On the Orientation of Ancient Egyptian Temples: (3) Key Points in Lower Egypt and Siwa Oasis,Part I

Shaltout M. Belmonte J. A. , “On the orientation of ancient Egyptian temples: (1) Upper Egypt and Lower Nubia”, Journal for the history of astronomy, xxxvi (2005), 273–98. Hereafter Paper 1.

Belmonte J. A. Shaltout M. , “On the orientation of ancient Egyptian temples: (2) New experiments at the oases of the Western Desert”, Journal for the history of astronomy, xxxvii (2006), 173–92. Hereafter Paper 2.

Magnetic alterations are not expected in Egypt, where most of the terrain is limestone and sandstone. In any case, the temples were mostly measured along their main axes, from inside the sanctuary to the outermost gate and, on several occasions, in the opposite direction (checking for possible alterations of the measurement).

Belmonte J. A. , “Astronomy on the horizon and dating, a tool for ancient Egyptian chronology?”, in Ancient Egyptian chronology , ed. by Hornung E. Krauss R. Warburton D. A. (Handbuch der Orientalistik, lxxxiii; Berlin, 2006), 380–5.

Several pyramid temples of Old Kingdom and Middle Kingdom queens were in such a state of ruin (if not simply unexcavated) that any useful measurement of their orientation was impossible. The same can be said for most of the tiny chapels constructed in the late Old Kingdom at the northern entrances of the pyramids. Only the foundations of the chapel of Pepi I at Saqqara were clearly identifiable.

In Qantir and Tell el Dabha, the trenches of excavation are reburied after each archaeological campaign and the land is handed back to the local fellahin for planting. As a result it is impossible to get any data unless one happens to be on site at the time of the excavations. Actually, the only ‘visible’ remains of the once-imposing capital of Ramses II at Pi-Ramses are a couple of fragments of a colossus of the king. Further to the north, the site of Tell el Balamun has not been excavated in depth. The sites of Naucratis and Athribis are in so bad a state of preservation that they might completely disappear in a few years, being covered by debris or uncontrolled city expansion.

For Tell el Balamun, see the plans in Spencer A. J. , Excavation at Tell el Balamoun 1991–1994 (London, 1996). For Avaris, see Booth C. , The Hicsos period in Egypt (Princes Risborough, 2005), 26; see also Bietak M. , Avaris: The capital of the Hicsos (London, 1996). For Dahshur, see Arnold D. , Der Pyramiden bezirk des Königs Amenemhat III in Dahschur (Mainz, 1987), lam. 36.

Aldumairy A. A. , Siwa past and present (Alexandria, 2005), 83–85.

Throughout the paper, we will use the term ‘equinoctial’ for any alignment with declination near 0° and ‘equinox’ for the corresponding time point, associated with orientations close to due east. However, this does not imply that we are attributing knowledge of the astronomical equinox (i.e. the moment when the sun crosses the celestial equator) to the ancient Egyptians, but rather that we believe that such an orientation would be a proof of a certain interest in the four cardinal directions. How this interest converted into actual construction planning is discussed later at several points in this paper.

Actually, it could always be debated whether the orientation of these buildings is that of their main axes or, on the contrary, whether it is dictated by the previous orientation of the adjacent pyramid to the north. A northern orientation of the pyramids is accepted by most scholars. For the use of stars in the north, see, for example, Edwards I. E. S. , The pyramids of Egypt , 3rd edn (Harmondsworth, 1993); Spence K. , “Ancient Egyptian chronology and the astronomical orientation of pyramids”, Nature, cdviii (2000), 2000–4; and Belmonte J. A. , “On the orientation of the Old Kingdom pyramids”, Archaeoastronomy, no. 26 (2001), S1–20. Isler Even M. , “An ancient method of finding and extending direction”, Journal of the Archaeological Research Centre of Egypt, no. 26 (1989), 191–206, defends a meridian orientation although using the sun instead of the stars. See also Zaba Z. , Orientation astronomique dans l'ancienne Egypte, et la precession de l'axe du monde (Prague, 1953). This topic will be further analysed in the study cases in Part II.

