We learn from Chabas that the Egyptian word which expresses the idea of founding or laying the foundation-stone of a temple is Senti—a word which still exists in Coptic. But in the old language another word, Put-ser, which no longer remains in Coptic, has been traced. It has been established that put means "to stretch," and ser means "cord;" so that that part of the ceremonial which consisted in stretching a cord in the direction of a star was considered of so great an importance that it gave its name to the whole ceremonial.
I will next refer to some of the inscriptions; one, dating from the last half of the third thousand B.C., occurs in the document describing the building of the temple of Annu (Heliopolis). We read:—"Arose the king, attired in his necklace and the feather crown; all the world followed him, and the majesty of Amenemhāt [first king of the Twelfth dynasty]. The Kher-heb read the sacred text during the stretching of the measuring-cord and the laying of the foundation-stone on the piece of ground selected for this temple. Then withdrew His Majesty Amenemhāt; and King Usertsen [son and co-regent] wrote it down before the people."
Nissen, from whom (loc. cit.) I quote the above, adds:—"On account of the stretching of the measuring-cord, the Egyptian engineers were called by the Greeks ἁρπεδονάπται whose art Democritus boasts of having acquired."
We next turn to Abydos, possibly one of the oldest temple-fields in Egypt. There is an inscription relating to the rebuilding of one of them in the time of Seti I. (about 1380 B.C.). In this the goddess Sesheta addresses the king as follows:—"The hammer in my hand was of gold, as I struck the peg with it, and thou wast with me in thy capacity of Harpedonapt. Thy hand held the spade during the fixing of its [the temple's] four corners with accuracy by the four supports of heaven." On the pictures the king appears with the Osiris crown, opposite the goddess. Both hold in their right hand a club, and with it they each hammer a long peg into the ground. Round the two pegs runs a rope, which is stretched tight, the ends being tied together.
In two cases the star used for the alignment is actually named. Of these I will take, first, the record of the ceremony used in the building of the temple of Hathor at Denderah.
THE ALIGNMENT OF THE TEMPLE OF HATHOR AT DENDERAH.
The inscriptions state that the king while stretching the cord had his glance directed to the āk of the constellation of the Thigh—the old name of the constellation which we now recognise as the Great Bear—and on this line was built the new temple, "as had been done there before."
The actual inscription has been translated as follows:—"The living God, the magnificent son of Asti āk [the middle?] of the Bull's Thigh constellation, he establishes the temple-house of the mistress of Denderah, as took place there before." At another place the king says: "Looking to the sky at the course of the rising stars [and] recognising the āk of the Bull's Thigh constellation, I establish the corners of the temple of Her Majesty."
Here, then, we have more than evidence of the stretching of a cord towards a star; an actual constellation is named, and it may be easily imagined that in connection with this many interesting questions arise of the utmost importance to the subject we are considering.
Dümichen, in his references to this passage, discusses the meaning of the word āk in relation to some Theban grave-inscriptions, in which it is suggested that āk is used to represent the middle course of a star, or, astronomically speaking, its culminating point as it passes the meridian. But such a meaning as this will never do in this connection; for if a cord was stretched towards a star on the meridian it would lie north and south, and therefore the temple would be built north and south. But this is by no means the orientation of the temple—a point to which I shall return presently.