More than this, the application of this method entirely justifies Mariette's view with regard to these more modern temples at Thebes, and shows that when they were built the outlook was clear, so that the building ceremonials referred to in the last chapter might have been performed.

I am next anxious to point out that not only is this so, but, accepting it, we can explain exactly why the walls and temples and columns were erected in the sequence which Mariette indicates. We not only know when they were built, but we can presently understand why they were built.

The first point to which I draw attention in this matter is the following:—Referring to the plan, we find that before the time of Rameses III. the temple of Seti II. was right out in the open. It thus represented just one of those external rectangular temples which have been found at Denderah and at very many other places in Egypt. It was one of the Egyptian ideas to have two temples at right angles to each other. That temple, then, stood alone. The next change seems to have been this: The star Canopus, the setting of which it was built to watch, was, through the processional movement to which I have referred, no longer conveniently observed in that temple. To obviate this the temple T was built by Rameses III. with a change of amplitude equivalent to the actual precessional change of the star's declination, to carry on the observations.

Further, at the same time another temple (M) was built to observe γ Draconis. It is now easy to understand what the 21st—a Theban—dynasty did. Seti's temple (L) had been superseded; the temple M was a second rectangular temple outside the great temple of Karnak (K). They said to themselves: "We will make Karnak more beautiful, and we will extend it. We can now build walls in continuation of the old walls, and we can build still another pylon, because Seti's temple is no longer being used, the worship having been transferred to the temple of Rameses III. (Khons). By building the northern wall we prevent the use of temple M, sacred to our enemy Sutech."

I should add that the opening in the wall, in prolongation of the axis of temple M, is not directly opposite the temple M, but a little to the east; it was probably made later, possibly by the twenty-second dynasty, who were Set worshippers. Again, coming to the time of Taharqa, returning at the end of the exile of the priests of Amen in Nubia, the temple, M was again thrown out of use. Pillars were built in front of it, right in the fair-way, affording an instance that when a temple was thrown out of use, not by the precessional movement of the star to which it had been directed, but by the partisans of another creed, the fact of its being no longer in operation was insured by something being built in front of it, to prevent observation of the stellar divinity no longer in vogue.

It may be added that long after the temple of Seti II. fell out of astronomical use, and was on that account blocked by the walls of the twenty-first dynasty, the Ptolemies built a new temple of Osiris, which, if built before, would have been in the fair-way of the temple of Seti. Thus, there is a reason for all the changes made at all the dates referred to by Mariette.

I think we find in this result of the inquiry a valuable corroboration of Mariette's conclusions, and another reason why we should not cease to admire his magnificent works.

So far I have only referred to the relatively modern parts of Karnak. I now pass to the more ancient ones, in which we ought to note the same laws holding good, if there be any value in the view we are discussing.

We find that some of the most important temples given by Lepsius and Mariette (B, X, and W) are just as effectively blocked by the mass of the temple of Amen-Rā as those we have already considered were by the walls of the twenty-first dynasty and Taharqa's columns; and, looking at the plan, it seems at first perfectly absurd to continue to hold for one moment the idea that these temples were built for observations of stars on the horizon.

The temple X (Mut) is blocked by the pylon marked 3, the temple B by the eastern end of the great temple, the temple W by the temple O.