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

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THE MOUNDS AND OBELISK AT ANNU.

With the knowledge we possess of both temenos walls and temples at Karnak, and of the, I may almost say, symbolism of the former, it is fair to conclude that when temples have gone we may yet get help from the walls. The walls at Heliopolis are the most extraordinary I have met with in Egypt, as may be gathered from the accompanying reduction of Lepsius' map.

The arrow in Lepsius' plan is so wrongly placed that the plan is very misleading. It follows from Captain Lyons' observations and my own that the longest mound heads 14° N. of W. to 14° S. of E. within a degree; the condition of the mounds renders more accurate measures impossible.[9]

It is to be gathered from the inscriptions that the temple within these mounds, now only represented by its solitary obelisk, was styled a sanctuary or temple of the sun.[10]

As the orientation of the N. and S. faces of the obelisk is 13° N. of W., the sun's declination must have been 11° N. The times of our year marked by it, therefore, were 18th April and 24th August. But it must not be forgotten that the temple may have been built originally to watch the rising or setting of a star which occupied the declination named, and possibly, though not necessarily, at some other time of the year. I shall return to this subject.