On the Orientation of Ancient Egyptian Temples: (4) Epilogue in Serabit El Khadim and Overview

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.

Like the paradigm of the three calendars as stressed by Parker R. A. , The calendars of ancient Egypt (Chicago, 1950). Other seminal works in the process have been: Clagett M. , Ancient Egyptian science, ii: Calendars, clocks and astronomy (Philadelphia, 1995); Depuydt L. , Civil and lunar calendar in ancient Egypt (Orientalia Lovaniensia analecta, lxxvii; Leuven, 1997), von Bomhard A-S. , The Egyptian calendar: A work for eternity (London, 1999); and Spalinger A. , “Egyptian festival dating and the moon”, in Under one sky, ed. by Steele J. M. Imhausen A. (Münster, 2002), 379–404.

Lull J. Belmonte J. A. , “A firmament above Thebes: Uncovering the constellations of ancient Egyptians”, Journal for the history of astronomy, xxxvii (2006), 373–92.

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), 2006–92 (hereafter Paper 2); Shaltout M. Belmonte J. A. Fekri M. , “On the orientation of ancient Egyptian temples: (3) Key points in Lower Egypt and Siwa Oasis”, Journal for the history of astronomy, xxxviii (2007), 2007–60 and 413–42 (hereafter Paper 3).

For example, we are defending such a case for the temples of Karnak, see Paper 1.

For example, most interesting are Deir el-Sheluit, Aïn Labkha and Mons Claudianus. See Bagnall R. S. Rathbone D. W. (eds), Egypt: From Alexander to the Copts (London, 2004), 198, 256 and 286, respectively. Also relevant for Mons Claudianus is Aufrère S. Golvin J. C. Goyon J. C. , L'Égypte restituée, ii: Sites et temples des deserts (Paris, 1994), 221–7.

Once more, we should stress that magnetic alterations are not expected in Egypt, where most of the terrain is limestone and sandstone. Nevertheless, 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 changes in 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.

For Mons Porfirites, see Aufrère , op. cit. (ref. 6), 220. For Sikait and Nugrus, see Sidebotham S. E. Nouwens H. M. Hense A. M. Harrell J. A. , “Preliminary report on archaeological fieldwork at Sikait (Eastern Desert of Egypt) and environs: 2002–2003”, Sahara , no. 15 (2005), 7–30. For Berenike, see Bagnall Rathbone , op. cit. (ref. 6), 291.

There are still some 30 “Egyptian” temples in Sudan, built either by the Egyptian pharaohs themselves or by the kings of Qush, including those of the 25th Dynasty that governed Egypt. This is less than 10% of our sample. Nevertheless, we are planning a field campaign in Sudan as soon as the circumstances will allow it, once we have obtained the permits and the collaboration from the Antiquities Services of Sudan and the necessary financial resources. The data of these monuments could be very useful as a test to falsify our own results in Egypt.

The data of the pyramid temples of the Old and Middle Kingdoms have not been considered in the plot to avoid problems of scaling but would also fit that rule, within a few degrees.

In our writings, we have frequently used 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 mean 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.

Due to the wandering nature of the Egyptian calendar, the seasons of the tropical year (and the associated climatic phenomena and agricultural activities) did not usually follow the seasons of the civil calendar. Hence, economic activities, although completely under the control of the civil calendar, had to be done according to the tropical (thus Gregorian) seasons. This is probably the reason why these dates were so important as to be reflected in the orientation of the temples. In Paper 1, we showed how during the reign of Ramses II the calendar and climatic seasons coincided again after fifteen centuries of wandering, perhaps making of Abu Simbel a temple to celebrate the glories of the calendar.

For the assimilation of different goddesses into Isis, see Plutarch , The mysteries of Isis and Osiris (lxvi). For henotheism, most relevant is Hornung E. , El uno y los multiples: Concepciones egipcias de la divinidad (Madrid, 1999).

Although many of them were indeed dedicated to Amon-Re, we are not including the temples of Million Years built in Thebes by the pharaohs of the New Kingdom because their primary use was to serve for the cult of the deified king.

Rolf Krauss kindly suggested that the second largest peak in our declination histogram of the temples of Upper Egypt (Figure 5 in Paper 1) could be actually caused by monuments with a diagonal originally orientated in a N—S direction. This comment was the origin of the definition of the quarter-cardinal family.

