Several interesting facts were soon revealed by this tabulation.
The first point that I have to note is that, in the case of some of these temples, we get the same, or nearly the same, amplitudes in different localities. To show this clearly it will be convenient to compare together the chief temples near Karnak and those having the same amplitudes elsewhere. We can do this by laying down along a circle the different amplitudes to which these various temples point. To begin with and to make the story complete, I draw attention to the temples which we have already discussed with an amplitude of 27°, or 26°, at Thebes, Karnak, and elsewhere. These, of course, are solar temples. Next we have non-solar amplitudes at Karnak and Thebes, associated with temples having the same amplitude at Denderah, Annu, and other places.
Another point is that we have the majority of the non-solar temples removed just as far as they can be in amplitude from the solar ones, for the reason that they are as nearly as possible at right angles to them, so that if the sun were observed in one temple and a star in the other, there would be a difference of 90° between the position of the sun and the position of the star at that moment. This would, of course, apply also to two stars. Sometimes this rectangular arrangement is in the same temple, as at Karnak, sometimes in an adjacent one, as at Denderah.
If we study Denderah we find that we have there a large temple enclosed in a square temenos wall, the sides of which are parallel to the sides of the temple; and also a little temple at right angles to the principal one.
It is hardly fair to say that a rectangular arrangement, repeated in different localities, is accidental; it is one which is used to some extent in our modern observatories.
The perpetual recurrence of these rectangular temples shows, I think, that there was some definite view in the minds of those who built all the pairs of temples which are thus related to each other; what that view was I shall endeavour to discuss in the sequel.
A third circumstance is that, when we get some temples pointing a certain number of degrees south of east, we get other temples pointing the same number of degrees south of west, so that some temples may have been used to observe risings and others settings of stars in the same declination. It is then natural, of course, to suggest that these temples were arranged to observe the rising and setting of the same stars; but further inquiry has shown that there are mythological objections to this explanation.
Finally, we have temples with the same amplitudes high north and high south, in different places—temples which could not have been built with reference to the sun; just as we have at different places temples with the same amplitudes which could have been used for solar purposes.
(2) To extend and check some of these observations with special reference to my new point of view in Egypt itself.