CHAPTER XXXV.

THE ORIGIN OF EGYPTIAN ASTRONOMY (CONTINUED)--THE THEBES SCHOOL.

The next question which arises now that we have considered the facts relating to the astronomy of Northern Egypt is one connected with the cults which we have proved to come down the Nile. Were they indigenous or imported?

Although I have put it forward with all reserve, there is evidence which suggests that the temples so far traced sacred to the southern cult are of earlier foundation than those to the north; and they are associated with Edfû and Philæ, which are known to be of high antiquity. This is one point of difference. Another is that the almost entire absence of Set temples and east and west pyramids up the river indicates that, so far as these structures go, we lack the links which astronomically and mythologically connect the Delta with Babylonia either directly or by common origin.

From Prof. Sayce it is to be gathered that the most ancient people yet glimpsed there inhabited the region at the head of the Persian Gulf, one of the chief cities being Eridu, now represented by the mounds of Abu Shahrên on the eastern bank of the Euphrates. It was founded as a maritime city, but is now far inland, owing to the formation of the delta, the alluvium of which at the present time advances about sixty-six feet a year.[153] This alone is an argument in favour of its high antiquity.

Along with the culture of Eridu went the worship of the god of Eridu, the primal god of Babylonia, Ea, Ía, or Oannes, symbolised as a goat-fish, and connected in some way with the sun when in Capricornus.

This, Jensen, by his wonderful analysis (would that I could completely follow it in its marvellous philological twistings, pages 73-81) puts beyond question; and he clinches the argument by showing that our "tropic of Capricorn" of to-day--the goat still represented on our globes of to-day with a fish's tail!--was called by the Babylonians "the path followed by Ía" or in relation to Ía.

This Ía was such a great god that to him was assigned the functions of Maker of Men; he was also a great potter and art workman (p. 293), a point I shall return to presently. He eventually formed a triad with Anu and Bīl, that is, the poles of the heavens and the equator.[154]

_The God of Eridu._

Let us assume that the earliest sun-god traced at Eridu was the sun-god of those early argonauts who founded the colony.

We are told that this god was the son of Ía, and that his name was Tammuz; he was in some way associated with Asari (? Osiris) (Sayce, p. 144), who, according to Jensen, represented the Earth (p. 195); of the Moon we apparently hear nothing.

This Tammuz (Dumuzi), we find, ultimately became "the Nergal of Southern Chaldæa, the sun-god of winter and night, who rules, like Rhadamanthos, in the lower world" (Sayce, p. 245), and as lord of Hades he was made son of Mul-lil (Sayce, p. 197).

This was at first. But what do we find afterwards?

Nergal is changed into the Midsummer Sun! (Jensen, p. 484). And finally he is changed into the Spring Sun Marduk at Babylon (Sayce, p. 144)[155] where he is recognised as the son of Ía and Duazag, that is the Eastern Mountain (Jensen, p. 237).

Now, however difficult it may be to follow these changes from the religious point of view, from the astronomical side they are not only easily explained, but might have been predicted, provided one hypothesis be permitted, namely, that the colony who founded Eridu were originally inhabitants of some country where the chief agricultural operations were carried on about the time of the Autumnal Equinox in the northern hemisphere.[156]

This country might lie south of the equator, and indeed we find one which answers the requirements in the region of the great lakes and on the coast opposite Zanzibar.

Such an hypothesis may at first sight appear strange, but the view that Eridu was colonised from Cush has been supported by no less an authority than Lepsius.[157] The boundaries of Cush are not defined, but they may possibly include the Land of Pun-t, from which certainly part of the Egyptian culture was derived.

Among all early peoples the most important times of the year must necessarily have been those connected with seed-time and harvest in each locality. Now the spring equinox and summer solstice south of the equator are represented by the autumnal equinox and the winter solstice to the north of it. If the colonists who came to Eridu came from a region south of the equator, they would naturally have brought not only their southern stars, but their southern seasons with them; but their springtime was the northern autumn, their summer solstice the northern winter. This could have gone on for a time, and we see that their sun-god was the god of the winter solstice, Tammuz-Nergal.