Friedman R. , “The ceremonial centre at Hierakonpolis locality HK29A”, in Aspects of early Egypt, ed. by Spencer J. (London, 1996), 16–35.

Belmonte J. A. , “On the orientation of the Old Kingdom pyramids”, Archaeoastronomy , no. 26 (2001), S1–20. The idea of the simultaneous transit of stars as possible targets for ancient Egyptian pyramid orientations was resurrected by K. Spence in her most controversial: “Ancient Egyptian chronology and the astronomical orientation of pyramids”, Nature, no. 408 (2000), 320–4.

In our previous works of this series, we have greatly emphasized the importance of Meskhetyu for different aspect of ancient Egyptian culture. However, Maravelia A. A. , Les astres dans les textes religieux en Égypte antique et dans les Hymnes Orphiques (BAR International Series, mdxxvii; Oxford, 2006), 437, has questioned this importance on a textual statistical basis. We disagree with her conclusions in this particular case, as clearly stressed by J. A. Belmonte in his essay review in Archaeoastronomy, the journal for the astronomy in culture, xxi (2007), in press. The importance of Meskhetyu had also been previously emphasized by Krupp E. C. , Echoes of the ancient skies (New York, 1983), 211–13; Roth A. M. , “Fingers, stars and the opening of the mouth: The nature and function of the t̲-blades”, Journal of Egyptian archaeology, lxxix (1993), 1993–79; Krauss R. , Astronomische Konzepte und Jenseitsvorstellungen in den Pyramidentexten (Ägyptologische Abhandlung, lix; Wiesbaben, 1997); and Wallin P. , Celestial cycles: Astronomical concepts of regeneration in the ancient Egyptian coffin texts (Uppsala, 2002), among many others.

The rising and setting of Merak, with a visual magnitude of 2.36, could also have been used during the pre-Dynastic period to align the temples of Hierakonpolis or nearby sites towards north (see Tables 2 and 3). For a discussion on the extinction problem, see Schaefer B. E. , “Atmospheric extinction effects on stellar alignments”, Archaeoastronomy, no. 10 (1986), S32–42.

For the Pyramid Texts, see Faulkner R. O. , The ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts (Oxford, 1969). Interesting readings are also Faulkner R. O. , “The king and the star-religion in the Pyramid Texts”, Journal of Near Eastern studies, xxv (1966), 1966–61, and Krauss, op. cit. (ref. 19).

Alkaid, with a visual magnitude of 1.85, was almost “tangential” to the horizon at Abydos c. 1250 b.c. Further south, Meskhetyu was not circumpolar during the New Kingdom.

The temple of Amenhotep III was peculiar in many aspects. Bryan B. M. , “The statue program for the mortuary temple of Amenhotep III”, in The temples in ancient Egypt: New discoveries and recent research, ed. by Quirke S. (London, 1997), 57–81, proposes that the temple was a sort of huge celestial diagram. Its solar orientation could be associated with the crescent importance of the solar cult during the reign of the king.

Interestingly, the small temple of Medinet Habu includes the earliest representations of the stretching of the cord in the New Kingdom (together with the Red Chapel of Hatshepsut) after several centuries of oblivion, when the ceremony was probably celebrated but apparently not depicted. Unfortunately, the damaged associated inscriptions do not contain any explicit reference of an astronomical ‘target’ as in the texts of later periods. See Barguet P. , “Le ritual archaïque de foundation des temples de Medinet-Habou et de Louxor”, Revue d'Égyptologie, ix (1952), 1–22.

However, according to Badawy A. , A history of Egyptian architecture: The Empire or New Kingdom (Berkeley, 1968), 361, one of the causes for the double axis would be the early temple built on site by Sethy I with the same orientation as that of the main axis of the Ramesseum. This would imply that Ramses II respected an older axis but also established a new one (that of the pylon) for his own temple. The hypothesis defended here would still fit.

In the plot, there is a small peak below the average frequency almost centred at summer solstice declination but we do not consider it as significant for our complete sample. However, we will see how this peak could be associated with certain appropriate periods of Egyptian history and explicit geographical areas afterwards.

