CHAPTER XXXI.

THE HISTORY OF SUN-WORSHIP AT ANNU AND THEBES.

Now that we have been able to discuss with more or less fulness the stars--very few in number--to which the temples in both Upper and Lower Egypt were probably oriented, and further, the astronomical requirements which they were intended to fulfil, we are in a position to consider several questions of great interest in relation to the earliest observations of the sun and stars.

One of the first among these questions is whether the complete inquiry throws any light upon the suggestion made on page 85, that in different temples we seem to be dealing with at least two different kinds of astronomical thought and methods; as if, indeed, we were in presence of ideas so differently based that the assumption of different races of men, rather than different astronomical and religious ideas, is almost necessary to account for them.

Let us begin with the apparent result of the inquiry into sun-worship as practised at Annu and Thebes.

It was suggested that, although in the matter of simple worship the sun would come before the stars, in _temple_-worship the conditions would be reversed in consequence of the stable rising-and setting-places of the latter as compared with those of the sun at different times of the year.

Another suggestion was hazarded that sun temple-worship might have been an accidental result of the sunlight entering a temple which had really been built to observe a star; and that such temple sun-worship might possibly have preceded the time at which the solstices and equinoxes, and their importance, had been made out. I think it is possible to show that this really happened, and we owe the demonstration of this important fact to the Egyptian habit of having two associated temples at right angles to each other, because this habit justifies the assumption that at Annu the mounds and single obelisk which now remain not only indicate the certain existence in former times of one temple, but, in all probability, of two at right angles to each other.

The next question we have to consider is whether the researches at Annu bear this surmise out. Let me refer to what has already been stated. As I have shown in Chapter VIII. (p. 77), the north and south faces bear 13° north of west--13° south of east. I have elsewhere shown (Chap. XXI., p. 215) that there is good reason for believing that the original foundation of the temple at Annu dates from the time when the north-pointing member of such a double system was directed to α Ursæ Majoris. This was somewhat earlier than 5000 B.C.

Bearing in mind the facts obtained with regard to other similar rectangular systems, we are led to inquire whether at that date a temple oriented to declination 11° north, that is the declination proper to the amplitude of the member looking west, was directed to any star.

We find that the important star Capella was in question.

Now, so far in my references to stars, little mention has been made of Capella. It is obvious that the first thing to be done on the orientation hypothesis is to see whether any other temple--and if of known cult, so much the better--is found oriented to Capella. There is one such temple; it was erected by Thothmes III. (Time of Thothmes, 1600 B.C. Amplitude of temple, 35° west of north = with hills 3° high, 32½° north declination; Capella 33° north declination about 1700 B.C.) It is the temple of _Ptah_ at Karnak.

And now it appears there is another. During the year 1892 the officers of the Museum of Gîzeh, under the direction of M. de Morgan, excavated a temple at Memphis to the north of the hut containing the recumbent statue of Rameses, and during their work they found two magnificent statues of Ptah, "les plus remarquables statues divines qu'on ait encore trouvées en Égypte,"[88] and a colossal model in rose granite of the sacred boat of Ptah.

These discoveries have led the officers in question to the conclusion that the building among the ruins of which these priceless treasures have been found is veritably the world-renowned temple of Ptah of Memphis. It may, therefore, be accepted as such for the purpose of the present inquiry, although it is difficult to reconcile its _emplacement_ in relation to the statues with the accounts given by the Arab historians.

In January, 1893, Captain Lyons, R.E., was good enough to accompany me to determine the orientation of the newly uncovered temple walls. We had already, two years previously, carefully measured the bearings of the statues of Rameses. We found the temple in all probability facing westwards, and not eastwards; this we determined by a seated statue facing westwards; and we concluded its orientation, assuming a magnetic variation of 4½° west, to be 12¾° north of west, and the hills in front of it, assuming the village of Mît-Rahîneh non-existent, to be 50′ high.

Here, then, we get reproduced almost absolutely the conditions of the obelisk at Heliopolis in a Ptah temple oriented to Capella 5200 B.C.

We are driven, then, to the conclusion that the star Capella is personified by _Ptah_, and that as Capella was worshipped setting, Ptah is represented as a mummy. If this be so, we must also accept another conclusion: the temples both at Annu and Memphis were dedicated to Ptah.

