Ancient calendars and constellations

by Emmeline M. Plunket

Relating to “the Feast-day of Amon, the Father.”
Position of sun on first of fixed Thoth varied by about one degree in two hundred years.

[To face p. 36.

Thus at the season of all the year, when Aries specially dominated the ecliptic, the statue of the god Amen was, as we learn, brought out of his dark temple shrine and carried in procession to the Nekropolis, from whence the constellation Aries—not hidden by obstructing walls and columns—was fully visible; and there honour was done and sacrifice offered to “Amon Father.”

But it may be said that we should understand “the second month of the inundation” to refer to the second month of the Egyptian sidereal year counted from the 1st Thoth (fixed) and marked by the heliacal rising of Sirius. At the date of Rameses the beginning of this sidereal year fell, as may be proved, a fortnight after the summer solstice (see [Plate II.]), and still on the 29th of the second month of this sidereal year the stars of Aries might be seen rising in the east—no longer only its first stars, but nearly the whole constellation then becoming visible—and at about midnight its brightest stars, α and β Arietis, culminated on the meridian. Whether, therefore, the “Feast of the Valley” was held at the end of the second month of the actual inundation, or of the second month of the sidereal year, the stars of Aries presided over its “nocturnal” solemnities.

Some scholars claim, however, that all Egyptian festivals were swept round through the seasons, and the stars that marked those seasons, in the course of fourteen or fifteen hundred years, inasmuch as they were firmly bound to the vague calendrical year of 365 days. If this was indeed so, it would be difficult to imagine that Seti I. or Rameses II. could have established the festival in question as in any way connected with honour to be paid to the constellation Aries; for though during the reign of Seti, and perhaps during the early part of that of Rameses, the vague and fixed years coincided more or less closely (see [Plate II.]), yet before the death of Rameses they were already so far apart that the 1st Thoth (vague) fell, not a fortnight later than the summer solstice, but about a fortnight earlier; and therefore on the 29th day of the second month of the vague year the stars of Aries would not have risen until long after sunset, nor would any one of them have culminated on the meridian at midnight.

If now we turn our attention of the temple of Amen-Ra at Aboo Simbel, we may observe that, unlike that to the same god at Karnak, it is not oriented to any definite season of the year. The rising sun shines into it now, and must always have shone into the Holy of Holies of that rock-hewn temple on the morning of a day somewhat more than two months distant from the winter solstice, and somewhat less than a month before the season of the spring equinox, namely, on the morning of the 26th February (Gregorian).[21]

[21] “I was fortunate in seeing another wonderful thing during my visit to Aboo Simbel. The great temple is dedicated to Amen-Ra, the sun-god, and on two days in the year the sun is said to rise at such a point that it sends a beam of light through both halls till it falls on the shrine itself in the very Holy of Holies. Many theories are based on the orientation of the temples, and Captain Johnston wished to find on which day in the spring of the year the phenomenon took place; so he took his instruments, and we all went up to the temple before dawn. It was the 26th February. The great hall, with its eight Osiride pillars, was wrapped in semi-darkness. Still darker were the inner hall and shrine. Behind the altar sat the four gods, Amen, Horus, Ptah, and Rameses himself, now deified. All the East was a deep rosy flush; then that paled, and a hard white light filled the sky. Clearer and whiter it grew, till, with a sudden joyous rush, the sun swung up over the low ridge of hill, and in an instant, like an arrow from the bow of Phœbus Apollo, one level shaft of light pierced the great hall and fell in living glory straight upon the shrine itself.”—A. F. [Extract from the Pall Mall Gazette, 20th April, 1892.]

The sun now (1893 A.D.) is, at the season named, in the constellation Aquarius; but if we calculate back to a date anywhere between 1,400 and 1,100 B.C., we shall find (see [Plate III.]) that when Rameses II. dedicated this temple to Amen-Ra, the sun when it penetrated into the shrine of the temple at Aboo Simbel was in conjunction with the first stars of the constellation Aries, and this fact must, it would seem, encourage us to adopt the opinion put forward above concerning the desire of Rameses II. to honour that constellation in connexion with the god Amen.

PLATE III.