Читать книгу Astronomy: The Science of the Heavenly Bodies - David P. Todd - Страница 7

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Inquiry into the beginnings of astronomy in ancient Egypt reveals most interesting relations of the origins of the science to the life and work and worship of the people. Their astronomers were called the "mystery teachers of heaven"; their monuments indicate a civilization more or less advanced; and their temples were built on astronomical principles and dedicated to purpose of worship. The Egyptian records carry us back many thousands of years, and we find that in Egypt, as in other early civilizations, observation of the heavenly bodies may be embraced in three pretty distinct stages. Awe, fear, wonder and worship were the first. Then came utility: a calendar was necessary to tell men when "to plow and sow, to reap and mow," and a calendar necessitated astronomical observations of some sort. Following this, the third direction required observations of celestial positions and phenomena also, because astrology, in which the potentates of every ancient realm believed, could only thrive as it was based on astronomy.

Sun worship was preeminent in early Egypt as in India, where the primal antithesis between night and day struck terror in the unformed mind of man. In one of the Vedas occurs this significant song to the god of day: "Will the Sun rise again? Will our old friend the Dawn come back again? Will the power of Darkness be conquered by the God of Light?"

Quite different from India, however, is Egypt in matters of record: in India, records in papyrus, but no monuments of very great antiquity; in Egypt, no papyrus, but monuments of exceeding antiquity in abundance. Herodotus and Pliny have told us of the great antiquity of these monuments, even in their own day, and research by archæologist and astronomer has made it certain that the pyramids were built by a race possessing great knowledge of astronomy. Their temples, too, were constructed in strict relation to stars. Not only are the temples, as Edfu and Denderah, of exceeding interest in themselves, but associated with them are often huge monoliths of syenite, obelisks of many hundred tons in weight, which the astronomer recognizes as having served as observation pillars or gnomons. Specimens of these have wandered as far from home as Central Park and the bank of the Thames. But there is an even more remarkable wealth of temple inscriptions, zodiacs especially.

Next to the sun himself was the worship of the Dawn and Sunrise, the great revelations of nature. There were numerous hymns to the still more numerous sun-gods and the powers of sunlight. Ra was the sun-god in his noontide strength; Osiris, the dying sun of sunset. Only two gods were associated with the moon, and for the stars a special goddess, Sesheta. Sacrifices were made at day-break; and the stars that heralded the dawn were the subjects of careful observation by the sacrificial priests, who must therefore have possessed a good knowledge of star places and names, doubtless in belts of stars extending clear around the heavens. These decans, as they were called, are the exact counterparts of the moon stations devised by the Arabians, Indians, and other peoples for a like purpose.

The plane or circle of observation, both in Egypt and India, was always the horizon, whether the sun was observed or moon or stars. So the sun was often worshiped by the ancient Egyptians as the "Lord of the Two Horizons." It is sometimes difficult to keep in mind the fact, in regard to all temples of the ancients, whether in Egypt or elsewhere, that in studying them we must deal with the risings or settings of the heavenly bodies in quite different fashion from that of the astronomer of to-day, who is mainly concerned only with observing them on the meridian. The axis of the temple shows by its direction the place of rising or setting: if the temple faces directly east or west, its amplitude is 0. Now the sun, moon, and planets are, as everyone knows, very erratic as to their amplitudes (i. e., horizon points) of rising and setting; so it must have been the stars that engrossed the attention of the earliest builders of temples. After that, temples were directed to the rising sun, at the equinox or solstices. Then came the necessity of finding out about the inclination or obliquity of the ecliptic, and this is where the gnomon was employed.

At Karnak are many temples of the solstitial order: the wonderful temple of Amen-Ra is so oriented that its axis stands in amplitude 26 degrees north of west, which is the exact amplitude of the sun at Thebes at sunset of the summer solstice. The axis of a lesser temple adjacent points to 26 degrees south of east, which is the exact amplitude of sunrise at the winter solstice. At Gizeh we find the temples oriented, not solstitially, but by the equinoxes, that is, they face due east and west. Peoples who worshiped the sun at the solstice must have begun their year at the solstice; and Sir Norman Lockyer shows how the rise of the Nile, which took place at the summer solstice, dominated not only the industry but the astronomy and religion of Egypt.

Looking into the question of temple orientation in other countries, as China, for example, Lockyer finds that the most important temple of that country, the Temple of the Sun at Peking, is oriented to the winter solstice; and Stonehenge, as has long been known, is oriented to sunrise at the summer solstice.

In like fashion the rising and setting of many stars were utilized by the Egyptians, in both temple and pyramid; and no astronomer who has ever seen these ancient structures and studied their orientations can doubt that they were built by astronomers for use by astronomers of that day. The priests were the astronomers, and the temples had a deep religious significance, with a ceremony of exceeding magnificence wherever observations of heavenly bodies were undertaken, whether of sun or stars.

Hindu and Persian astronomy must be passed over very briefly. Interesting as their systems are historically, there were few, if any, original contributions of importance, and the Indian treatises bear strong evidence of Greek origin.