But it could only have gone on for a time; the climatic facts were against such an unnatural system,[158] and the old condition could have been brought back by calling the new winter summer, or in other words making the winter-god into the summer sun-god--in short, changing Nergal into a midsummer sun-god. This it seems they did.[159]

But why the further change of Nergal to Marduk? Because the northern races were always tending southwards, being pushed from behind, while the supply of Eridu culture was not being replenished. The religion and astronomy of the north were continually being strengthened, and among this astronomy was the cult of the sun at the vernal equinox, the springtime of the northern hemisphere, sacred to Marduk. Nergal, therefore, makes another stage onward, and is changed into Marduk!

It is also interesting to find that in Ninib, another sun-god, we have almost the exact counterpart of the Egyptian Horus. He is the eastern morning sun, the son of Asari (? Osiris), and the god of agriculture.[160]

I append here the most recent translation of the hymn to the sun-god, referred to in the Introduction:--

"O Sun (god)! on the horizon of heaven thou dawnest, The bolt of the pure heaven thou openest, The door of heaven thou openest. O Sun (god)! thou liftest up thy head to the world; O Sun (god)! thou coverest the earth with the majestic brightness of heaven."

Marduk, then, the son of Ea, or Ía, was finally as definite a spring equinox sun-god as Amen-Rā in Egyptian mythology was a summer solstice sun-god.

We have, then, the undoubted facts that in Southern Babylonia, to start with, the sun-worship had to do with the winter half of the year. As the Babylonian culture advanced northward from Eridu and met the Semitic culture, the winter season was changed for the spring equinox--that is, a worship identical with that of the pyramid builders who intruded into Northern Egypt.

_The Myths of Horus and Marduk._

In my references to the myth of Horus in Chapter XIV. I have shown that in all probability an astronomical meaning is that the rising sun puts out the northern stars. It was also indicated that the myth was one of great antiquity, as it was formulated when Draco was circumpolar; was not simple in its nature, and probably had reference to a sun-worshipping race abolishing the cult of Set representing the northern stars.

The facts brought together in subsequent chapters show that if there were not such a myth, there should have been; for the temple evidence alone showing the antithesis between Osiris-worship and the worship of Set is overwhelming.

I have also indicated that temples built to northern stars are geographically separated from those built to southern ones, and that the former have had their axes blocked to prevent the worship.

The Horus of Edfû, who is represented as leading the victorious hosts who revenge the killing of Osiris by Set, is the ally of the southern-star worshippers whom we have traced from Thebes, possibly to Central Africa (see page 350); and if we associate the myth with the records on the walls of the temple of Edfû, and agree to the possibility of that temple having been founded in 6400 B.C. (see page 311), then there must have been an invasion of the southern peoples about that date--an invasion which reached Northern Egypt, where eventually they were conquered by the Set-worshipping race, who came, as I think I have proved, from a country to the N.E. of the Delta. The question is: Did this first colony represent the original Hor-Shesu, so-called specially because perhaps as a novelty they had _added_ the worship of the sun to the worship of the moon? and was the moon the first Osiris brought in by moon-worshippers with a year of 360 days?

In Accad and Sumer, where also, according to Hommel and others, the word Osiris (Asari) has been traced, the sun-god was the daughter of the moon-god. An eye forms part both of the hieroglyphic and of the cuneiform name, and the eye was one of the symbols in the name of Osiris in Egypt. Be this as it may, we have temple evidence to show that in Egypt the worship of Set was the worship of a northern race, and that it was finally abolished by a southern one.

Now in Babylonia exactly the opposite happened. The proto-Chaldæan south-star and winter-sun cult of Eridu was ultimately changed, absorbed, and buried in the Semitic cult of the northern stars Anu and Bīl and the spring sun, first Marduk and afterwards Šamaš.

Had there been then myth-makers in Babylonia, the myth would have been the converse of the Egyptian one. There were myth makers, and precisely such a myth! It is called the Myth of Marduk and Tiāmat.

The chief change had been in the sun-god. When the northern cult conquered, the exotic worship of the autumn and winter constellations was abolished, and they were pictured as destroyed under the form of Tiāmat, although the worship was once as prominent as that of Set in Egypt. We have the later developed northern spring-sun Marduk destroying the evil gods or spirits of winter; and chief among them, of course, the Goat-fish, which, from its central position, would represent the winter solstice.