For a most interesting discussion in the diverse ‘natures’ of equinox, see Ruggles C. L. N. , “Who's equinox?”, Archaeoastronomy , no. 22 (1997), S45–50, and García A. C. González Belmonte J. A. , “Which equinox?”, Archaeoastronomy, the journal for astronomy in culture, xx (2007), 2007–107.

As proposed in Belmonte, op. cit. (ref. 18). Other alternatives to get a meridian orientation are defended by Edwards I. E. S. , The pyramids of Egypt , 3rd edn (Harmondsworth, 1993), and by Isler M. , “An ancient method of finding and extending direction”, Journal of the Archaeological Research Centre of Egypt, no. 26 (1989), 191–206, who proposes a meridian orientation using the sun instead of the stars.

As proposed in Belmonte, op. cit. (ref. 1). See also references therein.

The obliquity of the ecliptic (the angle between the Earth's rotation axis and the perpendicular to its orbit plane) is diminishing at a rate of ∼0.46 seconds of arc per year. It changed from some 24° to 23°37′ between 2900 and 1 b.c. If we are to believe the numbers yielded by our solar alignments (of Families I and II, fundamentally), one could suggest that our solar orientations were obtained when the disc was completely above the horizon. Although this is a quite speculative exercise, this situation would agree with the importance and beauty of the illumination effects as shown in Figure 7 (or in Figure 10 of Paper 1 for Abu Simbel), much more dramatic when the disc is completely above the horizon than when the first rays appear, a phenomenon that is scarcely noticeable unless you are looking directly towards sunrise.

This was already defended by Belmonte, op. cit. (ref. 1). We believe that the relative importance of Sopdet was increasing during the Old Kingdom once the wandering calendar and the climatic seasons were clearly diverging. The first references to Peret Sopdet date from the Middle Kingdom.

The PTs are entirely clear in this respect. The Sun (or the solar bark) and the Imperishable Stars (the Ikhemu Seku of ancient Egyptians of which Meskhetyu was a fine example) are frequently mentioned as celestial destinies for the soul of the king after death. See Krauss , op. cit. (ref. 19) and Faulkner, op. cit. (ref. 21, 1966). This is also demonstrated by the textual archaeoastronomical statistical analysis of both PTs and Coffin Texts as performed by Maravelia, op. cit. (ref. 19), 122–5. However, according to this analysis, Sopdet was the most frequently mentioned individual star in the PTs, an importance that is apparently not reflected in temple orientation during the Old Kingdom.

During our last campaign, we met on site the director of the excavations, Stephen Harvey from the University of Chicago. Once the discussion had been established and we told him what we wanted to do on site, he enthusiastically asked if we could find a solution for the strange orientations of the structures he was excavating, apart from the prosaic Nile orientation, since they were absolutely abnormal for the area of Abydos, where alignments are predominantly quarter-cardinal as we have already shown. The preliminary analysis of our measurements on site revealed one fascinating alternative. The perpendicular clockwise direction to the main axes of three temples (and probably of the pyramid still under excavation) was that of sunrise at the winter solstice (see Table 1). We discussed on site the possibility that Ahmose, being a Theban, would have imported into Abydos a custom that was typical of his homeland (see Paper 1). However, once back in the office, our results confirmed these ideas, but offered another intriguing alternative since the nearby funerary temple of Senuseret III showed a similar orientation. An excellent updated report on the excavations can be found in Harvey S. P. , Abydos in http://oi.uchicago.edu/OI/AR/02–03/02–03_AR_TOC.html.

As postulated by Gabolde L. , “Canope et les orientations nord—sud de Karnak étables par Thoutmosis III”, Revue d'Égyptologie, l (1999), 278–82. Also relevant is Gabolde L. , “La date de fondation du temple de Sésotris Ier et l'orientation de l'axe”, in Le Grand Château d'Amon de Sésostris Ier à Karnak (Paris, 1998).

Curiously, the temple at the fortress of ZUR that we used to define the family in Paper 3 is far away from the Nile Valley. However, it was built during the reign of Ramses II, a king who, if we are right, made a preferential use of quarter-cardinal orientations in Thebes and Abydos.

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 on ancient Egypt), special vol. (2007), in press.

