Both at Annu and Thebes, therefore, before the temple of Amen-Rā at the latter place became of importance, the sun was worshipped in a temple pointed neither to a solstice nor to an equinox.
It seems, then, that the suggestion that possibly sun-worship existed before any great development of the solstitial solar worship is amply justified.
We have next to consider what had taken place at Thebes, so far as we can trace it on the orientation hypothesis after 3200 B.C., when apparently the Spica temple and the associated Mut temple were founded.
To do this it is important to study the masterly essay by M. Virey, entitled "Notices Générales," on the discoveries made at Dêr el-Bahari by MM. Maspero and Grébaut, which is to be found in the new edition of the Gîzeh Catalogue.[90] M. Virey makes us acquainted with the politics of the Theban priests, or rather of the confraternity of Amen which they had founded.
From his account of the confraternity and of the various attempts made by it to acquire political power, however, we gather that it was not only intended to intensify the cult of Amen-Rā at the expense of the sun-worship previously existing at Thebes (in the Spica temple), but that one of the chief aims of the confraternity of Amen was to abolish the worship of Set, Sit, Sut, or Sutech; that is, as I think I have proved, generically, the stars near the North Pole, and, as it can be shown, in favour of the southern ones.
The temple of Mut was the chief temple at Karnak in which the cult of the northern stars was carried on, and this was associated with the Spica temple; so both these temples had to go.
We can now realise what the Theban priests got Thothmes to do. They were strong measures, since in his day the cult of Spica (the solar disc, Aten, Min, Khem), and γ Draconis (the Hippopotamus-and-Lion Isis) was supreme.
The little shrine of the Theban Amen was enlarged and built right across the fair-way of the temple of Mut, so that the worship was as effectively stopped as the worship of Isis (when it was prohibited by law) was stopped at Pompeii by the town authorities bricking up the window by which the star was observed.[91]
Further, the shrine so restored was to be of such magnificence that the Spica temple, which had hitherto held first rank, became an insignificant chapel in comparison. Nor was this all: in order still to emphasise the supremacy of Amen-Rā, a third-rate temple was erected to Ptah.
It is clear from this that we must date the great supremacy of the cult of Amen-Rā in and after the time of Thothmes III., and that the cult superseded at Thebes was largely based upon the old worship at Annu.