The myth, then, has to do with the fact that the autumn-and winter-sun-worship of Eridu was conquered by the spring-sun-worship of the north.

If we accept this, we can compare the Egyptian and Babylonian myths from the astronomical point of view in the following manner; and a wonderful difference in the astronomical observations made, as well as in the form, though not in the basis, of astronomical mythology in Egypt and in Babylonia is before our eyes. Astronomically in both countries we are dealing with the dawn preceding sunrise on New Year's Day, and the accompanying extinction of the stars.

But which stars? In Egypt there is no question that the stars thus fading were thought of as being chiefly represented by the stars which never set--that is, the circumpolar ones, and among them the Hippopotamus chiefly. In Babylonia we have to do with the ecliptic constellations.

Now I believe that it is generally recognised that Marduk was relatively a late intruder into the Babylonian pantheon. If he were a god brought from the north by a conquering race (whether conquering by craft or _kraft_ does not matter), and his worship replaced that of Ía, have we not, _mutatis mutandis_, the exact counterpart of the Egyptian myth of Horus? In the one case we have a southern star-worshipping race ousting north-star worshippers, in the other a northern equinoctial sun-worshipping race ousting the cult of the moon and solstitial sun. In the one case we have Horus, the rising sun of every day, slaying the Hippopotamus (that is, the modern Draco), the regent of night; in the other, Marduk, the spring-sun-god, slaying the animals of Tiāmat--that is apparently the origin of the Scorpion, Capricornus, and Pisces, the constellations of the winter months, which formed a belt across the sky from east to west at the vernal equinox.

The above suggested basis of the Babylonian mythology regarding the demons of Tiāmat, established when the sun was in Taurus at the spring equinox, enables us to understand clearly the much later (though similar) imagery employed when the sun at the equinox had passed from Taurus to Aries--when the Zend Avesta was written, and after the twelve zodiacal constellations had been established. We find them divided equally into the kingdoms of Ormazd and Ahriman. Here I quote Dupuis:--

"L'agneau est aux portes de l'empire du bien et de la lumière, et la balance à celles du mal et des ténèbres; l'un est le premier des signes supérieurs, et l'autre des signes inférieurs.

"Les six signes supérieurs comprennent les six mille de Dieu, et les six signes inférieurs les six mille du diable. Le bonheur de l'homme dure sous les premiers signes, et son malheur commence au septième, et dure sous les six signes affectés à Ahriman, ou au chef des ténèbres.

"Sous les six signes du règne du bien et la lumière, qui sont agneau, taureau gémeaux, cancer, lion et vierge ou épi, nous avons marqué les états variés de l'air et de la terre, qui sont le résultat de l'action du bon principe. Ainsi on lit sous l'agneau ou sous le premier mille ces mots, printemps, zephyr, verdure; sous le taureau, sève et fleur; sous les gémeaux, chaleurs et longs jours; sous le cancer, été, beaux temps; sous le lion, épis et moissons; et sous la vierge, vendanges.

"En passant à la balance, on trouve les fruits; la commence le règne du ma aussitôt que l'homme vient à cueillir les pommes. La nature quitte sa parure; aussi nous avons écrit ces mots, dépouillement de la nature; sous le scorpion on lit froid; sous le sagittaire, neiges; sous le capricorne, glace et brouillard, siège des ténèbres et de longs nuits; sous le verseau, pluies et frimas; sous les poissons, vents impétueux."

Since the great pyramids were built in the time of the fourth dynasty, it is quite clear that Eridu must have been founded long before if the transitions were anything like those I have stated.

_The Argument touching_ η _Argus_.

But there is not only evidence that at Eridu the sun-worship was at first connected with the winter solstice. It is known that there was star-worship as well; and there must have been moon-worship too, judging by the moon-god of the adjacent town of Ur.

Associated with Ía was an Ía-star, which Jensen concludes may be η Argûs. This we must consider.

