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.