In the final pages of this book I have to show that recent investigations have put beyond all doubt the fact that the astronomical observations and temple-worship of the Egyptians formed the basis first of Greek and later of Latin temple-building.
I have indicated in a former chapter that in our own days, and in our own land, the idea of orientation which I have endeavoured to work out for Egypt still holds its own. It was more than probable, therefore, that we should find the intermediate stages in those countries whither by universal consent Egyptian ideas percolated. Among these, Greece holds the first place, as it was the nearest point of Europe to the Nile Valley.
Before we study the orientation of the Greek temples, let us endeavour to realise the conditions of those Greek colonists who, filled with the Egyptian learning; impressed with the massive and glorious temples in which they had worshipped; favoured, perchance, moreover, with glimpses of the esoteric ideas of the priesthood; and finally, fired with Greek ideals of the beautiful, determined that their new land should not remain altarless.
What would they do? They would naturally adapt the Egyptian temple to the new surroundings, climatic among others. The open courts and flat roofs of Egyptian temples would give way to covered courts and sloping roofs to deal with a more copious rainfall; and it is curious to note that the chief architectural differences have this simple origin. The small financial resources of a colony would be reason good enough for a cella not far from the entrance, with courts surrounding it under the now necessary roof. The instinctive love of beauty would do the rest, and make it a sine quâ non that the rosy-fingered dawn should be observable, and that the coloured light of the rising sun in the more boreal clime should render glorious a stately statue of the divinity.
It is well to take this opportunity of emphasising the transition from the Egyptian form of temple to the Greek one, in order to show how completely among many apparent changes the astronomical conditions were retained. The entrance door and the cella are always in the axis of the temple; the number of columns in the front is always even; the door is never blocked.
I have already pointed out that in both groups of Egyptian temples, whether furnished with a pylon or not, one goes from the entrance to the other end, which held the sanctuary, through various halls of different styles of architecture and different stages of magnificence. But in the Greek temple this is entirely changed; the approach to the temple was outside—witness the glorious propylæum of the Parthenon at Athens—the temple representing, so to speak, only the core, the Holy of Holies, of the Egyptian temple; and any magnificent approach to it which could be given was given from the outside. Be it further remarked that the propylæum was never in the fair-way of the light entering the temple.
The massive pylons of some of the Egyptian temples were useful for shading the roofless outer courts. In Greece these were no longer useful.
The east front of the Parthenon very much more resembles the temple of Denderah than it does the early Egyptian temple—that is to say, the eastern front is open; it is not closed by pylons.
The view as to the possibility of temple-orientation being dominated by astronomical ideas first struck me at Athens and Eleusis, and when I found that the same idea had been held by Nissen, and that the validity of it seemed to be beyond all question, I consulted my friend Mr. F. C. Penrose specially with regard to Greece, as I knew he had made a special study of some of the temples, and that, he being an astronomer as well as an archæologist (for, alas! they are not, as I think they should be, convertible terms), it was possible that his observations with regard to them included the requisite data.
I was fortunate enough to find that he had already determined the orientation of the Parthenon with sufficient accuracy to enable him to agree in my conclusion that that temple had been directed to the rising of the Pleiades. He has subsequently taken up the whole subject with regard to Greece in a most admirable and complete way,[183] and has communicated papers to the Society of Antiquaries (February 18, 1892), and more recently to the Royal Society (April 27, 1893) on his results.[184]
These results are so numerous and complete that it is now quite possible to trace the transition from Egyptian to Greek temple-worship, and this, with Mr. Penrose's full permission, I propose to do in this chapter.
But, in the first instance, I am anxious to state that Mr. Penrose was soon convinced that in Greece, as in Egypt, the stars were used for heralding sunrise. He writes:—
"The object the ancients had in using the stars was to employ their rising and setting as a clock to give warning of the sunrise, so that on the special feast days the priests should have timely notice for preparing the sacrifice or ceremonial, whatever it may have been:
"'Spectans orientia solis
Lumina rite cavis undam de flumine palmis
Sustulit,' etc."