Jensen concludes that the Ía-star is η Argûs on the ground that many of the texts suggest a darkening of it now and again; he very properly points out that a variability in the star is the only point worth considering in this connection, and by this argument he is driven to η, which is one of the most striking variables in the heavens, outshining Canopus at its maximum. Speaking generally, everybody would agree that obscuration by clouds, etc., would not be recorded; but if the star were observed just rising above the southern horizon only, then its absence, due to such causes, would, I should fancy, be chronicled, and it must not be forgotten that this is precisely the region where the Ía star would be observed, if all of the inscriptions referred to by Jensen are to be satisfied; its place was in "_äussersten Süden_" (page 153). It was "_das Pendant des im Nordpol des Aequators sitzenden Himmels-Bi'l_" (page 148); "_Ía's 'Ort' am Himmel liegt im Süden_" (page 26).

There is another argument. Professor Sayce in his lectures reproduces (page 437) Mr. George Smith's account of the Temple of Bel derived from a Babylonian text. The temple was oriented east and west. In a description of one of the enclosures we read that on the northern side was a temple of Ía, while on the southern side there was a temple of Bīl and Anu. This not only shows that Ía was regarded as sacred to the true south, but that the temple buildings were planned like the Egyptian ones, the light either from sun or star passing over the heads of the worshippers in the courts into the temples. (Compare temple M in the temple of Amen-Rā, page 118 _ante_.)

But η Argûs never rose or set anywhere near the south. I have ascertained that its declination was approximately 32° S. in 5000 B.C., and increased to 42° S. by about 2000 B.C. Hence between these dates at Eridu its amplitude varied between 38° and 51° S. of E. or W. Now here we are far away from the S. point, though very near the S.E. or S.W. point, to which it is stated some of the Babylonian structures had their sides oriented.

The question arises whether there was a star which answers the other conditions. _There was a series of such stars._

It may be here mentioned generally that the precessional movement must, after certain intervals, cause this phenomenon to be repeated constantly with one star after another.

Beginning with perhaps a sufficiently remote period, we have:--

Achernar 8000 B.C. Phact 5400 B.C. Canopus 4700 B.C.

These stars would appear very near the south point of the horizon at Eridu at the dates stated, and describe a very small arc above it between rising and setting at certain times of the year.

Now to go a stage further in the study of the Ía--Ea or Eridu--star, it is desirable to quote the legend concerning Ía or Oannes derived from Bêrôssos through Alexander Polyhistôr.[161]

"In the first year there appeared in that part of the Erythraean sea which borders upon Babylonia a creature endowed with reason, by name Oannes, whose whole body (according to the account of Apollodôros) was that of a fish; under the fish's head he had another head, with feet also below similar to those of a man subjoined to the fish's tail. His voice, too, and language were articulate and human; and a representation of him is preserved even to this day.

"This being was accustomed to pass the day among men, but took no food at that season; and he gave them an insight into letters and sciences and arts of every kind. He taught them to construct houses, _to found temples_,[162] to compile laws, and explained to them the principles of geometrical knowledge. He made them distinguish the seeds of the earth, and showed them how to collect the fruits; in short, he instructed them in everything which could tend to soften manners and humanise their lives. From that time nothing material has been added by way of improvement to his instructions. Now, when the sun had set, this being Oannes used to retire again into the sea, and pass the night in the deep, for he was amphibious. After this there appeared other animals like Oannes."

It is not necessary to give the string of "other animals" enumerated by Eusebius, but one of them is important. A companion of Anôdaphas and Odakôn shows the true reading to have been Anâdakôn--that is, Anu and Dagon. This other animal, then, clearly refers to the introduction of the northern Semitic cult, and hence the suggestion is strengthened that some of the earlier "other animals" who subsequently appeared, like Ía (? Oannes), may really have been new southern stars making their appearance in the manner I have shown, and perhaps varying the cult.

The whole legend is, I think, clearly one relating to men coming from the south (?) to Eridu in ships. The boat is turned into a "fish-man," and the star to which they pointed to show whence they came is made a god.

It is evident the intrusion was from the south, because otherwise extreme south stars would not have been in question. We have, then, got so far. The worshippers of the southern star and of the winter months, including the solstice, were certainly not indigenous at Eridu. They were probably introduced from the south, and they were sea-borne.

The next question which concerns us is, was this worship in any way connected with Egypt?

