The Annu School. The Worship of Set.
According to Maspero, Set formed one of the divine dynasties at Annu, and the northern stars seem to have been worshipped there. I suppose there is now no question among Egyptologists that the gods Set, Sit, Typhon, Bes, Sutekh, are identical. To this list possibly Ombo and Nubi should be added.[134] It is also equally well known that Sutekh was a god of the Canaanites,[135] and Bes is identified with Set in the Book of the Dead.[136]
It is also stated by Maspero that at Memphis[137] (time not given) there were temples dedicated to "Sutekh" and "Baal." In the chapter on the circumpolar stars I have suggested that they were taken as typifying the powers of darkness and of the lower world, and I believe it is conceded by Egyptologists that Anubis in jackal form was either contemporaneous with or preceded Osiris in this capacity.
In the exact centre of the circular zodiac of Denderah we find the jackal located at the pole of the equator; it obviously represents the present Little Bear.
Now, do we get any Babylonian connection so far as we have gone?
We learn, to begin with, from Pierret[138] that the hippopotamus, the emblem of Set and Typhon, was the hieroglyph of the Babylonian god "Baal."
Do we get the jackal constellation in Babylonian astronomy? Of this there is no question, and in early times. Jensen refers[139] to the various readings "jackal" and "leopard," and states that it is only doubtful whether by this figure the god Anu or the pole of the ecliptic Anu is meant. Either will certainly serve our present purpose, and a leopard in Babylonia might as easily symbolise the night as a jackal in Northern Egypt.
There seems little doubt that the jackal, leopard, hyæna, black pig (wild boar), and hippopotamus were chosen as the representatives of the god of evil and darkness (associated with the circumpolar constellations), on account of their ravages on flocks and herds and crops. If this be agreed, nothing is more proper than that the jackal should be associated with North Egypt, the hippopotamus with South Egypt, and the wild boar with a latitude to the north of Egypt (and perhaps of Nineveh) altogether. The representative of the god of darkness, then, depended upon the latitude. In this connection I may state that Drs. Sclater and Salvin have quite recently referred me to an interesting paper by the late Mr. Tomes[140] on the habit of the hippopotamus when it comes out of the water to exude a blood-coloured fluid from special pores in its skin. This explains at once why Typhon took the form of a red hippopotamus, and why Mr. Irving, on the modern stage, couples Mephistopheles, the modern devil, with red fire.
I know not whether the similarity in the words Anu, Annu and An results merely from a coincidence, but it is certainly singular that the most ancient temples in Lower Egypt (Heliopolis and Denderah) should be called Annu or An[141] if there be no connection with the Babylonian god Anu.
With regard to Anubis, it is quite certain that the seven stars in Ursa Minor make a very good jackal with pendent tail, as generally represented by the Egyptians (see page 276), and that they form the nearest compact constellation to the pole of the ecliptic.
The worship of Anubis as god of the dead, or the night god, whether associated with the Babylonian Anu or not, was supreme till the time of Men-Kau-Rā, the builder of the third pyramid of Gîzeh[142] (3633 B.C., Brugsch; 4100 B.C., Mariette). Osiris is not mentioned. The coffin-lid of this king with the prayer to Osiris "marks a new religious development in the annals of Egypt. The absorption of the justified soul in Osiris, the cardinal doctrine of the Ritual of the Dead, makes its appearance here for the first time."
It seems extremely probable, therefore, that the worship of the circumpolar stars went on in Babylonia as well as in Egypt in the earliest times we can get at.
A very wonderful thing it is that, apparently in very early times, the Babylonians had made out the pole of the equator as contradistinguished from the pole of the ecliptic. This they called Bīl. With this Jensen finds no star associated,[143] but 6000 B.C. this pole would be not far removed from those stars in the present constellation Draco, out of which I have suggested that the old Egyptian asterism of the hippopotamus was formed.
Nor was this all; movements in relation to the ecliptic had been differentiated from movements in relation to the equator. We have inscriptions running:—
"The way in reference to Anu," that is the ecliptic with its pole at Anu.
"The way in reference to Bīl," the equator with its pole at Bīl.
In other words, the daily and yearly apparent movements of the heavenly bodies were clearly distinguished, while we note also
Kabal šami, "the middle of the heavens," defining the meridian.
So far as I can make out, when Anubis was supreme in Egypt, the only sun-gods at Memphis and Annu were Rā and Atmu. Ptah appears to have been a mixed sun-star god, i.e., Capella heralding the sunrise in the Harvest Time.
Now I learn from Prof. Sayce[144] that in Babylonia Anu and Bīl ranked as two members of a triad from the commencement of the Semitic period, the third member being probably a southern star symbolised as we shall see in the sequel; it is only in later times in Babylonia apparently that we get a triad consisting of sun, moon, and Venus,[145] Venus being replaced at Babylon by Sirius.[146]
To the two northern divinities temples were built; both were worshipped in one temple at Babylon,[147] which must therefore have been oriented due north; and the pole of the equator (the altitude of which is equal to the latitude of the place) was probably in some way indicated. Here there was no rising or setting observation, for Eridu, the most southern of the old Babylonian cities, had about the same latitude as Bubastis, in Egypt. The pole of the ecliptic (Anu) would revolve round the pole of the equator (Bīl) always above the horizon.
So that since Sutekh = Anu
and Baal = Bīl,
the temple at Memphis to those divinities reported by Maspero (see ante) must have been oriented in the same way as the one at Babylon, that is to the north; and if the above evidence be considered strong enough to enable us to associate the Babylonian Bīl with the Egyptian Taurt, we have not only Ursa Minor but Draco represented in the early worship and mythology both of Egypt and of Babylonia.
According to Prof. Sayce[148] there is distinct evidence of a change of thought with regard to Anu in Babylonia—there certainly were great changes of thought in Egypt with regard to Anubis. Observations of stars near the pole of the ecliptic appear to have been utilised before they were taken as representing either the superior or inferior powers—before, in fact, the Anubis or Set stage quá Egypt was reached. After this had been accomplished there was still another advance, in which Anu assigns places to sun, moon, and evening star, and symbolises the forces of nature.
There is evidence, though unfortunately it is very meagre, that the temple worship was very similar in the two countries.
In the ceremonials in the temples the statues of the gods in boats or arks were always carried in procession.[149] The same rectangular arrangement of temples which held in Egypt, held also in Babylonia, and this perhaps may be the reason why Bīl seems so often to refer to the sun, whereas it was the name given to the combined worship. Sometimes, on the other hand, the worship of the stars is distinctly referred to as taking place in a solar temple. Thus at Marduk's temple, E-Sagili, we are told that "two hours after nightfall the priest must come and take of the waters of the river; must enter into the presence of Bīl, and putting on a stole in the presence of Bīl must say this prayer," etc.[150] The temple, then, will probably have been oriented to the north. Night prayers in a sun-temple afford pretty good indications of a mixed cult.
The evidence, then, seems conclusive that by the time of the founding of the temple at Annu a knowledge of the stars near the pole of the equator, and of the importance of observing them, was common to N. Egypt and to the region N.E. of it. Whether the worship of Set was introduced into Egypt from this region, or whether there was a common origin, must for the present, then, remain undetermined.