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
The determination of the stars to which some of the Egyptian temples,
sacred to a known divinity, were directed, opened a way, as I
anticipated, to a study of the astronomical basis of parts of the
mythology. This inquiry I have carried on to a certain extent, but it
requires an Egyptologist to face it, and this I have no pretensions
to be. It soon became obvious, even to an outsider like myself, that
the mythology was intensely astronomical, and crystallised early ideas
suggested by actual observations of the sun, moon, and stars. Next,
there were apparently two mythologies, representing two schools of
astronomical thought.
Finally, to endeavour to obtain a complete picture, it became necessary
to bring together the information to be obtained from all these and
other sources, including the old Egyptian calendars, and to compare the
early Babylonian results with those which are to be gathered from the
Egyptian myths and temple-orientations.
It will, I think, be clear to anyone who reads this volume that its
limits and the present state of our knowledge have only allowed me
really to make a few suggestions. I have not even attempted to exhaust
any one of the small number of subjects which I have brought forward;
but if I have succeeded so far as I have gone, it will be abundantly
evident that, if these inquiries are worth continuing, a very
considerable amount of work has to be done.
Of this future work, the most important, undoubtedly, is a re-survey
of the temple sites, with modern instruments and methods. Next,
astronomers must produce tables of the rising and setting conditions
of the stars for periods far beyond those which have already been
considered. The German Astronomical Society has published a table of
the places of a great many stars up to 2000 B.C., but to carry on this
investigation we must certainly go back to 7000 B.C., and include
southern stars. While the astronomer is doing this, the Egyptologist,
on his part, must look through the inscriptions with reference to the
suggestions which lie on the surface of the inquiry. The astronomical
and associated mythological data want bringing together. One part of
that work will consist in arranging tables of synonyms like those to
which I presently refer in the case of the goddesses. My own impression
is that this work will not really be so laborious as the statement of
it might seem to imply. I have attempted to go over the ground during
the last two years as well as my ignorance would allow me, and I have
arrived at the impression that the number both of gods and goddesses
will be found to be extremely small; that the apparent wealth of the
mythology depends upon the totemism of the inhabitants in the Nile
valley--by which I mean that each district had its own special animal
as the emblem of the tribe dwelling in it, and that every mythological
personage had to be connected in some way with these local cults. After
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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