At any rate, not many Egyptologists paid much attention to all this until 1992, when the French Egyptologist Sylvie Cauville, well known for her extensive work on the inscriptions of Dendera, undertook a detailed study of the astronomical orientation of the little temple of Isis.
53
According to Cauville the temple of Isis at Dendera has been mostly ignored by Egyptologists, and none had paid much attention to the interesting astronomical findings of Lockyer and the commentaries of other astronomers such as Ed Krupp. Realising that this was a mistake on her colleagues’ part, Cauville solicited the collaboration of the astronomer Eric Aubourg to examine again the orientation of this temple.
The temple of Isis as we see it today is mainly the work of Augustus Caesar who ordered its construction in
c.
30 BC on the ruins of a much older temple, whose foundations were two metres lower down. Recent archaeological exploration by a French team has revealed that there had been many interventions throughout the ages at this site. In the foundations of Augustus’ temple were found blocks belonging to Nectanebo I (
c.
350 BC), and it was also revealed that the Ptolemaic kings Ptolemy VI Philometor (
c
. 150 BC) and Ptolemy X Alexander I (
c.
20 BC) had had a hand in renovation works. But what particularly interested Cauville was the finding of reused blocks dating from the Ramesside period (c. 1250 BC) bearing the name of Kha-emouaset, a son of the great Rameses II. Could the original foundation of the temple of Isis be dated to
c
. 1250 BC? Seeing that there was an obvious difference in the orientation of the east-west axis of this original temple with that of Augustus’ temple directly above it, Cauville asked Aubourg to find out if it had anything to do with the precessional drift of Sirius. Her hunch proved right. Aubourg first determined that the orientation of Augustus’ temple was 18° 40′ south-of-east, which perfectly fit with the orientation of Sirius at its rising in the epoch of Augustus. He then determined the orientation of the original temple lower down and found it to be 21° 11′, which corresponded to the orientation of the rising of Sirius in the epoch of Rameses II. There could be no doubt that here again was proof that the ancient surveyors not only were aware of the precession of Sirius, but also had responded to its effect by changing the orientation of the temple.
The main Hathor temple is, of course, famous for having housed the so-called round zodiac of Dendera (as well as a lesser-known ‘rectangular’ zodiac that is on the ceiling of the first hypostyle hall). The round zodiac is not so much of a zodiac as it is a planisphere or sky map, that shows the whole celestial landscape from the perspective of having the north celestial pole near its centre. The actual zodiac, which was fixed on the ceiling of a chapel on the upper floor of the temple, is made up of the 12 familiar Babylonian-Greek astrological signs, which are scattered in a rough loop around the celestial pole while in a larger loop are scattered the 36 decans of ancient Egypt that were used for time-keeping and rebirth rites (since they contain Orion and Sirius). It is worth reminding ourselves that the decans were known from at least the Pyramid Age, which suggests, if not proves, that the Dendera planisphere has incorporated in it elements of great antiquity. Here Orion-Osiris is represented by a striding man wearing the royal crown, while Sirius-Isis is shown as a recumbent cow with a five-pointed star above her horns. Interestingly, behind the Isis-Sirius cow is the figure of a woman holding a bow and arrow, almost certainly Satis of Elephantine, who, as we have already seen, was also identified with Sirius (particularly with its heliacal rising and the Nile flood). Very near the centre of the zodiac is the figure of a small jackal on what looks like a hoe. To its left is a large standing hippopotamus that represents the constellation Draconis, and to its right is the familiar bull’s thigh that represents the Plough. These last two constellations, as we have already seen, can be traced back to the Pyramid Age, again giving the Dendera planisphere links with the distant past.
The rounded planisphere that is seen today at Dendera is not the original one but a facsimile made in the 1920s. The original was taken to France after the Napoleonic invasion of Egypt in 1798 and is now displayed at the Louvre Museum in Paris. Books and articles abound on the meaning and date of the planisphere of Dendera, and it is well outside the scope of this investigation to review them all. There is little doubt that the planisphere dates from the time the temple was built, i.e.
c
. 54 BC, but it is much less clear whether it represents the sky at that time or, as some have suggested, a much older sky. In other words, is the Dendera planisphere a copy of a much older one into which were incorporated the Babylonian-Greek astrological signs? If that is the case, then there is no question that this artefact is a symbol of the precession of the equinoxes which sees the astrological signs transit the east-west axis of the planisphere in a never-ending cycle of 26,000 years.