I may further give an extract from a letter received from him in which he deals with the demonstration of the orientation hypothesis furnished by the Greek temples alone.
"In my paper sent to the Royal Society there was a passage which seems to make it practically certain that heliacal stars were connected with the intra-solstitial temples as derived from Greek sources alone, independent of the powerful aid of the Egyptian cases.
"'That the first beam of sunrise should fall upon the statue centrally placed in the adytum of a temple or on the incense altar in front of it on a particular day, it would be requisite that the orientation of the temple should coincide with the amplitude of the sun as it rose above the visible horizon, be it mountain or plain.
"'That a star should act as time-warner it was necessary that it should have so nearly the same amplitude as the sun that it could be seen from the adytum through the eastern door, if it was to give warning at its rising, or to have a similar but reversed amplitude towards the west, if its heliacal setting was to be observed; and it follows that in the choice of the festival day and the corresponding orientation, on these principles, both the amplitude of the sun at its rising and that of the star eastwards or westwards, as the case might be, would have to be considered in connection with one another.
"'From what has been said it is obvious that in the intra-solstitial temples the list of available bright stars and constellations is in the first instance limited to those which lie within a few degrees of the ecliptic, and it will be found that in the list above given and those which follow, if we omit Eleusis, where the conditions were exceptional, all but one of the stars are found in the zodiacal constellations. A very great limit is imposed, in the second place, by one of the conditions being the heliacal rising or setting of those stars from which the selection has to be made. So that, when both these combined limitations are taken into account, it becomes improbable to the greatest degree that in every instance of intra-solstitial temples of early foundation of which I have accurate particulars, being twenty-eight in number and varying in their orientation from 21° N. to 18° 25′ S. of the true east, there should be found a bright heliacal star or constellation in the right position at dates not in themselves improbable unless the temples had been so oriented as to secure this combination.'
"I have just been looking into the number of possible stars which could have been used, i.e. within the limits of the greatest distance from the ecliptic that could have been utilised.
"The stars which could have been utilised in addition to the seven which serve for nearly thirty temples are ten only, viz.:—
"If the orientations had been placed at random, would not our thirty temples have made many misses in aiming at these seventeen stars, it being necessary also to hit exactly the heliacal margin? And would they have secured anything like a due archæological sequence?
"Another point is this:—
"Whenever a star less than first magnitude is used (Pleiades only excepted) it has been necessary, to secure coincidence, to give it several more degrees of sun depression than in the cases of Spica and Antares."
The problem in Greece was slightly different from that in Egypt. We had not such a great antiquity almost without records to deal with, and moreover the feast-calendars of the various temples presented less difficulty. There was no vague year to contend with, and in some cases the actual dates of building were known within a very few years.
In Greece, not dominated by the rise of the Nile, we should not expect the year to begin at a solstice, but rather at the vernal equinox. I have shown that even in pyramid times in Egypt the risings of the Pleiades and Antares were watched to herald the equinoctial sun; it is not surprising, therefore, to find the earliest temples in Greece to be so oriented. Mr. Penrose has found the following:—
| B.C. | |||
| η Tauri (The Pleiades) | Archaic temple of Minerva | Athens | R[185] 1530 |
| Asclepieion | Epidaurus | R 1275 | |
| The Hecatompedon (site of Parthenon) | Athens | R 1150 | |
| Temple of Bacchus | Athens | R 1030 | |
| Temple of Minerva | Sunium | S 845 | |
| Antares | Heræum | Argos | R 1760 |
| Earlier Erechtheum | Athens | S 1070 | |
| Temple at | Corinth | S 770 | |
| Temple on the Mountain Jupiter Panhellenius |
Ægina | S 630 | |
Here we find the oldest temple in a spot which by common consent is the very cradle of Greek civilisation.
