... Plan of the Tomb of Rameses IV (from a Papyrus) 467 Chair of State from the Tomb of Iuȧa and Thuȧu ... Plan of the Temple of Asnâ, with Restorations by Grand Bey ... Temple of Seti I on the road between Radasîyah and Berenice Environs of Aswân The Tombs at Aswân Plan of the Island of Philæ ... Plan of the Temple of Bêt-al-Walî Plan of the Temple of 'Amâdah ... The Seated Colossi and Front of the Temple at Abû Simbel Plan of the Chapel at Abû Simbel Map of the Sûdân Railways ... Scene from a Chapel in a Pyramid at Gabal Barkal The Temple of Piankhi at Gabal Barkal ... ... Senka-Åmen-seken, King of Nubia, clubbing his Foes The Largest Group of Pyramids at Meroë The Second and Third Groups of Pyramids at Meroë Plan of a Small Temple at right angles to the Large Temple at ... Plan of a Small Temple near the Plain of Nagaa Plan of Temples on the Brow of the Hill at Nagaa General Gordon Pâshâ ... The Mahdi's Tomb before the Bombardment of Omdurmân... ... The Wâdî Ḥammâmât and Ķuşêr route to the Emerald Mines and 629 633 659-662 ... ... Plan of a Pyramid Tomb, with Vestibule, or Funeral Chapel, and ... Pyramid Tomb with Funeral Chapel (the core of the pyramid is built ... ... of rubble) Section of the Tomb of Seti I, showing how the Corridors and Chambers enter and descend into the Mountain ... 705 705 706 707 608 610 Front of a Temple, showing Poles with Flags flying from them ... Upper Part of a Pillar with ornate Lotus Capital ... Upper Part of a Pillar of Rameses II, with Palm Capital and square ... 714 715 715 716 717, 718 718 718 719 Pillar with Hathor-headed Capital, set up by Åmen-ḥetep III Hathor-headed Capital Pillar with Lotus-bud Capital ... ... NOTE ON THE ANTIQUITY OF THE GREAT TEMPLE OF AMEN-RĀ AT KARNAK. MANY of the greatest excavators of antiquities in Egypt have devoted much time and labour to the task of ascertaining the age of this wonderful temple. Mariette, in his masterly work 66 Karnak," showed clearly that certain parts of this great mass of temple-buildings were as old as the XIIth dynasty, and he succeeded admirably in dating the works that were built there by kings of the XVIIIth, XIXth and succeeding dynasties. The late G. Legrain, in excavating a vast pit that had been filled up with the statues, &c., of priests and officials, found evidence that made it certain that a temple of some kind occupied the site of Karnak in the XIth dynasty. There seemed to be no good reason why this XIth dynasty temple should not have stood on the site of an earlier building, and the present writer believed, and still believes, that a "Godhouse" or shrine of some sort stood there in early dynastic times. The "God-house" at Karnak was always associated with the cult of the god Amen, and the symbol of this local god, which was described some years ago by Daressy, suggests that he was known and revered in predynastic times, probably long before Ra was adopted as a national god by the Egyptians of the Delta. Be this as it may, it was quite certain that a temple dedicated to Amen existed at Karnak in the XIth dynasty, and with this fact archeologists had to be content. About the year 1890 the late Sir Norman Lockyer, F.R.S., visited Egypt and studied the temples and their sites, and he came to the conclusion that all the temples and pyramids of Egypt were oriented to celestial bodies, and that calculations based on observations of their major axes would enable him to assign correct dates for their foundation. In 1894 he published the result of his studies in his "Dawn of Astronomy," and stated that the temples were "astronomical observatories (p. 109) built to enable the priests "to observe the precise time of the solstice," and he regarded them as "horizontal telescopes," the apertures in the pylons and separating walls representing the "diaphragms of the modern telescope." His idea was that a narrow beam of sunlight would come through the narrow entrance about 500 yards from the Holy of Holies, and light up the figure of the god seated in the dark therein for about two minutes, provided the temple were properly oriented to the solstice. This would happen once a year and tell the priests that a new year was beginning. Applying his theory to the Temple of Karnak he proved by his calculations that it was founded in the year 3700 B.C. Few Egyptologists possessed sufficient astronomical knowledge to check Lockyer's figures, and his results were not accepted by archeologists generally. In 1920 the astronomical experts. in the service of the Egyptian Government reviewed Lockyer's figures and results, and carefully examined the whole site of Karnak and worked out the line of the major axis of the temple of Åmen. They came to the conclusions that the temple could not have been oriented as Lockyer declared, that if it had been it would be much older than he stated, and that his theory is unsupported by facts and must therefore be abandoned. The dates proposed by Lockyer for the building of the pyramids on the Island of Meroë, which led astray the present writer and others, have been proved impossible by archæological evidence. But the Egyptologist is just as incapable of judging the accuracy of the recent decision of the astronomical experts of the Egyptian Government as he was in estimating the true value of Lockyer's calculations and the deductions he made from them. Lockyer may have been wrong, but it does not follow necessarily that his critics are right. The reader who wishes to find out details of the new theory will find it described in a pamphlet published by the Egyptian Government in Cairo, price ten piastres. |