The first scholar to suggest that this was the case was the French astronomer Jean-Baptiste Biot (whom we encountered earlier in this chapter), who argued that a careful study of the position of the constellations and planets on the Dendera planisphere indicates a much older sky and, by extension, knowledge of the precession.
54
Such ideas are normally vehemently rejected by Egyptologists and historians of science, but with the recent findings of Cauville and Aubourg at the nearby temple of Isis, Biot’s views may very well be vindicated yet. Dendera may indeed have been a religious centre for astronomical observations and records that harked back thousands of years and perhaps even to the time of the legendary Shemsu-Hor, the ‘Followers of Horus’ (those who tracked Sirius?) across the ages.
Hungarians on Thoth Hill
The third known example of such long-range tracking of Sirius across the ages is found at a temple located at the southern part of the Theban hills on a promontory known as Thoth Hill. This mysterious temple was discovered by George Sweinfurth in 1904 and later studied by Flinders Petrie in 1909. At first it was thought to be the remains of a
heb-sed
chapel for the Eleventh Dynasty king Sankhakare Mentuhotep, but in 1995-8, an extensive investigation was carried out on Thoth Hill by a Hungarian team from Eotvos Lorand University under the leadership of Dr Gyozo Voros which confirmed that the temple, although built in the reign of Sankhakare Mentuhotep, was not a
heb-sed
chapel but a small temple dedicated to Horus. The temple, which is made of bricks, was built on a terraced platform overlooking the eastern horizon, and consisted of an entrance pylon and an inner sanctuary with three small rooms. When the Hungarians excavated there, they soon realised that this Eleventh Dynasty structure was built on top of the ruins of a much older temple dating from the archaic period (
c
. 3000 BC) and which, oddly enough, had a floor plan similar to the temple of Isis at Dendera. Also like at Dendera, the axis of this temple was offset from the axis of the archaic temple by about 2° towards the south. According to Egyptologist Richard Wilkinson:
The Hungarian team excavating these structures believe this difference may be attributed to the shift in astronomical alignments over the intervening centuries. Their research indicates that the later brick temple was aligned to Sirius. In the archaic period the same star would have appeared just over 2 degrees further south in the eastern sky - exactly the difference visible in the orientation of the earlier building. Thus, rather than simply follow the physical orientation of the earlier sacred structure, the Middle Kingdom architects had carefully adjusted the temple’s orientation in order to align the new building once more precisely to Sirius - which was equated with Horus, the patron deity of the temple.
55
So here we have it once again: the ancient Egyptians were not only acutely aware of the precession of the fixed stars but also tracked or followed it through the ages by carefully altering the orientation of temples towards the rising of Sirius. The question, then, is not whether they knew about the precession, but
since when did they know of it?
In other words, how far back in time can we assume that precession was common knowledge to the ancient Egyptian astronomer-priests? We have seen how Plato had no difficulty in allocating to them records of the movement of the fixed stars that went back ‘for 10,000 years, or an infinity number of years so to speak’. Can Plato have been right in reporting this extraordinary antiquity for the stargazers of ancient Egypt? Is it possible that the ancient Egyptians had observed and recorded the precession from way back in prehistory?
A Cosmic Order Fixed at the Time of Creation
Earlier in this chapter I seriously considered whether the Fourth and Fifth Dynasty pyramids and related sun temples at Abu Ghorab and Heliopolis were positioned according to a master plan. A few years ago, when I proposed this idea in my book
The Orion Mystery
, this was anathema to Egyptologists. Now, with the proposals made by David Jeffreys of an intervisibility between all these sites, the idea does not seem so heretical after all. The gap seems to be narrowing. Contrary to what some critics have said about my theory, I am not claiming that these monuments were built by some lost civilisation of ‘Atlanteans’, and I wholeheartedly agree with Egyptologists that all the pyramids and sun temples of the Memphite region were built by Egyptians during a period that spanned from
c.
