā," was really the star Sirius. We get the demonstration of the fact that mythologically the star Sirius was Hathor, or otherwise Isis.

In other words, we find a star personified; Sirius being personified as Hathor or Isis.

But we can go much further than this. It is possible, as I have shown, to determine the position of Sirius in past times, and therefore to determine whether the light of that star ever did fall along the axis of the temple. We know its orientation approximately--18½° S. of E.--so that any celestial body which rose at that amplitude would shine upon any object enshrined in the sanctuary. In the case of Sirius, the conditions are such that, owing to the precessional movement, the distance of the star from the equator has been gradually lessening from the earliest times. Its declination in 8000 B.C. was 50° S.; it became something more than 17° S. in A.D. 1000.

Knowing the declination, it is easy to determine the amplitude--and given the conditions at the temple of Isis at Denderah, viz., that we are practically dealing with a sea horizon, we find that the temple really pointed to Sirius about 700 B.C., which is the date Biot found for the construction of the zodiac in the temple of Osiris, referred to in Chapter XIII.

Further, it is easy to show that Sirius at that date rose with the sun on the Egyptian New Year's Day;[54] in mythological language, she mingled her light with that of her father Rā on the great day of the year.

As this is the first instance of such personification that we have come across, it behoves us to study it very carefully. Why was Sirius personified and worshipped?

The summer solstice--that is, the 20th of June, the longest day--was the most important time of the Egyptian year, as it marked the rise of the all-fertilising Nile. It was really New Year's Day. It has been pointed out, times without number, that the inscriptions indicate that by far the most important astronomical event in Egyptian history was the rising of the star Sirius at this precise time.

Now it seems as if among all ancient peoples each sunrise, each return of the sun--or of the sun-god--was hailed, and most naturally, as a resurrection from the sleep--the death--of night: with the returning sun, man found himself again in full possession of his powers of living, of doing, of enjoying. The sun-god had conquered death; man was again alive. Light and warmth returned with the dawn in those favoured Eastern climes where man then was, and the dawn itself was a sight, a sensation, in which everything conspired to suggest awe and gratitude, and to thrill the emotions of even uncivilised man.

What wonder, then, that sunrise was the chief time of prayer and thankfulness? But prayer to the sun-god meant, then, sacrifice; and here a practical detail comes in, apparently a note of discord, but really the true germ of our present knowledge of the starry heavens which surround us.

To make the sacrifice at the instant of sunrise, preparations had to be made, beasts had to be slaughtered, and a ritual had to be followed; this required time, and a certain definite quantity of it. To measure this, the only means available then was to watch the rising of a star, the first glimmer of which past experience had shown to precede sunrise by just that amount of time which the ritual demanded for the various functions connected with the sunrise sacrifice.

This, perhaps, went on every morning, but beyond all question the most solemn ceremonial of this nature in the whole year was that which took place on New Year's morning, or the great festival of the Nile-rising and summer solstice, the 1st of Thoth. Besides the morning ceremonial there were processions of the gods during the day.

How long these morning and special yearly ceremonials went on before the dawn of history we, of course, have no knowledge. Nor are the stars thus used certainly known to us. Of course any star would do which rose at the appropriate time before the sun itself, whether the star was located in the northern or in the southern heavens. But in historic times there is no doubt whatever about the star so used. The warning-star watched by the Egyptians at Thebes, certainly 3000 B.C., was Sirius, the brightest of them all, and there is complete evidence that Sirius was not the star first so used.[55]

The astronomical conditions of the rising of this star have, fortunately for us, been most minutely studied both by Biot and, in more recent times, by Oppolzer, and from their labours it seems to be abundantly clear that the rising of Sirius at the solstice was carefully watched certainly as early as 3285 B.C., according to Biot's calculations; and, further, that the rising of the same star was still studied in a relatively modern time. At the earlier date its heliacal rising was observed, but in later times means had been secured of noticing its cosmical rising, because although it rose long before the sun on the longest day 3000 B.C., it rose _with_ the sun on the same day in the later times referred to. This "cosmical rising" observation was doubtless secured by the construction of their temples, as I have shown.

We are, then, astronomically on very firm ground indeed. We have got one step into the domain of mythology. I assume it is agreed that we have arrived at the certain conclusion that the goddess Hathor or Isis personified a star, Sirius, rising at the dawn; and that the temple of Isis at Denderah was built to watch it.