This word is rendered by Brugsch as the “Dekane” in German and I have been unable to find its exact equivalent in English. The Dekanes are alluded to in an inscription from the Ptolemaic period cited by Brugsch (op. cit. i, p. 135) as follows: “They shine forth after the sun has set. They run in a circle, and continually release each other. They become apparent at sunset at hours varying with the seasons.” The Dekane constellations or stars were those which rose at the beginning of each decade or period of ten days, which constituted the Egyptian “week.” There were thirty-six or 4×9 of these in the Egyptian year, at the end of which an epact of five days was added, each day being consecrated to one of the five chief gods. Deferring the discussion of the Egyptian numerical calendaric system, I merely point out here the obvious agreement between the number of celestial nomes = 36, the number of decades in the year of 360 days to which should be added the familiar fact that each day and decade had its special “god.” Laying stress upon the point that in ancient Egypt we find thirty-six celestial, geographical districts, corresponding to the thirty-six decades of the year and to thirty-six gods, I take pleasure in pointing out how clearly the following passages of Sir Norman Lockyer's “Dawn of Astronomy” show that the thirty-six gods had as many human representatives, priests, who performed certain religious rites and homage in the chief temple in a fixed order of rotation. “Even at Philæ in late times, in the temple of Osiris, there were 360 bowls for sacrifices, which were filled daily with milk by a specified rotation of priests. At Acanthus there was a perforated cask into which one of the 360 priests poured water from the Nile daily;” an enforced act of obedience recalling the punishment of the daughters of Danaë. As Sir Norman Lockyer justly remarks “these temple ceremonials are an evidence of their antiquity and may be regarded as traditions preserved by the conservative priesthood.”
I am inclined to regard the above mentioned acts of empty homage as survivals of conditions strictly analogous to those which existed in ancient America, where each geographical district of the [pg 378] state was associated with a class of people under their representative, and a day of the calendar on which obligations towards the central government, such as the paying of tribute, had to be performed in a fixed order of rotation, corresponding to the annual circuit of the circumpolar constellations around the pole star.
During centuries the most remarkable of these, Ursa Major, like the hand of a great celestial dial, moved by an unseen ruling power apparently located in Polaris, became visible after dusk and pointed towards the four quarters of heaven in succession, at intervals of nine decades of days. As in China and elsewhere at the present day, its position was referred to as a guide in determining time, during the night, and the seasons; and mankind became familiarized with the idea of a changeless inexorable law and order governing the universe and determining human periodical activities, and thus directly influencing individual lives. Added to this the idea of a heavenly kingdom, traversed by the celestial Nile, the Milky Way, and in which each familiar locality in Egypt had its counterpart, it is easy to follow the spread of the belief that there was a close connection between the stars and their terrestrial counterparts and that they directly influenced the destinies of individuals, each of which had its particular star in the sky.
The following portions of the decree inscribed B.C. 238 on the famous trilingual stela of Canopus, preserved at Gizeh, contain what appear to me to be distinct allusions to the ideal of a terrestrial kingdom, laid out and governed in accordance with the system and fixed laws observed as existing in the heavens and governing the movements of celestial bodies. The hieroglyphic text records the establishment of festivals “in accord with the existing fundamental laws upon which the heavens [the movements of heavenly bodies] are established.”... The Greek translation of this passage reads: “according to the now existing order of the world [universe]” and the demotic version is: “in accordance with the scheme, upon which the heaven is established ” (Brugsch, op. cit. i, p. 180). Further facts concerning celestial and terrestrial territorial divisions remain to be examined and discussed.
A number of representations exist in which the figure of the sky-goddess, Nut, appears as though stretched across the vault of heaven, her feet resting on the earth in the east and the tips of her fingers touching the horizon in the west. A study of certain texts cited by Brugsch clearly shows that it was for very practical and [pg 379] sensible reasons that the Egyptian astronomers had adopted the plan of an imaginary human form stretched across the nocturnal heaven, as it enabled the position of constellations and stars to be definitely located. Lepsius has shown that, in a series of inscriptions in the tombs of Ramses VI and Ramses IX, the movements and positions of stars are given in connection with the parts of an imaginary human form in the sky. It is thus said of a star that it was situated: “in the middle of the breast, in the right eye, the left eye, the right ear, the left ear, the right arm, the left arm, the left thigh.”
Brugsch (op. cit. i, p. 187) quotes the opinion of Lepsius that the parts alluded to in the above inscriptions, referred to an imaginary male figure stretched across the firmament and viewed en face, and publishes a theoretical reconstruction of this imaginary figure. It recalls that of a Buddha and suggests the idea that the Egyptian schematical figure must have also been imagined as seated on the stable centre of the heaven. Egyptian astronomical texts, which I shall cite further on, appear to me to show distinctly that the lotus flower (the name for flower being ankh) was employed to express the sound ankh, which means “life” and that it occurs in connection with other symbols of the pole-star god.
Returning to the representations of Nut stretched across the sky, it should be noted that this employment of the human form belongs to the same category as the Sphinx, which appears to have been the terrestrial counterpart of the celestial schematical figure. On the other hand, the sign nut, consisting of a circle with four divisions, like the pyramid, represents the successful attempt to express the same thought in abstract, geometrical form, such as would be intelligible to an initiated, intellectual minority only.
It will be seen further on that I advance the view that the pyramid, being a miniature reproduction of the scheme of the universe, contained a sacred central chamber, representing the sacred Middle, and that this was destined to be the “house of eternal repose” for the dead king, the representative of the universal god.
As Dr. Wallis Budge tells us: “If the deceased succeeds in passing the ordeal [of judgment after death] satisfactorily, he comes forth at once as a god (there is no place of probation), he becomes identified with Osiris, in whose shape his mummy is made” (The Dwellers on the Nile, p. 177).
The following text, from the inscription on an amulet found on [pg 380] the neck of the mummy of a young girl, preserved at the Berlin Museum, is explained in the official catalogue of the museum (p. 343), as signifying that “the mummy was supposed to lie in the centre of the whole world:” “The sky is locked over the earth, the earth is locked over the beyond and the beyond is locked over this strong mummy-case of the departed Osiris-Hathor-tsen-usire....” As the “beyond” in the inscription evidently signifies the “underworld,” the idea that the mummy case, resting on the earth, was being pressed upon from beneath by the underworld, and from above by the sky, is clearly conveyed and is in keeping with the sign for universe, already alluded to, which represents three regions superposed. The “deification” of the mummy, which is named “Osiris-Hathor,” is an interesting instance of the idea that the mummy became the image not only of the goddess Hathor but also of the god Osiris, or Ptah, who is usually represented in the form of a mummy.