2700 to
c
. 2200 BC.
56
But the issue on which we
do
hotly disagree is this: I believe that the master plan executed by the Fourth and Fifth Dynasties is a religious representation of the sky Duat
as it was seen in c. 11,541 BC
, the epoch that I concluded was that mysterious
zep tepi
, or ‘First Time’, when, in the minds of the ancient Egyptians, creation had taken place in this region.
To put it in another way, I am claiming that in order to position their monuments, the Fourth and Fifth Dynasties used very ancient blueprints which could have been preserved by astronomer-priests over many generations; or, alternatively, that they were able to extrapolate the sky of the twelfth millennium BC by using their knowledge of precession. I believe both scenarios are possible, this in spite of the huge reticence by Egyptologists to seriously consider them.
Towards the end of his life, the Egyptologist Henri Frankfort had come to realise that ‘Egypt viewed the universe as essentially static. It held that a cosmic order was once and for all established at the time of creation.’
57
And more recently the American Egyptologist Jane B. Sellers wrote that the cosmic order ‘was a form that had been created for gods in the heavens, and how inevitable it was that an imitation of the cosmic order should prevail for men on earth’.
58
I maintain that this mysterious ‘cosmic order’ was, to the ancient mind, none other than the orderly and majestic cycles of the sky, and more especially, the celestial events that were witnessed in that select area of the starry world that the ancient Egyptians called the Duat. I further maintain that they sought to replicate this sky region on the land around Heliopolis and the Memphite Necropolis. Bringing down the cosmic order to earth ‘as established at the time of creation’ in the Memphite region is exactly the sort of ambitious scheme that the priests of Heliopolis would have attempted, and their legacy is the colossal star pyramids and sun temples that still survive there. I have applied astronomy to the Pyramid Texts and have extracted from them a calendrical date which might constitute ‘the time of creation’. This was done by precessing back the sky to the first appearance of Sirius in that region, and by matching it to the start of a Sothic cycle. The date that emerges from this is 11,541 BC. At this date, when the Milky Way is aligned to the south-north flow of the Nile and Orion transits the south meridian, the Duat region in the sky bears an uncanny resemblance to the Memphite region on the land. The logic and mathematics are sound, bearing in mind, of course, the topographical constraints and the subjugation of astronomical observation to religious needs. I am, of course, acutely aware that the date of 11,541 BC very much disturbs and much displeases Egyptologists and historians of science. I cannot help this. For it would be like telling Copernicus - he was, in fact, actually told! - that his heliocentric theory disturbed and much displeased the bishops of Rome. Truth is not something that is voted for or against by bishops or academics, or that meets with their approval. Truth is truth. And facts are facts. So let us deal with facts, and not votes or opinions.
The Egyptologist David O’Connors was bold enough to state that: ‘in my opinion, the only theory that provides a fully comprehensive explanation for the Pyramid Complex . . . is the theory that the complex basically represents - in its entirety and simultaneously - cosmology, cosmic renewal and cosmic governance’.
59
I have demonstrated that the ‘cosmic renewal’ that most affected the ancient Egyptians was the return of the phoenix, which, in calendrics, was marked by the cyclical return of the heliacal rising of Sirius with the New Year’s Day every 1,460 years. It is my firm conviction that the perfect ‘cosmic renewal’ of
c
. 2781 BC (when the heliacal rising of Sirius fell on the day of the summer solstice) was the religious impulse that fired the priests of Heliopolis to put into practice a plan to develop the whole Heliopolis-Memphis region into a sort of three-dimensional (almost holographic) model of the Duat as it was established at the time of creation. As we have seen earlier, the Pyramid Texts confirm that the region of Heliopolis-Memphis was where ‘creation’ had taken place with the appearance of the Primordial Mound upon which the
bennu
-phoenix alighted and set in motion ‘time’ and the stars and, furthermore, to which it would return every 1,460 years. If this is true, then we should have evidence of such a return around the year 1321 BC, which marked the return of a Sothic cycle (2781 - 1,460 = 1321 BC) within the known historic period some 1,460 years after the Pyramid Age.