One of the most definite and striking conclusions to which the study of temples has led, is that in Southern Egypt the temple worship was limited to southern stars, and, further, that there is a chain of temples, possibly dating from 6400 B.C., and oriented to Canopus. This certainly is an argument in favour of a worship similar to that traced at Eridu.

But is there any trace of Ía or of his son, the sun-god?

This god was, as we have seen, associated in some way with Asari. I am told that students will probably agree that the connection between this word and the Egyptian Osiris is absolute. Professor Sayce informs me that the cuneiform ideograms and the hieroglyphs have the same meaning, and indicate the same root-words.[163]

Ía was represented as a goat-fish, and was a potter and "maker of men." This being so, I confess the facts relating to the southern Egyptian god Chnemu strike me as very suggestive. He is represented goat-headed, and not ram-headed, as generally stated; he is not only the creator of mankind, but he is a potter, and he is actually represented at Philæ as combining these attributes in making man out of clay on a potter's wheel. Nay, according to Bunsen, he is stated to have formed on his wheel the divine limbs of Osiris, and is styled the "sculptor of all men."[164]

I give the following extracts from Lanzoni (p. 956):--

"χ^{NUM.}--χ^{num} [Chnemu] significa 'fabbricatore, modellatore.' ... Questo demiurgo apparisce come una delle più it antiche divinità dell' Egitto, ed aveva un culto speziale nello Nubia nell' isola di File di Beghe e di Elephantina.... Esso era il dio delle cataratte, identificato al dio Nun, il Padre degli dei, il principio Umido. Il grande testo geografico di Edfu parlando di Elephantina, quale metropoli del primo Nomo dell' Alto Egitto, ne ricorda la divinità, come una personificazione dell' Acqua dell' inondazione."

He is also Hormaχu, the god of the universe: The father of the father of the gods: Creator of heaven, earth, water, and mountains; a local form of Osiris. His wife was the frog-goddess, Hekt (? Serk-t).

Further, he was also regarded as presiding in some special way over water,[165] and, unlike Amen-Rā, though like Ía, he has a position among the gods of the lower world.

A sun-god, with uræus and disk, he is closely associated with Amen-Rā, and if he were one of the earliest of the South Egyptian gods this could only be by Amen-Rā being an emanation from him; the temples in any case do not afford us traces of Amen-Rā before 3700 B.C., and Chnemu is recognised as one of the oldest gods in Egypt, on the same platform as Ptah in the North. If we assume a connection with Eridu, then we are driven to the conclusion that the Eridu culture came either from Egypt or from a common source.

Here for the present the question must be left. I must be content to remark that many of the facts point to a common origin south of the equator. It is clear that if Chnemu were a sun-god of the _Winter_, brought into Egypt from without, the change to Amen-Rā is precisely what would have been certain to happen, for in Egypt the Summer Solstice, over which Amen-Rā presided, was all-important.

_Anthropological Evidence._

It will be seen, then, that a general survey of Egyptian history does suggest conflicts between two races, and this of course goes to strengthen the view that the temple-building phenomena suggest two different worships, depending upon race distinctions.

We have next to ask if there is any anthropological evidence at our disposal. It so happens that Virchow has directed his attention to this very point.

Premising that a strong race distinction is recognised between peoples having brachycephalic or short, and dolichocephalic or long, skulls, and that the African races belong to the latter group, I may give the following extract from his paper:--

"The craniological type in the Ancient Empire was different from that in the middle and new. The skulls from the Ancient Empire are brachycephalic, those from the new and of the present day are either dolichocephalic or mesaticephalic; the difference is therefore at least as great as that between the dolichocephalic skulls of the Frankish graves and the predominantly brachycephalic skulls of the present population of South Germany. I do not deny that we have hitherto had at our disposal only a very limited number of skulls from the Ancient Empire which have been certainly determined; that therefore the question whether the brachycephalic skull-type deduced from these was the general or a least the predominant one cannot yet be answered with certainty; but I may appeal to the fact that the sculptors of the Ancient Empire made the brachycephalic type the basis of their works of art too."

It will be seen, then, that the anthropological as well as the historical evidence runs on all fours with the results to be obtained from such a study of the old astronomy as the temples afford us.