It has also been shown that in Khu-en-Aten's time the sun-temple at Tell el-Amarna was oriented to Spica. Spica, too, we find so used in Greece in the following temples:—
| B.C. | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spica | The Heræum at | Olympia | R | 1445 | |
| Nike Apteros | Athens | S | 1130 | ||
| Themis | Rhamnus | R | 1092 | ||
| Nemesis | Rhamnus | R | 747 | ||
| Apollo | Bassæ | R | 728 | Eastern doorway. | |
| Diana | Ephesus | R | 715 | ||
When the sun at the spring equinox had left Taurus and entered Aries, owing to precession, in Egypt the equinoxes were no longer in question, since the solstitial year was thoroughly established, and consequently we find no temples to the new warning star α Arietis.
In Greece, however, where the vernal equinox had now been established as the beginning of the year, we find a different state of things. No less than seven temples oriented to α Arietis are already known:—
| B.C. | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| α Arietis | Minerva | Tegea | R | 1580 | |
| Jupiter Olympius | Athens | R | 1202 | ||
| Jupiter | Olympia | R | 790 | ||
| Temple (perhaps Juno) | Platea | S | 650 | ||
| Jupiter | Megalopolis | S | 605 | ||
| Temple at the Harbour | Ægina | S | 580 | ||
| Temple on Acropolis of | Mycenæ | R | 540 | Eastern doorway. |
|
| The Metroum | Olympia | S | 360 | ||
The above are all intra-solstitial temples—that is, the sunlight as well as the light of the star can enter them—and this enables us to note a certain change of thought brought about in all probability by the artistic spirit of the Greeks. The Egyptian temples were all dark, often with a statue of a god or a reptile obscure in the naos, and many were oriented so that sunlight never entered them. Mr. Penrose points out that almost all the Greek temples are oriented so that sunlight can enter them. Of such temples we have the following twenty-nine:—
| 7 | examples | from | Athens. |
| 3 | " | " | Olympia. |
| 2 | " | " | Epidaurus. |
| 2 | " | " | Rhamnus. |
| 2 | " | " | Ægina. |
| 2 | " | " | Tegea. |
| 1 | " | " | Nemea. |
| 1 | " | " | Corcyra. |
| 1 | " | " | Sunium. |
| 1 | " | " | Corinth. |
| 1 | " | " | Bassæ. |
| 1 | " | " | Ephesus. |
| 1 | " | " | Platæa. |
| 1 | " | " | Lycosura. |
| 1 | " | " | Megalopolis. |
| 2 | " | " | Argos. |
Now in all these Greek temples, instead of the dark naos of the Egyptian building, we find the cella fully illumined and facing the entrance. Frequently, too, there was a chryselephantine statue to be rendered glorious by the coloured morning sunlight falling upon it, or, if any temple had the westerly aspect, by the sunset glow.
It was perhaps this, combined eventually with the much later invention of water-clocks for telling the hours of the night, which led to the non-building of temples resembling those at Thebes and Denderah facing nearly north; of these, however, there are scattered examples; one of very remarkable importance, as it is a temple oriented to γ Draconis 1130 B.C., built therefore not very long after the temple M at Karnak, and this temple is at Bœotian Thebes! A better proof of the influence exerted by the Egyptians over the temple-building in Greece could scarcely be imagined. As Mr. Penrose remarks:—
"Thebes was called the City of the Dragon, and tradition records that Cadmus introduced both Phœnician and Egyptian worship."
It would be very surprising, if we assume, as we are bound to do, that these temples to stars were built under Egyptian influence, that Sirius should not be represented among them, that being the paramount star in Egypt at a time when we should expect to find her influence most important in Greece. Still, I have shown already that, as the Greek year ignored the solstice, the use of Sirius as a warning star for all purposes of utility would not come in. Mr. Penrose finds, however, that, in spite of this, Sirius was used for temple-worship.
"Leaving the solar temples, we find that the star which was observed at the great temple of Ceres must have been Sirius, not used, however, heliacally—although this temple is not extra-solstitial—but for its own refulgence at midnight. The date so determined is quite consistent with the probable time of the foundation of the Eleusinian Mysteries, and the time of the year when at its rising it would have crossed the axis at midnight agrees exactly with that of the celebration of the Great Mysteries."
