Читать книгу The dawn of astronomy. A study of the temple-worship and mythology of the ancient Egyptians онлайн

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FORMS OF PTAH, THE GOD OF MEMPHIS.

It is not too early to point out here that there is evidence that the Egyptian pantheon, as I have stated it, had not a simple origin. There are traditions that many of the gods came from a region indeterminately described as the land of Pun-t. Among these gods are Chnemu, Amen-Rā, Hathor, and Bes. On page 28 I have associated Bes with Typhon, following several authorities, but if they are right it is very difficult to understand his rôle. It may also be added that the temple-evidence supports the view of his foreign origin.[4]

When one comes to consider the Rig-Veda and the Egyptian monuments from an astronomical point of view, one is struck by the fact that, in both, the early worship and all the early observations related to the horizon. This was true not only of the sun, with which so far we have exclusively dealt, but it was equally true of the stars which studded the general expanse of sky.

In Egypt, then, as in India, the pantheon was astronomical and, to a very large extent, solar in origin. I shall have to show that the remainder—nearly the whole of it—had its origin in stellar relations.