About 5300 B.C. we seem almost in the time of the divine dynasties, and begin to understand how it is that in the old traditions Ptah precedes Rā and is called "the father of the beginnings, and the creator of the egg of the Sun and Moon."[89]

We are driven to the conclusion that this worship at Annu and Memphis was the worship of the sun's disc when setting, at the time of the year heralded by Capella, when it had the declination of 10° north. The dates on which the sun had this declination were, as already stated, about April 18 and August 24 of our Gregorian year. The former, in Egypt, dominated by the Nile, was about the time of the associated spring and harvest festivals.

So much for the Ptah mummy form of the Sun-God, to which the _Theban_ priests erected no important temples. There was still another mummy form of the Sun-God, the worship of which existed at Thebes, but which they did their best to abolish by the intensification of the worship of Amen-Rā.

At Thebes, as we have seen, the temple of Mut is associated with one at right angles to it, facing north-west. The amplitudes are 72½° north of east and 17½° north of west. I have shown that the temple of Mut would allow γ Draconis to be seen along its axis about 3200 B.C. _I now state that_ Spica _would be seen along the axis of the rectangular temple at the same time_.

The cult in this temple-system there can be no doubt, I think, was the worship of Min, otherwise read Amsu, or Khem in ithyphallic mummy form. This was associated possibly with a harvest-home festival on May 1. (Amplitude of temple, 17½° north of west = declination 15° = sun's N. declination on May 1.)

Both at Annu and Thebes, therefore, before the temple of Amen-Rā at the latter place became of importance, the sun was worshipped in a temple pointed neither to a solstice nor to an equinox.

It seems, then, that the suggestion that _possibly_ sun-worship existed before any great development of the solstitial solar worship is amply justified.

We have next to consider what had taken place at Thebes, so far as we can trace it on the orientation hypothesis after 3200 B.C., when apparently the Spica temple and the associated Mut temple were founded.

To do this it is important to study the masterly essay by M. Virey, entitled "Notices Générales," on the discoveries made at Dêr el-Bahari by MM. Maspero and Grébaut, which is to be found in the new edition of the Gîzeh Catalogue.[90] M. Virey makes us acquainted with the politics of the Theban priests, or rather of the confraternity of Amen which they had founded.

From his account of the confraternity and of the various attempts made by it to acquire political power, however, we gather that it was not only intended to intensify the cult of Amen-Rā at the expense of the sun-worship previously existing at Thebes (in the Spica temple), but that one of the chief aims of the confraternity of Amen was to abolish the worship of Set, Sit, Sut, or Sutech; that is, as I think I have proved, generically, the stars near the North Pole, and, as it can be shown, in favour of the southern ones.

The temple of Mut was the chief temple at Karnak in which the cult of the northern stars was carried on, and this was associated with the Spica temple; so both these temples had to go.

We can now realise what the Theban priests got Thothmes to do. They were strong measures, since in his day the cult of Spica (the solar disc, Aten, Min, Khem), and γ Draconis (the Hippopotamus-and-Lion Isis) was supreme.

The little shrine of the Theban Amen was enlarged and built right across the fair-way of the temple of Mut, so that the worship was as effectively stopped as the worship of Isis (when it was prohibited by law) was stopped at Pompeii by the town authorities bricking up the window by which the star was observed.[91]

Further, the shrine so restored was to be of such magnificence that the Spica temple, which had hitherto held first rank, became an insignificant chapel in comparison. Nor was this all: in order still to emphasise the supremacy of Amen-Rā, a third-rate temple was erected to Ptah.

It is clear from this that we must date the great supremacy of the cult of Amen-Rā in and after the time of Thothmes III., and that the cult superseded at Thebes was largely based upon the old worship at Annu.

Now, one of the most remarkable events in Egyptian history was the so-called apostasy of Amen-hetep IV., some hundred and fifty years after Thothmes III.