The first clear mentions of Sopdet, within a mythological context, are in the Pyramid Texts of the Old Kingdom. See, for example, Krauss R. , Astronomische Konzepte und Jenseitsvorstellungen in den Pyramidentexten (Ägyptologische Abhandlung, lix; Wiesbaben, 1997), and Faulkner R. O. , “The king and the star-religion in the pyramid texts”, Journal of Near Eastern studies, xxv (1966), 1966–61. For the Pyramid Texts themselves, see Faulkner R. O. , The ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts (Oxford, 1969). The first mention of the observation of an astronomical event related to Sopdet comes from the Middle Kingdom. See, for example, Belmonte J. A. , “Some open questions on the Egyptian calendar: An astronomer's view”, Trabajos de Egiptología (Papers on ancient Egypt), no. 2 (2003), 7–56.

Unfortunately, it is not yet clear whether the ancient Egyptians recognized this individual star or not. In our opinion, probably they did but we have been unable to identify its name, astronomical correlations or possible religious connections, except for the very late reference by Martianus Capella who called it Ptolemaeus in honour of King Ptolemy Lagos, as reported by Allen R. H. , Star names: Their lore and meaning (New York, 1963), 70. This is also true for the most recent mapping of the Egyptian skies, as presented in Lull J. Belmonte J. A. , “A firmament above Thebes: Uncovering the constellations of ancient Egyptians”, Journal for the history of astronomy, xxxvii (2006), 2006–92. However, an interesting possibility could be the identification of Canopus with the Great Star (sb) mentioned in the Pyramid Texts (utterance 882), traversing the sky with Sah; Faulkner, op. cit. (ref. 11). This possibility ought to be studied in depth in the future.

All dates in this paper, unless expressly argued, are approximate. The chronology of ancient Egypt is still a controversial matter under continued discussion and evolution. One of the most recent approaches to the problem can be found in Hornung (eds), op. cit. (ref. 4). Most specialists agree on dates of the New Kingdom onwards, locating the reign of Thutmose III between 1479 and 1425/4 B.C. However, there are serious disagreements for the Old and Middle Kingdom. For example, two recent books, Shaw I. (ed.), The Oxford history of ancient Egypt (Oxford, 2000) and Dodson A. Hilton D. , The complete royal families of ancient Egypt (London, 2004), display substantial disagreements. Some examples (in dates B.C.): Djoser (2667–2648) v. (2584–2565) for the 3rd Dynasty; Khufu (2589–2566) v. (2470–2447) for the 4th Dynasty; Niuserre (2445–2421) v. (2359–2348) for the 5th Dynasty; Teti (2345–2323) v. (2282–2270) for the 6th Dynasty; Mentuhotep II (2055–2004) v. (2066–2014) for the 11th Dynasty; and Senuseret I (1956–1911) v. (1974–1929) for the 12th Dynasty, for Shaw or Dodson and Hilton, respectively. This implies a difference of more than 80 years for the dates of the Old Kingdom. A middle chronology for that period can be found in the classic Malek J. Baines J. , Atlas of ancient Egypt (Oxford, 1981). Also widely accepted is J. von Beckerath, Chronologie des pharaonischen Ägypten (Mainz, 1997).

Snape S. , “The excavations of the Liverpool University mission to Zawiyet Umm el-Rakhmam 1994–2001”, Annales du Service des Antiquités de L'Égypte, lxxviii (2004), 149–60.

See, for example, Esteban C. Belmonte J. A. Betancort M. A. Perera Marrero R. González J. J. Jiménez , “Orientation of pre-Islamic temples of northwest Africa”, Archaeoastronomy, no. 26 (2001), S65–84.

For example, to the SE for several of the Temples of Million Years in Thebes and to the NE for a number of temples and sanctuaries at the sacred city of Abydos. We plan to test this hypothesis in a future campaign in Upper Egypt.

Belmonte , op. cit. (ref. 10).

In a very recent work, Miranda N. Belmonte J. A. Polo M. A. Molinero , “Seshat en las escenas de fundación de los templos y del cómputo de los años reales”, in Proceedings of the III Congreso Ibérico de Egiptología, Trabajos de Egiptología (Papers in ancient Egypt), special volume (2007, in press), these researchers have discussed the possibility that the sign of Seshat, carried by the goddess upon her head in all representations, might perhaps have been a schematic representation of a transit instrument similar to the Roman groma, but with eight radii instead of four. This device could have been used at the ‘stretching of the cord’ ceremonies from the dawn of Egyptian history and would have directly offered the eight directions under discussion from a single astronomical or topographical observation.

