It is an important fact to bear in mind that in the North of Egypt in early times the stellar temples were more particularly directed to the north, while south of Thebes, so far as I know, there is only one temple so directed. It is suggested, therefore, that the Theban priests amalgamated the northern and southern cults, probably for political purposes. There is evidence that the priests were at heart more sympathetic with the southern cults, and a further investigation of this matter may eventually help us in several points of Egyptian history. It will have been noticed also that so far as we have gone, whether discussing solar or stellar temples, we have had to associate the cults carried on in most of them with some particular season of the year. If I am right, in the worships at Denderah, Medînet-Habû, and Karnak, we have a strict reference to the year, and in Egypt the year was always, as it is now, associated with the rise of the river. The sacred river must now occupy our attention for a while; we must become familiar with its phenomena, and the divisions of time and the calendar systems which were associated with them. CHAPTER XXIII. THE EGYPTIAN YEAR AND THE NILE. Our researches so far leave no doubt upon the question that a large part of the astronomical activity of the earliest Egyptians had reference to observations connected especially with New Year's Day. It has been made abundantly clear, too, that in very early times the Egyptians had a solar year commencing at the Summer Solstice, and that this solstice was then, and is now, coincident with the arrival of the Nile flood at Heliopolis and Memphis, the most important centres of northern Egyptian life during the early dynasties. In the dawn of civilisation it was not at all a matter of course that the sun should be taken as the measurer of time, as it is now with us; and in this connection it is worth while to note how very diverse the treatment of this subject was among the early peoples. Thus, for instance, it was different in Egypt from what it was in Chaldæa and Babylonia, and later among the Jews. In the Egyptian inscriptions we find references to the moon, but they prove that she occupied quite a subordinate position to the sun, at least in the later times. The week of seven days was utterly unknown amongst the Egyptians. Everything that can be brought forward in its favour belongs to the latest periods. The passage quoted by Lepsius from the Book of the Dead proves nothing, since, according to Krall, an error has crept into his translation. In Babylonia it would seem that the moon was worshipped as well as the sun; and it was thus naturally used for measuring time; and, so far as months were concerned, this, of course, was quite right. In Babylonia, too, where much desert travel had to be undertaken at night, the movements of the moon would be naturally watched with great care.