In the time of Thothmes III. the alliance between the royal and the sacerdotal power was of the closest, and in no time of the world's history have priests been more richly endowed than were then the priests of Amen. Not content, however, with their sacred functions, they aimed at political power so obviously that Thothmes IV. and Amen-hetep III., to check their intentions, favoured the cults and priesthoods of Annu and other cities of the north. Amen-hetep III. and his son, Amen-hetep IV., also looked for alliances out of Egypt altogether, and entered into diplomatic relations with the princes of Asia, including even the king of Babylon. This brought him and the priests to open warfare. He replied to their anger by proscribing the cult of Amen, and the name of Amen was effaced from the monuments; still the priestly party was strong enough to make it unpleasant for the king in Thebes; and, to deal them yet another blow, he quitted that city and settled at Tell el-Amarna, at the same time, according to the statement of M. Virey, reviving an old Heliopolitan cult. He took for divine protection the solar disk _Aten_, "which was one of the most ancient forms of one of the most ancient gods of Egypt, Rā of Heliopolis."[92] Now let us say that the time of Amen-hetep IV., according to the received authorities, was about 1450 B.C. The lines of the "Temple of the Sun" at Tell el-Amarna are to be gathered from Lepsius' map, reproduced in the illustration on the next page. The orientation is 13° north of west.[93] This gives us a declination of 11° north, and the star Spica at its setting would be visible in the temple.

Still the light would not enter it _axially_ if the orientation is correct. This would have happened in 2000 B.C., that is, 600 years before the time of Amen-hetep IV. This is a point which Egyptologists must discuss; it is quite certain that such a pair of temples as those of which Lepsius gives us the plans could not have been completely built in his short reign, and they would not perhaps have been commenced on _heretical_ lines in any previous reign during the Eighteenth dynasty. They must therefore have been commenced before 1700 B.C., perhaps in the Seventeenth dynasty. In any case they were certainly finished by Khu-en-Aten.

Professor Flinders Petrie has been good enough, in reply to an inquiry, to state his opinion that the temple was entirely built by Khu-en-Aten. Should this be confirmed, it may have been oriented directly to the sun, on the day named, or was probably built parallel to some former temple, for traces of other temples are shown on Lepsius' plan, and I presume Khu-en-Aten is not supposed to have built all of them.

What, then, was this worship which had been absent from Thebes, but which had held its own to the north to such an extent that Amen-hetep IV. went back to it so eagerly? It could not have been the worship of Capella as a star alone, for such worship had been provided for by Thothmes III. by building temple G. Nor could it have been the worship of Spica as a star alone, for in that case the precedent of Annu would not have been appealed to.

The worship he emphasised there exactly resembled that which had in early times been paramount at Heliopolis. One based on it, but not identical with it, had been in vogue at Thebes from 3200 B.C. to the time of Thothmes III., who, as the tool of the confraternity of Amen, intensified the solstitial worship, and did his best to kill that which had been based upon the Heliopolis cult.

I say _exactly resembled_, because Amen-hetep IV., or some one of the preceding kings of Egypt, when reintroducing the old worship at Tell el-Amarna, orients the solar temple 13° north of west according to the data available. Now when we take the difference of latitude between Heliopolis and Tell el-Amarna into account, we find that the same declination (within half a degree) is obtained from both.

Hence, at Annu in the old days, and at Tell el-Amarna afterwards, the sun was worshipped on the same day of the year. At both places the sunlight at sunset would enter the temple on April 18 and August 24 of the Gregorian year; hence both temples were probably built really to observe the sunset on a special day. In this view how appropriate was the prayer of Aāhmes, Khu-en-Aten's chief official--

"Beautiful is thy setting, thou sun's disk of life, thou Lord of Lords and King of the worlds. When thou unitest thyself with the heaven at thy setting, mortals rejoice before thy countenance and give honour to him who has created them, and pray before him who has formed them, before the glance of thy son who loves thee the King Khu-en-aten. The whole land of Egypt and all peoples repeat all thy names at thy rising, to magnify thy rising in like manner as thy setting."[94]

As may be gathered from Lepsius' maps and plans, this "temple of the Sun" was not built alone. Set was again brought to the front. There was another at right angles to it, and while Spica was seen setting in one, a star near γ Draconis was rising in the other.

It may be added that it was not apparently till Rameses II. built his temple M that Set again had an available temple at Karnak: one, however, again to be blocked when the victorious Tirhaqa and the Theban priests returned after their exile. (See page 186.)

We see, then, that in a detailed study of the sun-worship at Thebes alone, we distinctly trace two schools of astronomical thought associated with different religious tendencies. As a protest against the Southern worship of the Theban priests, Khu-en-Aten goes back to a Northern cult. This point is evidently worth further inquiry.