One remarkable exception to this rule is offered by the valley temples associated with the sun temples of the 5th Dynasty at Abu Ghurob (see Table 1). For these temples, Wells R. A. , “The 5th Dynasty sun temples at Abu Ghorab as Old Kingdom star clocks: Examples of applied ancient Egyptian astronomy”, Studien zur Altägyptischen Kultur , iv (1990), 95–105, and “Origin of the hour and the Gates of the Duat”, Studien zur Altägyptischen Kultur, xx (1993), 1993–26, has proposed a somehow complicated theory for the alignments of the corresponding causeways to certain “star-clocks”, headed by Deneb and Vega in the cases of Userkaf and Niuserre sun temples, respectively. We agree with J. Lull, La astronomía del antiguo Egipto (Valencia, 2004), 323, that the only advantage of this theory is its predictive character. It would be striking if a new solar temple of the 5th Dynasty were found and Wells's theory could be falsified.

A statistical approach to the data of 24 pyramid and south royal temples offers an average azimuth of 90 ¼° ± ¼° with a standard deviation (s) of 4°. This suggests an almost perfect orientation, on average, of the pyramid complexes either to the north, with the temple gate opening later at 90° (perhaps because of the Nile), or to the ‘equinoctial’ sun (declination 0° for the centre of the disc) when it is completely above the horizon (the sun has an apparent diameter of 36′). In our present state of knowledge we do not feel able to favour either of the two possibilities. In Part II of this paper, we discuss options in favour of one or the other alternative.

As presented in Talbert R. J. A. (ed.), Barrington atlas of the Greek and Roman world (Princeton, 2000), 174.

The cases of the temple of Horus at Edfu and of the large complex of Amon at Karnak are paradigmatic. See Paper 1.

At the Iseum, we once again experienced how important it is for our project to take the orientation data in person. The most recent detailed plan of the temple, as presented in Favard-Meeks C. , “The temple of Behbeit el Hagara”, in The temples of ancient Egypt, ed. by Quirke S. (London, 1997), 102–11, shows an erroneous E—W orientation.

See ref. 20. Also, to offer reasonable results near 0°, the values of the declination between −2° and 0° were not considered in absolute value.

There are several astronomical procedures, some of them very simple, to establish the date of the equinox with a precision of a couple of days. For example, in an equatorial sundial, both faces of the clock (the winter and the summer one) are simultaneously illuminated at noon because the light of the disk of the sun does not come from a point source. However, we do not have any documentary proof that the ancient Egyptians ever used such a procedure.

In Belmonte , op. cit. (ref. 11), 34–38 and 18–26, and references therein, the importance of the winter and summer solstices is accordingly emphasized, respectively. Also relevant is Belmonte J. A. Zedda M. P. , “Light and shadows on the pyramids”, in Light and shadows in cultural astronomy, ed. by Zedda M. P. Belmonte J. A. (Cagliari, 2007), in press.

See, for example, Wilkinson R. H. , Symbol and magic in ancient Egypt (London, 1994), Figures 121–3.

A striking parallelism might be established for the “17° family” of orientations in ancient Mesoamerica. See Šprajc I. , Orientaciones astronómicas en la arquitectura prehispánica de México (Mexico, 2001), and Šprajc I. , “More on Mesoamerican cosmology and city plans”, Latin American antiquity, xvi (2005), 2005–16. Many monuments of this family were orientated in such a way that they were facing sunrise or sunset on 29 April and 13 August. These dates divide the year into two periods of 105 and 260 days, respectively. The latter was related to the sacred ritual calendar of 260 days (Maya Tzolkin) and the seasonal cycles. Certainly, if we are right, this is a conspicuous phenomenon of convergence between Egypt and Mesoamerica similar to the 365-day calendar.

Unfortunately, all the temples at the Heliopolis complex are so damaged that an accurate reconstruction of their orientation is highly problematic. Actually, the orientation we give for the double temple of Re-horahkty and Atum is that provided by the obelisk of Senuseret I, which could be a few degrees off the original axis. Besides, these scarce remains are completely surrounded by the huge Cairo suburb of Aïn Shams and the reconstruction of the original horizon is an impossible task.

Interestingly, the causeway leading from Khafre pyramid to his valley temple has a similar orientation and could have worked accordingly. However, another temple in this family, the one of Osiris at Taposiris Magna, could offer an alternative solution. The main axis of the building, but not the gate, could have been orientated to the setting of Rigel in Ptolemaic times. Rigel was probably the Star of Sah (sb3 n s3ḥ) of the ancient Egyptians, as suggested in Lull and Belmonte, op. cit. (ref. 12). Sah was the stellar hypostasis of the god Osiris, patron of the temple that was considered as one of the tombs of the god (hence the name).