A splendid up-to-date description of the temple archaeology and history can be found in Valbelle D. Bonnet Ch. , Le sanctuaire d'Hathor maîtresse de la turquoise, Serabit el-Khadim au Moyen Empire (Aosta, 1996). Also interesting is Aufrère ., op. cit. (ref. 6), 249–61.

For Sopdu, see Castel E. , Diccionario de mitología egipcia (Madrid, 1995), 292–3. For Sopdu in Serabit, see also Valbelle Bonnet , op. cit. (ref. 37) and references therein. For lunar cults in the Sinai, see Eckenstein L. , “Moon cult in Sinai on the Egyptian monuments”, Ancient Egypt, i (1914), 1914–13.

We have found two possible justifications for a Sopdet orientation. One is related to Sopdu, the other with Hathor. According to the PTs, the god Horus-Sopdu was in some way manifested also in Sopdet and we have seen that certain parts of the temple were ascribed to him, although the exact date of this ascription is a matter of controversy. This relation is illustrated in the utterance 632 of the PTs where Horus-Sopdu goes forth [for the king] as Horus who is in Sopdet. For a discussion on the topic, see for example, Wallin , op. cit. (ref. 19), 21–22. Perhaps, this early structure (d) was devoted to this god, forming a triad with Hathor and Ptah, the owners of the two semi-subterranean shrines. However, the relation with Hathor is still more striking and much more plausible from our point of view. It is well known that Sopdet was considered as one of the hypostases of Hathor, at least in the Graeco-Roman period, when the assimilation between Isis and Hathor was almost complete, but we do not have enough relevant information to extrapolate this fact to the Middle Kingdom. Or do we? One of the most imposing steles of Serabit el Khadim is that of Horurre (k in Figure 2). Beautifully preserved, this monument contains a long story of the visit of this functionary and his group of workers to the site in search of turquoises during the late Middle Kingdom (reign of Amenemhat III or Senuseret III). The campaign started in Memphis in the 3rd month of Peret (early summer in that epoch) and stayed there to the end of the 1st month of Shemu, two months later. According to Horurre, this was not indeed the best season to go to Serabit el Khadim because the heat was intolerable and the precious stones were difficult to find in the glare of the sun and dissolved in the hands of the workers. However, Hathor came to help Horurre; she manifested herself so that our hero could actually envisage her. Where? We believe, in the sky. At the end of the Middle Kingdom the heliacal rising of Sirius occurred in the last decades of the 4th month of Peret in the Sinai, after the star had been invisible for more than two months. Hence, if we relate both phenomena, the miraculous vision of Hathor and the heliacal rising of Sirius, we could conclude that Hathor was already seen in Sirius in this early period. This would probably justify the orientation of part of her temple to the star.

As discussed in Belmonte J. A. , “Astronomía y arquitectura: El papel de los astros en la cultura y el arte del antiguo Egipto”, in Arte y sociedad del Antiguo Egipto , ed. by Molinero M. A. Sola D. (Madrid, 2000), 109–36, and references therein. Lockyer J. N. , The dawn of astronomy, new edn (New York, 1993), also defended, on several occasions, apparent time-dependent stellar alignments as due to precession. The adjustment of Luxor's turning axes to Vega was surprisingly accurate for the old nineteenth-century, now abandoned, chronology of Egypt. Under the new chronological framework, see, for example, Hornung , op. cit. (ref. 8), this hypothesis should be rejected.

For the Nile hypothesis and a preliminary defence of astronomical orientations, see, for example, Wilkinson R. H. , The complete temples of Ancient Egypt (London, 2000), 36–39. Edwards, op. cit. (ref. 28), 244–6, believed that no direct observations were made during the ritual of the stretching of the cord. Maravelia, op. cit. (ref. 19), 250, argues, wrongly from our point of view, against the observation of the Big Bear.

Part of this tradition could find its roots in the prehistoric alignments of Nabta Playa, where solar and stellar orientations were perhaps already in operation in the Neolithic period. See Malville J. McKim Wendorf F. Mazar A. A. Schild R. , “Megaliths and Neolithic astronomy in southern Egypt”, Nature , no. 392 (1998), 488–91; and Brophy T. G. Rosen P. A. , “Satellite imagery measures of the astronomically aligned megaliths of Nabta Playa”, Mediterranean archaeology and archaeometry, v (2005), 2005–24.