Is it possible to bring any tests to bear to see whether they did this or not? Certainly: examine the temples which still remain, and where they have disappeared examine the temenos walls which still exist as mounds in many cases.
Suppose we take, to begin with, as before, that region of the earth's surface in the Nile valley with a latitude of about 26° N. The temples will have an amplitude of about 26° N. or S. if they have anything to do with the sun at the solstices. Any structures built to observe the sun will have an east and west aspect true if they have anything to do with the sun at the equinoxes. Dealing with a solstitial temple, the first thing to observe is the amplitude of the temple, which must depend upon the latitude in which it was wished to note the rising or setting of the sun at either of the solstices. If we take the latitude 26° N., which is very nearly the latitude of Thebes, the amplitude has to be 26° as stated above; so that a temple at Thebes having an amplitude of 26° would be very likely to have been oriented to the sun at the moment that it was as far from the equator as it could be—i.e., at the time of the longest day of the year—in which case we should be dealing with the summer or northern solstice; or of the shortest day of the year, if dealing with the winter or southern solstice.
As we deal with higher latitudes, we gradually increase the amplitude, until, if we go as far as the latitude of the North Cape, the sun at the summer solstice, as everybody knows, has no amplitude either at rising or setting, because it passes clear above the horizon altogether, and is seen at midnight.
These are the conditions which will define for us a solstitial solar temple. We see the amplitude of the temple must vary with the latitude of the place where it is erected.
But the temples directed to the sun at an equinox will be directed to an amplitude of 0: that is, they will point E. or W., and this will be the case in all latitudes.
The orientation of a temple directed to the sun at neither the solstices nor the equinoxes will have an amplitude less than the solstitial amplitude at the place.
As a matter of fact, as I shall show in the sequel, some of the temples recognised as temples of the sun in the inscriptions are of this latter class.
CHAPTER VII.
METHODS OF DETERMINING THE ORIENTATION OF TEMPLES.
This brings us at once to a practical point. It will be asked, How can such an inquiry be prosecuted? How can the amplitudes of the temples be determined?