Indeed, Abu Simbel would be the paradigm of the family, erected at a moment when the civil and the actual (climatic) seasons were again in coincidence after fifteen millennia of wandering of the civil calendar. Similarly, some information and a few old photographs suggest that sunrise occurred at a notch of the eastern horizon in the form of an akhet sign, before the rescue of the temple from the waters of Lake Nasser; see van der Haagen J. K. , “Au grand temple d'Abou Simbel: Le secret des petres et des astronomes”, Courier de l'Unesco, October 1962. We tried to confirm this information with local people in an attempt to identify the notch but without success.

Sopdet was a stellar hypostasis of Isis. This is first suggested in the Pyramid Texts, see Faulkner , op. cit. (ref. 11, 1969). The assimilation is complete in the New Kingdom as can be read in the astronomical ceiling of the Ramesseum or of the tomb of Sethy I in the Valley of the Kings.

One curious fact is that Sirius and Rigel, sb3 n spdt and sb3 n s3ḥ, the stars of Isis and Osiris, respectively, had exactly the same declination c. 1450 B.C., during the reign of Thutmose III. However, to show that this was somehow reflected in the temple design or orientation will be hard to prove, unless new textual evidence supporting stellar alignments is uncovered.

See, for example, Papers 1 and 2 of Cauville S. Aubourg E. Deleuze P. Lecler A. , “Le temple d'Isis à Dendera”, Bulletin de la Société Fran&çais d'Egyptologie , no. 123 (1992), 31–48. However, other Sirius alignments, for example, Vörös G. , “The ancient nest of Horus above Thebes: Hungarian excavations on Thoth Hill at the temple of King Sankhkare Montuhotep III (1995–1998)”, in Egyptology at the dawn of the twenty-first century, i: Archaeology, ed. by Hawass Z. (Cairo, 2002), 547–56, were challenged in Paper 1.

Was it perhaps the “Great Star” of the Pyramids Text? See ref. 12.

As discussed in Belmonte, op. cit. (ref. 10) and Paper 2, these configurations could have been: The simultaneous transit of two stars across the celestial meridian, the maximum east or west polar distance (maximum disgression), upper culmination or lower culmination of a relevant star, or, for Upper Egypt, the rising or setting of certain stars (notably Alkaid). Actually, any sight of a conspicuous star near due north could have been also relevant. Any of these particular configurations would establish a near-north, but not necessary true north, reference line. A perfect N—S orientation could be obtained only by a number of these procedures, notably, for example, that involving a simultaneous meridian transit.

There were three Mooring Posts in the ancient Egyptian firmament. Two of them form a double set in the hands of Reret and possibly occupy the region of the tail of Draco and part of Ursa Minor. The Pole Star of the Old Kingdom, Thuban (α Draconis), would have been the pivot star of one of them, while Kochab (β Ursae Minoris) would be the brightest star in the group. The other Mooring Post, known as Menit in the Ramesside star clocks, would have had Arcturus as its brightest and most significant star. For a recent discussion on these asterisms, see Lull Belmonte , op. cit. (ref. 12), and references therein.

We have found no clear evidence of either lunar or planetary alignments. The moon has a well defined behaviour at the horizon, with an obvious preference for certain positions with characteristic values of the declination (about 28 ½° and −29 ¼°, or 19° and −18 ½°, including parallax, for the major or minor, north and south, lunastices, respectively, for 1500 B.C. and the latitudes of Egypt). The major lunastices, by far the more important, are practically absent from the data except for a few isolated cases (e.g. Hor-em-akhet temple at Giza, and in this case the temple undoubtedly faces the Sphinx). The minor lunastices have declinations close to the Sopdet family of orientations and could be confused with them. However, for historical reasons and, in several cases, because of the temple dedication, we believe that the Sirius hypothesis is far more probable. Regarding the planets, they normally have declinations close to the solar values because they move close to the ecliptic. Consequently, hypothetical planetary orientations would be almost indistinguishable from solar ones. Only Venus as Evening Star might offer a peculiar position (Venustices at declination ∼±25°) and might explain some isolated cases (e.g. the Ka of Pepi temple at Bubastis, if it were open to the west; see also, for example, the discussion on the “Nest of Horus” in Paper 1); but applying Ockham's Razor, again extreme solar inaccurate orientations offer a reasonable and easier solution.