The dawn of astronomy : a study of the temple-worship and mythology of the ancient Egyptians / by J. Norman Lockyer.

  • Norman Lockyer
Date:
1894
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The dawn of astronomy : a study of the temple-worship and mythology of the ancient Egyptians / by J. Norman Lockyer. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

    432/476 (page 410)
    But ten hours would not liave adequately represented the night, since this Avas thought of as a twelve hours' interval. There was a way out of it—viz., to call hora 0 ' sunset,' liora 12 'sunrise,' which would have been a simple and correct solution if the diAision of the night into twelve parts for practical purposes had been aimed at. But this expedient he could not adopt, because he could or would only oj^erate with stars, and the notions of sunrise and sunset found no place in his tables. Thus he was forced to falsifij the customary di\dsion of the hours, by squeezing the twelve hours of the night into the time during which star risings are visible—viz., the dark night exclusive of twilight. On the other hand, he could not, A\'ith his principal stars at intervals of 15°, divide his night, shortened as it was by two hours, into twelve ])arts, and thus he was obliged to make use of two or three auxiliary stars, as we have proved in detail above, and thus yet more to distigure the hour-division, since thereby the lengths of the hours were made very variable. These are then two things which we must not regard as peculiarities of ancient Egyptian reckoning, but as a consequence of the leading idea of our tal;)le, which did not intend to facilitate the division of the night into twelve parts l^y star observations, but was calculated, by the connection of thirteen stars with thirteen successive moments, to create the idea of the circling host of stars and thence the course of the night. I give an abstract of the list of the twenty-four principal stars and the Egyj^tian constellations in which they occur :— 1. Sahu = Orion. 2. Sothis==Sirius. 3. The two stars. 4. Tlie stars of tlie water. 5. The lion. 6. The many stars.