The date 700 B.C. we have already found as the probable date of the undertaking of the restoration at Denderah. It is the time of the victorious march of the Theban priests northwards from their exile at Gebel Barkal.
The date 2400 B.C. lands us in the times of the great solstitial king, Usertsen I., about whom more in a subsequent chapter. Although the more ancient temple is generally ascribed to Thothmes III., traces of the work of Amen-hetep I. have been discovered. I think we have a case here where the eighteenth dynasty enlarged and embellished a shrine erected by the twelfth dynasty, precisely as the temple of Amen-Rā at Karnak has been traced back to the twelfth dynasty.
If I am right, then, it follows that temples erected to stars associated in any way with the chief cult, such as that of Amen-Rā, may either be dedicated to the god or goddess personified by the star or to the associated solar deity. Thus at Thebes we have the temple of Mut, so-called, though Mut was the wife of Amen-Rā; and the temples now under consideration, called temples of Amen, though they are dedicated to the goddess Amen-t, the wife of Amen. This may or may not be connected with the fact that the first of them was dedicated possibly before the cult of Amen alone had been intensified and expanded by the Theban priests—probably in the eighteenth dynasty—into the cult of the solstitial sun-god Amen-Rā.
There is evidence, indeed, that Amen-t replaced Mut in the Theban triad. With regard to these triads, a few words may be said here from the astronomical point of view, though the subject, I am told, is one on which a great diversity of opinion exists on the part of Egyptologists.
I have collected all the most definite statements I can find on this head, and it is certainly interesting to see that in many cases, though not in all, the triad seems to consist of a form of the sun-god, together with two stellar divinities, one of them certainly associated with the heliacal rising of the sun at some time of the year, and therefore a recognised form of Isis or Hathor. Thus we have:—
| Place. | Triad. |
|---|---|
| Thebes | Amen-Rā |
| (Greater Triad) | Mut |
| χonsu | |
| (Lesser Triad) | χem-Rā |
| Tamen (? Amen-t) | |
| Harka | |
| Denderah | Atmu |
| Isis | |
| Hathor | |
| Memphis | Atmu |
| Sekhet | |
| Ptah | |
| Hermonthis | Menθu-Rā |
| Ra-Ta (= Hathor) | |
| Hor-Para |
Not only may this table enable us to see how Amen-t was sunk at Medînet-Habû in the term Amen, but it enables us to consider a similar case presented by those temples at Thebes, some of them associated with Khons and another with Amen, referred to in Chapter XVII.
The temple of Khons is among the best known at Karnak; the visitor passes it before the great temple of Amen-Rā is reached. M. Bouriant was able to prove, while we were together at Karnak, that the temple of Seti II., nearly parallel to it, was also dedicated to Khons; but the temple B of Lepsius, nearly parallel to both, is sacred to Amen. It is seen at once that the main cult is the same, although the amount of detail shown in the reference is different—we have the generic name of the triad in one case, the specific name of the member of the triad in the other.
As this is the first time a setting star has been in question, it is well to point out that in this case the ancient Egyptians no longer typified the star as a goddess but as a god—and, more than this, as a dying god; for Khons is always represented as a mummy—the Osiris form. Egyptologists state that both Thoth and Khons were moon-gods. Perhaps the lunar attributes were assigned prior to the establishment of sun-worship.
I shall show, subsequently, that the temples now being considered find their place in continuous series stretching back in the case of Amen-t to 3750 B.C., and in the case of Khons to possibly a long anterior date.