The dawn of astronomy: A study of the temple-worship and mythology of the ancient EgyptiansLockyer, Norman, Sir
Religion
The dawn of astronomy: A study of the temple-worship and mythology of the ancient Egyptians
Lockyer, Norman, Sir
Astronomy, Egyptian; Sun -- Mythology; Sun worship; Temples -- Egypt
In my references to the myth of Horus in Chapter XIV. I have shown
that in all probability an astronomical meaning is that the rising
sun puts out the northern stars. It was also indicated that the myth
was one of great antiquity, as it was formulated when Draco was
circumpolar; was not simple in its nature, and probably had reference
to a sun-worshipping race abolishing the cult of Set representing the
northern stars.
The facts brought together in subsequent chapters show that if there
were not such a myth, there should have been; for the temple evidence
alone showing the antithesis between Osiris-worship and the worship of
Set is overwhelming.
I have also indicated that temples built to northern stars are
geographically separated from those built to southern ones, and that
the former have had their axes blocked to prevent the worship.
The Horus of Edfû, who is represented as leading the victorious
hosts who revenge the killing of Osiris by Set, is the ally of the
southern-star worshippers whom we have traced from Thebes, possibly
to Central Africa (see page 350); and if we associate the myth with
the records on the walls of the temple of Edfû, and agree to the
possibility of that temple having been founded in 6400 B.C. (see page
311), then there must have been an invasion of the southern peoples
about that date--an invasion which reached Northern Egypt, where
eventually they were conquered by the Set-worshipping race, who came,
as I think I have proved, from a country to the N.E. of the Delta. The
question is: Did this first colony represent the original Hor-Shesu,
so-called specially because perhaps as a novelty they had _added_ the
worship of the sun to the worship of the moon? and was the moon the
first Osiris brought in by moon-worshippers with a year of 360 days?
In Accad and Sumer, where also, according to Hommel and others, the
word Osiris (Asari) has been traced, the sun-god was the daughter of
the moon-god. An eye forms part both of the hieroglyphic and of the
cuneiform name, and the eye was one of the symbols in the name of
Osiris in Egypt. Be this as it may, we have temple evidence to show
that in Egypt the worship of Set was the worship of a northern race,
and that it was finally abolished by a southern one.
Now in Babylonia exactly the opposite happened. The proto-Chaldæan
south-star and winter-sun cult of Eridu was ultimately changed,
absorbed, and buried in the Semitic cult of the northern stars Anu and
Bīl and the spring sun, first Marduk and afterwards Šamaš.
Had there been then myth-makers in Babylonia, the myth would have been
the converse of the Egyptian one. There were myth makers, and precisely
such a myth! It is called the Myth of Marduk and Tiāmat.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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