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

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I have thought it right to give this personal narrative, because, while it indicates the relation of my work to Professor Nissen's, it enables me to make the acknowledgment that the credit of having first made the suggestion belongs, so far as I know, solely to him.[1]

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.