TEMPLE AND TEMENOS WALLS OF SAÏS (SĀ-EL-LAGER).
(From Lepsius.)
Further, the temples at Gîzeh, instead of being oriented to the north-west, and to the south-east, are just as truly oriented to the east and west as the Pyramids themselves. We have either Temples of Osiris pointing to the sunset at the equinox, or temples of Isis pointing to the sunrise at the equinox, but in either case built in relation to the Pyramids. As an indication of the importance of the considerations with which we are now dealing, I may mention that it is suggested by them that the building near the Sphinx is really a crypt of a temple of Isis or Osiris. This is a view which may change the ideas generally held with regard to its age to the extent of something like a thousand years. It has been imagined that it was at least one thousand years older than the second Pyramid; but if it be ultimately proved that this is really a temple of Isis or Osiris, then since it was built in just as strict relation to the side of the Pyramid as the temple near the Pyramid was to its centre, both temples were most probably built at the same time as the Pyramid itself. However this may be, the important thing is that when we pass from Thebes, and possibly Abydos, to the Pyramids at Memphis, to Saïs and Tanis, we find a solstitial orientation changed to an equinoctial one. There is a fundamental change of astronomical thought.
THE TEMPLE NEAR THE SPHINX, LOOKING WEST (TRUE), SHOWING ITS RELATION TO THE SOUTH FACE OF THE SECOND PYRAMID.
(From a photograph by Mr. Fearing.)
I confess I am impressed by this distinction; from the astronomical point of view it is so fundamental that almost a difference of race is required to explain it. I say this advisedly, although I know creed can go a great way, because among these early peoples their astronomy was chiefly a means to an end. It was not a story of abstract conceptions, or the mere expression of interesting facts whether used for religious purposes or not. The end was a calendar, of festivals and holydays if you will, but a calendar which would allow their tillage and harvest to prosper.
Now, it is almost impossible to suppose that those who worshipped the sun at the solstice did not begin the year at the solstice. It is, of course, equally difficult to believe that those who preferred to range themselves as equinoctials did not begin the year at an equinox. Both these practices could hardly go on in the case of the same race in the same country, least of all in the valley where an annual inundation marked the solstice.
I shall show subsequently how the rise of the Nile, which took place at the summer solstice, not only dominated the industry, but the astronomy and religion of Egypt; and I was much interested in hearing from my friend Dr. Wallis Budge that the rise of the Tigris and Euphrates takes place not far from the spring equinox. This may have dominated the Babylonian calendar as effectually as the date of the Nile-rise dominated the Egyptian. If so, we have a valuable hint as to the origin of the equinoctial cult at Gîzeh and elsewhere, which in all probability was interpolated after the non-equinoctial worship had been first founded at Annu, Abydos, and possibly Thebes.
CHAPTER IX.
OTHER SIMILAR SHRINES ELSEWHERE.
The observations which have been made in Babylonia are very discordant among themselves, and at present it is impossible to say, from the monuments in any part of the region along the Tigris valley, whether the temples indicate that the solstices were familiar to the Babylonians.