THE EARLIEST SOLAR SHRINES IN EGYPT.
Not only can an inquiry like that referred to in the previous chapter
be prosecuted--_it has been prosecuted_.
The French and Prussian Governments have vied with each other in the
honourable rivalry of mapping and describing the monuments. The French
went to Egypt at the end of the last century, while the Scientific
Commission which accompanied the army, a Commission appointed by the
Institute of France, published a series of volumes containing plans of
all the chief temples in the valley of the Nile as far south as Philæ.
In the year 1844, some time after Champollion had led the way in
deciphering the hieroglyphics, we became almost equally indebted to the
Prussian Government, who also sent out a Commission to Egypt, under
Lepsius, which equalled the French one in the importance of the results
of the explorations; in the care with which the observations were made,
and in the perfection with which they were recorded. In attempting to
get information from ancient temples on the points to which I have
referred, there is, therefore, a large amount of information available;
and it is wise to study the region round and below Thebes where the
information is so abundant and is ready to our hand.
First, then, with regard to the existence of solar temples. Dealing
with the monumental evidence, the answer is absolutely overwhelming.
The evidence I bring forward consists of that afforded by some of the
very oldest temples that we know of in Egypt. Among the most ancient
and sacred fanes was one at Annu, On, or Heliopolis, which, the
tradition runs, was founded by the Shesu-Hor before the time of Mena;
Mena, as we have seen, having reigned at a date certainly not less than
4000, and possibly 5000 years B.C.
[Illustration: PLAN OF THE MOUNDS AT ABYDOS. (_From Mariette._)]
The Nile valley holds other solar temples besides that we have named at
Heliopolis. Abydos was another of the holiest places in Egypt in the
very earliest times.
Since the temples and temple mounds at Abydos can be better made out
than those at Heliopolis, I will take them first. The orientations
given by different authors are so conflicting that no certainty can be
claimed, but it is possible that at Abydos one of the mounds is not far
from the amplitude shown in the tables for the sun in the Nile valley
at sunset at the summer solstice. If this were so, the Egyptians who
were employed in building the temple must have known exactly what they
were going to do.
At Heliopolis, as I have hinted, the matter is still less certain.
Almost every trace of the temple has disappeared, but of remains of
temenos walls in 1844, when the site was studied by Lepsius, there
were plenty. At Karnak, where both temples and temenos walls remain,
we can see how closely the walls reflect the orientation of the
included temples, even when they seem most liable to the suggestion
of symmetrophobia. I have before stated that the Egyptians have been
accused of hating every regular figure, and the irregular figures at
Karnak are very remarkable; in the boundary walls of the temple of
Amen-Rā there are two obtuse angles; round the Mut temple we also have
walls, and there again this hatred of similarity seems to come out, for
we have one obtuse and one acute angle. But if we examine the thing a
little carefully, we find that there is a good deal of method in this
apparent irregularity. The wall of the temple of Amen-Rā is parallel to
the face of the temple or at right angles to its length. One wall of
Mut is perfectly parallel to the face of the temple or at right angles
to the sphinxes. And the reason that we do not get right angles at one
end of the wall is that the walls of the temple at Mut are parallel to
the chief wall of the temple of Amen-Rā. Surely it must be that, before
these walls were built, it was understood that there was a combined
worship; that they stood or fell together. One thing was not attempted
in one temple and another thing in another, but the worship of each
was reflected in the other. If this be true, there was no hatred of
symmetry, but a definite and admirable reason why these walls should be
built as they were.
[Illustration: THE MOUNDS AND OBELISK AT ANNU.]
With the knowledge we possess of both temenos walls and temples at
Karnak, and of the, I may almost say, symbolism of the former, it is
fair to conclude that when temples have gone we may yet get help from
the walls. The walls at Heliopolis are the most extraordinary I have
met with in Egypt, as may be gathered from the accompanying reduction
of Lepsius' map.
The arrow in Lepsius' plan is so wrongly placed that the plan is very
misleading. It follows from Captain Lyons' observations and my own
that the longest mound heads 14° N. of W. to 14° S. of E. within a
degree; the condition of the mounds renders more accurate measures
impossible.[9]
It is to be gathered from the inscriptions that the temple within these
mounds, now only represented by its solitary obelisk, was styled a
sanctuary or temple of the sun.[10]
As the orientation of the N. and S. faces of the obelisk is 13° N. of
W., the sun's declination must have been 11° N. The times of our year
marked by it, therefore, were 18th April and 24th August. But it must
not be forgotten that the temple may have been built originally to
watch the rising or setting of a star which occupied the declination
named, and possibly, though not necessarily, at some other time of the
year. I shall return to this subject.
If Maspero and the great authorities in Egyptology are right--namely,
that the Annu temple was founded before 4000 B.C.--the above figures
drive us to the conclusion that we have in this temple a building
which was orientated to the sun, _not_ at a solstice, some 6000 years
ago.
So much for two of the places known to be of the highest antiquity in
Egypt. There remains another locality supposed to date from more modern
times--I refer to Thebes. It is here that evidence of the most certain
kind with regard to the solstitial temples is to be found.
At Karnak itself there are several temples so oriented, chief among
them the magnificent Temple of Amen-Rā, one of the wonders of the
world, to which a special chapter must be devoted. Suffice it to say
here that the amplitude of the point to which the axis of the great
temple of Amen-Rā points is 26° N. of W., which we learn from the table
already given is the amplitude of the place of sunset at the summer
solstice in the latitude of Thebes. The amplitude of the point to which
the axis of an attached small temple points is 26° S. of E., exactly
the position of sunrise at the winter solstice.
