Unfortunately, however, the list has resisted all efforts to completely understand it. Whether it is a list of risings or meridian passages even is still in dispute. Quite recently, indeed, one of the investigators, Herr Gustav Bilfinger,[182] has not hesitated to consider it not a list of observations at all, but a compilation for a special purpose.
"The star-table is intended to carry the principle of time into the rigid world of the grave, and represents over the sepulchral vault 'the eternal horizon,' as the ancient Egyptians so aptly styled the grave, an imitation of the sky, a compensation for the sky of the upper world with its time-measuring motion; yet the idea here is bolder, the execution is more artificial and complicated, since the sculptor endeavoured to combine the daily and the annual motion of the celestial vault in one picture; wanted to transfer into the grave the temporal frames in which all human life is enacted. This endeavour to represent by one configuration both motions and both chronological units explains all the peculiarities and imperfections of our star-table.
"The simplest means of representing both motions was found in the stars, which circle the earth in the course of a day, and indicate the year by the successive appearance of new stars in the morning twilight. If the same stars were to serve both purposes in one representation, it was necessary to take twenty-four stars which rose at intervals of fifteen days, since only such followed each other at an average distance of 15°, and were therefore useful for showing the hours.
"If the calendar-maker really possessed a list of the twenty-four principal (zodiacal) stars, the course of the year was indicated thereby; but since he also wanted to represent the daily motion, he might with some justice have composed each night out of eleven of these stars, since the stars' risings are only visible during the ten middle hours of the night. But ten hours would not have adequately represented the night, since this was thought of as a twelve hours' interval.
"There was a way out of it—viz., to call hora 0 'sunset,' hora 12 'sunrise,' which would have been a simple and correct solution if the division of the night into twelve parts for practical purposes had been aimed at. But this expedient he could not adopt, because he could or would only operate with stars, and the notions of sunrise and sunset found no place in his tables. Thus he was forced to falsify the customary division of the hours, by squeezing the twelve hours of the night into the time during which star risings are visible—viz., the dark night exclusive of twilight. On the other hand, he could not, with his principal stars at intervals of 15°, divide his night, shortened as it was by two hours, into twelve parts, and thus he was obliged to make use of two or three auxiliary stars, as we have proved in detail above, and thus yet more to disfigure the hour-division, since thereby the lengths of the hours were made very variable. These are then two things which we must not regard as peculiarities of ancient Egyptian reckoning, but as a consequence of the leading idea of our table, which did not intend to facilitate the division of the night into twelve parts by star observations, but was calculated, by the connection of thirteen stars with thirteen successive moments, to create the idea of the circling host of stars and thence the course of the night."
I give an abstract of the list of the twenty-four principal stars and the Egyptian constellations in which they occur:—
| 1. | Sahu = Orion. | |
| 2. | Sothis = Sirius. | |
| 3. | The two stars. | |
| 4. | The stars of the water. | |
| 5. | The lion. | |
| 6. | The many stars. | |
| 7. | Mena's herald. | |
| 8. | Mena. | |
| 9. | Mena's followers. | |
| 10. |  | |
| 11. | ||
| 12. | Hippopotamus. | |
| 13. | ||
| 14. | ||
| 15. | | |
| 16. | ||
| 17. | Necht. | |
| 18. | ||
| 19. | ||
| 20. | ||
| 21. | Ari. | |
| 22. |  | Goose. |
| 23. | ||
| 24. | Sahu = Head of Orion. |
It will be seen that even this Egyptian star-list is very indeterminate. It is known that Sahu is the name for the constellation of Orion. The hippopotamus represents Draco, and probably Necht another northern constellation. There are indications, too, that Mena may symbolise Spica, with which star we have seen Min-worship associated. Further than this the authorities do not venture at present to go.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
THE INFLUENCE OF EGYPT UPON TEMPLE-ORIENTATION IN GREECE.
In the final pages of this book I have to show that recent investigations have put beyond all doubt the fact that the astronomical observations and temple-worship of the Egyptians formed the basis first of Greek and later of Latin temple-building.