"It is reasonable to suppose that when, as in the case of Sirius at Eleusis, brilliant stars were observed at night, the effect was enhanced by the priests by means of polished surfaces."
Another question. Does the star follow the cult in Greece as it does in Egypt?
In Greece we find the following:—
"The star α Arietis is the brightest star of the first sign of the Zodiac, and would therefore be peculiarly appropriate to the temple of Jupiter. The heliacal rising of this star agrees both with the Olympieium at Athens and that at Olympia. There is a considerable difference in the deviation of the axes of these two temples from the true east; but this is exactly accounted for by the greater apparent altitude of Hymettus over the more distant mountain at Olympia.[186]
"The Pleiades are common to the following temples of Minerva—viz., the Archaic temple on the Acropolis, the Hecatompedon, and Sunium. In the two former it is the rising, the latter the setting star.
"There must have been something in common between the temples at Corinth, Ægina, and Nemea. The two last, at any rate, are reputed temples of Jupiter."
The Greek side of the inquiry becomes more interesting when the connection between the orientation of the intra-solstitial temples and the local festivals is inquired into; in Egypt this is all but impossible at present.
A temple oriented to either solstice can only be associated with the longest or with the shortest day; if the temple points to the sunrise or sunset at any other period of the year, the sunlight will enter the temple twice, whether it points to the sunrise or sunset place.
Now Mr. Penrose finds that in Greece, as in Egypt, the initial orientation of each intra-solstitial temple was to a star, and this would, of course, secure observations of the star and the holding of an associated festival at the same time of the year for a long period. But when the precessional movement carried the star away, they would only have the sun to depend on, and this they might use twice a year. It is possible, as Mr. Penrose remarks, that
"there would have been no reason for preferring one of these solar coincidences to the other, and the feast could have been shifted to a different date if it had been thought more convenient."
He goes on to add:—
"It would appear that something of this sort may have taken place at Athens, for we find on the Acropolis the archaic temple, which seems to have been intended originally for a vernal festival, offering its axis to the autumnal sunrise on the very day of the great Panathenaia in August.
"The chryselephantine statue of the Parthenon, which temple followed on the same lines as the earlier Hecatompedon (originally founded to follow the rising of the Pleiades after that constellation had deserted the archaic temple alongside), was lighted up by the sunrise on the feast to the same goddess in August, the Synæcia, instead of some spring festival, for which both these temples seem at first to have been founded.
"The temple at Sunium, already quoted for its October star-heralded festival to Minerva, was oriented also axially to the sun on February 21, the feast of the Lesser Mysteries."
I have had to insist again and again that in the case of the Egyptian temples the stated date of foundation of a temple is almost always long after that in which its lines were laid down in accordance with the ritual. No wonder, then, that the same thing is noticed in Greece.
"In about two-thirds of the cases which I have investigated the dates deduced from the orientations are clearly earlier than the architectural remains now visible above the ground. This is explained by the temples having been rebuilt upon old foundations, as may be seen in several cases which have been excavated, of which the archaic temple of Minerva on the Acropolis of Athens and the temple of Jupiter of Olympius on a lower site are instances. There are temples also of the middle epoch, such as the examples at Corinth, Ægina, and the later temples at Argos and at Olympia (the Metroum at the last-named), of which the orientation dates are not inconsistent with what may be gathered from other sources."
The problem is, moreover, helped in Greece by architectural considerations, which are frequently lacking in Egypt: of two temples it can be shown, on this evidence alone, that one is older than the other. Such an appeal strengthens my suggestion that two of the temples of the Acropolis Hill were oriented to the Pleiades, by showing the older temple to point to an earlier position of the star group. To these Mr. Penrose adds another pair at Rhanmus, where he has found that there are two temples almost touching one another, both following (and with accordant dates) the shifting places of Spica, and still another pair at Tegea.