It must not be forgotten in this connection that the Colossi of the
plain on the other side of the river, and the associated temple, also
face the place of sunrise at the winter solstice.
The list of solar solstitial temples, so far probably traced, is as
follows:--
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Place and Temple. Amplitude. Declination. Date.
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Kasr Kerun 27° S. of E. S. 23¼°
S.E. Karnak (O) 26½° S. of E. S. 23¾°
Temples. Memnonia (Avenue of Sphinxes) 27½° S. of E. S. 24½°
(orientation not to ½°)
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
S.W. Erment 27½° S. of W. S. 24½°
Temples.
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
N.W. Karnak (Q. K) 26½° N. of W. N. 23½°
Temples. Karnak (U) 27½° N. of W. N. 24½°
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
[Illustration: THE COLOSSI OF THE PLAIN AT THEBES AT HIGH NILE ORIENTED
TO THE SUNRISE AT THE WINTER SOLSTICE.
(These are statues of Amen-hotep III., and are monoliths 60 feet
high.)]
[Illustration: PLAN OF MEMPHIS. (_From Lepsius._)]
We have seen that it did not require any great amount of astronomical
knowledge to determine either the moment of the solstice or the
moment of the equinox. The most natural thing to begin with was the
observation of the solstice, for the reason that at the solstice the
sun can be watched day after day getting more and more north or more
and more south until it comes to a standstill. But for the observation
of the equinox, of course, the sun is moving-most rapidly either north
or south, and therefore it would be more difficult to determine in
those days the exact moment.
[Illustration: EAST AND WEST PYRAMIDS AND TEMPLES AT GÎZEH. (_From
Lepsius._)]
We next come to the question as to whether any buildings were erected
from an equinoctial point of view--that is, buildings oriented east and
west.
Nothing is more remarkable than to go from the description and the
plans of such temples as we have seen at Abydos, Annu, and Karnak,
to regions where, apparently, the thought is totally and completely
different, such as we find on the Pyramid Plains at Gîzeh, at Memphis,
Tunis, Saïs, and Bubastis. The orientation lines of the German
surveyors show beyond all question that the pyramids and some of the
temenos walls at the places named are just as true to the sun-rising
at the equinoxes as the temples referred to at Karnak were to the
sun-rising and setting at the solstices, and the Sphinx was merely a
mysterious nondescript sort of thing which was there watching for the
rising of the sun at an equinox, as the Colossi of the plain at Thebes
were watching for the rising of the sun at the winter solstice.
[Illustration: TEMPLE AND TEMENOS WALLS OF TANIS. (_From Lepsius._)]
[Illustration: TEMPLE AND TEMENOS WALLS OF SAÏS (SĀ-EL-LAGER). (_From
Lepsius._)]
Further, the temples at Gîzeh, instead of being oriented to the
north-west, and to the south-east, are just as truly oriented to the
east and west as the Pyramids themselves. We have either Temples of
Osiris pointing to the sunset at the equinox, or temples of Isis
pointing to the sunrise at the equinox, but in either case built in
relation to the Pyramids. As an indication of the importance of the
considerations with which we are now dealing, I may mention that it is
suggested by them that the building near the Sphinx is really a crypt
of a temple of Isis or Osiris. This is a view which may change the
ideas generally held with regard to its age to the extent of something
like a thousand years. It has been imagined that it was at least one
thousand years older than the second Pyramid; but if it be ultimately
proved that this is really a temple of Isis or Osiris, then since it
was built in just as strict relation to the side of the Pyramid as
the temple near the Pyramid was to its centre, both temples were most
probably built at the same time as the Pyramid itself. However this
may be, the important thing is that when we pass from Thebes, and
possibly Abydos, to the Pyramids at Memphis, to Saïs and Tanis, we find
a solstitial orientation changed to an equinoctial one. _There is a
fundamental change of astronomical thought._
[Illustration: THE TEMPLE NEAR THE SPHINX, LOOKING WEST (TRUE), SHOWING
ITS RELATION TO THE SOUTH FACE OF THE SECOND PYRAMID.
(_From a photograph by Mr. Fearing._)]
I confess I am impressed by this distinction; from the astronomical
point of view it is so fundamental that almost a difference of race is
required to explain it. I say this advisedly, although I know creed can
go a great way, because among these early peoples their astronomy was
chiefly a means to an end. It was not a story of abstract conceptions,
or the mere expression of interesting facts whether used for religious
purposes or not. The end was a calendar, of festivals and holydays if
you will, but a calendar which would allow their tillage and harvest to
prosper.
Now, it is almost impossible to suppose that those who worshipped the
sun at the solstice did not begin the year at the solstice. It is, of
course, equally difficult to believe that those who preferred to range
themselves as equinoctials did not begin the year at an equinox. Both
these practices could hardly go on in the case of the same race in the
same country, least of all in the valley where an annual inundation
marked the solstice.
I shall show subsequently how the rise of the Nile, which took place at
the summer solstice, not only dominated the industry, but the astronomy
and religion of Egypt; and I was much interested in hearing from my
friend Dr. Wallis Budge that the rise of the Tigris and Euphrates
takes place not far from the spring equinox. This may have dominated
the Babylonian calendar as effectually as the date of the Nile-rise
dominated the Egyptian. If so, we have a valuable hint as to the
origin of the equinoctial cult at Gîzeh and elsewhere, which in all
probability was interpolated after the non-equinoctial worship had been
first founded at Annu, Abydos, and possibly Thebes.